Covering Ollie (Police and Fire: Operation Alpha) (On Call Book 2)

by Freya Barker

  My ass.

  However, since the opening of the Memorial Garden is not until June first, and I’ll probably be dealing with his mother on a daily basis until then, I decide to blow it off. For now.

  I lean into Joe and put my hand on his chest. His very solid, very fine chest. “Just a little miscommunication,” I tell him, leaning my head back so I can see his eyes, and find them intensely focused on me.

  “Sure?” I feel his deep rumble against the palm of my hand.

  “Positive.”

  “No hard feelings?” Josh butts in, lifting his hand to Joe, a forced smile on his face, but it’s hard to miss the anger in his eyes. Joe just grunts, reluctantly shaking the man’s hand before turning to me.

  “Ready to blow this Popsicle stand?”

  “You betcha.”

  I might’ve guessed I’d have Joe’s large SUV on my ass all the way home, and it’s clear he’s wanting some answers when he blocks the end of my driveway, instead of parking across the street at his own damn house.

  “I guess I should invite you in?” I ask sarcastically, when he follows me up on the porch and silently stands there while I dig for my keys.

  “Good idea.” Is all he says, until the front door closes behind us. “Mind getting me up to speed on what just went down there?”

  I let out a deep sigh and toss the silly little purse on the couch. “Mind if I get out of this ridiculous getup first?” I wave my hands in front of my body. “Beer in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  I don’t wait for him to acknowledge and quickly head upstairs where I strip out of the dress and toss it to the growing pile on what is supposed to be my reading chair. I grab a T-shirt, a pair of lounge pants, and my other leg and plop on the edge of the bed.

  I have two prostheses. One that looks like an actual foot and leg, and I wear that one rarely. Usually just when I’m wearing a skirt or dress, and even then just when I need to be fancy. I hate it. I much prefer my everyday, heavy use leg, which is basically a deep socket for my stump, a pretty intricate and industrial-looking joint, and a fake foot I can fit into different shoes. Too bad it’s ready for a replacement.

  Dressed in easy clothes and wearing my comfortable leg, I head back down. Joe is sitting on the couch, balancing a bottle of beer on his knee.

  I have to give it to him, he waits patiently until I’ve grabbed myself one too and sit down across from him, in my recliner.

  “I’d appreciate it if you could explain why I’m not hauling that asswipe off to jail for assault.”

  “Because I’ve worked too long and too hard on a project that will be done June first, and Katherine has all the strings in hand. Talk to me after June first, and I’ll be first in line to file a report against that ass.”

  He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Is one job more important than your safety?”

  A point I should’ve expected from the chief of police, but I have a good one too. I pull the leg of my lounge pant up to reveal my artificial limb, and start removing it. His eyes are glued to my movements.

  “It is when the money I stand to make is going to pay for Trinny’s first year of college, and the new limb I need.”

  I peel back my stump sock, uncovering the raw and abraded skin. I hear his sharp hiss, but when he gets up, I fully expect him to walk out the door. I know I’m being purposely provocative—it’s what I do to cover my own issue—but when instead of walking out, he sits down on the coffee table in front of me and gently lifts my stump for a better look, I’m suddenly not so cocky.

  “Looks painful.”

  “After a long day it is. I usually go without at the end of the day.”

  “Then leave it off.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “The only thing that bothers me is you would keep wearing that thing when it’s causing you pain.”

  Well then.

  I’m not sure what to do with that, so I sit back and take a swig of my beer.

  Chapter 6

  Joe

  “Hey.”

  Trinny has her back to me, sitting on the couch with my laptop in front of her on the coffee table. The moment she hears my voice, she turns and with one hand slaps the laptop shut. The dog, who never even twitched when I came in, perks his ears at the sharp sound.

  “You’re home early,” she observes, looking at the clock over the entryway.

  “I can only take so many speeches,” I tell her, kicking off my shoes and walking into the kitchen for a beer from my own fridge.

