by Riker, Becky
“If I see her, I’ll let her know you stopped by,” Tag hoped the guy was smart enough to see the dismissal for what it was.
“Thanks,” Brandon gave Tag one more glance and left.
Tag went upstairs and knocked on Molly’s door.
She didn’t answer.
“It’s me, Molly. He’s gone.”
She opened the door, “Thanks.”
He leaned against the door frame, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I don’t know how he found me,” she led the way into her darkened living room. “I’m sure my parents didn’t give him my address.”
“Old boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Stupid choice, really. We dated for about a year – he was really sweet most of the time, but he would do things like cut off other drivers or throw things at the television when he got angry. After I saw him shove a guy at his office, I decided it was time to get out of the relationship.”
“He didn’t take it so well?”
“Actually, he took it fine at first. I told him I just wasn’t ready for a relationship, and he told me to think of him when I was ready.”
“Why’s he looking for you?”
She shrugged, “A few months after I broke up with him, he started coming by. He was a little more aggressive each time. So, I moved in with Josie until I found this place.”
“And this was how long ago?”
“Three years, I guess.”
He turned away, “Let me know if you need anything. I’m just a holler away.”
“You know what I could use?”
“What?” he stopped and looked back at her.
“An explanation,” she flipped on the light.
His brow furrowed.
“My sister was hanging out with you a couple days a week until a few weeks ago. Now she doesn’t talk about you, and she changes the subject every time I mention you.”
He blew out a breath of air, “She’s probably just busy.”
“She’s not. In fact, she has more free time than usual right now.”
“Maybe it’s her new boyfriend.”
Molly’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, “Boyfriend?”
“Dave somebody-or-another.”
“She’s not dating anybody,” Molly insisted.
“I met him myself.”
Molly shook her head, “She would tell me if she were dating someone. Besides, the guy she wants to date is unavailable.”
“He’s not now.”
She eyed him speculatively, “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure what the problem was before, but when I saw them, they seemed like they were pretty happy.”
“You’re imagining things, Tag. Where did she even meet this supposed boyfriend?”
“She’s known him for years,” he coughed up a laugh. “You probably know him too.”
“Dave?” her eyebrows drew together.
Tag didn’t respond because there was nothing more he could say. He didn’t want to describe the guy or tell Molly about all the details he had gathered from his brief meeting with them.
Finally, her face cleared in recognition, and her eyes widened, “Dave Howe?”
He wasn’t sure, “Maybe. He was a quarterback at your school.”
“Josie was with Dave?” she whispered.
“Yeah. He’s a pastor now, so I guess that’s good enough for your dad.”
“My dad?”
Tag wondered why she looked so shaken by the news, “Yeah – something about how he had to put God above football before he could have her.”
Molly snorted, “You have the wrong idea, Tag.”
For some reason, it just irritated him further when Molly contradicted him.
“I don’t think so. He told me he had been in love with the same girl for years, but she had rejected him. I was there,” he insisted, “and I saw them. She was not rejecting him this time.”
A myriad of emotions chased over Molly’s face, but Tag couldn’t discern any of them. She finally spoke up again.
“Tag, Dave and I dated for six months right after I started college. He proposed, but I thought we were too young. He proposed again after college, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a pastor’s wife.”
Tag told himself to breathe.
“Josie isn’t dating Dave, Tag. I can guarantee it.”
It was too much for his brain to process all at once. He spent the first two months of knowing Josie, trying to convince himself she was just a friend. About the time he began to think this girl was a little different – to think he was ready to settle down into a long-term relationship – he discovered she was dating Dave. Then he spent another month telling himself he was wrong about Josie – that she hadn’t been everything he had ever been looking for in a woman.
And now, “You mean she’s . . .”
“Single,” Molly agreed. “Unattached, available.”
He nodded, dazed, “I gotta go home.”
Molly followed him to the door, “There’s still the issue of your faith.”
He didn’t answer. He wasn’t blind to that obstacle, but it seemed so much less of a problem than another man.
It didn’t take him long to call Josie. She answered her phone a bit tersely, but he figured he deserved that much.
“Would you be willing to listen to an explanation for my behavior?”
She didn’t respond immediately, but Tag didn’t jump into the silence. His job required him to be patient, and he utilized that skill.
“Okay.”
“Over lunch?”
She was silent again, but it didn’t last as long this time.
“Fine.”
“You want to come over here? I could make something.”
“I’m not in the mood for mac and cheese,” she shot back.
Tag laughed, “You underestimate me. I can also heat up spaghetti from a can.”
“Gross.”
“How about Banana Leaf?”
“Okay. When?”
Tag looked at his watch, “Twenty minutes?”
“I can’t get there that fast. Make it forty.”
“Done.”
He looked in the mirror, considering whether or not he should shave all the stubble. He grimaced at the thought, but he figured desperate times called for desperate measures. He got out his razor.
