The Officer's Girl (14 page)

Once she crossed the causeway on her way back to the office, Stephanie maneuvered between choppy blue water and the drooping magnolias that lined a narrow twisting road. She spun the wheel onto the first of several residential cut-throughs that ran between the river and busy US1. Only a block from sprawling riverfront parcels with their million-dollar minimansions, older homes sprouted primly from thick lawns divided by woody bougainvillea and
hibiscus hedges. She hit the brakes in front of one with a For Sale sign in the yard.

Already her hands had grown so damp she was forced to rub them on her skirt. On the edge of losing her nerve, she whipped out her cell phone and punched the number she had been unable to forget. Her anxiety ratcheted up with every ring until one of her high-heeled feet drummed the floorboard while she waited for an answer.

By the fifth ring, she was certain she had missed her chance. She was just waiting for the beep so she could deliver her speech to voice mail when, with a click and a groan, Brett came on the line.

“Hul-lo. Lincoln here,” said a voice that sounded as if it had spent all night in a smoky bar. Which was ridiculous, Stephanie knew. Despite the cigarette burns scarring its furniture, Sticks N Tips had gone smoke-free along with practically every other bar and restaurant in Florida.

“Brett,” she said and then stopped, wondering if she needed to introduce herself.

“Stephanie?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded a lot more alert.

Hearing a loud creak and the flap of bedcovers being thrown back, she momentarily lost herself in the image of Brett’s handsome form stretched out on his bed, a bed she had intended to share with him the night of their last date.

“Honey!”

If he hadn’t ditched her to go to Sticks N Tips.

“Honey?”

If he hadn’t accused her of using him.

“Brett, it’s…” She checked her watch and nearly groaned. What was she doing, sitting in a hot car talking to the man who had broken her heart when she should be on her way back to the office? “It’s nearly four. Did I wake you?”

“No, no, it’s okay. I was getting up anyway.”

In time for happy hour? They both should have left their drink-all-night-sleep-all-day years far behind. Apparently, only one of them had.

She choked back a sharp “What on earth are you doing in bed in the middle of the day?” and replaced it with an “I didn’t mean to disturb you” that carried only a slightly irritated edge.

“Stephanie, honey. It’s okay,” he said. “I worked a double shift last night so one of the guys could go to some function at his kid’s school, but I have to be…somewhere…in a little while.”

As if to prove he was telling the truth, she heard an alarm sound through the receiver.

“Oh, he—Hold on.” There was another heart-wrenching rumble of mattress noise before the loud buzz shut off abruptly. “Now, what is it?”

“I, uh…”
I love you and I want to have your babies.

No, she couldn’t say that. Calling her “honey” proved he had been spending time at Sticks N Tips. The leopard had not changed his spots.

Angry and disappointed tears stung her eyes and she scrubbed furiously at them. Why had she even bothered? He might be trying to get her attention, but she would always take second place to his pals on the force. Even Space Tech thought she deserved better than that. They wanted to make her numero uno, didn’t they? Firming her voice along with her resolve, she began again.

“I’ve accumulated quite a few tickets lately and—”

“You want me to fix them? Oh.” Brett’s voice dropped so low she knew the idea disgusted him. “I don’t even get a break with those. Sorry.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She hurried to correct his
impression before he decided she was a total loser. The limit on those was one per relationship and they had already met their quota. “I’ve gotten a number of
undeserved
tickets. Warnings, actually. For the most trivial things. It’s beginning to feel rather, um, calculated.” She inhaled deeply. “I’d like you to stop.”

No longer disgusted, his voice filled with anger. “You’re accusing me of plastering your car with paper?”

She had to prove that she could give as good as she got. “Maybe not you personally,” she shot back, “but it started the day after we broke up and I don’t have any other enemies on the police force. So how long do you and the boys in blue intend to harass me?”

Brett didn’t answer for so long she was sure he had hung up on her.

“Brett. Are you there?” she demanded.

“Yeah, I’m here.” They were back to disgust, but at least the anger had faded. “Look, whatever you’re thinking, you’re smarter than this. I can’t believe you’d accuse me of some grand conspiracy just because you got a couple of parking tickets.”

“Not tickets. Warnings,” she said, trying for patience. “Twenty-two. No, make that twenty-three. I got another one today at the Courtyard.”

“Twenty-three?” She nearly felt the whoosh of air Brett breathed into the phone. “Okay, you’re right. Something’s going on.”

