Once a Hero

by Lisa Childs

  Mitchell sighed. “No, you’re right, but, man, you don’t know Erin—”

  “I know Erin.” After making love with her, he knew every inch of her body and her heart.

  “You know the Erin she is now,” her brother explained. “You know the Erin she became to defend me.”

  “The pit bull.”

  “You don’t know what she was like before,” he said wistfully. “The girl who was in the Peace Corps, who wanted to save the world.”

  “The one who takes care of your son, who loves him as fiercely and protectively as if she were his mother,” Kent finished. “Yeah, I know that Erin, too.”

  Mitchell Sullivan narrowed his eyes, as if struggling to see through the glass. “It sounds like you more than know her. You’ve fallen for my little sister.” He laughed again, but this time without humor. “Now that’s awkward.”

  “It’s impossible.” For so many reasons.

  Mitchell shrugged. “Maybe not. I think she actually has feelings for you, too.”

  Kent suspected as much, or she wouldn’t have made love with him in the first place. “It’d be better for her if she didn’t.”

  The other man shook his head. “Yeah, I’d rather she fell for someone who hadn’t put me behind bars.”

  Kent opened his mouth.

  Mitchell held up a hand. “I know. You were just doing your job. Unfortunately for me, you’re damn good at it.”

  “I don’t have that job anymore,” Kent said, and for once frustration and regret didn’t overwhelm him that he didn’t.

  “I heard,” Mitchell said. “You got promoted.”

  “I got shot,” Kent admitted. “Couldn’t be out in the field anymore.”

  Sullivan’s eyes widened in surprise. “That probably made a lot of criminals happy.”

  “Probably.”

  “But not you.”

  “No.” Kent shifted on the hard plastic chair and winced.

  “You’re still hurting,” the other man observed. “When’d you get shot?”

  “Three years ago.”

  “Sheesh.” Mitchell snorted. “You must have had a quack for a surgeon.”

  He’d find out soon enough; he’d made an appointment with a new specialist. “I don’t know. I just know your sister deserves someone whole—someone she won’t wind up taking care of.”

  “She deserves someone who loves her.” Mitchell sighed with resignation. “And I think you do.”

  “No, I don’t.” He couldn’t love her and risk becoming another burden for her. “But I didn’t come here to talk about Erin.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No.” He didn’t even want to think about her, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind. His body hadn’t stopped aching for wanting hers again.

  “Well, I don’t know what you and I have to talk about besides Erin,” Mitchell pointed out. “Especially since the last time we talked, I wound up in here.”

  “Let’s talk about getting you out.”

  Mitchell’s mouth dropped open in shock and disbelief. Then understanding crossed his face. “Wow. You really love her.”

  “This isn’t about Erin. This is about you finally giving me the information I wanted when I arrested you.”

  “The names.”

  Kent nodded. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t before. You could have gotten your sentence reduced.”

  “Jason.”

  “He’ll be safe,” Kent assured him.

  “And Erin. She won’t get hurt?”

  “Not by anyone you give me.”

  Mitchell shook his head. “I kicked myself a hundred times over the past four years, wishing I had told you, thinking it was too late.”

  “It might be,” Kent admitted. “But if the names lead to more arrests, I know a prosecutor who’ll go to the judge and the parole board on your behalf.”

  Actually Paddy knew the prosecutor best, but Kent wasn’t sure if asking the watch commander to go to Anita Zerfas would help or hurt Mitchell’s chances for early parole. Paddy and Anita had a complicated history, but Kent’s reason for persuading Mitchell to give up the names wasn’t to get him out, it was to make Mitchell the hero Erin had believed her big brother to be.

  “Erin told me what you told my son, about good people making mistakes.”

  “He’s a great kid.”

  “Because of Erin.” Sullivan’s throat moved as he swallowed hard. “Whenever I get out, I’m not taking him away from her. She’s his mother now. Jason belongs with her.”

