Do You Take This Cop?

by Beth Andrews

  “Can I wait for you at the restaurant?” he asked.

  She spotted Nero’s bright red-and-white awning at the end of the block. “Sure.”

  Nick took ahold of her arm and tugged her close. She stiffened and would’ve have pulled away, but before she could, he said, “Just trying to save you from getting entangled in their love.” He nodded at the young couple walking toward them.

  They were in their late teens, the girl in a tank top and frayed cutoffs, her arm around her boyfriend’s slim waist. He was shirtless and wearing low-slung cargo shorts. His scraggly beard was more peach fuzz than actual facial hair, and his hand was in the girl’s back pocket. Their heads were bent close together and they only had eyes for each other.

  “Oh,” Faith mumbled, her face on fire. “Thanks.”

  Nick let go of her, his fingers sliding slowly against her arm. “No problem.”

  Ignoring the tingle on her skin, she kept her eyes straight ahead and cleared her throat. “Say Anything.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The movie your sisters told you about was Say Anything.”

  She’d loved that movie so much she’d stolen the video from the local rental place when she was fourteen. How she’d wanted nothing more than to have some guy drive up to her cramped trailer and take her away from her miserable life. To care for her.

  “Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, Kathleen and Andrea swore if I recreated that scene, Delia wouldn’t be able to resist me. Boy, were they wrong.”

  He greeted the members of a young family as they passed, before continuing. “I went to her house late one Friday night, pulled out my brand-new portable CD player and blasted Guns N’ Roses’s ‘November Rain.’”

  “How romantic.”

  “What can I say? I was a GN’R fan. It might’ve gone over better if it hadn’t been a mild night in May. But I definitely got Delia’s attention. She opened her bedroom window, leaned out and—”

  “You two reenacted the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet?” Faith asked, still enough of a romantic to picture it clearly.

  “I wish. She told me to get lost. At least, that’s what she later claimed she’d been saying. I couldn’t hear her over the song. By the time Slash’s guitar solo started, Mr. Close had called the police. I could’ve been booked with disturbing the peace, trespassing and causing a public nuisance. Luckily, I got off with a warning.”

  Faith searched out Austin, saw him locking his bike to a light pole in front of the restaurant. “Mr. Close never forgave you for waking him up? Or maybe it was your song choice he couldn’t overlook.”

  “I think it had more to do with them discovering Delia wasn’t alone in her bedroom.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Rumor has it that when they heard the music, Delia’s parents rushed into her room to see what was going on. Mrs. Close spied a pair of boxer shorts by Delia’s bed and it didn’t take them long to find Bobby Shields hiding in the closet. Poor guy didn’t even have a chance to pull his jeans on before Mr. Close threw him out into the yard.”

  “This was the same Delia who wasn’t allowed to date?” Faith asked.

  “Didn’t stop her and Bobby from seeing each other on the sly. Mr. Close still blames me for his discovery that his sweet baby girl was growing up—and defying him right under his nose.”

  Austin was still messing with his bike lock when she and Nick reached the pizzeria, so Faith moved aside to let people pass. “But…but what about your happy ending?”

  He looked at her curiously. “My what?”

  “Your happy ending. The one where you get the girl and drive off into the night. Even Say Anything ended with Lloyd and Diane together. All you got was cops showing up and Mr. Close calling you names for the next fifteen years.”

  It didn’t seem fair. But then again, since when was life fair? Hers certainly hadn’t been.

  “It wasn’t how I’d hoped the night would end,” Nick admitted, “and I was crushed when I found out about Delia and Bobby—until I went to school Monday. Word of my romantic streak got around and the next thing I knew, girls who’d never looked at me twice were giving me their numbers.”

  “And Delia and Bobby?”

  “They got married right after high school and now run an outdoor store down in Portland. Last I heard, Delia just had a daughter. Their fifth.” Nick winked at Faith. “So you see? There was a happy ending, after all.”

