Once a Lawman

by Lisa Childs

  “No. I don’t need to do that.”

  “That’s not what Lieutenant Michalski believes.”

  “I don’t care what Lieutenant Michalski believes,” she shot back, then winced at how childish she sounded. She definitely needed to spend less time with her adolescent siblings and more time with adults.

  Her voice calmer, she explained, “A ride-along wasn’t part of my agreement with the judge.”

  “It’s part of the program,” O’Donnell persisted, “so it’s part of the agreement. Unless you want me to call the judge.”

  “No, really, that’s all right,” she backed down. The judge had already warned her to stop bothering him or he’d change his mind about waiving her ticket and license suspension. “I’ll bring the release form to next week’s class.”

  “That’s good, Ms. Howard,” O’Donnell said with a grin. “I’m sure Lieutenant Michalski will be happy to know that.”

  “Is that possible?” she wondered aloud.

  “Is what possible?”

  She drew in a breath, bracing herself to flat out ask the question that had haunted her for some time, even more since watching his reaction to the traffic accident. “Is Lieutenant Michalski capable of happiness?”

  O’Donnell’s brow furrowed. “That’s a strange question to ask.”

  She sighed, releasing the breath she’d held. “Well, the lieutenant doesn’t seem to be a very happy man.”

  O’Donnell nodded. “You’re pretty intuitive.”

  “In sales you have to be.” Or she wouldn’t have gone from telemarketer to top field sales agent. And if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to pay the bills for which she’d assumed responsibility.

  If only she were as intuitive in her personal life as she was her professional one…

  “Do you have to be curious in sales?” O’Donnell asked.

  “It’s good to be interested in people.”

  “Are you interested in Chad?” he asked, his gaze intent on her face as if she were a suspect he was interrogating.

  She stumbled back a step, startled by his question. “No—no, I don’t know where you would have gotten that idea.”

  “You’re asking if he’s happy,” O’Donnell reminded her. “That’s a pretty personal question.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed, angry with herself for caring. “That was too personal.”

  He lifted a brow as he asked her, “So you don’t want to know the answer?”

  She backed away from the bar. “No. You’re right. I don’t need to know anything else about Lieutenant Michalski.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  No man was as perfect as Michalski acted. She didn’t have to know what his flaws were to be certain that the man had them. Even if he didn’t, he would undoubtedly run the other way once he learned how many responsibilities she had, just like every other man in her life had.

  “I don’t need to know anything else about Lieutenant Michalski.” Thirteen more weeks. That was all she had left of the citizens’ police academy and of Chad Michalski. “Sorry I asked.”

  “I’m actually glad that you did, Ms. Howard,” O’Donnell admitted. “Because your instincts are right. Chad hasn’t been happy for a while.”

  She resisted the urge to press her hands to her ears to avoid hearing anything more. She was already acting more like one of her teenage siblings than herself around Chad, and she resented him for compelling her to act that way.

  “I really don’t need to know anything else,” she insisted as regret filled her that she had ever asked.

  “I think you do,” O’Donnell said, as if she’d passed some kind of test she hadn’t realized she’d taken. “I think you could make him happy, if you wanted.”

  “I don’t want,” Tessa said. “I—I really don’t want…” Chad Michalski. If she actually had time for a romantic relationship right now, the disapproving lieutenant would be the last man to interest her. She didn’t trust his seeming perfection, but she trusted herself even less around him. Something about him compelled her to act as reckless and impulsive as he accused her of being.

  SHE WASN’T INTERESTED in him—not at all. She had only asked about him because he irritated her with his sanctimonious, superior attitude. He was cautious and careful.

  And she wasn’t?

  As she tiptoed barefoot around her own house, checking for signs of partying and doing a bed check, she begged to differ. She was damn cautious and careful. A door creaked as she pushed it open and crept across the threshold. The light from the hall fell across Christopher’s and Joey’s beds. Christopher’s leg dangled from the top bunk, his face buried in the pillow. Joey lay on his side, drooling onto his blue chenille security blanket.

  First she pushed Christopher’s leg beneath the bed railing and his blankets. Then she leaned over and pushed Joey’s bangs back from his forehead and pressed a kiss to his soft skin. They were good kids. Same with the girls who she found tucked tidily into their beds.

  Suzie, with her porcelain skin and dark hair, looked like one of the dolls the little girl collected and that stared down at her from the shelves James had built around the perimeter of the girls’ room before he’d left for college. Audrey lay on her back, snoring too loudly and unevenly to have been feigning sleep. Tessa swallowed a giggle at the noise and pulled their door closed.

  Then she padded quietly toward the back of the house and slid open the bifold doors to the family room where Kevin made his bed on the pullout couch. But the room was empty.

  “Damn it.” It was nearly midnight. Where could the kid be? What kind of trouble could he be getting into tonight?

  She headed back toward the kitchen, grabbing her keys off the counter before she rushed out the door. Kevin had sneaked off too many times; she was finding him tonight—even if she had to turn Lakewood upside down to locate him.

