To Trust a Cop

by Sharon Hartley

  He leaned against the roof of his car, his gaze fixed on her front door through binoculars. His fingers tightened on the black plastic. Everything appeared normal, but what was going on inside that house? What the hell did Linda Cole want with Merl?

  Where was SRT? If things went sour today, he might not ever be able to tell Merl how much he loved her, how he couldn’t live without her.

  The arrival of three police vans jolted him from his surveillance. Special teams had arrived.

  Officers knocked on doors requesting that neighbors remain inside and out of sight. Two snipers took positions, zeroing in on windows and the front of the house. They were expert shots, but if Linda started shooting, Merlene could be the first casualty. As soon as the hostage negotiator arrived, contact would be initiated with Cole.

  But Vanessa Cooper arrived first, accompanied by her cameraman. Disgusted, Cody turned from the sight of them setting up for remote transmission. Channel Eight must have picked up the call on their police scanner. The rest of the stations would show up soon.

  As he focused on the front door again, a message from one of the snipers crackled across the radio.

  “I’ve got the subject through the front window. Standing by for kill order.”

  “No,” he silently pleaded. Don’t take that shot. Merlene could be hit in the cross fire.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SPRAWLED ON THE FLOOR in her living room, Merlene silently cursed herself. Faking a stumble had seemed the perfect tactic to slow down Linda. Too bad her brilliant plan had resulted in a real fall and a painfully throbbing right foot.

  “Get up, damn you,” Linda gritted out between clenched teeth.

  “I can’t,” Merlene said. “I twisted my ankle.”

  “Tough. Get your ass off the floor.”

  “Can’t I at least get some ice to—”

  “You’ll be dead in an hour,” Linda said, her tone mocking. “A swollen joint is the least of your problems.”

  Now what? Out of ideas, Merlene crawled to an end table by the sofa. She placed her hands on top and brushed against the textbook she’d been studying all week.

  With fingers gripping the book, she glanced back at Linda. “I’m not sure I can walk to your car.”

  Linda stepped closer. “You’ll manage.”

  “Can I get a broom or a mop to use as a crutch?”

  Gripping the gun with both hands, Linda leveled the barrel in the center of Merlene’s chest. “Move.”

  “Okay, okay,” Merlene said, noting the nurse was no longer trembling. Hell of a time for her to get control of herself.

  She knew one thing: no way was she getting into Linda’s car. Talk about a one-way trip. Whatever the outcome, she’d make her last stand right here, right now.

  Could she do this?

  With her mind focused on what she had to do, maybe her last act ever, she pulled the book toward her and leveraged herself to her feet. Now or never.

  Pain blasting through her ankle, she lifted the heavy text and spun with all her strength to slam the hardbound book into Linda’s arms.

  The gun fired with a deafening boom.

  * * *

  CODY FROZE AT the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. Merlene! What was going on inside that house?

  “Shots fired,” crackled over his earpiece.

  “Shots fired,” boomed another a voice beside him.

  “God damn it. Have you got the subject in view?” Cody barked into the radio. “Have you got a shot?”

  Surely the response came in only seconds, but the wait felt like a lifetime. “Negative. The subject is not in sight. Repeat. I do not have a shot.”

  Cody pounded the roof of his police cruiser.

  “Go, go,” yelled the Special Response Team commander to his squad. “Go!”

  Crouching low, six heavily armed and armored police commandos jogged across Merlene’s front yard.

  Cody took a step away from his vehicle. Then another. He couldn’t go with them. He felt as if he might sink into the earth. He’d promised himself nothing would happen to Merlene. And now—now he could do nothing to help her.

  A frigging war zone. All he could think was Merlene’s peaceful neighborhood had turned into a war zone.

  Would she survive the coming battle?

  Or was she already dead?

  * * *

  THE MOMENTUM OF Merlene’s do-or-die swing for life carried her to the floor. Her throbbing ankle wouldn’t hold her. She threw out an arm just before her face slammed into hard wood. The book landed beside her with a thump.

  Her ears rang from a gunshot too close to her face, the sensation disorienting, nauseating.

  Was she hit? No. The searing pain came from her foot.

  Behind her the nurse shouted, the sound distorted, as if one of them were wrapped inside thick gauze. Linda scrambled closer, moving across the floor, looking for something.

  The gun. Where was the gun?

  With a groan, Merlene raised her head. Her stomach roiled. She hurt all over, but she needed to find the damn gun before Linda did. Her only chance to— There!

  Merlene spotted the weapon a few feet beyond her left hand. She reached toward it, stretching to grasp the handle.

  Linda’s fingers snaked out and clutched the barrel.

  Merlene made a fist and pounded the nurse’s hand.

  Linda cursed but didn’t move away. Merlene smashed Linda’s flesh again and again. If Linda got control of the gun, she was finished. Merlene pivoted her legs toward Linda’s body and kicked.

  “You bitch,” Linda yelled.

  Merlene kicked harder, this time connecting with something soft in the nurse’s middle. Linda moaned. Her fingers slithered away from the gun.

