Once a Lawman

by Lisa Childs

  “What ticket?” Brigitte asked as Tessa settled onto her stool at the bar. “Tonight’s class was just a demonstration. No one got any tickets.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I was talking about.”

  “Want more coffee?” Brigitte asked, lifting the carafe.

  Tessa placed her hand over the top of her mug. “No thanks. I really need to go home.”

  “Stay,” Lieutenant O’Donnell requested as he slid onto the empty bar stool next to her. “Join me for a cup of coffee.”

  “Regular or decaf?” Brigitte asked.

  “I need the unleaded,” the lieutenant said, “or I won’t sleep at all tonight.”

  “And that would be different how?” Brigitte teased as she passed him a mug before moving on to serve other customers.

  “You don’t sleep?” Tessa asked, turning toward the watch commander. “Lieutenant Michalski isn’t the only one with demons, then.”

  “We all have demons, Ms. Howard,” O’Donnell philosophized, “I suspect even you.”

  She flashed her patented flirty smile. “You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

  He grinned as if flattered by her flirting, but shook his head. “You don’t want to know mine, Ms. Howard. You want to know his.”

  She couldn’t hang on to the smile. “His? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t want to know,” she said, sliding off the stool. “I have to go home.”

  The lieutenant caught her arm, keeping her from leaving. “His wife died four years ago.”

  Tessa’s breath caught in her lungs. “His college sweetheart?”

  “Yes.”

  His wife hadn’t divorced Chad because she’d learned he wasn’t perfect. “She died…”

  “She died in a traffic accident.”

  “Oh.”

  “She was speeding,” O’Donnell continued, his hand tightening on her arm. “Going too fast to stop for the light that had just turned red.”

  “Oh.”

  “And she was pregnant.”

  “Oh, my God.” Pain clutched her, pain for what Chad had gone through and for what he’d lost.

  How had he managed to get out of bed every morning for the past four years? How did he go to a job that surely must remind him of what he’d lost and how?

  His reaction to the footage of the traffic accident suddenly made sense—as did his overreaction to her speeding. He wanted to save other people from suffering the same loss he had.

  The watch commander, who was obviously a very close friend to Chad, said, “The doctors took the baby by cesarean, but he was too premature. He lasted through a few surgeries to repair damage from the accident. He survived a couple of weeks—then Chad had to decide whether to put him through more procedures or let him go.”

  Tears stung her eyes over the impossible decision Chad had had to make. With certainty she said, “He let him go.” He would not have allowed anyone, let alone someone he loved, to suffer.

  Lieutenant O’Donnell sighed. “Not yet. Not really. I don’t think he’s let either of them go yet.”

  Pain clutched Tessa again—for what she had lost before she’d even had it—a chance with a guy who would have stuck around. But he was already doing that—he was sticking with his dead wife and child—and his feelings for them.

  Her released a shaky sigh. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “I should have told you last week,” the lieutenant said with self-recrimination, “when you asked about Chad.”

  “I understand,” she assured him. “You were being a good friend by protecting his privacy.” She doubted many people knew Chad’s business except those very close to him. Now she knew that she would never be one of those people.

  “I think I’m being a better friend now,” O’Donnell said, “by letting you know what demons he has.”

  “A good friend to Chad or me?” she asked. “Because now you’ve warned me away.”

  “That wasn’t my intention,” Paddy insisted. “I want you to understand him.”

  She nodded. “I do. I understand why he doesn’t like me and why he will never care about any woman like he did his wife.” His college sweetheart, the love of his life. No woman could really compete with his memories of her, so Tessa refused to even try.

  She hadn’t had time for the men who had actually been interested in her.

  “I have to go home,” she said again.

  “This was Chad’s last class,” the watch commander said, “you’re not going to see him for a while.”

  Probably not ever again. Remembering how he’d run off after that mere brush of their lips, Tessa doubted that Chad would seek her out. He probably felt guilty, as if he’d betrayed his wife. Despite the many offers, Tessa intended to be no man’s mistress.

  HER HAND TREMBLED as Tessa fumbled inside her briefcase for her keys, but she could barely see the contents in the dim light of the parking lot. She should have found them while she was still inside, but she couldn’t wait to get away from the watch commander and from what he’d told her. Chad’s demons chased her now.

  Both figuratively and maybe literally. A hulking shadow separated from the others around the back of the Lighthouse, and shoes scuffed against the asphalt as someone crossed the parking lot toward her. She uttered a squeak of surprise and dropped her briefcase.

  “You’re acting recklessly again,” Chad censored her. “You’re making yourself a prime target for an attack. Distracted, ill-prepared.”

  Which was all his fault. “So are you going to attack me?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “About kissing me?”

  He was sorry he’d stopped, but he never should have given in to temptation. “The dance—everything—was a mistake.”

  “Agreed.”

  Pride stinging from her fast agreement and with the twinge of jealousy he had felt when he’d caught the smile she’d flashed his friend, he said, “I saw you drinking with Paddy.”

  “Want to administer a Breathalyzer? See if I’m fit to drive?” she challenged him.

