by Karen Leabo
Rob sighed. “If I have to stay in bed, can I have the TV in my room?”
Normally Lana didn’t allow this. But this was a special circumstance. “I guess, just this once.”
“Whoo-hoo,” Rob said.
A thank-you would have been nice, she supposed, but maybe this wasn’t the time to nag her son.
Rob’s lack of etiquette fled her mind the moment she pulled up to the house and saw a strange Jeep Cherokee in her driveway. Her heart beat double-time and her palms grew damp. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Rather than pull into the driveway next to the Jeep, she drove past it, looking for signs of a burglar or—
She didn’t have to look very far. She immediately recognized a male silhouette, still familiar though out of uniform, crawling around on what was left of her garage roof. A stack of new two-by-fours lay in the driveway in front of the Jeep. As soon as she opened the door she could hear hammering and smell fresh pine and old roof tar.
“Hey, the roof is getting fixed,” Rob said. “Is Dad paying for it?”
That did it. “No, Dad isn’t paying for it,” she ground out as she climbed out of the car. That would be the day, when Bart voluntarily paid one penny toward something of hers that wasn’t spelled out in the divorce decree. She stalked toward the garage. “Sloan! Sloan Bennett! You come down from there this instant.”
FOUR
“What’s Officer Bennett doing fixing our roof?” asked Rob from right behind Lana.
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
With lithe movements Sloan trotted down the ladder, his hammer hanging from a tool belt that rode low on his lean hips. Sawdust decorated his black hair, and his snug sweatshirt bore tar stains and more sawdust.
He looked even better now than he had in uniform, and for a moment Lana was struck speechless.
“Hi, Officer Bennett,” Rob said, breaking the awkward silence.
“Hey, Demolition Man. I’ve just been up surveying the job you did. Pretty awesome. How’s the head?”
Rob beamed. “It’s okay. I hafta go back to school tomorrow.”
Lana pressed her keys into Rob’s hand. “Go on inside, sweetie, and get your pajamas on. I’ll bring in the TV and something for dinner in a few minutes.”
“Are you fixing our roof?” Rob asked Sloan, all but ignoring her.
“Doing my best.”
“You’re a carpenter and a cop?” Rob asked.
“I’m a man of many talents.” But he looked at Lana as he said this, and something about the tone of his voice and the sparkle in his dark eyes made her conscious of danger. He turned his attention back to Rob. “Go on inside like your mother asked. Maybe your mom will let me come in after a while and say good night.”
“Can he, Mom?” Rob asked.
Oh, Lord, she thought, another case of hero worship in the making. “Sure, I guess. If you go inside right now and get into bed.”
He moved faster than she’d seen him go in a long time.
“Well, you’ve certainly got a new fan,” she said to Sloan, her arms folded if only to keep her from touching him to see if he was real. He looked like a rough-and-tumble movie idol and smelled even better, like sunshine and soap and a smidgen of hard work. “Mind telling me what the heck you’re doing here?”
He gave her a winsome smile, intended to disarm her, she imagined. “Fixing your roof. It’s a mess, even after I hauled off most of the debris. Looks like termite damage. Have you had this place inspected?”
“When I bought it a year ago. The inspector pointed out the damage. He said it was old.” At least she didn’t have that to worry about. “You intentionally sidestepped my question. Who said you could fix my roof?”
His smile vanished. “No one. I took it upon myself because it needed to be done. And because I didn’t have anything better to do this afternoon. And …” He seemed reluctant to say more, but then he plunged ahead. “And because friends help each other out.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Is that what we are?”
“Well …” He shrugged. “I thought we might be headed in that direction.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Like maybe we’d take up—”
“Don’t say it. That’s not what I was thinking. Whatever happened back then, it’s in the past. This is a new start. I think I like you, Lana. I like the person you’ve become.”
She took a deep breath. How could she be so mad at him when he was only trying to help, and saying such nice things? But she was mad—furious. “I already called Hansen Roofing. They were coming out on Friday.”
