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He cleared his throat. “There was a pulse.”
“You know what I want to know, then. Why me?” She hated that her voice cracked when she asked, that her need to know had knotted her insides.
Joe brushed his palms on the legs of his cargo shorts. “From initial examination, I determined that the passenger’s injuries were more serious than the driver’s. The passenger was also unconscious. Since I was expecting backup, and I didn’t want to cause the victim further injury if I could avoid it, I assisted the driver first. I was hoping for a quick response from the EMTs.”
Lindsay wondered if he realized how strange his voice sounded, as if he was testifying in court instead of just filling her in on what happened the night of the accident. As a police officer, he had to know how to read body language to determine whether suspects might be lying. She might not have his level of training, but even she had to question the pointed way he was avoiding meeting her gaze. What wasn’t he telling her?
“But it didn’t turn out as you’d hoped, did it?” she asked him, when he didn’t say more.
“No, it didn’t.” He didn’t look up as he said it. “After assisting the first victim to safety near the underpass, I started back for the second victim.”
“You were too late.” She’d known this all along, so why did it create so much of an ache inside her now?
“I was too late.”
His softly spoken words carried the finality of a judge handing down a death sentence. Wasn’t that what he’d given her sister when he’d chosen not to pull her from the car first? No. Of course not. She wasn’t being fair, but she couldn’t help it. Whether she’d had serious injuries or not, he hadn’t even given Delia a chance to survive. No matter how rational his reasons, he had chosen between Lindsay’s life and her sister’s. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made the wrong choice.
“The car burst into flames,” Joe continued. “I sprinted back to it, but I couldn’t get past the heat.”
Lindsay nodded to let him know she’d heard him, even though his words made her feel as raw as she had right after the accident, when she wore her wounds on the outside as well as the inside.
Joe sat in a stiff pose, as if bracing himself for more questions. She wanted to ask him some, too. Like why he hadn’t realized that the car would burst into flames and why he hadn’t at least given Delia a chance by pulling her out first. But the points were moot, the consequences devastating. Still, Joe had put himself in danger, at least attempting to save them both, and he deserved her gratitude, even if she didn’t understand his decisions.
“Thank you—” she paused as each word caused a fresh pinprick to her heart, but she finally forced out “—for saving me.” She brushed thumbs along her lash lines, catching tears before they could fall.
“You’re welcome.” Color stained his cheeks, and he watched the child next to him, instead of looking at Lindsay. “I was just doing my job.”
“Well, thanks for doing your job,” she said. “Come to think of it, with the extent of my injuries, how were you able to walk me to safety?”
“I didn’t help you walk.” He drew his brows together and watched her, seeming surprised she hadn’t figured out that answer herself. “I carried you.”
Lindsay stared at him, her jaw slack. Maybe she couldn’t remember the accident, but she should have realized she never could have walked away from that car, even with help. But she was having trouble digesting that the handsome police officer had carried her.
“I really shouldn’t have moved you,” he said with a shrug. “It could have made your injuries worse. I thought your leg might be broken, but I didn’t know about the pelvis break.”
“My parents told me that I was in critical condition that first day or so.”
He nodded and glanced down again at the child, who had shifted and was using his leg as a pillow.
“So,” he began, when he looked up again, “how are you adapting to instant motherhood?”
Lindsay blinked. As much as she didn’t want to talk about her injuries anymore, she hadn’t expected him to ask about that. “Oh. We’re okay. It’s a transition … for both of us, but we’re learning together.”
She wished she could stop there. Should have. But she heard herself droning on anyway. “We’re going to be great. I just know it. I fixed up the second bedroom in my condo for her, and …”
At his smile, she finally let her words trail away.
“It’s got to be tough.”
“I never expected to struggle this much.”
“Parents struggle, even those who have their kids from birth.”
“Emma doesn’t even live with me full-time yet.”
He lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”
“After the accident, Mom and Dad took care of Emma while I was in the hospital and then at the rehab center,” she said. “Now that I’ve started back to work part-time—I work at a doctor’s office—I’ve been keeping Emma with me about half the time.”
“Things might get better after the transition.”
“I don’t know.” She glanced down at her wringing hands and lay them in her lap. “My parents are worried that I’m not up to the job of being Emma’s guardian.”
She didn’t expect a guy she’d just met to come to her defense, but his silence made her wonder if he agreed with her parents.
“Sounds like you’re up against a lot.”
Lindsay told herself that those were just more well-meaning words, like so many she’d heard the last six months, but Joe’s comment was so well-timed that it almost helped. Suddenly, she was reminded of another time that he’d helped, probably more than he realized.
