Bachelor Cop

Officer Whit Tanner had made quite an impression on her young son. He had brought her child home safely—and for that she was grateful to him. But the missing Wolf could be anywhere—and she wished the man hadn’t made a promise he didn’t know he could keep.

She stepped out onto the porch and sat down beside Brody, wishing she knew some way to distract him from his front porch vigil. Earlier she’d fixed him his favorite breakfast of pancakes, but he’d barely touched them. She’d suggested he try his new Nintendo game she’d bought him last week, but he’d given her a quiet shake of his head and, instead, carried Wolf’s food dish outside, placing it beside him on the porch.

“Wolf will be hungry when he comes home,” he explained.

His hope nearly broke Jill’s heart.

It was already past eleven, and so far there’d been no sign of Whit, no sign of the dog, and Jill feared the worst. She put an arm around her son’s small shoulders. “Brody, honey, I know Officer Tanner said he would find Wolf for you, but. he may not be able to. Wolf could be a long way away, somewhere the policeman wouldn’t know to look for him.”

Brody shook his red head with a vehemence. “No, Mommy. He said he would bring Wolf, and he will—just like he promised. You’ll see.”

Jill knew all about promises made to little boys—they seemed to be the kind most easily forgotten. How many times had she tried to make it up to Brody for the broken promises of his father? How many times had Michael Harper been “busy” with a court case he needed to prepare for, too busy for a trip to the zoo with his son or even a night out for an ice cream?

“Look, sweetie…Wolf is such a little dog, and there are lots of streets, lots of places he might have gone. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, that’s all.”

“It’s okay, Mommy. Don’t worry. The policeman will find him.” Her son patted her on the arm. A child reassuring his parent—that gave Jill a moment’s pause.

With a sigh she knew she couldn’t shake her fouryear-old’s faith, his belief that Officer Tanner would prevail against all odds and find the missing Wolf:

At that moment she could have happily wrung the big cop’s neck. And it would have been better than he deserved.

Brody needed someone to look up to, someone strong and big he could believe in. A hero. And right now, to Brody, that hero was Whit Tanner.

Mommies were all right as far as they went. They worked well for patching up skinned knees or telling bedtime stories, but there were times when a mommy just wasn’t enough.

Jill felt a pang of pain at the knowledge and vowed to talk to Michael once again about giving his son a little fatherly attention. Though she doubted it would do much good. The man had his own agenda, one which unfortunately left little time for parenting.

She gave Brody a hug. “Maybe I’ll fix us each a glass of lemonade. Would you like that?”

Brody nodded that he would, and Jill left him there, staring off down the block.

Her heart squeezed in her chest as she headed toward the kitchen. Brody was such a little boy, and she knew she couldn’t protect him from every hurt in life. Still she tried.

She’d even bought Wolf for him as a way of assuaging his disappointment over being stood up by his father two weeks earlier. Now, in hindsight, she wasn’t so sure getting the dog for Brody had been a good idea. Her son had ventured outdoors late at night, something he never would have done had it not been for Wolf. And now the little runaway was lost, and Brody would be heartbroken if he wasn’t found.

Jill had just reached for the fresh lemons in the fridge when she heard Brody’s excited yelp from the porch. “He’s here, Mommy, he’s here! The policeman’s here with Wolf!” came his jubilant small voice.

There was a God after all, Jill thought, and dropped the bag of lemons to dart to the front door. She arrived just in time to see the hunk of a cop, out of uniform this time, emerge from a black Jeep Cherokee, a squalling, wriggling dachshund tucked unceremoniously under one arm.

Brody raced toward him, and Whit ruffled the boy’s red hair, while Wolf lathered Brody’s piquant face with exuberant licks.

“I told Mommy you’d come. I told her,” Brody said, bubbling over.

Whit laughed, a deep male sound that rumbled up from his chest. “You did, pardner? And where is this mommy of yours?”

Jill stepped out onto the porch. She tried to keep her gaze off the devastating look of the man in his soft-worn jeans and faded black sweatshirt. If he’d been all male last night in that uniform, he was every bit as dangerously so today.

“His mommy is right here,” she said. “And I think you’ve made one little boy very happy.”

