Once a Hero

by Lisa Childs

  “I could get a PPO,” he warned her.

  “A personal protection order?” She shrugged. “You could, but then you’re going to have to go down to the courthouse and swear out a complaint. You’ll miss your surgery.”

  “Maybe I should,” he said.

  “You would really get a PPO against me?” She had known he was stubborn, but this was extreme, even for him.

  He shook his head and clarified, “Maybe I should change my mind about having the surgery.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “For weeks you’ve been planning to have this. You have all your duties covered at the department. You can’t back out now.”

  “I can back out up until the minute they put me under,” he said. “Do you want me to?”

  Her stomach knotted with nerves and dread as she thought of the risk he was taking. “No. I know how much you hate being desked. If you’re doing this to get back in the field, I understand and I support you.”

  “I don’t want to go back in the field.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I just realized a little while ago that I actually like my job,” he admitted, as if confessing a dirty secret. “And I’m good at it.”

  “Very good,” she agreed.

  “Even if I come through this surgery fine,” he said, “I’m going to stay on as the department’s public information officer.”

  “Then why are you having the surgery?” she asked him. “Because of the pain?”

  “I can live with that,” he said, dismissing the pain even though she suspected it was quite severe. “I’ve been living with it the past few years.”

  “Then why would you put yourself through this…” her voice cracked with emotion and fear “…through this uncertainty?”

  “There’s a risk with any surgery,” he said, “but there’s a risk to leaving the bullet in, too. My future’s uncertain, and I didn’t want to live with that. I couldn’t ask you to live with that.”

  “What?”

  “I decided to have the surgery because of you, Erin,” he confessed, “so that I’d know what I could offer you and Jason.”

  “But you kept pushing me away,” she said, tears trailing down her face.

  He reached out, rubbing his thumb across her cheek, wiping them away. “I needed to know how I was going to come through the surgery. If I did fine, I was going to try to win you back.”

  “You don’t have to win back what you never lost,” she said. “You never lost me, and you never will.”

  “But if I’m paralyzed—”

  She pressed her fingers across his lips. “You won’t be. You’re going to come through this fine. You have to believe that.”

  He kissed her fingers and pulled her hand from his mouth. “I’m a cop,” he said. “I’m a realist.”

  “And I’m an idealist. I’ll give you balance.” She sniffed back the threat of more tears. “And I’ll give you my heart. Please take it this time.”

  “I do love you, Erin.”

  Then the orderly was in the doorway, clearing his throat. “It’s time to take you to the O.R., Sergeant Terlecki.”

  Erin wanted to ask for a few more minutes, but didn’t want to keep him from something he should have had done three years ago. So she stood back and watched as he was wheeled away.

  “They took him for surgery,” she said when she joined his police family in the waiting room. Not long ago she would have walked into a room with these people and been greeted with nothing but hostility. Now they rallied around her with smiles and pats on the back.

  “He’ll be fine,” Billy assured her—and probably himself. “He’s a tough son of a bitch….”

  “Are you okay, honey?” Marla Halliday asked, sliding an arm around Erin’s shoulders.

  She could only shake her head. “I didn’t get a chance to tell him I loved him.” She’d wanted to say the words again. To make sure he knew she meant them, then and now. No matter what happened.

  “He knows,” Chief Archer assured her, clutching her last column in his hand. “We all know.”

  “CAN YOU FEEL THAT?” Dr. Maurer asked as he ran something like a roll of spikes across the sole of Kent’s foot.

  “Yeah,” he said, moving his toes. “I can feel everything.” Especially the hand holding his. Erin squeezed his fingers, offering her unwavering support.

  “So, Doc?” he asked, but he studied her face rather than the surgeon’s. “What do you think? Will I be able to dance pretty soon?”

  “Dance?” the doctor and Erin both asked.

  “I didn’t know you were a dancer,” she murmured. Doubt flashed in her eyes.

  He squeezed her fingers reassuringly. He had so much to make up to her, and he hoped he had the rest of their lives to do it in. “Not usually. But a man has to dance at his own wedding.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Maurer agreed with a chuckle. “Or you would have an unhappy bride.”

  Erin gasped. “Bride…?”

  Kent focused on the doctor. “So will I?” He held his breath, waiting for the reply—waiting for the certainty that he had lived without for the past three years.

  The surgeon nodded. “Oh, yeah, and as determined as you seem to be, I think you could even schedule that dance within the next six to eight weeks.”

  “What do you think?” Kent asked Erin, after the specialist left them.

  “About what?” She stood beside his bed, exactly where she’d been when he’d first opened his eyes after the anesthesic wore off. She hadn’t left his side, too loyal to leave him when he’d needed her, even though he’d been too stubborn or too stupid to admit it. He was ready to admit it now.

  Emotion choked him, making his voice raspy, “I was asking about the wedding.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, as if she had no idea what he was talking about. “What wedding?”