  Kent nodded, and finally he saw why Erin had idolized her big brother. He was a better man than Kent had given him credit for being.

  “I’ll give you the names,” Mitchell said, “but it’s okay if I serve the rest of my sentence. A man needs to pay for his mistakes.” Obviously Mitchell, too, wanted to finally earn his sister’s respect.

  Kent nodded.

  “If you let Erin go,” Mitch added, “you’re going to pay for it.”

  “You’re threatening me?” he asked, amused by the protective-older-brother routine.

  “No, I’m warning you. If you build up walls to keep her out, you’re putting yourself in prison, man. And it’s a lonely place to be.”

  Kent silently agreed. Life without Erin would seem like prison, but her having to take care of him would be like giving her a life sentence she’d done nothing to deserve.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kent was speaking, but Erin couldn’t hear the words, with the sound of blood rushing through her head. Three weeks had passed since she’d seen him last, since he’d walked away from her.

  Of course, she had seen him on the news, being the face everyone saw at scenes of accidents and crimes, but she hadn’t been in the same room with him, close enough to touch him, the way she’d touched him that night.

  Until now.

  He sat on the edge of the officers’ table, his long legs stretched out before him. If Erin stretched, she might be able to touch her toe to his, the thought of which quickened her pulse.

  She lifted her gaze to his face. Those mesmerizing gray eyes stared at her. He had never looked at her so coldly before, not even when she’d written those awful columns about him. Heat rushed to her face as shame filled her. She needed to tell him she was sorry, but he refused to take her calls. She couldn’t blame him, though, not after she’d believed the worst of him.

  She owed him more than an apology. She owed him a retraction, but Herb had flat out threatened to fire her if she didn’t continue writing her columns in the same tone. Since the Chronicle was the only paper in town, she’d applied at a couple of the network affiliates in Lakewood, but they’d laughed at her idea of reporting. In trying to ruin Kent’s career, she’d actually ruined her own, or at least her chance of ever becoming the credible journalist she’d once longed to be.

  Breaking eye contact with her, Kent cleared his throat and addressed the CPA. “Tonight’s class is about an officer’s worst nightmare—a hostage situation. Hostage negotiator Lieutenant Marilyn Horowski and SRT member Sergeant Sean O’Donnell will discuss a couple of past examples, and how and why they took the steps they did to handle them.”

  Someone behind Erin gasped, and she glanced back and noticed one of the young teachers’ faces had drained of all color and her mouth gaped open in shock. Erin wasn’t surprised now that the department would so openly share this information. After all, through the Freedom of Information Act it was available to the public. Also, the Lakewood Police Department had nothing to hide. The only secret they had tried to keep from the community was Kent’s injury, and she suspected that had been his decision. Probably his first one as Lakewood’s public information officer.

  “Our goal is to get everyone out of the situation safely,” Kent said. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

  Erin closed her eyes. He’d not only gotten hurt in the line of duty, she had hurt him with her scathing articles and snarky column.

  “I’ll leave the rest for t
he experts to explain,” he said as he stood up. Instead of taking his empty chair behind it, he headed toward the door at the back of the room.

  Erin slipped out of her seat and followed him into the hall. “Kent!” She had to run to catch up with his long strides. “Kent!”

  He stopped at the elevator and turned back to her, his gaze still aloof and impersonal. It was as if he’d never seen her naked, as if he’d never kissed every inch of her bare skin.

  Suddenly chilled, she shivered.

  “You’re missing the class, Ms. Powell.”

  “I’d rather talk to you.” Somewhere private, where she could tell him and show him how sorry she was.

  “You’ll have to wait until the department’s next press conference,” he said. “I have an appointment.”

  “It’s six-thirty,” she pointed out, then tried to warm him up with a smile. “Aren’t most appointments between nine and five?”

  “You’re going to make me say it?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

  “Say what?”

  “I have a date.”