“So can you stop? Please?”

“It’s not me, but I’ll take care of it.”

She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Either way, she deserved a better answer. “If you’re not doing this to me, Brett, who is? And why?”

“I don’t know,” he said simply. “The guys never did
anything like this when I broke it off with—” His voice faded briefly. “But, hey,” he said in a rush, “let me see if I can work it out. It might take a day or two. Will you give me a chance?”

The question was so leading it tempted her to confess how willing she was to give him a chance on every front, but just then her cell phone buzzed and danced in her hand before emitting a series of loud chirps. Saved by the bell, she thought grimly. She had been on the verge of embarrassing herself. A quick glance told her the incoming call was from her office. “I need to take this. Can you hold on a second?”

But Brett was apparently in a hurry to get off the phone. “Don’t worry about it. I have to get moving here anyway. I’ll be in touch.”

For the second time that day, Stephanie listened to dead air. In disbelief, she blinked back the tears that stung her eyes and blurred the display on her cell phone.
Call Ended.
Of all the nerve. She snapped the device closed, electing to leave Ralinda to handle whatever crisis had prompted the interruption. She had a crisis of her own to deal with.

As far as kiss-and-make-up sessions went, distance had robbed them of the kissing part, and there had been decidedly little making up. Brett hadn’t been trying to get her attention. He hadn’t even known about the tickets. Which made her sound like an idiot for accusing him of such a juvenile prank. She tossed her cell phone onto the seat beside her and hit the steering wheel hard enough that it would have brought tears to her eyes if they hadn’t already been there.

She wanted to be over him. She needed to be over him.

Instead, she knew the hole in her wounded heart had reopened. Leaning her head onto the headrest, she closed her eyes and made no effort to staunch the hot tears that seeped between her lids.

Unlike the river she had shed over Brett in recent weeks, the tears she cried in the car beneath a wide magnolia tree must have possessed oddly curative powers. As she blew her nose and blotted her cheeks she thought it might finally be over between them. She tested the waters by envisioning a life without the hunky cop and found that all the pain and sorrow she had carted around with her for weeks had been washed away. In its place lay a new certainty about what she wanted in life and how she was going to get it. Okay, so maybe there was just a wee little bit of anger tucked down in one corner of her heart, but she knew how to get rid of that, too.

Retrieving her cell phone, she scrolled through the address book to find the number she wanted.

“Deb, I need you to do something for me,” she said as soon as the Realtor came on the line. “Remember when you said hurricanes don’t come ashore in Cocoa Beach? Well, they do, and, apparently, one nearly demolished the house you sold Space Tech.”

“That wasn’t a hurricane,” Deb said, sounding smug. “It was a tropical storm.”

“Big diff. The fact remains, the house was practically destroyed.”

“Yes, but…” Deb sputtered, “the owners rebuilt it.”

“You still had an obligation to disclose. And you failed to do so.” She paused long enough to register Deb’s sigh before she offered an olive branch.

“In exchange for overlooking that fact, I need you to round up door prizes and gifts for the youth groups we’re hosting at a company picnic in two weeks. Two or three thousand dollars’ worth should do the trick.”

“Are you insane?” Deb asked. “That’s way too much.”

Stephanie muffled a snicker at the apoplectic look the
tall thin blonde was almost certainly wearing. Then, as if it were of no consequence at all, she tossed out her most convincing argument. “Why, Deb, I thought you’d welcome the opportunity to support your community. Especially since it means I won’t file a complaint with the Board of Realtors.”

“Ever?” Deb bargained.

“Ever,” she agreed. “Thanks so much. I knew I could count on you.”

This time, someone else listened to dead air while Stephanie searched her heart. Just as she had suspected, she had poured out the last of her anger.

There was one more call she needed to make but, with the workday nearly over, she decided to skip it. Telling John that as much as she appreciated the fast-track offer to the penthouse suite, she would have to pass, well, that could wait till another day.

Are you sure?

Stephanie asked the question a final time while an unconditional
Yes
echoed through her body. If nothing else, her willingness to chuck her career over a marginal chance to reunite with Brett had taught her one thing—she did not have the commitment Space Tech required for climbing its corporate ladder. Not only that, she had begun to think of her little house on the beach as home. She wanted to make it a permanent one. With or without a certain hunky cop.

