Sherry Lewis - Count on a Cop

by Her Secret Family

  As the pain medication began to cloud her mind and heat curled slowly through her, she gave up even trying to think and pressed her face against his hand. It felt so good to sit with him like this, and somewhere beneath the pleasant haze of the medication, she realized that she wanted much more of this.

  “How’s the pain? Is the pill starting to take effect?”

  “I think so. I don’t feel anything at the moment.”

  “Is it going to make you loopy?”

  She laughed. “Most likely.”

  “Want me to help you into bed?”

  She looked into his eyes, too far gone to worry about the secrets hidden behind them. “You must have read my mind.”

  She saw him swallow, saw the desire in his face, and felt almost giddy when she realized she was responsible for it. He leaned close again and covered her mouth with his, brushing her lips lightly with his tongue until she opened her mouth and invited him in. He put his arms around her slowly, careful not to jostle her and treating her with such exquisite care, she felt a lump form in her throat.

  “Much as I’d like that,” he whispered when they came up for air, “I’m not the kind of guy who takes advantage of a woman who’s higher than a kite.”

  “I’m not that high,” she protested.

  He pulled away and helped her to her feet. “No. Not now.”

  He helped her down the hall with a gentleness that almost took away the sting of his rejection. “I’m going to take your keys so I can lock up behind me,” he said as he sat her on the foot of the bed. “I’ll bring them back on my way to work in the morning.”

  “Isn’t Debra still suspended from school?” Her voice sounded thick and slurred, like someone about to go down for the count.

  Mason nodded and pulled back the covers on her bed. “I took today off work, but the crew ran into trouble again pulling out the sprinkling system. I’m going to have to be there for at least half the day tomorrow.”

  “What about Debra?”

  “I’m just going to have to take her with me.”

  “Oh, but you can’t do that. She’ll be miserable.”

  “She’s been suspended from school.” Mason picked up her pillow and fluffed it. “She might have to suffer just a little.”

  Jolene pulled in a breath, trying to catch the muted spice scent he wore. She hoped her pillow smelled like him now. “I’m not saying that I think she should…” the word escaped her. Her head felt light, almost as if it were no longer attached to her body. She lay across the foot of the bed, her good arm under her head, and tried to focus on what she wanted to tell him. “I was just thinking that since I’m home and she’s home, and you need to work…That’s all I was saying.”

  She didn’t hear him moving, but suddenly he was standing over her, smiling as if something funny had happened. “You’re offering to watch Debra while I work?”

  “What’s the matter, don’t you trust me?”

  He bent and slid one arm under her shoulders. “I can’t ask you to do that. It’s going above and beyond.”

  “But you’re my friend.” Her eyes felt heavy, and she had the strong urge to close them, but she didn’t want to fall asleep. She might miss something. “I can do it. Really I can. We can talk about drugs and stuff. Just set my alarm. Five o’clock, okay?”

  She heard him laugh—at least she thought she did. She couldn’t be sure because she was suddenly standing beside him with her head on his shoulder. Or maybe she was leaning on him. All she could hear was the steady beat of his heart. Steady. That described Mason, all right. Rock solid, even if he did have a few issues. It would be so easy to fall in love with him.

  He murmured something, but she was too far gone to know what it was. She thought he helped her lie down, even thought he pulled the covers up over her. She felt his mouth on hers again, but she wasn’t sure if that was real or a dream. She could feel his breath on her cheek, warm and comforting, and his voice, low and sexy in her ear. “It would be easy to fall in love with you, too. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  NOT AT ALL SURE which parts of last night had been real and which had been a dream, Jolene dragged herself out of bed when her alarm went off at five the next morning. By six, she was cleaned up and dressed. She didn’t look perky, but at least she didn’t look as though she’d been rolled in soy sauce and chicken lo mein.

