Once a Hero

by Lisa Childs

  “Liar.”

  He uttered a ragged sigh. “It only bothers me when I’m tense.” Which explained why the old injury had been bugging him pretty much ever since Erin Powell had moved to Lakewood and joined the Chronicle staff.

  “I saw her new column, Powell on Patrol,” Paddy said, as if having read his mind. His uncanny intuition was probably what had earned him his promotion to watch commander. “You’ve got a reason to be tense. She’s really out to get you.”

  “I’m not worried about me.” For some reason Kent was worried about her and why she was raising her nephew all alone. What had happened to the boy’s parents? And had that made Erin the angry woman she was with him?

  “No, you’re worried about the department,” the watch commander surmised. “You’re trying to protect it the same way you protected the chief.”

  Guilt burned through Kent like the alcohol had. “I’m not doing a very good job.”

  Paddy swiped a cottage fry through the puddle of ketchup on his plate. “Billy told me about your plan.”

  “My plan?” Kent scoffed. “I think it was actually his idea.” The younger officer had had to remind Kent that he was still a cop.

  “Doesn’t matter whose idea as long as you do it,” Paddy said. “What have you found out so far about the prickly Erin Powell?”

  That she wasn’t always prickly.

  “Not much,” he admitted. “I don’t have her date of birth or social security number.” If only he’d been able to hack into the Chronicle’s employment records, but he upheld the law instead of breaking it. “So I’m having to dig through a lot of Erin Powells to find mine.”

  “Yours?” Paddy raised a brow.

  “You all call her that,” he replied defensively. “My reporter.”

  “We all call her that,” Paddy agreed. “But you never have.”

  Until he’d kissed her tonight.

  He shrugged, as if his slip of the tongue meant nothing. “Must have been the tequila talking.”

  “As long as you weren’t talking to her,” Paddy muttered, “you’re all right.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked uneasily. Since the watch commander seemed to see everything and know everything, did he know where Kent had been?

  “Well, she twists everything you say into something bad,” Paddy pointed out matter-of-factly.

  “That she does.” How would she twist what he’d done? Would she print details about that kiss? What would his fellow officers say about his fraternizing with the enemy? They wouldn’t consider him much of a hero anymore. “So it’d be best for the department—” and himself “—if I stayed away from her.”

  “Isn’t that going to be kind of hard?”

  Harder now that he had kissed her. Even if she’d only been messing with his head, she had rattled him. More than he cared to admit.

  “You’re the public information officer,” Paddy pointed out. “It’s your job to deal with the media.”

  Deal with, not kiss.

  “Sure,” he said, “but I don’t need to work with her on anything but press releases and interviews. I’m going to limit my involvement with the CPA.”

  “But I need you.”

  “I’ll still handle the publicity for the program,” Kent promised. “The CPA is a great way to promote community involvement.”

  Its purpose wasn’t, as Erin had claimed, to improve the image of the department. It was to improve the relationship between the department and the community. Paddy had proved, over the past few years, that the effort worked. Kent couldn’t let Erin Powell destroy that.

  “Not everyone’s thrilled about the program,” Paddy reminded him.

  Kent sighed. “You’re talking about Lakewood’s esteemed mayor, Joel Standish.”

  “He’d like to cut it from the budget.”

  “Among other things,” Kent reminded his friend, hoping Paddy wasn’t taking the mayor’s budget-cutting personally. The blowhard politician was going after the whole department.

  “That’s probably why his daughter joined the academy—to get ammo for her dad to bring to the city council.” Paddy smashed a fry into his plate. “That’s why I need you, Kent. I need your help to keep the CPA going.”

  Kent nodded. “Of course I’ll help.”

  The department and his fellow officers deserved his loyalty. Erin Powell, with her slanderous articles and snarky new column, deserved nothing but his disdain.

  To be attracted to her and to give in to that attraction was a betrayal of everything that mattered most to Kent.

