The Officer's Girl (15 page)

Knowing he could have nearly the same thing if he wanted it helped him squelch a ripple of envy. Once he completed that master’s thesis, one “Yes” to any number of recruiters would put him behind an executive desk in his own corner office of a private security firm. With his background in the Marines and on the CBPD, he had all the right credentials for the top job. Not that he was in a hurry to turn in his badge. He liked police work and took pride in what he did. He looked down the long corridor a second time, his chest swelling with admiration for his girl.

At the end of the hall, he paused to let his expectations climb another notch. Stephanie had never mentioned a
suite
of offices. The pound of chocolate-covered potato chips he meant as a peace offering suddenly seemed too paltry. Next time, he would splurge on the largest box of their favorite treat.

His glance took in a brass plaque mounted on the wall.

Human Resources, it read, with Stephanie Bryant, Director, in only slightly smaller script below.

He took in the airy waiting room and the four adjacent office doors, all closed. The computer screen atop the mahogany reception desk had gone dark. The phone’s Call Forward button blinked continuously. He stood wondering where everyone was until a slim blonde eased out of the office at the far end of the quad. She lingered at the closed door, her troubled expression straightening Brett’s
posture and compelling him to make another sweep of the office space. Though nothing looked out of the ordinary and only the soft buzz and hum of office equipment reached his ears, he had learned a valuable lesson at Pat’s Place and no longer let his guard down.

Across the room, the frowning girl glanced up. “Oh!” she said, starting visibly. Her expression quickly changed from upset to curious. With a soft rustle of linen and silk, she glided toward him on a fresh wave of flowery perfume. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

Brett reached into his bag of tricks and dusted off a smile—the one Doris claimed could melt polar ice caps. It never hurt to have the secretary on your side.

“Hey. No problem. I’m not here on official duty.” Extending a hand, he said, “I’m Brett Lincoln.”

Apparently his name didn’t register with the girl because her long, thin fingers slipped into and out of his grasp while the expression on her face never wavered. Which was okay, he told himself. He was almost thankful that Stephanie didn’t talk about her personal life at work.

“I just dropped by to see St—Ms. Bryant. If she’s available?”

Puzzlement flashed across the girl’s face like a lightning strike. “I’m sorry, Officer Lincoln. She’s in a meeting with—” She caught herself and threw a troubled look at the door she had just exited. “She’s in a meeting,” she repeated before she slid into the desk chair and swiveled to face him. “Would you like an appointment?”

“No thanks, Ralinda,” he said with a quick look at the flustered blonde’s badge. It took a little more effort than he expected to turn up the wattage on his smile. “Do you think she’ll be free soon?”

“This might take a while,” came a quick warning. “But
you could wait if you’d like.” The secretary waved a free hand toward one of two comfortable-looking chairs. “Excuse me,” she apologized as she brushed a piece of hair behind one ear to expose a wireless mike. With her voice pitched so low Brett almost couldn’t hear it, she said, “Shelly, I’m back.” She paused briefly, then, “No calls? Okay, thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

Ralinda pushed a button on the telephone, waited a second and said, “Human Resources. This is Ralinda. How may I help you?”

Being summarily dismissed wasn’t something Brett was used to, but he made for one of the indicated chairs and settled in to wait. Ralinda’s nails tapped her keyboard and she answered the occasional call in a monotone that quickly faded into the background while Brett fought boredom by flipping absently through one of several brochures touting Space Tech this and Space Tech that. He’d never really grasped how big the company was.

He fought the urge to look up when he heard Ralinda’s voice drop to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Shelly, I’m telling you, it’s true—she’s leaving. I heard it myself when I delivered their coffee.”

Brett flipped a page in the glossy advertisement and pretended an article about Space Tech’s net worth and stock options was so engrossing he couldn’t put it down.

“No, she’s not like that. It’s John. He’s old school. Wants his coffee. You don’t say ‘No’ to the company founder.”

Brett thumbed to the inside cover where a caption identified a hawkeyed man as Space Tech’s founder, John Sanders.

“Of course she’ll take it. Who would turn down a huge promotion like that? What? Oh. Director of operations in Washington, D.C. She’ll be in charge of the whole site—
Security, HR, Admin. It’s huge, especially for a woman. She’ll break that glass ceiling into a million pieces.”

Ralinda must have realized that her voice had risen because, at the outer edge of his peripheral vision, Brett saw her aim a glance his way. Casually, he recrossed his legs, throwing the secretary an apologetic smile for the creak and groan of his leather holster. Exchanging one glossy print ad for another, he hoped Ralinda bought his act. She must have. Though she lowered her voice slightly, Brett had no trouble hearing half the conversation.