“Well, I aim to please.” Whit was a little disappointed to see she was wearing more than a robe this morning, though he couldn’t fault the fit of her soft yellow sweater or those form-fitting jeans that hugged her slender legs.

The color of the sweater let loose the gold fire in her hair and made the flecks in her green eyes dance like the sun. She had a smattering of freckles, like Brody’s, across her straight, refined nose, and Whit found the effect touching. A few were scattered on her arms below the pushed-up sleeves of her sweater, making him ponder where else he might find a provocative patch.

“You’d better hang on to him, Brody,” she called to her son, and Whit glanced toward the pair just as Wolf threatened to roar off again, probably to see if the youngster would give chase.

Brody made a valiant grab for the leash, but it slipped through his small hands.

“Oh, no, you don’t, you miserable piece of stuffed sausage,” Whit bellowed, and to the accompaniment of Brody’s giggles and his mom’s velvet-soft laughter, he lunged for the animal.

He and the dog tumbled in the grass, with Brody dancing about excitedly beside him and Jill not even trying to hide her amusement.

“Have you ever considered obedience training for this monster?” he asked, when he had Wolf finally in hand.

He thought of his friend, Joe Farrell, with the K-9 Unit. Joe could teach even the most worthless beast to “stay”—and Wolf certainly qualified as worthless.

“I haven’t—but it’s something I think I need to seriously consider,” Jill said, when she could finally manage the words. “A little obedience wouldn’t hurt him.”

An understatement if Whit had ever heard one. “I’ll see if I can come up with a name or two for you,” he volunteered. He might just ask Joe if he’d be interested in a little moonlighting.

However, knowing Joe’s reputation with the ladies, Whit would be damned if he’d allow the man to get within ten feet of Jill Harper without Whit being present.

He dusted off his jeans and offered Brody the end of the rope leash. “This time hang on to it, pardner,” he said.

“Okay, Off’cer.”

“That’s Whit to you, pardner,” Whit said, tousling the boy’s hair.

“Okay…Whit,” Brody said shyly before charging off with Wolf.

Whit gave renewed attention to the woman on the porch. Her eyes were bright as she watched her son play, then she turned her gaze on him.

“It seems I’m once again in your debt,” she said. “Thank you for bringing Wolf home. How ever did you find the little rascal?”

“Don’t ask.”

Jill raised an eyebrow at the low groan he gave with his answer. “Not an easy capture, Officer?”

He strode closer and leaned against the porch railing near her. Very near. She could see the dark heat of his eyes, the small razor nick at his jawline. “Let’s just say I didn’t relish standing at the side of the road calling to a short-legged, overweight animal, sadly misnamed. Wolf…”

She hid a smile. “It did damage to your image, did it?”

She was enjoying this, he thought. “It’ll heal. Sometime along about…Christmas.”

Her laugh was soft and it trickled along his nerve endings.

“I’m really very sorry. Brody came up with the name. And you’re right, it doesn’t fit.”

He accepted her apology with good grace. “No harm done. Just don’t let it happen again. It’s dangerous out there at night for boy and dog. Next time neither of them might be as lucky.”

Another of his good-citizen warnings, Jill thought, one she already knew to heed. He didn’t have to remind her. “I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”

“And get that dog an address tag,” he added. “I assume he’s had his shots.”

She wondered if the man’s bite was worse than his bark. “We’ve only had the dog two weeks, but he’s had his shots. And the vet has ordered him an address tag. Anything else, Officer?”

He saw the military-rigid set to her shoulders, realized the laughter in her eyes had disappeared. He wanted it back, but he had a point to make. “The dead bolt,” he added.

Her green eyes gleamed with glacier coolness. “The dead bolt.” She crossed one denimed leg over the other and fixed him with a fierce glower. “It may surprise you to know that despite Brody’s dangerous escapade last night I really am a good mother. I don’t let my child run loose, climb tall trees or play on the interstate. I take him to the pediatrician, the dentist, give him nutritious foods, his vitamins and tuck him into bed every night.”

Whit wouldn’t mind having her tuck him into bed at night. But as angry as he’d made her, he didn’t think that was going to happen. At least not anytime soon.

