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Brady said nothing more. She tried to coax more out. “What makes you say that?”
“Nothing.”
The curtain had gone down again. No encores followed. Patience let a small sigh escape as she continued to examine King.
Stupid of him, letting that out, Brady thought. His mistake. But not one he was about to follow up on. He wasn’t about to tell this petite, pretty woman that for one unguarded moment he was thinking of his own past. Of his own father.
The man he’d shot.
The event haunted him to this very day. Any way you looked at it, Brady thought, he was truly an unlikely candidate for the position he now held. On the right side of the law.
Originally from a town so small in the south of Georgia that it didn’t exist on some of the less detailed maps, Braden Coltrane had been just barely seventeen years old when he’d shot and killed his abusive father. When he’d been forced to kill him to save his mother and sister.
As was his habit, Owen Coltrane had come home roaring drunk. And as was his habit, Owen had begun to take his mood out on his wife and daughter. Unable to stand the tension he was forced to endure day in, day out, Brady had been in his closet-size bedroom, which had once served as the walk-in pantry, packing. Preparing to leave home for good that very night. He’d stopped packing when he’d heard his sister’s frantic screams.
Rushing out into the living area of their run-down house, he’d seen his father threaten his mother with the gun that he’d prized more than his family. Not thinking of anything but saving his mother, Brady had gotten in between his parents.
His mother had stepped back, screaming as he’d wrestled his father for control of the firearm. In the struggle, it discharged, mortally wounding his father in the chest.
He remembered feeling numbed then shaken as he’d watched the blood pool beneath his father’s body. His father had already been dead when he hit the wooden floor, a startled, angry expression forever frozen on his face.
A trial followed and he’d been found not guilty due to extenuating circumstances. Everyone knew the kind of man Owen Coltrane had been: mean sober and meaner drunk. But despite the stares and whispers that never stopped—they’d followed him wherever he went—Brady had remained in town, working at whatever jobs he could find to try to earn a living. He’d had to provide for his sister and bereaved mother.
His mother, who had never stopped blaming him for what had happened, died less than two years after his father of what the local doctor had unscientifically called “a broken heart.” To Brady’s everlasting bewilderment and anger, his mother had pined away after his father and although Owen had abused her throughout their entire marriage, she’d been unable to find a way to live without him.
Which led Brady to the final conclusion that he just couldn’t begin to understand relationships at all. He certainly had no role models to fall back on. His father had been a cruel, vindictive man, devoid of love. His mother had been a weak puppet who hadn’t loved her children enough to protect them from her husband’s wrath. Though he had begged his mother to leave his father and start a new life for herself and for them, she’d always turned a deaf ear on his pleas.
Less than a month after their mother’s funeral, Brady’s sister Laura married a marine and left town. At nineteen, with no responsibility left, he’d been free to do whatever he wanted.
And what he’d wanted was to get as far the hell away from memories of his childhood as he could.
He’d packed up and left Georgia right after Laura’s wedding, taking only a few possessions and the burden of his past with him.
He’d knocked around a bit, moving clear across the country. Settling down, he’d decided to go to college at night to earn a degree in criminology, a subject that had always interested him. It took him less than three and a half years. When he put his mind to something, he didn’t let anything get in his way.
Eventually he came to Aurora and joined the local police force. He did well with the work, but not with his partners. An affinity for animals had led him to apply for the K-9 squad when an opening became available. He’d always felt that animals were truer than people, being unable to engage in deceptions.
And now he and King had a bond he had never felt with another living creature. He’d lay down his life for the dog without a second thought.
Patience looked at Brady for a moment, wondering what was going on inside his head.
In a way, the patrolman reminded her a great deal of Patrick before his wife, Maggi, had come into his life. When they were growing up, Patrick had always borne the brunt of their father’s displeasure, partially, Patience thought, because Patrick looked a great deal like their uncle Andrew, whose career had been so much more dynamic than their father’s. Before he’d retired, Andrew Cavanaugh, the son of a beat cop, had advanced his way up to police chief of Aurora. And Uncle Brian, her father’s younger brother, was the current chief of detectives.
Her father had always felt as if he were struggling beneath the shadows of both of his brothers. He’d never come into his own and had harbored a great deal of resentment toward both of them. The only place he could freely take out his anger was at home, on his family.
Had Brady gone through something like that?
For a fleeting moment, without knowing any of the circumstances, or even if she was right, Patience felt a kinship with him.
Maybe it was something in his eyes. A startling shade of blue, in unguarded moments they seemed incredibly sad to her.
“You know,” she began, putting down her stethoscope, “in addition to being an incredible talker, I am also an incredible listener.”
He knew where she was going with this. Once or twice before she’d tried to nudge him toward a conversation that involved something more private than how King was doing. He’d steered clear of it then, as well. He had no desire to share any of himself. He was what he was and had no need for human contact of any kind.
