Once a Hero

by Lisa Childs

  “Really?” Erin asked, as ever, doubting that he spoke the truth.

  “Really,” he vowed. “I wasn’t just little, though. I was puny. And I had asthma—”

  “I have asthma!” Jason exclaimed.

  “Yeah, that’s not fun,” Kent sympathized, “especially when I lived on the farm.”

  “You lived on a farm?” the little boy asked, nearly as fascinated by that as most kids were over Kent’s being a police officer.

  He nodded. “Up north. It was a cherry farm. Still is, I guess.”

  “You haven’t been up there in a while?” Erin asked.

  He shook his head. “Nah…”

  He hadn’t talked to his family since he’d decided to join the police academy instead of coming home to the farm after college graduation.

  “Do you still have asthma?” Jason asked.

  “I outgrew it.”

  “Will I outgrow it?” he asked hopefully.

  “Maybe—if you eat all your food and get big and strong,” Erin advised him.

  “Like Sarge,” Jason said around a mouthful of nugget as he gobbled down the ones he’d had left. Then he shoved in his last few spoonfuls of macaroni and cheese.

  “Go wash up,” Erin told him when he finished.

  The little boy vaulted out of his chair and ran off down the hall, leaving his aunt and Kent alone at that intimately small table. But with as much speed as her nephew, Erin jumped up from her seat and gathered up the plates.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he said as he followed her into the narrow kitchen, where she piled the dishes in the sink.

  “Nuggets and mac and cheese.” She turned toward him with a smirk. “Aren’t you glad you invited yourself over?”

  “Jason invited me,” he reminded her. “He’s a great kid, Erin.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “That was an interesting question he asked me during the assembly.”

  She turned back to the sink and reached for the faucet. “It was?”

  Kent leaned closer so she would hear him over the noise of the running water. “Usually the only kids who ask me that question know someone who’s in jail.” Was it one or both of Jason’s parents? Was that why he lived with his aunt?

  Kent intended to ask her, but the delicate curve of her jaw and throat distracted him. She was so damn beautiful. He reached out and pushed a strand of silky, chocolate-brown hair behind her ear, as he had watched her do a million times in the past year.

  “Don’t touch me,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

  “Do you hate me that much,” he asked, “that my touch repulses you?”

  “I wish it did,” she said. “God, I wish it did….”

  She turned and ended up stepping into the arms he’d braced on the counter on either side of her. She lifted her palms as if she intended to push him away, but like the other night, her hands lingered. The warmth of her skin penetrated the thin cotton T-shirt he’d changed into when he’d gone back to the department.

  “Your touch doesn’t repulse me, either,” he admitted.

  “It should.” She sighed. “It should….”

  “Because of the things you write about me, twisting my words to make it look like I’m an idiot who doesn’t deserve my job?” he said. “Yeah, it should.”

  He reached up and cupped her face. “But when I get close to you, all I want to do is this…” He brushed his mouth across hers.

  She clutched at his shirt as she kissed him back, slanting her mouth under his, opening her lips so that he could deepen the kiss. She might not have offered much for dinner, but dessert was more than he could have hoped for.

  The control that had kept him from kissing her in the parking lot was gone. He lifted her onto the edge of the sink and rocked her hips against where he ached for her. She moaned low in her throat and wrapped her long legs around his waist, arching into him.

  Her breasts pushed against his chest. He wanted to touch them, and slid his hands under her shirt and over the thin lace of her bra. Her nipples hardened and pressed against his palms. She murmured again, her tongue slipping between his lips, tangling with his.

  The sound of little feet pounding against the hardwood floor brought Kent quickly to his senses. He pulled back even as Erin clung to him, kissing him with all the passion he’d always suspected her capable of.

  “Erin…”

  She blinked and stared up at him as if she’d forgotten who they both were. Then her eyes widened in shock and she scrambled off the edge of the sink. Water spilled from the still-running faucet, onto the floor. “Oh…”

  Kent reached around her to shut off the faucet, and couldn’t help but whistle over the way the wet denim clung to the curves of her butt.

