To Protect & Serve (8 page)

“And they will,” Jeff said slowly. Instantly his partner looked over at him in fearful shock. For a second, a question ran through his face, and then Jeff knew he understood. “When you’re gone tomorrow, they’ll find someone else to pick on, and they won’t even remember you. Is that really what you want?”

“He’s right,” the paramedic said, matching his soft tone. Parker’s gaze swung around to him as Jeff’s heart caught in his throat. “He is. If you jump, you give them the last laugh. Checkmate. They win.” The world and Jeff’s heart screeched to a halt. “Is that really what you want, man?”

A gust brushed past them, and Jeff held his breath.

“No,” Parker finally said like a breath. “I don’t. I don’t know. I’m just so confused.”

“Then this’s no time to be making a big decision like this one,” Jeff said, sensing the tri-bond that had just formed between them. He took a small step forward. “Come on, Parker. Take my hand and come back across. We can work this out. I promise.”

“It’s just so hard,” Parker said, and Jeff saw the hand on the other side release.

“Parker?” He held his hand out palm up. “Just take my hand. Okay? Just take my hand, and we’ll talk about this.” One agonizing inch at a time, the hand came across, and finally it touched Jeff’s. He could feel the life flowing through that hand—its potential. “Good. Good, man. Okay, careful.”

One foot at a time, Parker scaled the concrete wall separating them, and when he was back in the land of the living, Jeff breathed a grateful sigh of relief.

Slowly Parker slid down the concrete to the asphalt as fatigue crowded over his features. Jeff sat on his heels next to the paramedic as the other rescue personnel worked to disperse the crowd. He laid a gentle hand on the bony shoulder of the young teenager. “How you doing? You okay?”

The nod was there but barely.

“Good, these guys are going to take care of you now. Okay?”

Sad, frightened eyes looked up at him. “You’re leaving?”

“No,” Jeff said without hesitation, “but I don’t think you want me checking you out. Doctoring’s not really my department.”

Two other paramedics broke in as Jeff stood and stepped over to the railing. It was then that he saw the news trucks and the gathering that was now dispersing beneath the bridge. One life. Hardly noticed to this point, and yet when the possibility of it leaving the earth arrived, everyone else stopped to take notice. Why was that?
Why doesn’t anyone stop until it’s all over?
He breathed out against the air that was blowing in his face.

“He was lucky you were here,” the voice said from behind him, and Jeff turned to see that backward turned cap. The paramedic, looking even younger than he had a few moments before, held out a fist, and Jeff hit the top of it.

“I think I was more scared than he was,” Jeff admitted.

“Well, you didn’t show it.” Then the paramedic held out his hand. “A.J. Knight.”

“Jeff Taylor.” It was amazing the strength of a friendship formed in a crisis.

“You with the department?” A.J. asked in reference to the little yellow letters on Jeff’s T-shirt.

“Yeah, I just started last week.”

“Cool, we need more like you out here.”

“Just trying to help.” Then he looked over to Parker, who was now surrounded by the emergency crew but standing again. “I think I’ll just go over and see how he’s doing.”

“I’ll go with you.” Together they turned and approached the little group.

“Hey, Parker,” Jeff said when he got close enough to see the young man. “You good?”

The only thing keeping the tears from falling from the young man’s eyes was the knot of men surrounding them. “Yeah.”

“I’m glad you made it back, man.”

The looks Tucker was giving her sent chills—and not the good kind—up Lisa’s spine Tuesday afternoon as she sat across the table for lunch with him and his grandfather.

“It’s like this whole kid on the bridge thing,” Burke said, chewing on his steak. “That kid’s got no home life, no friends, the kids pick on him every day. What do we expect a kid in that situation to do? It’s either kill everybody else or kill yourself. Two choices and they’re both rotten. That’s the kind of kid I want to reach with this thing.”

Lisa nodded, fighting to look interested even as her lunch crawled back up into her throat. One Luke a week should be punishment enough, but if she wasn’t losing her perceptiveness, another one was sitting right across from her at this very moment.

“So, what did Anson say?” Burke asked, jerking Lisa from her karate fantasy.

