A Lawman for Christmas

by Marie Ferrarella

She took another, deeper breath, then said, “I fainted.”

  Bryan instantly knew there was more to it than that. Searching her face, he put his hands on her arms to keep her in place. His eyes were on hers. “Where?”

  Kate didn’t try to look away. “In the car.”

  “You were driving?”

  He’d actually gone pale. Maybe she shouldn’t have been this truthful, Kate thought, regretting what he had to be going through. What she’d be going through if the tables were turned.

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

  Bryan’s hold on her arms tightened as her words sank in. His imagination took over. “Oh God, Kate, you could have been killed.”

  Kate glossed over that. Pointing out that she hadn’t been killed wouldn’t help. Instead, she gave him the details as succinctly as possible.

  “I drove into the bushes. It happened on University Drive, just outside the college campus. I was on my way to work,” she explained. “I fainted without any warning, just the way I had when I was first pregnant with Kelsey. But there was only that one time with her,” she reminded him, hoping that would help to keep him from blowing the incident out of proportion and from fearing that there would be more fainting spells in the future. “And I’m fine now, really.”

  Bryan couldn’t get himself to let go of her. After all these years of marriage, she was even more precious to him than ever. “You’re sure?”

  Sympathy filled her eyes. “Bryan, when have I ever lied to you?”

  “Never,” he admitted. Trying to move past the vivid scene in his head, he took a deep breath. “A baby?”

  Nodding, she smiled warmly. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so hard for him to accept this latest twist in their lives after all. “A baby.”

  Bryan let the information sink in. He knew he wasn’t exactly at the best age to start all over again, but it was doable. “It’s been a long time since we had one of those in the house,” he said, his eyes meeting hers again. “I wonder if things have changed.”

  Kate laughed softly. “Not the basics. They still need to be fed and loved.”

  “And changed,” he interjected, unconsciously wrinkling his nose as he said it.

  “There’s that, too,” Kate allowed. And then she threaded her arms around his neck, just a wife with her husband, not a professional couple who had already raised five children. “Are you very disappointed?”

  “Disappointed?” he echoed, puzzled as he encircled her waist with his arms and held her closer to him. “Why would I be disappointed? It’s not like I asked for a pony and got this instead.”

  Laughing, Kate shook her head. “No, I mean, well, you talked about traveling…” He’d mentioned early retirement once or twice and the plans he had for their future.

  To allay her fears, Bryan stole a quick kiss. “That’s all that it was, Kate, just talk. Despite my occasional grumbling—like today—I like what I do. I really don’t want to retire.” His eyes skimmed over his wife’s very trim form. “And now I have a reason not to,” he quipped. “Have you seen what college tuitions have gone up to these days?”

  Kate pressed her hands against his chest, as if to stop his flow of words. “Wait, wait, the baby’s not even born yet. I think we can hold off for a while before getting him or her enrolled in college.”

  The news—and the changes it was going to cause in their world—was still sinking in. And he was happy. Having another baby might be interesting.

  “It’ll be happening before you know it.” Bryan framed her face with his hands. “I love you, Mrs. Marlowe.”

  “And I love you, Mr. Marlowe,” Kate echoed back just before her husband kissed her warmly and deeply. She leaned into him, absorbing every nuance with every fiber of her being, her soul lighting up.

  Which is how Kelsey found them a minute later as she let herself in with her house key.

  “Hey, break it up, you two,” she chided, pocketing her keys. “That’s how you got into this mess in the first place.”

  Kate was still holding on to her husband’s waist as she shifted slightly to face their daughter.

  “It’s not a mess, Kelsey,” Bryan protested and then he stopped, surprised. “She knows?” he asked Kate.

  Kate nodded. “I called her from the hospital,” she confessed.

  She could see that the news stung him a little. “Her and not me?”

  Kate rested her head against his shoulder, relief and comfort setting in. “You had a big case in court today. You told me that last night. I wasn’t about to draw your focus away from that. If I’d called to tell you I was in an accident, you would have dropped everything and come running. Clients don’t appreciate that,” she reminded him.

  “Okay, I’ll accept that. What’s your excuse?” Bryan turned toward Kelsey. “Why didn’t you call me when you found out?”

  Kelsey pointed to her mother. “She made me promise not to tell.”

  Bryan extrapolated on the information. “Your brothers don’t know?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “Not yet.” She slanted a look at her mother. “And believe me, it was not easy not picking up a phone and calling them.”

  Kate’s smile filled the room as she patted her daughter’s arm. “I appreciate you keeping your word, Kelsey.”

  Kelsey nodded, dismissing the thanks. “Sure. Can I call them now?” she wanted to know.

  “All right. Call them and invite them to dinner for tomorrow night,” her mother instructed. “I think we should tell all four of them at once.” She smiled as she glanced at Bryan. “The way we did when we told them you were marrying their nanny.”

  Bryan laughed. “Best decision I ever made, not counting talking you into being their nanny.”