“Look at you,” Josie was waiting at a table when he arrived. “All prettied up.”
He felt better than he had in weeks, just seeing her there. Her easy teasing prompted a grin from ear to ear.
“I figured if I was going to apologize, I’d better make it good.”
Josie laughed, “That’s nice, but now you look like a fifteen-year-old. I never realized what a baby face you have.”
He rubbed at his smooth chin, “Hence the stubble, I guess.”
She touched his face, “It’s nice.”
He captured her hand under his own to keep her palm pressed against his skin just a moment longer.
Josie’s smiled faltered, and he dropped her hand.
“I’m so sorry, Josie. I should have called you.”
She shook her head, “I have no reason to be upset – not really.”
He raised his eyebrows in question.
“It’s not as if we had some kind of agreement that we would call each other a certain number of times a week. If you were busy or not interested in meeting up with me. . .I don’t have any reason to be upset.”
As she spoke, her voice got softer, and she dropped her eyes to her plate.
“I wasn’t busy, Josie. I just didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me. I thought you were dating Dave.”
She looked up at him, eyes opened in a universal sign of shock, “Dave?”
“I figured he had finally convinced you to date him,” Tag wasn’t sure how to get through this without sounding like he was jealous.
“You thought I was dating Dave?” she looked almost disgusted by the thought. “Me. Date Dave.”
“You were talking like,” he began but then realized he couldn’t really explain it away. “I didn’t want to get in the way.”
She rolled her lips and nodded –disbelief evident on her face.
“I didn’t know,” he insisted, hoping he sounded sincere. “If I were dating a girl, I wouldn’t want another guy hanging around.”
“So, you just did the gentlemanly thing?” she picked up her menu.
He picked up his, “That’s right.”
They ordered.
“How’d you figure it out?” she obviously had no intention of dropping the subject.
“Molly.”
Josie leaned forward and slapped her palms down on the table, “Molly knows I met with Dave?”
“Sorry about that too,” he recognized now that hadn’t gone about the whole affair in the most intelligent manner.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“What?” he laughed, in spite of himself, “How was I supposed to know?”
She snorted, “By asking me, I guess.”
He tried a smile.
“Don’t even think you can charm your way out of this with that grin of yours.”
His eyebrows shot up, “This grin of mine? What grin is that?”
She shook her head, “You are a terrible tease, Thaddeus Madden, and you know it.”
He could even stand being called Thaddeus if she would just continue smiling at him. Tag wondered at his own thoughts and behavior. He had never been so interested in a woman that he bothered to apologize. In most cases, by the time he hadn’t spoken to a woman in a month, he had forgotten her name.
“What’s your middle name?” her question seemed apropos of nothing.
“Jacob.”
“That’s nice.”
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to tell my mom you approve.”
“How’s your mom doing these days?”
“Still insisting she doesn’t need any help,” he was glad for the change of subject. “I went up to her house to mow her yard, and she had already done it.”
“I thought her doctor said no yard work.”
“Yeah,” he leaned back so the waitress could put their food in front of them. “Well you go tell her. She told me her heart has carried her this far, and it will keep on ticking as long as God wants her on His green earth.”
“I suppose she has a point.”
Tag didn’t comment but waited for her to pray over their food before eating. He didn’t agree with her views on God and religion, but he certainly wasn’t going to criticize her for them. They were a part of who she was.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I can’t believe you had lunch with Dave and didn’t even tell me about it.”
Molly called three hours later. Josie had just parted ways with Tag and was walking into her apartment building.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I wasn’t sure how to introduce the subject.”
“How about ‘I went out to eat with your ex-boyfriend’?”
“Molly, he didn’t want me to tell you.”
“Why?” Molly sounded suspicious. “Was Tag right?”
“Right about what?”
“Are you dating Dave?”
Josie unlocked her door and went into her apartment, “That’s insane.”
“Is it?” Molly wasn’t being antagonistic. She really wanted to know.
“He’s still in love with you, Mol. I don’t think that’s ever going to change.”
“So, why did he call you?”
“He wanted to check up on you.”
Molly sniffed, “He could have called me and asked me himself.”
“He told you he was waiting for you to call him.”
Molly didn’t answer.
Josie threw her bag on the couch and went to check her AC, “I could give you his number.”
“Has it changed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then I have it.”
Josie didn’t have any more advice to offer to her sister. Molly was waiting for something, but Josie had no idea what it was. Poor Dave would just have to wait a little longer.
She snagged a bottle of water from the fridge and went to change into the shorts she had on earlier. It was time for her pilates class, and she didn’t want to have to run there in the heels and jeans that she had worn to meet Tag. He had probably not noticed the time she took with her appearance, but she hadn’t wanted to see him for the first time in a month looking like a scrub.
Her father called her later that evening.
“I hear you went out with Tag again.”