  NICK HELD THE DOOR OPEN for Austin and Faith, not surprised to see how packed it was inside. Nero’s had the best pizza in town and even during the slow months did a brisk business.

  “There’s an empty booth,” Austin said, pointing to one next to the large picture window at the front of the building.“That’s fine,” Faith said.

  She barely got the words out before Austin took off as if the restaurant would run out of cheese and pepperoni if they didn’t snatch that table immediately.

  Nick followed Faith through the noisy dining room. Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” played on the corner jukebox, competing with conversations and the bells and whistles from the old-style video games next to the hallway that led to the restrooms. Nick glanced over and couldn’t miss the longing in Austin’s expression as he sat on the edge of the seat staring at the games.

  A toddler in one of those one-piece short sets, her pale hair sprouting like a fountain out of a band on top of her head, darted in front of them, causing Faith to stop suddenly.

  “Sorry,” the little girl’s father said, scrambling over to his daughter. He scooped the child up and carried her back to their table. The imp grinned and opened her chubby fist at Nick. He waved back.

  Faith stepped forward but Nick caught her around the waist. As with the other times he’d casually touched her, she tensed. He didn’t release her, though. Not when he detected some very nice curves underneath her baggy clothes.

  He bent his head, his breath ruffling the loose strands of hair over her ear. “Would it be all right if I gave Austin a couple of bucks for the video games?”

  Nick’s fingers tightened on her waist when she looked at him over her shoulder. “You’re asking my permission this time?” she asked.

  He dropped his hands. “I’m a quick learner. And I don’t often make the same mistake twice.”

  “That’s very nice of you to offer, but I’ve already set aside a few dollars for him to play the games.” Then she walked away.

  Nick tried to follow, but was waylaid by Clarise Farrell. By the time he got free, Faith sat in the booth, a glass of iced tea in front of her, while Austin was at the Pac Man machine.

  Nick slid into the seat across from her. “Sorry about that.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine. Mrs. Farrell wanted to tell me that this morning she spotted Donald Kearns walking around in nothing but his underwear again.”

  “He was roaming the streets in his underwear and she didn’t tell the police until now?”

  Nick picked up a plastic menu and scanned it. “Mr. Kearns wasn’t roaming the streets. He was in his own house, although why he feels the need to hang out in his dining room in his skivvies is beyond me.” He noticed Faith’s confusion. “They’re neighbors. And this isn’t the first time Mrs. Farrell has complained. Which is how I know the only way she could see into Mr. Kearns’s dining room is if she’s in her guest bedroom and stands on a step stool.”

  “Mr. Kearns must be something to see.”

  “He’s seventy-seven with a potbelly and knobby knees. And I hope like hell that when I stop by his house tomorrow to talk to him—once again—about installing blinds in his dining room windows, he’ll get dressed before he answers the door. Unlike last time.”

  “And some people think small towns are boring.”

  Their waiter, a teenager with short, spiky dyed-black hair, snakebite piercings on his upper lip and earlobe-stretching studs in his ears, asked, “Can I get you something to drink, sir?”

  “I’ll have a soda.” When the kid left, Nick sat
back and laid his arm on the back of the booth. “What do you like on your pizza?”

  “Austin and I usually get half plain cheese, half veggie loaded.”

  “The veggie half must be for Austin.”

  “He loves nothing more,” she deadpanned.

  “No pepperoni?” Nick asked, unable to hide his disappointment. Pizza without pepperoni was like sex without kissing. Good, yeah, but somehow lacking. “What about protein?”

  “I’m not sure processed meat counts as real protein,” she said as their waiter set a can of soda and a plastic glass filled with ice cubes in front of Nick. “But if you want it,” Faith hastily added, those impeccable manners of hers kicking in, “please get it. I can always pick it off.”

  “You can get pepperoni on just a few slices,” their waiter assured them, taking a small order form out of his dirty apron pocket. “It’s no problem.”

  “Let’s do that then,” she said. They placed their order and the kid left. She picked up her straw wrapper, smoothed it out and then rolled it into a short tube. “It’s busy,” she said. “Here. Tonight, I mean.”

