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Guys like him were hired to play cops on TV, not to strap on the holster and dodge bullets for real. Delia would have called him “a hunk,” and Lindsay would have been too awkward around him to even speak, if this had been a social situation. It wasn’t.
“My sister died in that accident.”
Immediately, Lindsay was sorry for being so blunt, and she felt even guiltier when the woman glanced over at her with a compassionate look on her face.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said it that way.” She shook her head. “I just can’t recall much about that day, and I’d hoped that Trooper Rossetti could fill in some of the details.”
“I’m sure he’ll try.” Clara turned back to the computer, scanning down through an appointment schedule. “How about at thirteen hundred—one o’clock—tomorrow?”
Not the best time, but Lindsay would try to work with it. “So I’ll meet him here?”
Clara nodded and then turned back to her screen. “I’ll get a message out to him.”
“Thanks.” Lindsay tucked the papers she’d brought with her back into her purse and settled it on her shoulder. Then, retrieving her cane, she started toward the door.
“Miss Collins,” Clara called after her and waited until she looked back at her. “Have you ever considered that you might be better off not remembering every detail of your accident? That knowing might only cause more pain?”
“Yes, I’ve thought about that. I’ve been thinking about that for the past six months.” Lindsay chewed the side of her lower lip and then straightened and nodded. She could do this; she owed it to Delia. She would get this right for her sake. “And I still want to know.”
Chapter Two
Joe leaned against the counter in the radio room, crossing his arms and his ankles and putting on his best frown. He didn’t know why he bothered trying to look annoyed when Clara was so obviously ignoring him as she tapped away on her keyboard.
“Why did you set this up on my day off, anyway?” Her shoulder lifted and dropped, but she didn’t turn back to him. “What else did you have to do this afternoon?”
“I’m sure I could have found something.” Joe glanced down at his khaki shorts and striped polo shirt as he stepped out into the visitor area. He felt out of place without his uniform and the air of authority that came with it. The idea of meeting with Lindsay Collins today didn’t sit well with him, but he had no one to blame but himself for agreeing to it. He had to admit, though, that he would have agreed to anything yesterday to avoid the question Lindsay had asked him. Even to delay it. “Pretty, isn’t she?” “I hadn’t noticed.” Or tried not to. And failed.
“You noticed, all right. It’s about time you started noticing again. At thirty-four, you—”
“If you’re about to mention my biological clock, you can stop right there. Wrong gender.”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
The door opened before he could tell Clara to stay out of his personal life. Lindsay started inside, her hair pulled back into a long ponytail, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Effortless beauty. Julianne Moore with all that red hair and none of the paparazzi.
Joe cleared his throat and squashed those thoughts at the same time. If those musings weren’t signals that he should cancel this meeting, then he didn’t know what was. He needed to establish a professional distance with this woman, where he’d failed the night of the accident. He would tell her that everything he knew was already in the police report and send her on her way. Simple, right? Right.
Lindsay was leaning heavily on her cane and appeared to be struggling with the door, so he stepped over and pushed it wide for her. The source of her struggle was attached to her other hand: a preschool-age girl who stared up at him with eyes as pale blue as Lindsay’s.
“Hi, Trooper Rossetti.” Pulling off her sunglasses, Lindsay gestured with a tilt of her head to the child beside her. “This is Emma.”
Joe looked back and forth between them, searching for other similar traits. From the police report, he’d figured Lindsay was single. He didn’t recall anything about her having a daughter and couldn’t remember having seen a child-safety seat in the back of the crushed car. And yet, while the girl’s dark, curly ponytails couldn’t have been more opposite from Lindsay’s fiery mane, those eyes connected the two of them.
He crouched in front of the child. “Hello, Emma. My name is Trooper Rossetti.”
“Hi.” Emma dipped her head, staring out at him from beneath her bangs.
“How old are you?”
She grinned bashfully and held up three fingers.
“Well, then you’re a big girl.”
Joe grinned first at the woman and then at the child. So much for his tough-cop image. Little girls like his own niece had always been able to turn him to mush. Sending Lindsay and her tough questions away would be hard enough. Adding a cute kid to the equation just wasn’t fair.
