Guardian of Justice

by Carol Steward

  “Two hours?” She raised her eyebrows. “Wow, that sounds serious. Is there a problem?”

  He didn’t have the patience to deal with this, today or ever. “Not if I can help it. Is he available in the morning, or would after school fit into his schedule better?” Dallas stared into her eyes, hoping she’d realize he was ignoring her blatant flirtation.

  She went to her computer and leaned over the keyboard, apparently not minding that he was ignoring her.

  Dallas turned to read the announcement board while Miss Carson punched keys. “Huh,” she said, and Dallas glanced over his shoulder just as she bit her lip and batted her eyelashes. “His day is pretty full tomorrow. Maybe if you come back in the morning, he can fit you in for a few minutes.”

  “I’ll send him an e-mail. Thanks, anyway.” He slapped a hand on the counter and walked to the exit.

  “See you in the morning,” she said as he walked out the door.

  Dallas returned to his office and shot an e-mail to the principal requesting a meeting ASAP to discuss security as outlined in the building’s crisis manual.

  He felt as if the weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders when he walked out the door and got into the patrol car to head back to the station. Once there, he took his bulletproof vest off and changed into his street clothes. Layer by layer, he felt more human and vulnerable, missing the protection the uniform offered.

  He was ready to leave when his cell phone rang. Kira’s brother Kent was calling to say his contacts hadn’t seen Mickey in almost two weeks, but the fingerprints lifted from Kira’s condo matched. And for Dallas, the inner turmoil began again.

  As he headed to Fossil Creek to pick up Kira, he watched to be sure he wasn’t being followed. He had no clue where to go for dinner. He wanted someplace where they could have privacy to talk, as he didn’t want their issues and feelings to be overheard. Most of the restaurants he could think of were either so busy that they would have to struggle to hear one another, or the setting would lead her to the wrong conclusion. While she was just the kind of woman he would like to date, he couldn’t take the chance. He didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot and set her brothers off again.

  He found her parents’ house without much problem, parked his car along the curb and took a deep breath. He struggled to keep reins on the anticipation of talking with Kira tonight. Don’t forget, this isn’t a date.

  Before he could ring the doorbell, a dog barked on the other side of the door. A yippy little dog, from the sound of it. Kira’s dad answered with a small white fluff ball in his arms. “Evening, Dallas.” Ted managed to make himself heard above the high-pitched barking of the excited animal. “Excuse Pom Pom. She’s our alarm system.”

  Dallas laughed. “Is it a happy yip, or is she ready to attack?”

  “Depends on if she likes the visitor,” her dad said as the dog nearly wiggled out of his arms to get to Dallas. She couldn’t weigh more than six pounds, two of it fur.

  “I see. I’ll try to keep on her good side then.” Dallas let the dog sniff his hand, and the friendship began. “How’s Kira today?” He stepped inside and closed the door, expecting her to appear at any moment.

  “Doing pretty well. I wanted to make a suggestion. I’m a little concerned about her being out in the public before Zelanski is caught,” he said, his voice gruff.

  Dallas was ready to argue when her dad continued. “Turns out her office received threatening calls wanting to know where those kids are. They advised Kira to stay home a few more days to let the police trace the calls.”

  “So Zelanski does want something that the kids have,” Dallas stated thoughtfully aloud. “I knew it.”

  Kira rushed down the stairs, renewing Dallas’s worry. This crazy man would do whatever it took, even if it meant hurting an innocent woman to get what he wanted.

  “Hi,” she said, with a somber smile.

  Does she know about the calls?Dallas felt better just having the chance to spend some time talking with her. “Evening.” He tried to hide his admiration, as Kira’s father was still watching him.

  “Dallas, Grace and I would feel a lot better if you two had dinner here tonight.”

  “Dad,” Kira said in disbelief. “I said I would talk to him about it.”

  “Fine, talk to him then. I’m going to go get changed for my date. Unless you want us to stay home.” Ted put the dog down and it jumped as if it had springs for legs.