  Ollie had offered me another, which I declined. I need some time to wrap my head around things, examine this unsettled feeling I get when I’m around her.

  It’s not hard to figure out I’m attracted, my body’s response to her is evidence enough of that, but it’s the emotional impact she seems to have on me that’s unsettling.

  Being a widowed father of two has almost become a comfortably familiar track I expected to run my life along—safe, predictable, and risk-free—but being around Ollie makes me want to explore different routes. That would mean taking a risk on a future I can’t see, and letting myself be vulnerable. Making my boys vulnerable as well.

  “…Mom? Mr. B?”

  “Sorry, what was that?”

  “I asked if you saw Mom there, I think she was at the same event. At the Art Center, right?”

  “Yeah, I did. She left the same time I did. How were the boys?” I change the subject.

  “They finished their homework for Monday.”

  “That’s great, with the tournament this weekend, I wasn’t sure how we’d be able to fit that in. Thanks, Trinny.”

  “No prob. I guess I’ll see you Monday.”

  I stand in the doorway, watching as she crosses the road and disappears safely inside her own house.

  A quick check on the boys, who are both already sleeping, and I strip out of this monkey suit, put on something more comfortable, and head back downstairs.

  I sit down on the couch and flip open my laptop to check emails. The screen opens to a Messenger chat. Looks like Trinny didn’t shut down her Facebook page. I don’t mean to pry, but there’s something about the name in the chat screen that rings vaguely familiar—Christian Rizzoli—and the last message on the screen piques my curiosity.

  Don’t tell your mom, I want to keep it a surprise.

  I hesitate, caught in a moral quagmire between her right to privacy and my instinct to investigate.

  “Dad?” I hear Ryder’s sleepy voice behind me, and I turn around to find him standing at the bottom of stairs, rubbing his eyes.

  “Hey, Bud, I thought you were sleeping?”

  He pads over and throws his arms around my neck. “Bad dream,” he mumbles. “I miss Mommy.”

  When Ryder crawls on my lap, I take one last look at the screen before making a split-second decision, logging out of Trinny’s account and closing the laptop. “Want to sleep with me?”

  He nods against my shoulder.

  With my son clinging to me like a monkey, I turn off lights and lock the door, before carrying him to my bedroom.

  -

  I’m not sure exactly how everyone ended up for the first cookout of the year on my deck on Sunday afternoon.

  Mason’s team ended up in the semi-finals after yesterday’s games, which meant we were back in Farmington this morning. He was so excited to have scored the winning goal in the semis; he barely noticed their loss in the finals. So when he asked if he could have a few teammates over for hamburgers, I wasn’t going to turn him down. It’s taken him long enough to make friends here.

  When we pulled in the driveway after picking up groceries, he wanted to know if he could run over and invite Trinny too. So I suggested he invite her mom along.

  “Another beer?” I ask Ollie, who is sitting at the table, watching the kids messing around with Bugsy.

  I had to pull down the garden furniture from the rafters in the garage for something to sit on outside. If the temperatures stay like th
is, I might open the pool in the next week or two. We only used it a few times last year before closing it for winter, but I have a feeling we’ll get more use out of it this year.

  “You flip burgers, I’ll grab you one,” Ollie says, getting up. “Anything else you need from the kitchen?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind grabbing me a plate? Cupboard over the microwave.” She throws me a two-fingered salute as I watch her go inside.

  By the time she comes back outside, I’ve got the burgers on the top rack and am tossing hot dogs on the grill below. Those will only take a few minutes.

  “Boys, I need you to set the table out here. Mase!” I yell when my oldest ignores me in favor of horsing around with his two friends. Ryder is already coming up the steps.

  “Yeah?”

  “Table, Bud. Now.”

  “What can I do?” Trinny, who’s been sitting on the steps playing on her phone, wants to know.

  “If you’ll get the condiments from the fridge? There’s a big tub of potato salad on the bottom shelf you can grab, as well.”