“I’m sure you’re a good mother. It’s just that accidents tend to happen the one time you’re not looking. I’m only offering a word or two of advice.”

“Advice.”

He held out a hand to her. “How about a truce? You continue to be a good mother—and I’ll continue to be a good cop.”

“Well, you’ve more than done your civic duty.” Jill was still angry, but she decided she’d give the overbearing man the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just trying to do his job.

She stuck out her hand. “I suppose we could try a truce and see how it goes.”

His touch was warm as his big hand swallowed hers. And in spite of herself a tingle traveled the length of her arm, heat chasing along behind it. What was it about the man that kept her a little off center in his presence?

“I was about to fix Brody and me a glass of lemonade when you arrived. Would…you care for one?” she asked, feeling an overwhelming need to retreat to the kitchen and search for her good sense.

“Lemonade? Sounds great. While you’re at it, I’ll uh, take a look at that door lock—I have a few tools in the four-by-four.”

She spun back around to face him, and he put up his hands in defense. “It’s just an offer of help, not an indictment of guilt.”

Her glance was wary for a long moment, then she relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “Yes—that would be helpful. Thank you,” she added.

Jill took longer than usual to squeeze the lemons into fresh lemonade, but she needed time to find that composure of hers that had slipped the moment Whit arrived on the scene.

Last night she’d thought the attraction was strictly for a man in uniform—but that didn’t account for the awareness she felt today.

She and Brody were just getting settled; she was recovering from a divorce and trying to get both her feet firmly planted on the ground. Now was not the time for her senses to take a trip to nowhere.

When she returned to the front of the house, tray of lemonade in her hands, she expected to find her dead bolt in parts, spread about the entry hall. Instead it was in one piece and, she suspected, functioning—if she knew Whit Tanner already. Once again he seemed to have come to her rescue.

She found him in the yard with Brody, playing a game of what looked like football—with Wolf as the pigskin. At least they were both scrambling after the animal as if he were a missed pass they were each trying to recover for their own side.

Brody’s whoops of delight reminded her how very much Brody needed some male influence in his life. But Whit Tanner was a man touching their lives only briefly, a knight in shining armor who’d ridden to the rescue—and who’d be gone just as quickly.

And considering the intensity of her attraction to him that was just fine.

One day she would allow another man into her life—but next time she’d go slowly, be sure she knew him well. Next time she would choose someone who had time for her and Brody.

“Yea! Lemonade!” Brody yelped, spotting her. He turned to Whit. “My mommy makes the bestest.”

Whit glanced toward the porch. She was back. Back with that sweet innocence of hers. And that slightly haunted smile. As if there was some pain still a little too fresh in her life.

“Best, Brody,” she said. “And I don’t know if it’s all that great. But it is cold.”

“Sounds good,” Whit said. The dog at his heels, he sauntered up and took a glass.

“Looks like that animal was getting the worst end of that game you were playing,” she said. She sat down on the porch step and Whit joined her.

“Nah, the dog loved it,” he said and took a swal1 low. A mixture of tart and sweet, like the woman beside him.

“I guess I owe you a thank you for the lock,” she said softly. “You were able to repair it?”

“Good as new—and no thanks necessary. As long as it keeps the kid indoors.”

He ruffled Brody’s hair and Brody grinned, a lemonade mustache decorating his upper lip. “Can we take Wolf on a picnic to the park, Mommy? An’. an’ can Whit come, too?”

Jill understood Brody’s exuberance—and where it was coming from. But she wasn’t sure Whit did. And she knew the man must have other things to do than spend a Sunday in the park.

“I don’t think today, sweetheart,” she told him, then turned to Whit. “I’m afraid my son has a giant case of hero worship. You’re all he’s talked about since he got up this morning—you and how you were going to bring his dog home.”

“I hadn’t realized the pressure was on,” he said. He turned to Brody, whose small face had puckered into a disappointed frown. “Maybe another time, pardner.”

Whit hated to do this, but the woman had given him an out—and he was damned well going to take it. Not that spending time with the pretty Jill wasn’t a temptation in itself, but even as that thought crossed his mind, a damnable hive began to itch, the way it always did whenever he ventured too close to any form of domesticity.

