The Family Man (4 page)

“Greene, why do you keep staring at the bartender?” Shawn asked her. “You like him or something?”

She didn’t like the sound of the teasing, not when she’d worked hard to fit into what was still very much a man’s world. So she gave it back. “How could I like anyone else when my heart belongs to you?” She batted her eyelashes for extra dramatic effect.

Peter and Keith howled, and Peter slapped Shawn on the back. Shawn picked a peanut out of the bowl in the middle of the table and flipped it at her. She dodged it and laughed. This outing would be good and relaxing if not for her hyperawareness of Adam. Before she slipped up and glanced at him again, she decided to give Shawn what sounded like a real answer.

“He was one of the people I talked to about David Taylor. He had a prowler at his house, and he thought it could have been David.”

“What made him think that?” Peter asked.

“Just a wild guess. I went out there and looked around but didn’t find anything.”

Shawn still looked at her as if he knew she was hiding something. Deciding that was her cue to leave, she nevertheless drank the rest of her rum and Coke more slowly than she had the first half. After downing the last of her drink and popping a few peanuts in her mouth, she tossed the necessary bills on the table.

“Well, you boys have a good night. I’ve got to pick up the girls.”

And get the heck out of Adam Canfield’s proximity.

As soon as she stood, however, loud shouts erupted in the middle of the crowd, followed by the sound of breaking glass and tumbled chairs.

“Great,” Keith mumbled. “Can’t even have a drink in peace.”

The fight between several large men went from bad to worse in like a second. Sara and her fellow officers jumped right into the thick of it, shoving and prying people apart. But as soon as they managed to separate the two combatants, others joined in.

Just fantastic.

Sara dodged a flying beer bottle a moment before it would have cracked against her forehead. She saw Keith get hold of a guy who looked as though he could be an NFL linebacker, but he lost his grip
when the guy head-butted him. Her kingdom for a Taser.

Curses and alcohol flew through the air, and those not caught up in the melee fled out of the sides of the bar. Handy not having full walls in the way.

She spotted one of the instigators, who was smaller than the others, and reached for her handcuffs. But her hand slid off the metal when a punch came out of the craziness and hit her hard in the cheek. The power of the blow knocked her backward. She tumbled into other people on her way down to the floor.

Her brain rattled against her skull, and her vision blurred. On the verge of passing out, she couldn’t garner enough power to pull herself out of the way of trampling feet.

But someone else did. One moment she was in danger of serious injury. The next, someone strong grabbed her under her arms and dragged her free and behind the safety of the polished-wood bar. Her vision cleared enough that when she looked up, she saw the face of her rescuer.

Adam Canfield, in all his green-eyed glory.

Sara’s breath caught in her chest for a moment as she stared up at Adam, who stared right back. Was it a sign of insanity to want to reach up and kiss him when there was chaos going on behind her? Probably.

Some iota of common sense clawed its way to the front of her mind and enabled her to break eye contact. She shifted so she could lift herself.

Adam gripped her arm, stopping her before she could stand. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She gestured toward the fight. “To help out.”

Adam nodded behind her. “I think your friends have it under control.”

Sara turned and gritted her teeth against the searing pain that shot through her head. Shawn was handcuffing the last of the cursing combatants while Keith and Peter held the other two apart.

“You okay?” Keith asked when he spotted her position. “Saw you took a good wallop.” By the way
he handled the guy in his custody, she guessed Mr. Not-So-Happy was the one who’d punched her.

“I’ve had better days, but I’ll live.”

Keith looked past Sara to Adam. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem. Glad you guys were here.”

“You need to get checked out?” Shawn asked, his earlier teasing forgotten.

“Nah, I’m fine, really,” she said, wishing the guys would stop fussing over her. “Just want to go home and spend some quality time with some ibuprofen.”

“All right then,” Shawn said. “We’ll get these idiots outta here.”

Sara sat on the floor, dreading moving, as she watched the guys shove the still-grumbling troublemakers out of the bar. Keith called for a couple of squad cars so they could dump the guys on some officers who were actually on the clock.

With a sigh, she shifted her feet and hands under her and pushed herself to a standing position. She blinked against the throb in her cheek. Damn, that was going to leave a mark. She was still riding out the pain as Adam guided her to a stool. Okay, she’d sit, just until her cheek stopped feeling like there was a fist embedded in it.

Adam stepped away, but only for a few seconds. He extended a plastic bag filled with ice. “Here. This will help to keep it from swelling so much.”

Her hand brushed his as she took the ice pack. Despite her jaw feeling as if George Foreman had
punched her, she jolted at the warm contact. She hesitated a little too long in bringing the ice to her cheek, so he guided her hand. She winced when the ice made contact with her skin and tried to pull it away, but Adam’s hand gently held hers in place.

Instead of making the mistake of looking into his eyes again, she closed her own. “Guess I’m going to have a nice shiner in the morning.”

