Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

by Sharon Hamilton

  “Take it easy, Kate. I just think we need to think about the possibility that your father sent you away for a reason and someone else knows that reason, or at least suspects it. Your mother’s killer may very well be living right here in town, and if they are, they’re not going to be happy about you being back if there’s even the slightest possibility you witnessed her death.”

  Katelyn wanted to say she wasn’t there, that she hadn’t witnessed anything, but she hated the fact that the sentences wanted to flow from her as though she’d been trained to say them. John had at least succeeded in planting that seed of doubt. Instead, she mumbled, “Katelyn,” and fell back on the couch. Her mother had called her Katelyn. She didn’t like it when people shortened her name to Kate.

  John simply watched her and waited. The man was infuriating. He set her body on fire with his stupid wandering hands going places they really shouldn’t be going, but then never actually following up on the promises they were making. Instead, he grilled her about her mother’s murder that she didn’t witness, and he sat back and waited as though he just expected her to crumble under his Jedi stare. As if she would confess some secret memory she’d never told anyone about. Ha!

  Well, it wasn’t exactly true. She’d tried to tell her father once, but he didn’t listen. He shut her down and told her he didn’t want to talk about some made up memory of her mother. She’d also tried to tell her aunt, whose reaction had been the same.

  “Urrrr!” Katelyn grunted at John. “Fine. Whatever. I have a memory, but it’s not real. I already looked into it.” She felt his hand go still on her legs and she immediately wished they hadn’t stopped. She wished she could just ignore all the baggage that came with her coming home, all the complexities of her past. She wished she could just focus on the way her breath became more shallow the more John’s hands touched her.

  “What do you remember?” he asked, so quiet and coaxing. She hated feeling like he was working her. She smirked at him. Maybe that’s what his attention was about. Maybe this was his “hands-on” attempt to get her to talk.

  “I told you, it wasn’t real. I checked it against the details of the murder scene. It doesn’t fit.”

  John raised an eyebrow, as if to tell her to leave the detective work to him.

  “Fine.” Katelyn sighed but relented. “But I’m telling you, it doesn’t match the scene. I remember hearing my mother scream. That’s all.”

  “And how exactly does that tell you it doesn’t match the scene?” John asked.

  “In my memory, I’m in a pine forest. I can’t see anything. It’s completely dark, but I can smell the pine trees all around me. When I was fifteen, I looked up the articles covering my mother’s murder. She was found inside Charlie Hanford’s office at his house—”

  “And, there’s not a pine tree or forest anywhere around there,” John finished for her. “And she was bludgeoned where she was found,” he mumbled to himself, most likely forgetting he was talking about Katelyn’s mother’s death right in front of her. Katelyn felt her stomach drop at the images his words brought to her mind. They were images she had long tried to keep out of her head and being home again had stirred things again. Stirred up emotions and fears and heartache she wanted to shut herself away again.

  “Are we finished now?” she asked. “I want to lie down and nap.” And forget. Forget it all.

  * * *

  John nodded, still thinking about what Katelyn had told him. He’d ask her more about it later, but she was right; it didn’t fit. John stood and picked Katelyn up in his arms, ignoring the yelp she let out as he lifted her. She felt a little too right in his arms. He fought the urge to cradle her closer, to let his hand slide a little further up her leg, to the soft curve of her ass. His body tightened and hardened in response, not something he wanted to deal with. Not something that should be happening with this woman.

  Get it together, John.

  Gritting his teeth and willing his body into submission, he carried her up to her bed and tucked her in. John slipped each shoe off her foot before covering her with her blanket and then turned out the light.

  “I’ll wake you in a couple of hours, Kate,” he said as he shut the door. A couple of hours should give him time to get himself under control and remind his wayward dick that he couldn’t go there with Katelyn.

  “Katelyn!” was all he heard in response.

  Everlasting: Chapter Eight

  “Hey Kit Kat, time to wake up.”

  That wasn’t the sexy whisper that had woken Katelyn steadily every two hours through the night. When John had roused Katelyn, he’d done it gently, whispering in her ear, rubbing a warm hand down her arm as he sat on the edge of her bed.

  She’d hated it. Every time he woke her, he built new fantasies in her head. Dreams where she and John were together and he was waking her for entirely different reasons than looking for signs of concussion. It drove her batty.

  Katelyn opened her eyes to see Ashley staring down at her with a big smile on her face. “Hey there, sunshine! I thought you’d never wake up. I was about to call an ambulance, per John’s overly-obsessive and not just a little freakishly-cautious instructions.”

  Katelyn pushed herself up slowly, wincing a little at the pain in her head. It was much better than the pain she’d felt when she’d gone to bed the night before.

  “Ashley? What are you doing here? Where’s John?”

  As much as he irritated her with all his touchy-feely, making-her-want-him-in-ways-she-shouldn’t crap, she realized she missed him when he wasn’t there for her. And that, in itself, annoyed her. She wasn’t a very needy girl. She liked her independence, her strength. But, she didn’t feel very strong right now.

  Ashley put a cup of coffee on the nightstand and plopped down on the bed next to her as though they’d been best friends for years. It was a little…disconcerting, but somehow Ashley seemed to make it work.