  “And me?” Ollie asks.

  “You can just sit there and keep me company.”

  She mock pouts. “I kinda feel left out, you’re really good at giving orders. Makes me want to follow them.” She blushes at her own innuendo and I feel the blood rush to my dick.

  Holy shit. I can’t remember the last time I had an instant reaction like that. In fact, I can’t really remember the last time someone flirted with me and I wasn’t instantly repelled. I may not have always been a great husband, but I was a loyal one, and other than Jenny, I never really took note of other women.

  I’m paying attention now.

  “Your turn will come,” I joke back, my own words heavy with suggestion. That makes her blush even deeper.

  Dinner is a chaotic affair, especially when the boys start flicking food at each other. Ryder ends up stomping off to his room—fighting tears, when Mason beans him in the face with a pickle—and I have to raise my voice to call the kids to order. I know Mason is not only trying to be cool with his new buds, but he’s trying to impress Trinny as well. He’s going to have to learn he can’t do that at the expense of his little brother.

  What seems to impress him more than my verbal outburst is Trinny shooting him an angry glare before getting up and following Ryder inside.

  “Wow,” Ollie says after the peace has returned. Mason’s friends have been picked up, and both boys and Trinny are watching a movie inside. “Boys are more work than I thought.”

  “Nah. It’s when one or the other has friends over that it can get dicey. When it’s just the two of them, they get along really well. Despite how different they are. Ryder is the more sensitive one; he takes after his mother. Mason is more like me, a bit rambunctious.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “You’re rambunctious? Not a word I would have associated with you. You seem so laid back.”

  “I am now. Had you met me even twenty years ago, it would’ve been obvious. I was always on the go, looking for my next adventure. I was working for the Denver PD at the time and would volunteer for any undercover assignment that would come along, just for the sheer thrill of it.”

  “So what changed?”

  “Jenny.”

  Ollie

  I can see him shut down the moment he mentions her name.

  “That’s your late wife, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looks at me from under his eyebrows, and I’m not sure if he’s gauging my reaction, or angry I brought her up. Well, technically he did, but I prompted.

  “Your boys have told Trinny a little about her. I understand she passed away from cancer?”

  “About a year and a half ago.”

  Yikes, that hasn’t really been long. “What a terrible loss. I’m so sorry for you and the boys.”

  “She didn’t like the kind of risks I took,” he goes on, almost as if he never heard me. “She was more into the thrill of the outdoors, hiking, skiing, mountain biking. It ended up being enough for me too.”

  Sounds like settling to me, but it’s not my place to judge—I’ve done enough of that myself—although for different reasons.

  I’m not sure what to think of the direction that conversation took. One minute we’re firmly anchored in the here and now, and the next we’re drifting back in time. I don’t know what to make of that. Especially since I’m pretty sure we had a little flirt going on there for a while.

  It wouldn’t surprise me if he were still hung up on his wife, in which case, I’ll put a lid on my attraction to him. I don’t need to set myself up for that kind of hurt. I haven’t been cautious all this time to finally open up to someone who has no room in his heart for me.

  But—it’s also possible—he’s genuinely interested but feels guilty. I understand that as well. For a long time after Vito died, I’d feel like I was betraying him by even looking at another man. Never mind I’d been the one kept in the dark our entire relationship.

  “Can I get you anything else? Coffee?”

  “No thanks, we should get going,” I announce, getting up. Nothing says end of the night better than an offer of coffee after a meal. “Trinny has an appointment at the hospital tomorrow morning at eight, and your boys have school. Thanks for an entertaining dinner, though.” I smile at him before adding, “I hope I can return the favor sometime soon—minus the food fight.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  -

  “Awww, Mom, come on.”

  I look over at Trinny, who has her bottom lip sticking out like she did when she was three.

  “Nope.”

  “But I already missed half my day.”

