In the Shadow of the Shield (Secret Lives Series Book 2) (11 page)

Diana: Yeah, I know…

Angela: Diana and Carter sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G…

Diana: *groan*

Angela: I’m happy for you, Di. You deserve a little happiness.

Diana: Thank you. It does feel good not to be sad for a change.

Jessy: I can’t even imagine what the past year has been like.

Diana: There are no words, Jessy.

Angela: It’s good to see you so happy again.

Diana: I am. Even if it doesn’t last, it was a welcome break.

Angela: Why wouldn’t it last?

Diana: I don’t know, just being logical, I guess.

Jessy: Kick the logic to the curb, and enjoy Mr. Sexy Ass as long as you can.

Diana: Mr. Sexy Ass?

Jessy: Have you seen the way his ass fills out his uniform?

Diana: I didn’t know you were looking?

Jessy: Hey, a girl has a right to appreciate something fine.

Angela: She sure does, I just didn’t think you went around showing appreciation for the guys your husband works with.

Jessy: I may be shy and modest, but I know a good thing when I see it.

Diana: You two ladies are too much. I’m going to call it a night now.

Angela: Yeah, okay, me too. Good night, my friends.

Jessy: Good night ladies.

Diana shut the computer and leaned back against the pillows. It was now after one in the morning, and she still wasn’t sure she could sleep. Her cell phone vibrated on the night stand. Surprised, she picked it up and checked the screen. Carter had sent her a message.

Carter: I know you are probably asleep, but I am wide awake. I feel like that mouse in that movie—looking up at the stars and wondering if you are wishing on the same one. Sleep tight, Diana.

Should she respond? He sent the message expecting her to be asleep. Re-reading the message, she couldn’t help smiling ear to ear. Jackson had loved the movie
An American Tail
when he was young. It was something she had saved from her own childhood, and it made her feel all mushy inside that Carter had referenced it without knowing its meaning in her life.

She decided to respond, but couldn’t think of anything witty or clever. Finally, she typed,

Diana: Can’t sleep either. It’s a big, bright star.

Carter: My dreams will be sweet now
.

Yeah, he was hot all right. And he probably had no idea why or how much. She fell asleep holding her phone, the lyrics to “Somewhere, Out There” filtering through her dreams.

Chapter Ten

By the time Friday night rolled around, Diana was going stir crazy. She hadn’t heard from Carter since Tuesday, and she really missed his company. The bruises on her face had turned an angry yellow and brown, but were actually fading some. People still looked at her in public with pity, probably assuming she was a victim of abuse, but there was no amount of make-up that totally covered it all.

Jackson was out for the night. She didn’t expect him home until the next day, so when someone knocked softly on the front door, Diana dropped her cup of tea on the kitchen floor. Hot liquid and shards of pottery sprayed all over her. The knock sounded again. She stayed where she was, but the knocking persisted. Reaching for the cookie jar on top of the fridge, she pulled Donnie’s off-duty weapon out, and inched her way toward the front door. The knocking grew more persistent. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and was about to dial 911 when the phone started buzzing and fell out of her hand.

“Damn it!” she cursed as she dropped to the floor and retrieved her phone. A message popped up on the screen from Carter.

Carter: It’s me at the door, Diana. Can you let me in?

“Oh, thank God.” She scrambled to her feet and ran to the door. “Carter?” She called through it.

“Yes!”

She turned off the alarm and pulled open the door. “You scared the crap out of me!”

He spotted the gun in her hand. “Were you planning to shoot me?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, but not you. Whoever was trying to break into the house.”

Carter laughed. “You can put the gun away now. I promise to behave.”

Damn.
She never said anything about behaving. “Okay.” She headed toward the kitchen with Carter following her. The heat of his gaze burned more than the hot tea had. When they reached the kitchen, she flipped on the overhead light and headed to the pantry to get the broom and dustpan.

“What happened here?” He took the dustpan from her hand and squatted down to scoop up the broken pottery, the weight of his duty belt nearly knocking him on his backside. She giggled, and he passed her a wry grin as he righted himself. Why hadn’t she noticed he was in uniform before? She missed a man in uniform in her house. With any luck, maybe she could convince him to play a little game of cops and robbers before he left for the night.