  Jason joined them in the small kitchen, pushing between them to grasp Kent’s hand. “Aunt E.,” he said, taking in her wet jeans and the puddle on the floor. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Did you have an accident?”

  With her gaze locked on Kent, she nodded miserably. “Yes. Yes, I had an accident.”

  “She left the sink running,” Kent explained as she grabbed paper towels and soaked up the mess. “Let’s help your aunt clean up.”

  “I’ve got it under control,” she assured him.

  Now. But a little while ago he was sure she’d been ready to make love with him. If only Jason hadn’t come running…

  Kent expelled a ragged breath. He should be relieved that the kid had interrupted them. He couldn’t get in any deeper with Erin. She couldn’t be trusted.

  “I wanna show you my room,” the boy said, tugging on Kent’s hand.

  Clearing his throat, and pushing away the desire that had nearly strangled him, he reminded the child, “I’ve seen your room before.”

  “But you haven’t seen my toys,” Jason pointed out. “Come play with me.”

  Erin shook her head. “Not tonight, Jason. You have homework.”

  “Oh, Aunt E., all I have to do is read to you,” the boy said. “I can read to Sarge instead.”

  She shook her head again, her delicate jaw clenched. “No, Sergeant Terlecki has to leave now.”

  “He can’t play with me?” Jason asked, his voice rising almost in a whine.

  “No, he can’t.” She turned to Kent, and her eyes finished what she left unsaid. He can’t play with me, either.

  Kent nodded. She was right. Because playing with her was playing with fire—and she had already burned him too many times.

  HER MOUTH DRY WITH NERVES, Erin settled onto the plastic seat, facing the tempered glass where she could see her brother when they brought him in from his cell. She always worried about what condition she would find him in—hurt from a fight, worn-out from lack of sleep or emaciated because he hadn’t been eating.

  She hated that he was in here, and she used to hate the man who had put him behind bars. Unfortunately, she couldn’t quite bring herself to hate Kent anymore, no matter how much she still wanted to.

  She sat up as a guard led Mitchell into the room on the other side of the glass. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and he barely managed a smile as he settled onto the chair across from her. Hand trembling, Erin reached for the phone, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. After kissing Kent, not once but twice, she couldn’t face her brother. Yet she’d been compelled to come see him, to talk to him.

  “Erin, what’s going on?” Mitchell’s voice emanated from the receiver she’d pressed to her ear. “Is Jason okay?”

  “Yes,” she assured him. “He’s fine.” Ecstatic actually, since Kent had admitted to being small for his age and asthmatic himself as a child.

  A sigh of relief rattled the phone. “You scared me for a minute.”

  “I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes at the threat of tears burning behind her lids.

  “Sheesh, Erin, what’s going on?” he asked. “You’re acting like Mom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t even look at me.”

  She forced herself to m
eet his gaze through the glass. “Everything’s fine.”

  Another sigh rattled in her ear. “Good. I don’t know what I’d do without you, kid. You’re the only one who believes in me. Your articles have kept me going in here.” He chuckled. “And I love your column. Powell on Patrol. Your latest one might be my favorite.”

  Instead of feeling pride at her older brother’s praise, she thought of Kent and what would certainly be his disapproval. And maybe hurt. But she’d written it before the other night, before he’d charmed her nephew—and her—at their apartment. If not for Jason’s presence, Kent probably would have charmed her right into bed.

  “Jason’s doing well,” she stated.

  “Good,” her brother said again. “So tell me what’s going on with my son.”

  “How about I bring him to see you and he tells you what’s been going on in his life?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “I don’t want him here, Erin. You know that.”

  “But he hasn’t seen you in so long.” She should have ignored her brother’s wishes and brought Jason anyway.

  “That’s good. The less he sees of me, the less he’ll think about me and the less he’ll miss me. I’m going to be in here a few more years…” His throat moved as he swallowed hard.

