Falling for the Cop

by Dana Nussio

  “Oh, man. I can’t believe it.” She buried her face in her hands, shaking her head.

  “What? That I’m in love with you or that you were backing away from confessing how you feel about me as fast as your toga-tied feet could carry you?”

  “Both,” she answered automatically and then realized she’d spoken the truth. Only one of those things felt like a miracle, while the other shamed her. She was a coward, and now he knew it, too. She lowered her hands to her sides and turned back to him, scrambling for something to say.

  “Do you want to run away and pretend all of this isn’t real?”

  She shook her head as she stood up from the bed and turned back to face him.

  Shane continued as if he didn’t recognize her attempt to respond. “Because it would be easier for the both of us if you ran. No harm, no foul, you know. Nobody gets hurt.”

  She shook her head again. “I don’t want to. I don’t care if it would be easier.”

  He was wrong that no one would get hurt, either, but she didn’t add that. Their feelings were involved now. Even if they walked away today and never turned back, they couldn’t shield themselves from pain. At least she couldn’t.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  He glanced over at the window and then turned back to her. “Are you going to keep using your mother’s condition as an excuse to hide from the things that scare you?”

  “No.” She paused, realizing that she’d done just that in the past twenty minutes. “Not anymore.”

  “Think about it, Natalie. You won’t get any guarantees from me or from anyone else. It doesn’t work like that.”

  She shook her head as she rounded the end of the bed and started up the side where he was seated. “I don’t want guarantees.”

  He lifted a brow, clearly not believing her. “What do you want, Natalie?”

  This time she didn’t even hesitate. “You.” Then recalling what she’d said before, she took another step forward, both figuratively and literally. “I love you.”

  It wasn’t a whisper this time, and she didn’t want to take it back. No matter what happened now, she was all in.

  Instead of repeating those words back to her, Shane smiled. “I have one more question for you.”

  “Haven’t you asked enough already?” She frowned, but finally she nodded.

  “Are you ever going to climb back in this bed with me?”

  Her gaze flicked to the clock, responsibility at odds again with her personal desires. This time desire won out.

  “I guess I can stay a little while longer.”

  “Now that’s an answer I like to hear.”

  Tossing back the comforter that had barely covered him before, he lay there unashamedly nude. A way she would never be. When he reached for her, she stared at his hand for a few shaky breaths.

  “Come here,” he said as he curled his four fingers inward on his extended hand.

  Instead of taking his hand, she crossed to the other side of the bed and slid in next to him. When she scooted close to him, he curved his arm around her.

  For several seconds, she simply lay there and snuggled against his chest. She breathed in the scent that was uniquely his and felt the rise and fall of his chest against her ear. Oh, she could do this. It was amazing. Maybe too amazing to last, an unwelcome voice inside her suggested.

  Just as she considered pulling back the way she always did, Shane shifted, making it necessary for her to lift her head.

  “Is everything okay? Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No. I’ve got this.” He sank his teeth into his bottom lip with the effort as he rocked and shifted his body, but finally he settled next to her on his side, his head propped up with his hand. “Now that’s better.”

  “You never let me help with anything,” she said.

  He leaned so close that his breath feathered over her lips. “I’ll always let you help with this.”

  Dipping his head, he brushed his lips over hers once, then again and again.

  When he pulled his head back, Natalie stared back at him. “Always?”

  He pressed his lips to hers again, his free hand sliding up her neck so he could cradle her face. “Always.”

  Shane kissed each of her eyelids and her nose, but he stopped just short of her lips. “I love you, Natalie Keaton.”

  “You do?” She searched his face, wanting to believe it this time, wanting to trust in a way she never had before.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  His words were deep and sensual, but in his eyes, that vulnerability he tried so hard to hide remained. It was that nakedness that went so far beyond any lack of clothes that inspired her to take the leap into complete trust. Her heart was his alone.

  His eyes closed as he went in for another kiss, touching his tongue to the seam of her lips until she opened for him. He’d said he loved her, and it was just too easy to let him in. So she gave herself to him and to the moment, letting him peel away her clothes a second time and show her how much.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SHANE ROLLED HIS chair through the Clearview Hospital entrance, rotating the wheels so quickly his arms ached. But he didn’t care. He had to get to Kent before it was too late.

  “Do you know which way you’re going?” Kelly called as she jogged behind him.

  “Yeah, I’ve been here a few times,” he said without slowing down. In fact, Kelly might have been the only one of his driver friends who hadn’t taken him to visit Kent in the past few weeks.

  He turned down the hall toward the bank of elevators and jammed the button when he reached it.

  “Did you just get the call from the hospital?”

  “I told you when I called you.” He wished he didn’t sound so terse, but she was asking too many questions, and he couldn’t focus on willing the elevator door to open.

  “Well, you didn’t tell me much of anything.”