Shaking her head to clear the visions that filled it, she smiled to herself and swept the shards of tea cup into the dustpan. “When you knocked on the door the first time, it startled me and I dropped my tea.”

He looked her up and down. Brown spots of tea speckled her pink flannel pajama pants. “I’m so sorry, honey. Did you get burned?”

He called me honey.
“Nothing to write home about.”

“Let me see.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

Carter rose from the squat he was in and emptied the dustpan into the trash. “I constantly seem to bring you bad luck.”

“It just seems that way. Actually, the bad luck is all mine. Grace is my middle name, you know.”

Carter took the broom from her and deposited it with the dustpan in the pantry. Diana filled the tea pot with fresh water and set it on to boil while Carter settled himself on the same bar stool he had used the other night. He unclipped his radio from his belt and set it on the counter. How she had missed Donnie doing the very same thing.

“So, what are you doing here anyway?” she asked as she pulled a couple of tea bags from a canister on the counter. “Obviously you’re on duty.”

He shrugged and offered a sheepish smile. “Would you believe that I missed you?”

She returned the smile. “I definitely wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“You almost shooting me aside, is it okay that I dropped by? I was down the street on patrol, and my unit seemed to develop a mind of its own. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in your driveway.”

“You can stop by anytime. I’m glad you did.”

Diana set out two mugs, dropped the tea bags in them, and reached for the lemon juice and honey she kept handy. Carter caught her hand from across the counter and held it, caressing the palm with his thumb. “It’s been a long week. I never minded going home to my empty apartment before. Now, I can’t stand how lonely and cold it is. For the first time since my wife left, I feel like I have a reason to be a little bit happy. Being with you makes me happy.” He looked up at her. “Too much too soon?”

“No. I have been pacing the house for days, hoping Louie would text you so you would have a reason to come by. Crazy, huh?”

“Not at all. I wanted to, but I figured you needed a little space after—how did things go with your son the other day?”

The tea pot whistled. Diana poured steaming water into both cups and passed Carter one of them with a spoon. “Jackson misses his father. He’s struggling with the idea that life has to go on, and you have to admit, he did happen in on us at a very inopportune time.”

“Yeah, no kidding. It took me half the afternoon…”

“Half the afternoon to what?”

“Let’s just say that kiss didn’t end in my mind for a good long time.”

“You youngsters are so dramatic!” She flipped a dish towel at him. Carter caught it in one hand, and his expression turned serious.

“Why are you so hung up on our age difference? It’s only eight years. If I were older than you, would it even occur to you to care?”

She felt her cheeks heat up as Carter watched her intently. “I—I don’t know. I mean, it’s a little strange to me to have someone so much younger—I mean, the way I—” She threw her hands in the air in frustration and turned her back on him. “Look, Donnie was my high school sweetheart. I loved him for more than half my life. I still love him. I was not prepared for the way I would be affected by a man other than him.”

When she turned around again, Carter was standing there, his eyes filled with desire and emotion. “I’m not trying to take Massey’s place in your life. I had no idea when I went to the cemetery that—oh, I don’t even know. I was looking for you, yes, but only because I wanted to know what really happened to Massey. I wasn’t prepared for the way—for what’s happening either. I’m still not. Not really. I’m broken, Diana. I have a mother who didn’t love me, and a wife who couldn’t love me enough to stick around. It’s only been a week since I met you, and it has been the best time in my life in a very long time. I only want the opportunity to get to know you, see where—if anywhere—this thing will go. And figure out what really happened to Massey.”

“How do we even know something happened to him?”

“It’s a gut feeling. That’s all I can say.”

They were standing very close. Too close. She could smell that musky soap of his again, and it was all she could do to stay where she was. He sure looked good in that uniform. Too good. She moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Lick your lips that way. I have to get back on the road in a minute, and that might make me quit my job so I can see you do that again.”

She giggled like a schoolgirl. “Oh, you can’t do that. Your uniform is half the appeal. Don’t you know, once a badge bunny, always a badge bunny?” She tapped the badge on his chest with one finger.

“Badge bunny, huh?” In one smooth move, his arm slipped around her and his lips pressed to hers in a quick kiss. “I hate to leave, Madam Bunny, but the streets of Virginia Beach are begging to be kept safe.”

“What kind of crime is there in a resort town in the middle of the winter?”