“Do you think? Oh, I wish. I’ve always wanted to live in Washington.”

Ralinda nodded and listened while Shelly said something. After a short break she said, “Yes, she’s a good boss. She’s only been here a couple of months, but I’ll miss her. She’s really great.”

Brett thought Stephanie was really great, too. Evidently, she was going to be really great somewhere else.

If a perp had gut-kicked him, the pain couldn’t have been worse. Brett wasn’t certain how he made it to his feet or out the door. He vaguely remembered a stop at Ralinda’s desk where he’d said he’d catch up with Ms. Bryant some other time. He couldn’t recall much of the twenty-four hours that followed.

Two weeks later, his pay stub showed a draw on his sick leave so he knew he must have called in. He could never swear to it in court, though. He didn’t even know how he’d made it home. In fact, there were only two things he knew for sure about that day.

First, that he had been wrong about the time. He had convinced himself that he and Stephanie still had plenty of time to work things out. But their hourglass had run out
of sand the moment she accepted a transfer to Washington without even considering him.

And that second thing? Oh, yeah.

Never—ever—leave a box of chocolates in a closed car in Florida.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine…”

Stephanie wrote the tally on her clipboard as laughing, excited picnic-goers disembarked onto the sandy beach from the white PAL bus. Faced with a small mob of impatient children and their enthusiastic chaperones, the lengthy welcome she had rehearsed degenerated into, “Glad you’re here. Check in at the registration tables.” She threw a wave in their general direction, and watched her guests hurry off, eager to enjoy the rides and games.

Left to wait for a couple of stragglers, she took a deep breath of salty air and eyed the shoreline where white birds soared high on thermals off the warm Atlantic. A fall weather system provided cloudless skies, but forecasts called for a late-season storm by the time afternoon rolled into evening. She made a note to keep one eye on the weather…and another on everything else.

It was, after all, her party. Even if she had little more to do than make a speech and measure the fish in the fishing tourney. She wasn’t sure which of the staff had nominated her for that pleasant chore—probably someone who thought a city girl from Ohio would know nothing about fish—but the surprise was on them. Thanks to the
man she had loved and lost, she knew a thing or two about fishing.

She waited for the expected tears and when they did not appear, ran a hand over hair she had slicked and tamed into a ponytail. The old adage about time and wounds really did work. She no longer ran to the ladies’ room for a good cry every time thoughts of a certain cop crossed her mind. Sure, she still had the occasional bad day when she felt Brett’s loss like a missing limb and mourned his decision to choose his pals over their relationship. But as time went on, she had more days like this one, where she could even picture them bumping into each other on the street and casually exchanging chitchat the way old lovers did in countless country songs.

It could happen. Maybe not for a million years, but it gave her something to look forward to. A girl needed that, didn’t she?

A scramble of young feet made her shove her dreams back into the deep freeze where they belonged. She propped up a drooping smile and swung to face the yawning mouth of the bus where the tip of a long, thin rod appeared. It was followed closely by a grade-schooler who took extreme care not to bend or break the slender graphite. Each participant in the fishing derby would receive a pole and tackle box, courtesy of a generous donation from Tom’s Marina, but these lingerers carried their own. And they were exceptional, she noted as the last two boys tromped off the bus.

“So, you’re fly fishermen, are you?” The older boy stood with a cocked hip and a smirk that made him look a whole lot cuter than he probably intended while the little one beamed a wide, toothy grin her way. “Which one of you is going to win today’s contest?”

The youngest gave an oddly endearing shrug before
he thrust his fly rod forward. “Like it?” he asked. “It’s cool, ain’t it?”

“Very cool,” Stephanie managed, staring down at a smaller version of the rod she had used fishing with Brett. She hefted the cork grip, tilting the pole instinctively so the finish caught the glinting sun and turned brilliant. Why, of all the colors in the world, did these have to be that same incandescent green? With trembling fingers, she handed the rod back to its owner.

“He made ’em. For my brother an’ me.”

The smirker nodded over his shoulder just as two long legs swung into the dark stairwell of the bus. Sounds from the beach faded and Stephanie’s world telescoped onto the doorway. Her eyes slid up a pair of rapidly appearing muscular thighs, sped past a trim waist and landed on shoulders broad enough to carry the world.

“I’m over him,” she breathed.

Good ole Sol disagreed. The sun dropped a fraction lower, sending a shaft of light into the dark hollow, illuminating the strong jaw and bright blue eyes she saw in her dreams almost every night. The sight stole her breath.