  “Even though you were drinking coffee, I know you’re not fit to drive.”

  “Maybe you’re not fit to judge that.”

  “What do you mean?” But he knew. They’d been so deep in conversation that they hadn’t even noticed him. “He told you, didn’t he? Paddy told you?”

  “About your wife?” She nodded. “Yes, he told me.” Her voice soft with sympathy, she added, “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Because they’d always made him uncomfortable, he ignored her condolences and remarked, “You remind me of her.”

  “I look like her?”

  “Not at all.” Luanne had had dark hair and brown eyes, which had always brimmed with laughter. She’d laughed at him every time he’d warned her to slow down. “You act like her.” And she made him feel what Luanne had—she made him feel, something he hadn’t done in years.

  “Just because I speed? I think the majority of drivers speed,” she insisted, “but those aren’t statistics you’re likely to share with the class.”

  “I’m done with the class,” he said, expelling a breath of relief. “Tonight ended my participation in the program.”

  “So Lieutenant O’Donnell said.”

  “It’s not just the speeding you have in common with Luanne.”

  “Luanne? That’s a pretty name.”

  “She was a pretty girl,” he said, remembering the first time he’d met her, dancing on a table at a frat party, “and vivacious.” He smiled, remembering her boundless energy. “And carefree. So carefree that she was actually careless.”

  “Just because she drove a little over the limit?” Tessa asked, defending a woman she’d never met. Yet just because she’d never met Luanne didn’t mean she didn’t know her. As Chad had pointed out, the two women were a lot alike.

  “It was more than that. Luanne never drove just a little over t
he limit.” In college, they’d been like Bernie and Jimmy—eager for thrills—but when Chad had started working for the department, he’d changed. He’d tried to get Luanne to change, too.

  “It was an accident, Chad,” she said softly, as she slid her fingers over his forearm. “They call them that for a reason. She didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “No, she didn’t do it on purpose,” he agreed. “But she did a lot of other crazy things on purpose. She bungee jumped. She went sky diving, white-water rafting.”

  Tessa smiled. “She sounds like fun.”

  “She was.” She’d even talked him into doing most of those crazy things with her.

  “You still miss her.”

  “Every day.”

  “But you also resent her.”

  He resented that she’d taken away all the joy she’d brought to his life. “I just wanted her to slow down a little.” Especially when she got pregnant. “But she wanted to experience every thrill before she died.”

  Tessa mused, “Almost as if she knew she didn’t have much time…”

  “She would have had more—” They would have had more. “—if she had been more careful. But she thought she was invincible.” He swallowed hard. “She wasn’t.”

  “And neither am I,” Tessa agreed. “That’s all Luanne and I really have in common. All I guess anyone has in common. Because no one’s invincible.”

  “If you know that, why are you so careless?” Chad asked as he bent down to pick up her briefcase from the asphalt. Some of the contents had spilled out, including her keys, the metal of which glinted in the dim glow of the street lamps. “You’re lucky it was me standing out here, waiting for you.”

  He’d seen too much on the job, knew what could happen so quickly to someone who’d dropped her guard, who’d become distracted…

  “Why?” she asked, her voice quiet and her eyes wide as she stared up at him. “Why were you waiting for me? Just to apologize?”

  “No,” he admitted to her—and to himself.

  He had dated a few women after Luanne died—casually. Dinner, movies, a couple of times even more. He was a widower not a monk. But those times, he hadn’t felt as much as he had from just brushing his lips over Tessa’s soft, sexy mouth. For that reason, he should have run. He had confirmation now that the risk was too high for pursuit.

  “Then why did you wait for me?” she persisted.

  He grabbed up her keys and pressed them into her palm. “To finish what I started.”

  For a moment—just a moment—Tessa’s heart stopped beating, then resumed at a crazy pace. “What are you talking about?”

  His palms cupped her face, which he tipped up to his. “Our dance.”

  “But there’s no music.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  “I can’t hear it.”

  “Close your eyes and listen.”

  Tessa obeyed, but she heard nothing…until his lips touched her. Then as his mouth moved hungrily over hers, she caught the words of a love song…playing on the wind. Yet she knew that song would never be theirs. Even knowing that his heart belonged to someone else, though, she kissed him back. She lifted her hands to his wide shoulders and pulled him closer.

  His tongue slid across her bottom lip and then into her mouth, tangling with hers. Breath burned in her lungs, but she didn’t care. She didn’t need to breathe with his mouth on hers. She needed only him.

  He pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers. “God, Tessa, I wish…”

  “That I was Luanne?” she asked, her heart hurting over the regret on his handsome face. Was that why he had kissed her? To recapture what he’d lost?

  He shook his head. “Of course not…”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but no matter how much I might remind you of her, I’m not your dead wife.” She tightened her hand around her keys until the metal dug deep into her palm.

  “I know.”

  Was that why he’d stopped kissing her? Because she wasn’t the woman he really wanted? She didn’t care to find out. She had enough baggage of her own; she couldn’t carry anyone else’s.

  “Goodbye, Chad.”