“And how were you going to pay them?”
Oh, now he’d really gone too far. “I was going to trade my body, okay?”
Sloan’s eyes widened and his nostrils actually flared.
“For heaven’s sake,” she huffed, “Mr. Hansen agreed to let me spread the payments out. I’m not destitute.”
“I’ll give you better terms.” His cocky smile returned.
“I’ll pay you what the job’s worth. Aren’t you cops always moonlighting for extra income?” She would see how he liked having his financial status questioned.
“I wasn’t planning to charge you.”
She pulled her checkbook out. “Three hundred twenty-five, that’s what Hansen’s was charging.” And she didn’t care if she wiped out her whole bank balance and had to live on peanut butter for the next two weeks. She wouldn’t have this debt to Sloan hanging over her head.
“If you’re so hot to write me a check, you can reimburse me for the materials. Sixty-eight dollars and some change. But I won’t accept your money for my labor. I’m doing this because I like working with my hands, and because I want to do something nice for you. Is that such a crime?”
Not when he put it like that. “You should have consulted me first.”
“I did. You said no.”
“So you came over anyway?” This was incredible.
“I knew you’d like it when it was finished.”
“Of all the—” But he wasn’t listening to her. He’d turned and was climbing back up the ladder.
“I need to take advantage of these last few minutes of daylight,” he said matter-of-factly. “I can pick up the check later.”
“Yeah, in my dreams,” Lana murmured, admiring his backside despite herself. She wasn’t sure why she was so dead set against this. In simpler times she might have accepted his friendly gesture without worrying about repercussions. But if Bart had taught her nothing else, he’d taught her that sometimes paybacks were a bitch.
Sloan worked until it was too dark to tell whether he was about to hammer a nail or his thumb. Reluctantly he gathered up his tools, climbed down the ladder, and stowed everything in the back of his Cherokee. The job wasn’t done yet. He dreaded announcing to Lana that he would be back tomorrow to finish. In her present mood, she might be waiting for him in the front yard with a shotgun.
He’d never seen a woman so dead set against someone helping her. Kinda made him wonder exactly what she’d been through in the past ten years. If he recalled, his eighteen-year-old Lana had been quick to accept a lift home from the library—provided no one saw them. She hadn’t minded when he wanted to buy her a hot fudge sundae with his hard-earned cash. When he’d bought her a small present—a crystal necklace—she’d accepted it without qualms.
So what had happened in the interim?
Recalling his promise to say good night to Rob, he went to the front door, conscious of his filthy state. He didn’t feel right, entering Lana’s pristine house reeking of pine and tar. Plus, he was giving Lana another opportunity to push a check on him. But a promise was a promise.
Lana answered the door with a stiff smile. “Come on in,” she said. “I grilled an extra pork chop for you.”
“That wasn’t necessary.”
“It is to me. There’s a bathroom down that hallway on the left where you can wash up,” she said, pointing. “Rob’s room is across the hall. I already brought his dinner to him
on a tray. He’s waiting for you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he couldn’t resist saying, since she was issuing orders like his first field training officer in Dallas. She expected to be obeyed.
Sloan washed his face and hands, shook the sawdust out of his hair, all the while smelling pork chops and thinking how nice it would be to have dinner with Lana. But pork chops cost money. She probably hadn’t counted on him when she’d bought her groceries this week. He couldn’t bear the thought of taking food out of her mouth, or Rob’s.
He would find an excuse to turn her down.
Across the hall from the bathroom, Rob’s bedroom door was open a crack, the sounds of a popular TV cop show blaring from within. Sloan tapped on the door and stuck his head inside. “Okay if I come in?”
“Sure.” Rob tore his gaze away from the TV. “Are you done with the roof?”
“Not yet. I’ll need to come back one more day.”
“Have you chased any bad guys lately?”
