by Lisa Childs
Billy shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You know how vice is, man. I don’t have time for anyone or anything in my life but the job.”
Kent remembered how it was, but unlike all the other times he’d thought about that life, he didn’t miss it. Instead he stared off in the direction Erin’s van had driven. He missed her. If only they were different people and he could pursue this attraction…
But even if she didn’t hate him, Kent still had a bullet in his back—one that could eventually cause nerve damage or paralysis. It was better that she hate him, better that they stay uninvolved, than for her to have someone else she would have to take care of.
Chapter Seven
“I’ve been waiting for this column,” Herb Stein grumbled as Erin passed the hard copy across his desk.
She had given him one version already, but he’d tossed it back at her, demanding that she add more “bite.” Was Kent right? Was she being used to push the mayor’s agenda?
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, “I really don’t understand what was wrong with the first version.” In it, she had focused on the videos the police instructors had shown after the tour of the department at the second class. If only there’d been footage of Mitchell’s arrest. Still, she was compelled to admit, “Those videos were quite interesting and enlightening.”
Like Reverend Thomas, Erin was actually beginning to understand and appreciate the challenge of being a police officer. The other officers she’d met during the first two weeks of the CPA were not like Kent Terlecki, ruthlessly ambitious to get ahead in the department. Lieutenant Michalski and the watch commander especially seemed to care genuinely about protecting and serving the community. They reminded her of why she had joined the Peace Corps, because she’d felt as though it had been her calling. Deciding to become a police officer, to put oneself in that kind of danger, had to be a calling, too.
She hoped to learn more about the job during the ride-along she’d signed up for, where she would actually accompany an officer during his or her shift. But she was beginning to doubt that the editor-in-chief would let her use much, if any, of what she learned in her column. She resisted the urge, barely, to point out that Powell on Patrol was supposed to be about her adventures in the CPA.
“The first version didn’t have the same tone of your other articles,” Herb explained.
“It did where I mentioned Sergeant Terlecki,” she reminded him.
“Yeah.” Herb slapped the paper. “This is it. He was what you needed to focus on.”
She had tried to write about something else pertaining to the department because she focused on Kent entirely too much. She couldn’t get him out of her head. But she had more important things—more important people—to worry about.
She glanced at her watch. “So is the column all right now?”
“Yeah, yeah…” A grin split the older man’s jowly face. “This is great. You got the tone exactly right now.”
She doubted Kent would be as thrilled about that as her boss was. “Can I leave a little early then?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “You’ve been working Wednesday nights, taking the classes. You can have this afternoon off.”
A sigh of relief eased the pressure in her chest. Maybe she could pick up Jason before the assembly started, which his teacher had warned Erin might upset him.
“Thank you,” she murmured as she hurried out of his office.
Traffic between downtown and Jason’s school in the suburbs slowed her progress and, regrettably, gave her time to think. As always, when that happened, she thought about him.
She should have asked Kent the question the other night—the one he had promised to answer honestly. He’d given her a free shot, but she hadn’t taken it. What was wrong with her?
As usual she hadn’t had time. She’d barely managed to convince her mother to keep babysitting on Wednesday nights. Thankfully, Kathryn had understood that if Erin lost her job, she’d have trouble supporting herself and Jason.
She breathed another sigh of relief as she drove up to the elementary school. Instead of finding a parking space in the crowded lot, she pulled to the curb and vaulted out of the van, worried about Jason. The speaker at the school assembly was a police officer.
As she rushed inside, she checked her purse, making sure she had his inhaler in case the one Jason took to school was empty. The secretary jumped up from her desk inside the glass walls of her office. Recognizing Erin, she smiled and pointed down the hall toward the gymnasium.
Erin was at the school entirely too often. On her own, she wasn’t enough to make Jason feel secure and confident. He needed a man in his life so that he wouldn’t panic every time someone spoke much above a whisper.
She slowed her steps as she neared the gym. Although she strained to listen, she could hear only the deep murmur of a male voice, no giggling or squabbling children. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard the school so quiet.
Careful not to disturb anyone, she slowly pushed open the swinging doors and stepped inside the gym. The kids, sitting cross-legged on the floor, stared—some open mouthed—at the man standing in front of them. Erin turned toward him and her mouth fell open, too.
“I know,” murmured Mrs. Moskett as she joined Erin. “He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? Almost tempts me to break a law.”
Erin forced a smile. While she couldn’t agree with Jason’s teacher, she couldn’t argue with her, either. Kent Terlecki’s broad shoulders and muscular chest filled out the Lakewood Police Department’s black uniform pulse-racingly well.
“’Course, I don’t think my husband would understand,” the older woman continued. “But I’m sure you can.” Color rushed to the teacher’s face. “O-Oh, that’s right. You…he…the articles you write…”
“How is Jason doing?” Erin asked, trying to find her nephew in the mass of little bodies crowding the floor of the sun-filled gymnasium.
“Very well,” Mrs. Moskett said with relief. “He recognized Sergeant Terlecki as your ‘friend’ so he didn’t panic.”