And what could be more domestic than a Sunday picnic in the park with a mom and a small boy—even a dog along to complete the picture.

He scratched at the hive on his neck. Besides, he had other things to do this afternoon. A date with a cold can of beer and basketball play-offs on the tube. Definitely less threatening than Jill Harper with her pretty smile and too-tempting manner, he thought.

He finished his lemonade and placed the empty glass back on the tray. “I should be going.” He stood up.

Jill stood, too. “Well,” she said, “thanks again for returning Wolf. And…for fixing the lock.”

She looked so young, so fresh, her lips dewy-soft and inviting—and he was tempted to taste the sweet-tart lemonade on them. Instead he turned to Brody. “You and Wolf wanna walk me to the car?”

Brody nodded, and Whit tweaked the boy’s freckled nose. He remembered what Jill had said about her son’s case of hero worship. But Whit wasn’t sure hero was an accolade he was all that comfortable with. Or deserving of.

That belonged to men like his brother Steve.

Jill watched the trio go, the big man towering over small boy, Brody’s head tipped up as he listened intently to something Whit was saying.

Curiosity piqued, she wondered what the two were talking about.

Jill had brought the account books home from the shop. The antique shop, Simply Treasures, she’d opened less than a year ago was doing a brisk business. In between buying trips, refinishing small, prized pieces of furniture, polishing silver and rewiring old lamps, she had little time for paperwork. She’d hoped to find time over the weekend to get caught up.

But instead of work, Brody came first today. This morning he’d been too upset over his dog for her to have the firm discussion with him that she’d needed to have, a mother-son talk about the dangers of a small boy venturing outdoors late at night. But that afternoon they took a walk with Wolf to the park a few blocks away. Brody listened to her parental concern for a while, then looked up at her.

“I know all that, Mommy,” he said with all the earnestness of a four-year-old. “Whit told me I coulda been hurt, maybe kilt, or never been able to fin’ my way back home.”

“He said all that?”

“Uh-huh. When he lefted.”

“Left, Brody.” But she wasn’t as upset at Brody’s grammar as she was at what the big cop had told him. Killed? Did he have to scare the child to death? A simple warning would have been sufficient.

“An’. an’ Whit said I should min’ you real good.”

That part, at least, Jill couldn’t take offense with.

She didn’t want her son to grow up a namby-pamby, and she often worried about the lack of male influence Brody had in his young life. She could hardly count the few hours Michael spent with him. A boy needed more than a halfhearted, all-too-busy father.

Whit was a cop. He was tough, but she didn’t approve of the tack he’d taken with her son. Brody was just a baby. And she wasn’t ready to have him know about all the dangers the world presented.

She knew law-enforcement officials and child—safety organizations would argue with that, but she wanted to believe that she could protect her son herself, that she could let him be a child—at least for a little while longer.

Still, last night had shaken her, frightened her beyond belief. She felt torn between giving Whit Tanner a piece of her mind—or her vote of thanks.

But, at least to all outward appearances, the man’s frank talk didn’t seem to have traumatized Brody’s young psyche any. He was full of smiles and boyish spirits. And the case of hero worship he had with Whit hadn’t been all bad, either. Brody walked a little taller, a little straighter, a little more proudly than he had before.

She recognized a little of Whit’s swagger in him as he left her side and marched over to the park’s big slide for a trip down it.

She loved her son. He was her life. And she spent as much time with him as she could. When she’d first started her business, she’d taken him to the shop with her, entertaining him with toys and children’s books in the small back room. Now he went to preschool, but Jill missed those times they’d had alone together.

On their trip back from the park Jill listened once again to Brody’s chatter about his favorite policeman, but her own images of the man played in her mind.

All of them dangerous to her senses.

It was only when she heard Brody discussing his idea of show-and-tell at preschool next week that she returned her attention to her son and what he was saying.

“So can I, Mommy? Can Iple-e-ease?”

Jill glanced down at his small eager face. Her first thought was that she wasn’t sure how she could talk her son out of his enthusiastic idea. Her second thought was what Officer Whit Tanner would think of it.

Chapter Three

“Show-and-tell duty? What the hell kinda assignment is that?” Whit demanded of his superior.