  Dinner with her parents was out of the question. Dallas wasn’t going to get anywhere discussing what had happened, not with them around. Kira had hardly given her father the bare facts last night. He looked at her father, realizing the older man was waiting for his response, his hand on the banister. “Thank you for the offer, Mr. Matthews…”

  “There are steaks in the fridge, and we thought you could grill them and have some privacy here. That is, unless you had other plans.”

  “Dad…” Kira said. “Just go. We’ll be fine, whether we go out or stay here.”

  “I’m going, I’m going!” Ted muttered as he disappeared up the staircase.

  Despite his discomfort at accepting her father’s somewhat domineering hospitality, Dallas wondered if doing so wasn’t best. That way Kira wouldn’t get any misconceptions about why he had asked her to dinner. And since she had no interest in dating, he wouldn’t be concerned with choosing too cozy of a restaurant. “Either is fine with me, Kira. What do you want to do?”

  Her smile hinted at her loneliness, a feeling that Dallas could understand all too well. “This case seems to have the tentacles of an octopus, and I’ll admit, I am a little shaken by it. We need to talk, and I don’t think either of us will be comfortable opening up in a public place,” she said.

  “That was my concern, too. I wouldn’t have suggested we stay here, but I’m fine with it if it makes you more comfortable.”

  “You really don’t mind?” Her surprise was obvious. “I mean, thank you, Dallas. I would definitely be more comfortable at home…Mom and Dad’s home.”

  Before he knew it, he’d wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t mind, really.” Dallas didn’t like that he was caring more and more for Kira, let alone worrying about how every decision would affect her.

  As if Kira had read his mind, her dark brown eyes softened as she admired him. “Would you mind helping with your dinner?”

  The subtle exchange set off alarms of old fears and uncertainties. He followed her down a wide hallway that opened up to a formal dining room with candles and fresh flowers on the table. Someone apparently hadn’t gotten the same message he had about Kira’s disinterest in dating cops. How am I going to get out of this one?

  He’d been torn between pushing to get Kira back into a normal routine, and wanting to protect her like her family was doing. After the shooting in Phoenix he had wanted to lock himself away from everyone: his fiancée, family, life in general. But in his case, the individual intent on hurting people was out of the picture. In her case, he was still a very real threat.

  Kira continued to the kitchen, where she handed him a knife and a small loaf of French bread. “If you’ll butter the bread, I’ll make a salad,” she said, as if they were an ordinary couple.

  “Sure,” he answered, trying to squelch his inclination to care about her. She looked happy tearing lettuce and chopping tomatoes, doing the routine things that couples normally did together.

  Dallas’s chest tightened. Why he had this reaction every time he saw her, he couldn’t understand. He hadn’t been interested in dating in three years, not since Jessica had broken their engagement. Since then, he hadn’t met one woman he’d wanted to date casually, let alone seriously. Less than a year into his new career, and he couldn’t seem to get his mind off the one woman who wanted nothing to do with a police officer. Just his luck.

  Her parents stepped into the room, and Dallas felt like an awkward teenager on a first date. Kira quickly introduced him to her mom, Grace, before her dad rushed them out th
e door, claiming they’d be late for the play if they didn’t hurry.

  While Kira set the salad in the refrigerator and Dallas finished buttering the bread, an awkward silence stretched between them. He wrapped the bread in the foil that it was on, and Kira set it in the warm oven. She turned around, her gaze roaming from his chest to his face.

  “You sure you don’t mind eating here?”

  He couldn’t stop analyzing her, and apparently she was doing a bit of analysis on herself.

  He nodded. “I’m sure. So what have you been doing all week?” Pom Pom yipped as they pulled the steak out of the refrigerator, and guarded Kira at the grill.

  Kira smiled at the pup, consoling her with a doggy treat. Again, Dallas felt an odd rhythm in his chest. “Not much, until today,” she told him. “Dad drove Mom and me to my office, where I tried to get some work done.”