  She sucked in a breath of surprise. “Okay. Don’t let me keep you then.” She whirled away from him and, blinded by a haze of tears, walked back to the conference room. But she hesitated before stepping inside.

  “You okay?” a female voice asked.

  Erin blinked to clear her eyes and focused on the dark-haired police officer standing in front of her. “Uh, Officer Meyers?”

  The woman nodded.

  Erin searched her memory for what she’d heard about the young vice cop. Despite her small stature, Roberta Meyers was tough and ambitious. Rumor claimed that she was trying to surpass Sergeant Terlecki’s arrest record. Was she the officer about whom Reverend Holden Thomas had spoken? Somehow Erin suspected she was.

  “Are you okay?” Officer Meyers repeated her earlier question.

  “Yes.” She drew in an unsteady breath. “Yes, I’m fine.” She cocked her head and studied the woman. “I’m surprised you would care enough to ask, though. I’m not very popular around here.”

  “I know.”

  “So you’re just doing your job,” Erin said, “checking on me?”

  “According to Joelly Standish, you’re just doing your job,” Roberta said. “If you didn’t write the articles and column the way you do, you’d get fired.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Joelly and I go back a long ways,” she admitted. Before Erin could ask about the odd friendship, Roberta continued, “And I’m not asking as an officer. I’m asking as a woman.” A woman who was apparently having some romantic issues of her own.

  “Thanks,” Erin said.

  Roberta glanced toward the elevator Kent had taken. “Sergeant Terlecki is really a great guy.”

  “I know.” She stared wistfully at the elevator door. “I was wrong to write the articles I have.”

  “Great guys—guys you can trust—they’re really hard to find,” Roberta remarked.

  Erin nodded. “I know.” But she had lost her chance with Kent, and he wasn’t willing to give her another one, not even to apologize.

  “SO WHAT DID YOU LEARN?” the chief asked as he poked his head inside Kent’s office.

  Not to fall in love. It hurt worse than the bullet in his spine. He’d had to fist his hands to keep from touching Erin, especially after he’d lied to her about having a date. Yet no one knew better than he did how persistent she could be; he’d had to hurt her to get her to leave him alone.

  But that look on her face, that flash of pain that darkened her brown eyes, haunted him. He had to struggle to stay at his desk, to stop himself from returning to the conference room and telling her the truth.

  “Kent?” the chief prodded.

  Deliberately misunderstanding, he said, “I didn’t stick around for the class tonight. I just introduced Mom and Odie.” He referred to Lieutenant Marilyn Horowski and Sergeant Sean O’Donnell by their department nicknames.

  “I’m not talking about the CPA, and you know it,” Frank Archer said, his blue eyes narrowed. “I know you went to the surgeon this week.”

  “There are no secrets around here, huh?” Damn, Billy had a big mouth, although Kent wasn’t sure how his roommate had found out about the doctor’s visit. Neither of them had been around the house much lately, but Kent had clipped the appointment card to the fridge with a magnet.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Frank mused as he leaned against the doorjamb, his head ducked so his salt-and-pepper hair just brushed the top of the frame. “I think everyone has a secret or two.”

  Kent studied his boss’s face. Kent had been so wrapped up in his own stuff that he hadn’t been paying much attention to his friends. Only God, and probably his mother, knew what Billy was doing. And now the chief…

  Concern filling him, he asked, “Is there something going on with you?”

  Frank shook his head. “We’re talking about you—your secrets. You’ve managed to keep a few from Ms. Powell.”

  Kent leaned back in his chair again. “She knows pretty much everything now.”

  “About the shooting?”

  “Not the details.” He didn’t know if he could trust her with the particulars. “But she knows I was shot.”

  “Hmm, maybe she’s a better reporter than I thought,” he said, then snorted derisively. “No, she’s still writing that drivel.”

  “She may not have a choice.” Not if she wanted to keep a roof over her and Jason’s heads.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her boss is Herb Stein, remember?”