At the foot of the causeway leading from the mainland to Cocoa Beach, she slowed long enough to watch a man wade the river with two young boys. The trio carried fly-fishing equipment and the sight momentarily stole her breath. Once she had dreamed of children who would share Brett’s love of the outdoors, but those dreams had died along with their relationship.

Though the thought sent a wave of pain and sadness washing over her, she reminded herself that bitterness came from dwelling on lost loves and lost opportunities. It was time to move forward. After one last look at the river, she headed home.

Brett settled back onto the mattress, his hands folded behind his head, and let a low whistle ride his first full breath in six weeks. Ever since that night on the beach he had been as jumpy as a two-pack-a-day guy gone cold turkey, but no more because…she had finally called.

So what if she hadn’t apologized. Apologies were overrated.

So what if she hadn’t begged for a second chance. She was going to get one whether she begged for it or not.

So what if the best excuse she could drum up was some lame story about too many traffic violations. What did he care? She was still interested, that was the important thing. Her phone call dared him to make a go of their relationship and, this time, he was up to the challenge. Hadn’t he spent the last month and a half preparing for this very moment?

Not entirely.

He had to admit he’d spent that first week wallowing in Broken Heartsville. He’d probably still be there if Fate, in the form of his best friend’s wife and two little munchkins, hadn’t intervened. A week after the breakup, he’d been standing in the back of the line at a fast-food place when a
couple of future Miss Americas had nearly tackled him to the ground. He’d tried to dodge Mary’s searching look, but twin cries of “Unca Brett, where’s my present?” had distracted him. Before he could say “Some other time, maybe,” he had a date—orders, really—to go fishing with Tom.

It still took a pair of waders to make him talk.

Before sunrise the very next day, he and Tom plied the shoreline in acceptable manly silence. They were listening for the telltale splashes of something big feeding in the shallows when Brett looked up to see a rod-and-reeler stepping to the river’s edge. Tom issued an amused “Tourist!” at the sight of waders that looked like bib overalls. After Brett chimed in with “Snowbird,” they sloshed their way to the ill-informed newcomer where they educated the man about the dangers of wearing chest waders in a river pocked by deep dredge holes. Bob-from-New-England was soon headed for shore with the business card of a local guide in his hand, but worry so consumed Brett he forgot himself and spoke out loud.

“You don’t think Stephanie would make a dumb mistake like that, do you?”

The question landed a sharp look from his friend. “Does she even fish?”

“I took her. Some.” To keep his hands busy, he stripped backing off his reel and spun it on again. “If she orders equipment online, she might buy waders. Most catalogs show fly fishermen wearing ’em.”

Tom shrugged, a tough thing to pull off when whipping fly line back and forth through the air. “Just tell her not to.”

“Can’t. We’re not talking.”

With that, Tom’s loop collapsed. His fly made a noisy splash as it landed somewhere behind him.

“You broke up?”

Brett nodded without trying to hide his misery. He felt the rising sun illuminate every hair on his unshaved face while his best friend scoured him with the same searching look Mary had used in the restaurant.

“What happened?” Tom asked. Proving his worth as a friend, he took Brett’s raised shoulders for an answer and shook his head. “If I didn’t have Mary…”

Brett fumbled his rod, nearly dropping it into the water at his feet.

“You love her?” Tom asked with his next cast.

“Yeah.” Brett whipped his own line through the air to cover his embarrassment.

“You’re terminal. You might as well get down on your knees and beg for another chance.” This time Tom’s line sailed true and his fly landed without creating a ripple beneath the weeds along the shore. “But I’d straighten up my act if I were you.”

Only a best friend could say something like that and get away with it. Pretending he had spooled it on unevenly, Brett stripped line from his reel until he reached the solid metal core that anchored everything together.

“You gonna fish or stand there all day?” Tom finally asked.

“Fish,” Brett answered, smoothly reeling in his line. He kept “And make some changes” to a whispered mutter.

“You’re toast, y’know,” his friend jibed. “You’ll never have a moment’s peace till you make it right with her.” He waited a beat before adding, “Not that you’ll have much peace after that.”

The laughter of both men rang out over the wide, still water.

W
HEN HE’D TAKEN TIME
to think about it, Brett had realized two of the three people he trusted most had told him he
needed to make changes in his life. And after weighing the advice he’d been given, he’d made a real effort to do just that. As his first step, he’d cut out the whole bar scene. Instead of heading to Sticks N Tips to lift a few cold ones after each shift, he’d begun heading for the gym where he lifted cold steel.

