Dare to Love (7 page)

The man was cocky, he was insolent and crude, he was far too sure of himself. But he risked his life on a daily basis for people he didn't even know, people he had sworn to protect. And the scar was proof of the fact that he didn't always win.

“P-possibilities?” she heard herself ask, suddenly more scared than angry. She was losing her perspective. Doug Avery was an honored police officer. He wasn't the scum of the earth. Why couldn't she get a hold on him, on this job? Why did this one man matter so much?

“Come on, Andi. Why does the fact that we're attracted to each other upset you so much?” His voice was warmer than she'd ever heard it before. Suddenly she wanted him to hold her, to make all the confusion go away.

She had to get a grip. “It doesn't upset me, because it doesn't matter. It's a non-issue and I don't want to talk about it again. What's important here are the children whose lives are depending on the success of this program.”

His chin jutted out, his lips tightened into a thin line and then he nodded. “Okay, I can give you that, for now. But rest assured that when this training is over, you and I will talk again.”

“You and I need to talk right now. It's been almost a week, Doug, and after today, I think it's more than obvious that you don't belong in the DARE program. I have to insist on your resignation.”

The mask that slid down over his features was almost frightening. The scar on his temple stood out starkly. He was once again the cold, hard stranger she'd met five days before.

“You're overstepping your bounds, Officer. As I understand it, you don't have the authority to
insist
that I do anything. You are here to guide and to instruct, not to discipline. I suggest you keep that in mind.”

Andrea studied her shoes, concentrating on the calming exercises she's learned at the academy. In through the nose, out through the mouth, each breath a conscious effort. If she didn't keep her control, she'd be lost.

She needed to sit down, but was afraid to show him any weakness.

“You're right, of course, and I'm sorry.” She saw the surprise flicker across his features. “But, please, can't you see that you're not right for this particular assignment? It's nothing against you, as a man or as a police officer. There's no shame in the fact that not everyone is cut out to work with little kids.”

He stood up from his chair, coming over to stand within inches of her. Andrea could smell the hotel soap he'd used, the shampoo scent in his hair. His heat was burning her up.

He wrapped his hand around her neck, forcing her to look up at him. His touch was insistent without causing her any real pain. “Let's get one thing straight right now. I am
not
leaving DARE. I will graduate next week, and by fall I will be working in the classroom.”

Andrea knocked his hand away. She'd never come up against such stubbornness in her life.

“Why?” she asked, looking up at him as if she could somehow read in his eyes what his mouth wouldn't tell her. What was it that was driving him, that was making him so insistent on remaining in a program where he clearly didn't belong? Did he have a reason, or was he just playing the macho hero, unable to admit that there was something he couldn't do?

His eyelids lowered, shuttering himself off even more from her probing gaze. “Why not?”

“Because you seem to think that class time is bedtime. And I somehow don't think that you use bedtime to study.”

“You're still harping on that? So I made a mistake. Are you so all-fired perfect?”

“A mistake? How many times can you repeat the same mistake and still have it be just one?”

Doug turned away from her, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he walked toward the window. His wristband strained against his arm.

Andrea's glance rested on the taut flesh his fingers outlined, and then on the implacable back above it, as she waited for an answer. She wasn't going to let him walk away from this.

Doug turned back to her, his expression laced with disappointment. “I figured you were better than this, Andrea. I figured you were above the usual games, the dishonesties, the making of things what they aren't. Obviously, you're so against an attraction between us that you've resorted to making mountains out of molehills. I fell asleep on Monday, and it was wrong. But I will not leave the DARE program because of that. Nor will I be continuously persecuted because of it. Now, if that's all you wanted, please leave.”

“What about today?” Andrea shot back, doing her best to ignore his tone. “Was falling asleep today just a continuation of the same mistake? Or wasn't it a mistake at all?”

“Today?”

“Yes, today. I looked over as I finished my lecture. You were sleeping.”

“I was.” It was more a statement than a question.

“I saw you, Doug. When the lights came on after the slide presentation, you were sleeping.”