“Thank you for giving me the poem at the hospital.” His strange expression made her pause. “You are ‘Joe’ from ‘to Joe’ written at the top, aren’t you?”
A guilty smile pulled at his lips. Instead of answering, he turned to watch two boys climbing a curly slide. Maybe it was good that she hadn’t mentioned how her nurses had told her about the young police officer who spent several hours with her at the hospital.
Finally, Joe turned back to her. “It was an impulse. The poem, I mean. My friend, Cindy, gave it to me a long time ago. I don’t know why I gave it to you.” He shrugged. “I thought it might help.”
“You were right. It did.”
That Joe seemed surprised only puzzled Lindsay. If he hadn’t really believed it would help, then why had he given it to her?
“You know how it says, ‘Don’t be afraid. You are a child of God. You are precious—’”
“I know what it says.”
His short remark surprised her even more, so she watched him for several seconds and then tried again.
“I mean the poem really reminded me to trust in God. I was devastated after the accident. After everything. During those first, dark weeks, I really needed to be reminded to rely on Him.”
She shook her head, breathing out a slow sigh. “Without my faith, I wouldn’t have survived. You know, like in the beginning of Psalm 46, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”
For a long time, Joe stared at her as if she’d just announced that the Earth was an asteroid or something. What was wrong with him? Was she not supposed to bring up the poem? Hadn’t he expected her to figure out that he’d been the one to give it to her? Why was he so uncomfortable about it? She’d thought about telling him that she’d been carrying the poem in her purse for months, but she thought it would bother him even more.
Then he shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“How, after everything you’ve been through, can you possibly still believe?”
Chapter Three
How could I not?
Lindsay’s words rang in Joe’s ears as he carried her blanket to the car. He could think of a dozen reasons why anyone who’d been through all she’d been through wouldn’t believe in God, and she couldn’t think of any? One would be the preschooler Lindsay was pulling toward the parking lot as she struggled along with her cane.
Yet, with all that had happened, Lindsay Collins still believed. She even quoted scriptures, when the words had lost impact on him a long time ago. He couldn’t understand her resilient faith. If a loving God existed, wouldn’t Emma still have a mother? Wouldn’t Joe still have his? Wouldn’t his little-boy prayers have had an impact, instead of slamming against the ceiling while his mother wasted away in slow, deadly steps? And he wouldn’t let himself get started on natural tragedies, like Hurricane Katrina, or manmade ones, like 9-11. Those wouldn’t have happened, either, would they?
“I don’t want to go to your house, Aunt Lindsay,” Emma whined as they struggled along. “I want to go to my house.”
“Sweetheart, that’s not—” Lindsay stopped herself with a frustrated sigh.
Joe didn’t have to wonder if her next word would have been “possible.” Lindsay had already told him that Delia Banks’s house had been sold as part of the estate. Emma would have a tough time understanding that she could never go home again.
“I want to go to my house,” Emma hollered this time.
“Come on, Emma. We’re leaving now.”
Joe wanted to tell Lindsay she was handling the situation all wrong, but he doubted she would appreciate his opinion. Not for the first time this afternoon, he wondered if Brian and Donna Collins were right in questioning their daughter’s ability to raise a child.
Maybe he should give her a few tips—no. He put a quick stop on the path his thoughts were taking. He’d already fulfilled his promise to tell her about the accident—well, most of it. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the rest. What possible good purpose would it have served? She already had some serious survivor’s guilt. The last thing she needed was to learn that her pleas for help for her sister first had fallen on deaf ears. It was more likely that he just didn’t want to confess that those deaf ears had been his.
“I don’t want to go,” Emma started again.
“You’re just tired.”
The little girl shook her head hard, her ponytails hitting her aunt’s hip with each swing. “I’m not tired. I want to stay. Want to play with Trooper Joe.”
He couldn’t help but to smile at that, so he turned his head so they wouldn’t see. Wasn’t it just like a kid to forget what she was causing a ruckus about in the first place and to just keep arguing for the point of arguing?
She tried to pull Emma along again, but the child had gone limp. Lindsay couldn’t pull her without falling.
“That’s enough, Emma.” Her jaw flexed as she gritted her teeth. “We have to get home, and Trooper Rossetti doesn’t have time to play with us all afternoon.”
“No!”
Emma jerked free from her aunt’s hold, making Lindsay struggle to keep her balance. The little girl only made it a few steps toward the playground before Joe caught her around the waist and lifted her from the ground. He wasn’t doing a good job of not getting further involved.
