by Lisa Childs
Now, if only she could control her attraction to Holden. Even now, knowing he was involved with a woman she admired, she couldn’t help noticing how his thin sweater molded itself to the sculpted muscles of his chest.
Holden reached for her and gently shifted the ice pack. As he studied her swollen neck, he grimaced, and with his voice shaking, he argued, “You didn’t have anything under control. Why…why do you put yourself in danger like that?”
“Because it’s my job.” She couldn’t express exactly what that job meant to her. It didn’t mean everything—because Kayla was everything. But close.
“You need a new job.”
First she drew in a breath of surprise, and then she laughed. “Wow, you have some nerve, Reverend. How would you feel if I told you to close the shelter?”
The corners of his mouth lifted in a slight grin. “That would make no sense. Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“The shelter?”
She gestured toward her neck.
“But that was because of you,” he said, “because you—”
“Because I arrested an assault suspect? Should I have let him get away? I thought you were running a shelter, not a sanctuary for criminals.”
Her accusation gave Holden pause. He had intended the shelter to be a sanctuary—but for kids who needed protection, like Lorielle. His head pounded, and he raised a hand to massage his forehead. “I…that isn’t…”
“You know what we found on him?” she asked, not giving Holden time to answer. “A bag of crack—a substantial amount that had to be for more than personal use. He was selling.”
“At the shelter?” His stomach pitched. If he’d actually eaten anything since breakfast, he might have thrown up. “God, no. Not drugs.”
The ice pack dropped to the floor, making a thud as it struck the hardwood. Then Robbie reached for him, her small hands touching his arms. “Holden? Are you all right?”
He shook his head. “It’s just…It goes against everything I started the shelter for.”
Her voice barely a whisper, she asked, “Why did you start the shelter?”
He released a ragged sigh. “For my sister. Holly’s mother. Lorielle was a teen runaway.”
“That must have been hard on you and your parents.”
Bitterness filled him. “I think they were relieved.”
She slid her arms around his waist. But he wondered whom she was comforting, him or herself, when she added, “My parents were relieved when I ran away.”
“You were a runaway,” he stated, his suspicions confirmed. He’d been right; she was the officer with whom the kids could most relate.
“Yeah, you didn’t make a mistake at the warehouse. You were just nine years late with your assessment,” she said with a hoarse chuckle.
“Why…how? What’s your story, Roberta?” He really wanted to know.
She shrugged. “Nothing extraordinary. Like I already said, my parents weren’t thrilled when I got pregnant. They wanted me to get rid of…it.” Pain flashed in her eyes, and Holden suspected it had nothing to do with her injury and everything to do with her memories. “I wanted to keep her, so I ran away.”
“You were pregnant when you ran away?”
“Pregnant and fifteen,” she said dismissively, as if what she’d endured—the fear and pain of running away—had been nothing. “That’s my story. Now tell me about Lorielle.”
“Robbie—”
She clutched his sweater, her fingers trembling. “I want to hear about Lorielle.”
He blew out a ragged breath. “My mom definitely was relieved when she ran away, even though Lorielle didn’t live with us. My half sister reminded my mother of my father’s midlife crisis, when he left her for a younger woman. He was only married to Lorielle’s mom for a few years before he came to his senses, as my mother says. I tried to keep in touch with Lorielle…” But it had been so hard, with his mother acting as if his love for his younger sister was a betrayal.
“You were just a kid, too,” she said, defending him.
“A selfish, self-centered kid,” he admitted. “I kept busy with my friends and with school. And I didn’t talk to or see Lorielle as much as I should have. I should have kept in better touch with her. I should have known how unhappy she was.”
“How long did she live on the streets?” Roberta asked.
“She’d been gone a year before I found her, alone and pregnant and suffering major withdrawal. For her unborn child—Holly. She stayed clean until she had her. Then she’d drop Holly off with me and go back to the streets for drugs. I kept trying to get her to stick with rehab, but she’d swear she was better and leave early. And she would stay clean—for a while, just long enough to fool me into thinking that it had worked. But she couldn’t stay off the streets or off the drugs, no matter how much she loved her daughter. And I believe she did love her but…”
“She was an addict,” Robbie said with complete understanding.
How could she understand something he still struggled to accept?
“Were you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, but I’ve met a lot of addicts. It’s not easy for them, no matter how much they might want to quit.”
“Every time she took off, I worried that she wouldn’t come back. I’d track her down, and the way I’d find her, beaten up…” His breath shuddered out, and he clutched Roberta close, needing her warmth and softness as the memory of his loss tore him apart. “I started the shelter so that kids like Lorielle would have a safe place to stay.”
Robbie’s arms tightened. “You can make it work,” she assured him. “You just need better security. A metal detector at the door and security guards who actually pay attention to what’s going on.”
“But won’t that scare the kids away?”
“Only kids like the twenty-three-year-old dealer. The ones who really need you and want your help will come,” she promised him.
“Why don’t you come to the shelter?” he asked.
