Almost A Bride (Montana Born Brides) (4 page)

“
Head west on Main. We’re looking for a stolen Ford with a baby inside.”

Reid swore quietly. All cops hated incidents like this, especially in summer. No thief set out to steal a car with a baby on board. Most of the time, they reali
zed their mistake almost immediately, leading them to dump the car as quickly as possible. If they dumped it somewhere out of the way, however, the baby could potentially be left in the car for hours before it was found. On a hot June day like today, it didn’t take long for a child to become dangerously dehydrated and overheated.

They cruised the area, both her and Reid scanning the passing traffic and side streets, looking for the blue Ford. She checked in with dispatch regularly, and they broadened their search area as other cars reported in.

She was about to report a clean sweep of the area near the Northgate Shopping Center when she spotted a flash of blue out of the corner of her eye. Sure enough, a bright blue Ford was traveling east along a side street. She craned her neck in order to see the license plate.

“
Got him,” she said, relief flooding her.

Reid
’s head snapped around, his gaze zeroing in on the car. Tara was already on the radio, calling it in and requesting emergency traffic only over the radio until they could pull off a high risk traffic stop. Dispatch confirmed, informing them that another car was on its way, then the radio began to emit the regular beeps designed to remind officers to use the radio only if absolutely necessary.

They trailed the car as discreetly as possible, not wanting to panic the driver. Once Wadley and Hayes had radioed to let them know they were in position, Reid flicked both lights and siren on.

Tara flashed a glance at him, taking in his intent expression and steady hands on the wheel. Reid was renowned for keeping a cool head in a crisis, one of the many reasons the other officers often deferred to him around the station. That and the fact that he was a natural leader. If he hadn’t left the force six years ago and taken off overseas to do private security work, the odds were good he’d be well up the food chain by now.

The Ford sped up, swerving through an intersection and almost taking out a
n SUV. Reid followed with a smooth surge of power. Up ahead, blue lights flashed as Wadley and Hayes blocked the road with their car. It only took the thief a moment to understand he was trapped. The Ford swerved off the road, tires screeching before the car bottomed out on the curb with a resounding metallic crash. The car plowed into the side of the store on the corner and smashed to a halt. The door popped open almost instantly and a slim, dark-clothed figure slipped out of the car and bolted up the adjacent alleyway. A kid or a woman, Tara guessed, judging by the build and stature.

“
404, 118. Car has stopped, suspect has abandoned the car,” Tara reported as Reid hit the brakes hard.

She braced one hand on the dash, the other already on the door handle. The moment the car ceased moving, she was out and racing for the Ford. One glance in the side window was enough to assure her that the baby was alive and well, his face red with exertion as he exercised his lungs.

“404, 118. Baby is alive and well. I repeat, the baby is alive and well. 118 in foot pursuit.”

She spun away from the Ford, taking off up the alley after the suspect. Reid or the other officers would take care of the baby.

The thief was at the far end of the alley, running like hell. Tara put her head down and gave it her all. Her feet slapped the pavement, her lungs and legs burned, and for the first time all day she felt almost good as she channeled all her hurt, humiliation, and anger into the chase.

Suddenly catching this asshole wasn
’t just a professional duty but a personal mission.

Digging deep, she lengthened her stride, determined to close the distance.

Tara took off up the alleyway at a flat sprint, arms pumping as she gave pursuit. By the time Reid made it to the head of the alley she was halfway down, running hard. She
’d done track and field at school and he knew from personal experience that she was fast, but he was pretty sure he’d never seen her move like this.

“
124 in foot pursuit,” he told the radio, taking off after Tara and the suspect.

By the time he got to the end of the alley, he was just in time to see Tara disappearing down a cross street. Sucking in air, he pounded after her, not wanting her to come up against a desperate
criminal on her own. She could take care of herself, he knew, but that didn’t mean he liked the idea of her having to wrangle a freaked-out car thief single-handedly. The odds were good there were drugs involved, too, this sort of spontaneous, opportunistic car theft being typical of strung-out addicts.