“Where are you going, Little Miss?”
“I want to play,” she wailed.
Holding her away from him to avoid kicking legs, Joe started up the path toward the parking lot again. He had to give the child credit for her effort, but she’d picked an opponent accustomed to wrestling squirrelly suspects into handcuffs. It wasn’t much of a contest.
“I’m sorry we can’t play right now, but whipping around like a tornado isn’t going to make anyone want to play with you.”
After Emma settled in his arms as he’d hoped she would, he smiled at her. “Now, that’s better.”
Joe sensed before he saw Lindsay watching him. At his lifted brow, she mouthed the words “thank you,” and then she struggled forward again. He hadn’t done anything all that amazing, so it shouldn’t have pleased him so much that he’d impressed her.
But as Lindsay stopped next to her car, Joe saw the reminder that it provided and felt the slap he deserved. The nondescript midsize with the child seat in the back was nothing like her sporty two-door that had fried in the accident. What was he thinking, trying to impress Lindsay Collins at all? Did he need any further reminders that he should cut his losses and put Lindsay and her niece in his rearview mirror without delay?
Lindsay opened the right-rear door and Joe handed the child to her.
“I want to play with Joe.” Emma struggled against the constraints of Lindsay’s arms.
The child’s wiggling caused her aunt to lose her balance, the cane skidding from its position of support. On instinct, Joe reached out for them from behind, catching Lindsay and steadying her from beneath the elbows. He was almost convinced he felt her shiver under his touch. His fingers tingled so much from the contact that he almost opened his hands again and let the woman and child drop to the asphalt. What was wrong with him? That jolt inside him had to be the same adrenaline he felt at an accident scene. Any other type of reaction to Lindsay Collins would be unacceptable, and he wasn’t about to cross that line.
As quickly as he could without being obvious in shoving her away, he set Lindsay back on her feet and released her. Ignoring the prickles in his fingers that refused to subside, he stepped up to Emma and tugged on one of her ponytails.
“Didn’t we already talk about this tornado business?” He gave her a stern look. “We can make plans to play together again soon, but only if you stop this nonsense and let Aunt Lindsay buckle you in your seat.”
Joe was as surprised as Lindsay appeared to be by his offer, but he guessed he shouldn’t have been. He’d already been too personally involved in this case, and he’d chosen to dig in deeper the moment he’d suggested the trip to the park when he could have answered Lindsay’s questions right in the Brighton Post parking lot.
But he’d had to make sure Lindsay and her niece would be okay, and now that he’d witnessed Lindsay’s struggles, he couldn’t resist stepping in to help. He was caught now in a trap of his own making. He should drive away as fast as the high-performance tires on his patrol car could carry him, but he knew he wouldn’t, any more than he would leave a stranded motorist on the side of the interstate.
“Promise?”
Joe startled as Emma’s question drew him back from his thoughts. Sitting docilely now in her aunt’s arms, Emma looked back at him with a skeptical expression.
“That we can play together? Of course, I promise.”
But Lindsay shook her head. “I don’t think—”
“Come on. It will be fun.”
Lindsay’s jaw tightened as she buckled Emma in her seat and closed the car door. Finally, she turned back to him.
He held his hands up the way he usually expected suspects to do. “Before you say anything, let me make a suggestion. I really do have a lot of experience in taking care of kids, so maybe when we meet again I could give you some tips.”
“You mean tips about how to bribe kids into behaving?”
Because her lips had formed a straight line, he couldn’t help grinning at her. She had spunk. “Worked, didn’t it? And it wasn’t that big of a bribe anyway.”
“You shouldn’t have promised her.”
“Why not?”
“Because you won’t be able to keep that promise.” She cleared her throat. “Look, I appreciate you taking the time to fill in the blanks for me about the accident, but now I have to put that night behind me so Emma and I can get on with our lives.”
“You could make that life a little easier if you just let me—”
“Thank you. But no.”
He used the lazy grin that usually swayed women to his side. “Okay, then. But remember, the offer still stands.”
“Noted.” She swallowed visibly, but showed no signs of caving. “Thanks again.”
Lindsay hobbled around the car and climbed in as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. She didn’t look his way as she backed out of her parking place and started down the long drive to the park exit.
He knew he should just let her drive off into the southeast Michigan sunset, but he wouldn’t. Whether she admitted it or not, Lindsay needed his help in figuring out how to handle Emma. He might not be able to do anything about the rest of her problems, might not be able to give Lindsay back her sister, or Emma her mother, but this was one area he could help if Lindsay would only let him.