  “And?”

  “Every time the phone rang, Mom jumped a mile and asked a hundred questions. It wasn’t worth it. I brought my paperwork home.” Kira opened a cabinet and pulled out plates, handing them to him. “Would you set them on the table over there?” She nodded toward a sizable table across the kitchen, and Dallas breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Were you afraid we were going to eat in the dining room with the candles and flowers?” Kira laughed softly and he realized his sigh must not have been mental.

  “What, are you a detective now, or a mind reader?”

  Kira laughed again. “I’d say it’s in my blood, but I guess that’s pretty obviously not it, right? I guess I just have too many brothers to not recognize panic when I see it.”

  He’d only met her a week ago. But he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head. She was going to capture his heart if he wasn’t careful.

  Chapter Eleven

  ELEVEN

  Kira had waited patiently while they ate dinner, and still she knew little more than she had when Dallas arrived. She glanced across the large round table, wondering if she should have sat farther away, but that seemed so cold. Then again, sitting next to Dallas may have made him uncomfortable. Maybe that’s why he’d been so quiet.

  He’s quiet because he’s not interested.“More tea?” Kira offered. She didn’t want to seem pushy, but she did want to correct him on one major point. He was hurting, and she wanted nothing more than to help him through it.

  “Sure,” he said as he held out his glass.

  She struggled to keep her mind on pouring and not on his muscular forearms. Or his blue eyes, which were the color of the Caribbean, and a definite distraction. His military buzz cut was typical of most street cops, but slightly overgrown.

  She took a nibble of bread and felt the silence stretch dangerously thin. “This isn’t getting us very far, is it? And here I thought being in a quiet house would make it easier.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dallas said, pushing his empty plate away. “I’m not sure where to start.” He looked Kira in the eyes and she felt his pain as well as her own.

  “Maybe some dessert would help. We happen to have a choice tonight—chocolate cake or cheesecake.”

  “A tough choice. How about I think about it while we do dishes,” he said as he stood. “I’ll wash, and since you know where the dishes belong, you can put things away.”

  She really didn’t want to bother with dishes right now, but she also realized how much better an interview with clients went when they were busy and had a distraction. “Okay,” she said, filling the sink with soap and water, while Dallas added the dishes. She glanced at the dishwasher, resisting the temptation to roll her eyes. Doing the few dishes that they had dirtied wasn’t going to buy him much time. “So, I believe you promised to tell me about an experience of yours?”

  He shook the bubbles from his hands and leaned back against the counter. “You’ve got to realize I haven’t talked to anyone about this before,” he said. “Well, no one that I wasn’t required to talk to. None of my friends knew. My fiancée didn’t want to hear it, and when she finally did, she couldn’t deal with it. A couple months later she broke our engagement.”

  Kira wasn’t sure how to respond. “From what I’ve read about post-traumatic stress disorder, that’s fairly common.”

  “Yeah, it is. She gave me a choice, my career or her. Some days I still wonder if this is really what God wanted me to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Return to law enforcement. I took a few years off after my incident, tried other jobs. Before I decided to apply for another police position, God and I had some lengthy discussions. I had some serious doubts, and a few stipulations.” He glanced over to Kira. “Lately, it seems the rules of our agreement have changed.”

  She studied him for a minute. “You…negotiated…with God?”

  Dallas gave a small chuckle. “Sounds pretty ridiculous when you say it that way, doesn’t it?”

  Kira shrugged. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out. I’ve just never thought of those frequent prayers I have as ‘negotiations.’ I always sort of felt like whatever God wanted, I needed to do.”

  Dallas smiled. “Well, that explains why I ended up back in law-enforcement then, doesn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. I’m no expert.”

  “It’s been a lot more difficult to keep in touch lately. With God, I mean.” He paused. “It was so much easier when I worked normal hours. When I went through treatment, I felt so close. I attended church on a fairly regular basis, and, well, when you’re working low-stress jobs, life’s just a little easier to swallow. But I wasn’t happy, and my fiancée insisted I wasn’t the same person anymore.”

