by Lauren Layne
Sawyer turned and gave Luc an incredulous look. “Sharing meals? Like, you guys split a candy bar from the candy machine, or…”
“It wasn’t like that,” Ava snapped.
Only because you won’t let it be, he wanted to snap back. Still, keeping things platonic had been his idea too. Sort of.
But fuck. That kiss.
“Can’t you have a stand-in go through the motions?” he asked. “You know, a body double, or some shit like that.”
“Great idea, Officer, that’ll make for really compelling television. Here, folks, we have a random person off the street pretending to be a—”
She broke off suddenly and gave him a look. “You know why I stopped just then? That’s a million people changing the channel.”
He shrugged. “Not my problem.”
Ava rolled her eyes to the sky as though dealing with a petulant child. He knew he was being difficult, but that was tough shit.
Just because he had some seriously raunchy fantasies about this woman didn’t mean he was going to become her lackey.
As a woman, he wanted her. As a news reporter, she was more a pain in his ass than ever.
If he went through with this, it would make his “heroic” actions seem manufactured and calculating, and the last thing he needed was people thinking that he was the type of cop that over-thought things.
Overthinking led to tragic circumstances.
He knew that better than anyone, and no way was he going to sell himself out on national television.
“It’s not like I’m asking you to jump into the river, Luc,” Ava said, her voice slightly softer. “Just talk us through what happened that day.”
“You mean talk to a couple thousand viewers who I don’t even know.”
“No, talk to me. Ava. Ignore Mihail, ignore the camera, ignore the shit that Lopez will be flinging your way before and after.”
“Who says I’ll be flinging shit?” Luc’s partner asked.
They both looked at him, and Lopez lifted a shoulder. “Okay, maybe. Probably.”
“Look, Luc, what the hell did you think was going to happen when you agreed to this?” Ava asked.
“I didn’t agree to this!”
“Well it’s happening,” she shot back. “And it’ll happen a lot faster, and a lot less painfully for everybody, if you’d cooperate.”
Luc stuck this thumbs into his belt and remained resolutely silent. He knew he was on the verge of being out of line, and he didn’t blame her for being confused. He was all over the place with her. Amiable one minute, prissy the next.
Kissing her one day.
Yelling at her the next.
A match made in heaven, they were not.
Still, in the grand scheme of things, her request should have been harmless.
But with last night’s nightmare fresh on his mind, he felt…threatened. Being asked to perform like a trick pony was bad enough on most days, but on a day when he was running on hardly any sleep and a couple years’ worth of bad memories?
Let’s just say Ava didn’t have a clue.
You could tell her.
He pushed the thought away almost as quickly as it had popped into his head. Tell a woman he hardly knew his deepest, darkest pain? Bad idea.
Telling a reporter his deepest darkest pain?
Really bad idea.
Nobody wanted to see a cop pretending to be a hero. But wasn’t that exactly what he was doing every damned day?
“Dude,” Lopez said under his breath. “You okay? I know you’re not the biggest fan of all this but you’re being kind of a dick.”
Luc almost smiled. Sawyer Lopez was completely different from Mike Jensen in almost every way…Mike had been quiet and focused, whereas Lopez was outspoken and spontaneous. Mike short and broad, Sawyer lean and lithe. Mike fair, Lopez dark.
But his former partner and current partner had one very crucial characteristic in common: they were both damned good at calling Luc on his bullshit.
“Christ,” he muttered. “Fine. Sims, let’s get this over with.”
He half expected her to continue to give him crap, but at the end of the day, Ava Sims was a professional and she gestured over to her camera crew as though there had never been a delay.
Ava spent a few minutes explaining the shot she wanted to Mihail and some other guy whose name Luc had already forgotten. Then Ava turned to Luc. “Okay, Moretti, you’re up. Nothing to it. We’ll just walk nice and slow along the river talking. I ask you questions about that day, you answer, taking me through what happened as best you can. ’Kay?”
Luc gave a curt nod.
“What about me?” Lopez asked, surreptitiously checking out a well-endowed brunette who was trying to ascertain what the camera was for.
“Watch for bad guys,” Ava said. Then she followed his line of sight. “Or go get that girl’s number.”
Luc followed Ava over to the start of the shot.
“Take a deep breath,” she said quietly.
“I’m not nervous,” he said irritably, just annoyed.
“Yeah, I got that,” she said, her mouth curving into a smile. “But it’s just me, Luc.”
It was her use of his first name that got him. He would do well to remember that they weren’t friends.
But sometimes it felt like they were.
She touched his arm briefly to indicate that they were about to start, and her fingers seemed to linger.
Sometimes it felt like they were more than friends. Definitely.
“So, Officer Moretti,” she said in her reporter voice.
Shit. Here we go.
“How many times would you say you’d walked along this very riverbank before the fateful events of February twenty-first?”
Fateful events? It wasn’t like there was a second coming.
She looked at him patiently and he realized he had to speak, or else risk looking like a mute on national television.
Fine.