  The chief muttered a curse under his breath. “The mayor’s puppet.”

  “Yup. And he’s probably pulling Erin’s strings, too.” Kent wanted to believe that she wouldn’t willingly continue to write about him the way she had.

  “You don’t know that for sure, Kent,” Archer pointed out. “You’re giving her more credit than she’s probably due.”

  “If you’ve read her last few columns, you’ll see she’s tried to focus more on the CPA.”

  “Yet there was always some article mentioning your latest press conference,” the chief reminded him. Then he shook his head. “Damn, you’ve done it again.”

  “What?”

  “You distracted me from the original question.” The chief laughed. “Maybe she is right about you. You’re too good at your job.”

  Kent couldn’t suppress a grin. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

  “Yet you want to go back in the field.”

  He’d once thought so; he’d thought that was all he wanted. Now, Erin was all he wanted. “No, I just don’t want to be in a wheelchair.”

  “So you’re not having the surgery.”

  “Actually, I am,” he admitted. “I should have talked to you first, made sure someone could cover my time off, but I already scheduled it.”

  Frank came around Kent’s desk and settled onto a corner of it. Then he reached out, squeezing Kent’s shoulder in support. “I don’t care how much time you need off—you’ve got it. I care about you. The risk you’re taking…”

  Kent shrugged. “Is slightly less than it was three years ago.”

  “Only slightly?” Concern filled the chief’s blue eyes. “So there’s still a chance that you could be paralyzed?”

  “If I have the surgery,” he said. “If I don’t, scar tissue’s going to keep building up, causing nerve damage that could lead to paralysis anyway.”

  “God, man!” He closed his eyes. “So you’re damned if you do…”

  “Damned if I don’t.” Either way, the risk was too great to admit his feelings to Erin. If she knew how he felt, she would stick by him as she had her brother and her nephew. And Kent couldn’t add to her burdens.

  “I’M GLAD YOU CAME ALONG tonight,” Marla Halliday commented as she led Erin back to the game area at the Lighthouse.

  Actually, Erin had been the one to suggest they play darts. After the way she’d treated Kent, she wouldn’t mind
hurling a few sharp jabs into her own face. “Really?” she replied, questioning the woman’s seemingly sincere welcome.

  “It’s been a few weeks since you’ve stopped by after class,” the older woman said as she handed over the darts.

  Erin managed a smile. “I didn’t think I’d be missed.”

  “You have to understand why everyone’s given you a hard time,” Marla said, with more commiseration than censure now. “But Joelly Standish joined us one night after class, and she explained about her father and the chief. She doesn’t think you have a choice about the articles you write. Neither does Tessa, who told us about your nephew, how you’re responsible for taking care of him.”

  Heat flushed Erin’s face. She didn’t deserve the woman’s change of heart. “In the beginning writing those articles was my idea,” she admitted with a sigh. “But I was wrong about the department.”

  “And Kent.”

  Especially Kent. “Unfortunately, my boss won’t let me write a retraction. He won’t let me change the column, either,” she said. “And Kent won’t even let me apologize.”

  “Men can be stubborn fools,” Marla said, her voice sharp with disgust. “Too damn proud for their own good.”

  First Tessa, then Roberta and now Marla. Was every woman Erin knew having romantic issues? Some of the pressure eased from her chest, since she didn’t feel quite so alone with her problems. Morbidly happy at the thought, she lifted her gaze to focus on the dartboard. “My picture’s gone.”

  Marla nodded. “Kent took it down himself some weeks ago. I don’t think he ever appreciated Billy putting it up for him. No matter how vicious you were to him, the man always had a soft spot for you.”

  “Not anymore.” She glanced toward the bar, where he sat with his date—the Channel 7 reporter.

  “You know, even when I was disgusted with you for writing those articles, I still admired you,” Marla confessed.

  Brow furrowed in confusion, Erin turned back to the other woman. “How?”