  “John had to go out on an emergency call. There was a car accident up on 190 outside of town. Four cars involved. It’s a mess. So, he called me to babysit you.” Ashley squinted her eyes and leaned in closer to Katelyn. “Wow, Kit Kat, that’s quite a bruise. John said it was bad, but boy did that man understate it.”

  Katelyn raised a hand to her head and touched the bruised area tenderly. “I must look awful, huh?” Part of her wanted to look in the mirror and find out what she looked like, and part of her wanted to bury her head in bed all day and pretend nothing had happened. If she were honest with herself, the attack had scared her witless. She’d felt safe with John in the house and having Ashley here was preferable to being alone, but she didn’t know if she’d get over the fear all that easily. That moment of not knowing what her attacker was going to do to her…. She shivered, and drew the covers up around her.

  “Nah,” Ashley said, shaking her head. “Not at all, honey. You look…. Aw, heck, who am I kidding? You look awful, Kat. Just awful. But don’t worry. John doesn’t seem to care. The way he went all caveman about you when Cora wanted to set you up with Justin the other night, I’d say you’ve got him hooked. Regardless of the whole.…” Ashley circled her hand around in front of her face as if that said it all.

  Katelyn was speechless. She had a feeling Ashley was a bit of an acquired taste, but she felt herself fighting a smile.

  “I’m not exactly looking for a relationship right now,” she said, and then asked herself silently why on earth she was telling this to Ashley.

  “Uh oh. There has to be a bad story behind that one,” Ashley said.

  Katelyn waved her hand in dismissal. “Not worth telling. Dated for two months, thought it might be going somewhere, he was a married scumbag, yada yada yada.”

  Ashley’s eyes went round. “Oh, no! You had no idea? What a jerk.”

  “That’s what I said. Well, that and a lot more. Anyway, I think I may want to take a break from men for a bit, you know? I’m pretty sure my man reading radar is broken so I’d rather just sit on the sidelines for a bit.”


  Liar, said a little voice inside her head.

  “Liar,” said Ashley. “Besides, John is easily the most honest, straightforward man I know. Not to mention, in a town like this, no one could get away with that. Speaking of, how did he get away with that? How did he fool you that whole time?”

  Katelyn winced. Leave it to Ashley to get right to the point. Katelyn just shook her head. “I’ve been wondering that myself, honestly. I just didn’t see the signs. The worst part was, my friends knew. I thought they’d have the kind of response you did, but they didn’t. They knew he was married and assumed I did. Who does that?”

  “Crazy people. Those crazy city people,” Ashley said in a conspiratorial tone and Katelyn had to laugh.

  Katelyn picked at the tiny flowers embroidered in the comforter on her bed before giving in to the urge to ask. “When did John say he’d be back?” She should probably go visit her father, but if he saw her like this, he’d have questions and she didn’t want to upset him. Then again, how could she avoid him for days or maybe even weeks while her head healed?

  “Not sure. At least a few hours, he said. I’ll stay, though.” Ashley popped off the bed. “I don’t cook so I grabbed breakfast on the way over from Two Sisters. Yours is waiting downstairs when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks. Hey, Ashley,” Katelyn said as the dark-haired woman started for the door. “What do you do that you were able to just drop everything and come over?” Katelyn didn’t know why she wanted to know, but suddenly she was curious.

  “Oh, I’m the librarian in town. I locked up and put a sign on the door. I have some volunteers that come by each day. One of them is on her way in to cover. She’ll stay if John doesn’t get back soon.”

  Katelyn’s jaw dropped. “You’re the librarian?”

  Ashley laughed. “Someday I’ll be offended that everyone gets that look on their face when I tell them what I do. For now, it’s just kind of funny.”

  Everlasting: Chapter Nine

  John punched in the number for Dr. Max Shapiro, an old colleague from his time in the New York City Police Department. He knew Max would be winding down at the end of his workday and he was hoping to catch him before he left his office.

  “’Lo?” came the casual answer at the other end of the phone. John grinned. Max was not your typical psychologist. He wore jeans and sneakers with T-shirts that said things like “Trust me… I’m a therapist” or “I’m sorry your hour is up.”

  “Hey, Max. It’s John Davies,” John said, and he could picture the giant bear of a man smiling as a booming “John!” came back at him.

  They spent a few minutes catching up, talking about old times without really touching too much on anything happening with his former precinct or buddies. Max worked with a lot of the officers on John’s old force, but he understood better than anyone how hard it was for John to relive that time.

  “So, I know you didn’t call to shoot the breeze. What’s up?”

  “How much do you know about repressed memories, Max?” John asked. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about Katelyn’s possible memories with anyone from around Evers. He was hoping Max would be able to tell him what he needed to know.

  “I’ve work with them, some. Is this for a case?”

  “I’m not actually sure what I’m dealing with yet. I just wanted to find out more about it. Is it possible for someone to witness something as a child and not remember it at all afterward?”

  “It depends who you talk to. For the most part, repressed memories are accepted in the psychiatric community,” Max began.

  “What about the other part?” John asked.

