The sorts of silly issues that nearly brought people to blows astounded to him. Not that he could be self-righteous when it came to fighting, he realized bitterly. And it wasn’t just this situation with Leroy, either. He was his father’s son, and his dad had been disciplined for excessive use of force twice—the two times he was caught. There had probably been other infractions like that, but he hadn’t been reported.
Bryce was embarrassed about his father’s track record, but he also understood it, too. No one knew what it was like to walk into a bar brawl with nothing but a billy club and bulletproof vest—that he intended to use, at least. A gun was a very last resort. A cop was a target, and any drunk biker that came at him wasn’t playing by the same rules. No one called him “sir.” No one politely ordered him to back down. No one was angling to subdue him without using any more force than necessary. They wanted to beat him to a pulp, get a knife under the vest or pull a gun. And he was supposed to face that with calm and a determination to respect the perpetrator’s dignity? No one understood just how hard this job was, except someone who did it—like his father.
So Bryce could actually sympathize with his father on that point—not that he excused it. The times his father was brought up on charges for excessive force had been when he’d gotten a kick in after the perp was already subdued. That kind of thing was tempting when the perp had bitten you through your uniform and left bloody teeth marks on your arm, or had come at you with a dirty needle—the kind of needle that could give you life-altering diseases with just one jab. It was easy to take that personally, but he struggled to keep a professional outlook. Excessive force wasn’t okay, no matter how angry he got.
So far—on the job, at least—Bryce had walked that line, and he hadn’t crossed it. That was God’s intervention, because if he hadn’t been able to walk into bar brawls knowing that God was at his side, listening to that whisper in his heart, he knew he’d have gone the way of his father. It was the path of least resistance. God’s way used a whole lot more self-control.
He sighed, raking a hand through his hair as he eased to a stop at an intersection. This town was giving him more time to think than he liked. It was just him and that ridiculous minivan, cruising down these boring streets. Four stoplights, two entrances to the highway, and a whole lot of nothing in between. Welcome to Comfort Creek.
A woman glanced at the van and stepped out to cross the road. She looked familiar—so familiar that it gave him a jolt—but upon closer inspection, she wasn’t who he thought she was. Just another resident of this town...
His heart hammered in his throat, and he heaved a sigh. She looked a lot like a girl he’d known in high school. No one special to him. In fact, she’d been a year younger and had attended a party that he’d dropped in on. He’d been in a lot of trouble back then, making stupid choices, going to parties, drinking. She’d been young and defiant, and one of the older guys had zeroed in on her.
The woman finished crossing the road and continued down the street without a backward glance, but the memories she’d sparked were still close to the surface. He didn’t like to think about that night—the night a girl was nearly assaulted and he’d stepped in to stop it. Except he hadn’t been a cop then; he’d been a seventeen-year-old kid. And he hadn’t had any training on walking that line...
Bryce eased the vehicle forward and crawled down the street toward the downtown core once more. He scanned the shade-dappled yards that he passed. Perfect peace and quiet. There weren’t even any kids on this street...a couple of lazy dogs in the shade that looked up at him but didn’t even bother to bark, the ripple of an American flag from a staff in a front yard.
He hoped the girl had gone on to live a life like this one, in a town quiet and tranquil. It would make him feel better to know that, because he’d done it for her—a girl he barely knew. The boy who hadn’t been able to take no for an answer had spent a couple of days in the hospital with three broken ribs and a dislocated jaw, and Bryce had been picked up by the cops for assault. He could still remember the blood on his knuckles.
That was one night his father decided to do a bit of parenting and sat him down for a talk. His dad managed to get the charges dropped—had a heart-to-heart with the father of the guy Bryce had pummeled—and then sat down with Bryce for the conversation that would forever alter the trajectory of his life.
“Here’s the thing, Bryce,” his dad said seriously. “You’re just like me, so I get it. There’s always a reason. But you’ve got to be careful. I got you off this time, but next time, I might not be able to, and that would have been criminal charges. You’re old enough that they could have bumped it to adult court.”
“But he was about to—”
“I don’t care.” His father heaved a sigh. “Look—I got you off. Let’s just let this go.”
And that was when Bryce decided to ask a few questions of his own about why his dad had been absent for so long. His father told him that he wasn’t father material, and that there was no helping it. But there was more to the conversation than Bryce had told Lily...
“Bryce, you’re old enough to understand this now,” his father had told him. “You’re exactly like me, so you’d better take this seriously. You have my temper. You have my weaknesses. So be careful.”
“I’m not like you,” Bryce had snapped. “You left. I’ve taken care of Mom myself.”
“Your mom kicked me out.”
Bryce could still remember listening to his own heartbeat inside his head as those words sank in. “That’s not true.”
But all of his mother’s words came flooding back...all of the times she’d shouted at him in sheer frustration: You’re just like your father!
He’d assumed it was because she was afraid that he’d leave, too, that he’d abandon her. But maybe it was deeper than that...maybe he was just like his dad, and she could see the writing on the wall. Maybe it took all the self-control she had to not kick him out, too. Maybe she wasn’t hoping he’d stay.