  Chapter Five

  Erin couldn’t remember the last time she’d witnessed a woman cooing. Her mother hadn’t cooed over Jason when he was a newborn. Maybe a cheerleader in high school had cooed over the quarterback.

  That was who the television reporter from Channel 7 reminded Erin of as she fawned over Kent. Erin’s face heated with embarrassment for the foolish woman.

  “Kent, I’m so sorry I missed the first class,” Monica Fox said as she pawed at the sergeant’s arm, stroking her red-taloned fingers up and down the sleeve of his black uniform shirt.

  Erin barely suppressed a shudder. Maybe she would have to stop showing up early for class. If she’d been late, she might have missed this spectacle in the third-floor conference room of the police department. Kent grinned down at the red-haired woman, his already overinflated ego soaking up all her adoration.

  “I know,” murmured the college girl as she leaned across the empty chair between her and Erin. “She couldn’t be more obvious, could she?”

  Amy should know. Erin suspected the only reason the girl had joined the Citizen’s Police Academy was to hook up with a police officer.

  Erin couldn’t help but agree with the girl, though. “No, she couldn’t.” And neither could he.

  “The important thing is that you’re here now,” Kent told Monica, flashing the wide grin that Erin had only ever seen on TV.

  There was no denying that the camera loved his golden hair, tanned skin and muscular build, but some reporters loved him, too. Was that how he got the good press—by flirting? Was that why he’d tried it with her?

  “If there hadn’t been that fire on campus…” Monica’s finger trailed up his arm to his biceps, tracing it through the material of his uniform “…I would have been here.”

  “The fire was the big story last week,” Kent agreed understandingly. “But I’m so glad you could come tonight.” He glanced over to Erin, sitting near the front of the room. “It’ll be nice to have some honest coverage of the Citizen’s Police Academy.”

  Monica followed his gaze. “Is she that reporter from the Chronicle?”

  “Yes, she is,” Erin stated wryly.

  Monica turned back to Kent, as if she couldn’t care less who Erin was. “I wish I could sign up for the class, too, but I have to be available for other news stories.”

  “I understand,” Kent assured her. “The class is filing in, so we should probably get started now so we don’t interrupt the lesson for tonight.”

  Monica giggled—actually giggled—then gestured for her camera crew to begin filming.

  Teeth clenched, Erin listened to the reporter’s pandering interview of the public information officer. Kent gave Monica the same canned spiel he’d given Erin about the CPA building community relations. Monica lapped it up as if every word out of Kent Terlecki’s mouth was as rich and irresistible as chocolate mousse.

  “I hate chocolate mousse,” Erin muttered. “It makes me sick….”

  “What?” Amy asked, leaning across the empty seat again. The woman who’d occupied it last week, Tessa Howard, appeared to be late again.

  “I just wondered when the class was going to get started,” Erin replied.

  “Great to see that everyone, or almost everyone, came back for this week’s session,” Lieutenant O’Donnell said, as he glanced toward that empty chair and then to the emergency vehicle operation expert, Lieutenant Michalski, who sat at the officers’ ta
ble.

  He was the reason Tessa Howard had had to join the class. From what Erin had heard, he had made her a deal: she could join the CPA, or get another speeding violation that would have caused the Secretary of State, Michigan’s version of the Department of Motor Vehicles, to suspend her license for having too many points on her driving record. Although Tessa might not agree with the choice, the lieutenant had offered her a way out of a bad situation. So the whole department wasn’t as ambitious and self-centered as Kent Terlecki….

  His chair sat empty as he followed the reporter and her camera crew into the hall. Erin turned toward the back of the room, to see Tessa rushing in, probably worried that Michalski would change his mind about her ticket if she kept coming to class late.

  Lieutenant O’Donnell continued to outline the class program: they would break up into small groups, each with an officer as a guide, to tour the department for the first half.

  Was Monica Fox getting a private tour?