  A widower, he’d been at his wit’s end at the time, after having lost not one but three nannies in a short amount of time because his sons had proved to be far too energetic for any of the women to handle. Kate had been a college student when they’d met. She was studying child psychology and piecing together odd jobs to earn enough money to keep herself eating and in college. He’d glimpsed her at a birthday party his oldest, Mike, was attending. Kate had been hired to provide the entertainment. She did so by bringing the puppets she’d brought with her to life.

  Watching her, Mike had been mesmerized and he, Bryan later realized, had been captivated. He, and more importantly a rent hike in Kate’s apartment complex at the time, convinced her to come to work for him as a live-in nanny.

  Not a day went by when he wasn’t grateful that things had turned out the way they had.

  “I have to wait a whole day before I can tell them?” Kelsey complained.

  “Afraid so,” Bryan said. “It’s your mother’s announcement to make. For now, this can stay our little secret,” he added with a wink. “It’ll give you something to lord over your brothers later.”

  “Where’s the car, Kelsey?” Kate suddenly asked.

  Kelsey was about to remind her mother that she’d already told her where the car was, but decided not to belabor the point. Her mother was dealing with a lot here. She could be forgiven a little forgetfulness.

  “It’s over at Morgan’s house,” she answered, then, just in case her mother had forgotten this part, too, she added, “He said he was going to work on it.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Her mother seemed a bit chagrined. “You already told me that. Sorry, I’m still a little scattered, I guess.”

  Bryan looked from his daughter to his wife. “Morgan?” he repeated.

  “Morgan Donnelly,” Kelsey told him. “He’s the policeman who took Mom to the hospital.”

  Obviously there was more to the story than he’d heard. Bryan stared at his wife, wide-eyed. “Police were involved?”

  “Just the one,” Kate answered, holding up a single finger.

  Taking her hand, Bryan drew her over to the sofa and sat down, urging her to take a seat beside him. “Maybe you’d better tell me the rest of it. From the top,” he prodded.

 
“Wouldn’t mind hearing it in order myself,” Kelsey agreed, taking a seat opposite her parents on the recliner.

  “There’s not that much of a story,” Kate pointed out. When they continued looking at her, she nodded. “Okay, from the top, then,” she said, beginning her narrative.

  Morgan juggled cars when he came home from the precinct, moving Kate’s car into his garage and leaving his own parked outside. The weatherman had predicted rain—not that he believed it for a minute. This was just barely autumn and their rainy season didn’t start until November—if it decided to show up at all. But it was always better to be safe than sorry. And he’d had enough of “sorry” to last him a lifetime.

  Stopping at a fast food drive-through, Morgan brought home his usual dinner: burger and fries accompanied by a large soda. He carried the fast food into the garage, intending to eat while he worked. The reception on his secondhand radio was clear tonight, left alone by the static gods that usually plagued it. Music filled up the quiet and it helped. Some.

  Leaving the garage door opened, Morgan went to the wall of tools to select the ones he would need, at least to get started.

  Technically, they were his tools because there was no one left to own them, but in his mind they were and always would be his father’s tools. Six months after his father’s funeral—and the grand jury inquisition that had cleared Morgan of all blame—he’d sold the house where he’d grown up along with his own home and moved out here. Georgia was filled with too many memories for him, haunting memories, and he wanted a fresh start, away from the pain.

  He would never have been able to move on if he’d stayed in Georgia. Too many familiar places, too many ghosts to deal with. And, although some of the memories were good, the others were just too painful. So he’d come out here to start fresh.

  Except that he didn’t start. He just continued. Continued being a cop because that was what he did best. Continued being a man without a family because his had died on him—by choice or otherwise.

  He’d told himself that he had made his peace with that, but he hadn’t. Not yet. For now, it was still a work in progress. He had his good days and his bad. If he was lucky, they balanced out.

  Taking a wrench from its designated space on the wall, Morgan held it for a second. He could have sworn it was still warm from his father’s hand, except that his father hadn’t handled any of the tools in more than three years. Not since he’d lost the use of his legs.

  Morgan stared at the socket wrench, thinking.

  In a way, he supposed that he understood. Understood why his father had opted to lose himself in alcohol after his mother had died of leukemia. Alcohol did numb the pain. But then, as its effects wore off, the pain only seemed greater and more overwhelming in comparison. And because of what he’d seen alcohol do to his father, taking away his strength, his identity and, finally, his legs thanks to the stroke, Morgan was determined not to use alcohol like a crutch, as his father had.

  Although God knew he had reason to.

  He walked over to the vehicle he had volunteered to fix. On nights like this, when for some reason memories of Beth and Amy, his wife and daughter, seemed even more vivid than usual, Morgan found himself longing for something to numb him, to either vanquish the pain or knock him out.

  But he wasn’t going to risk losing his self-respect, not to mention the use of body parts, the way his father had. Drinking himself into oblivion only led to a dead end and to further despair. For whatever it was worth, he was glad this “project” had fallen into his lap. Glad for the diversion working on the vehicle provided him.

  Marvin Gaye lamented the impending departure of a girlfriend and that he’d heard about it not from her, but through the grapevine as Morgan rolled up his sleeves and got started.

  All in all, her father had taken the news a lot better than she’d anticipated.