Inclining his head, he slipped King’s leash around his neck. Brady had witnessed enough routine exams to know that this one was over. “Too bad you don’t have anything to listen to.”
Couldn’t say she didn’t try, Patience thought. But then, Coltrane was a hard nut to crack. And she knew when to back off. Picking up the dog’s chart, she began making the necessary notations.
“Well, I’m available if you ever feel you have something to say.”
“I won’t,” he assured her. Everything he felt remained inside. It was best that way. There had been a period when he’d thought of himself as a walking time bomb, but he had gotten that under control. His father’s demise had done that.
King responded to the hand signal he gave the dog, leaping off the table and then standing almost at attention at his heel. “So, how’s King?”
“Fitter than most people I know.” Retiring her pen, she slipped it back into her pocket and flipped the chart closed. Patience paused to pet the dog. “Okay, boy, you’re free to go.” King looked to Brady for a command. Patience raised her eyes to the patrolman, as well. “I’ll see you next month.”
Brady made no reply, merely nodded. In another moment man and dog were out the door.
It was almost time to open her doors. She glanced at her calendar to see when her first appointment was due in. Not until nine. That meant she could allow herself a decent cup of coffee.
“That is one quiet man,” she murmured to the dog who followed her around like a faithful, furry shadow. She’d rescued Tacoma, a mix of husky and God only knew what else, when she’d come across the stray, dirty, starving and bleeding on the side of the road one night. She’d taken her to the clinic and ministered to the dog, keeping vigil until she finally pulled through. Tacoma had rewarded her the only way she knew how, by permanently giving Patience her heart.
She heard the bell over the door ring. That wasn’t her nine o’clock appointment and, most likely, it wasn’t her receptionist yet. Shirley never came in early. Maybe Coltrane finally wanted to say something.
“Forget something?”
She turned around to see Brady in the doorway. He was holding a single perfect pink rose in his hand.
Chapter 2
“Brady?”
Patience cocked her head, as if that would somehow help her take in the image of Brady holding on to a large German shepherd with one hand and a delicate rose in the other. She’d never seen anything quite so incongruous in her life. He’d be the last man in the world she’d think would offer flowers of any kind, much less a single rose.
Just goes to show that one never really knows a person.
Her smile widened as she held out her hand.
Brady realized by the look on her face what she had to be thinking. That the flower was from him. But why would that even cross her mind? There was nothing between them other than a loose, nodding acquaintance that spanned the last two years. Maybe something could have happened between them were he someone else, were he not hollow inside with no hope of ever changing that condition.
But he wasn’t someone else and he’d never given the gregarious veterinarian any reason to think that he was. Or that he thought of her as anything other than the police vet.
Even if, once in a while, he did.
There was no way for her to know that. No reason for her to entertain the thought that he would be the one to give her a flower.
But someone had given her this gift.
A feel of loss echoed inside him, although for the life of him he didn’t know why.
Bemused, Patience crossed to him. A smile curved her lips as she looked up into his light blue eyes and took the rose out of his hand. For some people, words worked best, for others, it was actions.
Coltrane, she already knew, definitely fell into the latter category. He was nothing if not a man of action. The phrase “strong, silent type” had been created with him in mind. For a fleeting second, she forgot all about her rules.
“I’m touched.”
“Then you know who left this?” he asked.
Something cold and clammy began to rear its head within her when he asked the simple question. She struggled to hold back her fear. To blot out the grim photograph she’d glimpsed in the file her father had brought home with him. A photograph of a girl, about her own age now, who’d been stabbed by her stalker.
Damn it, Walter knew better this time. She took a deep breath, running her tongue along her dried lips. “You mean, it’s not from you?”
For a second he found himself engaged by the flicker of her tongue moving along the outline of her mouth. It took him a moment to respond to her question. Brady shook his head. “No, I found it on your doorstep.”
Patience’s fingers loosened their grasp, and the rose fell to the floor.
Brady bent to pick it up. When he straightened again and looked at her face, he saw that all the color had drained out of it. Her complexion had turned a shade lighter.
Was she going to do that female thing and faint on him? “You all right?”
No, she thought, doing her best to rally behind anger rather than fear. She wasn’t all right. Damn it, this was supposed to have all been behind her by now. Walter’s eyes had all but bugged out when she’d told him that the nine police officers in dress blue were all related to her. She’d thought that was the end of it. And it had been.
Until now.
Patience had to remoisten her desert-dry lips. “You found this?” She nodded at the flower that was once more in his hand. This time she made no move to take it from him.
“Yes. On your doorstep.” He’d already told her that. Brady watched her closely.
“Just like the last time,” she murmured the words to herself. Why couldn’t she stop the chill that slid up and down her spine.
“What last time?” The question came at her sharply, like fighter pilots on the attack.