  “Some say they’re just made up memories. That they’re implanted with suggestive questioning from therapists who don’t know what they’re doing. Others blame television or books—say people piece together bits of what they’ve seen in the media and arrange it in their heads until their mind truly believes it happened to them. And, we have no studies yet to show one way or the other. A lot of times there isn’t independent corroboration and it’s just a he-said, she-said kind of thing.” Max paused for a minute, but John stayed quiet. He knew Max. If he let him keep going, he’d tell him what his gut feeling was. He could almost hear the gears in Max’s brain going.

  “I’ll tell you, though, John. The mind is an incredible thing. If something happens that a person can’t handle, the mind is remarkably adept at protecting that person. If a person saw something as a child, something that was too hard for the brain to process, to make sense of, they might have blocked it out right away or it could have happened over time. I don’t like the idea of relying on repressed memories as the sole evidence in convicting someone, but it’s not a stretch for me to believe that it happens. Not a stretch at all.”

  John lay a little of Kate’s story out for Max. “A woman was killed here twenty-four years ago. Her daughter was four at the time. We’ve never had reason to believe the daughter witnessed anything, but I’m beginning to have my doubts. She told me she’s had small flashes of what she thinks are a memory, but they don’t add up with the crime scene. Is it possible she could have seen something and then buried it for this many years?”

  “If you’re asking for hard evidence, scientific data, I don’t have any. If you want my opinion, yes. I believe it’s entirely possible,” Max said without any hesitation.

  “So, even right after the murder, she might not have been able to remember?” John asked. Maybe that’s why Alan had never told John that Katelyn witnessed something. Maybe she hadn’t been able to tell him anything even right after it happened. It’s possible Alan truly believed Katelyn had nothing to tell them—at least, nothing she could tell them if the memories were trapped in her head.

  “Yes. It’s possible she either blocked it out immediately, or she could have been too traumatized to talk about it right away and then, over time, her mind blocked it out.”

  “Could she have been coached early on about it and not remember the coaching? Every time I ask her about it, her denial is exactly the same: I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t there. Could those lines have been fed to her as a child?”

  “It’s entirely possible. It could be a combination of her own mind helping her to forget and those around her encouraging the denial.”

  “Would it be possible for her to have forgotten for this length of time? For twenty-four years?” John asked.

  “You bet. And, we never know what will bring out those memories. In one case, a woman remembered witnessing her father kill another little girl when she was six years old. She didn’t remember until she was an adult with her own children. Then, the memories began to flash back in bits and pieces,” Max said.

  John’s jaw dropped. “Was she in touch with her father for all of those years?”

  “Yup. Raised by him as a child. I’m telling you, the mind protects us. It’s an incredible machine. It’s why I love what I do so much.”

  “So, how do I get her to remember what happened?” John asked.

  He could hear Max’s reluctance over the phone.

  “Max, this killer has walked free for twenty-four years. Help me out here, give me something,” John said.

  “You can talk to a psychiatrist about doing some regression therapy. I can get you some names of people in your area. You don’t want to work with just anyone on that kind of thing. Taking her to the scene of the crime might help. Might not.”

  John cursed. He already knew the scene of the crime didn’t match her memory.

  “But John, I have to warn you. Her mind is doing this for a reason. I know you want to catch a killer, and I can’t tell you what to do, but you need to give some thought to what it could do to her if she remembers whatever she’s forgotten. Pushing her on this, pushing to have those memories resurface before she’s ready—you could taint the memory by using too much suggestion, or risk harming her beyond what she’s already suffered through.”

  John squeezed his temples as he listened to Max. Great
. Choose between catching her mother’s killer to provide some closure to her dying father, and possibly harming Katelyn irreparably. Just great.

  “Thanks Max,” John said.

  “Hey, don’t be a stranger. Call if you need anything. Anytime.”

  John couldn’t help but smile. “You too, man. You, too.”

  John stared at the phone a few minutes longer, then tossed it on the seat next to him. He couldn’t talk to his father about this. His dad was retired, but he still bled blue from his time wearing a shield. When John left New York, giving up his gold shield and all he’d accomplished, his dad hadn’t understood. Their relationship had taken a hit and it took a long time to heal. He wasn’t about to talk about something that would hurt it again.

  And, to John’s father, there wouldn’t be any question. You do what you had to for the sake of a case. Whatever you had to, no matter the cost. John couldn’t talk to him about what was going on in his head when he’d left New York, and he couldn’t talk to him now. If asked, his father would always choose justice, no matter the cost. There was a time when John would have, too.

  Nor could he talk to Alan about it. John would have to decide on his own if it was worth pushing Katelyn to remember what she’d seen. If it was worth risking her, risking the case to find the answers he so desperately wanted to give her father.

  * * *

  Katelyn couldn’t avoid seeing her father for very long. She gave herself a day to rest and then convinced John to bring her over to the hospital to visit. John was being a hair more overprotective than Katelyn would have liked—he wouldn’t let her drive herself yet, for fear she’d get dizzy and have an accident behind the wheel—but she tolerated it because she didn’t want him to leave her alone right now. With John on the couch in the living room, she could get a few hours of sleep. She knew if he left her alone at night, the fear would take over and she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.