  “That’s why Jason should come see you.”

  “No.” His voice vibrated in the phone with vehemence.

  “But he needs a man in his life.”

  “So get him a man, sis.” Mitchell grinned.

  “He needs his father.”

  Mitchell gestured around the prisoner’s side of the visiting room. “I’m no kind of father, Erin. I know you—you’ll find yourself a nice guy, a guy who’d be better for Jason than I ever was.”

  Why was Kent the man that came to her mind?

  “You make it sound like you’re giving him up,” she said.

  Mitchell pushed a hand through his dark hair. “Tammy already signed off her parental rights.” His girlfriend had met someone else, who hadn’t wanted to raise a prisoner’s son, so she’d given Jason to Erin.

  “You can’t,” she said. The boy couldn’t lose his father as he had his mother.

  Mitchell shrugged. “I should. I’m no good for him. You need to meet a nice guy, Erin. A guy who’ll take care of both of you.”

  “I don’t need someone to take care of me,” she insisted. “And I didn’t come here to discuss my love life.”

  “So you do have one?” he asked with a grin. Despite the glass wall separating them, he was still the big brother teasing his kid sister.

  “When would I have time?” she retorted, borrowing Kent’s method of answering questions with more questions. “With work and Jason.”

  “I’m sorry, kid. I’ve asked too much of you, to take care of my son.” He sighed. “If only Randall wasn’t such a hard-ass…”

  Mitchell had never called her dad, his stepfather, by anything but his first name, even though Mitch had been young when their mom had married Randall Powell.

  “I want Jason to live with me,” Erin insisted. “I love him so much, Mitchell.” As much as she loved her brother.

  “So if you didn’t come here to discuss your love life, why did you come visit?”

  She had yet to ask Kent the free question he’d offered her, because she wasn’t sure he’d tell her the truth. She’d come here because she needed Mitchell to reassure her, but she hesitated for the same reason she hesitated asking Kent.

  “I—I just wanted to see you,” she said.

  He grinned again. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Erin. Probably lose my mind. I’m glad you came by.”

  Now she couldn’t ask—because to do so implied that she was beginning to doubt him. Which she was because of Kent. Because she wanted to be able to justify her attraction to him.

  But there was no justification. Her brother wouldn’t lie to her, so Kent had to be.

  ANGER PULSED through Kent’s veins and pounded at his temples. He’d thought Erin was beginning to change her mind about him and hate him a little less.

  He’d been wrong. He clenched the paper in his fist and stabbed at her doorbell with his other hand. “Erin! I know you’re working from home.” He had already gone by the Chronicle looking for her. “Answer the damn door!”

  He wasn’t worried about his shouting scaring Jason—the boy was at school. He would have Erin all to himself, with no interruptions, to tell her what he really thought of her.

  The door opened just a few inches, a chain holding it ajar. Dark eyes peered through the crack. “Who are you?”

  Like Jason, this person was obviously a relative of Erin’s, with the same brown hair, eyes and delicate features.

  “I’m Sergeant—”

  “Kent Terlecki,” the woman finished for him. Then the door closed.

  Frustration gnawed at Kent. He fisted his hand to keep from reaching for the doorbell again. And he barely resisted the urge to knock. Obviously Erin wasn’t going to even come to the door.

  Uttering a ragged sigh, he turned to leave, but then the door opened fully. And the woman who looked so much like Erin, only older, stepped back.

  “Come inside, Sergeant,” she invited. “Just, please, keep your voice down so you don’t wake Jason.”

  He winced with regret, aware that his yelling upset the little boy. “He’s not at school?”

  “He’s sick.”

  “So Erin is here,” he said. He’d witnessed “Aunt E.’s” protectiveness and couldn’t imagine that she would leave the child when he was ill.

  “No, she’s not, but she doesn’t know he’s sick. The school couldn’t get ahold of her, so they called me. I’m Kathryn Powell. Erin’s mother.”