She stared at him. For a second she hadn’t realized that she’d said anything out loud. And then she shook her head, dismissing her words. Not wanting to open the door any further into the past than she’d already opened it. “Nothing.”
Brady scowled. The hell it was nothing. People didn’t turn white over nothing.
“What last time?” he repeated. The question bordered on a demand.
She tried to smile and only partially succeeded. The knots in her stomach were stealing all her available air. “Is that your interrogation voice?” she asked him, trying to divert his attention. “Because if it is, it’s pretty scary.”
“Damn it, Doc, what last time?” And then he drew his own conclusion. “Someone been harassing you?”
Bingo. From her reaction, he’d say he’d hit the nail right on the head. It was there, in her eyes.
He could see it happening. Patience Cavanaugh was more than passingly pretty. She was vibrant and outgoing on top of that. But in this upside-down world, someone could mistake her friendly manner for something else, feel perhaps that she was being friendly beyond the call and go on to misinterpret her behavior as a sign of interest.
She blew out a breath and looked away. “Not lately,” she told him evasively.
Get a grip, Patience. It’s just a flower, not a scorpion. She laughed to herself. Right now, she would have preferred the scorpion. She knew how to deal with that.
Obsession—if that’s what this was boiling down to—was something beyond her range. No, no, it wasn’t obsession, it was just a man who was too obtuse to understand that she just wasn’t interested. There was no reason to believe she’d wind up like Katie. Katie Alder, that had been her name. The dead girl. This would go away just like the last time, she promised herself.
Brady had no intention of letting this slide. “But previously?”
Best defense was a strong offense, wasn’t that what Uncle Andrew always told them? With a toss of her head, she fixed her best, most confident smile to her lips.
“Really, Coltrane, there’s no reason to get all official on me.” She thought of their interaction over these past twenty-five months. “Although, I guess when you get down to it, that’s all you ever are, isn’t it? Official.”
“This isn’t about me, Doc, it’s about you.”
She squared her shoulders, deliberately avoiding looking at the flower he still held. “Right. And since it’s about me, I’ll handle it.”
He raised a brow, pinning her with a look. “You weren’t handling it a minute ago.”
No, that had been an aberration. One she wasn’t about to allow to happen again. She was stronger than that. “I’m better now.”
He made a leap, bridging the gap from here to there and filling in the missing pieces. It wasn’t hard. He’d handled more than one stalker case before he’d found a place for himself in narcotics. “You ever report it?”
She looked at Brady warily. She’d always sensed he was sharp, maybe even intuitive, but she didn’t want to learn she was right at her own expense. “Report what?” she asked vaguely.
“The stalker.”
Patience raised her chin defiantly. “What stalker?”
“The one who was after you,” he snapped tersely. Nothing irked him more than people who wouldn’t take help that was offered. Like his mother who had refused to walk away from his father. “Look,” Brady began more evenly this time, “nobody turns that shade of white when they see a stupid rose left on their doorstep unless there’s something else going on. Now if you don’t want to talk to me, fine, but you’ve got a boatload of police personnel in your life. Talk to one of them.”
Because she was a Cavanaugh, even though she considered herself the mildest one of the group, she inherently resented being dictated to. “How do you know I haven’t?”
He looked at her knowingly. “Just because I don’t get along with people doesn’t mean I can’t read them.” Brady gave her a look just before he turned to leave. “Have it your way. Looks like I’m not the only one who isn’t communicative.”
It was as if he’d read her mind.
Patience blew out another breath, irritated. Relenting. The man was right, she supposed. And it was better to say something to him than to Patrick or the others. Especially Patrick. She knew without asking that the law took on a whole different hue when someone her older brother cared about was being threatened.
“His name’s Walter,” she finally said, addressing her words to the back of Brady’s head.
Stopping just short of the door, Brady turned around. He stood waiting, not saying a word.
Okay, Patience thought, she might as well tell him a little more. “Walter Payne,” she elaborated. “I saved his cockatiel and he was grateful. Very grateful. He was also kind of lonely,” she added after a moment. “I tried to encourage him to go out, to get out of his shell.” She’d even gone so far as to suggest arranging a blind date for him. But although eager to please her, Walter hadn’t followed up on her suggestion. “Maybe I was too successful.”
“So he started harassing you?” He had his answer as soon as he saw the woman pale.
Harassment and stalking were such ugly words. She told herself that it was more like enduring a schoolboy crush from a forty-five-year-old man. She couldn’t handle it any other way. “He brought me flowers, said it was from Mitzi.”
“Mitzi?”
“His cockatiel. At first it was just one, like that.” She nodded at the rose. “And then it was a bouquet. There was candy and a few poems, as well.” Those had followed in quick succession. Crowding her. “I just thought he was being overly grateful. The cockatiel meant a great deal to him.”