  He shrugged. That was probably true. He hadn’t really said anything since he’d called and asked her to pick him up as soon as possible. Of course, he’d received his own distressing call twenty minutes after Natalie had left. Since Natalie should have already been home by then and Kelly could get to him faster, he’d called her instead.

  It seemed like days rather than just an hour or so since Natalie had awakened in his arms and had nearly taken flight as she’d raced from his house. It couldn’t matter that he needed her with him now as he faced all of this. It wasn’t about him.

  And there was no time.

  After the elevator door opened, he rolled in with Kelly close behind him.

  “They called right before I called you. They just said that he was asking for me. I don’t know anything else.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t,” he said, lifting his hand to freeze her condolences. “Not yet.”

  “Okay.”

  They stood in silence until the doors opened, and Shane hurried out again.

  Just one more hall. One incredibly long hall.

  But just as Kent’s room came into view, the door opened, and a haggard-looking man stepped outside. In the few seconds it took Shane to place the man as Kent’s younger brother, whom he’d met only once, Shane had already come to another conclusion.

  He was too late.

  Even the fire from the piercing of that bullet felt like nothing compared to the stab to his heart now. His chest squeezed in an unforgiving grip. He was glad he was already seated, sure his knees would have buckled if he were standing.

  Shane stopped several rooms down from Kent’s and waited, his heart too heavy to approach, and yet he was incapable of leaving. The barrel-chested man bent over at the waist and buried his ruddy face in his hands. Sobs rattled his body, but he didn’t make a sound.


  Not so for the family members left in the room. Muffled sobs in varying pitches escaped through the open door, each shaking Shane as if they’d come from his own body. There were so many people who loved Kent. More than just those crowded inside that room.

  “I’m sorry, Shane,” Kelly repeated from behind him.

  This time, he nodded, and gooseflesh appeared on his arms. Acknowledging her condolences seemed to make it true.

  His friend was dead.

  This was the man who’d believed in him. Sometimes the only one. He’d loved him more unconditionally than even his parents could. And he’d fought for him, even when he hadn’t come close to deserving it.

  As emotion crammed inside his throat and heat built behind his eyes, predicting tears that he couldn’t let himself shed here, Shane realized something that had eluded him all these years. Some debts were never meant to be repaid. The breadth of those gifts was too large, too far-reaching, for the figure ever to balance in the ledger of someone’s life.

  As a half-dozen relatives spilled from the hospital room, Shane sat frozen, an eyewitness to their grief, not really a part of it, yet intrinsically connected. Among them were Kent’s son and daughter, only preschoolers when Shane first met them, now teenagers. Their faces were red and swollen from tears. They’d lost more than he had, and yet his loss still felt as significant as a missing limb. Things he should have said, good deeds he should have done, pinged in his head with no hope for relief.

  The last to emerge from the room was Tammy, who’d stood strong through the whole ordeal of her husband’s illness. But, unlike the others, too encased in their cocoon of grief to even glance down the hall, she looked up from the floor, and their gazes connected. Her normally peachy skin was blotchy, and the streaks of mascara attested to the tears she’d already shed, but she still was every bit that elegant beauty Kent had taken Shane to meet when he was still a kid.

  Instead of looking away, she rushed down the hall toward him. He lifted his arms, and she leaned down to hug him. For a long time, neither let go.

  “Oh, Shane,” she said when she finally straightened again. “I’m so sorry we didn’t reach you in time. After all this time, it happened so fast. He couldn’t...wait.”

  When her voice broke, he reached for her a second time. She bent to let him hold her.

  “I know,” he soothed. “It’s okay.”

  He didn’t even know why he was saying that. What did it matter whether he was okay with his friend letting go of life at that moment? And nothing was okay for Tammy, nor would it be for a long time.

  When she straightened again, she glanced behind him to where Kelly had been standing. She extended her arm. “Is this—”

  He shook his head to interrupt her and turned his chair back to find Kelly, leaning against the wall and giving herself a nervous self-hug. If she’d picked up anything from the other woman’s question, she didn’t let on. But just as he gestured toward Kelly to introduce her, Kelly stepped forward, reaching out a hand to Tammy.

  “Mrs. Sawyer, as a fellow law enforcement officer, I just wanted to thank you for your husband’s service to the community.” She shook her hand and released it. “Please accept my condolences.”

  Though her eyes filled with tears again, Tammy nodded and managed a smile. “That’s very kind.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I’d better get back to my children.”

  Down the hall, family members still gathered, talking in low tones and holding each other for physical support.

  Tammy turned back to Shane. “Do you want to go in there? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

  Shane licked his lips and then shook his head, his insides shakier than they’d been the whole way to the hospital. No, he couldn’t see Kent this way, in the stark aftermath of a life stolen too soon. This moment was private, to be shared only with Kent’s real family. The funeral would be soon enough.

  “I’ll be there for the calling hours and the funeral.” He took hold of her hand and pressed the back of it to his cheek. “But if you need anything before then—or after—just call. Any time.”