“You ever think about getting a different job, one that’s a little less dangerous?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, tried to figure out why it even mattered to him what she did for a living. “Believe it or not, this isn’t an everyday occurrence. I don’t think there’s going to be a
Law and Order: Horizon Beach
any time soon.”

“Only takes once,” he muttered as he moved away and started righting chairs while Suz swept up the glass.

Sara’s natural inclination to dig until she found the answers to all her questions flared, but not enough to trump the pounding of her head and the supreme desire to go home. If this was what going out to have fun got her, she’d had enough, thanks.

“Well, thanks for the ice pack,” she said as she stood.

“I can give you a ride home,” Adam said as he gripped the back of a chair.

“I’m fine, really.” She headed for the edge of the building, but he fell into step next to her.

“I’ll at least walk you to your car.”

“That’s not necessary.” Him being nice and caring
threatened to give her whiplash. It hinted at another layer of Adam, one that tempted her even more than she already was when she looked at him.

“Listen, you just took a full-out punch from a dude at least twice your size. I can tell you that if I took a punch from someone twice my size, I’d be a little woozy.”

“You think I’m going to keel over between here and the parking lot?”

“Probably not, but falling face-first into the sand and suffocating sure would be a sucky way to go, wouldn’t it?”

She would have laughed if she didn’t suspect it would hurt. “True.”

“Plus, it’s not like I’m needed here at the moment.” He gestured toward the nearly empty bar. The fight had sent all of the Beach Bum’s customers fleeing.

“Looks like you might as well close for the night.”

Suz walked by with her hands full of broken beer bottles. “Oh, don’t worry, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I don’t get paid enough to put up with that crap.”

“Be back in a few,” Adam said over his shoulder as he held Sara’s elbow, helping her down to the sandy ground outside the bar.

Too tired to argue, Sara allowed him to walk her to the parking lot. Trudging through the sand took more effort than normal, and the image Adam had
painted of her planting her face in that sand felt like a real possibility a couple of times. Her legs went noodley as they climbed the stairs to the wooden walk over the dunes, but she managed to stay upright.

When they reached her car, she tried to lower the ice pack to thank him.

He guided it back to her cheek. “You want to keep this on. Trust me.”

“Had a few punches in your time?” She tried to ignore the warmth, the strength, the manly roughness of his palm cradling her hand.

“A few.”

She couldn’t help a laugh at what was obviously an understatement, but as she’d suspected it only hurt her pounding cheek more.

“You sure I can’t drive you home?” he asked, all seriousness.

She resisted the urge to give in and let him, to allow herself to soak in his concern. “I’ll be okay, but thanks.”

He nodded and took a couple of steps back so she could open her car door. Her hand felt almost as cold as the ice at the absence of his warm touch. She nearly caved and told him she’d reconsidered just so she could stay in his presence a little longer. Instead, she got in the car and drove from the parking lot. But as she tried to drive with one hand and hold the ice pack to her face with the other, she wondered if she should have taken him up on his offer.

A zing of excitement shot through her at the idea. Frustrated by her traitorous body, she pitched the half-melted ice pack onto the floor of the passenger side.

Once again, she had to remind herself that Adam Canfield had
bad idea
written all over him—no matter how many times he rushed to the rescue. He’d probably already forgotten about her and gone in search of the blonde.

She turned off the main road onto her street and thought of her girls. Lilly had been abandoned at the hospital hours after her birth, so she’d never even known her parents. But Sara wasn’t sure that wasn’t better than what Tana had endured—having her parents flee the country without her to avoid drug trafficking charges.

As it always did, thinking about the girls’ pasts brought up images of her own mother from the days before she’d walked away from her daughter and husband.

Sara shook her head despite how it made her jaw ache. She’d never understand how a parent could abandon a child. Her mother’s abandonment fueled her own desire to be a good mother. And her father’s efforts to be two parents in one had given Sara the type of role model she wanted for her own girls. Even if that type of person existed somewhere inside Adam Canfield, it would take too much effort to excavate it.

A
DAM RETURNED TO
the bar and got to work helping Suz clean up the mess. He slammed chairs back into their upright positions and tossed broken glass into the trash with more force than necessary so his body wouldn’t give in to the shaking that threatened to overtake him. The same shaking he’d experienced after pulling that kid from the surf. That tormented him every time he woke up from a dream about Jessica.

He nearly crushed the back of a chair beneath his fists, wishing he’d never met Sara. Even if she’d only kept her distance, maybe he wouldn’t be assaulted with thoughts and worries about yet another woman who put herself in the path of danger every single day, even when she wasn’t on duty.

“You really like her, don’t you?” Suz asked.

Adam ripped himself from his memories to look at Suz. “Who?”

She leaned back against the front of the long bar. “Well, not the blonde you were using all night to ignore the woman you really wanted to be with.”