  Kira looked away, not wanting to point out to Dallas that it may have been a blessing in disguise. He certainly wouldn’t have been here if God hadn’t meant for him to return to police work. “As you said, after a crisis, you’re never going to be the same person. Why don’t we sit down in the family room.” Maybe Dallas was simply here tonight to satisfy his supervisor. Maybe he had no personal interest in her at all. “Do you mind if I ask about your incident?”

  “That is why I’m here, isn’t it?” he said with a grimace. He paused in the doorway as Kira let the dog outside. “I was a police officer for four years in Phoenix, so there were plenty of opportunities for disaster. What finally did me in was a year and a half working as a school resource officer, or SRO, as we call them here. I had a great time. It was rewarding to feel like I made a difference, which was sometimes the discouraging part of being a patrolman in a big city.”

  Kira edged past Dallas and pointed toward the cozy family room. “I can understand that. It is a huge city.”

  “Yes, it is. At the school, the kids and I built a rapport, and even in the evenings, they called if they were in a situation they couldn’t handle. It was good to feel needed, almost like being more of a big brother than a security officer.”

  Kira smiled. “Cody seemed to connect with you immediately the other night, but you didn’t seem too thrilled.”

  Dallas shrugged. “Yeah. And I don’t think Cody was that thrilled with me, either. If a dog had bitten Mickey and gotten rid of him, Cody would have thanked the dog, too.”

  She laughed, and elbowed Dallas playfully. Though she knew he was being modest, Kira had seen that Cody was drawn to Dallas, despite his denial.

  Dallas took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

  “Let’s go sit in an easy chair,” Kira suggest. She sat on the sofa and tucked her feet under her other leg.

  “There was this young man that I’d gone out of the way for, on many occasions.” Dallas said, turning serious again. He sat next to Kira and continued talking. “He was a troubled kid, and I felt for him. Parents were split, both too busy with their successful careers to keep an eye on the boy. He had become a truancy problem, but he promised me he’d work harder. He would come into my office and do his homework. He was improving his grades, but he had a long way to go.”

  Dallas’s voice cracked, and Kira felt her heart squeeze ti
ghter. She wanted to make his pain go away, just as he did hers. Her mind ran wild with possibilities of what could have happened next. Dallas didn’t speak for the longest time. Kira finally offered to get him more iced tea.

  He shook his head. “I’m okay.” He took a deep breath. “Something snapped. The kid had a string of incidents. I talked with him every day, trying to figure out what was going on. Then one day his girlfriend broke up with him, and Alek got into a fight with a classmate he thought was to blame for the breakup.” Dallas leaned his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands.

  “The principal gave him a five-day suspension to cool down. After lunch four days later, his teacher called the principal’s office, reporting that Alek was back in class, being very disruptive and acting strange. I got a page to report to the classroom, but by the time I got there, the teacher had sent him to the office. The kids in the class were upset, and rumors were rampant. Someone claimed he had a bomb in his backpack.”

  Kira covered her mouth, fearing what had happened next.

  “When I met up with him in the main lobby, he had a gun and was demanding to see the principal.”

  Dallas slipped into a trancelike state, reciting the events as if he’d gone through them a million times. He probably had, Kira thought.

  “I was at the opposite end of the main building and caught up with Alek as he reached the office. The bell rang, and a friend of his came out of class and saw Al-Alek with a semiautomatic pistol. Even his best friend couldn’t talk him down.”

  Kira held her breath. Her heart raced.

  “He shot several times, and one bullet ricocheted and hit the friend in the knee. That made Alek mad, and he turned on me, as if he blamed me for that shot. He fired once at me, then turned to shoot the principal as he walked out of the office.

  Kira gasped, and she instinctively rubbed his shoulders.

  “Alek fired again.” Dallas’s voice caught. “He missed. I didn’t.”