To Love a Cop (12 page)

She blew a raspberry and he laughed.

Poking at the remnants of her cobbler, she said, “You know, I was thinking.”

Intrigued by her overly casual tone, he cocked an eyebrow. “Do that sometimes, do you?”

This time, she stuck out her tongue. Then her gaze lowered to his bowl. “Would you like more?”

“I’m going to be sorry, but I would love more.” Only good manners had kept him from licking the bowl.

He watched as she spooned another heap of cobbler into his bowl and added a scoop of ice cream. The whole while, he had an ear out for Jake’s return, hoping he wouldn’t.

“You were thinking?” he prompted, after she’d set his second helping in front of him and resumed her own seat.

“Oh... Only that I don’t know much about you.” She sounded unexpectedly hesitant. “You’re so good with Jake, it occurred to me that...I don’t know, you must have spent time with other kids.”

Comprehension blinked into existence. She wasn’t really asking whether he had...who knew? stepchildren or something of the kind. Or at least he hoped she wasn’t.
I’m an idiot
, he thought.

CHAPTER SIX

H
E’D SAID HE
wasn’t married, hadn’t he? But, of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved with a woman, and one who might even have children. No wonder that hint of shyness was in evidence.

“No kids,” he said. “I haven’t even been in a relationship for a while. I told you I was married once, right? It’s been...” He had to think. “Seven years since the divorce. No, six. It wasn’t that long before—” He screeched to a stop.
Before your son shot another boy to death
, was what he was thinking.
Before
I
shot a man to death.
Good God. Was it possible the two events had happened the same year?
He cleared his throat. “Before I met you the first time.”

“You mean, at the funeral?” She frowned. “Why hadn’t we met before that?”

“I can’t swear we didn’t, but I don’t think so. I’m...good with faces.”
You, I’d remember.

“Jake said you played fast-pitch with Matt. I did go to a couple of those games, so I must have seen you, at least.”

He nodded. He’d suspected as much. “You might have met my ex-wife, then. Erin.”

“If so, I don’t remember her.” She moved a shoulder. “Did you two think about having kids?”

“By the time we got to where we’d have wanted to start a family, our marriage was on the skids.” He watched her carefully in turn. “She had trouble with my job.”

“Were you already a cop when you met her?”

“Yeah, but in theory turns out to be different than in practice.”

Laura nodded her understanding. “Back then, I’d hear other wives—and a few husbands—complaining. I’d have sympathized more if they worried about the danger instead of the inconvenience of having to change plans at the last minute too often.”

He grunted his agreement. “In the early days, Erin claimed to worry about me. As she got pissed because I missed dinner parties or couldn’t get off in time even though we had concert tickets or reservations or whatever, she quit worrying and started resenting instead. It’s a pretty common pattern. Cops have one of the highest divorce rates of people in any profession.”

“I’ve read that, even though I don’t understand it.”

Surprised, he waited for her to finish the thought.

“Either you love someone, or you don’t. Isn’t that what it should come down to?” She looked at him as if she really wanted him to answer.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “That’s the way it should be. In fairness, though, marriages fail because life wears us down. Little irritations mount. Cops do work long and erratic hours. It’s almost worse when you become a detective. Forget end of shift. If you just caught on a case, you work until you’re too tired to think logically, and then all you want is to go home and crash, not listen to someone else talking about her day or, God forbid, go out to dinner with your wife and another couple.” He tipped his head and studied her. “You weren’t ever aggravated at Matt because he didn’t make it home when you were counting on him?”

“No.” Grief darkened her eyes. “I was aggravated when he tossed his gun on top of the refrigerator or in the drawer beside our bed instead of putting it in the safe.”

“I’m sorry.” He covered her hand where it lay on the table with his. “He did it often?”

“Yes. It became...a battlefield, in a way. He dug in his heels at my nagging. If I’d handled it differently—”

“Whoa!” Angry at her husband, long dead though he was, Ethan stopped her. “What he did was on him, not you. I don’t understand how he could leave a weapon out when he had a kid in the house. There’s no excuse. Not a one.”