Doug studied her face for several seconds, his expression serious but otherwise unreadable. She didn't know what he was looking for. But she had a feeling that something was happening, something over which she had little control, something that was going to matter.

He nodded once and then walked to the door, opening it for her. “I can assure you that it won't happen again, Officer. Now if you'll please be so kind as to give me my room back, I'd like to finish dressing for dinner.”

Andrea watched him for another second and then left, careful not to touch him as she walked past. She knew she'd just failed. She just wasn't sure at what.

D
OUG DIDN'T MAKE DINNER
, after all. He'd meant to go down, to meet Steve and a couple of the other guys. He'd been on his way to the dining room, but his feet had carried him past the turnoff to the hotel's restaurant and right on out into the night.

And once he was out there, he'd kept walking. He hadn't had to go far—just two miles. Two miles from downtown Columbus and the elite Hetherington Hotel, filth and squalor were the mainstays, hungry children and homeless people were everywhere and hopelessness was a way of life. It was the birthplace of “each man for himself.” It was the neighborhood in which he'd grown up.

A couple of muscular teenagers watched him as he approached a crumbling street corner. They wore black leather jackets, even on this hot August night. Their heads were shaved, except for the ponytails that hung down their backs. They were leaning against a streetlight that hadn't lit up the night since before Doug had been born. Their waistbands bulged. Doug knew they were concealing weapons. They watched him approach, checking him over for a possible take.

He reached down, as casually as he could, and removed his wristband. He approached the corner just as casually, his spine straight, his body ready for action, his heart frozen. He wasn't afraid. He'd survived the first twenty years of his life here. He knew how.

Doug raised his hand to flick his hair back out of his eyes as he walked past the punks. He saw them straighten, ready to saunter over, to follow him, to intimidate him before they made their move. Their eyes flashed to the wrist he'd raised as he slid his fingers through his hair, and suddenly Doug was walking past them—alone. The guys were once again leaning against the light post, looking for action someplace else.

Doug passed an old man humped over on a broken stoop, probably drunk, possibly dead. He walked on. A couple of kids were rooting through a dumpster in the alley behind D'Ambros's. Doug watched them for a minute, then started walking again.

He'd come here for a reason. He'd come here to remember not to care. Andrea Parker had disappointed him. A man didn't get disappointed unless he allowed himself to care. That was another lesson he'd learned long ago—right about the time his mother had left him alone with his old man.

Doug wanted to make love with Andrea. He wanted her to want it, too. But he didn't want to care for her, or to want her care. He didn't want her opinion to matter to him. It couldn't. He couldn't get soft. His whole life would be in vain if he got soft. He'd be right back where he'd been twenty-five years before.

He reached an old brick building with graffiti spray painted all over it. The steps leading up to the building were cracked and broken. An iron post was the only remains of the railing that used to run along them. He stopped and stared, seeing the dim light filtering through cracked windows, and knew that it was not from lamps, but from naked bulbs hanging from ceiling sockets. Nobody here owned lamps. If they had, they'd long since sold them to a second-hand furniture store, or had stolen them so someone else could.

He heard a baby wail, a young child laugh and a woman yell.

He sat down on the sidewalk, leaning back against the old building, and let the memories wash over him. A teenage girl left the building, dressed in skintight clothes, walking on impossibly high heels and made up like a clown. Doug watched her saunter past without even noticing him. She had a destination. Doug didn't want to think about where it was. He knew he could stop her—this time. But he knew that she'd be back out again tomorrow night, or the night after that.

He felt a pang of regret, and then a sharper one—anger, maybe. And then he shook himself. This was life. He knew it better than most. It had quit bothering him long before he'd even known for sure where girls like that were headed. He didn't want it to bother him now.

He forced his eyes away from the girl's swaying back and saw the hole broken into the side of the steps leading up to the building. His stomach lurched as his eyes assessed the size of the hole—the smallness of it. He'd remembered it as being much larger. That was his hole. The one he'd found. It had been his refuge, his hiding place, his only security in a childhood from hell.

