In the Line of Duty: First Responders, Book 2 (8 page)

Her face paled. “Oh, shit,” he murmured as her eyes went glassy. He took her hand and tugged. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s get you somewhere that you can sit down.”

And the bar wasn’t it. He led her around back to a stairwell leading to his apartment above the pub. It wouldn’t exactly be quiet with the music and voices downstairs, but it would be private.

The fact that she followed him as obediently as a lamb was almost as worrying as her belligerence.

Once inside, he shut the door and took her hands in his, chafing her fingers. They were cold and her face was still pale.

She looked into his eyes now, her gaze clear and earnest. “Can I have that drink now?”

He wondered exactly what tack to take next. She couldn’t do this. She’d regret it terribly, and he couldn’t be the one responsible for letting her break. And to tell her what to do…

Well, he knew exactly how well that would work. It wouldn’t. If he started barking orders, she’d do exactly the opposite just to spite him.

“Have a seat,” he said, nodding towards the bar stools that sat in front of his counter. He went to the cupboard and took out a shot glass and a bottle of Jack. It was half full, exactly where he’d left it months ago. Every now and again he took it out and looked at it, remembered and put it back. He could handle it. She couldn’t. Tonight it would be a sacrifice but one he was willing to make.

For her. Go figure.

Wordlessly, he put down the shot glass, poured. Then just as her fingers started to slide across the counter for it, he picked it up and tossed it back.

The liquor burned down the back of his throat, lighting a well-remembered fire clear to his belly. It wasn’t a bad sensation, but it wasn’t the salvation he’d come to expect from it either. He was grateful for that.

“Hey!” Kendra’s brows knit together. “What are you doing?”

“You can’t do this,” he stated calmly. “You will hate yourself if you do. It’ll destroy you.”

He poured another shot. Saluted her with the glass and drank it down in one swallow.

“Jake!” Her voice was distressed now and she ran a hand over her braid, making little pieces fray around her face. “Don’t do this. You can’t. Not after all you’ve…”

Tears filled her eyes and Jake hesitated. She was going to break soon, and he could handle one more easily. He’d handled far worse in his day, and while the warmth of the whiskey spread through his belly, his head was perfectly clear. He poured one more shot. Lifted it. Met her eyes. Drank it while holding her gaze. Put the glass back down on the counter.

“I can’t watch you do this to yourself,” she whispered, an edge of desperation in her voice. “Please, Jake. Please stop.”

He put his hand on the shot glass. He wasn’t going to pour anymore, but it wouldn’t hurt for her to wonder. “If you can’t bear to watch me, why on earth would you think that I would be able to watch you? Not just watch, but enable you by pouring it?”

“I just… It was so…”

“Tell me.”

Her eyes were wide and shimmering with tears, break-your-heart blue and broken. “She died, Jake.”

The words came out so tragically he half-expected her to crumple in a heap. She didn’t though. She sat tall on her chair, and her fingers gripped the edge of the countertop like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

“Who died?” he asked gently.

Kendra shook her head, releasing more hair from her braid. It really was quite an unruly mess now. “A student from the university hydroplaned on the highway. She was maybe twenty years old. She died before we even had a chance to try to save her. And I had to phone her parents halfway across the country.” She looked away. “There is no good way to deliver that sort of news.” A tear slipped over her cheek. “She was beautiful, Jake. Young and beautiful and full of potential. What a waste. What a stupid waste.”

Jake put the glass in the sink, the bottle back in the cupboard where it belonged, and went around the counter. “Come here,” he said gently, and vest, equipment, gun and all, he folded her into his arms.

Her face crumpled and she pressed her cheek to his chest, right at the curve of his shoulder. She trembled against him as the sobs started. But he stood strong and held her, tightening his arms and resting his chin on the top of her head.

Sometimes you couldn’t save everyone. And it could eat you up from the inside out.

She clung to him as the tears she’d been holding in came rushing out, wetting his shirt front. She cried for the girl in the car, for the devastated parents, for the loss of an innocent, young life, and even for herself. She hated feeling helpless, powerless. She’d become a cop for that very reason. But tonight she’d been cruelly reminded that she was indeed helpless and powerless. That bad things happened to good people who were just driving home from work. No one had been talking on a phone or driving under the influence or speeding. All they were guilty of was getting caught in a thundershower and hydroplaning on the highway.

It was humbling to realize that ten minutes of bad weather could cause that much death and destruction.

Weak and weary, she pushed out of Jake’s arms. “I think I need to sit down,” she murmured. He held her hand as they went to the sofa, an unexpected point of connection that felt good, comfortable. She looked up at him sheepishly. “I went off the rails there, didn’t I?”

“A bit. Sounds like you’ve had a trying night though. Sometimes it helps to get it out.”

“I threw up in the ditch.”

The confession made him smile, and that fed the tiniest bit of warmth into her heart.

“I’m sorry for before. For yelling at you. For demanding…well, you know.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Demanding a drink? Yeah, well, it was pretty obvious something was very wrong. I couldn’t do it. Not knowing what I do, you know?”

She shivered, afraid of what she’d done, disturbed by the realization that she’d totally lost perspective. Afraid of
why
she’d done it—because she’d felt like she needed it to get through another hour. “Do you think I could be addicted like my mom? That…if I’d started I wouldn’t have stopped?”

His gentle smile faded as he looked her fully in the face. “I don’t know a lot about addiction. But I do know that you reached your limit tonight. That something about that girl tipped the balance for you. Extreme things drive people to extreme actions. Doesn’t mean you’re somehow predisposed to be an alcoholic, Kendra.”

She wasn’t convinced. “Doesn’t mean I’m not, either.” It would be the worst thing for her, and she was lucky it had been Jake on the bar tonight. Lucky he’d stopped her from self-destructing. A lot of bartenders wouldn’t have. “If I’d gone through with it, I could have lost my career. Everything.”