Lindsay cleared her throat. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”
“It’s my day off,” he told her as he came to his feet.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” Lindsay’s gaze darted to the woman who’d scheduled the appointment and then back to him. “If you want to do this another day …”
She was giving him an out, and he was tempted to take it. “Maybe you and your daughter—”
“Niece.” She lowered her voice. “She is Delia’s daughter. Her name is Emma Banks.”
“Oh.” Joe swallowed. He hadn’t seen that one coming. And the fact that he hadn’t considered it was another sign that he wasn’t at the top of his game.
“Delia made me Emma’s guardian.”
That sad, empty look entered her eyes again. Pressing her lips together, as if to settle her emotions, she smiled at the child. Emma had released her hand and was scrambling into a waiting-area chair.
“Emma, be careful. You’re going to get hurt.”
The child barely glanced back at her aunt before righting her backside in the chair and reaching for a brochure on the table next to her. She pretended to read the document on Michigan’s concealed-weapon permit laws, but she held it upside down.
“Honey, why don’t you put that back?”
“No.” Emma clutched the brochure to her chest.
“She can have that one,” Joe said.
Lindsay smiled, appearing relieved to skip the battle. “She’s a great kid … usually.”
“You’re lucky to have each other,” he said, when nothing else better came to mind.
He couldn’t help glancing again at Emma. The girl had lost her mother, a reality that no child should have to experience, and a horror that he knew firsthand. At least he could remember a few things about his own mother. Her sweet spirit. Her soft hair. Emma wouldn’t remember her mother at all, except through pictures and through the stories relatives like Lindsay would tell her.
A lump formed in his throat as he looked back to Lindsay, who was watching her niece, as well. Lindsay’s eyes were moist.
Joe knew he’d lost. Whether or not he was at fault for the accident, he couldn’t help feeling partially responsible for Emma losing her mother and for Lindsay being saddled with the responsibility of a child. The least he could do was to answer a few uncomfortable questions for them.
“How about we get out of here? There’s a park in New Hudson where Emma can play while I answer your questions.”
“Park?” Emma’s eyes lit up, and she was already climbing down from the chair.
“It’s settled then,” he said.
Lindsay looked back to him and smiled. Her smile was so potent, so mesmerizing, that Joe had to turn away to keep from gawking at her.
That he happened to turn toward Clara, who was watching him instead of her computer screen, was downright unfortunate. She gave him a knowing smile. He frowned. Clara had no idea what situation she was messing with.
“See you tomorrow, Clara,” Joe called out, as he opened the door for Lindsay and Emma.
“Park! Park!” the child called out.
With Lindsay balancing on her cane and holding Emma’s hand, it was slow going, but they finally reached the white four-door in one of the visitor spaces.
“Do you mean the park built on the old landfill?” she asked, as she opened the left rear door.
“That’s the one. James Atchison Memorial Park.”
He waited until she’d buckled the child in her car seat and climbed into her car before he jogged around the building to the lot where troopers parked their personal vehicles. He climbed into his quad-cab pickup, relieved to be inside, even if the interior was smoldering.
“You owe them this much,” he whispered to the inside walls of the truck cab.
Why did you save me instead of her? Her question reverberated through his thoughts again, as dread made his limbs feel heavy. How was he supposed to answer that? But he would answer it and her other questions, telling her as much of the truth as he could.
Only after he’d answered Lindsay’s questions and put her and her niece out of his life would he be able to tuck away his own questions about his instincts on the job and finally get his edge back. He had to reclaim it somehow—soon—before he lost his job or got himself or someone else killed.
“Push me again, Trooper Joe.”
“Okay, but only one last time, Miss Emma,” he said. “Then we need to take a break.”
His muscled arms flexing against the fabric of his polo shirt, Joe pushed the swing. This time Emma went so high that the swing jerked for a weightless moment at the top before gliding back down again. Instead of crying like Lindsay thought she might, Emma laughed with that delighted sound that only children can make.
“Do it again. Do it again,” Emma called out.
“Okay, but just one … more … time.”
The two of them had been playing like this for half an hour, and Lindsay didn’t see them stopping anytime soon. So much for the trooper answering questions. She shouldn’t have been surprised he was avoiding it, when he had appeared ready to cancel their meeting entirely until he’d learned that Emma was Delia’s daughter.