Doug remembered crawling into that hole and hiding beneath those steps the day his mother had left for good. He'd heard her say she wished she knew where Dougie was so she could tell him goodbye. He'd watched her get into that beat-up station wagon and drive away anyway.

The hole had seemed huge then. He'd never had any trouble scrambling into it. But now the sight of it made him sick to his stomach. It was so small. Christ, he couldn't have been much more than a baby to have fit in the damn thing.

Doug swallowed, and then swallowed again. But he couldn't seem to choke back the feeling that was shooting up from someplace inside of him. He couldn't care. He couldn't allow himself to care. He'd have been dead long ago if he'd allowed himself to care.

He turned his head away and his gaze fell on the girl who'd walked by him earlier. She was standing a couple of blocks down, leaning against a bus-stop sign. He stood up and headed toward her.

She watched him approach with a welcoming smile pasted on her painted lips and a weary, hesitant look in her eyes. She didn't back away when he stopped right beside her. She didn't flinch when he pulled his hand from his pocket and held it out to her.

“Take it.” He couldn't keep the anger from his voice. It was the only way he could speak at all.

The girl looked down, saw the size of the bill he was handing her and snatched it from him as if she was afraid he would take back his offer.

“Where you wanna go?” she asked, cracking the wad of gum she was chewing.

Doug shrugged one shoulder and tipped his head. “Back there.”

She pushed away from the sign and headed in the direction he'd indicated, not checking to see if he was following her. “You gotta place here?” she asked as she climbed the broken-down steps.

“No.”

She stopped halfway up the stairs. “Then why're we here?” Her eyes narrowed. “You ain't a cop or somethin', are ya?”

“I know where to find one. Now get in there, take that crap off your face and lock your door,” he said harshly.

She stared at him for a moment as if he'd sprouted an extra head or two, looked down at the amount of money in her skinny fingers and then bolted into the building.

Doug listened as the door slammed behind her, and listened some more until he heard the second door—the one that meant she'd entered her apartment—slam, too.

And then he turned back toward the Hetherington Hotel, more frightened than he'd ever been in his life. How was he going to live with himself if he was getting soft?

* * *

“H
I
, M
A
. How was your weekend?”

“Your pop and I went to Barbie Leone's wedding. You should have seen the flowers, Andrea—they were glorious. And the food! Sarah Leone outdid herself this time. She colored the pasta to match the bridesmaids' dresses!”

Andrea lay back on her bed, the phone at her ear, picturing the scene as her mother described it. She tried not to remember when Barbie Leone was born, that she'd baby-sat for Barbie for years, that she'd once thought Barbie would one day be baby-sitting for her.

“And did I tell you Scotty has a new girlfriend? He and Lizzie—that's her name—they danced all night. Everybody was talking about what a cute couple they made.”

“Did anybody say anything?” Andrea asked, tense as always when she heard about Scotty.

Gloria paused, and Andrea heard what she didn't want to know from her mother's silence.

“It wasn't much, Andrea, I swear. Just about everyone was positive. They can't help but see that he's grown into such a nice boy.”

Andrea knew better. She knew that people saw what they wanted to see, and that everybody loved a scandal. But she wasn't going to tell her mother that. Gloria had suffered enough. She deserved her illusions.

“So, was Barbie beautiful?” Andrea asked, trying for a lighthearted tone.

“Oh, sure, she looked nice, but not nearly as beautiful as you'll be when your time comes. She's just a kid, you know. She hasn't got real beauty yet.”

Andrea smiled. “Yeah, Ma. I'll be a ravishing eighty-year-old bride, huh?”

“Now don't get me started, Andrea Lee. I promised your father I'd just call to see how you're doing, that's all.”

“The training sessions are going fine. We're right on schedule. The guys are working hard and the hotel's been very accommodating. So, if that's all, I guess I'll talk to you later, huh?”

Andrea pulled the phone away from her ear and waited. She might not be up for one of the all-out battles she'd waged with her mother over the years, but she could still get a good rise out of her now and then.

“Andrea!” The disgruntled tones reached her ear even at arm's length.

“Yeah, Ma?”