  Tammy nodded and returned to her family.

  Shane turned back to Kelly. “You ready?”

  “Yeah. Are you okay?”

  “I guess so.” As he started down the hall toward the elevators, he glanced back, but his wheelchair handles obstructed his view. “It’s worse for them.”

  He continued rolling forward, the click of Kelly’s dressy boots behind him adding to the low buzz of his spinning wheels. “But you’ve lost someone, too. Someone who meant a great deal to you.”

  Because his eyes immediately filled like one of those clogged gutters on the front of his house, he kept moving, away from that hospital room, away from all that concentrated grief. He needed to get back to his house, where he could spend some time alone, digesting the many changes that had taken place in his life in the past twelve hours.

  What had begun as the best day of his life had just become the worst.

  * * *

  NATALIE CLIMBED OUT of bed and padded to the wall switch only a few hours after she’d crawled into bed. Light flooded the room, but nothing could clear the fog that clouded her vision. She didn’t bother trying to tell herself she’d slept more than a few minutes, and even those were so peppered with chaotic dreams that they didn’t count. What had she been thinking coming home so late? Even though her mother had been perfectly fine when she’d arrived home, that didn’t make her dereliction of duty seem any less...derelict.

  It would have helped if she hadn’t fallen asleep next to Shane in what had felt like the middle of the night and had awakened truly in the middle of the night. It wasn’t even a good excuse that he’d just told her he loved her. Words and events that seemed perfectly clear last night were fuzzier now, but maybe her gritty, sleep-starved eyes were causing the problem.

  Had it been too soon to tell him she loved him? Sure, he’d said it back, more than once even, but would he have said it at all if she hadn’t spoken those words first? She shivered as she pulled on her robe and slid her feet in her slippers. She wouldn’t go there. She wouldn’t second-guess her decision to go to him. She wouldn’t wonder if she should have planned her route like she always did instead of going off-road.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, trying to shake away the temptation to worry about those things. Crossing to the bedside table, she unplugged her phone from the charger and pressed the button to awaken the screen. When the digital time popped up, she frowned. It was nearly seven thirty. Her mother would usually have been calling for her for a half hour by now.

  Curious, she started down the hall and knocked on her mother’s door. “Hey, sleepyhead. It’s time to get up.”

  She waited for the snarky comment from the other side of the door. It didn’t come.

  “Mom...?”

  Nothing.

  Her mother was a light sleeper. In fact, it had shocked her that Elaine hadn’t awakened when she’d slipped in this morning.

  Natalie considered all of two seconds before shoving open the door. When she flipped on the light, her mother blinked several times and then squeezed her eyes closed again in obvious pain.

  “What is it, Mom?” She rushed over to the bed and bent over her.

  “It hurts.”

  Natalie stiffened. This wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with her mother’s physical complaints in the past eight years, but something about her voice and the strain in her jaw told her this was different. Was she unusually pale, or had Natalie just never noticed?

  “Where does it hurt?”

  Elaine grabbed fistfuls of the quilt covering her and squeezed her eyes shut again.

  “Where, Mom?”

  “Back. Side. Stomach. Head.” She paused between each word, closing her eyes again
and gritting her teeth. “I don’t know. Everywhere. I think I’m dying.”

  Natalie shook her head, refusing to hear that. “You’re going to be okay.”

  It must have been a memory from her childhood that made her check her mother’s forehead when she’d complained of pain, but as soon as she touched her, she jerked her hand back.

  “Holy crap, Mom. You’re burning up.”

  Elaine thrashed her head back and forth and ground her fists deeper in the quilt. “I can’t take this. It hurts so much.”

  “What’s your pain level?”

  “Ten,” she said through gritted teeth, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  Natalie swallowed. Her mother might have complained of pain before, even cried wolf on occasion, but Natalie would bet her life that this time the pain was real.

  “Here, let me see.” She carefully rolled her mother onto her side and slid her nightgown up so she could examine her back. “I don’t see anything.”

  Carefully, she patted fingers across her mother’s back, not even sure what she was supposed to be looking for. But when Natalie came to a spot low on her mother’s back, Elaine called out in agony.

  “Don’t touch it. It burns. It burns.” She buried the side of her face in her pillow.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know what it is.” She watched her for several seconds longer as she writhed in pain as much as someone without the use of her legs could, and then Natalie came to a decision.

  “Let’s get you to a hospital.”

  She braced herself for an argument. Since the accident, Elaine hated hospitals and doctors equally. Usually she complained from the moment they loaded her into the van to go to an appointment.

  Elaine only nodded. “Okay.”

  Her mother was anything but okay, and Natalie knew it. The worst part was knowing that Elaine could have been suffering all night long. Sure, she’d checked on her when she’d gotten in this morning, but she hadn’t studied her that closely. Just enough to be sure she was breathing and sleeping. Had something been wrong last night? Maybe even before?