Sloan moved farther into the room. He noticed that Rob hadn’t eaten much of his dinner. “I arrested a burglar yesterday.”
“Cool! Did you chase him in your car with the siren on? Did you shoot him?”
“Well, no. Police work really isn’t much like what you see on TV, you know. Tell you what. If you eat some more of that pork chop, and a couple of bites of green beans, I’ll tell you how we caught the burglar.”
Rob looked down at his dinner, then up at Sloan, evaluating, weighing his choices. At last he picked up his knife and fork, sawed off a hunk of pork, and stuffed it into his mouth. “I’m eating,” he said, still chewing.
“There’s a burglar that’s been doing a lot of houses over on the west side of town.”
“Where the rich people live, like my dad?”
“Yeah. And we knew it was the same guy, because the M.O. was the same. Do you know what M.O. means?”
Rob shook his head.
“Modus operandi. It’s Latin for ‘method of operation.’ See, this guy always broke in through a back window and came out the garage. He usually struck in the afternoon, while people were at work, and he always took the same three things—computers, TVs, and VCRs. Never anything else. That’s how we knew it was him.”
Sloan paused, nodding toward the plate of food. Rob took an obedient bite of green beans, scrunching his face up to illustrate his distaste.
“This guy never left fingerprints. But this time, because of all the rain, he left a tire print in the alley behind the house he’d burgled. And a neighbor had seen the truck he used. So we looked up all the green trucks of the same make and model, and lo and behold, one of the owners was a convicted burglar. So we went to his house, compared the tire print, and bingo, we had a suspect. Since his garage was full of TVs and VCRs and computers, we arrested him.”
Rob stared at Sloan blankly. “That’s it?”
“That’s usually how it’s done. No guns, no car chases, just good detective work.”
Rob seemed disappointed. But at least he’d eaten most of his dinner.
Lana tapped on the door and walked in. She had a slice of lemon pie in her hand. “Ready for dessert?”
“Yeah, and I ate almost all my dinner too, even if Officer Bennett did sort of trick me into it.”
“Trick you?” Sloan said innocently.
“I thought it would be a better story.”
“Well, maybe next time. I’ll try to think of one that has at least a short car chase.”
Lana removed Rob’s dinner plate and replaced it with the pie. “Say good night to Officer Bennett. He has to eat his own dinner now.”
“He could eat it in here,” Rob suggested hopefully.
“No, he’ll eat in the kitchen with me,” Lana said decisively. She looked at Sloan, daring him to argue.
Sloan stood. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, Demolition Man. Good job on the dinner.”
Rob grinned, a smear of meringue on his chin.
Lana led the way into the kitchen. Sloan was formulating his refusal of dinner, when he saw the table she’d set—place mats, cloth napkins, good china. A cozy dinner for two. And suddenly he wanted more than anything to sit down at that table.
Lana was already serving up the chops from a pan she’d pulled out of the oven.
“Um, Lana—”
“Don’t you dare refuse. If you won’t let me pay you for the roof, at least accept my hospitality. I’m a great cook.”
Sloan acknowledged that this was one battle he would lose. That was okay, he supposed. It appeared she wasn’t going to write him a check, which meant he’d won the more important battle. He pulled Lana’s chair out for her. She sat down self-consciously. Sloan’s arm brushed against her hair as he scooted her chair in, and he shivered involuntarily. He remembered her hair, golden as a sunrise and soft, so soft, as it brushed against his chest.
“Sit …” She cleared her throat. “Sit down, please.”
He realized he’d been frozen there, his hands on the back of Lana’s chair, lost in memory. It didn’t take much to throw him back ten years. The images were still so vivid, even after all this time—Lana with her head bent over a book of poetry, Lana on the back of his bike, her arms around his middle, her hair streaming in golden waves behind her. Lana beneath him, her face transformed by passion.