That day had changed everything for Bryce. That was the day he’d grown up.
Bryce looked down at his knuckles on the steering wheel and sighed. These hands were capable of evil, and he hated that. He hated that when he was faced with a split-second decision, he’d landed on the side of violence. He’d told himself that he’d never do that again—this was a onetime mistake. But when nagged and needled by Leroy, he’d snapped. It wasn’t who he wanted to be, but it did show him who he was: his father’s son.
He took a left onto Main Street, easing past the now-familiar stores. The silver lining to the whole debacle had been that a teenage girl had gone home safe—shaken and scared, but safe. He’d been protecting her, but the Camden in him had been too strong.
Years later, Bryce had found some solidarity with the apostle Paul. Some men weren’t meant for family life, and Paul made that okay. Bryce had hoped to get married one day, but what woman wanted a broken cop who wouldn’t have kids? He thought Kelly might be his saving grace, but when it came down to the line, she’d wisely walked away. And he hadn’t blamed her.
Bryce glanced at his watch. His shift was almost over. He’d told Lily that he’d be back for dinner, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to face her right now. Maybe it was better to grab a burger and keep his distance. But if he wasn’t going to eat the dinner Lily was preparing, he’d better at least give her some warning. Plus there was a minivan backseat filled with zucchini from an old woman’s front garden. He pulled to the side of the road in front of the hardware store and dialed his cell phone.
“Hello?” Lily sounded breathless, and in the background, Emily’s cry reverberated.
“Hi, it’s Bryce.” He pulled the phone away from his ear as Emily’s cry got louder. “Everything okay?”
“Uh—” There was a clatter, a thump, Lily’s voice crooning to the baby, and then she said, “Sorry, dropped the phone. How are you?”
“Better than you, by the sounds of it,” he quipped. “What’s going on over there?”
“I need a hand with something, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Sure,” he said. “What do you need?”
“Another pacifier. I dropped Emily’s in the garbage disposal by accident, and she is just furious about it. Can you pick one up for me and bring it by?”
He could hear the wince in her voice, and Emily’s cry hadn’t lessened in the least. He had a feeling she’d forgotten about dinner, which was just as well. But he couldn’t leave her a lurch like that.
“No problem. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He had to raise his voice for Lily to hear him, and a couple coming out of the hardware store looked over at him in curiosity.
“Wait, what did you call about?” she asked.
He’d called to bail out on dinner, to excuse himself and frankly, just to hear her voice.
“It’s nothing. I’ll see you soon.”
He hung up his phone and nodded to the couple, who were still watching him. He pulled a U-turn, then signaled a turn south on Sycamore Drive. That was where the Comfort Creek Drug Mart was located, and it was his best guess as to where he’d find baby paraphernalia.
How hard could it be to buy a pacifier?
* * *
Lily deposited the phone on the kitchen counter. Reinforcements would be here soon... Was she really able to handle a baby on her own? She’d been toying with the thought of keeping Emily, but she couldn’t help but wonder if she was being naive.
Emily was propped up on Lily’s shoulder, her crying less insistent now, and it looked like the infant might have actually cried herself out.
“It’s not so terrible, sweetheart,” she said softly, patting Emily’s back. “I’m getting you a new one, I promise.”
And yet she had to wonder how much babies this tiny understood about the world around them. Did she remember her mother still in some part of her little heart? Was she confused about the changes, the different people holding her and feeding her? Did it ever get to be just too much to handle so that she cried and cried? It wouldn’t be the last time in Emily’s life that she felt like she couldn’t handle any more—that was life—but if she could be sheltered from the brunt of it...
Father, protect this little girl, she prayed silently as she rocked the baby back and forth, her whimpers slowly subsiding. Comfort her where I can’t...
Emily needed a mother—a family. She needed someone who would care for her for the rest of her life, who be committed to her welfare. She didn’t need the child welfare system, she needed an honest-to-goodness family, and there was only one whom Lily trusted to provide that.
When Lily was a little girl before her father passed away, her mother used to sit on the side of her bed and sing her a good-night song every night. It was always the same song, just a simple Sunday school tune, but it had comforted Lily like nothing else. When she got older, she still sang that song to herself because it reminded her of simpler times, and it pointed her to the father who would never die on her or leave her scrambling to deal with life without Him.
So as she rocked Emily, Lily hummed that tune, and the longer she hummed, the calmer Emily became until those teary eyes began to droop, wet lashes brushing against plump cheeks.
“I love you, little one,” Lily whispered, and her heart ached with the weight of that love. Grief was the price one paid for having loved, and she would pay dearly for having fallen for this little girl, because someone else would come and take her away and Lily would have to let go.
Footsteps clunked up the outside steps, and then the front door opened, and she glanced up to see Bryce look inside uncertainly.
“Is she sleeping?” he asked quietly.
“Just dropped off.” She gestured him to come in by tipping her head to the side. “But the minute she wakes up, I’m going to need that pacifier, so I really appreciate this.”
