To Love a Cop (20 page)

I’m not
that
bad.

There was a momentary lull in her head, followed by a timid addendum:
Am I?

No, damn it, she was a good parent! And she and Jake were a lot closer than most mothers and sons. She refused to believe anything different. So Dr. Randall Lang could
stuff it
if he decided to blame her, she decided, fury spilling through her.

Laughter from down the hall penetrated her absorption, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She was officially going nuts. That was the only explanation.

I’m available any time you need to talk. Middle-of-the-night panic attack, call me.

How about a late-afternoon panic attack? she thought ruefully. No, she couldn’t call Ethan this minute. Whatever he’d said, right now he would be working. Heaven only knew who he was with. Besides, she wasn’t alone, either. An older woman kitty-corner from her in the waiting area had scarcely looked up from a book since Laura sat down, while a very young woman seemed to be texting nonstop on her phone, her fingers flying.

I’ll call him later.

Yes, but...

It was the
but
that shook her.
But
, it had been his gun Jake had gone after.
But
, he was a man who carried one day in and day out, just as Matt had.
But
, violence was a part of his life.

But
...was getting involved with him smart, especially now?

I don’t know
, she thought miserably.

CHAPTER TEN

“
Y
OU HAVEN’T SAID
much about the session today,” Mom said in her bright, encouraging voice.

Much? More like nothing, Jake thought.

They were eating dinner, and she gave him this big insincere smile. “I really liked Randall, didn’t you?”

He made the mistake of meeting her eyes, which were so anxious he couldn’t stand it. “I guess he’s okay.”

“Did you have a good talk?”

Jake shrugged.
He
had hardly talked at all. Well, not about guns or Dad or Marco. Mostly the guy had rambled about sports and school and stuff he enjoyed doing, and he lured Jake into admitting he played basketball and baseball and his favorite subject in school was social studies because he especially liked history. The history part Mom probably hadn’t already told him, but Jake had no doubt she’d given him a list titled My Son’s Favorite Activities.

Once Randall mentioned the hunter safety class, and Jake had mumbled something about it being boring and he didn’t want to hunt anyway. He
liked
animals.

“This Detective Winter who taught it. Is he a hunter?”

Jake had shaken his head. “He likes stuff like wind sailing and mountain climbing.”

“Oh?” the guy asked, all innocence. “Why was he teaching the class, then?”

Like he didn’t know. “Because he thought I’d like it.” But that wasn’t exactly right; it was more that Ethan had thought it would be good for him somehow, Jake didn’t know how.

“Good guy?”

He’d bobbed his head, feeling a shaft of pain because Ethan had been really mad and probably didn’t like him anymore. And it was his fault.

Everything
was his fault, whatever Mom said.

“Your mother says Detective Winter is a heck of a basketball player.” The counselor or psychologist or whatever he was sounded admiring. “She said he had the chance to go pro.”

He’d mumbled something about how Ethan maybe could have.

At the end, walking Jake out, Randall laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s good to start getting to know you,” and Jake had stared at him for a minute thinking they didn’t know each other
at all
. But sure. Okay. The guy was getting paid to say things like that.

Now Jake looked up at his mother. “I don’t want to go every week. It’s not going to do any good.”

She dropped the fake smile and her eyes got steely. “Not going isn’t an option. And you’ll get out of it what you put in it.”

She always said stuff like that. Like always, he ignored it.

“You must have told him about Ethan,” he challenged her. “How come?”

“How could I not, when Ethan’s the one who found you at the gun show, and taught the gun safety class—”

“
Hunter
safety.”

“—
and
it was his gun you went after,” she went on, as though he hadn’t said anything.

He got this churning feeling in his stomach. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You
sound
like you think so.”

She looked at him for a minute, and he could see her trying to decide what to say. “I’m responsible for the fact that he was having dinner at our house. And I knew he carried a gun on the job and probably had it locked in the car.”

“So?”