He had run the beach, his feet pounding the sand until the only thing he could think about was drawing his next breath. He’d run until sweat lathered his skin as if he were a winded horse. It didn’t help. When he would look up, a woman who could pass for Stephanie’s twin would be gathering shells in the pools left by the receding tide. She’d be browsing among the mom-and-pop shops in downtown Cocoa Beach. She’d haunt his dreams.

Man, was she ever in his dreams.

Remembering their conversation in her kitchen that first night—before the kiss that had tilted his world on end—he’d recalled what she said about getting involved and paying back. He had blown off her advice then, but when the chief posted a bulletin announcing the Police Athletic League was looking for volunteers, he was the first to sign up.

Brett grinned and shook his head. Stephanie probably wouldn’t believe it if he told her how much fulfillment his two “little brothers” brought to his life. Nine-year-old Jimmy challenged him every step of the way. Brett liked the kid’s spunk, even though the chip he carted around sometimes landed him in trouble. Only two years younger, Joey was altogether different. The little boy was afraid of anything new. Brett had determined to break through to both of them. He thought he was making progress.

To his amazement, the brothers had been leery of getting their feet wet. Brett couldn’t imagine growing up
in Florida and never wading the creeks or rivers. But after a few fishing trips, the boys had gotten the hang of it and started to enjoy themselves. They were even mastering the art of fly fishing despite having to use Brett’s hand-me-down rods, a situation he hoped to correct in time for an upcoming fishing tourney and picnic.

Brett ran a hand through unruly, bed-head hair and stretched. Yes, he’d made changes. But there were some areas where a man couldn’t compromise and still be true to himself, so he had refused to call Stephanie or apologize. Unfortunately, Stephanie was just as stubborn, so the stalemate had dragged on.

With every night that passed, it had taken more and more effort not to pick up the phone, but—finally—he had outlasted her.

The clock was ticking, though. If he was going to make things right with Stephanie before her year in Florida was up, he’d have to get started. Her lame excuse for a phone call made it easier, and he gave a half laugh.

Traffic tickets. She couldn’t come up with something better than that?

Oh, he’d look into them all right. No doubt she had accumulated one or two, but no one could amass—what was it, twenty-three?—twenty-three tickets in six weeks without becoming the talk of Sticks N Tips.

Sticks N Tips.

Brett rubbed a hand over his unshaven face as he realized he hadn’t visited the cop bar since his talk with Tom. A glance at his alarm clock told him his short foray down memory lane had put him behind schedule. A stop at the watering hole to check out the pool-table talk would have to wait until after his community service gig.

Whistling, he headed out to pick up the boys—his boys—at the PAL center.

T
HE SMELL OF STALE AIR
and beer hit Brett square in the chest as he threw open the door to Sticks N Tips. When he’d been the new kid on the force, the place had possessed an allure far beyond that of worn chairs and tables that wobbled no matter how many folded matchbook covers were propped under the shortest legs. As his reputation had grown under Jake’s tutelage, the bar’s idiosyncrasies had become as familiar as the scar on his left thumb—the one he had sliced open building a model airplane with Tom when they were in the fifth grade. In time, he had learned how to bank shots off the left rail of the pool table so he missed the torn felt, how to rock the pinball machine just enough to guide the ball to the inlanes without going tilt. He could name every cigarette burn on the bar after two years. After three, he added the tables.

Weeks away from his old home away from home gave a different perspective. He had changed while Sticks N Tips remained the same—a hangout for guys who didn’t have a life to go home to at the end of the day. Brett tightened his smile and squared his shoulders. He stepped into a world that, by choice, was no longer his.

“Hey, look who decided to pay us a visit.”

Jake spoke to Mac, who was wiping down the long wooden bar. Last call was only minutes away and the place had emptied.

“It’s about time, bro.”

Experience told Brett that Jake had come there straight from work and had been drinking steadily. Waving off Mac’s offer of a draught, he accepted a sloppy handshake from the senior cop and pulled up a chair.

“How you been, Jake? And how’s—” He stopped. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember the latest in Jake’s string of three-month stands.

“Becca,” Jake provided. “She’s gone to visit her sister.”

Brett nodded. Another relationship had run its course.