“Oh, he gave me the number for Vincent Fletcher. He’s like the police chief or something. I’ve got a meeting with him in the morning. As soon as I get him on board, I’ll go back and talk to Hayes.”

“Fletcher’s tough,” Burke said, twisting his face out of normal. “Anson thought he would help?”

“He thought it was worth a try,” Lisa hedged. She wished her gaze would just quit sending alarm signals to her brain. This was no time for that. She pulled herself up to her full height. “Besides I can be pretty tough myself.”

“Yeah? Well, I hope so,” Burke said unhappily. “Otherwise Fletch just might chew you up and spit you out.”

Terrific
. The ones she wanted to talk to didn’t want to talk to her, and the ones she didn’t want to get within fifteen feet of, ogled her like a cat looking at the catch of the day. “I’m not worried. I’m sure I can handle Fletcher. I’ve handled guys far, far worse.” And she smiled sweetly at the cat sitting across the table from her.

“Options,” Lisa said as she sat across the desk from Vincent Fletcher Wednesday morning. “It’s all about options. We’ve got kids out there who don’t have options. They look around, and all they see is that they don’t have the options that the other kids do. It’s called learned helplessness.” She had read that several years before and had thought it was all a bunch of psychobabble at the time, but if it had a shot at getting through to the human version of Jabba the Hut, sitting cross-armed in front of her, it was worth a shot. “What Cordell Enterprises is trying to do is to show these kids that they have real options, and not just to be some hired hand working for minimum wage in some plant, but real options to lead and to make a difference in the community.”

“And why would I want some minimum wage anvil joining my force?” Fletcher asked, clearly unimpressed.

“Because you see, Sir, we’re all minimum wage anvils until we decide to be something more. But none of us decides to be more until we really believe that’s possible. You think I ever thought about starting my own company when I was 15? No way. That was too far away to think about, but I was lucky enough to have a teacher who showed some interest in me. She helped me with my art. She made my art important, and she helped me see that there were lots of other options with art other than just trying to get it hung in some gallery.

“That’s what I’m wanting to give these kids—options. Without them, they’re going to end up in here on one side of the desk. I’m just asking that you take a couple
hours out of your very busy schedule to show them that the other side of the desk is possible too.” She sat, sensing that all the arguments in the world would get her nowhere. “But if you’re too busy…”

Slowly Fletcher leaned forward. “Are the schools in yet?”

Exasperation jumped from her. “See, that’s the problem, everyone’s standing on the sidelines, going, ‘Well, I’m not committing until they commit.’ And while everyone’s standing around waiting for somebody else to make the first move, we’ve got kids carrying guns to school and jumping off bridges because we’re all just too busy to be bothered, or we’re too worried about how it will look if we get in and nobody else does. Well, I’ll be honest with you, Sir. All the heroics on all the bridges in the whole world aren’t going to matter a single ounce if somebody doesn’t get in this darn boat and start rowing.”

With steely hard eyes Fletcher looked at her. “You’re intense, you know that, Ms. Matheson?”

“So, I’ve been told,” she said with no smile whatsoever. “So, what do you say, Sir? You in or out?”

He took one breath, shook his head, and exhaled. “Okay, I’m in.”

“Looks like you pulled some overtime,” Dante said when Jeff walked into the break room on Thursday morning. He was glad to be back to work. Time off was just one solid sheet of agony.

“Overtime?” Jeff asked as he grabbed a drink from the water fountain. “Is the new schedule out?”

“No, man,” Dante said in exasperation. “That whole hero thing on the bridge. I think Hunter’s even got it on tape.”

“Oh, great.”

“No, man, you looked good. It’s cool.” Dante lowered his eyes with concern. “Isn’t it?”

“I was just doing my job.” He went to the cabinet and looked inside. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Wrong, man,” Dante said as he stood and set his glass in the sink next to Jeff. “Saving a life is a very big deal.”

On his heel, Dante turned and walked out as Jeff’s head fell on the weight of the statement. He hadn’t meant that the way it sounded. The fact that God had placed him on that bridge at that moment was not a responsibility he took lightly, nor one he would’ve simply passed on, but he just didn’t like the five seconds of fame that went with it. It was going to be a long day.

