To Love a Cop (16 page)

She closed her eyes. “Oh, God.”

“Honestly, I don’t see it happening in the near future.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure what’s going on in his head, Laura. I thought things were going well, then suddenly—”

He didn’t have to finish.

“I think,” she said, “he was excited when you came along. Flattered. And...he really has enjoyed the time you’ve spent with him. But inside, that need he has to handle a gun like yours is burning, and maybe it’s more important than anything else. His initial excitement might have...” She wasn’t sure how to say this.

“Been like flying on a roller coaster?” Ethan understood. Of course he did. “And now we’re clanking slowly up the tracks, and maybe there’ll be another thrill and maybe there won’t, but it’s out of his hands.”

She lowered her voice and cast a glance over her shoulder to make sure Jake hadn’t silently slipped out of his bedroom to eavesdrop. “He had this expression tonight when he looked at me—”

“He scared you?”

“Oh, only for a minute. But I had the thought...”

“I can imagine. Damn it, Laura—”

“I’m going to make some calls tomorrow.” She’d already made the decision. “He needs counseling. I didn’t love the therapist he had back then, but I’m sure I can find someone good.”

“I think that’s smart.”

When he didn’t immediately say anything, she had a moment of panic. Was he figuring out how to tell her he obviously wasn’t what Jake needed? She wouldn’t blame him—but also knew abandonment by Ethan would devastate him.

And me.

“There’s only one more session of the class,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “I vote we finish it. I’ll keep playing basketball with him, maybe do some other things as the weather improves, but hold off on going back to the range until we both feel better about it.”

“You’re...still going to spend time with him?” Appalled, she heard how shaky that had come out.

“You think I’d ditch him?” Ethan sounded offended.

“You don’t owe us anything.”

“I’m not spending time with either of you out of obligation.” There was a small pause. “I want to.”

Laura swallowed. Her “Thank you” came out small.

“Damn it, don’t thank me! Which part of ‘I want to’ didn’t you hear?”

Her lips parted; she closed them again when she realized what she’d been about to say.
Thank you.

“Can I thank you for listening, at least?” That sounded almost steady. “I’ve felt so alone. And...since you came along, I haven’t.”

“You don’t need to,” he said roughly. Then, “I wish I could see your face.”

Laura wished he was there so much, she ached with it.

“Yes. I wish I could see yours, too.”

“Crap,” he muttered. “Can we have lunch tomorrow? If I can get away?”

A smile trembled on her mouth. Tears dripped down her cheeks. “Yes. Please. But I’ll understand if you can’t.”

“I’ll be frustrated beyond belief if I can’t. Okay, sweetheart. Do you keep your cell phone with you? I’ll call midmorning and we’ll set a time.”

He was gone a minute later, leaving her to mop up her face and deal with the swell of intense emotions he’d awakened.

Sweetheart.
He’d called her sweetheart.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
WO KISSES AND
counting had Ethan feeling as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning. He wouldn’t have labeled himself as an optimist, but he kept catching himself grinning at random moments for no apparent reason. Just because he felt good.

Following a meeting with Sam Clayton and Lieutenant Pomeroy, the fire investigator, he’d managed to duck out on the job long enough to take Laura to lunch Friday. Afterward, he’d dropped her off at the back of the store, which, being windowless, meant they had complete privacy and he was able to kiss her.

Tuesday night’s kiss had been mostly gentle, slow—a promise. Friday’s got a little more heated, on both their parts.

What Ethan hadn’t yet figured out was how he was going to separate her from her kid long enough to get her in bed with him. Down the line, he’d enjoy a nooner. His apartment wasn’t so far away as to make it impossible. For a first time, though, his every instinct said
no
. Emphatically. He’d become almost certain that his earlier suspicion was right on: whatever sexual experience Laura had was long ago and far away. As in, she hadn’t had sex since her husband blew his brains out. Maybe hadn’t even kissed a man.

Come to think of it, it might have been even longer ago than Matt’s death. She’d been furious with her husband. He bore responsibility for his nephew’s death—and for the memory of trauma his own son would have to live with. Did that kind of anger allow for marital relations? Ethan kind of thought not.