  THE INCESSANT RINGING of his doorbell drew Chad from his bed. He stumbled across the living room toward the front door of his condo. Glimpsing the distinctive black Lakewood PD uniform through the stained glass sidelight, he figured Paddy had given up calling to apologize for spilling Chad’s secrets to Tessa and intended to say sorry in person.

  Before opening the door to his friend, Chad turned back toward his coffee table, checking to make sure he had tucked away all his pictures inside the leather box nearly covering the surface of the dark wood. He always intended to put the box in storage yet could never quite bring himself to part with it.

  He had pored over his wedding album all night, worried that he might have begun to forget how Luanne looked on that day. How her dark eyes had shone with happiness and love.

  Had he imagined it all or had they really been that happy? Looking at those pictures, he’d remembered his own euphoria. A man didn’t get a chance at happiness that complete more than once.

  He opened the door, fully intending to blast his friend for his interference no matter how well intentioned it had probably been. But Paddy wasn’t the Lakewood officer who had come for a visit. “Chief?”

  The guy was so tall he nearly had to duck to clear the doorway as he stepped inside the condo. “Nice place, Lieutenant,” he said even though he barely glanced around.

  “What brings you by?” Chad asked as he noted the early hour.

  “I’ve made a decision. I am going to sell the house,” Archer shared. “So I wanted to get the name of the Realtor you used.”

  Chad’s brow furrowed. “That was four years ago.”

  “He or she isn’t selling real estate anymore?”

  “Well, he actually didn’t sell my house,” Chad admitted. “With the market what it was then, it was smarter to rent the house.” Because then he hadn’t had to completely let go. He realized now that that was why he’d kept it.

  “So you’re still renting it out?”

  When he could find qualified renters…

  Chad nodded. “Yeah, the market hasn’t improved yet.”

  “And when it does?” Archer asked, “Will you sell it then?”

  “Of course.”

  The chief narrowed his eyes, asking a question with just that pointed look.

  “I will,” Chad assured him, even though he wasn’t convinced himself. Letting go of the house she’d joyfully decorated, letting go of the pictures that had captured their happiness—letting go of Luanne wasn’t something he was ready to do just yet. “What about you? What’s made you decide to sell your house?”

  Or who?

  The chief shrugged. “It’s time.”

  “It’s only been a year,” Chad reminded him although he doubted the other man needed a reminder. Chad could mark to the day how long Luanne had been gone. The chief had had his wife longer—wouldn’t he miss her more instead of less?

  “It’s time,” Frank Archer repeated, staring hard at his lieutenant.

  “You talked to Paddy,” Chad guessed, irritation scraping across his nerves. “He sent you here?”

  “No. I really came for the Realtor’s name. And to check out this place.” The chief looked around again, taking in the small galley kitchen and living area. “I thought if I liked it, I might look into buying a condo in this complex.”

  “And now?”

  “I realized what this is.”

  “What is it?” Chad wondered, glancing around at his spartan living room.

  “Limbo.”

  “What? I don’t understand,” he claimed, even though he was damn sure the chief had him all figured out. It probably took one to know one.

  “You’re caught between your past and the present, Chad,” Frank Archer pointed out. “Until you let the past go, you’re never going to move forward—you’re never going to have a future.”
<
br />   He had buried his future four years ago. Tessa Howard’s voice echoed in his head—calling him a hypocrite. He closed his eyes and saw her beautiful face, her blue eyes staring up at him…as if she cared, as if she could care…if he let her.

  He couldn’t let her; she deserved more.

  Chapter Eight

  Tessa dug through her briefcase in search of her keys. Memories of the last time she had lost them—in the parking lot of the Lighthouse—flitted through her mind. She should have been more vigilant, more careful. She never should have made out with a man still in love with his dead wife.

  Now she was home, in the kitchenette of her walkout basement apartment. She didn’t have to be careful at home, alone—or as relatively alone as she was ever going to get with her family.

  Metal clinked against metal, and she turned to the patio doors, where her brother Kevin twirled her key chain around his finger. “Looking for these?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Hand them over right now, and I’ll let you live despite your snooping through my stuff.”

  “I wasn’t snooping,” Kevin objected. “It’s not like I was looking for your diary or anything.”

  “Which would have been a waste of your time,” she said, “since I don’t have one.”

  “No wonder.” He snorted. “What the hell would you write in a diary? You never do anything but work and watch the kids.”

  “Don’t swear,” she admonished him, “and you should be watching the littler kids.”

  Color flushed his fair skin. “I’m busy.”

  Tessa groaned. “That’s what scares me.”

  “What?”

  “Your being busy. Just what are you busy doing, little brother?” she asked as she walked up in front of him. Her “little” brother towered over her by half a foot.

  “Nothing.”

  She cringed at his evasiveness. “I lay awake nights worrying about what you consider ‘nothing.’”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m not your kid,” he said. “None of us are.”

  She narrowed her eyes to study him. He was blond like her, but his hair was spiked. He wore a wrinkly T-shirt and ragged jeans that sagged low on his skinny hips.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked, trying to gauge his strange mood.