  KENT SHOVED the reporter’s card into his pocket. On her way to the elevator, Monica Fox turned, smiled, then lifted her hand, thumb to her ear, pinkie to her mouth. “Call me,” she mouthed.

  Kent nodded. He would call her—for media coverage for the department. Nothing else. For the protection and the integrity of the Lakewood PD he could not get involved with any reporter.

  Especially not Ms. Powell.

  Erin met him in the doorway as he tried to reenter the conference room. “Are you all done flirting?” she asked.

  He didn’t bother denying it; he had flirted a bit—perversely, for her benefit. He’d wanted to make her jealous, which was ridiculous, since she would actually have to be interested in him to get jealous.

  “Why are you out here? Were you missing me?” he teased.

  She shook her head. “Not hardly. Lieutenant O’Donnell assigned me to your group for the tour.”

  “Great. Just great.” So much for telling Paddy how he needed to avoid her.

  “Don’t worry,” a raspy male voice murmured. “I’ve got your back, man.”

  Kent grinned and knocked his knuckles against the tattooed ones of Rafe Sanchez. Rafe bore the tats and the scars from his days in an East Side gang. But he had cleaned up his act back in his teens, and now, a successful businessman, he’d opened a youth center in his old neighborhood in Lakewood. “I’m glad you’re in my group, Rafe.”

  “You’re just glad I’m on your side.”

  From the glance the dark haired man shot at Erin, Kent figured out Rafe wasn’t talking about just being on the side of law and order now. He truly had Kent’s back.

  “You’re not doing justice to Sergeant Terlecki,” Rafe told Erin, “or the department in your articles. They’re not hiding anything from the public. Kent’s a good man. The kids down at the youth center like and respect him. And they don’t like and respect many people.”

  Erin smiled. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do—”

  “These teachers can vouch for how teenagers are,” Rafe continued as if she hadn’t spoken, including the two women who had just joined their group. Both nodded in agreement.

  Kent smiled at the women, who didn’t appear much older than the kids they taught at Lakewood Private Academy. “Let’s head toward the elevators, and I’ll show you around the department.”

  THE MAN WAS A FLIRT. He probably considered himself charming. Unfortunately, so had the teachers. They hadn’t cooed over him like the Channel 7 reporter, but they had been charmed.

  Erin snorted in derision. She hadn’t been charmed; she’d been ignored during the entire tour, from the parking garage in the basement to the 911 call center on the top floor. Kent hadn’t shown them what she’d wanted to see: the evidence lockers and the crime lab. He’d claimed that the public wasn’t allowed in those areas.

  During the second half of class, the instructors played traffic stop-and-arrest videos, and he still hadn’t answered her questions. She’d wanted to know if there were recordings of every incident. If she could find the tape of her brother’s arrest, maybe she could finally help him. Kent had answered with some pat response about not everything being a matter of public record. When she’d asked how she could find out what wasn’t public, he’d ignored her.

  Now, after class had been dismissed, she was being ignored again.

  The rest of the CPA participants walked in front of her toward the parking garage, which was a block down and one over from the police department. The weathered brick building sat on a cobblestone street in downtown Lakewood, centrally located near offices, restaurants, the museum and the theater.

  Several CPA members hurried toward the warmth of their vehicles as the wind, cool for September, whipped off the nearby lake. Despite the sweater she wore, Erin shivered and hastened her own pace. Her low heels clicked against the sidewalk, nearly masking the soft scrape of the shoes of the person coming up behind her.

  Startled, she whirled around, to see a tall, broad-shouldered shadow. Her pulse quickened more with anticipation than fear. Had Kent followed her?

  But then the man stepped into the glow of a streetlamp. He wasn’t quite as tall or broad as Kent, and his hair had only streaks of blond.

  “Reverend Thomas,” she murmured to the youth minister who was also a CPA member.

  “Call me Holden,” he said. “You shouldn’t be walking alone out here.”