“You’d be surprised. Hookers still got pimps to pay, no matter how cold it is. Crack heads still need a fix, and drive-bys are very popular this time of year. The discerning gangster prefers not to freeze the family jewels to get the weekly quota of shootings in.”

“I suppose that makes sense, since it was this time last year when Donnie got mixed up in that supposed meth case.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth that they heard the ringing of a cell phone. Carter let her go and dug into one of his pockets. “That’s the Louie phone number. A text message.”

“What’s it say?”

“He says he wants a pizza with his Snickers and his Mountain Dew.”

“What?”

“Hold on. Another message is coming in. It’s a photograph.”

“A photo of what?”

“Hard to tell. It’s pretty dark, but it looks like three people. He says he caught them leaving the house, and they are the same guys he saw the other night.”

“Ask him who they are.” Her heart rate picked up at the thought of a possible lead. “Are they cops?”

Carter tapped out a message and then waited for Louie to reply. “Okay, he says they left and locked the place up tight. He doesn’t know who they are, but he is certain they are the same guys he saw the other night.” Carter typed in another message, then set the phone down on the counter by his radio. It buzzed almost immediately with a message from Louie, promising to let them know the second the men returned, as long as he could have an extra-large double cheese pie.

“All right, as much as I hate to go, I need to get back out on patrol. Lunchtime is over.”

“Lunch time? Was I supposed to be a quickie on your lunch break?”

Carter grabbed his radio and clipped it back on his belt. “Trust me, baby, if that was why I was here, there would be nothing quick about it.” He pulled her in for one last kiss before heading to the door. “Set the alarm behind me.”

“Of course.” He was gone a second later, and the house was as quiet as a confessional. She returned to the kitchen to clean up the tea cups and spotted the cell phone right away. She grabbed it and ran to the door, hoping to catch Carter, but he was already gone. Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, she tapped out a text to Carter to let him know. About ten minutes later, he answered.

Carter: All part of the plan, baby. Now I definitely have a reason to see you tomorrow.

Diana smiled broadly as she made her way to the living room and turned on the television. She felt downright giddy, and a little guilty. A tiny part of her felt like she was being dishonest to Donnie, while the logical part knew he wouldn’t want her to be miserable for the rest of her life. Once they figured out if there was anything foul surrounding Donnie’s death, she could put it all to rest and get on with life. Having Carter to work on it with was definitely an added perk. Carter’s kisses had her all stirred up; it was going to be awhile before she could sleep.

***

As predicted, it was well past midnight before Diana finally passed out. She kept thinking about Donnie going into that house, thinking a child was hurt, and someone he knew and trusted had set him up. When she finally did slip into an aggravated sleep, dark shadows infiltrated her dreams, making the rest she got fitful at best. Jackson texted to say he would be gone most of the day, so she settled into doing a little cleaning and organizing. Being Saturday, it meant she was working that night. Hopefully Carter would come by during the day, so they could avoid the inevitable conversation about why she was not available on Saturday nights.

The phone rang at about noon. She jumped up and grabbed it with a breathless, “Hello?”

“You running a marathon today or what?” Cyndi Mills greeted her with a chuckle.

“Or what. You know I don’t run anywhere.”

“What’s got you all out of breath then, my friend? Wait. Are you alone? You are alone, aren’t you?”

“If I weren’t, do you really think I would have answered the phone?”

“No, I guess not. I suppose that’s what I need to talk to you about, anyway.”

“What?” Diana asked.

“Jason says the guys are saying you’ve been spending a lot of time with Carter Ryan.”

“How would the guys know how much time I’ve been spending with him?”

“Come on, Di, you know guys talk. The precinct is like a big high school locker room. Everyone’s gotta compare sizes and conquests.”

“What the hell, Cyndi? I’m not a conquest.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“What exactly
did
you mean then?”

“Well—”

“Look, I told you we met at the cemetery. He’s nice, and he checks in on me. Not for nothing, but most of the guys have forgotten Jackson and I even exist. Not that I need anyone to worry, but it would be nice if some of those guys my husband spent so much time with still cared a little. I let them have the best part of my husband for twenty years.” She fought back the tears, but they were stubborn and began to pour down her face.

“Diana, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Look, was there a reason for this call?”

“I wanted to let you know that Jason says he’s got a bit of a reputation for being a play boy. The ladies like him, you know?”