  Merlene grabbed the weapon just as the front door burst open.

  “Drop it!” an army of cops shouted in unison.

  Merlene jammed her arms into the air as more cops arrived via the back door. “I’m Merlene Saunders,” she yelled, never so glad to see the police in her life. “This is my home.”

  She pushed to a sitting position while what appeared to be a SWAT team approached a now-incoherent and weeping Linda with outstretched weapons.

  Merlene closed her eyes and leaned against a wall.

  “Merl!”

  At Cody’s hoarse shout, she turned and sank into the welcome strength of his arms. “Cody,” she breathed, tears of relief flooding her eyes.

  He hugged her close, murmuring her name, then held her away. His gaze swept her from head to foot.

  “I’m okay,” she said, watching a female officer cuff Linda’s hands behind her back.

  “You’re hurt,” Cody bit out, focusing on Merlene’s right ankle, now red and swollen to twice its size.

  “Yeah.” She drew the misshapen foot toward her. “A failed attempt to slow down Nurse Linda.”

  Without another word, Cody lifted her in his arms and carried her to the sofa while the cops ushered Linda out of the house. Merlene turned her head into Cody’s chest and closed her eyes, breathing in his scent, a scent that whispered of safety and security.

  With a stern “Stay here,” he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Jake, Cody’s partner, appeared accompanied by four uniformed officers. Cody returned with a bag of ice and a glass of water. He ordered her to drink the water while he propped her foot on the coffee table on top of the ice.

  Merlene drank in the concern in his blue eyes, warmed by the knowledge that he worried about her. He cared about what happened to her. He always had. She knew that now.

  Merlene laughed as she stared at her swollen ankle. She knew she’d been grinning like a fool ever since her rescue and couldn’t stop. To think her home was crammed with police and she was del
ighted to have every last damn one of them. She suppressed a ridiculous urge to invite them all for dinner.

  When had she ever felt that way about cops?

  Trouble was, she wanted Cody alone so they could talk, but she wasn’t near ready for the uniformed men and women to leave. For the first time in her life, they made her feel safe. Oh, but she liked that feeling. Really liked it.

  “How you doing, ma’am?” a young black paramedic asked as he set a large plastic case on the floor.

  Cody patted her hand and rose. “The paramedics want to check you out, Merl.”

  “Except for my ankle, I’m fine. My ears are ringing from the gunshot, but that’s fading.”

  The EMT took Cody’s place beside her. “Let’s just take a look at you, talk to you a few minutes,” he said, winding a blood pressure cuff around her arm.

  “She didn’t physically harm me,” Merlene protested as the man pumped up the sleeve and placed a cold metal disk against her skin. “Just scared ten years off my life.”

  “Pressure’s normal considering the circumstances,” the paramedic said after a moment, releasing the cuff. “You’re already doing the best thing for your ankle. I’ll leave you an elastic support for later. Do you hurt anywhere else at all?”

  “No,” Merlene said. “I’m fine, really. The ankle was my own fault. I was trying to stall for time.”

  “I hear your ploy worked,” he said with an encouraging smile.

  “Well, well. So I finally get to meet the famous Merlene Saunders.”

  Merlene looked up and found a stocky dark-haired man in her living room waving an unlit cigar.

  Cody rose. “Merlene, this is Lieutenant Carlos Montoya, my boss.”

  “You don’t look like any private eye I know,” Montoya stated.

  Merlene gave a snappy salute. “I hear I’m no longer a suspect.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Thanks for the rescue.”

  “You can thank Cody,” Montoya said, shaking his head. “Ma’am, how did you manage to cause me so much trouble?”

  * * *

  REPORTS COULD DAMN WELL WAIT.

  Cody decided to take the rest of the night off after Montoya and the Special Weapons Team commander finished critiquing the afternoon’s successful operation. No way was he letting Merl out of his sight until they’d worked things out. She might be happy to see him now, but what would happen when they were alone?

  If it took him the rest of his life, he’d convince her to give him another chance.

  She waved over Johnny, her old guard from the safe house. While they began an animated conversation, Cody stepped across the room to where Jake worked with the police photographer.

  “I’ll be late tomorrow,” Cody told him. “In fact, I may take the whole day off. Montoya’s already gone, so fill him in.”

  Jake nodded and shot a glance at Merlene. “She’s damn brave. Make a good cop’s wife.”

  Cody locked the door behind the last of the responders and turned to find Merlene removing the ice bag from her foot.

  “I can’t stand this any longer,” she said, with a shiver.

  “Let me wrap it.”

  She didn’t speak while he wound the elastic bandage around her swollen ankle, careful not to cause her any more discomfort. Her flesh felt cool and smooth against his fingers.

  How the hell did one start a conversation like this? He had to trust himself as well as Merl.

  “Thanks,” she said as he secured the bandage with a clip, her voice husky and cautious.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, cupping her cheek. “Alone at last.”

  “So,” she said. “What happens now?”

  “What do you want to happen?”