“So, you knew that, too. It was a...temptation. In the past, I’ve never invited a friend over who was a gun owner.”

He stared at her in shock. “He’s not a gun
owner
. He’s a cop! He
has
to carry one.”

“I realize that’s true,” his mother said, sounding prissy, “but nonetheless...”

“You don’t want him around anymore, do you?” Jake felt sick. Then he felt even worse when he remembered the last expression he’d seen on Ethan’s face. “Not that he’ll want to be around after what I did. So I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” He jumped up so fast, his chair fell over. That made him so mad, he kicked it, then ran for his bedroom.

Inside his nose burned, like he was going to cry, but he didn’t let himself.
My fault, my fault, my fault.

Why did I do it?
he cried inside, where no one else could hear, and didn’t know the answer any more than he ever had.

It had been so cool, having Ethan for a friend. Sort of a friend. Why did he have to start acting like a father instead of a friend? Like he could give orders and assign punishment and be disappointed in Jake? Why couldn’t he have just kept playing basketball with him and hanging out and taken him to the range to shoot the way he
promised
?

And why, somewhere deep inside, did Jake wish Ethan
was
his father?

But that answer, he knew: because Ethan was sort of like his real father, only better. Stronger.
He
wouldn’t have left his gun lying around where a little kid could get to it.
He
wouldn’t have killed himself, either, without thinking how his son would blame himself.

And that made Jake feel awful, because he had a father who’d loved him. And maybe he wasn’t perfect, but Jake bet Ethan wasn’t, either. So he shouldn’t pretend he was, and make Jake want...something.

To his horror, he realized hot tears were running down his face. He flipped over and buried his face in his pillow so Mom wouldn’t see if she came in.

My fault, my fault, my fault.

* * *

P
ULLING UP IN
front of Laura’s house, Ethan felt a lot of the same apprehension he had that first day, when he’d had a sullen boy at his side and had known how unhappy the mother would be when she found out what her kid had been up to.

Now...damn. He had no idea whether Jake would welcome him or not. The part that really got him was that he was just as uncertain whether Laura wanted him there or not.

Thursday night, when she called to tell about the counseling session, he’d said, “I’d like to come over and spend some time with Jake Saturday, if you don’t have other plans.”

She was quiet just long enough to tweak his insecurities, then said, “Jake’s hardly talking to me, so I don’t know whether he’ll be happy to see you or not. But, if you’re willing, it’s worth a try.”

And, yes, she’d offered him lunch, too, but the reserve he’d sensed the other day was still there.

The only positive was that after a week of drizzle, it wasn’t raining today.

He muttered a profanity and got out.

It was Laura who came to the door. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail that, along with her freckles, made her look about seventeen years old. Old jeans and a shapeless T-shirt were paint-splattered.

He raised his eyebrows. “The deck railing?”

Her look of polite inquiry dissolved when she scrunched up her nose. “What else? I am going to be so glad to be done. I’m aiming to do a coat this morning and, if the rain holds off, a second one this afternoon.”

“Jake know I’m coming?” he asked as he stepped inside.

She closed the door. “Yes. He looked sort of...” Her hesitation was obvious. “Shocked,” she finally concluded.

Ethan shook his head. “He and I have some things to get straight on. Did he think I was dumping him because he did something that disappointed me?”

“You looked pretty mad.” The restraint in her voice cranked his tension a little tighter. And, yeah, made him mad.

“You never get mad at him?”

“Of course I do!”

They pretty much glared at each other for a minute, until they both heard Jake’s bedroom door open.

“Mom? Oh. Uh, hi.”

Ethan gave the boy a crooked smile. “Hey. You ready to play some ball?”

The expression of naked hope on his face reminded Ethan uncomfortably of the one he’d seen over lunch Monday on Laura’s face.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I mean, if you want.”

Ethan had to clear his throat. It took an effort not to look at Laura. “Of course I want. Big question is, do we go to the school or use your home court?”