  She checked the parking lot of Lakewood High School, then drove around the lakeshore to see if Kevin might have been stupid enough to jump off the pier, which seemed to be some Lakewood rite of passage; however, most of the kids who did it wound up getting hurt or drowned. She breathed a sigh of relief to find no one on the pier.

  After looking through the park, she still hadn’t found her brother, but she had scared off a couple of other kids and some couples who had probably only intended to “couple” for one night. Face warm with embarrassment and with anger at her brother for sneaking out—again—she turned out of the park and headed home. She drove slowly in case she spied him on the sidewalk. Suddenly a siren rang out—just one sick-sounding wail. Then red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror.

  “No, no, no…” she murmured as she pulled to the curb, then turned toward the passenger seat, the empty passenger seat. She’d forgotten her briefcase, in which she always stowed her wallet—and her license. “No, no, no…”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Lieutenant Michalski said as he walked up to her open window—she’d had it down to call out for Kevin. “No, no, no, but I ran your plate as I was following you through the park and sure enough, it was you.”

  “Then you don’t need to see my license and registration again,” she said, almost relieved it was Chad who had pulled her over. Yet her heart still pounded hard as if she’d been running fast instead of driving slow. “And you can’t say I was speeding.”

  “I know,” he agreed with obvious surprise. “That’s why I had to pull you over. I had to make sure it was really you behind the wheel and that someone hadn’t stolen your vehicle.”

  “It’s really me,” she assured him, “so you can let me go now.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her doorframe and leaned through the window. “I’m not letting you go…”

  Her heart sped up even more, definitely exceeding the limit.

  “…until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I—I—uh…” She couldn’t tell him about Kevin; it was one thing for hi
m to be in trouble with her, another for her to get him in trouble with the police. Chad, who took that whole serve-and-protect thing so seriously, would insist on helping her look for Kevin. And although she didn’t think her brother was stupid enough to be doing something illegal, she actually had no idea what he was doing. Damn kid. Why wouldn’t he talk to her?

  “You weren’t out making sales calls this late,” Chad said, glancing from her face to the interior of the vehicle, as if he worried that she’d been hijacked. “You don’t even have your briefcase with you, and I wouldn’t have believed you ever left home without it.”

  “I don’t carry it with me everywhere.”

  “But you keep all your stuff in it,” he said, his brow furrowing.

  “Uh, not always,” she stammered.

  “Tessa?” He lifted his hand from the doorframe and brushed a fingertip along her jaw. “Where’s your license?”

  “You agreed I wasn’t speeding,” she reminded him, pulling back slightly so that his hand fell away from her face. She didn’t want him touching her…because then she couldn’t think.

  He retreated from the window. “You can’t drive without a license—it’s the law.”

  “I have a license, and you know it,” she said, her frustration with him building again.

  “It has to be on your person any time you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” she argued. “You can check that thing that you checked my plate with—”

  “My computer.”

  “Yeah, you can check and see that I have a license.”

  “You have to carry it with you when you’re driving, Tessa,” Mr. Perfect repeated. Then he reached through the window, the back of his hand brushing against her thigh as he unlocked and opened the door. “Step out of the vehicle.”

  Anger bubbled up inside her, stinging her eyes with tears she refused to shed. “Why? Are you going to arrest me now?”

  “Tessa—”

  She jumped down from the SUV, the asphalt scraping the soles of her bare feet. Then she planted her palms against the side of the vehicle and spread her legs. “So go ahead and frisk me!”

  Chapter Five

  Hell, yes! Standing with her feet wide apart, Tessa’s skirt rode up her thighs, baring the entire long, lean length of them. Along with her shoes and briefcase, she’d also taken off her suit jacket, leaving her clad only in that short skirt and a lacy camisole. He swallowed to clear his throat before he told her, “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Are you afraid to touch me?” she asked. “I have no needles on me.”

  She must have been referring to the video of an officer getting stuck with a dirty needle while frisking someone. One of the vice cops had shown it after the break following Chad’s presentation, “That doesn’t make you any less dangerous,” he muttered.

  Her hair swung across her back as she turned her head toward him. “You are afraid to touch me.”

  Hell, yes!

  But just running a fingertip along the delicate line of her jaw had rattled him. Even though he didn’t trust himself to touch her, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and turned her around to face him. He would not let his attraction to her distract him from doing his job.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” he urged. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she said as she tugged her wrist free. “You’re being a hard-ass, as usual.”

  Chad resisted the urge to grind his teeth again and strove for patience. “If you tell me what’s going on, I can help you.”

  She gave an unladylike snort that stirred a strand of hair from her cheek. “You’re the first guy who has ever offered to help me.”

  He studied her eyes because something about her tone suggested she wasn’t giving one of her usual flip responses but a heartfelt admission. But he didn’t want to be the one man who’d helped her—he didn’t want any connection with her at all.

  “It’s my job,” he explained, against the panic rising to press against his chest.

  “Of course. That’s all I am to you—a job. A duty.” She snorted again. “Someone to serve and protect.”

