Just a Little Series (Part 1)

by Tracie Puckett

I hadn’t seen or spoken to Luke since he came to the house on Wednesday night, but a lot had fallen into perspective since.

  I’d thought a lot about what Matt had said, both about the person I used to be, and the person I’d become. Not liking that he of all people thought that I could be so difficult to deal with, I decided that it was time to put forth a better effort; it was time to turn over a new leaf.

  I knew it was impossible to experience a full transformation overnight, and a complete change wasn’t what I was after. All I wanted was to show Matt and Luke that I wasn’t the short-tempered, pessimistic, drama queen they’d spent so much time with lately.

  “Good morning,” Detective Bruno said from his desk as I walked in.

  Once inside the station, I shut my umbrella, shook it off, and propped it against the wall as I scanned the room.

  “Good morning, Detective,” I walked past him, “anything good to report?”

  “Quiet morning, Miss Julie,” he said, “but I do believe I saw Trigger moseying around here earlier. He’s probably waiting on you in the break room.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I patted him on the back as I passed by.

  Luke couldn’t have been waiting on me because he hadn’t been expecting me. But I was there; ready to carry out my hours for the day, dedicated to staying true to my word.

  I headed straight for the break room to get an idea of Luke’s whereabouts. If he wasn’t there drinking his coffee that only left two options: he’d already gotten his fill and left for the day, or he was running behind schedule and hadn’t made a morning pit stop for his daily cup of joe.

  The coffee pot was full to the rim, and I checked the upper cabinet to find one, single, solitary coffee mug on the shelf, one belonging to an Officer Lucas Reibeck. I poured the coffee in the cup and turned to greet him just as he walked in the door.

  He stopped short and stared at me as I leaned against the counter, holding the hot mug with both hands.

  “Good morning, Officer Reibeck,” I stepped forward to pass the cup to him. He took the mug, but his eyes never left mine.

  “Julie,” he finally said, shaking away whatever kept him staring, and he stood a little straighter, “feeling better today?”

  “Much,” I nodded once. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it on Wednesday. It won’t happen again.”

  “Good.” A smile tugged at his lips. “You ready to hit the road?”

  I nodded, knowing I was as ready now as I’d ever be.

  “Let’s roll out then,” he only took one drink of his coffee before setting it aside.

  Once in the car, Luke and I set out on patrol like all the times before. But the morning was still eerily dark, and the rain poured from the sky, pelting the cruiser with heavy strikes.

  A few blocks from the station, Luke parked the car off the side of the road.

  “Quiet morning,” he said as a large bolt of lightning struck across the distant skyline.

  I nodded, not knowing exactly what to say. Was I supposed to pretend that I didn’t like him? Like he’d never heard those things I’d said to Matt? Or was I supposed to just be quiet and let him say whatever he was going to say?

  “I was wrong to assume that you didn’t have an interest in the field,” he finally said, still looking straight forward as the rain fell harder. “I didn’t know about your dad.”

  “It’s fine,” I looked away. “It’s just something I’ve been around my whole life, you know? Between Dad and Charlie, I felt like I already knew everything I could possibly care to know.”

  He nodded as though he understood, but I knew he couldn’t. Luke was the kind of guy who’d dedicated his life to his job; he’d risked his own safety to protect his community. He did it for the job, he did it for the passion, and he did it to survive his mother’s legacy.

  “It’s not that I don’t respect what you do,” I said, hoping to set the record straight. “I do, I respect it with all my heart. But I just have a hard time trying to figure out why anyone would want to risk sacrificing so much, and get so little in return.”

  “It’s not about getting anything back,” he said, and I truly believed he meant that. “It’s about paying it forward. So many cops before us have lost their lives because of the path they followed; people like your dad, Julie. And we owe it to them to fight back. It’s not a job you choose when you get into this field. It’s not a career, and it’s certainly not a hobby. When it comes right down to it, you’re choosing a lifestyle. And no, this lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I can respect that. But you need to respect it, too. It isn’t something to take lightly.”

  I peered through the darkness to meet his gaze, mesmerized by the softer side he was showing me.

  “I don’t take it lightly,” I said. “I think it’s admirable what you do. But I can’t help but look at every man and woman in uniform and blame them for their selfishness.”

  Luke scrunched his brow. “It’s the most selfless thing a person could do, so I don’t follow—”

  “My mom lost her life because of this job,” I said. “And it could’ve just as easily been me. Dad wasn’t just risking his life when he chose this lifestyle, Luke. He risked the lives of everyone he knew, loved, and cared about.”

  “What happened to your parents was a tragedy, Julie. But it’s unheard of. Most guys violent enough to commit a crime that heinous never see the light of day after their arrest. I’m not saying that terrible things don’t happen. They do. But you can’t call us selfish because of what happened to your parents. If your dad had any reason to believe his family was in danger—”

  “Yeah,” I felt no need to hear him repeat the same words Matt and Charlie had been saying since the funeral. If dad had known, he would’ve prevented it. I felt a tear slip down my cheek and land on my lips.

