Blood rushed to my cheeks, but I gave a small wave. “Hi?”
People laughed, then turned back to the podium and settled down.
I kept my voice low. “I know you’re my boss, but expect payback when you least expect it.”
Laughter danced in Eve’s eyes. “Looking forward to it.” The humor faded. “But seriously, it’s important that everyone knows who you are, especially if anything goes wrong on Sunday.”
My stomach turned over. I didn’t have a response to that, so I just swallowed and nodded and refocused my attention on the speaker. Eve fleetingly laid a hand on my shoulder, then dropped it to her side.
We were there for about half an hour, and several people spoke. They shared the details of the emails Eve had received, and what little Delia had uncovered related to them. They also discussed the measures they’d be taking to ensure crowd safety as well as officer safety. After going over the duty schedule and the fielding questions from the officers in the audience, the man who’d opened the meeting—the deputy chief of police—ended it with a final few words.
“This warning appears to be directed specifically to our female officers. Everyone keep your eyes open and report all viable threats to them, or to anyone else.” He paused to let the words sink in. “Dismissed.”
I now had a giant knot in my gut, and my head reeled from all the information I’d just been given. As we walked back to our office, I asked one of the fifty questions I had, starting with the most innocuous one. “How do you—they—keep this all straight?”
Eve lifted a shoulder. “You learn to juggle a lot of balls at once. But there will be a few key people in a command vehicle with access to everyone’s radios, to headquarters, to the state police. They’ll be the ones keeping track of everything.” She turned shrewd eyes to me. “What else?”
I jumped into the biggie, the one that had me most concerned. “Do you think there’s a real chance of something happening?”
Her shoulder moved again. “Maybe. Not enough to cancel the event. Too much to not take extra precautions.”
I sucked in a deep breath, let her easy confidence bolster my courage. “Okay. That . . . helps. If you don’t mind, I’m going to head out a little early today to take care of a few things, since I’ll be working on Sunday.”
Eve dropped into her chair, pushing buttons on the phone, the receiver to her ear. “It’s not like you don’t give us an extra half hour or hour every day. Go for it. I’ll see you Sunday.” She held up one finger as she listened to a message, then dropped the phone into the cradle. “I almost forgot. You’ll need this.”
She stood and turned to the credenza behind her, leaning over as she bent to get something out of a drawer. I barely managed to lift my eyes from her ass when she straightened and tossed it at me.
Fear of getting caught ogling the boss made me slow to react, and I bobbled the pile of fabric that landed in my hands. A hot flush started in my chest and worked its way up. I had to clear my throat with a cough before I could speak. “What’s this?”
“Got you a uniform shirt to wear to events where you represent the department. You probably want to wash it first because the dye runs if you get sweaty. Don’t ask me how I know.” She grimaced, shook her head. “But wear it Sunday so everyone knows you’re part of the team, okay?”
“Okay.”
Eve sat back down and sighed, grabbing a folder from the pile on her desk.
“Don’t stay too late today. You need a break too.” The second the words left my mouth I wanted to call them back. She was the boss, and I was the flunky, and what the hell was I doing telling her what to do?
Instead of giving me massive side-eye, she smiled. “Thanks for worrying. I’m good. Now go enjoy your Sabbath.”
I’d shared my reasons for not working late Fridays and on Saturdays with Eve, and I appreciated her understanding. “Thanks. See you Sunday.”
Sunday dawned clear and comfortably warm, never a given for mid-fall, but I was grateful. If I was going to be outside all day, I didn’t want to freeze or sweat to death, and the expected sixty-five to seventy-degree weather was perfect for a street festival.
I ate a bigger breakfast than usual, because who knew when I’d get time to eat? I hoped I would, because this festival always had food samples from most of the restaurants in the area, and every year I looked forward to eating my way through them. I remembered the year Seth and I had ditched the girls, who’d thought it was boring, and made a date out of it. We’d been there all day and had practically rolled into bed that night, too full to do anything but snuggle. It was a good memory, but bittersweet, and I pushed it out of my head.