“Brett.” She nodded. She didn’t know where the cool, polite voice came from. It certainly wasn’t hers. Hers would squeak and ride up and down on her thudding heartbeat.

“Stephanie.”

That Brett would show up chaperoning two young boys was so far off her radar it wasn’t even a blip. She mustered as much nonchalance as an aching heart would allow and tightened her grip on the clipboard so she wouldn’t fly into his arms. Such a move would only lead to more heartbreak, and she did not want to get burned again. She took a breath, hoping to calm her racing pulse.

“Didn’t expect to see you here.” The understatement of the year quivered so much that she sharpened her tone in self-defense. “Get roped into volunteering?”

“Back off, sister,” piped the older kid.

Brett settled one hand on his shoulder. “Remember your manners, Jimmy,” he said softly. “We talked about that.”

The boy scuffed a foot through the sand in a motion too like Brett’s to be coincidental. “Sorry,” the child mumbled.

“I’ve been working with PAL for a while now,” Brett said.

Long enough to build each of the boys his own fly rod, Stephanie realized, the earlier comment making more sense. She turned aside, aiming a quick look at the bus where someone had used teal spray paint to write Police Athletic League against the white background. PAL, the mystery group. Knowing she should have guessed, she felt her face redden.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said. She had a number of regrets—none bigger than her breakup with Brett.

“Hey, we’re okay. Aren’t we, boys?” Brett’s jaw worked. “Jimmy, Joey, this is Ms. Bryant. And this—” he waved a hand “—is her shindig. Looks like a great one, doesn’t it?”

From the way his eyes roamed over her when he didn’t think she was looking, Brett plainly meant more than the cookout. The boys, however, took his words literally. They quickly scanned the carnival-like atmosphere, their mouths gaping open when they spotted the food pavilion where a battalion of volunteers flipped burgers and stirred onions and peppers on massive steel grills.

“I’m hungry.” Joey tugged the hem of Brett’s white Polo until the teal-blue PAL insignia dipped.

“Okay, man,” Brett said agreeably.

The older boy kicked a little sand. “I could eat,” he announced.

Joey elbowed his brother. “I want to go on the rides.”

Brett lifted his shoulders in an offhand way. “We’ll do it all,” he assured the boys before turning up the wattage on a smile so bright it blinded Stephanie no matter where she looked. “They just want to have fun. See you around.”

“See you,” she mouthed. The trio moved off, leaving her to stare after them. Breathless and hungry for something that was not cooking on the grills, she studied the crowd of Space Tech employees, their families and invited guests.

It didn’t take a genius to know she was in the wrong place at the wrong time to pant after Brett like a lovesick puppy. If she could remember just ten good reasons why involvement with Brett was a bad idea, she’d be able to wrench her eyes away from his broad shoulders and slim hips. Ten more, and she’d forget how safe and protected she felt in his arms. One or two after that, and she might not recall every small kindness he had showered upon her, or the way his eyes sparkled whenever she walked into a room.

Her thoughts slowed. Time and reasoning would never help her forget. Seeing Brett Lincoln would always shatter the barriers she had constructed around her broken heart.

She had to get away.

Okay, the move to Washington offered a lot more than she’d originally thought. She could live in the nation’s capital, where the town’s most famous Lincoln wouldn’t make her heart ache. The transfer even came with a major promotion, one she’d spent years working toward.

So why had she turned it down again?

The answer was guiding his charges down the sidewalk. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see him.
Sometimes, you simply didn’t get what you wanted. This was one of those times.

“Stephanie.”

The familiar voice slowed the wrecking ball that Brett had aimed at her heart. One look at Mary’s concerned face and Stephanie did not even try to wave off her friend.

As a mother of twins, Mary had learned not to waste time or words. “I saw Brett. Are you okay? You didn’t know he’d be here?”

Blindly Stephanie shook her head. Because her ex-boyfriend was Tom’s best friend, she and Mary made a point of steering their frequent conversations around Brett, but having this little piece of info up front would have been nice. The way it was, the advantage was all his.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Mary said when she did not answer. “I thought you knew. He’s been working with PAL for weeks.”

“Don’t worry.” Stephanie straightened her shoulders and firmed her flagging resolutions enough to reassure Mary, if not herself. “With this turnout, I can avoid him and the rest of the PAL contingent for one afternoon.”

Mary shook her head. “I don’t know about that, Steph. Brett really cares for those boys. Takes them fishing and to all sorts of things. I think you’ll see a lot more of those three today.”

That didn’t sound like the Brett she knew.