Turned out, Jake didn’t know if anyone else was going to be at the school, and he peered dubiously out the front window at the gray sky and said they could get out of the rain quicker if they stayed at the house.

Ethan laughed. “Grab your ball, then.”

Laura backed away. “I’d better go paint quick, too.”

Jake’s skill level had regressed a little, maybe because the rain had kept him inside, maybe because he’d chosen to sulk in his bedroom instead of getting out there this week.

Ethan limited conversation to a few remarks like “Loose in the knees, remember?” and “Good one” until they were both warm and had just completed a vigorous game of Horse—which, Ethan having handicapped himself, Jake had won.

Holding the ball, he asked, “How’d the counseling session go?”

The flash of anger took him aback. “Didn’t Mom already tell you?”

“Her perspective and yours might be polar opposites,” Ethan said mildly.

The kid’s shoulders sagged. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s just...she keeps asking me, and I wish she wouldn’t.”

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but you know you don’t have to tell her.”

Jake’s brown eyes widened. “That’s not what
she
thinks.”

Ethan allowed himself a grin. “You’re wrong. She knows it won’t work if you don’t feel like you can say things to the counselor and be confident none of it will get back to her. She’s just worried about you and wanting to fix everything. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He sprang forward and stole the ball, sending it up in an arc that shocked them both by catching nothing but net. “Hey!” he exclaimed.

Ethan jogged forward and retrieved the ball, then offered a high five. “Good job. That was from behind our free-throw line.” He’d measured and they had determined that one of the seams in the concrete was close enough to the free-throw distance.

If only for this moment, Jake was high on himself. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“So, the counseling,” Ethan reminded him.

“Do I have to tell
you
?” The question was more honest than spiteful.

Ethan shook his head. “Nope. Not a word if you don’t want.”

“Oh.” Jake watched as Ethan drove in for an over-the-shoulder layup, dribbled it back out and shot from the foot of the driveway.
Swish.

“The guy seemed okay,” Jake said unexpectedly. “His name is Randall. He’s a doctor, but he said to call him by his first name. Like with you.”

Ethan nodded.

“I think he wanted to know about you.” This sounded shy.

“Because he wonders what kind of influence I am on you?” A thought struck him. “Or because the gun was mine?”

“I don’t know.” That came out worried. “It was me, not you. Why would anyone blame you?”

Ethan shook his head, but he was wondering— No, damn it, he knew. Laura blamed him. She’d remembered everything threatening that he represented.

“Are you upset with me?” he asked.

Jake shook his head. “It was me.” And then he mumbled something that Ethan only half caught.

“What was that?”

The boy twitched a little, and then mumbled it again. Ethan just waited. Finally Jake yelled, “It’s always me! Okay?”

“No.” Ethan set the basketball down on the grass and walked over to the boy. He gripped his upper arms and said, “Look at me.”

The tumult in those brown eyes made Ethan’s chest constrict. Defiance and pain, old and new.

“This is the kind of thing you need to talk to that counselor about. But I’m going on record right now to say it’s
not
always you. What you did Tuesday night, that was on you. You chose to do something you knew you weren’t supposed to. You need to take responsibility for your own wrongdoing.” He held that wild stare. “But your cousin dying was
not your fault
. You may not like me saying this, but the truth is your father was to blame.”

“I’m the one who thought it would be fun to play with the gun.”

“You were five years old. Jake, Monday at school take a look at the kindergarteners. There must be some who ride your bus, or you see them going out to recess.”

He swallowed hard and nodded.

“They are little kids. That’s how old you were. All you’d ever done was play. You had no idea what could really happen if you pulled that trigger. How could you?”

“Dad said never to pick it up,” he whispered.

“That’s good enough when a parent is talking about something breakable. A glass vase that was a Christmas present from Grandma. If you pick it up anyway and it gets broken, you feel really crummy and next time maybe you steer away from things Mom or Dad tell you not to pick up.”