“Wow,” she pulled her spinach salad from the fridge. “There are no secrets in this family, and,” she went on quickly, “it was not a date. I went out for lunch with him because we hadn’t seen each other for a month.”
“How do you discern between dating and just getting together with a guy once or twice a week.”
“Dad,” she did not want to defend her friendship with Tag, “we’re not dating.”
“Your sister says he’s in love with you.”
“Did he tell her that? Because he’s never even hinted at it to me. I hang out with him, sometimes with his friends, sometimes with mine. Sometimes it’s just the two of us. He’s never kissed me, he’s never put his arm around me or held my hand. We are not dating.”
Her father sighed, “Guard your heart, Josephine. No matter what name you put on this relationship or what the outward manifestations are, your heart is involved with a man who is refusing salvation.”
She hung up and sat down to supper in a considerably less pleasant state than she had been before her father’s call.
It didn’t take long for Tag and Josie to fall into old habits. They caught up with each other by phone at the end of the day. The occasionally met for a meal or to go for a run. They did not call it dating, and neither of them made any move to change the relationship from friendship to a more romantic one.
Josie could not get her dad’s words and concerns from her head, though. She wasn’t sure what Tag’s feelings were on the subject, but she knew her father was right on some level. She was not in love with Tag, but she did not like the idea of him dating anyone else. She would have denied it with all her strength, but Josie considered him hers.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tag was happily oblivious to Josie’s struggles. He didn’t mind that she wouldn’t go anywhere with him on Sunday mornings; he understood her need to go to her church on Wednesday evenings. Once he even went to a volleyball game that Josie and Molly’s church was hosting. He was pleased that he and she could be such good friends despite their religious differences.
On occasion, he craved the dating life, but he wasn’t going to jeopardize what he had with Josie for a fling with someone else. It was a little surprising to him, considering how much time that had occupied before Josie. He chose not to dwell on it, however.
“Someone is sure chipper today,” Harry Jacobson leaned up against the lockers and watched Tag change into his uniform.
“It’s a beautiful morning.”
“It’s only seven thirty, and it’s already eighty degrees,” Jacobson noted, “but if sticky heat is your thing, who am I to argue.”
Tag closed his shirt and slammed his locker shut, “You’ll be wishing for these days in February.”
“Well, I’m wishing for some of those February days here in August, I’m telling you.”
Tag and Harry went out to the front desk to look at their assignments for the day.
“Hello, Officer Madden,” Dr. Hanson passed them in the hall. “Officer Jacobson.”
Tag moved so his partner stood between the doctor and himself, “Dr. Hanson.”
She smiled, “You can call me Gail now that I am no longer evaluating you.”
Harry glanced at Tag’s face, “That may not be a good idea, Dr. Hanson. You never know when Tag may need more . . .evaluation.”
The shrink’s smile tightened, “I’m sure Tag can keep
out of trouble.”
Tag shook his head, “I doubt it.”
Harry pointed toward the front desk, “We should go look at those things.”
Tag nodded at Hanson, silently thanking his partner for getting him away from the woman.
Harry leaned toward him as they leaned on the counter, “You owe me one.”
The alarm went off as the words left Harry’s mouth. Tag smacked his partner on the back as he ran to put his gear on.
“I’ll repay by saving your butt out there today.”
Harry followed close behind, “As if that’s whose butt usually needs saving.”
The team was out for a hostage situation. The young man was holding seventeen college kids in the school’s cafeteria. The team managed to get him to release the two kids who were injured by the subject’s initial shots, but the kid locked up after that. He wanted the school to change his grades to keep him from flunking out.
“What do you suppose he plans to do with the good grades once he gets what he wants?” Jeremy kept an eye on the guy through the scope.
Tag didn’t even look away from the subject’s head, “Wanted to go to jail with a clean academic record, I guess.”
Lowell’s voice came through their earpieces, “You guys have a shot?”
“Affirmative. Madden has the shot,” Tag answered.
“Affirmative. Granger has the shot, sir.”
“Be ready.”
Jeremy and Tag watched and listened as their commander continued negotiation attempts. Lowell had to be raw by this time. He had been talking to the subject – Brian Rudolph – since nine o’clock a.m. It was now past three.
“How are you doing, Brian?” Lowell still stood behind a pillar. “You getting hungry?”
“Yeah,” Brian glanced around. “I’m kinda hungry. You’d think I’d be able to get some food in here, but the only stuff they’ve got is the condiments. And something that burned when all the kitchen people ran out.”
Lowell chuckled, “Yeah. I can smell that.”
“Are they gonna change my grades?”
“They already did, Brian. Remember? You saw it on that girl’s laptop.”
“Yeah, but are they going to change it back as soon as I leave here?”
“I’m not really sure, Brian,” he glanced back at the dean of students. “You want me to ask?”
“Yeah. Could you do that?”