That was then, and Seth was gone. This was now.
I coated on a thick layer of sunscreen, then dressed in khakis and the police-department-emblazoned T-shirt Eve had given me. She hadn’t been kidding about washing it first. The water in the washer had turned a deep blue, and I’d actually washed it a second time, because that dye on my fair skin would’ve turned me into a blueberry.
Unfortunately, since it was cotton, that second washing had made it shrink, so now the shirt was a little tighter than I normally liked to wear, but it would have to do.
I stuffed the things I’d need into a backpack, threw a light sweatshirt on, then locked up and headed out.
I parked in one of the decks and walked over to where Eve had told me we’d be set up, enjoying the sun on my face and the cool morning air. When I got there, she handed me a cup of coffee. “Here you go, addict.”
“Mmmm,” I said, grinning at her snark. I took a sip and let out a happy groan as the flavor hit my taste buds—pumpkin spice. Eve knew me well after several weeks. “Bless you.”
She grinned back and lifted her cup of what had to be tea, because she really didn’t do coffee at all. “We’ve got a locker inside the truck for personal stuff. You can drop your bag in there, but you might want to keep your phone and some money if you want to buy anything. It’s going to be hard to get to it once we’ve got things up and going.”
“Sounds good.” I quickly stowed my belongings, and came back out of the truck, ready to get to work on my first public event for the department. Someone else had already erected a canopy next to the command truck and set up tables, but that was it. I sucked in a deep breath, then rubbed my hands together. “Okay, let’s do this. What first?”
“I’m going to set up the fingerprinting station, if you want to get the tables ready. Only put half of the giveaways out. We’ll save the rest for the afternoon crew.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I got everything arranged in a way I hoped made sense and stood back to admire my handiwork. Something seemed missing, but I couldn’t remember what. Just as I opened my mouth to call Eve, someone grabbed my sweatshirt from behind and I let out a yelp that had my boss lifting her head, her eyes shooting daggers at the person behind me.
I spun, not knowing what to expect, but the heartbreakingly familiar face wasn’t it. Fair skin, reddish-brown hair and blue eyes, and the Wasserman nose. “Noah!” I smacked him in the chest, frowned at him. “What are you doing here?”
He laughed, the sound twisting my heart. Seth’s brother was built so much like him, laughed so much like him, looked so much like him that it often threw me, even this many years later. Not his fault that their family genes were so strong, but still.
Before he could answer, Eve was right beside me. “Everything okay?”
Noah pulled me close, kissing the side of my head as he held out a hand. “Noah Wasserman. Talia’s brother-in-law.”
Eve leveled a raised brow at him. “Do you make a habit of assaulting unsuspecting women, Mr. Wasserman?”
If I hadn’t spent the last month and a half working for her and getting to know her, I would’ve thought she was serious, but I knew the nuances of her body language. She was playing with him . . . mostly . . . and fighting a grin.
Noah tensed and flushed. “I—”
“Yes, he does. All the ti
me. I think you should lock him up.” I smiled sweetly up at him, and he let out a low growl.
“Jeez, Talia. You’ve gotten mean.”
“Wah, wah.”
Eve’s laugh broke free, and she held out her hand to shake Noah’s. “Nice to meet you, but please—give a warning next time. Assault is a real threat for women.”
“I know.” And he did. The grin slid off Noah’s face, leaving a hard edge behind. His wife had been sexually assaulted before they’d met, and occasionally the trauma of it still reared its head. “Point taken.”
I bumped his hip with mine, trying to lighten the mood. “So what are you doing here?”
“All the electrical stuff for two of the blocks, including the stages.”
I frowned. “Lila didn’t mention anything about working today.”
“That’s because it was a last-minute thing, and she didn’t know. The company scheduled to do it had a fire in their shop late yesterday afternoon. They lost half their stuff and needed some extra help, so we’re doing two blocks for them and another small company is covering two blocks. By the way, your daughter has quite the vocabulary when being woken up at 6 a.m. on a weekend.” He rolled his eyes, but they were warm with humor and love.