“Hey, Taylor, how’s it going?” Hunter asked as he strode into the break room where Jeff was grabbing a drink six hours later.

“Good,” Jeff said. “What do we have left?”

“Station clean-up. You can start with the bathrooms and then do the break room,” Hunter said, looking around at the tables littered with remnants of meals gone by. “Oh, and don’t forget the gunky stuff around this sink. It’s looking pretty skanky.”

Dante strode in.

“Come on, Dant-man, we’ve got an appointment with a basketball court,” Hunter said, turning Dante around.

“Destroy the skankiness.
” Jeff looked at the sink when they were gone. “I can do that.”  He was right earlier. This day was turning out great.

The more they told her it couldn’t be done because nobody wanted to do it, the more determined Lisa became
to make this work. One way or the other if she had to drag these people up to that podium, she was going to make this happen. Hayes wouldn’t be thrilled that Fletcher said yes, of that much she was sure, but what she couldn’t quite decide was if he would have the guts to stick to his word anyway. Guys and promises. He was a guy, so it didn’t look good going in.

With a shove she pushed through the station’s front door at four o'clock, but this time there weren’t people swarming across the tops of the trucks. In fact, nobody seemed to be anywhere. She shook her head and peered around the station. “Hello? Anybody here? Hello?” The braid at her back swung around her shoulder as she turned to glance outside. Still no one.  The trucks were here, so they couldn't all be gone. “Hello? Anybody here?”

“Sorry. Everybody’s out…” The moment froze between them as suddenly the man she had seen only in her dreams for more than two weeks was somehow, beyond comprehension, standing right in front of her. “…back. Lisa?”

Her sanity ran smack into the expanse of muscles protruding from his black T-shirt. “Jeff? Um. What…?” She laughed. “Wow. This is a surprise.”

He looked like he wanted to smile for one short moment, then he looked down at the plastic, kitchen-cleaning gloves on his hands. Not too subtly he pulled them off. “Yeah, it is.” The gloves were off now, and he looked around for somewhere to put them. Finally he laid them on a table behind the wall. “Umm, are you here to see the captain again?”

“Again?” she asked in surprise.

“I… Oh. Um.” He scratched the top of his nose. “Well, the guys said there was a… that a lady came to see him... the other day… We don’t get many ladies coming in around here unless they’re carrying cotton hoses. I just thought…”

She smiled at his nervousness. “Actually I’m supposed to have an appointment with him in five minutes.”

“Oh, well. He was out back with the guys the last I saw him,” Jeff said, but even after his words stopped, nobody moved. Her eyebrows went up when she sensed that she might have to figure out where out back was herself. Then the realization lit in his eyes. “Oh, uh. I can show you… if you want.”

“That would probably help.”

“It’s this way.” He pointed back in the direction he had come. Wishing they weren’t in the middle of a fire station, she nodded and half-following, half-leading, she walked down that hallway to another. At the end of the second hallway, he slipped in front of her and popped the door open as sounds of an in-progress basketball game met her ears. Together they walked to the fence, and she noticed how he kept himself and his gaze well away from her. “Umm, Captain! There’s someone here to see you!”

In that instant the game stopped, and eight sets of eyes turned to them.

“We had an appointment?” Lisa pointed to her watch, and in annoyance, Captain Hayes walked off the court and grabbed a towel off the bench.

“We didn’t cancel that?” he asked gruffly.

“Uh, no, Sir, we didn’t.” The heel of her shoe shifted under her weight. Standing there, the gazes of three-quarters of a dozen guys trained on her, she felt like that fish in the market window again. Even that would’ve been all right except that her senses kept telling her just how close Jeff’s arm was to hers, and that alone was enough to send her sanity scattering.

“Oh, well, I thought we had.” Hayes ran the towel over his face. “Well, let’s get this over with I guess. You’re going to have to play without me, boys.”