She laughed. “I’m not a runaway anymore. And especially after today, it’s probably a good idea if I stay away.”
“No, you should quit the department and come to work there,” he urged her, the idea filling him with hope. “You could head security.” Not only could she help him make the shelter safer, she would stay safe herself.
“Holden, why would you ask me that?”
“I can’t handle what you do for a living,” he admitted. “I hadn’t gone out with Merry in months. But after watching those videos of you putting yourself in danger over and over again, I called her.”
“So you’re not seriously dating?” she asked.
He shook his head. “We’ve known each other for years, grew up together…”
“High-school sweethearts?”
“Friends. Only friends.” Even now, that was really all they were. All they might ever be because of Robbie.
His hands shook when he cupped her face in his palms, tipping it up to his. He slid his thumb across her mouth. Her lips were so silky—he had to feel them with his.
He lowered his head and kissed her, bracing himself for her reaction—possibly shoving him away, slapping him or even kneeing him in the groin. He wasn’t prepared for her to kiss him back, however. The force of her passion, as her mouth moved beneath his and her fingers tangled in his hair, staggered him.
Her lips parted, and he slid his tongue across her full bottom lip into the moist heat of her mouth. He groaned. And she moaned, pressing against him and spiking his desire for her. Despite her petite size, the woman had curves. He smoothed his hands down her back to her hips, pulling her tight against his straining erection.
She dragged her mouth from beneath his and pushed against his chest. Panting for breath, she asked, “Are you sure you and Meredith are just friends?”
He nodded.
She arched into him, rubbing against his hips.
He leaned forward and kissed her agai
n, just brushing his lips across hers. Then he slid his tongue into her mouth, tasting the sweetness. He wanted to taste her everywhere. He moved his hands, sliding them up from her waist over her ribs to cup her breasts. Despite the thick cotton of her sweatshirt, her nipples pressed into his palms. She wore no bra. His body tensed with desire to the point of pain. “Roberta…”
She arched into his hands and murmured his name.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
Robbie shook her head, unable to think. She could only feel. She held him tightly, her hands grasping his sweater and her fingers pressing the hard muscles beneath the soft wool.
He kissed her again, his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth, mimicking the action her body craved. His hand moved again, to the hem of her sweatshirt, and he eased up the material.
Robbie tensed and shoved her palms against his chest—not because she had finally come to her senses but because the apartment door opened.
“What…?” Holden murmured, obviously confused. He reached for her again.
But she pushed him away and focused on her daughter, who stood in the doorway. Kayla rubbed her hands over her eyes as if unable to believe what she was seeing.
“Sw-sweetheart,” Robbie said. “I was going to come and get you.”
“M-mom?” Kayla asked, her voice thick with sleep.
Perhaps she was too groggy to realize what she’d caught her mother doing—and with whom. Robbie reached for her, closing her hands around Kayla’s shoulders to steer the sleepy child toward her bedroom. Before Kayla stumbled through the doorway, she turned back to Holden, standing in the hall. “Good night, Mr. Thomas.”
He cleared his throat before replying, “Good night, honey.”
Robbie helped Kayla into bed and pulled the covers to her chin. The child’s eyes closed, as if her lids were too heavy to hold open. Hopefully she hadn’t seen anything—either her mother making out with Holly’s uncle or the swelling on her neck.
Robbie kissed her daughter’s forehead. She’d thought of Kayla when the assailant’s hands closed around her neck. Kayla was why she’d fought back using the stun gun. She would do whatever was necessary to come home to her daughter.
With one last glance at her sleeping child, she straightened and braced herself to return to her visitor.
“She’s sleeping?” Holden asked. His eyes darkened, the pupils dilating with desire.
Robbie nodded, but she stepped back when Holden reached for her. “We can’t. We shouldn’t have—”
“We’re both adults here, Roberta. We can.”
She shook her head. “I forgot myself for a moment.” And if Kayla hadn’t walked in, something might have happened between them. Hell, it definitely would have happened. Even now Robbie’s breasts ached for his touch, the pressure so tight inside her that she hurt. “But Kayla’s home now. I wouldn’t want you accusing me of being a bad mother again.”
“I shouldn’t have said that you put your job before her.”
He had only voiced her greatest fear aloud. “You shouldn’t have thought it, either.”
“I thought I was wrong,” he admitted, “until I saw those videos the other night. And then today…” His voice trailed off, as if he was the one being choked.
“That’s my job, just my job.” Robbie gestured toward Kayla’s closed bedroom door. “She’s my life.”
“Then quit the department and take the job I offered you at the shelter. It’s well funded. I can probably afford to pay you more than the Lakewood PD does.” He gestured toward Kayla’s bedroom. “Do it for her.”
This was one of the reasons she’d chosen to stay uninvolved. Inevitably, if a man claimed to care about you, he wanted to tell you what to do or not do.
“I’m a police officer for her,” she said, then she tried to explain. “I am a police officer to make the city safer for her. I’m a police officer so that her mother is someone she can admire.”
“I admire you,” he said, “but I can’t…be with you.”