I couldn’t hold back a laugh, because yeah, my daughter was sweet unless you woke her early. A morning person, she was not. And her repertoire of swear words had increased dramatically when she started working with mostly men. “Where do you think she learned those words, Uncle Noah?”
He winced. “Point.”
Just then, my phone buzzed against my ass. I pulled it out, read the text from Lila.
Working at the festival today. Will find you if I manage to stay awake and Uncle Noah doesn’t work us to death. YAWWWWWN. Early on the weekend is SO wrong even if it’s time and a half.
I fought a laugh.
“Let me guess,” Eve said. “Your daughter?”
“Yup. Grumpy about being up early on the weekend. Said she’d stop by later.” I bumped Noah’s hip again. “That is, if her tyrant of a boss gives her some free time.”
Noah grinned wryly. “She’ll take it whether I say yes or not.”
“Hmmm. I wonder where she gets that stubborn streak from.” I raised a brow in challenge.
“You,” Eve said, deadpan.
“You,” Noah agreed.
I had to laugh. “Busted.” They weren’t wrong. I used to tease Seth that Lila’s stubbornness came from him, but the truth was, he’d been the easygoing one in our relationship. Standing on tiptoe, I kissed Noah’s cheek. “I have to get back to work now, but I’ll see you later.”
He squeezed me once, nodded goodbye to Eve, and then left. I stared after him for several heartbeats, and jumped when Eve’s voice landed next to my ear.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. My husband and Noah looked similar enough they were often mistaken for twins, even though they were three years apart. Sometimes when Noah surprises me like that, I just . . . forget.” I rolled my shoulders, putting the past back where it belonged. I pointed at the table. “Anyway, I feel like I’m missing something here, and I can’t figure out what it is.”
Eve touched my arm lightly, and I saw a flash of sympathetic understanding in her eyes. Before I had a chance to ask her about it, she turned away, inclining her head and studying the things laid out in front of us.
We said the same thing at the same time. “The trifold backdrops.”
We’d brought them into our office to do some repairs on them and I’d told Eve I’d put them back in the truck. “I’ll head back to the station and grab them.”
Eve shook her head. “No time. I need you here more than we need them. People are going to start showing up in the next fifteen minutes or so.”
My stomach sank. “I am so sorry.”
She lifted a shoulder. “If that is all that goes wrong today, we’ll call this a success.”
She might, but I wouldn’t—my first big event, and I fucked up? I didn’t have time to wallow in self-recrimination, though, because Eve hadn’t been wrong. Within a few minutes, people started to arrive, and by the time we were half an hour in, it was a wall-to-wall sea of humanity.
The best part of the morning was all the really young kids happy to get police badges and meet the K-9 puppy. The worst part was watching Eve get verbally battered by cranky citizens who didn’t think the police department did enough. She was far more collected than I would’ve been—I was only a bystander, and I wanted to scream.
After one particularly red-faced, irate older man stomped off, leaving our area clear for the first time in an hour, Eve came over and let out a sigh ripe with frustration.
“You okay?” I asked, the same thing she’d asked me earlier.
“Would you believe he wanted to know why I couldn’t stop the next-door neighbors from playing in the cul-de-sac? Said the noise disturbed his peace.” She deepened her voice. “They’re out there laughing and making noise and riding those bikes around for hours. Christ. They’re kids. That’s what they should be doing. I don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with people who think kids having fun is a crime.”
In the blink of an eye, she wiped the frustration from her face as a small girl of four, maybe five, with big brown eyes, a head full of beaded braids, wearing a multicolored tutu and wings raced up to her. Eve smiled at her. “Can I help you?”
“Mama said you’re a policeman,” she said, the word coming out like plisheman.
Eve crouched in front of the little girl and tugged at a fairy wing. “Your mama’s right. I am a police officer.”
“Caleb said only boys can be plishemen.”
Eve tugged again. “Caleb’s wrong. Girls can become police officers too. Girls can be anything they want to be.”