He kept Tara in sight as he dodged his way down the street, sidestepping pedestrians and other obstacles. A part of him couldn
’t help but admire her smooth, even gait as she gained on the thief. She was like a gazelle when she ran—elegant, born to it, her narrow hips and long legs built for speed.

Suddenly she veered to the left, disappearing, and Reid was so distracted he almost
went tumbling, smashing into an A-frame sign a store owner had placed on the sidewalk.

Shit.

He recovered quickly, once again building speed, streaking around the corner into yet another alleyway. He saw immediately that the far end was blocked by a chain link fence, the top covered with coils of razor-wire. The suspect had just reached it, springing up the chain link like a monkey, hands and feet clawing for traction. Tara was only seconds behind him, and as Reid watched she leaped at the fence, momentum giving her wings as she snatched at the suspect’s back. She grabbed the guy’s T-shirt, yanking backwards, and the two of them fell to the ground. Tara immediately rolled to her feet, while the suspect stayed low, scrambling toward the fence once again.

Reid was close enough now to see that the
suspect was a woman, her face sunken and sallow, hair greasy, eyes bloodshot and wild. Meth user, he guessed, which meant she could be anything from plain old fashioned desperate to out-of-her-mind psychotic.

The woman barely had a
grip on the fence before Tara was on her again, wrenching her backward.

“
Police! You’re under arrest.” Tara’s words echoed up the alley, strong despite the fact she was breathing hard.

The woman struggled, striking out at Tara. Tara
’s head jerked backward as a blow connected. Reid’s lungs were on fire as he covered the final twenty feet, adrenaline lighting up every cell in his body, the need to get in there and control the situation and protect Tara a primal, undeniable urge.

Tara used her body weight against her assailant, rushing forward and pushing the other woman off balance. For a second the two of them hung suspended. Then they were both on the ground, Tara attempting to control the other woman by throwing her leg across her body. The woman struggled to throw Tara off, but Tara grabbed her right arm, twisting it up her back.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Tara panted. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney... “

Reid slipped his cuffs from his utility belt, dropping to his knees the second he reached the two women. Tara leaned to the side without him having to say a word, allowing him to slip on the first cuff, and within seconds he had the woman
’s other arm cuffed tightly behind her back. Then and only then did Tara let up, taking her weight off the other woman’s body.

“
Fucking cop. Fucking broke my arm. I’m going to sue your ass off,” the woman screamed, head thrashing from side to side, body bucking.

“
You okay?” Reid asked, glancing at Tara.

“
Of course.”

Her hair had come loose during the struggle, and strands hung around her face. When she turned her head to look at him, he saw a cut and the beginnings of a bruise on her cheekbone.

“That hurt?” he asked, gesturing at her cheek.

Tara lifted a hand, touching her face, looking surprised when it came away with blood on it.

“I want a lawyer. I know my rights. You can’t manhandle me like this,” the other woman protested.

Tara stood, adjusting her utility belt.
“Come on, on your feet.”

She reached down and used her grip on the woman
’s wrists to force her first to her knees, then her feet. Reid called in to dispatch, letting them know they had the suspect in custody before relaying their position. His gaze kept going to the wound on Tara’s face. It had been a good takedown, and she was okay, but he hated it that she’d been hurt.

“
My arm hurts. I need a doctor, you bitch,” the woman said.

“
My name is Patrol Officer Buck, and you can request a medical evaluation when we take you in,” Tara said.

Her tone was cold and hard, devoid of the professional distance she usually employed. Reid shot her a quick look, registering the stony expression on her face.

“Fuck you, Patrol Officer Bitch,” the other woman said. Her expression contemptuous, she spat in Tara’s face.

Tara moved so fast, he almost didn
’t see her, reaching out to grab the woman’s T-shirt in her fist, getting right up in her face.

“
You want to try that again, you piece of crap?” Reid didn’t recognize Tara’s voice, it was so low and hard and dangerous. She shook the other woman, making her head rock on her neck.

“
Tara,” Reid said.

She didn
’t seem to hear him, her whole being focused on the thief. He reached out, grabbing her shoulder. He could feel how wound up she was, her body vibrating with suppressed emotion.

“
I’ve got this,” he said firmly.

