In fact, his job had cost him is fiancé. A women he’d arrested, now out on bail, saw him in a convenience store and came charging at him while Ben stood waiting for Cara to pay for a bottle of water. The crazy woman clawed his face, screaming threats until it made Ben’s ears bleed. When he’d tried to restrain her, she’d grabbed a rack off the counter at him and nailed Cara. Then the drugged-out assailant had banged Ben with it hard enough it’d turned his lights out. The woman had run.
The convenience store guy called an ambulance and the cops.
He woke up in the hospital to see Cara standing over him. Five stitches across her chin. The engagement ring she’d been wearing for two weeks, in her hand. Not on her hand. Not anymore.
She’d had dumped him, and she’d been right to do it. Because if danger was a disease then Ben was a carrier. Or at least his job was. Losing soft-hearted Cara had cured him of women and good riddance.
He’d forgotten how soft and sweet-smelling a woman was. Or had he? Maybe Trudy Jennings was just in a soft and sweet-smelling league of her own.
Ben had known all about her cornball philosophy when he’d enrolled in her class. He’d enrolled for one reason only. It was a requirement for his degree. He had to pass her class to graduate. But her passive philosophy wasn’t for cops, which meant it wasn’t for him.
The Armani, the gold, the Seville, the go-and-sin-no-more way she’d handled her assailant, told him she lived in an ivory tower. Ugliness didn’t touch her, and he was glad of that. But it touched him, and he had to be ready for it.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t see a doctor?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She stopped touching him, which Ben missed immediately.
“Let me give you a ride home. You may not need the hospital, but you’ve had yourself a go round. I’m not going to let you drive.”
“You’re not going to let me drive?”
Ben had to fight not to smile. He’d seen her little claws earlier in the classroom. Ben oughta get named as an American diplomat for facing something as laughable as Tru Jennings’ simple-minded philosophy and pretend to cough.
He hadn’t pulled it off. So, he’d never make it as a diplomat—big surprise. He’d have to get it under control before the next class. But tonight, he hadn’t been ready. Between taking down a knife wielding gang member in the morning and enduring the smug, shyster lawyer trying to plead premeditated murder down to a misdemeanor in the afternoon, Ben hadn’t been able to contain the laughter.
Next week, I swear I’ll be a good boy.
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Garrison…”
“Ben.” He waited for that to annoy her.
“Mr. Garrison, no one tells me what I can and cannot…”
She hadn’t made him wait at all. If fast food restaurants served irritation, Tru would be a world class Unhappy Meal. Deciding not to use gentle persuasion, Ben ignored her yammering and tugged his cell phone out of his pocket.
“What are you doing?” Wide-eyed, she looked from the phone to him.
“You’re one word away from 911, Tru. If your next words aren’t ‘yes, Ben, I’d love a ride home,’ you’ll leave this parking lot in an ambulance.”
She crossed her arms. “You don’t…”
“That’s the word,” Ben waggled the phone in her face and, with grand gestures, tapped nine into the phone.
She tried to grab it from him. He held it overhead. All her softness tried to fight him for the phone. It was mighty wrong of him to be enjoying this. Which didn’t stop him.
“Yes, Ben, I’d love a ride home. C’mon, Tru, say it. You know you’re not up to driving.”
“Dr. Jennings, to you.” She made another grab for the phone. Personally, Ben thought she was wrestling out of her weight class.
“I am your teacher.” She seemed pretty strong, grappling for the phone. She probably didn’t need a hospital, but he’d seen her eyes lose focus a couple of times. He refused to let her get in that car.
“Strike two, Tru.” Ben pressed one with great pleasure.
She narrowed her eyes. He made a production of reaching for the one again.
“Yes, Ben.” She jammed her hands on her hips and parroted his words. “I’d love a ride home.”
He deleted the call and dropped his phone back into his pocket. “Smart girl. You didn’t get that Doctor tacked onto your name at Clown College, after all.”