“I told you once before that I know when to stop serving.” He smiled again and leaned back against the cushions. It looked so inviting that she sank into them too, resting her head against the soft top of the sofa, curling one leg underneath her.

“Maybe,” he suggested, “what you went looking for wasn’t a drink after all. Maybe it was me.”

That idea was nearly as dangerous as the other as far as she was concerned. She wasn’t looking for a romantic connection. Wasn’t interested in dating. She didn’t want anything serious, and the day on the beach had shown her she didn’t really want a fling either. Besides, Jake wasn’t the serious type. He’d been around the block a time or two. And she was unbelievably green when it came to intimacy—emotional or sexual. It would be a bad idea all around, wouldn’t it?

“That’s quite a leap,” she answered, trying to sound glib. She wasn’t sure she succeeded. Especially when Jake answered.

“I’m not so sure it is,” he replied, “but I don’t think you’re in the frame of mind to discuss it now.”

Silence filled the room. She probably should go, but her emotions were still churning, and she didn’t quite trust herself to go home alone and not fall apart. She’d responded to a lot of calls over the past few years, but none of them had been a fatality. “It is a terrible thing,” she whispered, “to watch the life go out of someone. To see them take their last breath. I wasn’t prepared.” Her throat began to close up again, and the last words sounded strangely thick.

“No one is ever prepared for that.” Jake put his hand on her knee. “First time?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. Her eyes stung again and she blinked furiously. She really didn’t want to cry again.

“Do you have to go back? Or are you off duty now?”

“I’m done.”

“Good. Come here.”

Jake reached out and gripped her vest, deftly unzipped it and shoved it off her shoulders, then unclipped her belt. She felt oddly light without both and watched, fascinated, as he took them and laid them carefully over a nearby chair. Maybe he was right. Maybe she had come looking for him, for the simple reason that she thought he might understand. He’d been on several deployments. She knew without asking that he’d seen things. Done things. Especially after the haunted look in his eyes when they’d returned from the beach. Jake had his share of dark secrets.

“Jake…I know you have to get back to work. It’s okay. Really. I’ll be fine now.” She wasn’t convinced, but what kind of officer she would be if she fell apart every time there was a bad call? She was used to the fact that life wasn’t always pretty and perfect. And she was already feeling much better.

“Shhh.” He came back to the sofa and sat down. “The bar can run without me. Besides, it’s slow tonight.” He stretched his arm along the back of the couch. “Come here, Kendra.”

She slid over and curled up in the crook of his arm. He was warm and strong, and she let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.

“It’s not easy, is it?” he murmured in her ear. “You can do your job day in and day out and it’s okay. You get used to the daily routine. And then something happens, like tonight. Someone gets hurt or dies and something snaps inside you. You’re not prepared. You think you are, but you’re not. And it’s hard to be alone when you’re afraid you’re going to implode. And hard to be with other people because you can’t deal and need to be alone.”

That was it exactly, and Kendra nodded against his shirt. The soft cotton smelled like fabric softener and deodorant and the scent that was uniquely Jake, a wonderfully masculine combination. She wondered again what he’d seen—and done—in Afghanistan. If those things had marked him for life. If you ever got over the rough stuff or if it was something that stayed with you forever.

She looked up at him. His arm was still around her but his eyes held a faraway look. He did know what he was talking about then. “When was it for you?”

His eyes cleared and he looked down at her. “When was what?”

She slid her arm around his ribs, feeling the hard flesh there, warm and solid and comforting. “That moment. Is it why you left the military? Why you started drinking?”

The muscles under her fingertips tensed.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She frowned. Was it still that bad for him then? She recalled the night she’d arrested him. He’d taunted her then, said something about taking on the big, bad soldier. There’d been an energy about him that had set her on edge. He’d been dangerous not because he was particularly violent but because he was a wild card.

In some ways he still was. And a girl like her—a rule follower—would do better to leave well enough alone.

But she couldn’t seem to find the will to leave, and she couldn’t force him to talk about it. How would she feel if he pried into her past and all her motivations? Instead she just held him tighter, rested her cheek on his chest and whispered, “Okay.”

Her quiet acquiescence seemed to be the key that unlocked him. Bit by bit, he relaxed under her hands. Little by little, she snuggled closer, closer until they were cuddled up in the corner of the sofa. She shifted so she was on his lap, facing him with her arm tucked beneath her against his hard chest.

“What are you doing?” he asked, a note of humor warming his voice.

“Snuggling.”

“Kendra…” There was a soft note of warning, but that in itself was seductive.

“If neither of us wants to talk, can’t we just be alone together? I don’t want to go home yet. I need the company. I need you, Jake. You’re so warm. You’re so
alive
.”

He sighed. “You still have your shoes on.”

She smiled against his shirt. “So I do.”

There was a pause where something indefinable seemed to hang in the balance. Then Jake’s fingers began unlacing her shoes, and she kicked them off with her toes. They hit the floor with a solid thud.

“Not exactly dainty slippers, are they?” she murmured, smiling. Considering her state of mind when she’d arrived, smiling felt damn near like a miracle.

“No. Gotta say though, the uniform’s kinda hot. I’ve always thought so. Something about a woman in authority.”

Heat rose into her cheeks. “You weren’t exactly clearheaded when I last exerted my authority.”

“No,” he answered, “I wasn’t. I was a mess, like you were tonight. Only I’d been that way for months. I wasn’t coping. I pretended everything was great. I drank a lot to forget all the ways I’d failed.”

“I’m sure you didn’t fail, Jake.” The summer evening was melting into twilight and the light coming through the windows was faded and weak.