  “Best pizza on the coast. It’ll be even crazier next week.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “People will start flocking to town early for the Fourth of July Festival.” Nick poured his soda into the glass and took a drink. “Most downtown businesses see an increase of at least ten percent during the summer. Specialty shops and restaurants see a fifteen to twenty percent increase and that can get even higher during the festival weekend.”

  “We’ve had a few more walk-ins since summer started,” Faith agreed.

  “Brit said you suggested she have a sidewalk sale of products and offer specials throughout the month to draw in some tourists.”

  “It was just an idea.”

  “She also said you’ve been helping her a lot… Have you been a hairdresser for long?”

  “Since I was eighteen.”

  “You obviously have some good ideas about running a business,” he said. “Do you want your own shop someday?”

  Faith tossed the paper aside. “I’m not sure,” she said, a tiny frown marring her forehead. “I’ve never thought about it before.”

  “So you’ve never owned a salon? Not even in Serenity Springs?” he asked, watching her carefully.

  Her head snapped up. “Where?”

  “Serenity Springs.” No, he wasn’t interrogating her. He was merely curious about her past. Making idle predinner conversation. “Austin mentioned you’d lived there.”

  She sat back. “Oh.” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “He’s always getting the name mixed up. We lived in Serenity Hills, Kentucky. My husband—my ex-husband—worked for a horse-breeding farm down there. That’s the last place we lived before the divorce. My ex, he…had a difficult time keeping a job, and all the moving got to be too hard on Austin.”

  “That why you split up?”

  Surprisingly, she didn’t take offense to his prying question. “Part of it. It’s the same old story. We were high school sweethearts—”

  “In Pennsylvania?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When Brit first hired you she mentioned you were originally from Pennsylvania.”

  “Yes, a small town outside of Harrisburg.”

  “You ever get back there?”

  She sipped her tea. “There’s no reason. My father took off before I was born and my mother and I had a…falling-out about my decision to get married.” Faith’s lips thinned. “She was right, but I was too stubborn to admit I’d made a mistake, so I stuck it out. And then I got pregnant. Having a child…changes you.” Faith met Nick’s eyes. “At least it changed me.”

  He waited for her to go on. Getting Faith to open up was a lesson in patience. When she didn’t continue, he asked, “How did it change you?”

  At first he didn’t think she’d answer. But then she set her elbows on the table and ran a finger down the condensation on her glass.

  “It made me less selfish,” she said, so simply he felt as if for the first time she’d been honest with him. “My pride didn’t stand a chance against my love for him. I wanted more for Austin than I wanted for myself. I wanted somewhere safe he could call home.”

  “Think you’ve found that in Kingsville?”

  “I hope so.”

  He jiggled his glass, shifting the ice in it. “You never reconciled with your mother?”

  “By the time I was ready to extend an olive branch, she’d passed on.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Faith lifted a shoulder. Nick drummed his fingers against his cup. For his job, he had to be able to judge people. To read them. So why couldn’t he get a handle on Faith? While she hadn’t lost the nervous edge she always seemed to have around him, she did seem to at least be trying to relax. And yet he still sensed something was off. That what she’d just told him about her mom was somehow…rehearsed.

  “I got to the fifth level,” Austin cried as he raced over to their booth.

  Faith scooted over so he could sit. “Congratulations.”

  “That’s great,” Nick added. “You keep working at it and you’ll replace my name on the list of high scorers.”

  “You play it, too?” Austin asked, as if Nick had said he wore Superman underwear.

  “Not since I was a kid.”

  “Wow,” he breathed. “I didn’t know Pac Man was that old.”

  “I used to ride my pet brontosaurus here after a hard day of inventing fire,” Nick said.

  Austin smirked. “There were no humans when dinosaurs lived.”

  “My mistake. It was my pet woolly mammoth.”

  Austin laughed and reached for his drink.