“Mr. Garrison…”
“Call me Ben.”
“Mr. Garrison…”
Ben pulled out his phone again. “You know this could be fun. I could tease you like this all night and never get tired of it.”
Tru sank her face into her hands. Ben stepped close. “Are you all right? Maybe you really do need an ambulance.”
She shook her head, uncovered her face and lifted her chin. “Let’s get going. I’ve got a long day tomorrow and I need some rest.”
Unlocking his truck with the remote on his key chain, he opened the door for her. He looked from her five foot seven body to his massive truck frame. “Need a boost?”
“No.” She glared at him, then wobbled just a little.
Ben wrapped his arm around her, all humor gone. “Turn around.”
She obeyed, which worried him. Putting his hands on her slender waist, he lifted her into the truck, careful not to bump her head. Experienced in emergencies, he took careful note of her scraped face and trembling hands. He studied her pupils and her messed up hair.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” He hovered just inches from her, her blue eyes so vulnerable. “I let you talk me out of the emergency room, but maybe you have a concussion.”
She shook her head. “It’s just reaction. I’m on adrenaline overload or something.”
Ben pulled a flashlight out of his glove compartment and shined it in her eyes.
“Stop.” She swatted at the glaring light.
“Settle down.” Holding her chin, he watched her pupils contract. “Is there anyone at home? I’m not going to leave you there alone. I can stay, or I can call a police woman for you.”
“I’ve got a housekeeper who stays until I get home, and that includes when I work late on Monday night. She doesn’t like me coming into an empty house. She’ll stay all night if I ask her.”
“Call her so she can make arrangements.” Ben produced his cell phone.
“I have my own phone.” Trudy looked at her hands, then looked back at Ben. She turned toward the building she’d just had her head slammed into.
Ben’s eyes landed on all the stuff she’d dropped by the Psycho Building.
“It’s over there by the Psych building.” She pointed.
He took a minute to get into his first aid kit and crush up an instant ice pack and rest it on her face.
“Thanks.” She took over holding it while he buckled her seat belt. Then he got in and wheeled the truck up to the building. He hopped out, gathered her things, rested them on the console between them and set off. By the time he’d driven her home, he’d know for ure if she was all right.
She gave him directions to Cullen Heights, a ritzy lakeside neighborhood right on the edge of the prosperous Texas town. Only a few miles from the university, arguably the most elegant neighborhood in a wealthy city—maybe one notch below where Watson lived.
It was a long way from where he lived and that had to do with a lot more than geography.
He listened as she phoned her housekeeper and asked her to spend the night without explaining why.
“You’d better warn her about what happened. If this guy comes after you again, your housekeeper needs to be alert.”
Tru had already ended the call. “Eleanor fusses over me too much as it is. That’s why she always stays until she’s sure I’m home safe. She worries that I could be gone all night before anyone missed me.”
“Sounds like a lady who cares about you.” Ben was glad Tru had someone like that. He also noticed she didn’t mention a boyfriend who could check on her.
Afraid she’d read his mind—or maybe afraid he’d read his own mind—he changed the subject. “Look, I want to apologize again for uh… coughing during the class.”
“Laughing, you mean.” She had a sharp, classy little northern accent. She’d been slow about getting to the great state of Texas.
Ben sighed. He’d been hoping for another polite, if insincere, acceptance of his apology. Wasn’t that the right thing to do according to her own philosophy?
More talk seemed like a bad idea but he thought of Watson coming at her in the dark and knew this was his chance to talk some sense into her. “It’s just that it doesn’t work, Tru. I mean, it might work when problems are less severe, like in a counselor’s office, but on the street…well, cops can’t just stand there and let the bad guys shoot. We’ve got to fight back. We’re not just defending ourselves, we’re protecting others. Your methods have nothing to do with police work. They might work in personal relationships, but they’ve got nuthin’ to do with the world I live in. And no soft answer tonight, to Watson, was going to get him to back off.”