  He was a very flexible man, her father. Growing up, he’d been an immense comfort and her ally against her brothers. She’d always thought that he doted on her because she was his only girl.

  That might not be the case in another eight months or so.

  How did she feel about that? she asked herself as she drove home. She knew that as they were growing up, her brothers had thought she was spoiled, but she wasn’t. Although she’d always liked the idea of being the only girl, she was an adult now. Her priorities had changed. She found herself hoping that the baby would be a girl. It would give her father someone new to worry about and take the focus off her life.

  Not that much was going on in her life right now. But there would be, when she decided to get back into the swing of things again. This time she wouldn’t have to worry about a man being interrogated by her father or one of her brothers.

  Freedom.

  She could almost smell it.

  Whistling, Kelsey was just pulling into her residential complex when her cell phone started melodically playing one of her ring tones.

  Kelsey let her phone ring one more time as she drove into her parking space. Pulling up the hand brake, she turned off the ignition. Only then did she take out her cell phone. Because the call wasn’t coming from anyone in her family, she felt no sense of urgency to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Thought I’d give you an update.”

  The deep male voice undulated into her nervous system, sending it into high alert. “Morgan?”

  “Sorry. Guess I should have identified myself first.”

  “No need for that,” she told him. “You have a very distinctive voice.”

  Once she recognized his voice, she couldn’t understand why it had taken her even a minute to make the connection. Donnelly’s voice was deep, basement-cellar deep, and rumbled slightly as he spoke.

  When she’d given him her phone number in case he needed to run something about the car by her, she hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. Holding the cell phone against her ear, Kelsey made herself comfortable in her seat and got down to the heart of the matter.

  “Is this going to be a good update or a bad one?” she asked.

  “Good, actually.” His voice shifted, as did the quality of the phone’s reception. She assumed he was moving around as he spoke. She thought she heard the sound of traffic in the background. Or was that music? “It’s not going to take me as long as I thought to fix the car.”

  “Inside and out?” she asked. Just how fast could this man work? Didn’t he have a life outside his job?

  “Inside,” Morgan specified. “The body work might take me a little longer.”

  She heard what sounded like something hard and metallic hitting the floor. He was calling from his garage, she surmised.

  “You do body work, too?” She didn’t bother hiding the admiration in her voice.

  “Like I said, my father ran a full-service garage,” Morgan explained. “He prided himself on doing everything a vehicle owner might need. He considered himself not just a mechanic, but an artist.”

  He was referring to his father in the past tense. Did that mean the man was dead, or just no longer working?

  Kelsey squelched her natural desire to ask for details. If Donnelly wanted her to know about his father, he’d tell her on his own. Until then, it was none of her business. Even as she told herself that, she remembered how much she’d always hated that phrase. It was like a huge hurdle for her, getting in the way of her finding things out.

  “I want you to keep track of everything,” she told him. “My mother is going to want to pay you when you’re finished.”

  There was silence on the other end, and for a second she thought that maybe her phone had cut out and he hadn’t heard her. “I said—”

  “I heard you,” he said, cutting her off. “Not doing it for the money.”

  He’d almost snapped that at her. You’re a strange man, Officer Donnelly. Out loud she asked, “What are you doing it for?”

  Again there was silence. Either he hadn’t heard her, or he was debating whether or not to answer her. Final
ly, he said, “To keep busy.”

  She would have thought that he wanted just to unwind with a beer, watching some mindless show on TV.

  “What, police work doesn’t take up enough of your time?”

  More silence. She began to feel as if the only way to converse with the man was to drag the words out of him. Did he forget that he was the one who’d called her?

  And then he finally deigned to give her a response. “No.”

  She’d meant it as a joke. He, apparently, wasn’t taking it that way. He sounded completely serious.

  Just who was this guardian angel with semitarnished wings? And why did he feel he needed to keep busy? To keep from thinking? About what?

  Just what was Donnelly running from? she couldn’t help wondering.

  Chapter Six

  The following evening, as they waited in the family room, Trevor Marlowe looked from one sibling to another.

  From what he could see, no one seemed any more enlightened than he was. But it never hurt to ask. “Anybody know why Kate made a point of gathering us all here tonight?”

  “When Kelsey called,” Trent told him, “all she said was that Kate wanted to see us.”

  “That’s what she said when she called us,” Travis put in, nodding toward his fiancée, Shana.

  All four brothers exchanged looks. Each was in the dark. And they didn’t like it.

  Trevor frowned. It was obvious that something was up.

  “Maybe she finally found out who went through the box of pictures she used to keep hidden in the back of her closet.” Mike eyed Trent pointedly.

  Trent had been the one who, years ago, had come across faded photos of a high school beauty in a bikini. Mike had been the one to see the resemblance between the girl and Kate. It had been the one secret they’d kept from their stepmother. At the time, it had been “big stuff,” at least in their very young opinions.

  “And what, she decided to gather us all together like that funny little Agatha Christie detective?” Trent asked, his tone dismissing Mike’s suggestion as absurd. “You know who I mean. The Belgian guy with the waxed moustache.”