He’d only changed his mind because of Emma. Was it that obvious, even to a stranger, that Lindsay wouldn’t be a good guardian? She already had enough uncertainties herself, without having others question her. Why did Emma take to Joe so easily, even giving him a nickname after knowing him for ten minutes, when everything had been a struggle for Lindsay? She could barely get her niece to eat her vegetables or brush her teeth. Lindsay was the woman here. Where was the maternal instinct that was supposed to kick in when she needed it?
At least they were having fun, Lindsay decided, as she sat on a blanket, watching from beneath one of the park’s few shade trees. And she couldn’t have kept up with Emma’s running, anyway. Running was a part of a whole other life for Lindsay … the one before the accident.
Joe finally jogged up to the blanket, carrying Emma piggyback. “I think we’re both ready for a nap.”
“You must be,” Lindsay agreed, shifting, so her stiff leg would be in a more comfortable position.
But Emma shook her head. “I don’t want a nap.”
Joe lowered Emma to the ground and then he dropped on his knees on the blanket. When he was seated, with his legs stretched out and crossing his ankles, Emma settled next to him, sitting in the same position.
“Whew, it’s hot out here.” Joe brushed his hand back through his light brown hair that he wore trimmed close on the sides, but slightly longer on top. On his day off, he’d put a little gel in it.
“Whew.” Emma copied his move, brushing back her bangs.
“You’ve got a little mimic there.”
Joe only smiled. The last thing Lindsay would have expected was for a tough police officer to be good with kids. But then, Trooper Rossetti was nothing if not a contradiction, with his towering linebacker build and a face that could have landed him on the cover of GQ.
“Here. I brought these.” Lindsay reached into her bag and handed them juice boxes. She was pleased with herself that she’d remembered those and some animal crackers. At least she had the snack-preparedness part of being a guardian down.
“Thanks.” He helped Emma pop her straw through the hole in her box and started on his own.
By the time that both boxes were empty, Emma was already snuggling down on the blanket, her lids heavy.
“Somebody needs a nap after all,” Joe whispered.
For a few minutes, Joe sat brushing Emma’s sweaty bangs back from her face with his fingertips in a tender move that again didn’t fit with the image of a tough police officer. Lindsay couldn’t help but watch as his fingers continued their mesmerizing, gentle brushing.
She wasn’t really imagining what it would feel like if he were brushing her hair like that, was she? Lindsay pushed away the thought as ridiculous.
“Is she asleep?”
At Joe’s whispered words, she started, her face feeling warm. Joe gestured toward Emma.
“Well, is she?”
She nodded. “You’re really good with kids.”
“I have a niece, too. Kelsey’s thirteen now, and completely spoiled. Mostly by me.” He smiled down at Emma, as if remembering his niece at that age. “I used to baby-sit while my brother and sister-in-law took night classes.”
He probably thought Lindsay hadn’t baby-sat enough before being named Emma’s guardian, but he didn’t say so.
Finally, Joe looked up again. “Well, you wanted to ask me some questions.”
He straightened, as if preparing himself for an onslaught. Lindsay couldn’t blame him. She’d hit him with the toughest question yesterday.
She shifted again because her leg was already getting stiff. “It’s just that it’s killing me, having this blank spot in my memory. And don’t tell me I’m better off not knowing. Everyone says that.”
“Okay. I won’t.” He took a deep breath and began. “It was a rainy January instead of a snowy one, and it was pouring that night. The traffic was moving too fast and—”
She kept nodding her head until he paused, cocking his head to the side. Then she broke in.
“Those are the things you put in the police report. I want to know the things you didn’t put in it.”
He watched her in a measuring gaze, as if trying to decide if she could handle the truth. Could she? What if he told her that the accident was her fault? She’d suspected it, but that was different than hearing it spoken aloud.
“Okay. The scene was a mess. It was raining so hard that I was nearly on top of it before I saw it. Twisted, smoking metal was everywhere. Your car rolled and came to rest backward in the ditch.”
He paused, perhaps hoping she would tell him it was enough, but she only nodded for him to continue. She tried to picture the scene as he described it, but the images refused to come together in her thoughts.
“The semi driver made a mistake passing. A fatal one.” He traced a finger along the hemmed edge of the blanket as he spoke. “I called for backup and then rushed to the truck. After I determined the driver was a K— Uh, sorry, that means ‘killed.’ Well, after that, I went to the car.”
“Delia was still alive, right?”