She bit her lip and gazed searchingly at him again. “No,” she whispered, finally. “Thank you for saying that. There isn’t.”

“Thank you for saying what you did, too.” His voice came out husky. “Implying Erin’s the one who didn’t love me enough. I still ask myself whether it wasn’t the other way around. If I’d cared enough, I could have quit the job and found something else to do. In the end, I guess I didn’t.”

“No, it wasn’t the same thing,” she said stoutly. “She was asking you not to be the man you are. The man she knew you were when she met you. Do you really think your marriage would have survived the resentment you’d have felt if you’d given up the job you loved for something that would always pale in comparison?”

He was shaking his head before she finished. “No. I know it wouldn’t have. That’s one reason I refused.”

Her lips curved into a soft smile that made his heart go
bump
. “Then you were smart.” Before he could say anything, she frowned. “I wonder why Jake didn’t come back?”

“Still on the phone?”

She gave him a look. “Come on. You were his age once upon a time.”

Oh, yeah. Eleven-year-old boys weren’t given to chatting at all, and especially not on the phone. Calls were reluctantly made when required to set up a meet. Having to make conversation with a parent, however momentarily, was torture.

“I’ll go find out,” he said, pushing back his chair. “Assuming I can still heave myself to my feet.”

She chuckled. “I have faith.”

Carrying the picture of that last smile in his head, he went down the hall to her son’s bedroom and rapped his knuckles on the door. “Jake?”

“Yeah?”

Well, at least he hadn’t sneaked out.

“I might take off now,” he said.

“Oh.” The door swung open. “I didn’t think you were going yet. I just, uh, was thinking. You know.”

Ethan propped a shoulder against the door frame. “About your friend?”

“Yeah. I told him about you putting up the hoop. He wants to come over and try it.”

“What’d you say?”

“That I’d ask Mom.”

“I see. So what’s the conclusion?”

His face screwed up in a pained expression. “I don’t know! I’m still mad, but—” He shrugged.

Ethan clapped him on his shoulder. “Tell you what. Call him back and say sure. If you want, I’ll hang around a little longer. I’ll blow him away by dunking the ball a few times. I won’t go home until the little snot is worshipping at your altar, because clearly you have
way
more amazing friends than he does and don’t need him anyway.”

Jake’s big grin made Ethan blink. The kid looked so much like Matt, it was rare when an expression echoed Laura’s instead.

“Can I?”

“If it’s okay with your mom.”

The boy rushed to the kitchen to find out if he could ask Ron over. “Ethan says he’ll stay for a while. You know, to shoot some more baskets with us.”

Having meandered after Jake, Ethan reached the kitchen in time to see her smile at her son. “We have no plans. By all means, put Ethan on display.” Her dry tone and the laughter in her eyes had him smiling.

Jake hurried back to his bedroom to get the phone, leaving the two of them momentarily alone.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I’m sure you had better things to do with your afternoon.”

He shook his head. “I can’t think of a one.” Realizing how true that was came as a hammer blow.
Yes, I want to hang around with two eleven-year-old boys, maybe give them some tips to make them better ball players. Hope one of the boys’ mothers comes out to watch.

Yep, why didn’t he go for broke and take off his shirt while he was at it? he asked himself in amusement. Of course, given that this was the first week of May and it was all of about sixty degrees out there, she’d probably laugh at him instead of gazing in awe. Goose bumps weren’t all that sexy.

Bouncing with excitement, Jake reappeared. “He’s on his way! He only lives a couple blocks away and he’s riding his bike.”

“Then let’s go on out.” Ethan patted his stomach. “Now I wish I hadn’t had that second helping of cobbler.”

“You can still dunk, though? Right?”

Laura laughed, giving her son a quick hug in passing. “He’s just trying to scare you. I think he can still get himself off the ground.” She gave him an impish look. “Unless he’s getting too old for that kind of thing. Maybe his knees are going, like his dad’s.”

“Now you have to come out there and let me dazzle you, too,” he murmured as he passed her.

For a moment, he saw a kind of vulnerability and naked honesty in her eyes that stunned him. “I think you already have,” she admitted before waving them on, her cheeks pink.

