by Marina Adair
She looked down that aisle toward the back, where Chuck was packing giblets, then back to him. “You need to start wearing a bell.”
“It wouldn’t have helped anyway,” he said lightly. “I’m that good.” A smile tugged at her lips—not huge, but enough to know that she wanted to laugh. “Did Paxton bring home a penguin, or are you turning in your cupcake scrubs for Popsicles?”
“It’s my week to be Popsicle mom,” she explained, sounding slightly harassed. “Who knew there were so many different kinds to choose from? Sugar-free, gluten-free, nut-free, all-natural, artificial flavoring but not coloring, dairy-free.”
“Can Popsicles have dairy?” he asked with a smile, noticing that all the BS from earlier slipped away until all he could focus on was how easy it was to be around her. He’d noticed it the other night on the beach but couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
Soothing. Liv soothed his soul, silenced the what-ifs and vanquished the guilt. Which was ridiculous because being around her should cause all kinds of turmoil.
But it didn’t.
“They can also be made in a factory that shells nuts and seeds.” She looked up at him as if the fate of the world rested on this one decision. “What if someone has a nut allergy? Surely they shouldn’t be left out of Popsicle Day.”
“Why not get a box of each, and then you’ll be safe.”
She looked at her cart, which had more boxes than kids in superhero camp. “You see my problem.”
Ford looked down at her tank, which had SUPERMOM scrawled across the chest in red glitter. And poking out, just above the top curve of the P and first M, was hard evidence that she was super indeed. “Not a problem from where I’m standing.”
Liv looked down and quickly crossed her arms. “Let me guess, you’ve got a cup of coffee to warm me up?”
“I was going to offer you a hand with the top shelf, but who am I to argue with a lady,” he said. “Unless you’d rather ask Chuck for help.”
“Don’t even say that,” she hissed, and before he knew what was happening, Liv had a fistful of his uniform shirt and had him spun around so his back was to the butcher counter, his body shielding her from view.
“What? He’s nice, single, got a steady job, and with those meat cleavers for hands, he’s defiantly not a rookie. I bet he could help a lady out.”
Ford raised his hands to wave Chuck down, and Liv snatched them back.
“He could also keep my freezer filled with lamb chops and mincemeat,” she said, peeking around Ford’s arm. “But a steady supply of meat isn’t what I’m looking for.”
So it wasn’t just Ford. It was all single men she avoided. Good to know. Not that it helped his ego any.
“What is it you’re looking for, then?” he asked, and with a glare she stepped back. She was cute when she was trying to be tough. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
That got a small smile out of her, but the sparkle in her eyes told him she wasn’t falling for it. “It’s been so long I don’t even know.”
“Okay, how about start by answering a few simple questions.”
“What? Like favorite color, favorite food, favorite number?” She laughed. “There’s more to connecting with someone than how they answered the latest Facebook quiz.”
“I was thinking something a little deeper, like, ‘Are you willing to have open conversations in order to connect with others?’ But we can start with yours. In fact, I’ll go first.” Ford looked at her top. “At the moment, red, Popsicles, and no one really has a favorite number. Everyone knows the real question is favorite kiss,” he said, and the moment the words left his mouth, he regretted it.
Liv froze, which was the exact opposite of what was happening in his chest. Because Sam had just entered the room. That was a lie—Sam had always been there. From day one. Ford had just vocalized what they’d both been ignoring.
“Liv, I—”
“No, go on, tell me how these questions will help me figure everything out.” She folded her arms in a stance that was so far from warm and friendly Ford was afraid his nuts would get frostbite.
“Not everything,” he said softly, apologetically. “But it might be a good starting point to talk about the kinds of things that pique your interest. For me it would be smart, sassy, and someone who can rock a pair of cupcake scrubs like nobody’s business,” he said jokingly, trying to get the lightness back. “In case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t. But now that you mention it, I guess I like honest, easy to read, someone who doesn’t have to rely on beef-rib bouquets or charming one-liners. It should just happen naturally.”
Well, that went smoothly, he thought, looking down at the challenging spark in her eyes. Hating himself when he saw the raw ache behind it.
“Message received loud and clear,” he said. “But you’ve got to start somewhere. I get that it won’t be with me, but you need to put yourself out there.”
CHAPTER 8
Friday afternoon, Ford arrived at the station expecting to find Harris busy in his office fielding calls from citizens in need. Instead, his desk was covered with missing pet reports dating back a decade, but Ford’s boss was absent. Maybe on a call. Which meant that Ford was free to eat his lunch in peace.
Only when he got to his office, Harris was sitting behind his desk, feet propped up, with a blonde in his lap. A giggling pixie of a blonde with big blue eyes, wearing ballet shoes and a tiara.
