To Protect & Serve (20 page)

Hate seeped through her. On the wave of her anger, she hurled her notebook at the door. With a deep growl, she stomped over to the door and locked it—just in case. Pulling her sanity back with a yank, she jerked the notebook off the floor and tracked her way back into her office. Another hour gone, and nothing to show for it.

Her gaze checked her watch although she barely saw it. 6:45. She really needed to sit down and do some more work, but at the same time she knew she would get nothing done. In frustration she snapped off the computer and grabbed her purse. The feeling that Tucker might be waiting when she opened that door slipped into her consciousness. Defiantly she straightened her clothes, put her chin in the air, and walked slowly to the door. The empty office would be the only one who would ever know how thoroughly Tucker Cordell had rattled her.

There were no candles. By the time Jeff thought about them, it was too possible that she would show up and he wouldn’t be there. However, everything else was ready when her knock sounded on his door at 7:15. He swung the door open, and his arm slipped up the side of it at the sight of her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said, her gaze bouncing up and down but never really landing on him.

He noticed the hair, knotted tightly at the back of her head, the curve of her dark gray suit, and the strapped heels at her feet. She looked so much like she had that first night that his mind traced back there unbidden. “Come in.”

“Thanks.” As she stepped past him, she wound one stray strand of hair over her ear. However, once she was in, she didn’t move.

“Oh, here.” Trying to breathe, Jeff guided her into the living room and to the black couch. “Here. Have a seat.” Awkwardly he grabbed the remote to turn down the music but dropped it halfway up. It clattered to the floor. Frustration poured over him as he bent to retrieve it and snapped the volume button. Then he glanced at her, seated on his couch, in his apartment, and logic scrambled. “Uh, can I get you something? Water? Tea? I made some Sangria, but I didn’t know if…”

“That sounds good,” she said, but he heard the hesitation and the harshness.

“If you want something else, I could…”

“No.” She
laughed softly as if forcing herself not to attack or run. “That sounds fine.”

He hated that tone. It screamed her unease. However, not wanting to argue, he went into the kitchen and filled two drinking glasses, willing himself to keep them upright until he could get one into her hands. When he crossed back into the living room, the 45-degree angle her knees made as she sat perfectly straight on the couch caught his attention. “Sorry. I don’t have wine glasses.”

“That’s okay.” She accepted the drink from his hand without really looking at him and took a sip. The smile didn’t make it all the way to her lips. “Hmm, that’s good. You made this?”

“It wasn’t hard.” Carefully he slipped onto the opposite end of the couch, fighting to be cool about it, but not really succeeding. “So, how was work?” Aversion scratched across her face, and he was sorry he had asked. “Bad subject?”

“You could say that.”

“But I thought things were going good when I called.”

“They were.”

His mind traced through the possibilities as concern laced through him. “So what changed?”

The top of her gaze landed on his coffee table and didn’t move for a long moment. Then the index fingernail that wasn’t quite as long as the others slid across the bottom of her nose. “It’s a trap, you know.”

He sat forward so he could see her better. “What is?”

“Thinking that they think I can do this job with the rest of them.”

True concern invaded his spirit. “Lisa, what are you talking about? You’re great at what you do.”

Slowly she shook her head so that one strand of hair fell from her ear. “That’s what they want me to think so they can get close enough so I can’t say no.”

“Can’t say… okay, now you’re scaring me.” He set his glass on the coffee table and followed it so he was sitting right in front of her.

Her gaze traced up to his, and she smiled weakly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

However, he latched onto her gaze and refused to let go. “Try me.”

He saw the unshed tears glinting behind her eyes just before she looked away. “At first I thought it was how I dressed that made them think… that I was interested in playing that game. So I changed that. Power suits. The most intimidating ones I could find. I even wore reading glasses for a while in college. Not that I needed them, just so maybe they would distract them from the rest of me.” She sighed. “But they were such a pain. I finally figured if I just turned every guy down who asked me, that would fix the problem. Become an ice queen and they’d leave me alone. Then they got smart.”

The story stopped, and his protective side jumped out. “What do you mean—smart?”

For a moment he thought she might simply stand and walk out. It was a lovely evening and all that, but then her head shook slowly.

“When I was in college, I was on the debate team. I did everything I could to be prepared for every single competition whether it was just a classroom thing or more. I guess I needed to prove that I wasn’t just a nice body with a pretty face. And I guess I was okay at it because they finally picked me for one of the competitions. I got paired up with Conner Beale. He was a senior. I was a junior. All the other girls were crazy over him. He was okay, but I was so excited about the whole being chosen thing, I never really bothered to notice what a jerk he was.”

She didn’t want to go on. He could tell by the way she sat in thought, spinning her glass around and around in her hands. Her glance up at him was only that before it fell back to her glass.

“One night we were working real late at the library. I think we had a debate the next morning or something. He thought we should go over to his place because the library was going to close and we weren’t near done.” She laughed softly. “Stupid me, I thought that was a good idea.” The spinning liquid in her glass slowed. “You know, I honestly thought he liked me because of what I brought to the team—when what he really liked was what he thought I could bring to his bed.”

The words, spoken so softly, felt like a sucker punch to Jeff’s gut. If he could have flattened the guy, this Conner Beale, he gladly would have in that moment.

“It wasn’t long after we got to his apartment that I figured out what an idiot I’d been to come in the first place. I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell him no, but I knew if I did, he’d find a way to get me thrown off the team. We ended up sleeping together—if you could call it that.” She nodded as the tears came in earnest then. “It didn’t matter. I was off the team in two weeks anyway.”

Horror clawed through him. “You got thrown off the team?”