  “Protect and serve,” he automatically corrected, then he found himself asking, “Do you want me to be more?”

  She shook her head vehemently now. “I don’t want you to be anything to me.”

  He sucked in a breath, taken by surprise that her comment had jabbed his heart. No, not his heart. His pride. He didn’t want her to be anything to him, either. While he’d dated occasionally over the past four years, he had never gone out with anyone who’d wanted more than he could give or who’d tempted him to give more than he was ready to. And, considering how much he still missed Luanne, he doubted he’d ever be ready—especially with someone who’d probably meet as tragic an end as Luanne had.

  “C’mon, Tessa, tell me what’s going on,” he insisted, his voice growing louder with his impatience—and his concern. “You shouldn’t be out driving around alone at night with no shoes—no license. It’s too dangerous.”

  She tilted her chin and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s also none of your business.”

  He sighed. “God, you’re stubborn.” Maybe she’d been right earlier—that he was a hypocrite—because he knew a thing or ten about being stubborn himself.

  “Add it to the list,” she quipped.

  “What list?”

  “The one you’re keeping of all my faults. You know,” she insisted as if checking off items on a grocery list, “I’m reckless, careless, a lying flirt—”

  “And stubborn,” he added, grateful for the reminder of all the reasons she couldn’t be anything to him. “Now tell me what’s going on with you tonight.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing’s going on.”

  He fought for patience and calm, lowering his voice to a level of reason and understanding. “You left your briefcase—” he glanced down at her polished toes “—and your shoes somewhere. You’re out driving around late at night and not at your usual breakneck speed.”

  “So are you going to give me a ticket for driving under the limit?”

  “I should give you a ticket for driving without a license. Or actually take you in.”

  She uttered a squeak of frustration. “But I have a license.”

  “For now, until you get one more ticket,” he reminded her.

  “Chad…”

  His breath caught in his throat. She hadn’t yet called him anything but lieutenant—to his face—and undoubtedly some other names behind his back. Her name on his lips had him imagining other things on her lips—like his.

  She lifted her hand toward his chest, but pulled it back as if unwilling to flirt, which said a lot more than her silence since he figured flirting was second nature to her.

  “I’m not going to give you a ticket,” he admitted, surprising himself almost as much as her since her eyes widened with shock. “I am going to take you home.”

  “I can’t leave my vehicle here,” she argued. “I’ll need it in the morning.”

  “Afraid you might miss a sales call?”

  “Come on, Chad,” she beseeched him, “I need it.”

  That was what worried him—that she wasn’t done driving around alone at night. “Not going to try flirting?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t affect you, remember?”

  If only that were true, he might actually sleep at night. The dispatcher’s voice crackled through the radio on his belt. “Stolen silver 2006 Buick Rainier. Two occupants. Early twenties…”

  He listened to the direction in which the stolen car was headed, but even though Tessa didn’t say a word, she distracted him. While his job was to help all of Lakewood, he was most concerned about Tessa Howard right now. Too concerned. “I want to know what’s going on with you,” he persisted.

  “It’s nothing really,” she assured him. “You have to respond to that, don’t you?”

  He didn’t have to; there were other units on duty. He
had trained all the officers in the department, and regularly retrained them on the pursuit policy; they could evaluate the risk factors of the chase. But there were some rookies on duty, who might get caught up in the adrenaline and ignore when the risk got too high.

  Hell, she was right. He had to go. “I’m going to let you off this time.”

  “I bet you won’t show this tape in class,” she murmured as he headed back to his cruiser.

  He intended to erase this tape. “Go right home, Tessa,” he warned her.

  “Chad?”

  He turned back. “Yes?”

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice soft. “For wanting to help—even if it’s just your job.”

  “Tessa…”

  “You have to go,” she reminded him.

  He had to go—he had to get away from her.

  “Chad?” she called him again.

  He lifted his gaze to hers, hopeful that she was going to share with him whatever had brought her rushing out in the middle of the night.

  “Be careful,” she said. As if she cared…

  His chest muscles tightened with her concern. As if he cared…

  TENSION NAGGED and pressure built behind Tessa’s eyes, blurring her vision as she stumbled inside the house. Now she wasn’t only worried about Kevin, she was worried about Chad, too. Until tonight—she glanced at her watch—last night, she hadn’t considered how dangerous his job actually was. However, he was careful and cautious, she reminded herself.

  Unlike Kevin. She dropped her keys onto the kitchen counter, which had been cleared since she’d come home the first time. One side of the white porcelain sink held drying dishes, the other soapy water. She dipped her fingers inside; it was still warm.

  “Did you want me to leave you the dishes?” her mother asked as she walked into the kitchen from the hall. Her blue eyes glinted with amusement.

  “No,” Tessa said.

  “You must have left in a hurry,” Mom said, pointing toward Tessa’s bare feet, then the briefcase she’d left next to the counter. “Did you forget something?”

  Tessa sighed. “Just that Kevin can’t be trusted. He’s not home.”