“Hey, Emma,” Ford said to Harris’s daughter, who was already scrambling off his lap trying to get at Bullseye. But unlike other kids who would launch into a dog, Emma stopped at Ford’s feet and looked up, her hands behind her back, little hips swaying. “Mr. Ford, can I play with Bullseye, or is he still working?”
Ford looked over at his dog, who hadn’t worked a day since they’d arrived, and said, “He’s on a break, so have at it.”
Emma bounced on her toes, the skirt of her dress moving like a pogo stick. “Can I take him into Daddy’s office?”
Ford looked at Harris and gave a smug-ass grin. “I don’t see why not. It’s probably quieter in there, more room to play too.”
“I have a bunch of files on my desk,” Harris said.
Ford waved a hand and sat down in the spare chair. “She’ll be careful, won’t you, Emma?”
“Very,” she promised, and looked up at the toughest son of a bitch Ford knew, decimating him with a single dimple. There was something so comical—and endearing—about watching it.
Harris’s world revolved around someone small enough to fit in a rucksack.
“All right, but only for a few minutes because we have to leave for dance soon.” Which explained why Harris’s SAR uniform had been replaced with sweatpants and a SHE’S MY SUGARPLUM FAIRY T-shirt.
Emma raced out the door with Bullseye hot on her trail. They hadn’t even slammed the office door when Emma pulled out her favorite Disney doll, and Bullseye let out a contented yowl.
Ford looked at Harris’s pink knee brace and smiled. “Who’s the princess, you or her?”
“It’s her first dance class, and parents are encouraged to join their kids. Emma picked out the brace,” Harris explained. “And since I’m Emma’s only parent, that means I get to spend my afternoon off doing pirouettes or some shit. And tonight, when you and the guys go to the bar to watch the game, I’ll be at home playing Emma’s version of Chopped because I haven’t gone shopping. Do you know why I haven’t gone shopping?”
Ford felt like a jerk. “Because you’ve been busy fielding calls about lost pets?”
Harris rested his elbows on the desk and leaned in—so close that Ford could see he meant business. “No, because if I had gone shopping, then there would be no need to make a mash-up of food for dinner. And Emma’s favorite dinners are mash-ups, like coconut-crusted chicken and chocolate-chip mashed potatoes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
It was obviously a rhetorical question, because Harris didn’t wait for an answer.
&n
bsp; “Being a single parent is hard. Rewarding, but hard as hell,” he said. “It takes sacrifice and worrying—a lot of worrying about if you’re doing the right thing. Because the kid comes first, always, even before your own happiness. Which can make for some pretty lonely nights. So lonely, sometimes—”
“Whoa,” Ford said, standing. “Are we talking about your sex life? Because I’m not cool with knowing how you spend those lonely nights. If you need a sitter, just ask.”
“I’m talking about how you spend your nights, Ford.”
“Again, not comfortable with the direction of this conversation,” Ford pointed out, unsure if he was amused or confused by the direction the conversation was taking.
“Well, it’s about to get a hell of a lot worse than uncomfortable.” Harris slid a letter across the desk toward Ford, but he didn’t let go. “I had a chat with one of the moms at Emma’s camp the other day. I didn’t know that her son was enrolled because she wasn’t at the parent meeting. Seems that there was a lucky spot that opened a few weeks before camp started. It got me thinking, what are the odds that the camp I was talking to you about and happened to mention a random opening was filled by Sam’s son?”
“Fuck.” Ford sat in the chair and leaned back.
“Oh, you’re more than fucked, because this just gets better.” This time Harris let go of the file, but Ford didn’t need to look at it to know what it was. A clear sign that his time here was up.
“I can explain,” Ford said.
“I hope to Christ you can, because I’m not sure there’s a way to explain how the camp tuition, of a kid you rescued, was covered by an anonymous donation that—oh, and here’s where the fucked comes in—you used Washoe County Search and Rescue funds to cover.” Harris shook his head. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t department funds,” Ford pointed out. “It was my money. I can prove it. I just sent the money order in an envelope with department letterhead so she wouldn’t know it was me.”
“Oh man,” Harris said, slowly sitting back with the biggest Oh shit expression Ford had ever seen. “This is more screwed up than I thought. This isn’t about Sam. This is about Liv.”
“What? No. This has nothing to do with her.” And everything to do with that freaking promise he couldn’t let go of.
“Sorry, man, I don’t believe you. Because you’re running around like some JV player trying to impress the homecoming queen.”
His friend’s lack of faith hurt like a double shot to the chest. Especially since Ford had meant it when he said it, but suddenly it felt like a lie. And wow, he felt like an idiot.
Had he come here to Sequoia Lake with the goal of swooping in like some kind of fly-by-night hero and impressing her? Damn straight he had, because if he did manage to impress her, then maybe she’d manage to forgive him. And eventually he could forgive himself.