She glanced at him, and for a split
second her gaze was utterly blank, as though she didn’t recognize him. And then she blinked and he saw awareness rush back in. Her shoulders dropped and she released her grip on the other woman so abruptly the woman staggered, off balance.

Reid concentrated on Tara, aware of the sound of sirens as their colleagues raced to join them.

“Tara?”

She turned her back on him.

“Talk to me, Tara.”

Verbal abuse and physical assaults were part and parcel of the job, but he
’d never seen Tara react like this before, not in all the months they’d been working together.

She took a deep breath, her shoulders lifting and falling with the force of it. Then she pushed the loose strands of hair back from her forehead and turned to face him.

“I’m sorry.”

Her green eyes were clouded, troubled, and she looked close to tears. His gut impulse was to pull her into his arms, but they had a pissed-off meth user to take care of and a patrol car was going to join them any second.

“Go flag the others down,” he said.

It was an unnecessary task, but he could see she needed a few seconds to pull herself together. She nodded and started walking to the top of the alley.

“Good riddance, bitch,” the other woman yelled after her.

Reid spared her an irritated glance. On another day, he
’d probably find some sympathy for the track marks on her arms and the open sores on her face, but not today.

Today, his thoughts were all for the woman walking away from him, and his inability to take her pain away.

Tara couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She had to clasp them together behind her back to hide the fact while the suspect was read her rights again and helped into the backseat of a patrol car. Tara stood at a distance and kept her head down the whole time, avoiding eye contact with her colleagues. Especially Reid.

If he hadn
’t stepped in, she had no idea what might have happened. That was the ugly truth of it. She’d been so bound up in the moment, filled with an almost ungovernable anger... she could still feel the purity of it, the way it had burned its way through her body.

Insults often flew thick and fast when people were being called to account for their wrongdoings, but in five years on the job, Tara had never let them get to her. For a few minutes back there, though, she
’d been so close to doing something irrevocable. Something that would have changed who she was as a person and a cop.

Shame burned a hole in her gut as she went over and over the scene in her mind. Would she have hit the other woman if Reid hadn
’t stepped in? A woman who was cuffed and helpless, unable to defend herself? She wanted to believe she wouldn’t have—needed to believe it—but she honestly didn’t know. In that moment, she’d been so angry, the rage boiling up from some hidden place within her.

“
Come on.”

Reid
’s hand landed in the small of her back for the briefest of moments as he encouraged her to walk alongside him. She matched her pace to his, her gaze fixed on the sidewalk.

“
Everyone has bad days, Tara,” he said after a minute. “Everyone loses it on occasion. You’re only human, and if ever it was going to happen, today was probably the day, right?”

Reid
’s tone was so understanding, so matter of fact and reasonable. She wanted to believe him, to let herself off the hook, but she’d never gone easy on herself.

“
Have you? Lost it like that, I mean?” she asked.

She glanced at him, found him watching her.

“Of course. I’m not a saint. And neither are you.”

Some of the tightness left her chest. Not all, but some.

“I always promised myself I was going to be a good cop. Take care of people, do the right thing.”

“
You are a good cop.”

There was no arguing with his statement, he said it so unequivocally.

“I shouldn’t have come into work today,” she admitted.

He didn
’t say anything, one of the many reasons she liked him so much.

She could see the patrol car ahead. Someone had put out traffic cones to cordon off the scene. An ambulance crew
stood with a woman who was holding the baby, her face still wet from tears. Normally Tara liked this part of the job, the bit where she got to interact with people who’d had good news, a good outcome. She was still feeling shaken and raw, however, and she hung back when Reid stepped forward to check that the mother was okay. She had to force a smile when the woman insisted on coming over so she could thank Tara personally for her efforts.

“
I’ll never forget this day, and how great you all were,” she said, her blue eyes wide with sincerity.

“
We’re just glad the baby’s okay,” Tara said.

It was a relief to be in the car, driving back to headquarters. Tara flipped down the visor to check her face, touching the cut on her cheekbone tentatively.

“Should heal okay,” she said, flipping it back up.

It was hard to get too worried about a bruise and a superficial cut when there were so many other things wrong with her life.