Her breath tight within her chest, Stephanie turned toward the food pavilion where she expected Brett to dump the boys so he and his other buddies from the Police Athletic League could hang out together. Instead, the man of her dreams shadowed Jimmy and Joey’s every step. Ignoring the group of chaperones gathered at the picnic tables, he shepherded the brothers through the food lines. After Mary
returned to her own family, Stephanie watched him lead the way to the games. When she collected tickets at the moon bounce, Brett was right there, daring a reluctant Joey into gleeful handsprings while teasing smiles from his older brother. Throughout the day, he never strayed from their sides, or drifted from her thoughts. Until, by the time Ralinda paged her to the pavilion, Stephanie had reached the unmistakable conclusion that she’d been wrong.

Everything had changed.

T
HEY SAT
shoulder to shoulder on folding chairs under the split-cedar shingles of the big pavilion with Brett’s two charges on one side and Tom’s family spread out on the other. Brett folded his copy of the schedule of events into quarters, and then into eighths. The agenda called for Stephanie to give the farewell speech—her farewell speech—before she cut the ribbon to let everyone into the big tent for the ice cream sundae feast. After that came the fishing derby, and then the day would finally be over. He could hold it together till then. The boys deserved that much.

“We have to sit through a speech before we get some ice cream. And we have to listen politely and clap at the end of it.” Even if every word twisted the knife in his gut. “Okay, guys?”

“Who’s gonna talk?” Jimmy demanded.

“Ms. Bryant. You met her at the bus.” He thought he had been psyched up for the meeting, but one glimpse of Stephanie had ripped his wounded heart wide open.

“That pretty lady with her hair pulled back?” asked the younger brother.

Pretty
wasn’t the word for it. Even dressed in a loose T-shirt and a pair of long shorts, she still sent his pulse into overdrive. As for that ponytail, his fingers ached to free her
hair and shake out the curls she had tamed and smoothed. “That’s the one.”

“I like her. She’s nice,” pronounced a yawning Joey. Four hours of bumper cars, the moon bounce and the trampoline, plus three-legged races and countless carnival games had tired the little guy. Brett pulled him close. An infusion of sugar, and the kid would be right back in the thick of things. He’d have to watch him like a daddy eagle then.

“I like her, too, buddy,” he said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “But she’s giving a speech, and then she’s moving far away.”

“My daddy went far away. He’s in heaven.”

Joey’s remark earned a derisive snort from his big brother, but Brett saw hurt burn in the hooded eyes. Moments later, the younger boy’s eyelids drifted closed and his chin sank to his chest. Brett draped an arm around him, a motion that caught the twins’ attention.

Barbara scrambled out of her seat and onto Brett’s lap, framing his face with her two little hands. “No, Unca Brett. No boys,” she whispered sternly.

It was all Brett could do not to laugh. “It’s okay, sweetie,” he said. He shifted Joey enough to make room for both girls. “See? Plenty of room. For boys and girls.”

Barbara gave him a dubious look before snuggling into his arms without, he noticed, touching Joey. Brenda had other ideas.

“Miss Steppy, too,” she demanded.

Knowing the little girl didn’t really mean to plunge the knife so deep, Brett let out a long slow breath. “No, honey.” He softened his tone. “Not Miss Steppy.”

Gentle words or not, Brenda’s lower lip began to tremble. The motion was a sure sign of impending tears, and Brett didn’t try to stop her when she clambered to the floor and back to her mother’s arms. She buried her head
in Mary’s embrace, refusing to glance in her traitorous uncle’s direction. Brett swallowed a few tears of his own and hugged Barbara closer until a burst of applause drowned the roar of the surf.

Ten rows in front of them, Stephanie stepped onto center stage.

Here we go.
Brett stiffened his shoulders and tightened his stomach.

When she tapped the mike, waited out the last splatters of applause and promised to keep her remarks short, he hoped she was lying because the longer she spoke, the longer she’d be around. Wondering if anyone else would miss her when she was gone, he spared a quick look at the gathered faces. The smiles told him that the head of human resources had endeared herself to her employees during her short tenure. How, then, could they let her go?

How could he? He had stared down the barrel of a gun without flinching, but the thought of losing Stephanie forever made him shake like a palm tree in a hurricane.

With a start, he realized he’d been drifting and she had come to the heart of her speech. He eased his chair back on two legs and braced himself.

“And now, I have some good news and some bad news. At least, it’s good news for our D.C. office.”

If they were at a wedding, this was the point where the minister would ask if anyone objected.
And I’d be on my feet shouting,
thought Brett. He no longer bothered trying to figure out why his thoughts turned to weddings whenever Stephanie was in the vicinity. The answer seemed all too obvious.