The girl cocked her head and studied Eve, then nearly knocked her over with a tackle hug. “I want to be a fairy-princess-doctor-plishoffer-astronaut-dancer.”
I grinned at her exuberance and handed Eve one of the sticker badges we had.
“Be all those things, baby girl,” Eve said, peeling the back of the sticker off and smoothing the badge on the girl’s moon-phase shirt. “Any or all of them.”
The girl’s mother had a soft smile on her light-brown face. “See, Kiera. I told you you could.”
“I know!” Kiera bounced up and down and twirled. “Can we go back to see the people with the telescope? I want to see the moon again!” She stopped bouncing and flung herself at a tall man who’d stopped beside her mother, hugging his legs. “Daddy!”
The man’s dark-brown face creased into a smile that matched his wife’s. He scooped his daughter up and settled her in his arms. She let out a gusty sigh that shook her whole small body, and laid her head against his shoulder, arms around his neck, eyes closed.
After saying they’d already had Kiera fingerprinted, they headed off.
“Pretty sure she’s actually going to be all those things,” I said to Eve. “Especially now that she can show her badge to Caleb.”
“I hope so. I’m tired of hearing that girls can’t do this or can’t be that.” Eve pointed to the left, where fairy princess Kiera was dancing in the street with kids from a performing arts school. “It’s been so long since my son was little. I forgot how much energy they have. I wish I could bottle it up.”
“Me too.” I looked around and, at the risk of jinxing everything, said what I’d been thinking. “Rude old guy aside, today’s gone well, huh?” As I waited for her to answer, I stripped off my sweatshirt. It had gotten warm, and I was roasting. When I turned back, Eve was watching me, her eyes on my too-tight shirt. A shiver slid down my spine, and I had a hard time hiding it.
Eve’s gaze met mine, our eyes locking for a charged moment. She was the first to look away, and as I tried to get my heart back under control, I nearly missed her answer.
Her voice was husky. “It is, but I hate to break the bad news to you, rookie. It’s only eleven.”
That caught my a
ttention, and I blinked. “Really? Only two hours?”
She laughed, cutting the tension. “Really. Community events like these are great, but time doesn’t exactly fly.”
Delia Butler came over then, handing us each an ice-cold bottle of water, which I took gratefully, for more than one reason. I unscrewed the cap and slugged back a few good swallows, noticing Eve doing the same. So, not just me? I wondered, then mentally snorted. Just because I was hot and bothered didn’t mean Eve was too. And besides. Boss. Still my boss.
Delia was accompanied by a tall man with sun-streaked light-brown hair and fair skin who wore a wedding band and a watchful gaze. I’d seen that look before, and I would bet that he was also law enforcement of some kind. “Talia, this is my husband, Colin.” She turned to him. “I told you about her—Eve’s new assistant.”
“Nice to meet you, Talia. I’ve heard good things.”
“Same.”
He turned to Eve. “Anything yet?”
“No. Are you working today?” Eve asked him. I must have looked puzzled because Eve added, “Colin works for the State Fire Marshal’s office as an arson investigator.”
Score one for me.
Colin scowled. “Not officially, no. But if you think I’m about to let my pregnant wi—”
Delia put her hand over his mouth. “You really don’t want to go there today. I’m fine. This is what I’m trained for.” When he gave her a you’ve got to be kidding me look, she dropped her hand to fiddle with the shamrock charm on a chain around her neck. “Please?”
I understood exactly where Colin was coming from, even though I got Delia’s side as well. It had taken everything I had not to tell Lila to go home, just in case something bad happened, but the truth of the matter was, we couldn’t protect those we loved every moment of every day. I’d learned that the hard way, that sometimes the terrible things came when you were least expecting them. Like arguing with your husband, then grudgingly kissing him goodbye and sending him off to work, promising to talk things out later—and losing him to an aneurysm that same day. If I let it rule me, I’d never let my girls out of my sight.
Twice in a Lifetime Page 4