Captain Vince Malloy hid a grin, but Whit saw the faint twitch at the edges of his mouth just the same.

“A wimp assignment, that’s what kind,” Officer Jake Foster said with a low chuckle as he passed by Malloy’s open office door on his way to the duty room.

They were enjoying this a little too much, Whit thought glumly. And at his expense. He dragged a hand through his hair and appealed to what he hoped was Malloy’s reasonable side. “Can’t the guys in Public Relations handle this? What do I know about talking to a group of preschoolers, anyway…?”

Whit would rather teach gun safety to rival street gangs. Kids scared the hell out of him.

“No deal,” Malloy said from behind his cluttered desk. “The kid asked for you—personally. No one else. A cute-sounding little shaver. Talked like you were his new best friend.”

“Brody.”

The image of the small, red-haired boy flashed into Whit’s mind, followed almost immediately by the kid’s all-too-alluring mom. Jill Harper had a way of haunting a man’s dreams—and Whit was no exception. For the past three days, and nights, he’d tried to forget that sweet smile of hers, her soft, easy sensuality.

“Brody—yeah, that was the kid’s name.” Malloy’s gravel-edged voice brought Whit back. “I got the school address here somewhere,” he said, and dug through the debris on his desk. “Ah, yes—here it is. School’s over on…Meadow Lane.” He read his illegible scrawl through three overlapping coffee mug rings on the paper, then shoved the note at Whit.

Whit felt his chances of getting out of this begin to sink like a torpedoed sub. Besides, what kind of a guy would he be to say no to a small boy who thought he was his new best friend?

Whit liked to think he wasn’t that low-down.

“The chief likes this goodwill kind of stuff, so try to put a smile on it, Tanner.”

Whit’s grumbling reply wasn’t intelligible, but the glower he shot Malloy couldn’t have been clearer.

Whit barely had time to file his traffic reports, let alone think of something to say to a group of eager youngsters.

By the time he arrived at the school at three that afternoon he still hadn’t a clue what one did for showand-tell. At twenty-eight it had been a long time since he’d participated in any such learning experience—if he ever had. Whit couldn’t remember his preschool days all that clearly.

But he would survive this somehow, he told himself as he approached the classroom with mounting trepidation. He had a quick image of his brother, Steve, and the impression he’d once had on a young boy a little older than Brody but every bit as starry-eyed. Whit knew what it felt like to look up to a cop.

With that memory, he knew he couldn’t let Brody down.

One of the preschool teachers met him at the door, hardly more than a youngster herself. Either that or he was getting older, he wasn’t sure which.

“Officer Tanner, Brody’s been expecting you,” she said cheerily enough. She drew him inside and tried to put him at ease, but Whit wasn’t sure the effort was working.

Before he could respond to the teacher’s pleasantries, Brody rushed up, all smiles with a little shyness mixed in. Whit supposed that made two of them.

“Hi-ya, pardner,” he said, and Brody beamed.

It didn’t take long before the teachers had the group quieted down and announced him to the class. He felt outsize, awkwardly outsize, in the room of small, red chairs, low shelves of books, and projects in various stages of completion.

Finally Whit discovered what show-and-tell comprised. He was the show and Brody did the tell, explaining in far too many superlatives about how his friend had not only rescued him in the middle of the night, but found his dog, as well. To hear Brody tell it, Whit deserved a commendation at the very least.

Then it was his turn to offer a few words.

“Thank you, Brody,” he said, though the kid’s praise was far more than was warranted.

He wondered again how the hell he’d gotten himself into this. And how he’d ever get through it.gracefully.

He summoned a smile he hoped looked more confident than he felt on the inside and decided on a topic that might be helpful to four-year-olds—street safety.

But before he could open his mouth and utter a word, the door at the back of the room squeaked open, and Whit glanced up into the glorious green eyes of Jill Harper.

Terrific, he thought. Just what he needed—more audience.

“Pardon the interruption,” she said in her silky voice. “Please go on.”

Go on? There wasn’t a coherent thought in his head as she wriggled onto a too-small chair and crossed one slim leg over the other, creating a diversion a blind monk couldn’t endure.