“Everything looks really good,” he said as he sat down. It felt funny, all this polite conversation. They’d talked years ago, but their conversations had been far-flung, lofty. They’d spoken of dreams, fears, high points and low points in their lives. They hadn’t spoken of love, but Sloan had believed that what he felt was love. Nothing that intense could be anything less. But he’d been scared to death to say anything, scared that she would laugh at his audacity, that he’d mistaken her passion for some more genuine emotion.
He supposed it was a good thing he’d kept his mouth shut. At least he’d held on to his pride. She hadn’t left him with much else. Of course, they’d been hardly more than children, he reminded himself. Children made mistakes. He’d certainly made his share. Maybe Lana had trivialized their relationship, but he shouldn’t be blaming her for it now, not ten years later.
“Mmm, delicious,” he said after his first bite of tender pork. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”
“My mother, of course.” Lana took a sip of milk. “She thought it extremely important that a young woman learn domestic skills, although she hoped I’d never have to use them.”
Sloan looked at Lana, puzzled.
“She hoped I would have hired help to do the cooking and cleaning, but the idea was that if I had those skills myself, I’d be better able to run a household.”
“Ah, I see. I think. Your mother was … a little old-fashioned?” That was putting it kindly, he supposed.
“A little,” Lana agreed with a fond smile. “You think I’m a Southern belle, you should have met Mama.”
“So you came by it honestly?” This time there was more teasing and less rancor in his accusation.
“There’s nothing wrong with old-fashioned manners,” she answered in kind. But then she paused, appearing thoughtful. “She was a grand lady. Oh, you’ve finished your green beans. I’ll get more.”
“No, really …” But before he could even formulate a polite refusal, she was dumping another pile of vegetables onto his plate.
Oh, well. He liked green beans.
“You … lived away from the area for quite a while, right?” she asked.
He didn’t really want to talk about himself. Lana was a much more interesting subject. Still, he had to say something. “I moved to Dallas after Captain Johnson’s house was done.” He tried to make the remark sound casual. He’d die of embarrassment if Lana knew that she was the reason he’d moved. He’d been determined to go somewhere where his reputation didn’t precede him and make something of himself. Then he’d show her just what she’d thrown away. But such childish ambitions soon gave way to more meaningful goals. He’d found he’d want
ed to turn his life around for him, for Sloan Bennett, and not anyone else, and damned if he hadn’t. A beat cop wasn’t exactly the cream of society, but he was good at his job and proud of it too. He couldn’t imagine anything he’d rather be doing.
“And what did you do in Dallas?”
“Worked construction. Went to college and got an associate’s degree so I could join the police force.”
“But don’t they—” She stopped herself. “More milk?”
He grabbed her by the wrist before she could flee to the refrigerator. “Stop feeding me, okay? You were about to say something. ‘But don’t they—’ What?”
Her face pinkened. She pulled her arm away from his light grasp, but she didn’t run. “I was just thinking that you couldn’t become a police officer if you had a, um, a record.”
“Oh. I had a juvey record. See, they wipe that clean when you turn seventeen. I had only one other arrest after that, and I wasn’t convicted. So the Dallas Police Department knew nothing about my sordid past.”
“Oh, Sloan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up any unpleasant memories—”
“Honey, you didn’t have to say a word to bring up memories. Good ones and bad ones, they just came the minute I saw your face.”
She looked stricken. Well, hell, he hadn’t meant to bring up the subject of them in quite such a jarring fashion. He hadn’t meant to bring it up at all. What had possessed him?
“Strike that,” he said quickly. “That wasn’t really fair.”
“But it was honest,” she said.
He couldn’t argue with her there. The words had barely registered in his brain before they’d come pouring out of his mouth, uncensored. “Forget I said it anyway. Please.”
“I don’t think so. Maybe it’s time we brought a few things out in the open.”
Now he was really regretting his candor. He didn’t want this. He wasn’t prepared to discuss anything about that time. Years earlier he’d shut off his feelings where Lana was concerned. A few had escaped, but he sure as hell wasn’t ready to open the whole can of worms.