Bryce stepped inside, a plastic bag in one hand, and it looked a little full for the item she’d requested. He held up the bag with a small smile.
“I got every single kind they had.”
Lily laughed softly. “How many kinds did they have?”
“Eight.”
He headed down the hall toward the kitchen, and she followed behind him. Emily heaved a shaky sigh in her sleep as if her sadness had followed her. If a pacifier would bring this baby comfort, then Emily would have one. By the looks of it, she’d have eight.
Bryce dumped the pacifiers out onto the kitchen table, and she chuckled as she saw the selection. There were some for newborns, for toddlers, and even a package of bottle nipples.
“Those aren’t pacifiers,” she said with a soft laugh.
“Don’t care,” he said. “I got everything that even looked like one.”
This was the first time she’d seen Bryce look out of his element. From the moment she’d set eyes on him, he always seemed so cool and collected, but standing there with an empty plastic bag in one hand and a selection of pacifiers and pacifier approximations in front of him on the kitchen table, he was endearingly awkward.
“That pink one—” she said, nodding toward one package. “That looks about right. We’ll have to boil it. You had no idea what you were looking for, did you?” She chuckled.
“Not a clue. I’m just glad you didn’t send me for something harder, like diapers or something.” He spoke quietly so as not to disturb the baby.
“You’re her hero,” Lily said, looking down into Emily’s sleeping face. “At least you will be once she wakes up. I wonder if I can get her into the bassinet.”
It took a couple of tries, but Lily laid Emily in the bassinet at last and pulled the receiving blanket over her bare legs. She slowly straightened.
“There...” She crossed the room again and stood next to Bryce by the counter, her gaze moving out the kitchen window toward her cottage.
“You look tired,” Bryce said.
“That was about two hours of solid crying,” Lily said with a shake of her head. “Poor thing, but there was no way I was rooting a pacifier out of the garbage disposal.”
“Good call.”
When she looked up, she saw his blue eyes fixed on her in a way that made her feel warmer because of his presence. She’d missed him today—something she’d blamed on the fussy baby and Bryce’s gifted touch with Emily—but if there was more to her feelings, she didn’t want to explore them. Not with Bryce standing here and looking at her like that. She never seemed to think straight with him looking at her.
“So how was your day?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s right.” Bryce’s arm was close to hers—so close that she could have leaned into him, but she didn’t. “I bought a lot of zucchini.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Long story, but it ends with me personally owning more zucchini than I know what to do with. So I was wondering if you wanted them.”
Lily shrugged. “Sure. I could make some deep-fried zucchini spears. Those tend to be a crowd-pleaser. And I’m sure my mom could find some use for them, too.”
“Great.” He gave a curt nod. “That takes care of that.”
Yet despite their casual back-and-forth, they still stood inches away from each other. It was to stay quiet enough to let the baby sleep, she told herself, but that didn’t explain the way her stomach flipped when he looked at her.
“So...do you want to tell me more about how exactly you came across this haul of zucchini?” she asked.
“I bought them from Beatrice Nubbles. She’s on a fixed income and she can’t enter her zucchini into the organic vegetable contest this year since hers aren’t exactly organic anymore, and I got the feeling she needed the prize money.”
So he’d bought Mrs. Nubbles’s zucchini.
.. It was a surprisingly sweet thing to do, and she found herself smiling up at him.
“You are a lot more sensitive than you let on, you know,” she said.
“You think?” He raised an eyebrow and caught her eye with a teasing smile. “Because I’m really not. What you see is what you get. I’m a lout.”
Why did he do that? It was more than deflecting a compliment; it was pushing away any good opinion anyone had of him. Did he not believe it of himself, or was he just trying to keep her at a distance? She was his hostess, and she needed to act like it. She straightened her spine and took a step away from Bryce. He seemed to notice her retreat, because his expression turned curious, but he didn’t move. She was out of control again—she cast about for something to say that would bring things back to a professional standing.
“With the weekend approaching,” she said, “I thought I should tell you that Sunday mornings I’m in church. But I can leave a cold breakfast in the fridge for you. I hope that isn’t an inconvenience.”
He shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll probably be in church, too. I’ve got to bring my truck in for an oil change afterward, but I don’t like missing the service.”
“Would you like to come to our church?”
As soon as the words came out, she knew she’d crossed yet another line, and heat rose in her cheeks. Appropriate reserve would have been giving him the addresses of the three churches and allowing him the privacy to choose his own place of worship, yet here she was inviting him along. However, she’d also sent him shopping for pacifiers, so perhaps she’d already galloped so far over those lines that there was no return.
“I’d like that.” His voice was deep and quiet.
The foot and a half between them felt like a gulf with those blue eyes and the direct stare. He was tall and strong, and he made her feel flustered. But this was her fault. She was the one who set the tone for her establishment, and she’d done a poor job of maintaining a proper decorum.
“Bryce, I want to apologize. I’m not being as professional as I should.”
Deputy Daddy Page 8