“My theories are about right and wrong. There’s no career that absolves you, Ben.”
She’d used his name, without being threatened with an ambulance. It’s just stupid to like that so much.
“So you’re sayin’ I should turn the other cheek to some meth head, who’s unloading a gun at me? That can’t be right.”
Tru turned to him. He glanced over. Her right cheek, raw and bloody, shone in the headlights of on-coming traffic. She’d lowered the ice pack, noticed, and returned it to her cheek. In the other hand she clenched his bloodstained handkerchief.
“I can’t tell you what to do. You save people’s lives by taking hard measures when a violent criminal is on a rampage. But I don’t think right and wrong can have a label with a bunch of bureaucratic legalese full of subsections and exceptions to the rules.”
Ben turned off the quiet street leading away from the university and got on a four lane. The traffic was light this time of night. “Sitting out there in your classroom, I kept picturing myself sweet talking the gang banger I busted today into handing over his knife and turning himself in.” Ben shrugged. “It just made me laugh.”
Merging, he headed north toward Cullen Heights. “I read your book in preparation for the class. It’s idealism, which is wonderful…for you. But tonight, I couldn’t distance myself from the unrealistic way you look at the world.”
“You read my book?” Tru asked.
“Yep.” He hoped that earned him some brownie points because he needed them to pass and he needed to pass to earn his bachelor’s degree. If they gave credits for life experience, he’d have a doctorate by now.
“So, you’re the one.”
Ben glanced over at her.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back. They’d sold millions of copies.
“Is it easy to put what you believe in a box like that during work hours?” Tru faced forward.
“A box?”
“Yes.” Tru stacked her books more neatly between them, then shifted them onto her lap. Every move graceful, her voice was so kind and gentle it was enchanting, almost like being under her spell.
“You’re kind and respond to evil with good when it’s easy, but don’t bother when it’s hard.”
Well, that broke the spell.
“I don’t do that.” He focused on wringing the steering wheel’s neck. “I’m a good person at work and at home. I never flirt with gray areas of the law. I never use unnecessary force.” Much. “I go to church on Sunday.”
Tru faced him. “I believe you.”
He almost pulled over. They were getting close to her home and he wanted to finish this. He had something to prove to this naïve little woman. He might have done it if they hadn’t been traveling sixty-five miles an hour. “Well, good.”
She inhaled deeply, no doubt gathering her strength to yell at him. “Turning the other cheek is just simple wisdom.” She spoke just above a whisper.
“You’re using that ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath’ voice on me, aren’t you?” Ben turned onto Broadway and headed east.
Tru laughed. “Caught that did you?”
“Yep.”
“Did it work? Has your wrath been turneth’ed away?”
Ben glanced at her pretty smile and rolled his eyes. He looked back at the street and shrugged. “Some. I wasn’t all that wrathful to begin with…not at you.”
“I guess you weren’t.” Tru patted him on the arm with her soft callus-free hand. “I should save it for when you’re really a grouch.”
“So, tell me how I translate your idealism into my job? In a perfect world, you’re right, but then in a perfect world, everyone would be kind and gentle in the face of anger and if everyone was, then there wouldn’t be any anger, so the whole exercise would be unnecessary. If I follow what you say, does that mean I can’t be a cop? Because I can’t do my job if I turn the other cheek. A soft answer pegs you as a weak link, and the bad guys turn their guns on you first.”
Tru didn’t say anything. Ben took that as an admission that he was right—which he was.
“Admit it, Tru, the only way to agree with you is to say that, between fighting a war and being a cop, the last twelve years of my life have been a mistake. And if I stay in my job, the rest of my life will be a mistake, too.” He looked at her, then shook his head. Trudy Jennings didn’t have the wisdom of the ages at her dainty polished fingertips.
He realized he’d been hoping for a lot more out of Tru’s class than three credit hours and a college diploma. He knew he’d gotten too cynical at work. He knew he’d been battered by dealing with the underbelly of Long Pine. It was a prosperous town but like any city it had its bad side.