Following her kid out, Ethan felt like his feet were barely touching the porch steps or paved driveway. One blush and quiet admission, and he knew he could fly, no problem.

* * *

T
HIS HAD BEEN
the best Sunday Laura could remember having in years. She ought to feel guilty for even thinking that, given that church attendance hadn’t been part of their day, but she couldn’t.

Truthfully, their church attendance had already become sporadic. Growing up, her parents had mostly taken her and her sister only on special occasions like Easter. Laura had turned her back on the Catholic Church the day after Matt’s funeral. Maybe it wasn’t fair to blame the Vennetti family’s priest for their sins, but no way was she continuing to attend the same services as his family. Her promise to raise any children within the Catholic Church had been given to Matt, not the rest of the Vennettis anyway.
He
had abandoned her. Petty as it was, she had to find a way to lash out at him in return, and this was one way.

Instead, she and Jake had started attending the same Congregational church her sister’s family did. Only, the minister lacked charisma, and Laura’s faith had been damaged by first Marco’s death and then Matt’s, with the result that she felt as if she was only going through the motions Today, Ethan’s willingness to do something that mattered for Jake had seemed a lot more important than she and Jake dutifully sitting through a sermon that probably would have bored both of them anyway.

So, okay, she did feel a little guilty at that thought, but not enough to puncture the bubble of happiness that had buoyed her all day.

He wasn’t married! He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do than hang around with her and Jake! He’d thanked her for believing he’d been right to refuse to quit the job he loved to save a marriage on the rocks. He’d come down solidly on her side when she tried to take a share of the responsibility for Matt’s carelessness with his gun.

He loved her cooking, too.

But most of all, he smiled at her. He touched her, and his eyes heated pretty much whenever she felt herself melting down inside. She couldn’t be mistaken, Laura thought. He was attracted to her.

In the important ways, he wasn’t like Matt.

She hadn’t felt anything like this sense of hope and possibility in so long, she’d hardly recognized it when it first bloomed.

After demonstrating admirable patience and entertaining the boys for an hour or more, Ethan had finally jogged up to the house to say goodbye to her. He didn’t touch her; they could both hear the ball still slapping the pavement in front of the house, a catcall from one of the boys. She quite desperately wanted him to kiss her, even though she knew he wouldn’t. She just hoped she remembered how it was done if the chance ever came her way.

Once he was gone, Laura stood unmoving for several minutes, breathing and remembering the way his gaze lowered to her lips before returning ruefully to her face. If she’d been a teenager, she’d have let out a squeal.

That evening, she tapped on Jake’s door to say good-night. A year ago, he’d rarely closed it and
privacy
wasn’t really a concept to him. Now...well, she didn’t know if his new desire to have time to himself had to do with his worrisome fascination with guns, or whether she was seeing the onset of puberty.

“Come in,” he called, and she did.

He was already in bed, but had his iPod in his hand.

“Good day?” she asked.

His smile was the most uncomplicated, the
happiest
, she’d seen in a long time. “Yeah, it was really cool. Ethan said you paid for the backboard, and, well, thanks. It’s great.”

“I’m glad you think so.” She bent to kiss the top of his head. “I hope you thanked him for getting it and putting it up, too.” A sense of fairness made her add, “It was his idea, you know.”

He grinned at her. “Yeah, I kind of thought it was.”

“Come on,” she teased. “I do nice things for you.”

“I know. You’re pretty cool. For a mom.”

Laura laughed and smoothed his hair back from his forehead even as he ducked. “Sweet dreams.”

“I want to be just like Ethan,” he said, as she crossed the room.

Feeling a hint of apprehension, she turned back. “Not an NBA star?”

“Well...I’m not going to be tall enough, am I?”

She hated to squelch any dreams, but realistically... “Probably not. Odds are, you’ll end up taller than your father, because my father was over six feet and I’m reasonably tall for a woman. But nobody in the family can give you Ethan’s height.”

“He says he’s six four, and he sounded like that was barely tall enough for a pro.” He shrugged. “I want to be a cop, like he is.”

“Like your dad.”

He didn’t say anything.