  Wariness flared in her gray eyes, but he found warmth behind the caution. And something he hadn’t been able to define before: a shy vulnerability behind her usual bravado.

  He placed his hand on her shoulder.

  “Your fingers are freezing,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “Sorry.” He grinned and traced his thumb across her parted, moist lips.

  “Now you’re trying to distract me,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

  “I love watching your face when you’re distracted.”

  Her neck lengthened in a graceful arc. “You have a way of making me forget what I want to say.”

  “What do you want to say?” he encouraged, making his voice an invitation to speak.

  Her face flushed as her eyes opened. “I don’t remember.”

  He picked up her hand and linked their fingers. “Maybe you were wondering why I always think the worst of you and never give you a chance to explain.”

  “I know why you do that,” she said, raising her gaze to meet his. “Because of your father, you think the people you care about are going to let you down.”

  He rubbed his chin. “Sounds like a theory.”

  “Annie Oakley agrees with it.” Merlene smiled, her dimples coming into stunning display. “I talked to her quite a bit last week.”

  “You and my sister?”

  “I told her you paid the money back to the guys your dad ripped off.” Touching his leg, she said, “You wanted me to, didn’t you?”

  This was the hard part of trust, he thought. Trusting someone you love with the bad stuff, the stuff that makes you crazy. Trusting yourself to let it go. But his feelings for Merlene gave him the strength to try.

  “I guess I did,” he said. “When did you come to know me so well?”

  “I don’t.” Shaking her head, she placed her index finger on his temple. “Usually I have no clue what’s going on in here.”

  “Maybe you don’t want to know.”

  “I want to know.”

  He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “And I want to know everything about you, Merl.”

  “Then you have to stop running away from me whenever I do something you don’t like. It hurts too much.”

  He drew her to him. “I know. I’m sorry.” His voice was muffled as he kissed the top of her head. “I’m never going anywhere again.”

  “I want to believe that, but...”

  “You get into too much trouble when I let you out of my sight.”

  “You sound like your lieutenant.” Closing her eyes, she turned into his chest, feeling his body heat slowly seep into her own flesh. He wrapped both arms around her and she released a sigh. Trusting their love was more frightening than anything she’d ever done, but they would make it work. No matter what the cost, a life with Cody was worth fighting for. She believed that with all her heart.

  “Trust works both ways, remember?” he said as he nuzzled her hair.

  “Well, Detective, you definitely earned my trust today. I really thought Linda was going to—”

  He cut off her words with a quick, fierce hug. “Shh. Don’t think about that.”

  The strain in his voice told her about how worried he’d been.

  “Don’t feel so bad. I was scared for my life a bunch of times as a kid.”

  “I don’t want you to ever be afraid again,” he said.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

  “I love you, Merlene.”

  Merlene squeezed her eyes. Could this really be happening to her? Things in her life never worked out.

  He lifted her chin and she met his gaze. “No matter what else happens,” he said.

  Merlene stared into his fierce blue eyes and whispered, “I love you, too, Cody Wyoming. And your love is all the security I’ll ever need.”

  He gazed into her face long and hard, then kissed her with such feeling that Merlene got lost in the hot intimacy of his mouth. She relaxed into the sofa, feeling as if she had melted into quicksilver—no, liquid hap
piness. Cody lifted her legs and shifted her beneath him, his tongue teasing her, tasting of the coffee they’d had earlier, and Merlene released forever any lingering doubt.

  “Will you marry me, Merl?”

  Her heart soared. “Yes.”

  He smoothed hair away from her face, continuing to hold her gaze. “You’ll be around cops all the time.”

  “I’m not afraid of you nasty coppers anymore.”

  “Brave talk from an unemployed private eye.”

  “I won’t be unemployed for long.” Merlene brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “I have something to tell you, but you have to promise not to go stomping off.”

  She touched the familiar muscle working in his jaw. It was time to test their newfound trust. No sense putting it off.

  “I said I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Have you decided to pursue your singing career again? If so, you must know I support you all the way.”

  Focusing on the steady pulse in his throat, she spoke slowly. “I know how you feel about selling the video or an interview, but how would you feel about a book?”

  “A book?” he repeated, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

  “I’ve been offered a generous advance from a crime publisher to write about the Johnson case. With my abduction, the deal should only get sweeter. What do you think?”

  Not daring to breathe, Merlene watched Cody consider her news.

  “Merlene Saunders, private-eye author.” He grinned. “Sounds great. Good thing I have a lifetime to get used to your surprises.”

  A lifetime. Merlene hugged the sound of that word close to her heart. “The book won’t come out until after the trial,” she said, “so—”

  “I can’t wait to read it, Merl.”

  “Of course the book will be dreadful,” she said. “But the money will go toward completing my college degree.”

  “Anything you do will be fabulous.” He dipped his head and captured her lips again, his possessive kiss promising a lifetime together. Every inch of her skin rippled into gooseflesh as his index finger traced across her blouse and stopped to tease her nipple. “Do you want me to stop distracting you so you can get started right away?”