  Now that she was conscious and thinking clearly—sort of—she wondered what she’d been thinking. No food had magically appeared in her cupboards overnight. No milk, no fruit, no veggies. No cereal. Even her mother would be hard-pressed to pull a decent meal out of this kitchen, but dragging Debra down to Burger King for breakfast wasn’t the answer.

  At the top of her to-do list today was a trip to the grocery store. And then what? For the first time in weeks, she had the urge to call her mother. Margaret would know what to tell her. She’d have some simple recipe for muffins or some terrific egg thing that even Jolene could throw together. But what kind of person would that make her, calling to beg for help with a recipe after barely speaking to her mother for nearly a month? She couldn’t do that, so she did the next best thing and dug through cupboards and the last few unpacked boxes to unearth the cookbook her mother gave her for Christmas a few years back.

  She knew next to nothing about kids. Kids who weren’t riding in the back of a police car. Except that was exactly how she’d met Debra.

  The doorbell rang at exactly six-fifteen. Rock-solid, steady Mason, showing up right on time…with Debra.

  Smiling as if she weren’t in a panic, Jolene invited them both inside. Mason, tall, dark, freshly showered, incredibly handsome. Debra, wearing baggy pants and an oversize hooded sweatshirt. Strangely enough, her curiosity actually seemed stronger this morning than her determination to look bored and unhappy.

  Before Jolene could even blink, Mason returned her keys, promised to call later and left, pleading the time. Debra slumped into the living room on a pair of Fila shoes—laced, not tied—and tossed a thick notebook and a couple of pens onto the coffee table. Jolene hoped that meant she’d brought schoolwork.

  Debra took a long look around. “So this is your apartment?”

  “It is.” Jolene closed the door behind them. “And you’re staying here with me today?”

  Debra nodded, but her chin stuck out in that way it did when she felt challenged. “Dad said you asked.”

  “I did,” Jolene said quickly. “You might be sorry, though. There’s not much to do.”

  “That’s okay. I’d rather stare at the walls than dig holes and plant flowers all day.”

  “First rule,” Jolene said. “No trashing your dad. If that’s what you plan to do, maybe you’d better go dig holes and plant flowers instead. I’m not going to listen to it.”

  “You’re on his side?”

  “I’m not on any side,” Jolene said, heading for the coffeemaker. “And you know what? There shouldn’t be a side to take.”

  Debra’s shoes made a slop-slop noise on the linoleum as she trailed after her. “You like my dad, don’t you?”

  Jolene wasn’t sure what to say to that. To begin with she didn’t know what she and Mason had and would Debra accept a relationship between them if there was one? Or would she wig out the way she had over her mother’s marriage? But Debra was waiting for an answer.

  “I do like him,” she admitted. “He’s a great guy.”

  Debra sneered. “If you’re not his daughter.”

  Jolene could see how hard Mason was trying with his daughter, so the girl’s stubborn refusal to give even an inch made no sense. “What’s wrong with him, Debra? What does he do that’s so awful?”

  “For one thing, he made me come here.”

  “Here? To my house? I hardly think that’s cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “Not here. I mean Tulsa. And he’s making me stay for six months.”

  Jolene shook her head in confusion. “Back up a bit. I thought it was
your idea to come here. Or your mother’s. As for why he wants you to stay, he wants to spend time with you. Is that such an awful thing?”

  Debra collapsed into a chair at the dining table and dropped her chin onto her hands. “That’s what he says, but it’s not true. All he wants to do is spend time at work and yell at me for not going to diving practice and stuff.”

  “He spends a lot of time at work?”

  “He leaves this early every morning. I have to get myself ready for school and catch the bus. He doesn’t get home until after seven every night, and he’s hardly ever home on weekends. What do you think?”

  This was the most Jolene had ever heard from Debra, and she prayed she wouldn’t do or say the wrong thing. She leaned into the corner of the cupboards. “Yeah, he works a lot. My parents always worked long hours, too. But I had my brother to hang out with, so that made a difference.”