A twinge of disappointment struck her heart, but she forced a humorless chuckle. “I don’t remember proposing to you.”
“Roberta…”
“Robbie,” she corrected him.
“You probably think I’m a chauvinist, wanting you to quit your job.”
“I know you’re not,” she assured him. “You just don’t want to get involved with a cop.” She’d heard some fellow officers commiserating over that problem. Women either wanted to be with them because they were cops or didn’t want to be with them for the same reason.
“I can’t…” He gripped his temples again, as if his head was pounding. “Holly and I lived with so much uncertainty because of her mother. When she’d go out to score drugs Lorielle constantly put herself in danger.”
“I don’t…” Then she remembered that she did, that she had as a vice decoy. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I couldn’t put Holly through that uncertainty again—getting attached to you only to lose you like she did her mother.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard. “I can’t put myself through that again, either. I can’t care about you.”
She flinched, the disappointment greater than a twinge now. She was afraid it was too late for her; she already cared about him. “If that’s how you feel…”
“It’s not just about me.”
“Holly.” Robbie got it. The poor kid had already been through enough in her young life.
“It’s about Lorielle, too,” Holden said. “You’ve probably realized…she died from a drug overdose.”
“I’m sorry.” She held out her arms to offer him comfort again, but he stepped back and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“She was still conscious when I found her.”
He had been there. Robbie’s heart ached with the pain he must have endured.
“And she asked me for one last promise. She wanted me to take care of Holly,” he said.
“Of course. She gave you custody.”
“She wanted more for Holly than just me. She wanted me to find her a mother, to give her the family that Lorielle only had for those first few years—” his voice grew rough with bitterness “—before my father came to his senses.”
“Holden…”
“She made me promise to give her daughter the loving family and secure home she wished she’d had for herself.” He closed his eyes. “If she’d had that love and security, she would still be alive. She wouldn’t have run away.”
“You can’t blame yourself for any of that,” Robbie said. “It wasn’t your fault your parents got back together.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I was happy that they did. I was happy that I got my loving, secure home back. But it came at a great cost. It cost me my sister.”
Tears of sympathy stung her eyes. “Holden, you can’t keep all this guilt. You have to let it go.”
He shook his head. “No, it reminds me of how I failed Lorielle. It reminds me that I can’t do that again. I need to fulfill my promise to her.”
“And you can’t do that with me.”
He shook his head.
“Then I guess you’d better become more than just friends with Meredith,” she suggested, even though the thought of it brought her more pain than having her windpipe nearly crushed. “She’d be perfect for you. And Holly.”
“But whenever I’m near you…” He held out his hand again, this time curling his fingers into his palm before he actually touched her.
She drew a shaky breath. “Then I guess we shouldn’t be near each other.”
He nodded. “We need to stay away from each other.”
“Yes,” she agreed and she opened the door for him. “That would be best.” For Holden and Holly, and for her.
She could not lose her heart to a man who wouldn’t be able to love her as she was, who would only love her if she did what he wanted. She had lost her parents’ love because she’d defied them, and she would not be manipulated or controlled that way aga
in. She would only love someone who could love her unconditionally.
And that man was not Holden Thomas—no matter how much she wished he was.
Chapter Seven
Maybe she would have to take Holden’s job offer, after all. Robbie’s finger shook as she pushed the elevator button for the second floor of the police station. First thing this morning one of the interns who staffed the front desk had called and summoned her to a meeting with the chief.
How pissed would he be about her scuffle at the shelter? Not pissed enough to fire her, she hoped. The bell dinged as the elevator car lurched to a stop. She filled her lungs with air, hoping to calm her racing pulse. Then the doors slid open to…him. And her breath disappeared in a rush.
“So much for staying away from each other,” Holden said with a tentative smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Dark circles underlined the green-blue orbs.
He hadn’t slept any better than she had. Perversely, that gave her a small measure of satisfaction. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Giving another statement.”
“To the chief?”
“Lieutenant O’Donnell’s in there with Chief Archer and Sergeant Terlecki.”
This is worse than I thought. She had to face three superiors at once. It felt like a firing squad.
Holden shrugged, then his shoulders sagged as if under an enormous burden. “I don’t know why they bothered taking a statement from me. I never know what’s going on.”
As she stepped out of the elevator, her arm brushed his. She wanted to do more; she wanted to give him another hug of support. “Don’t beat yourself up about yesterday. You’ve helped a lot of kids.”
“And apparently a few I shouldn’t have helped.”
“You can’t always know.”
“I’m going to work on that,” he said, “making the changes you suggested.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know metal detectors and security guards aren’t how you envisioned the place.”
He sighed. “No, they aren’t.”
Worrying over those changes was no doubt what had kept him awake last night, not their decision to stay away from each other. A decision neither seemed eager to honor at the moment. Robbie told herself it was just because she was putting off stepping in front of that firing squad. It wasn’t because she was unable to walk away from Holden—even standing a foot apart from him, she felt connected. And she didn’t want to sever that connection.