Of course, he wasn’t crazy about imagining her
having
marital relations. Which was completely idiotic, he realized. He probably wouldn’t have given it a thought if he hadn’t known her husband. The fact that he
had
known Matt, and pretty well, was what stirred up an unfamiliar feeling he could only label jealousy.

Something he was doing his damnedest to suppress and had no intention of sharing with Laura. Considering he had been married back then, too, it was especially irrational. He’d get over it, he told himself. Wild, irrational feelings just seemed to be part of this giddy knowledge that he was in love, whatever he’d vowed on that subject since his divorce.

Saturday night, he couldn’t dodge having dinner at his parents’. He’d been using the work-has-me-swamped card for several weeks now. Since he’d happened on Jake Vennetti at the gun show, come to think of it. What a coincidence.

Since he planned to spend Sunday with Laura and Jake instead of his parents, going to their place Saturday evening wasn’t much of a sacrifice. There was a limit to how hard he could press Laura.
Can I move in with you?
would definitely be pushing it.

Particularly since he was still occasionally rational enough to feel his feet getting cold.
Take it slow
, he kept telling himself.
Be sure.

“So what are you working on that has you tied in knots?” his father asked at the dinner table. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

Joseph Winter had passed on his genes to his son. A little shorter than Ethan—maybe six foot two, although right before the surgery he’d growled that, thanks to his damn crumbling knees, he was probably shrinking by the minute—he had much the same broad-shouldered, long body. He’d played basketball for the Arizona Wildcats. Ethan’s dark hair came from his father, too. Dad’s eyes were brown, though; the hazel came from Mom, who was something like five foot ten inches herself, still slim and blond-going-white.

Usually Mom would have given Dad a minatory look. She’d encouraged independence in their offspring more than he had. But now she trained a nearly identical gaze on Ethan. She, too, suspected he hadn’t been entirely honest about his reasons for being too busy for them.

“Uh...the swastika shit.” He flicked a glance at his mother. “Stuff.” Dad’s comments were few, but to the point. When Ethan felt the need to brainstorm, there was no one better.

“How are the knees?” he asked.

“My bionic knee is 100%.” As good a way as any of describing knee replacement. “Had a cortisone shot in the other right before I saw you last.” He didn’t like admitting he’d needed one. “They’re as good as they get.”

Maybe.

He looked down at his plate. Apparently he’d been eating without actually tasting his food. Too bad, since it had been a favorite of his. Mom made great pot roast.

Give it up
, he decided. His parents knew him too well.

“I’m seeing someone, too,” he said abruptly, then winced. He really hadn’t meant to start this.

“No one you want us to meet?”

“We aren’t quite at that point.” He hesitated. “Her name’s Laura Vennetti. I knew her husband on the job.” He looked at his father. “You might remember. He left his service weapon out where his five-year-old son could get it.”

“And the boy shot and killed another kid,” his father said slowly.

Ethan nodded. “Matt Vennetti killed himself a couple of months later. We weren’t close enough friends for me to follow up with his widow. Turns out, nobody did. She’s been on her own. Really on her own. Matt’s family turned their backs on him and Laura and the boy, too. It’s actually Jake I encountered.” He told them about the gun show and his unease about a boy who clearly hadn’t dealt with his complicated feelings about the tragedy.

“Did you know this Laura back then?” his mother asked.

He shook his head. “First time I remember seeing her was the funeral.”

“So you’re dating now?”

“Kind of.” He grimaced. “It’s a little tough, with her a single mother. I don’t think Jake knows yet that his mother and I have...uh, started something. I’m still spending as much time as I can with him.”

His mother raised her eyebrows. “Be careful not to keep him in the dark too long. Especially if he’s already volatile.”

“You’re right. Laura and I are taking it slowly, that’s all. She’s come as a surprise to me.”

“Because you thought you’d vaccinated yourself against getting serious,” his father said sardonically.