  “It’s not great when you’re alone.”

  “No, I’ll bet it’s not. Have you talked to your dad?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does sort of mean?”

  “He doesn’t want to talk about it. He just says he has to work that much or we won’t have anything.”

  “Well, it is tough when you run your own business,” Jolene agreed.

  “Not that tough. Ike says he’s obsessed and trying not to be like his dad.”

  “Really?” Interesting. “When did Ike say that?” And why would he say something like that in front of Debra?

  Debra shrugged and glanced around. “I heard them arguing about it once at Ike’s house. You got any bread and eggs? My mom taught me how to make French toast. I could make us some.”

  “I’m afraid not. We need to make a run to the grocery store before we do anything.” Jolene chewed the inside of her lip. “Do you have any idea what Ike meant by that?”

  “By what? Oh. Sorry. No, but my dad was pretty mad and after that I didn’t think it would be such a good idea to tell him I think he works too much.”

  “No. I can see why you wouldn’t. But on the other hand, if he doesn’t know how you feel, how can he address it?”

  “He doesn’t want to anyway, so it’s no big deal.”

  “You know what, Debra? You say that a lot, but I don’t think you mean it. I think it’s a very big deal to you, so why is it so hard to tell your dad that you really love him and want him to pay more attention to you?”

  Debra furrowed her brows and pushed to her feet. “The last thing I want is for him to pay more attention to me. He’s mad at me all the time already.”

  “I’m not talking about the kind of attention where you’re in trouble,” Jolene said, still trying to keep the tone casual. “If you could pick, what’s something you’d like your dad to do with you?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “You wanted to go to the Cherokee Center yesterday, and he took you there.”

  “No, I wanted him to tell me about my grandparents. He took me there instead. Like finding out about a bunch of people who got moved onto a reservation a hundred years ago is going to tell me anything.”

  Jolene left the safety of her corner and sat at the table with Debra. “If it helps at all, he won’t talk to me, either. There’s something about your grandparents that upsets him, though, that’s for sure.”

  Debra made a face. “You think?”

  Jolene grinned and propped her broken arm on the table. “Whatever it is, I don’t think he’s keeping some big secret just to make you feel bad. It’s not about you, it’s about him.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe you and I should both try understanding that whatever it is, he needs to work through a few things before he can tell us about it. We all have stuff we’re trying to sort through. I’ve got family things, and you’ve got your mom with and her husband.”

  Debra slumped down in her chair and rolled her eyes. “Bill.”

  “Right. Bill. But the point is, just because somebody else wants us to get everything all lined up and worked out right away, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen that way. You might really want your dad to be able to tell you about your grandparents, but he can’t do it yet.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Oh, but I do. My parents had something they couldn’t tell me for thirty years. When I finally found out about it, I got really upset. I thought they were selfish and…well, a bunch of other stuff. But maybe they were just confused like your dad.”

  “They kept a secret from you for thirty years?”

  “Yeah. Long time. Not fun.” Jolene stood and grabbed her keys. “What do you say we head to the store? I’m starving.”

  With a shrug, Debra got to her feet. “I thought your leg was hurt. How can you drive?”

  The question brought Jolene up short. If she were by herself, she wouldn’t hesitate. Her leg felt much better this morning, and Albertson’s was only a few blocks away. But she really shouldn’t take the risk of driving with Debra in the car. “We’ll take a cab.”

  “Are you serious? Isn’t that expensive?”

  “Not as expensive as an accident would be.” Jolene had no idea if she’d made any headway with Debra, but she hoped so. For her sake and for Mason’s.

  Fifteen minutes later they were buckled into the backseat of a taxi and rolling along Memorial Drive in the pre-rush-hour traffic. Debra seemed almost excited by the adventure.

  “So how long do you have to be off work?” she asked.

  “At least a week.”

  “I guess we’re both on suspension, huh?”