Mrs. Moskett was one of the few people who knew the truth about where Jason’s father was. She didn’t know, however, that Sergeant Kent Terlecki was the one who’d put him there. And neither must Jason as he stared up at him, as enthralled as all the other kids. Kent spoke about an officer’s job, about an officer’s sworn duty to protect and serve the community, but he brought it down to their level, explaining it so they understood and were entertained.
And despite herself, so was Erin.
PLASTERING A GRIN on his face, Kent braced himself and asked, “Does anyone have any questions for me?”
Little hands lifted as if they were doing the wave at a football game. High-pitched voices called out, “Me! Me!”
He pointed toward a little girl with pale blond braids and big blue eyes who sat in the front row. Surely she wouldn’t ask that question. “What would you like to know, honey?”
Her voice soft and quaking with nerves, she asked, “Have you ever shot someone?”
With effort Kent hung on to his smile. “An officer only discharges his weapon when he has no other choice,” he explained, “and he has to protect him or herself or other innocent people.”
He didn’t hear her actually snort, but some noise drew his attention to where Erin stood by the doors to the gymnasium. Was she following him now? Even from a distance, he noticed the arch of her dark brow. Other innocent people? He instinctively knew that was the comment to which she’d taken exception. While he wasn’t the bad guy she’d like everyone to think he was, he wasn’t exactly guilt-free, either, not with the thoughts, the dreams, he’d been having about her lately.
In his dreams, she didn’t mind him being bad. In fact, she liked it. A lot. His grin widened.
Until a boy, too impatient to wait until Kent called on him, shouted out, “Have you ever killed someone?”
Kent closed his eyes, but saw the face of another kid much older in years and experience
than the young faces staring up at him. The usual mantra rang through Kent’s head: I had no choice…it was him or me…
But that mantra hadn’t eased his guilt all those years ago when he’d exchanged gunfire with the gang member.
“Sergeant Terklecki?” the little boy who’d asked the question prodded. “Have you killed somebody?”
“Very rarely does an officer have to take a life in the line of duty.” Thank God. “And Lakewood is a very safe community.” Yet like any community, there was crime—more crime than the department would be able to handle if their budget got cut any more.
The principal, a Mary Poppins type with a squeaky high voice and perpetual smile, stepped up beside him. To save him? “We only have time for one more question for public information officer Sergeant Terlecki,” she said, “Then we have to get back to our rooms and collect our things, because the bell will ring soon.”
Almost done.
“So who has another question for our wonderful guest?” the principal asked. She pointed toward a little dark-haired boy whom Kent should have noticed earlier.
Color fled the kid’s face, leaving him pale, his eyes stark behind his thick-lensed glasses. The boy was smaller and frailer in appearance than the children sitting around him, and now he looked sick.
“Hey, Jason,” Kent said in greeting, recognizing Erin’s nephew even though the kid hadn’t had on his glasses the other night. “What’s your question, buddy?”
The boy’s schoolmates turned to him, obviously awed that Jason knew a police officer. Jason lifted his chin a bit, as if he was proud to be recognized, and bravely asked, “Do only bad people have to go to jail?”
Kent wanted to glance at Erin, to gauge her reaction to her nephew’s question, but for some reason he didn’t dare break eye contact with the kid. This question was important to Jason. So Kent answered him truthfully. “No. Not everyone in jail is a bad person.”
“Then why do they go to jail if they’re not bad?” another kid piped up.
Kent continued to hold Jason’s gaze. The boy hadn’t blinked, his dark eyes watchful as he waited for Kent’s answer.
“There are bad people in jail,” he clarified. Jason flinched. “But there are good people in jail, too. They just made a pretty bad mistake to wind up there.”
Or someone else had, Erin thought. Someone like him. Her brother, Jason’s father, was not a criminal. Kent had to have made a mistake.
The principal urged the kids to stand up and clap in appreciation for Kent coming to speak to them. The children didn’t just clap. They stomped and stampeded, rushing to where Kent stood at the front of the room. Tall as he was, they barely came to his waist, so he crouched to their level. One little girl wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him. He lifted her, but despite her slight weight, a grimace of pain distorted his handsome face. Erin winced herself, sympathizing with him.
She felt compelled to wade through the children to his side, but by the time she got there, Principal Andersen had already pried the little girl from his arms and shooed the kids from the gym.
Erin suddenly stood alone with Kent.
“Apparently I’m not the only one who asks you tough questions,” she remarked. Jason’s question had stunned her, leaving her frozen and helpless to do anything but listen to Kent’s reply and hope that his answer didn’t crush the sweet little boy.
As Kent turned to her, looking away from the children filing out, the grin left his face. “No, you’re not.”
She ignored the twinge of disappointment she felt that he didn’t bother smiling at her. She wanted to thank him for answering Jason the way he had, but then he might ask why the boy had asked such a question in the first place.
She cleared her throat and said, “I didn’t know you did school assemblies.”
He nodded. “Part of my job description.”
“That’s the only reason you’re here?” she asked, studying him through narrowed eyes.
“Yeah, it might not be my favorite part of the job, but it’s an important part,” he said. “Kids have to know they can trust police officers, that we’re here to help them.”