  “It’s just hard,” I said. “I miss him so much, but I can’t get past hating him. He should’ve protected her, Luke. He should’ve looked out for my mom. Husbands are supposed to protect their wives, and he let her down. He let me down. He let her die, and I lost my mom. Now they’re both gone.”

  “Julie—”

  “All I want is to see him one more time… just once, so I can tell him how much I blame him… and how much I miss him… and how much I need both of them to just come home.”

  As I sat in the passenger’s seat, tears soaking the top of my shirt, Luke took my hand and brushed my fingers with his. It looked as though he had a million things running through his mind, but none that he knew how to say. He chose to maintain the silence, letting me cry for a little while longer. When the moments passed, and the rain let up, the sun finally started to shine on the horizon.

  I dried the tears with the back of my hand and passed an apologetic glance to Luke.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay,” he squeezed my fingers tighter. “It’s healthy to get that out.”

  I nodded.

  “And Julie,” his brown eyes met mine as he leaned a little closer, “you can’t blame Charlie, and you most certainly can’t blame anyone else in uniform. And if the day ever comes that you find yourself falling for someone who’s chosen the same lifestyle as your father, you can’t blame him for what you’ve lost either. You can’t make him suffer. If anything, let him help you. You can’t live your life in fear, kid. At some point—and I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, you have to learn to let go.”

  I bit back another sob and looked away, staring out the window and avoiding the soft look in his eye. Something told me that Luke knew a thing or two about holding on to fear, but it still didn’t comfort me.

  “I’m not ready to let go,” I heard the bitterness in my voice.

  I turned back and looked at our linked hands, and back up to Luke’s half-hearted grin.

  “What do you say we change the subject for now?” he knew that I was on the verge of another emotional breakdown. Either he didn’t want to listen to another sobfest
, or he truly wanted to spare me from dealing with all those raw emotions. “How’s that sound?”

  “Like a very, very good idea.”

  “Okay,” he looked down at the notebook. “Any more questions you haven’t asked?”

  There were plenty on the page, but none that would open the door to who he really was. All the questions I wanted answers to were the ones burning in my heart, the ones that would lead me closer to knowing everything I could know about him. Sadly, he was right back at the station the other day. I didn’t really care about the job-shadowing program, the report, or getting a passing grade. All I really cared about was learning as much as I possibly could about the man sitting next to me.

  “The scar,” I gently gnawed on the top of my lip. “How’d you get it?”

  “Another story for another time,” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  I accepted his answer, though still unable to pull my gaze from his lips. I couldn’t help but wonder a million things I knew I shouldn’t… for starters, what would they feel like? Or better yet, how would they taste?

  And as if he knew the questions I’d been thinking, he pulled his hand from mine and repositioned himself.

  “What do you say we hit the road?”

  Jilted by his sudden change of heart, I nodded and readjusted.

  “So,” he pulled out on the road to start our morning shift, “what’s next in your line of questioning?”

  I looked down to the tear-soaked notebook sitting in my lap and opened it up to an earmarked page.

  Just as Matt had observed, the page was full of barely legible scribbles… and dozens of tiny hearts. There were still so many questions I wanted to ask him, so much more I wanted to learn, but I didn’t know where to begin. At what point were my questions crossing the line of professionalism? And at what point would he read into my curiosity and refuse to answer?

  Feeling as though it was best to keep my inquiries as closely related to the job as possible, I scanned the list and stopped at a question halfway down the page.

  I poised the pen over the paper and asked, “Officer Reibeck, in your time on the force, have you ever suffered a serious injury?”

  “Once,” he admitted, his tone laced with humor.

  “The scar?” I hoped I’d finally hear the story he’d seemed reluctant to share earlier.

  “No, not the scar,” he said, definitely. “I was shot.”

  “Shot?” I asked with wide eyes. My mind raced to find the right question to ask next, but my imagination ran wild with scenarios. Shot during an arrest? A drug bust gone wrong?

  Who?

  Where?

  Why?

  I took a deep breath to help calm myself. “Care to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the shooting?”

  “Certainly,” he turned onto Main. “Went to the shooting range last year with a couple of buddies. We were halfway through target practice, and your Uncle Charlie cracked a joke about Bruno. I lost sight of where we were, what we were doing, and my finger slipped on the trigger.”

  “You shot yourself?”

  “Right in the foot.”

  “And that’s why they call you Trigger?”

  We shared a laugh, and as we turned on to Linden Avenue, a strange sensation settled in the pit of my stomach.

  Luke was opening up to me, and not because he had to; because he wanted to.

  And as I watched him appreciatively from the passenger’s seat, it was the look in his soft, brown eyes as he threw me a sideways glance that made me wonder if maybe Lucas Reibeck had developed feelings for me.

  And maybe, just maybe... I wasn’t the only one experiencing what Luke had so lovingly labeled just a little crush.