He waved off her assessment. “Just don’t like jackasses hitting women and making a mess of things.” He slammed a broken beer bottle into the trash, making it shatter into even more pieces.

“You forget I know you. That happens when I see your sorry ass every day. You were watching Sara all night.”

He shoved the trash can back behind the bar. “Did you get knocked in the head, too?”

Suz shook her head. “Dude, one of these days you’re going to have to settle for one of them. Otherwise, you’ll turn into a dirty old man.”

He didn’t respond. In fact, they didn’t speak to each other again until after they’d lowered the wooden sides of the building and secured all the locks for the night. And then it was only to say good-night.

Hell. First, he’d had to deal with his unwanted feelings toward Sara. Then the stupid fight and its aftermath, reopening psychological scars he didn’t even like admitting to himself existed. To top it off, Suz had decided to play shrink/matchmaker. It all added up to a nasty mood that unfortunately followed him all the way home like Pigpen’s cloud.

He really needed to take out some aggression on his punching bag so that he didn’t do something to get himself arrested, too. Though that might give him access to the bastard who’d hit Sara. Damn, he hated when the world insisted on poking holes in his carefree life. Wasn’t it enough that his dreams haunted him?

His horoscope must be garbage for the month because when he pulled in to his driveway, his headlights illuminated a boy in his carport filling a water jug at the spigot on the side of the house.

The boy jumped at the unexpected arrival, and stared for a moment before he dropped the jug and ran.

Adam let a few choice words fly as he surged from his car and ran after the kid. Though the little brat had a head start, Adam managed to catch him at the back edge of the lot. The water thief struggled, but Adam was bigger, stronger, and it only took a moment to grip his arms tightly and make it abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to make a brilliant escape.

“Let me guess. You’re David Taylor.”

The kid’s eyes went so wide with fear that it punched Adam in the gut. His question to Sara the day she’d come to the bar with David’s photo shot through his head, and he wondered again what the kid was running from.

David struggled against the grip of Adam’s hands around his upper arms. “Let me go.” His voice cracked, as if he was on the verge of tears and ashamed of it.

Adam gripped tighter, but not enough to hurt the boy, and shook him a little. “Hey, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m sorry about the water.”

“Kid, that amount of water cost me about half a penny. I think I can manage it.”

David looked up at him with a whirl of mistrust and questions in his eyes.

“Come on, let’s go in and talk for a minute,”
Adam said as he guided David back toward the house. “I might even scrounge up enough stuff to make a sandwich.”

If the kid was stealing water, chances were he was pretty darn hungry, too. His arm did feel scrawny under Adam’s fingers, so he loosened his grip. He didn’t want to bruise him.

Once inside, Adam nudged David toward the small kitchen table. “Sit.”

David complied, but Adam could see the war taking place between making a getaway and yearning for the sandwich. Something about this scared, hungry boy gnawed at him.

Adam didn’t question David. In fact, he said nothing as he pulled ham, cheese and mayo from the fridge and slapped together a sandwich, tossed it onto a paper towel and retrieved a new bag of barbecue chips from the cabinet. David sat on the edge of the chair eyeing Adam as he approached with the food. He didn’t look away when Adam placed the sandwich and chips in front of him, even though his stomach growled at the proximity of the food.

“Go on, eat.” Adam went to the fridge and retrieved a Coke.

When he turned back toward his unexpected guest, David had already scarfed down half of the sandwich and ripped into the bag of chips like he hadn’t eaten in days. Damn, what had made this kid
feel his only option was running away and nearly starving?

Fatigue like he hadn’t known since his army days weighed down on Adam. As he made another sandwich for David, he realized that neither of them was up for any great conversation tonight. It was late. What could the cops do tonight anyway? What would it hurt to let the kid enjoy a decent night’s sleep before contacting the authorities?

He slid the second sandwich onto the table just as David took the last bite of the first one. Adam sank into a chair adjacent to David’s. The boy stiffened in response and stopped chewing.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’m beat. You’re probably dog tired, too. So what do you say we both just get some sleep?”

David’s muscles tightened in the way of someone about to flee.

“I won’t report you to the cops tonight if you sleep on the couch and promise not to run.”

David still eyed him with suspicion, as if he thought he might be some pervert.

“Listen, kid, I’ve been working for what feels like a week straight, so I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to whatever food you can find, but if I hear that door open, I’m calling the cops.”

Still without speaking, David nodded.

“Good.” Adam managed to drag his tired body to the bathroom before heading to bed.

His time in the bathroom amounted to about a minute, but by the time he returned to the hallway, David was already stretched out on the couch asleep. Adam shook his head. Poor kid. He was glad he’d given the boy a brief reprieve. Tomorrow was soon enough to deal with what to do with him.

He grabbed a blanket from his bedroom and placed it over David. Adam watched him sleep for a moment and thought back to the year he’d been fourteen. He would have rather slept on a complete stranger’s couch, too.