Softly she laughed, and then she looked right at him. “No, I took myself off the team. It was too humiliating to face him sitting at that table every day. And I knew if I gave him another chance, it wouldn’t be any different the second time around. In three days I was replaced, and no one ever really knew the truth.”

The suits, the hair, the stay-in-your-space-or-else stance—they were starting to make way too much sense.

“It’s funny,” she said sadly. “I keep thinking one of these days guys are going to get the hint, but I’m beginning to think that isn’t going to happen.”

“The guy,” he said, putting the last piece into place. “The one with the leadership thing...”

Her gaze traced the other way across the room as
she nodded, and his heart plummeted.

“Either way, I lose,” she said softly, and the hollowness of her voice slid him back to the couch next to her where he put a tender arm around her shoulders. Her eyes fell closed as she slipped into his arms.

If he could just hold her here forever, make all the bad vanish… If he could erase her pain, and show her that she had far more to be proud of than how her body looked to the outside world… If he could prove that having fun and letting your guard down didn’t automatically mean you were a target for hurt and humiliation… If he could just do that, then the rest of life could take care of itself.

“Hey, you know what?” he asked, bending his head to look at her. “Dustin called this morning. Seems they’re a man short on the basketball court for next Saturday.”

She laughed as she ran a finger under her nose. “I think Dustin’s always a man short for something. Are you sure that’s not just an excuse?”

“No,” he said with a smile, “but it sounds like fun anyway. What do you say?”

“I say…” She pulled herself up from his arms and sniffed the air. “…something smells like it’s burning.”

“Supper!” In a breath he was off the couch racing for the kitchen. The clattering he made as he pulled the now-burnt store-bought pie out of the oven made far too much noise for his jangled nerves. He threw it onto the stove burners. “Dang it.” It was then that he felt her presence behind him. “Well, so much for the cherry pie.”

Slowly she stepped over to where he stood and surveyed the charred crust. “You got a knife?”

“You’re going to e
at that?” he asked, arching both eyebrows at her.

“Just get me a knife.”

Without further protest, he pulled the drawer open next to her, and she reached in and grabbed a butter knife. Potholder in one hand and pie in the other, she took it to the sink and angled it carefully.

“I don’t have a garbage disposal,” he said with concern as he stepped up a heartbeat away from her.

“Won’t need one.” Her hand moved the knife back and forth over the top of the pastry, sending blackened flakes raining into the sink. “Apparently you didn’t graduate from the Lisa Matheson School of Cooking.”

“No, I think I missed that one,” he said, thinking that it sounded like a course he’d be more than interested in taking. “What’s this lesson called?”

“It’s call, ‘Oh, my gosh, I forgot I put something in the oven!’”

He shook his head and laughed. “You’re something else. You know that?”

“So I’ve been told.” She held up the pie. “How’s that?”

“Marvelous. Let’s eat.”
             

“You really don’t have to worry about those,” he said when the meal was over, and Lisa stood to carry the dishes over to the sink. “I can get them in the morning.”

“You cooked. I can clean.” Carefully she removed her jacket, laid it on the side counter, and rolled up her beige-colored sleeves. “Where’s your soap?”

He stood from the table, bringing another handful of dishes with him. “To the left, bottom shelf.”

The water splattered up as it hit the bottom of the sink, and she put some soap in over it. She wound a piece of hair behind her ear and pulled the sponge from the back of the sink as he stopped right behind her. The voltage from his proximity to her snatched the breath from her chest. “You can just set those there,” she said, indicating the side of the sink. The edge of the royal blue jersey brushed her arm, and she almost dropped the dish in her hand. “So, where’d you learn to cook like that anyway?”

“What burnt store-bought pies?”

Her gaze leveled at him. “No, ding-dong, the three course meal before that.”

“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “I got tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

She laughed. “Take-out?”

“Too expensive.” Two more dishes slid to the cabinet next to her.

“I’d probably die if there wasn’t take-out.” The sponge went around the dish, and she set it into the next sink for him to rinse. “By the way, did you ever call that guy? The one you said you know? The EMT guy?”

“Oh, crud. I completely forgot about that.” He reached over to the edge of the sink, grabbed a pen, and made a quick note to himself. “I’ll do that tomorrow.”

“I thought I was the disorganized one.”

He looked at her, and his smile melted through her soul. “You must be rubbing off on me.”

The next afternoon when he picked up the station phone to make the call, Jeff’s mind drifted back to the feeling of her arm, a half-an-inch from his own. It was a feeling he could get used to. “Yes, this is Jeff Taylor with the Houston fire department, and I’m trying to track down one of your paramedics. His name is A.J. Knight, but I don’t know exactly what his shift is or his truck number.” It took a few minutes, but the receptionist finally paired the name with a phone number, which he dialed and went through the whole spiel again. This call produced yet another phone number. He felt like he was traveling through a maze, looking for a single piece of cheese. “Yes, this is Jeff Taylor with the Fire Department, I’m trying to get in touch with A.J. Knight.”

“Just a second,” the voice said, and he heard the, “A.J.! It’s for you.”

A beat and then, “This is A.J.”

For a single moment Jeff’s tongue twisted. “Umm, A.J. Hi. This is Jeff Taylor with the fire department. You probably don’t remember me. I was the one on the bridge that day with that kid—the jumper.”

“Jeff!” A.J. said as though he was some long, lost friend. “I saw you at the wreck that day. Didn’t get a chance to talk though. What’s up?”

“Umm, well, listen, I know you’re probably way busy and everything, but I’ve got this friend who’s working on putting a student conference together for the fall. She’s looking for people in the service fields to come and talk at the workshops. I thought you might be interested.” Man, that sounded lame. “But if you don’t want to…”