  “Freeze,” Faith said. “Hands.”

  As she dug into her suitcase-size purse, her son rolled his eyes. Faith squirted some antibacterial gel onto his palms, flipped it closed and dropped it back into her bag.

  “I’d be even better at Pac Man,” Austin said, giving his mom a sly look, “if I practiced more at home.”

  “I’m not giving you more game time,” Faith said. “Two hours a day is more than enough in front of the TV.”

  “But I’m not watching TV,” he argued. “And video games help develop hand-eye coordination.”

  “So do lots of other activities,” Faith said as their waiter delivered their pizza, along with plates, knives and forks.

  Austin set a cheese slice on his plate. “Like what?”

  “Like…” She took several napkins out of the dispenser and handed them to him. “Um…”

  “Playing catch,” Nick interjected.

  “I don’t have anyone to play catch with,” Austin mumbled, cutting off the tip of his pizza with the side of his fork and popping it into his mouth.

  Faith chose her own piece, a veggie one farthest from the slices with the pepperoni. “We played catch last week.”

  “She throws like a girl,” he told Nick in a loud whisper.

  “I can see where that would be a problem,” Nick murmured.

  Faith cut into her pizza with a knife. “Hello? I am sitting right here.”

  “We know,” Nick said before picking up his slice, folding it and taking a bite.

  Austin set his fork down and copied Nick, losing half his cheese when he took an overly ambitious mouthful. Faith gave him more napkins.

  “There are other things you can do,” Nick said halfway through his first slice. “You can toss a rubber ball against the side of the house or garage—but only if there aren’t any windows.”

  Which was something he told the kids on his baseball team to do on their own, he thought as they all dived into their dinner. Not that he’d make the mistake of bringing up baseball sign-ups again. Or Austin joining the team.

  Nick had just finished his third slice when Faith leaned forward. “That woman has been staring at us since she sat down. Stop,” she hissed when he turned. “Don’t look.”

  “Then how am I supposed to see
who you mean?”

  “Right. Well…be covert about it.”

  “Covert?”

  She nodded at something behind him, presumably the mystery woman. “Use some of your cop tricks so she doesn’t see you looking at her.”

  “I’m not allowed to use the Jedi mind tricks they taught us at the police academy unless there’s a high-level security threat.” He tossed his crumpled napkin onto his plate and picked up his drink. “Although I could pull out my magic invisibility cloak.”

  Faith’s lips curved. “Fine. Let her see you. She’s two tables to your right.”

  He turned and, sure enough, met Erin Shaffer’s eyes. The overweight, middle-aged brunette sat with three women Nick vaguely recognized. But she wasn’t paying any attention to whatever had the other women laughing, because Faith had been right—Erin was busy staring at them, blatantly curious.

  Seeing she had his attention, Erin wiggled her fingers, which he took to be her version of a flirtatious wave. He lifted his glass to her in a salute, then faced Faith again.

  “That’s Erin Shaffer,” he said. “She’s harmless.”

  “But why is she watching us?” Faith asked in an undertone, still leaning across the table.

  He mimicked both her stance and her tone. “Probably because she’s already planning her strategy on the best way to spread her latest story all over town.”

  “What story?”

  He couldn’t help it. He grinned. “That you and I are together.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  PIZZA CHURNING IN HER stomach, Faith darted her eyes to the other woman. “Together?” she asked hoarsely.

  Nick shrugged his broad shoulders. “Yeah. As in a couple.”Austin sat on the edge of the bench seat, his full attention on the teens at the Pac Man game. Still, Faith leaned forward and lowered her voice. “But…but we’re not.”

  “I’m only guessing that’s what Erin will say. She might not even be thinking about us at all.”

  Faith checked again and, sure enough, the woman’s attention was still on them. “Can’t you do something?”

  Nick looked at her as if she’d sniffed way too much hair dye. “Like what? Use a Taser on her for staring at us? Even if she does gossip about us, something new will happen and any rumor about us will die down in a day or two.”