  She’s nothing if not tenacious. Still, I shake my head. “All the more reason to make sure you don’t miss more. Besides, you have only a little over a week left to work on bumping your grade point average up.”

  “Urghhh. Why do you always have to be so sensible?”

  I choke down a snicker that would only flame the fire. Trinny’s still grumbling when I drop her off at school, her left arm no longer bearing the electric blue cast the doctor just removed. Another X-ray, done this morning, showed her break is healing nicely and she no longer needs one.

  I was supposed to be at the memorial garden at noon to meet with the contractor to inspect the interlock mosaic that would be finished today. That was half an hour ago.

  Still sitting in the high school parking lot, I quickly dial his number.

  “Hey, Blake, sorry I’m running a little late. Are you going to be there for another ten minutes or do we need to reschedule?”

  “Guess I can wait a bit,” the older man answers, sounding a little put out, despite his words.

  “I’m really sorry, I’ll be there shortly.”

  He’s leaning against the fender of his truck when I pull into the parking lot.

  “You could’ve warned me that woman was going to be here,” he says when I walk up to him.

  “What woman?”

  “The rich bitch.” That’s Blake’s go-to nickname for Katherine Carey.

  No love lost between those two. Hiring Blake’s company had not gone over well with Mrs. Carey. She had a contractor already in mind, one who apparently worked on her beautiful property just north of town, but I don’t work with contractors I don’t know. That had been our first, and long drawn out battle. I don’t think she ever quite forgave me for putting my foot down and finally telling her to take it up with city council, who approved my bid. That was the last I heard on it, but she’d been a burr up his butt from the moment he started work on the project.

  “I had no idea she planned to be here. Why? What did she have to say?”

  “She claimed the colors were off. Insisted the turquoise stone was not in the approved design.”

  “Of course it was. I designed the damn thing and I personally ordered the stone.” I swear, June first can’t come soon enough. Just the mention of her name alone causes heart palpitations. I’ll
be happy when I can wipe my hands of this project and Katherine Carey.

  “Come see.”

  I follow Blake along the pretty flagstone path, running from the far side of the parking lot to the short cedar hedge edging the garden. The mosaic beyond is perfect. Exactly what I’d envisioned: an intricate geometric design, based on a piece of Anasazi pottery found right here in this location thirty years ago. I saw the dish on display at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores and fell in love with the design.

  I happily sign off on the work, and after going over the schedule for the next couple of days; I bid him goodbye and head home.

  There’s a black SUV sitting by the curb in front of my house, and when I check my mirrors as I pull into my driveway, I see someone emerging from the driver’s side door.

  I watch the tall dark man stalking up my driveway and brace myself against my car door. He looks official and that doesn’t leave me with a good feeling.

  “Ms. Olivia Rizzoli?” I startle when I hear him use my old name.

  “Rizzo. It’s Rizzo now,” I correct him, straightening my back.

  “Right. Ma’am, my name is Cruz Livingston, I’m a federal agent from San Antonio. A mutual friend asked me to check in on you.”

  “I have no friends in San Antonio,” I counter right away. It’s true, I left San Antonio behind eighteen years ago and never looked back. Whatever friends I might have had, at the time, would surely no longer be.

  “Does the name Adam Szura ring a bell? He’s retired now, but he hasn’t forgotten you.”

  The name belonging to the single friendly face among a sea of hostile ones almost brings tears to my eyes.

  Chapter 7

  Joe

  Getting the kids to school on time this morning had been a challenge. Mason threw a fit when he found out his favorite sweatshirt was still in the laundry basket, unwashed. I hadn’t gotten around to it this weekend. I ended up having to drive them to school because they missed the bus.

  The rest of my morning hadn’t gone much better, coming in to find we’re short-staffed again this week. I’ve been on the phone all morning, trying to pull guys in from other shifts, since Bolter has his hands full at the front desk. My patience already threadbare from this morning’s mess, I bark when someone knocks on my office door.