“It’s not my usual beat,” he said as they moved slowly forward, the camera in their faces but more or less ignored. “My precinct is in midtown, but I’d come down to the Battery for another call…false alarm, as it would turn out.”
“What was the other call?” she interrupted.
“Cop business,” he said with a little wink.
It had been another charming indecent exposure call, but the perp was long gone by the time Luc had arrived.
Luc figured the fewer details the better.
The entire country didn’t need to know quite how often New York dealt with naked weirdos.
“So you were just strolling along…”
“Can’t say we on-duty cops do a lot of strolling,” he corrected, although he added a smile to soften it.
She laughed softly, and in an instant he knew why she was so good at her job. Her voice called people in. Her laughter made them want to stay.
“Okay, so you were walking. With purpose,” she said, making a jokingly macho move forward with her hands.
“I was,” he said, playing the game.
They came to a stop, and both of their smiles faltered a little.
“It was here?”
Luc pointed a few feet to the right. “She was there. Wearing a red dress and singing the chorus of some terrible pop song, but she was messing up all the words.”
“And it was cute,” Ava said with a smile.
He smiled back. “It was cute.”
“Tell us what happened next. Because in that YouTube video, all we see is you diving headfirst over the railing and coming up with a little girl soaked, wearing a red dress.”
Almost done, Luc told himself.
“Well she had, like this…doll,” he said. “A little one.”
Ava’s brow furrowed. “A little doll?”
“Like a…Barbie. Or something.”
“The NYPD cop knows what a Barbie is, folks. Do you have daughters, Officer Moretti?”
She knew that he didn’t, obviously, but the aud
ience didn’t, so he played along. “I do not.”
“Nieces?”
“No nieces, although I think my brother Marco might be working on that.”
Marco absolutely was not working on that, but it served the bastard right for moving to Los Angeles.
Ava leaned forward slightly, her mouth in a teasing smile. “Then pray tell, Officer, how do you know what a Barbie is?”
“I’m a man of the world, Miss Sims,” he said mysteriously. “A man of the world. Anyway, the little girl had her Barbie dancing along the railing, and I’m still really only half paying attention, but then I hear her cry of distress, and the doll is gone.”
“She dropped her Barbie into the water.”
“Yes. And she’s full on crying by this point, because, I mean, who doesn’t hate to lose a Barbie, and I look around for her parents, but before I can figure out who she belongs to, she’s managed to get herself on top of the railing.”
Ava walked to the railing and put her hand exactly in the spot the little girl had gone over. “Here?”
Luc nodded.
“And then she went over,” Ava said.
“And then she went over.”
“How soon after her going in did you follow?”
Luc shrugged. “Instantly, I guess. I don’t remember.”
“Do you remember making the choice? Thinking, do I really want to throw myself into the river for a little girl I don’t know?”
Good Lord, she was milking this. He gave her a slightly withering look he hoped the camera would miss before continuing.
“When a child’s life is in danger—any life is in danger—you don’t stop to think.”
“Because you’re a police officer. Because it’s your sworn duty.”
Fuck no was on the tip of his tongue but he bit it back. “Because I’m human.”
Ava tilted her head. “So you’re saying anyone would do this.”
Luc gave a little shrug. Anyone decent. “I would hope so.”
Ava let that sink in a moment before she turned and looked over the railing. “So this brings us up to the moment that the tourist started filming you. Right as you kick off your shoes. Were you aware of the tourist?”
“I was not.”
“So you didn’t know there was a camera.”
“Absolutely not.”
For a second, just a split second, Ava looked skeptical, but she smiled to cover it.
“Was the water cold?”
“You have no idea,” he said with a little smile. “Although I don’t think I really registered that until long after I’d pulled her out of the water.”
Ava’s face sobered at that. “And when you pulled her out…she wasn’t breathing.”
Luc’s eyes squeezed shut at the memory. Not just of this little girl, but of another one who’d also been too still, too cold, when he’d gotten to her. Only that one hadn’t had a happy ending.
He shook his head and forced himself to meet Ava’s eyes. “No, she wasn’t.”
Ava paused, as though to let his statement sink in. “You gave her CPR.”
Luc swallowed. Nodded.
“What were you thinking?” she asked quietly. “You jumped in on instinct, but when you pulled her out, and realization set in that this little girl might not make it, what were you thinking?”
Luc ran a hand over his face and answered the only way he could. Honestly.
“I was thinking please. Please let this little girl be okay.”
Ava’s smile was gentle. “And she was. Because of you.”
Luc lifted a shoulder and scratched the back of his neck, feeling almost unbearably embarrassed.
Luc answered the rest of Ava’s questions as briefly as possible while still being polite.
Yes, he’d known to swim her around to the side of the boardwalk where there was a tiny ladder built in.
Yes, he’d given CPR before.
Yes, the mother was grateful. Beyond grateful.
“And just one last question, Officer Moretti.”
“Shoot.”
Ava leaned in with a conspiratorial smile. “Were you able to save Barbie too?”
Luc laughed, mostly because he knew it was expected. “Sadly, Barbie met her demise that day.”