She would never be able to trust him. “You didn’t come to Maple Valley Elementary because you knew this was where Jason goes to school?”
“Why would you think I knew that?”
“Because you’ve been checking into my background,” she reminded him. She wasn’t comfortable that he had learned about her work in the Peace Corps—that he knew who she’d once been. “What you’re doing could be considered police harassment, Sergeant.”
“When you do it, it’s considered freedom of the press,” he said.
She couldn’t fight the smile from lifting her lips. “Of course.”
“So when are you asking your question?”
“When I can be sure you’ll answer me honestly.”
“You better not wait too long to figure that out,” he warned her. “I just might put an expiration date on that offer.”
“Sergeant Terlecki,” Principal Andersen called from the busy hallway. “I have some cards for you that the kids made to show their appreciation for your coming today.”
“That’s really nice,” Kent replied, walking away without so much as a backward glance.
“Jason’s waiting for you at the office,” Mrs. Andersen said to Erin.
She nodded and followed them out of the gym, listening to Mrs. Andersen fawn over Kent in nearly the same nauseating manner that Monica Fox had. At least the principal didn’t want to sleep with him, probably not even in her dreams. Erin doubted the perky administrator’s dreams ever went beyond a G rating.
If only Erin could say the same…
“Hey, Jase,” she greeted her nephew. She didn’t have to force a smile for him. “I’m so proud of you.” Knowing that the first grader sometimes carried some surprisingly heavy books home, she reached out to lift the backpack from his bony shoulders.
But Jason stepped away and shook his head. “I got it, Aunt E.” His skinny arms straining, he pushed through the heavy steel doors and stepped into the sunshine.
“You were so brave,” she praised him as they walked down the sidewalk to where she had parked the van at the curb.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t afraid, because Sarge is your friend.”
Obviously, Jason remembered only the part of Kent’s name that he’d managed to utter before Erin had interrupted him. She hadn’t wanted him to introduce himself as a police officer for fear of scaring the boy more than he’d already been.
“Ah…” She couldn’t deny the friendship and confuse him. She popped the lock and pushed open the sliding side door. “Yes, he is. You shouldn’t be afraid of him or any other officers.”
Had she told him that enough or had she been so caught up in her own bitterness and anger that she hadn’t helped her nephew overcome his fear? She closed her eyes, feeling a wave of shame.
The little boy drew in a shaky breath but denied his fear. “I’m not ’fraid of police officers,” he insisted.
“That’s good.” After getting him settled, she double-checked the seat belt and the booster chair he was required to use because of his small size. She’d promised her brother she would keep his son safe. She used to lie awake nights worrying that she’d fail them both.
She stepped back and bumped into a hard male body. A strong hand closed over her shoulder. “Easy there,” Kent cautioned, his breath warm in her ear and against her throat.
Now she lay awake nights thinking about Kent. She shivered and tried to ease away, but his grip tightened. He leaned in to peer inside the van.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, “that was a great question you asked me.”
“Hey, Aunt E.,” Jason said, drawing her attention back to him, “since Sarge is your friend, how come he never comes over for dinner?”
“Uh—uh…” she stammered, at a complete loss for words.
But Kent wasn’t. “Yes, Aunt E., how come you never have me ov
er for dinner?”
“Can you come tonight?” Jason asked.
He grinned. “I’m not busy tonight. And I am really hungry.”
“Me, too,” the little boy said with a big grin at his new idol. Then he turned to Erin. “Can he come over, Aunt E.?”
“Yes, can I?” Kent asked, his gray eyes twinkling.
Erin chewed the inside of her lip, swallowing the response she really wanted to make.
“P-please,” Jason beseeched her, his big eyes bright and hopeful behind his thick lenses.
Erin couldn’t crush that hope—especially not over Kent Terlecki. “Sure…”
“Guess who’s coming to dinner,” Kent said with a wicked smile. “I have to stop back at the department, but I’ll meet the two of you at home.”
At home. He’d said it as if her place was his home, too. And she didn’t correct him; she only watched as he walked to his police cruiser and slid behind the wheel. He was coming home…with them, as if they were a family.
Jason deserved a family to replace the one he’d lost, but Kent Terlecki could never be part of it.
Chapter Eight
Kent swiped his last chicken nugget through the puddle of ketchup on his plate. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten a chicken nugget, probably not since college.
“Do you want the rest of mine?” Jason generously offered, pushing his Sponge Bob plate with most of his untouched dinner toward Kent.
“No,” Erin answered for him. “You need to eat all your food, young man, if you’re going to grow up big and strong.”
Their table, shoved into a corner of the living room next to the galley kitchen, was so small that Kent’s knee rubbed against Erin’s. Sure, he could have moved a little closer to Jason, but he kind of liked rubbing up against her. Of course, his body tensed with every contact.
“He’s big and strong already,” Kent said.
Jason giggled and pushed his glasses up his nose. “No, I’m not. I’m the littlest one in my class.”
“So was I when I was your age,” Kent assured him.
Behind his lenses, Jason’s dark eyes goggled. “You were?”
