Love Hime or Leave Him

by Sara Daniel

  “I’ve been putting together a strength training program for Agatha,” Becca said. “You might benefit from something similar.”

  Connor thought she would benefit more from having someone else unpack her boxes for her. He opened his mouth to offer to help when the library door jingled.

  Jake’s large frame filled the entry. “Party in the library,” he joked. “Why didn’t anyone invite me?”

  “Because you’d eat all the food before the rest of us got any,” Nick muttered.

  Toby and Otto snickered.

  “We wanted to surprise you. Surprise!” Becca said, covering for the boys’ rudeness. She smiled as brightly as if the gathering had truly turned into a surprise party.

  Jake didn’t smile back as he shuffled to Mrs. Parker. “I’m wondering if the library keeps old equipment manuals. I picked up a rowing machine someone threw out, but it’s in pieces and I don’t know where to start putting it together. I looked online, but the brand isn’t made anymore.”

  Becca bit her lip. “I might have a couple good online resources. Even though they reference different brands, the way the machine works will still be similar.”

  Now Jake looked at her as adoringly as if she’d agreed to take him to prom.

  Connor had a sudden urge to smack him. Becca was off-limits. To everyone.

  Especially himself. Who’d dumped her before prom. Hell. The things he’d seen and done since high school hadn’t changed him into someone not good enough for her. He’d been a low-down scum before then, no better than the guy who’d started the rumors about her.

  “Where are you storing this, uh, piece of junk with potential?” Becca asked.

  “In the old bowling alley, at the moment.”

  “You bought the place, didn’t you?” Connor asked.

  Jake winced. “Yeah, I planned to renovate it, and with the convenience store next door, I thought the businesses would feed off each other. Then the economy tanked, so basically, I’m stuck with dead weight.” He grabbed his ample stomach in both hands. “Dead weight—story of my life.”

  The boys in the corner snickered loudly, and Jake’s face flushed.

  “Weight can be easily changed,” Becca said with a shrug.

  “Not so easily I would argue,” Jake shot back, his gaze straying to the boys at the computers. “Um, Becca, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  She looked instantly concerned. “Has Toby been loitering in the convenience store again?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. I just wanted—” His face reddened even more.

  Connor glowered. He had no claim on her and never would again. But for the evening, they were together. The man should know better than try to pick up Becca in his presence.

  “—your help. If I get this rowing machine working, what the heck can I do with it to make a difference with my, ah, dead weight?” Jake whispered.

  Even though Connor hadn’t spoken his thoughts aloud, he still felt like an idiot. Exercise, not a date.

  “I would love to help.” Becca beamed at Jake. Her gaze shifted to the boys, and she placed her hand on his arm. “Why don’t we step outside?”

  Oh, wait a minute. Jake had almost managed to fool Connor. The number one way to snag Becca’s interest involved talking about exercise and workout routines. Jake was smarter than he let on.

  And Connor was more jealous than he had any right to be.

  “Officer O’Malley?” Toby stepped tentatively toward him.

  Connor pried his gaze from the front door, turning to the boy who was a few inches shorter than his own six foot height and sported a mix of acne, soft whisker, and childlike smooth skin on his cheeks. Connor certainly didn’t miss that awkward phase.

  “We’re, ah, supposed to ask our mentors out for coffee or sodas or something. Do you want to get a doughnut before school one day next week?”

  Connor opened his mouth, but the memory of Becca’s furious assault on his front door stopped any words from coming out.

  With his silence, Toby’s hopeful expression deflated. “I just thought doughnuts because, you know, you’re a cop, and cops and doughnuts…” His voice trailed off. “Forget it.”

  “No, I think that’s a great idea, Toby, and I’d love to. But your sister wasn’t too fond of the advice I gave you last time. I don’t want to get you in any trouble.” When Becca returned, she’d go after him with guns blazing, and he didn’t relish a public smackdown in front of the three people who most needed to see him in a position of authority.

