Lana's Lawman

by Karen Leabo

  “Wait a minute, what crack in the engine block? What are you talking about?”

  Darn. She really hadn’t meant to let that slip. Sloan had enough to worry about. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, you can’t hold back today because you fear what tomorrow will bring. Love means through thick and thin, doesn’t it? If the worst happens—”

  “If the worst happens, I’ll be guilty of killing a fifteen-year-old kid.”

  “A kid who was trying to kill you. A kid who shot that poor old man for fifty-eight dollars in the cash register. That’s what the paper said anyway. Did they get it wrong?”

  Sloan shook his head. “The kid went for his weapon. He fired it on his way down. I did just what I was trained to do. But what the newspaper doesn’t know—what no one knows—is that I talked to him just a few hours before, in a parking lot. Maybe I riled him up or something. He was angry that I’d once been like him and then I became a cop. And I just walked away.”

  “A very sensible thing to do.”

  “I should have talked to him. He was probably planning that robbery even then. I could have changed his mind if I’d just talked instead of walking away.”

  “And if you’d insisted on talking, he might have pulled his gun right there in the parking lot and shot you. You can’t second-guess anything, Sloan. It’s like me and the falling-down roof. I took what I thought were reasonable precautions. You did what you thought was right at the time. That’s all you can do. That’s all anybody can expect you to do.”

  “I expect more of myself.”

  “Then you’re too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break, huh? You turned your life around and you’ve become an exceptional human being, so good that I’m not sure I deserve you. But you can’t save everybody.”

  He looked at her for a long time. There was a yearning in his eyes that told Lana he wanted to believe her. But he couldn’t. Not quite.

  “What if they take me off the force?” he said in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “What if they take my gun away and give me a desk job?”

  “In the first place, that isn’t going to happen. You said yourself, you did what you were trained to do. You probably saved that old man’s life by acting quickly, and you might have saved the lives of other officers arriving at the scene.”

  “But if it does happen? It’s not just a matter of whether I did the right thing. I have to talk to the department shrink, and she has to okay me for active duty. Do I look to you like I’m ready for active duty?”

  “Not today.” She’d give him that. “And maybe not tomorrow, or the next day. But you’ll get through this. And if the worst happens, if for some stupid reason you can’t be a street cop anymore, you’ll find a way to cope. Because you’re still the same man you were yesterday, and the day before. You’re the one who looked my son in the eye and told him to face the consequences of his actions, and whatever happens, you get through it, and you’re stronger because of it.”

  “I said that?”

  “Something like that, and he paid attention. He’s pretty much off the hook now because he told the truth, not because of Bart’s stupid lawyer tricks.”

  Sloan actually smiled, a real smile this time. “That’s terrific.”

  “You also said that it’s okay to need. If ever you’ve needed somebody, this is the time. I want to be that somebody.”

  His smile faded. “You’ve got problems of your own.”

  “Which I’m working through, mostly thanks to you. Please don’t shut me out.” She shook her head at the irony. “Now I know exactly how exasperated you must have been with me when I kept resisting you and everything you offered.”

  Sloan pursed his lips, looking sheepish. Then, an eternity later, he held out his hand to her. She took it, and he pulled her to him. “God, Lana, just hold me. I really need that right now.”

  It was a start, she thought, squeezing him with all her might. He was sharing his pain. But she knew he had some demons to wrestle, and that he wouldn’t accept or give love unconditionally until he’d made peace with himself.

  Sloan accepted the comfort Lana offered. He hadn’t thought anything or anyone could make him feel better about the situation he’d gotten into. But Lana had. Before she’d arrived, he’d begun to feel that sense of worthlessness that he’d known as a kid, a feeling he’d sworn he’d left behind forever.

  Now, just knowing that there was someone in the world who wasn’t passing judgment on him made a huge difference. The fact that she didn’t blame him, or second-guess him, for what had happened somehow made him feel valuable again.

  Giving his hormones a jump start certainly had chased away that hangover. He realized now how foolish he’d been to numb himself with large quantities of pizza and a six-pack.

  “I need a shower real bad.”

  “Okay. Mind if I, uh, straighten up in here a bit?”

  He looked around and, for the first time, saw what a pigsty the place was. “You might open a window and let the place air out, and clear off the sofa so you can sit down. But leave the rest. I’ll get it later.”

  “Later?”

  “After we get back from the hospital. They told me last night that Dustin Tooey might be able to have visitors today, and I want to see him. I want to … tell him I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “Do you really think that’s wise?”

  “No. In fact, some people could look at it as an attempt on my part to influence him, make him slant his story more in my favor.”

  “Then why are you doing it?”

  “Because it’s something I have to do. I’m having a hard enough time forgiving myself. If that kid should die before I could talk to him …”

  Lana nodded. Her stoic acceptance of his less than sensible explanation, her faith in his judgment, did something to him. Hell, yeah, he was in love with her. He had been almost since the moment he’d gazed at her through the rain the night of Callie and Sam’s wedding. But he’d be damned if he’d commit himself to anything until he knew what he had to offer Lana.