  Jolene laughed. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  Debra watched a couple of homeless people pushing a shopping cart along the sidewalk. “Do you like being a cop?”

  “Yes I do. A lot.”

  “Why?”

  These were easy questions. Jolene had been answering them for so long, she didn’t even have to think about them. “I like helping people. I’d like the world to be a safe place, where people can leave their homes without worry. Being a cop is my way of making that happen.”

  “Even if you get hurt?”

  “It’s a risk,” she admitted. “We all know that something can happen when we’re out there on duty, but we try to be careful, and for the most part we’re very safe. Still sometimes accidents happen, just like anywhere else.”

  “Did the guy who did this want to hurt you?”

  Jolene shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. Not really. What he wanted was to protect himself. I just happened to get in his way.”

  Debra frowned. “That means he wanted to hurt you. It wasn’t an accident.”

  “No,” Jolene said. “It wasn’t an accident.”

  “Is that why you don’t have any kids? Because your job is so dangerous?”

  Nothing like a nice, blunt question. Jolene wasn’t in the habit of sharing personal details of her life with people, but Mason was so closed off about his past, she didn’t have the heart to tell Debra the answer to that question was none of her business. She glanced at the taxi driver, hoping he wasn’t listening. “It’s one of the reasons.”

  “Does that mean you’re never going to get married?”

  Jolene tried to smile. “I don’t know, Debra. I never gave it much thought. Nobody knows what’s around the next corner.”

  “Would you marry my dad if he asked you?”

  “Okay, now,” Jolene said with a laugh, “that’s far enough. Your dad and I are friends, that’s all.”

  “That’s not all,” Debra said, rolling her eyes. “I see the way you look at each other.”

  “All right, so maybe we’re a little more than friends.”

  “He’ll probably ask you,” Debra said decisively. “That’s just the way my luck goes.”

  “I take it that means that you wouldn’t be happy if he did?”

  The cab pulled up in front of the store, and Debra shrugged. “I wouldn’t care. It would be okay, I guess, as long as you didn’t yell at me to
get out of bed or tell me to leave my mom alone when I need her help with homework.”

  Jolene paid the driver, and they spent the next few minutes finding a cart and sorting out which of them would push. “Tell me about Bill,” she said when they were rolling through the produce department.

  Debra spotted a container filled with cut-up melon and held it up for approval. Jolene nodded. “Ever since he came along, he acts like he owns my mom or something. And all the stuff we used to do together, we don’t do anymore. Either Bill doesn’t like Thai food or Bill doesn’t have time or Bill needs to work or Bill wants to dig the lint out from between his toes or something.”

  Jolene laughed as she added a small bag of oranges to the cart. “Something tells me Bill’s toe lint has never really been a topic of conversation between you and your mom.”

  “No, but just about everything else is. She thinks he’s so-o-o perfect. Whatever Bill wants, that’s what we do.”

  “Ah. I see.” Jolene added lettuce, green onions and tomatoes and looked around for the salad dressing. “It became your job to adjust.”

  “Yep.”

  “And that’s no fun,” Jolene commiserated. “I mean, we all know when someone new comes along, there’s some adjusting.”

  “Bill didn’t have to. We had to move into his house, so I had to go to a new school. I lost all my friends, and my bedroom, and Bill doesn’t want me to put posters on my walls or anything.”

  Jolene slowed her pace and looked down at the top of Debra’s head. No wonder the poor thing was miserable. So she left that environment and came to Tulsa, where she started adjusting all over again. “Does your dad know about all this?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he cares.”

  “Of course he cares, Debra. More than you know. He gets things wrong sometimes, but he doesn’t do it on purpose. He just makes a mistake. Everybody makes them—even you.”

  A flush crept into Debra’s cheeks. “You’re talking about the drug stuff, aren’t you? But I’m not doing drugs. Really I’m not. I’m just—” She shook her head. “I’m just messing around, that’s all.”