  “You’re a policeman and this mentor thing is supposed to keep me out of trouble,” Toby said. “Please, you’re the only one who understands what I really want after graduation.”

  Connor couldn’t resist the desperate plea, especially when it aligned so closely with his duty to serve and protect. “All right. How about Tuesday morning at the convenience store? I don’t think either of us wants to be seen in the supermarket, and Jake makes better doughnuts.”

  Toby beamed.

  The front door jingled again, and Becca stepped back inside, Jake no longer with her. Her eyes narrowed on Connor and her brother.

  “As long as you clear it with Becca first,” Connor added, knowing he needed to cover his own butt. He wouldn’t give her a reason to march to his house while he wore only a towel again.

  “Like she cares what I do with my life,” Toby said with a snort.

  “Toby, I care. You know I do.” Becca reached for him, her face stricken, but he turned his back on her and started toward the rear of the library.

  Connor’s chest clenched in a visceral reaction to Becca’s pain. He grasped the boy’s shoulder and spun him around. “You can have a difference of opinion and still treat a person respectfully. You damn well better when said person is a woman. You damn well better even more when she’s your sister. Apologize.”

  Toby glared at him.

  “Connor, it’s okay,” Becca said softly. “Let it go.”

  “No, it’s not okay,” he gritted out, too furious to worry that directing Toby’s hostility at him could harm their mentoring relationship. Maybe he hadn’t done everything he could for Becca in the past, but he’d make up for it by standing up for her now.

  He tightened his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You want a mentor, Toby? I won’t do it for anyone who holds such disrespect for the person who’s done everything she can and sacrificed so much to take care of you. If you can’t bother to treat the people who love you with common courtesy, I can find better things to do with my time.”

  Toby blinked, his mouth a round O. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  “I don’t need your apology. Say it to her, and be damn sure you mean it.”

  He turned reluctantly. “I’m sorry, Becca. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  She smiled, tears shining in her eyes as she bit her lip. “I know you didn’t. I love you.” She stretched out her arms.

  “Can you not hug me when my friends are watching?” he muttered.

  “Oh, sorry.” She dropped her arms.

  Resisting the impulse to redirect her embrace to himself, Connor released Toby. “That’s better.”

  The teen immediately strode past his friends to the alcove at the rear of the building.

  “You were tough on him,” Becca said, wrapping her arms around her chest.

  He shrugged. “Good cop, bad cop. If I come off as bad, you’ll look good.” And thank goodness Toby had obeyed because he would have hated following through on his threat and giving up his mentoring role.

  The kid was special to him. Connor had a stake in his future and wanted to see him turn out well. By making a difference with Toby, he’d add a little good to the world, balancing out some of the evil and just maybe chasing some of the demons out of his dreams.

  “The library will close in fifteen minutes. I need to shut down the computers,” Mrs. Parker announced, rising from her seat behind the librarian’s desk. Nick and Otto immediately exi
ted their Internet searches, said hasty good-byes, and left, leaving their chairs askew.

  “I stocked up on frozen pizzas, enough for all your friends too, if you want to cook them tonight,” Becca called.

  “Not sure what we’re doing yet,” Toby said. He grabbed the gum wrappers the other boys had forgotten on the table and tossed them in the garbage. He started to jog to catch up to his friends. Then he paused and glanced back. “Thanks though, Becca.”

  The door slammed closed behind him before she could shout, “You’re welcome.”

  After Mrs. Parker shut everything down, turned out the lights, and locked up, Connor escorted her to her car. “This is high service I certainly don’t get every day,” she said in delight.

  “I’m not called Kortville’s finest for nothing.” He winked across the cars at Becca and then checked the elderly lady’s seat belt, sending her on her way. A moment later, buckled into the squad car next to Becca, he couldn’t help wishing she dazzled as easily as Mrs. Parker.

  “So were the boys really researching school projects like they claimed?” Becca asked.