The three of them barely made it back to the door before the game resumed. At the door Jeff opened it, and pushing the strand of hair behind her ear, Lisa entered in front of him. The darkness engulfed her after the brightness of the sunshine, and she willed herself not to trip on some unseen obstacle on her way through the back of the station.

“Umm, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to duck in here and get cleaned up a little,” Hayes said, stopping at a door.

“Oh, no problem,” she said amiably. “I’ll just be down here… waiting.”

He nodded and disappeared through the door.
And just like that, they were alone again. Hesitating with each small movement, she turned and headed back for the front. “So, I guess this means you got that job then?”

Jeff held his hands out palms up. “Yep, this is it.”

“Nice.” When they reached the break room door, he stopped, and she stopped too. “So, why weren’t you out…?”

“New guy on board,” he said with a tight smile. “I get to clean, they get to play.”

“Ah, low man on the totem pole.”

“Basically.” Neither gaze could hold the other for more than
a few seconds at a time, and his finally fell to the floor between them. “I didn’t know we were exactly into advertising the stations. Is business that bad?”

She laughed. “No, not really. I’m just trying to rope Hayes into speaking at the youth thing, but I don’t think he’s too thrilled about it.”

“Yeah, I could kind of tell.”

“Was it that obvious?” She leaned closer to him although her arms were safely crossed at her chest. “I think he hates me.”

His soft blue eyes caught hers. “Why would he hate you?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Because I didn’t just go away.”

A breath made it past his throat just as a door snapped down the hallway, and instantly they both looked toward it and backed away from each other. Through the darkened hallway, Hayes emerged.

“I’m ready,” he said, and with only one backward glance at Jeff, she left him standing there by the break room, wishing she never had to walk away.

The scum around the sink was gone long before the guys came back in, and it was immediately obvious that her appearance had given them ample fodder for conversation.

“I’m not saying I’m going after her,” Hunter said, sliding into one of the break room chairs. “I’m just saying at this moment, I wouldn’t mind being in the chief’s chair.”

“Did you catch a ring on that finger?” Dante asked. “Because I could handle having some of that honey in my hive—if you know what I mean.”

In disgust Jeff threw the rag he was finishing up with on to the sink. Bodies. It was all the guys thought of.

“Where’re you going?” Hunter asked as Jeff hit the door with one hand.

“I was going out to check the truck. I noticed one of the tires is low.” He didn’t wait for the shrug Hunter gave him before he pushed out of the room. Quickly he took a look at his watch. Twenty more minutes and he would be sprung from active duty to stand-down.

At the tire he bent and put the tester on it. He was right, it was a little low—not enough to even really notice, but at least he didn’t have to hang out in the break room and hear the crude remarks. That had never been his style. In fact, unfortunately he really didn’t have any style when it came to women, but if he had, it certainly wouldn’t have been that.

Quickly he unwound the air hose, dragged it over to the tire, and attached it.
Just work and forget about all of that
. But for all the coaching, his own thoughts kept going up those stairs and into that chair just across from her.

“Fletch said, ‘Yes’?” the captain asked in utter disbelief.

“Yes, he did.” Lisa kept her tone level and professional. “So, I just wanted to confirm your position on the schedule as well.”

“When is this thing again?”

“Mid-October. We haven’t really set a firm date yet, we’re trying to get all the available voices in first.”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to commit to something like that. It’s a long time until October.”

“Look, Sir, I appreciate that, but in order to have a list to present to the schools, I have to get some solid yeses to go on. Now when I was here last week, I was under the impression that I had your word that if Mr. Fletcher agreed, you would too. Was I mistaken in that impression?”

The wrinkles on the face deepened into a scowl. “And what kind of presentation do I have to do?”

“Some outline to explain the duties of the fire department and the leadership roles available.”

“And I have to do it myself?”

Slowly Lisa shrugged as her mind tripped down the stairs. “I guess you could send someone in your place if you absolutely had to, but I really think it would be more effective if you did it. But we can work that out later. Right now I need to know if I can put the Fire Department down with your name as a participant.” To bring more pressure, she put the tip of the pen in hand to the notebook. “Will you stand by the police department in helping the kids of our community?”