  “I’m not alone.” She gestured ahead of them, toward the rest of the group, but they had already disappeared around the corner.

  “You’re all by yourself here,” he pointed out. “Despite the police department being close by, this neighborhood can still be dangerous at night. Some street people prey on the after-theater and bar crowd.”

  “Street people?” She peered into the shadows of the brick buildings, but didn’t notice anyone lurking.

  “I run a shelter for runaways,” he said. “I know that some of them come around here at night, begging and…” he sighed “…doing whatever else they need to to survive.”

  “I’ve heard about your shelter.” She had wanted to write a feature on it, but her boss had scoffed at her desire to go back to her “bleeding heart” stories. Herb had questioned her desire to be a real reporter, and would only allow her to cover the police beat, in addition to the column he’d given her.

  “You have?” the reverend asked, as if he doubted anyone had heard of his work.

  “You’re doing a great job,” she assured him, wishing she could say the same about herself. All she could focus on right now, though, was proving her brother’s innocence.

  “I’m trying.” He shook his head. “But it feels really hopeless sometimes.”

  She glanced at his face as he walked beside her. He probably wasn’t much older than her twenty-five years, but fine lines radiated from the corners of his blue-green eyes. “Working with teenagers can be really stressful. My dad’s a teacher,” she told him.

  “Here in Lakewood?” he asked.

  “At a private high school in Grand Rapids. He teaches theology.” Unfortunately, he didn’t always practice what he preached, such as forgiveness. “So I know that teenagers can be really difficult. A lot of people just give up on them.” As her dad and mom had given up on Mitchell when he’d gotten a little wild in his teens. They’d been embarrassed, worried about what the school and the church community would think of his antics. “It’s wonderful that those kids have a champion like you.”

  He sighed again. “Like I said, I’m trying, but I definitely understand the term tilting at windmills.”

  “You need more help.” And if Herb Stein would let her run an article on the shelter, she could probably get more help for Reverend Thomas.

  “That’s why I joined the academy,” he admitted.

  During the introduction in the first class, last week, all the participants had explained their reasons for joining the academy. Yet she had been too focused on Kent to pay much attention to her classmates.

  “Do you want to get some
of the other members to volunteer at the shelter?” she asked, her steps slowing as they entered the parking garage. Because she always arrived early, the structure was still filled with the vehicles of people who worked downtown, so she’d had to park on the higher levels.

  “That would be great,” Holden said as he followed her to the stairwell even though she suspected they’d just passed his vehicle. The midsized SUV was one of the few left in the garage. Unlike Terlecki, Reverend Thomas was a true gentleman, and good-looking with a lean build and beautiful blue-green eyes.

  So why did her pulse not quicken as he walked close beside her? Why did she feel no flicker of attraction?

  “I’d volunteer myself,” she said, “but my young nephew lives with me. Being so busy with work, I already feel as if I don’t spend enough time with him.”

  A muscle twitched in the reverend’s cheek, and he nodded. “I understand. My niece lives with me.”

  Erin sensed there was a story there, maybe one similar to hers, but she didn’t want to pry. She hated it when people asked too many questions about why Jason lived with her.

  “Who I’d really like to have help out with the shelter,” Holden said, “are members of the police department.”

  “They don’t?”

  “Their idea—or at least one officer’s idea—of help is to arrest my kids.” Frustration furrowed his brow and vibrated in his voice. “She—they—don’t understand how that destroys instead of builds trust.”

  “I understand.” Erin worried that Jason might never get over his own fear of police officers.

  She opened the door to the level on which she’d parked, and Holden Thomas followed her out. Her tan minivan was the only vehicle left, so she’d been right: he was the gentleman she’d thought him.

  The wind whipped over the concrete barriers, ruffling his hair and blowing hers across her face. “Thank you for walking with me,” she said.

  Holden nodded, then commented, “I read your column, Ms. Powell.”

  Was that why he’d caught up with her? Someone besides Herb Stein actually appreciated what she wrote?