Ethan grinned. “Something like that.” Sobering, he said, “You know Toomey is on wife number three now?” Chad Toomey was a fellow detective. “Cochran and his second wife just separated.” He listed four more cops with whom he worked closely. None had been able to manage a lasting marriage. And that didn’t include the others who let the job get to them to the point where they developed drinking or anger management problems that would put the
finis
on marriages. “The chances are grim. You know that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to lay myself out for that again.”

“Despite the fact that your own parents succeeded.” His mother sounded sad.

He met her eyes. “Sometimes exceptions prove the rule.”

“I didn’t raise you to be a cynic,” she said firmly.

His dad grinned.

“Tell us about her,” his mom invited.

Between bites, he did. When the pot roast was gone, apple pie appeared in front of him. Thinking how good it was, he had a minor revelation. “She’s a good cook, too.”

His father laughed. “That was one of my requirements.”

Mom whacked his shoulder without looking away from her son. “You’re both sexist pigs. Ethan is every bit as good a cook as Carla is. I made sure of that.”

So, okay. He could cook; he just didn’t, except on an occasional day off.

He shouldn’t have relaxed too soon. Joe Winter’s gaze speared him. “Would you have been interested in this woman if you hadn’t met her the way you did?”

He stiffened. “What’s that mean?”

“If she didn’t have problems? If she didn’t make you feel needed?”

Initially irked, Ethan made himself give the question some real thought. Dad was sharp. When he raised a point, Ethan made a practice of thinking it through.

Finally he said wryly, “You’ve got me there. But not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

Dad had leaned back in his chair, coffee cup in hand, and waited patiently. Mom had begun clearing the table, but stayed within earshot.

“What am I thinking?” Dad asked.

“That I have a white knight complex.”

“Actually,” his father said mildly, “what I was thinking is that you would have shied right away from a woman who was obvious marriage material if you’d seen that as an honorable alternative.”

Ethan gave a half laugh. Damn, Dad was good.

“Part right, mostly not,” he said. “If I’d met Laura some other way, I’d have asked her out without hesitation. In fact, I hesitated
because
of the past. Because she’d been the wife of a fellow cop. Because she needed my help with her troubled kid and I didn’t like the idea she might say yes to keep me around.”

His father nodded acknowledgment.

“Because she has a real problem with guns and anyone who carries one,” Ethan said more slowly.

The lines on his father’s forehead deepened a little. He knew what had gone wrong in his son’s first marriage.

“The problem with guns, I can see,” he said after a minute.

“Ya think?” Ethan grimaced. “I don’t wear it in her house, but that would have to change if we got to a living-together stage.”

“She must know that.”

“I suspect I’m way ahead of her in my thinking. She’s pretty focused on Jake. She’s scared for him.”

“Is she right to be?”

“I wish I knew.” Yes, Jake was angry, and obsessed with guns. But, from what Laura said, he was also a good student, and had had plenty of friends until the crap Uncle Tino had instigated went down at school. The friends seemed to be drifting back. Ron had appeared to be an upstanding kid to Ethan. Ethan’s instincts said Jake had things to work through but was basically a polite, good boy who loved his mother and enjoyed sports. “She’s putting him back in counseling.”

Mom had quietly resumed her seat to listen. Dad nodded.

“So can Laura take being married to a cop?” he asked, blunt as always.

“She’s been through it once. She didn’t walk out on Matt.” Not even when the worst happened. “Yeah,” he heard himself say. “I told her about Erin. She said the lousy hours are part of the job, and the job is part of the man. She topped that with saying, either you love someone, or you don’t.”

The creases in his father’s forehead smoothed. He lifted his cup in a salute. “Bring her to meet us.”

“Glad I have your approval,” Ethan said, not coming off as sardonic as he’d intended. He was close to his parents, the past month notwithstanding. Even to his sister, although with her finishing law school in Seattle and starting a family, too, they often had to resort to phone calls one or the other made out of the blue. His parents had wanted to love Erin, but he’d always known they felt some reservations.

My family would be good for Laura and Jake both
, he thought.

Gettin’ ahead of yourself again, buddy.

He liked the view ahead, though.

“Can I help clean the kitchen?” he asked his mother, who gave a delicate snort.