“Your idealistic theories only work if I’m willing to die for them. I’m not going to die so a criminal can run rampant, killing others. If I live like you advise in your books, I’ll be dead by the weekend.”
“I’m right Ben, and if you try it you can find a way,” Tru said in that confounded soft voice. “That’s the best I can tell you.”
It was an out for her. Ben understood that. But she had a lot of nerve challenging his whole life with no idea what he should do to fix it.
He followed her directions home. She told him her gate code and they drove into an elegant stucco house in the heart of Long Pine’s old money neighborhood. It looked like a Mexican Hacienda on All-American steroids with three floors of pink stucco, a porch with stucco arches across the front and a red tile roof.
“Those books must sell pretty well, huh?”
“Like hotcakes, pal.” She tilted her head and gave him a sassy smile.
Ben had to admit that, naïve as she was in her teaching, up until now, he’d been thinking about her with less than student—teacher appropriate thoughts. He’d also been thinking about her with less than cop—victim appropriate thought. She was just too pretty and sweet to think about without a few inappropriate thoughts.
But those thoughts shriveled up and died when he saw her pink mansion. He drove up to the front door, lit up like an operating room at high noon.
He climbed out of his truck and felt like he’d landed in Oz. He needed to knock his ruby slippers together and get out of here.
4
Opening her door, he unlatched her seatbelt and eased her to the ground. She moaned as she slid down.
The sound made him forget all about escaping. “You’re hurt worse than you admitted.”
“Just stiff. It’s nothing.” She let him settle his arm around her waist and guide her toward the house.
The door swung open before they reached the four stone steps that led up to the porch.
“Land sakes, child, what happened to you?” A Sherman tank with a short mop of gray curls stormed out to meet them. Ben moved out of the way when the woman slid her plump hand around Tru’s middle. He was certain the tank would have no qualms about l
eaving waffle tracks on him otherwise.
“I’m okay, Eleanor. A little bruised, but nothing serious.” Tru leaned against the woman, but Ben could tell Tru bore her own weight.
He let her go but stayed close to catch her if need be.
“You’re hair’s all mussed.” The housekeeper brushed the hair back with utmost gentleness. Her voice rose in alarm. “What happened to your face?”
“I…I…” Tru’s voice broke.
Ben moved up beside them. “I’m a policeman, ma’am. A man frightened her. She decided her injuries weren’t serious enough to warrant a trip to the Emergency Room, but I’m worried about her. I’m glad you’ll be with her tonight. She shouldn’t be alone after a trauma like this.”
“Ben.” Tru lifted her head and blazed a look at him. “I told you we weren’t going to tell her what happened.”
“And I disagreed with you, Tru-Blue. I’m telling Eleanor everything. If that guy wants in here, Eleanor needs to be on guard.”
Ben tried to picture Eleanor on guard, but the image just wouldn’t come into focus. Then he pictured her guarding a plate of chocolate chip cookies from a hungry little boy. That developed right away. He substituted Tru’s life for cookies and he had himself a bodyguard.
“Tru-Blue?” Eleanor asked, arching one gray eyebrow at Ben.
“She’ll just worry.” Tru let go of Eleanor and walked into the house ahead of both of them.
Ben noticed the etched glass front door and wondered how tough the glass was. Not his idea of security. He stepped into a three-story foyer just behind Eleanor and tried his best to breathe the rarified air.
Eleanor caught up to Tru and supported her again. Ben flanked Tru on the other side, their feet clicking on the marble tiles. An open stairway curved up on their right and several doors stretched down a wide hall on their left.
“That’s the whole idea. She should worry.” He leaned forward and talked across Tru. “Don’t you want to worry, Eleanor?”
Eleanor smiled at him. He thought she might look the other way at cookie-snitching time, but not when it came to defending Tru. “I absolutely love nothing better than worrying.”
Loving the Texas Lawman_A Texas Lawman Romantic Suspense Page 3