  “I have no evidence to suggest otherwise,” Connor said. He’d cajole a few answers out of Toby on their breakfast date to be sure.

  The plan for dealing with Toby came naturally. If only he had a clue how to handle the woman sitting next to him.

  Chapter Four

  No evidence, except Toby wasn’t enrolled in a science class. But hey, helping one of his friends study pointed to a definite step in the right direction. He’d been in the library, on a Friday night no less. Maybe she’d stumbled on something in her botched attempt at parenting.

  No, she hadn’t done anything right if after all these years he didn’t believe she cared. Sure, he’d apologized for the outburst, but only because Connor forced him.

  “I imagine parenting a teen has got to be one of the least gratifying jobs in the world,” Connor said, as if he could read her mind. And at one point, they had been close enough to know each other’s thoughts. “I was certainly no picnic for my parents. I can’t imagine how much more trouble I would have given anyone else who’d been saddled with raising me. How do you do it?”

  She wasn’t doing it, not well, at least, though she could hardly admit so to the mentor whose advice she’d criticized. In fact, she couldn’t admit it to anyone. Once the rumor mill worked its way back to Toby, she’d lose more credibility in his eyes. “Neither of us was left much choice. As he’s gotten older, he sees less and less reason to follow my rules.”

  “Do you want to discuss specifics?” he asked as he started the squad car down the street. “Maybe I’ll have some ideas for you. At the very least, I remember being a teenage boy and the way their brains operate.”

  She blinked and stared out the window. “You’ve probably heard plenty of gossip about specifics. But really it’s just how much we’ve grown apart when we only have each other.”

  Connor’s hand surrounded hers on her thigh, and she squeezed back, needing the comfort. For too long she’d had no one to turn to. She couldn’t get used to turning to Connor, but for tonight she saw no harm in indulging and sharing a bit of her burden.

  “I don’t listen to the kind of gossip you’re talking about,” he said, “so I hope you’re not worrying about what other people say about Toby. The only talk I find useful is what concerns the day-to-day happenings in town. For example, I can tell you to the day when you started your morning exercise class.”

  “How?” She herself didn’t remember exactly when she’d started the class. One day she and Veronica had started talking. Becca had thrown out an open invitation, and the next morning Veronica had shown up at Becca’s house. Pretty soon, the others had gotten word, and she had an honest-to-goodness class. But she hadn’t expected Connor to be aware she led an exercise group at all.

  “At five a.m. every day, except Sunday, Zelda Amos calls me about the suspicious cars parked on the street.”

  Oh man, some of her first memories as a girl were of her father’s shouting arguments with their reclusive, crabby next-door neighbor. “I don’t do a class on Sunday morning.”

  “Exactly.”

  Under other circumstances, Becca would have laughed. But she still remembered Zelda’s scathing dressing down the time she’d trampled the woman’s tulip beds searching for a lost ball. After her mother wiped away her tears, she suggested Becca steer clear of the woman. To this day she still followed her mother’s advice, going so far as to avoid making eye contact in the checkout lane.

  She stared down at their joined hands and absently rubbed her thumb over the back of his. “Zelda’s always hated my family.”

  “She doesn’t hate you.” Connor gave her hand another reassuring squeeze. “If she had a personal grudge, she’d complain about the noise from your workout music too.”

  Becca tried to keep the noise low enough to elude detection outside…and in Toby’s room. “So she’s been complaining for nearly a year? Why haven’t I heard about it before?”

  “Because you’re not breaking any laws and neither are the ladies who park their cars along the street. After the first three days, I figured out Zelda was lonely and wanted someone to talk to. And, hey, I don’t mind a personal wakeup call every morning.”

  Becca pulled her hand free, both ashamed of her own blindness to her fellow neighbor and filled with an unwelcome squishy sensation toward Connor. He’d taken it upon himself to make a lonely old lady feel special and hadn’t said a word. “What are you trying to win? Catch of the year?”

  “Are you fishing?” he tossed back, his fingers flexing on her thigh.