  She might not see it that way, but he couldn’t possibly expect her to marry an unemployed ex-cop who’d killed a kid.

  Sloan breathed a sigh of relief when he learned Dustin Tooey was improving after surgery to remove the bullet from his chest. He had a punctured lung, but the damage had been repaired and his blood supply replenished. He was conscious and able to talk.

  The bad news was that the police officer guarding the door to Tooey’s room wasn’t about to let Sloan enter. Sloan gripped Lana’s hand more tightly. “Come on, DeWitt,” he said to his fellow patrolman. “I need to see him.”

  “Look, Bennett, you’re sitting pretty. Right now there’s no way the investigation could go against you. You’ll be reinstated within the week. But if you go messing around—”

  “This has nothing to do with the investigation. I just want to see for myself that he’s doing okay. I want to talk to him. I want to let him know I’m not the enemy.”

  “That’s a losing battle, man. He thinks all cops are the enemy.”

  “But I grew up in his neighborhood. I used to be that kid.”

  “You were never that kid,” Lana broke in. “You forget, I knew you as a teenager. You stole a car. You didn’t knock over gas stations and gun down cops and helpless old men.”

  “I still want to see him,” Sloan said, knowing he was being stubborn.

  “You’ll have to wait until someone else is on guard duty, then. I’m not letting you in. You can get all ticked off at me, but I’m not going to let you risk your career. Destiny needs good cops. Talk to the kid after you’re cleared. He’ll still be here. He’s not dying.”

  “Will you give him a message for me?”

  DeWitt hesitated, then gave in. “Sure.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry I had to hurt him. And if he wants to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

  “I’ll tell him,” DeWitt said.

  Sloan backed off. He walked down t
he hospital corridor, still holding tight to Lana’s hand.

  “Why are you wasting your time on him?” Lana said.

  “I’m sure some people asked Chief Johnson why he wasted time on me. The answer is, because he’s a kid, and you can’t just throw kids away. He hasn’t killed anyone yet, though not for lack of trying. Maybe, with someone’s intervention, he’ll stop and rethink his life before it’s too late. Maybe I’ll be that someone, maybe I won’t. But I can’t walk away from it. I can cope with shooting a kid if I know I tried my damnedest to turn it into something positive.”

  Lana felt ashamed for not understanding sooner. “Oh, I get it.”

  He stopped in front of the elevator and turned to her. “Really? Or are you just saying that to pacify me?”

  “No, I really do get it. A police officer once turned your life around. Now you want to make the same kind of effort yourself. It’s a wonderful quality about you.”

  He started to smile, but her next words froze his lips into a surprised half-smile, half-grimace. “I only wish you would let that wonderful quality swing both ways.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve been there for me in the worst possible circumstances. You’ve practically insisted that I dump my whole life into yours, warts and all. Yet you won’t return the favor. You don’t have enough faith in me to believe I can handle it, that you won’t scare me away.

  “Dammit, Sloan, I want you to trust me the way I’ve learned to trust you. I’ll stick with you no matter what happens, whether you’re a cop or a trash collector. You’ll always be the man I fell in love with.”

  The elevator bell rang, the doors opened. Neither of them even glanced at the empty car. The doors closed again.

  “It wouldn’t be fair,” he began, then stopped. Was it fair to shut her out, this woman who offered him unconditional love? No one else had ever done that for him. Was it fair to put her on a back burner, pending the outcome of the administrative hearing?

  What if Dustin Tooey had died? Had Sloan intended to turn his back on Lana forever just because life wasn’t going as planned?

  She was right. He’d insisted she share everything with him, yet he wasn’t sure he even knew how to do the same. No one else had ever wanted him to.

  Lana stared down at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t be pressuring you at a time like this.”

  “Maybe a little pressure is what I need most. I don’t want to lose you, Lana. I don’t want to throw away what we’ve got going.”

  “You won’t,” she said simply. “I’m here for the duration.”

  Lana felt like a bug under a microscope as she waited at the police station for the outcome of Sloan’s administrative hearing. It was a closed session, so she wasn’t allowed inside the conference room. But she intended to be there for Sloan the moment a decision was made, good or bad.

  Meanwhile, all the cops milling around were staring at her with unveiled curiosity.

  She knew in her heart that Sloan would be cleared of all wrongdoing, but she would feel better on hearing the official proclamation that he would be returning to active duty. Then she could share her own good news with him. Two pieces of news, actually. She’d been fairly bursting with them for a couple of days now, but she didn’t feel it was appropriate to share them until Sloan was through his ordeal.

  The hearing took hours. How much time, she wondered, could it take to determine that Sloan had shot Dustin Tooey in self-defense and defense of an injured man? Just when she was starting to despair of the session ever ending, the door swung open.

  Lana held her breath, but not for long. It was immediately obvious from the expressions on the faces of the men and women exiting the room that Sloan had been exonerated. But where …?

  He was the last one to leave the room, looking particularly tall and official in his starched blues. He searched for, then found, Lana. He wasn’t smiling, but he looked unspeakably relieved. He gave her a cautious thumbs-up. “I might have known I’d find you here,” he said. And then she was in his arms.