“Aww, well that’s too bad. Perhaps I’ll talk to the station manager about replacing her myself.”
Luc opened his mouth to respond, but closed it just as quickly, catching himself.
But he wasn’t fast enough. Ava’s brown eyes missed nothing, and she pointed a friendly finger at him. “Officer Moretti, is there something else you’d like to add?”
“Nothing comes to mind.”
Ava moved closer with a laugh. “Officer Moretti, you replaced that little girl’s Barbie doll, didn’t you?”
Luc pressed his lips together, but it was all the answer she needed.
“Out of your own pocket?”
He said nothing, but he couldn’t lie either, so he gave only a curt nod.
She turned and for the first time, looked straight into the camera, giving it a secret smile.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a true American hero.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Laid it on a bit thick, didn’t you, Sims?”
“Luc, you bought a little girl a Barbie. Clark Kent wouldn’t have done that,” Ava replied.
Sawyer dropped his mug to the table with a clank. “Hey, I just thought of something.”
“I knew I smelled smoke,” Luc said, gesturing in the vicinity of his partner’s brain.
“So if Baby Moretti here is Superman,” Lopez pressed on, “and if you’re a reporter…” He pointed at Ava.
Ava laughed, choking a little on her swallow of beer. “No. Don’t even say it.”
Sawyer sat back, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “We have our very own Lois Lane.”
Luc rotated in his chair to smirk down at her. “Well I’ll be damned. If I wear glasses, will you suddenly not recognize me?”
“I am not Lois Lane, all running willy-nilly all over the city, throwing myself into danger,” Ava said, taking another sip of beer. Slower this time.
After they’d wrapped up the interview, she’d insisted on buying them a round of drinks since they were off duty, loading them all into the network van and driving both Sawyer and Luc to their respective homes to change out of uniform.
She was a little surprised that they’d both accepted, but as Lopez had pointed out, cops get a lot of free coffee. Free beer, not so much.
Mihail had come too, although they’d lost him after he’d gone up to fetch the first round of drinks and discovered that the bartender was Bulgarian. He’d grabbed a stool and was chatting happily—or as happily as Mihail could manage—about the motherland, while the three of them had grabbed a table in the back.
“So, Sawyer, if you’re free next week, I was thinking we could do a quick on-camera recount of your version of that day,” Ava said, taking advantage of the mellow mood.
Lopez leaned forward, wiggling his eyebrows. “I knew you’d see it eventually.”
“See what?” Luc asked, leaning back in his chair and casually dropping his arm around the back of Ava’s chair.
She was reasonably sure he hadn’t realized he’d made the gesture.
But Ava was aware. Very aware.
“That I’m a natural,” Lopez said, flexing his fingers. “Get calls from Hollywood agents all the time.”
“Weird, I’ve never seen that,” Luc muttered. “Ever.”
Sawyer ignored him, pointing at his own face. “See this chiseled jaw? The camera loves it.”
Ava turned slightly toward Luc. “Are you paying attention? This is what a willing and cooperative interview subject looks like.”
“Great!” Luc said, taking a sip of beer. “Then you can shift the focus of your America’s Hero thing to Lopez.”
“She probably would have,” Lopez broke in. “But then you had to go and buy a Barb
ie.”
Luc closed his eyes and groaned, and Ava reached out to poke a joking finger at his stomach.
His eyes flew open and met hers, and her hand faltered, just long enough to register that the man had very, very nice abs.
“I think it’s cute,” she said, yanking her hand back. “Did you pick it out yourself?”
“I bought it online,” he growled. “Free shipping. It was no big deal.”
Ava pressed her lips together. It wasn’t a big deal, not really. A few bucks.
But the gesture spoke volumes.
She knew it, Lopez knew it, and everyone who watched that segment would know it.
Hell, her female viewers would positively melt.
Scratch that. Her female viewers will be a puddle the first time they see the man smile.
But right now, Ava didn’t care about Lopez or her viewers.
She was thinking about Luc. And herself.
The man had surprised her.
She’d been clinging to the probability that on some level, Luc must have known that his dramatic dive-in-the-water routine would get him accolades.
He’d wanted to save that little girl, of course.
But did he really regret that the entire world was fawning over him? She hadn’t been sure.
But the Barbie…the Barbie, Ava couldn’t explain away.
“Does your family know?” she asked abruptly.
He broke off the argument he was having with Lopez about whether he had to turn in his man card because he bought a doll.
“Does my family know what?”
“About the Barbie,” she said.
“Well they sure as hell will when they see your stupid show,” he said grumpily.
“But you didn’t tell them before. Any of them. Not even Elena who could have helped pick out the Barbie?”
“Are you kidding me? Elena would have taken a simple task and turned it into a shopping expedition.”
“What about your brothers?”
Luc gave her a look. “Yeah, that’s what every younger brother yearns for. That moment when he can tell three big brothers that he bought a Barbie with his weekly beer money.”
Oh God he was cute.
Luc jabbed a finger in the direction of his partner. “You see how Lopez is responding? Multiply that by a thousand, and you’d have Vincent’s reaction.”