  “Strictly catch-and-release.” She lifted his hand and moved it back to his side of the car.

  He shot her a grin. “Still not letting me get away with more than I’m allowed, huh?”

  “As long as you keep trying…” She did her best to match his teasing tone and not let herself get swept away by the tide of longing this man unleashed in her.

  “Believe me, you’ll know when I’m really trying. Anyway, I save my best moves for the eighty-and-over set.”

  She found the image of him as an elderly-ladies’ man amusing. “What are your requirements in a woman? Blue hair? False teeth?”

  He narrowed his eyes as they drove by the library again. To her untrained gaze, she saw only a dark building with no vehicles parked suspiciously close. Apparently seeing nothing unusual either, he continued cruising. A block away they drove by Simon powerwalking down the sidewalk.

  “Your manager should invest in some reflective clothing if he gets the urge for a stroll after dark,” Connor murmured. “And to answer your question, I have a big soft spot for the metal walkers with the tennis balls under each brace, but I’ve been known to help a woman with a cane across the street too.”

  She shook her head with silent laughter. “You haven’t found a woman your age who finds this attentiveness so attractive she snatches you up?”

  “Women my age spend years avoiding me.” He shot her a meaningful look, quickly sobering her. Then he returned his gaze to the road, making his way to the edge of town and turning in to the convenience store parking lot. The “Be back in fifteen minutes” sign taped to the door indicated Jake had taken his evening break to play with Fetch.

  The adjacent lot housed the former bowling alley, which apparently now held pieces of a broken rowing machine. An unfamiliar car idled in front of the building.

  Connor approached the vehicle and motioned for Becca to get out of the cruiser with him. Inside, the male driver wrestled with a map while the female passenger cursed a malfunctioning and apparently worthless piece of snot of a GPS.

  “Can I help you folks?” Connor asked, shining his flashlight in the window.

  “Vince, you ask for directions, right now, or so help me,” the woman said, looking moments away from chucking the GPS at his head.

  The man sighed, as if the order completely emasculated him. “She made reservations at some a
pparently invisible bed and breakfast.”

  “It’s not invisible.” The woman shoved a brochure across the car at Connor.

  “Since we couldn’t find it, the GPS listed a bowling alley as a nearby attraction, so we thought we’d get a snack and bowl a couple games.”

  “Well, folks,” Connor said genially. “It appears your GPS is a bit out of date, since you’re about five years too late to bowl here. As for the bed and breakfast, it does exist. You just have a bit of a drive.” He handed the brochure back. “The third exit driving south down the interstate.”

  “I told you, you missed the turn,” the woman said.

  Vince groaned. “I haven’t eaten since noon, and all I want is a good meal and to stretch my legs.”

  “If you like, Pauline’s Diner is a couple blocks away with fried chicken and dumplings for the nightly special,” Connor said.

  “Or Jake has nachos and pizza slices next door,” Becca added, noting the sign had flipped back to open.

  While Connor gave the couple directions to the diner, the interstate, and the not-so-invisible bed and breakfast, Becca cupped her hands around the big glass window in the front of the bowling alley, trying to peer in at the warped lanes and manual scoring monitors.

  The couple thanked Connor and drove toward the diner.

  “You ought to have given them directions to the nearest divorce lawyer too,” Becca said, returning to his car.

  “They’ll be okay once they get something to eat. There’s nothing like a road trip gone bad to bring out the worst in perfectly happy couples,” he said with a laugh. “Hey, as long as we’re here, you want to grab a sandwich from the convenience store?”

  “Sure, if you’ll share your road-trip-gone-bad story.”

  “No story, just police experience. I already sit in my car all day, and I’m quite content to stay in Kortville while I do it.”

  Antsy to get out and explore the world, she tried to understand why he didn’t dream of more. “Don’t you want to see the view beyond the city limits, to visit places of historical and cultural significance, to see more than the war-torn broken landscapes the army sent you to?”