“Don't you dare hang up on me without telling me how you're making out with your team.”

Is there any hope for you with any of the three bachelors yet?
Andrea translated silently.

“They seem to be soaking it all up,” she said of her first five trainees. She wasn't even going to
think
about the sixth while she was talking to her mother. Andrea sometimes suspected that Gloria Parker had some kind of secret telepathy that gave her access to her daughter's thoughts.

“Does any one of them stand out from the rest?”

No.
Andrea refused to grant him entrance. But could her mother read her subconscious, too?

“Uh, yeah, one does,” she heard herself saying. “His name is Sven. Sven Johnson. He's a big blond Swede and just about the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. As a matter of fact, there's probably not another man alive that a girl would be as happy to take home to meet her mother.”

What was she doing? She barely knew Sven.

“How does he feel about babies?” Gloria asked.

Andrea remembered the program Sven had set up for latchkey kids in Cleveland. “He loves them.”

She didn't hear her mother's satisfied sigh, but she supposed Gloria must have released one.

“And you—how does he feel about you?”

Andrea knew she was getting in too deep. But she also knew that she had to keep her mother from finding out about Doug. Yet when it came right down to it, she couldn't allow herself to build up her mother's hopes. Not when Gloria's hopes were just for Andrea's happiness.

“It's only been a week, Ma. Besides, he just broke up with a girl in Cleveland, and I don't think he's over her yet. As a matter of fact, they might just get back together, so don't get your hopes up.”

“Yeah, well, just don't you close your eyes to possibilities, Andrea Lee. My back's been hurting me all week, you know.”

Yeah, I know, and pretty soon you won't be able to crawl around on the floor....
“Have Pop rub it for you.”

* * *

A
NDREA ADMIRED
Sven Johnson. She listened as he gave his public speech Monday afternoon, and felt an all-over glow as the man pontificated on everything that DARE stood for. Here was a man who would save the children. Boys and girls would not be led astray with Sven Johnson around. And Andrea wouldn't be led astray, either. Her nerves weren't tingling a bit.

She sat in her seat at the back of the auditorium and let the feelings of peace and goodwill settle upon her. She'd done her job well. Her trainees were getting the message. She was proud of that.

“That's all but one of your trainees, isn't it?” whispered the man to her left. Dave O'Dell was a training officer, too. Andrea had worked with him several times and found him to be a superb DARE officer. She'd heard that his wife was with the DEA.

“Yeah. They're a great bunch of guys,” she said.

“What about Avery? I've heard he's a tough nut to crack.”

Andrea shrugged. She could tell Dave that she didn't expect Doug to graduate, that Doug was not just tough but impossible to crack. She could tell him about the ledger that she was rapidly filling up, about her fears for the children if Doug were ever set loose in a classroom. Dave would understand. He'd probably even help her with a report of his own if she asked him to.

“It's not over yet.” She heard her words even before she was aware of having thought them.

“He's a great police officer. I heard he was the undercover that exposed Stan Ingersoll's bad apple last week.”

Andrea's heart started thumping. “Undercover?” Doug had been working on a series of car thefts from local dealerships. She'd read his reports on it. They were in his file.

“Yeah. Ingersoll had some guy pimping, and apparently the guy started to like the business a little too much. He started running things for real. Word is that Avery worked his own day shift, and then was up nights running a scam on the guy. Avery brought him in last Monday, just before showing up here.”

Andrea swallowed the lump in her throat.
He'd been sleeping because he'd been working doubles to save his sergeant's butt.
Why hadn't he said anything?

Why hadn't she asked? Why hadn't she at
least
asked?

But what about Saturday? What about sleeping through that session? Even Doug Avery couldn't be working undercover during DARE training.

Dave nudged her arm with his elbow. “There he is.”

Andrea glanced back up to see a man standing in full dress uniform in the middle of the stage. She was ready to tell Dave he was mistaken, that Doug wasn't scheduled until the following morning, but then she saw the man on stage reach up to adjust the microphone. And she caught a glimpse of silver-studded black leather on his wrist.