“So, hey. That was some takedown at Patel’s, wasn’t it? Just the way I taught—”

Brett eyed the third most influential person in his life and tried to look past the fact that the man was stone-drunk. “Yeah. I’m not here to swap stories. Jake, I got a little problem.”

There was nothing the older officer liked better than to have his boys come to him with their problems. Jake straightened until his sprawl was moderately upright.

“Whazzup?”

“You remember that girl I was seeing? I introduced you one night.”

“Steffie,” grunted the man who, when cold sober, was brilliant and dead-on. He aimed a finger that missed the mark when his elbow slipped off the table edge. “You gotta break that cycle, man. She’s just another round from the same chamber as your last gal.”

The advice did not deserve a response and Brett didn’t give it one. “I’m not here to discuss my love life. I came here because someone on the force has targeted Stephanie. She’s gotten a slew of tickets in the last few weeks. She thought I was behind them and called to tell me to knock it off.”

Deny everything was the standard reaction to any accusation against a fellow officer. Expecting his friend to reject Stephanie’s claims, Brett’s stomach lurched when Jake’s mouth twisted into a wicked grin.

“She did, did she?” He drained the last of his beer and thunked the empty mug onto the table. “Hey, Mac. I need another one.”

“Last call,” growled the retired cop from Jersey. “How about you, Brett?”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” he told the bar owner before facing his one-time mentor again. “Tell me you’re not behind this.”

“Don’t get bent out of shape. Her record’s spotless.”

True enough. Doris had pulled the info for him that afternoon. The only way Jake would know it, though, was if he…

Brett waited until Mac settled two beers, one ordered and one not, between them on the scarred table.

“Jake, buddy,” he said after the owner moved out of range, “you gotta cut this out. The department’ll come down all over you.”

“Hey, man!” Jake raised his hands in mock innocence. “I never signed a single one o’them warnings. It’s her word against mine. Who’s gonna tell?”

Brett let his features stiffen into his game face. Anyone who made him choose between himself and the woman he loved was going to face severe disappointment. He felt Jake’s eyes on him, saw them widen in disbelief.

“So. It’s like that, izzit?”

Outlasting Jake’s weak stare was no problem. “It’s like that.”

“She’s just another self-cent—”

Brett growled his final warning. “That’s my girl you’re talking about. I don’t want to hear another word against her. And if she gets so much as one—”

“I gotcha.” One of the things that made Jake a good officer was his ability to know when to surrender the field. He sprawled in his chair, one arm spread across the torn leather of the empty seat beside him. He raised his mug. “Here’s to the brotherhood. Let nothing divide us.”

Brett stared down at the beer he had not ordered.

“You’re not drinking,” Jake prodded.

“Nah,” Brett answered. “I’ve had enough.” Jake and
the others like him were as much a part of his past as Stephanie was his future.

“Time to lock up,” Mac interrupted.

Jake lurched to his feet. “Guess we’ll finish that beer next time.” Plunging his hand into his pocket, he missed and his fingers slid down his pants leg. As quickly as a drunk could, he made another stab, this time coming up with the desired keys.

Brett looked around the bar. There was no one else to drive the training officer home, and Jake was too drunk to walk, much less slide behind the wheel.

“Hey, man.” He sidled up beside his superior. “Gimme your keys. I’ll drive.”

“Nah, I can manage. Izz only a cuppa’ miles.”

Brett required less than a split second to weigh the penalty for confronting his senior officer versus having one of CB’s own pulled over for DUI. Or worse. He snagged the keys.

“You can call a cab or I’m driving. Your choice.”

“Cab,” Jake spit. “I ain’t ridin’ with you.”

Mac had the local taxi company on speed dial and used it. Minutes later, Brett poured the man he’d once referred to as the finest cop he had ever known into the backseat. He gave directions to the driver and leaned against the bar’s brick facade.

“There but for the grace of a good woman, go I,” he murmured.

He had the right woman. Now, he just needed to win her over. And he had a pretty good idea how he was going to do it.

A
CCORDING TO A GUARD
who was not named Mason, Stephanie’s door was at the end of the hall. Brett strode
down the wide corridor on the third floor of the administration building, the freshly polished black shoes beneath his uniform squeaking against gleaming marble. He had always imagined his girl sharing a cramped space similar to his in the squad room, but his perception shifted upward as he passed the handsome selection of oils and watercolors on the walls.