  He acknowledged the introduction with a brief nod before concern drew him toward the hall leading to the boy’s room. “Did he have an asthma attack?” he asked. He glanced back at the woman for an answer and found her staring at him in shock.

  “You know about his asthma?”

  “Yes.” But there was so much else he didn’t know. Should he ask this woman why Erin hated him? First, there was something else he needed to know, though. “Is Jason all right?”

  She nodded again. “Yes, he did have an asthma attack. The substitute teacher was wearing a lot of perfume.”

  Kent grimaced in sympathy, as some colognes and perfumes affected his breathing, too. He slipped down the hall and stood in the doorway to the boy’s room. Jason was curled into a protective ball beneath his bright-patterned fleece blanket.

  “Poor kid,” he murmured, resisting the urge to push the sweat-damp brown hair back from the boy’s forehead. But he didn’t want to disturb him. Reluctantly, he left the child sleeping and returned to where the boy’s grandmother stood in the living room. “Is he feeling better?”

  “His breathing is back to normal,” she assured him, “but he’s exhausted. Erin says these attacks always wear him out.”

  Remembering his own battles, Kent sighed in commiseration. “Yes…”

  “You didn’t come by to ask about Jason, though,” she surmised, glancing down at the copy of the Chronicle he clenched in his hand.

  His fingers tightened around the paper. “Do you know where Erin is?” he asked.

  She sighed in turn. “There’s only one place she goes where she can’t have her phone with her.”

  His instincts from years of interviewing witnesses and suspects kicked in, and he sensed she wanted to tell him. So he waited instead of pushing.

  “She went to the prison,” Kathryn Powell revealed, “to see her brother.”

  “Jason’s father?”

  She nodded.

  “His last name isn’t Powell.” He’d checked, after Jason’s question at the assembly.

  “Mitchell’s from my first marriage,” she said, staring over Kent’s shoulder instead of meeting his gaze, as if she was embarrassed. “His last name is Sullivan.”

  “Mitchell Sullivan…”

  “You probab
ly don’t remember him,” she said, “but you arrested him four years ago.”

  Chapter Nine

  Erin’s temples throbbed. She could have blamed the ache on the siren that had been going off all evening, the sick-sounding wail echoing off the cement walls of the parking structure. But she knew what had brought on her headache—Kent wasn’t at class.

  “Your turn, Ms. Powell,” Lieutenant Michalski said, holding open the driver’s door of the idling patrol car. “You’re going to be pulling over Ms. Standish.”

  The mayor’s daughter headed toward the unmarked car, a plain black sedan, parked in front of the patrol car. Her high heels clicked against the cement, and the mammoth handbag she carried swung at her side, nearly knocking the petite woman off balance.

  Shivering in the gust of wind whipping through the parking garage, Erin ducked into the car. Grateful for the heat blowing out of the vents, she ignored the shotgun mounted barrel up between the seats, and the open laptop, the screen facing her.

  Lieutenant Michalski slid into the passenger’s seat and directed her attention to the control panel, which operated the lights and sirens. Wincing, she pushed the buttons and proceeded to “pull over” the “speeding” vehicle in front of her.

  They’d hardly driven more than a few feet along the parking level. Each member of the CPA had had a turn tonight, playing either the police officer or the speeder so they’d have a little experience and comprehension of procedure before their ride-alongs. The rest of the class huddled together in the parking garage, trying to fight the cold night air. Fortunately, the first part of this evening’s session had taken place in the warm conference room.

  “You’re really lucky, Ms. Powell,” the lieutenant commented.

  “Lucky that I haven’t been tossed out of the program?” she asked. Her reception tonight had been chillier than usual, and it had nothing to do with the weather.

  His mouth lifted in a slight grin. “Well, that, too. But I was referring to Ms. Standish. You’re the only person who could pull her over without getting reamed out.”

  “You’re saying the chief would yell at you if you gave her a speeding ticket?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Not the chief. Her father would be the one yelling.”