  Whether he came to her or she to him, she didn’t know. But he kissed her in full view of everyone in the squad room, and seemed oblivious of the smattering of applause and catcalls.

  Lana didn’t care about all that either. “It’s over?” she gasped out when he finally let her up for air.

  “My shift starts in two hours.”

  She couldn’t help it; she beamed at him. She knew better than to suggest a celebration, because Sloan still viewed the events of last Saturday as a tragedy that should have been prevented. But surely she wouldn’t be out of line to suggest lunch, so she did.

  “Only if you let me treat,” he said solemnly.

  “Why should I? Oh, because I’m unemployed?”

  Sloan looked sheepish, but she refused to take issue with him. “You can pay if you want, but I’m not poor anymore. At least, I won’t be.”

  “What? Did a rich uncle remember you in his will?”

  She’d been planning to wait until they were somewhat removed from the grimness of the police station, in some nice, airy restaurant, before springing her good news, but she decided she couldn’t wait. Sloan would be every bit as happy for her as she was herself. She waited only until they’d donned their jackets and cleared the station’s outer doors.

  “I found a job.”

  “What kind?” he immediately asked, bristling with protectiveness. This from the man who’d told her last week that she could wait tables if she had to.

  “Exotic dancer. Really, Sloan, what do you think? It’s a horticulture-type job. I’ll be assisting with the test gardens at the university, and in the greenhouse. I’ll get practical experience with all kinds of different species and methods, and reduced tuition too.”

  “How about the pay?”

  “Comparable to what I was making at Full Bloom, with fewer hours. And here’s the really cool part. The family that’s buying Full Bloom wants to carry my terrariums. They’ve got six other stores all over Texas, which means that if they sell at the same rate as they have been, times seven, I’ll have my hands full.”

  They’d reached Sloan’s Jeep. He stopped and took both of her hands in his. “That’s great news, Lana. I was worried, but I guess I should have known you’d work it out. Having a reliable income will help with the custody suit, I guess.”

  Lana grinned. “I saved the best news for last. Bart dropped the custody suit. I have Charlene to thank for that.”

  “His girlfriend?”

  “Fiancée. She loved the idea of being a lawyer’s wife, but a full-time stepmom? I can’t picture it, and apparently neither could she, especially after Rob got into trouble. Bart backed down in a hurry when he saw his potential trophy wife slipping away.”

  Sloan opened the passenger door for Lana. He kissed her gently on the cheek before seating her inside the truck. “That is the best news so far today. But I think you can top it.”

  “I can?”

  “By saying yes.”

  “Yes to … what?”

  Leaning his shoulder against the Jeep, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something that glittered in the sunlight. The breath caught in Lana’s throat when she realized it was a diamond ring.

  “I bought this yesterday, and I put it in my pocket this morning, knowing that I’d find you waiting after the hearing. My plan was, no matter what the outcome, I was going to ask you to marry me. I waited this long only because I wanted you to make a decision with your eyes wide open.”

  Lana’s tears made the ring wink in multiples. “My eyes have always been wide open where you’re concerned. I see a good and decent man who always puts others before himself. It wouldn’t have made any difference if the hearing hadn’t gone your way. I still would have said yes.”

  “It was the only fair way,” he insisted.

  All she could do was nod. He’d done what he had to do. “So are you asking?”

  “Will you marry me, Lana?”
>
  “Yes.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him halfway into the car with her for the second kiss of the day. She hoped there would be many more before the day was over. “And I promise that from now on I won’t hold back anything. In for a penny, in for a pound. I’ve got those crazy feelings for you, and I’m not fighting them ever again.”

  She released him, but only reluctantly. “So how about that lunch you promised?”

  “Coming right up.” He started the Jeep, then paused before putting it into gear. “You think Rob will be pleased?” Sloan asked worriedly.

  “He’ll be ecstatic. But, now, I want you to understand, Rob is my responsibility. You’re not obligated to—”

  “You mean I can’t buy him an ice cream, or take him to the movies on my day off?”

  Lana smiled in spite of herself. “I guess there’s room for negotiation.”

  Sloan laughed. “My prickly Lana. You’ll keep me on my toes, but life with you sure won’t ever be dull.”

  Lana decided to take that as a compliment. She covered his hand with hers where it rested on the gearshift. They were starting a new life together. If the recent past was any indication, there would be many more negotiations to come, many more compromises. They were, after all, two strong people who had very definite ideas about how things should be.

  Fortunately, they also loved each other with a ferocity stronger than anything Lana had ever experienced. As they’d already discovered, that love would get them through.

  “We were destined for this, you know,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ten years ago, a mysterious Gypsy woman predicted I would marry a cop.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No, really. I’ve got the proof in my jewelry box.”

  Sloan smiled, probably thinking there would be a punch line to this joke.

  Lana shrugged. It didn’t matter if he ever believed in Theodora. She did. Finally. Wouldn’t Millicent be surprised?