  “Ours.”

  Her heart lurched as it had when he’d first mentioned it, but she pushed aside the hope and happiness for the moment. “Ours?”

  His mouth curved in a slight smile. “You know—you and me. I want to marry you, Erin Powell.”

  “What does marriage mean to you, Kent?” She had to know.

  “Love,” he said, as if that was all that mattered. “I love you. And I’m pretty sure you love me.”

  “I do.” She sighed. “But that’s not enough. I want more.”

  “Whatever you want, I’ll find a way to get it for you.”

  She smiled and blinked back tears at his earnestness. “I know. I know what you did for Mitchell. That you worked a deal for him.”

  “He’s going to have to serve some more time.”

  “But he’ll get out before the end of his sentence. And more importantly, you got him to do the right thing and get some other criminals off the street. You made him a hero again. You did that for me.”

  “And Jason.”

  While she’d been thrilled about her brother, she was more grateful to learn that Mitchell wasn’t going to take Jason away from her—he’d already assured her of that. The little boy would legally become her son, very soon.

  Kent’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Are you mad about that?”

  “I’m mad that you didn’t tell me about Mitchell. Or about the surgery.” Her breath caught. “I can’t handle any more secrets, or people keeping things from me to protect me.”

  “Or themselves,” he said, recalling her accusation.

  “I want the truth from now on.”

  “I would never lie to you.”

  “I know that,” she said, “but I want more.”

  “No more secrets. I will never keep anything from you again, Erin.” He nodded with sudden understanding. “And I know what marriage means—sharing. Everything.”

  She smiled. “That’s what it means to me, too.”

  “So will you marry me, Erin Powell? Will you and Jason become my family?”

  “Yes!” a young voice shouted, as the little boy ran into the room.

  “I
’m sorry,” Jason’s grandmother said, her hair mussed as she hurried in after her grandson. “We didn’t mean to intrude.”

  Erin smiled at her mother and then at her father, who walked in behind her. “I’m glad you’re all here,” she said. “Mom, you’ve already met Kent, but Dad, this is Sergeant Kent Terlecki.”

  Kent held out a hand to her father. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  Her father shook it in both of his and swallowed hard. He was a man who respected hard work and integrity. “It’s an honor, son.”

  It was right that her whole family—or at least most of her family—was there when she accepted the proposal of their newest member. Because of Kent, Mitchell would join them again, sooner than they’d expected.

  Jason climbed into the bed with Kent and threw an arm across him in an exuberant hug. Erin winced and watched for Kent’s grimace, but it never came. His only expression was one of love as he hugged her nephew back. “Hey, little buddy.”

  Kent gazed at Erin over the boy’s head. “You haven’t answered me yet,” he stated.

  “Yes!”

  AFTER A ROUND OF congratulations, her parents took Jason down to the cafeteria. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” Erin admitted.

  “No more secrets,” Kent reminded her.

  “No more,” she agreed. “Your parents are on their way to Lakewood.”

  He blinked as if confused, but his eyes were bright with hope. “My parents?”

  “I sent them the most recent edition of the Lakewood Chronicle.”

  “The one with your column about me?”

  She nodded. “They called the chief. They’re so sorry for shutting you out, Kent.”

  He expelled a ragged sigh. “I shut them out, too. Like I tried to shut you out, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  “I knew you’d come around,” she said as she took Jason’s place, crawling into bed to lie beside him.

  He wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders. “You knew I’d propose?”

  “Yes, but it took you long enough to ask me,” she admonished.

  Her fiancé grinned. “I had to get over that one little obstacle.”

  “The surgery?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, then chuckled. “Your hating my guts.”

  “Oh, that…” She couldn’t remember now not loving him.

  “Yeah, that.” He brushed a kiss across her mouth.

  “Down, boy.” She pulled away as he deepened the kiss. “We don’t want to rush your recovery.”

  “You’re just worried that your parents will walk in on something else when they bring Jason back up,” he teased. “They seem to be getting used to being grandparents.”

  She nodded with pride. Even her father, who’d been so disapproving of Mitchell’s life choices, had fallen for the little boy. “Yes.”

  “Then they won’t mind when we have kids.”

  “You have plans?” she asked.

  Kent’s gray eyes glowed with happiness. “For the past three years I didn’t dare make plans because I didn’t know what kind of future I’d have.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I know that it’ll be happy.”

  “Because the bullet’s gone?”

  He shook his head. “Because you’re in my life. No matter what happens, we’ll deal with it together.”

  That last niggling doubt, that he might push her away again if something bad happened, disappeared. She sighed and rested her cheek against his chest. “You’re my hero.”

  “Not anymore,” he scoffed.

  “Once a hero…” Always her hero.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3293-2

  ONCE A HERO

  Copyright © 2009 by Lisa Childs-Theeuwes.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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