“I don’t want her to think of me as some hotheaded rookie who made an impulsive decision that ended up costing her husband’s life,” Ford admitted. “I hope she never finds out what happened that day, but if she ever does, I don’t want her to think that her husband was lost because some FNG didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t understand what was at stake.”
“You might have been new to the team, but you were far from a fucking new guy, Ford,” Harris said evenly.
Ford swore and rested his head in his hands. He took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. Nothing helped. The anger and frustration and guilt—a hell of a lot of guilt—had coiled in his stomach tighter and tighter until he’d gone numb with regret.
He’d tried to ignore it, tried to bury himself with work, but that hadn’t helped either. Which was why he’d missed his certification. Ford could hike up that twelve thousand feet and sleep in subzero temperatures a million times over, but it wouldn’t change that night. Wouldn’t give him his unflappable calm back. Ford would always question his intuition, his decisions, and hesitating wasn’t an option when in the field.
Problem was, the field was the only place Ford excelled. And if he couldn’t let go, find some sort of peace with memories so he could sleep at night, then he was going to lose that too.
“I sent the chopper back,” he heard himself say. “When we got the call, we were briefed that it was a single male in his midthirties who’d skidded off the mountain and down into a ravine. We knew he’d left his car on foot and was probably headed toward one of the caves by the river for shelter.”
Ford blinked away the image of the accordioned SUV, hood dug into a snowbank, the windows missing, the doors and roof shredded from the hundred-foot slide down a jagged mountainside. He would have thought it was bad intel if they hadn’t seen the footprints leading away from the wreckage.
“The chopper lowered me down right as word came that the storm had turned. I knew if the team didn’t get out right then, they’d be stuck.” He looked up and met his friend’s gaze head-on, ready to accept whatever came at him. “I sent them back to base camp.”
Harris blew out a pained breath. “You made the right call. Safety first, subject second. If they’d stayed, then another team would have been sent out and in danger as well.”
“I saw the empty car seat,” he admitted. “I saw it and could have called them back, but I thought, What kind of asshole would have his kid out at three in the morning in a storm like this?” Ford choked on a humorless laugh. “The kind of asshole who was trying to get his son back to his mother for Christmas morning.”
Ford had just come off a three-day search in a nearby mountain range and was so tired he’d forgotten it was Christmas Eve. It wasn’t as if he had family to rush home to spend the holidays with. But Sam had, and he never made it.
“That’s every rescuer’s worst nightmare. A call nobody wants to make, but you made it, and you made the right call.”
“How do you know?” Ford yelled, then cupped the bill of his cap so he didn’t have to look at his friend. Because what guy wants to lose his shit in front of his buddy?
And just great, now Harris was standing and coming around the desk to sit in the chair next to Ford. Like he thought Ford was a delicate flower.
“Because I know you,” Harris said simply, and Ford’s throat tightened. “And I know that valley, how hard it is to navigate a Bell Ranger through there when the winds are whipping, and how dangerous it would have been to try to land in that storm. And if you still don’t believe me, then know this—any other search team on the planet wouldn’t have plowed into that storm and come out with a survivor.”
Ford waited for the guilt to subside, waited for his heart to finally catch up with his brain and admit he’d made the right call. But whatever freedom he’d hoped would come from this confession never came. “I start to believe it, and then I get called out to some site, and once I hear that a kid is involved, I start thinking about Paxton and how Christmas will forever be the day his dad died, and all of the what-ifs and doubts come back.”
“You start giving in to the what-ifs and you’ll never get out from under them,” Harris said.
Ford slid him a sidelong glance. “Every time that kid sees another dad, takes up baseball, makes it through his first day of school, he’s going to wonder about his dad. He won’t be able to let it go, so I guess it’s only fair that I can’t either.”
Harris turned his body toward Ford and rested his elbows on his knees. “Because of you he gets to play baseball and go to his first day of school. And he’s got an amazing mom who loves him. Emma’s only got one parent, and trust me, that kid is loved.”
“He barely smiles.”
“Neither do you.”
“He doesn’t talk.”
“And Emma can talk a doorknob deaf. Kids are different. And every call-out is different, which is why when you hand over your case file at the end of a rescue, you hand it all over. You walk away and know that you did all you could do. That job is finished.”
“It doesn’t feel finished,” he said. “I made a promise to
Sam that I would make sure Liv was okay.”
Harris laughed. “Have you met the woman? She is the most stubborn, independent person I’ve ever met. Well, besides you.”
She was also the loneliest. Looking at Liv was like looking at his mother. Too proud to take help, too tired to enjoy her life. She’d always said she’d get to the fun part later, but Ford had been a wild kid, and for his mom, later never came.
He refused to do that to another woman.
“Independent doesn’t mean happy,” Ford said.
“So, then, what’s your plan?” Harris asked. “You make friends with the kid, flirt with his mom a little and make her feel special—”
“What’s wrong with making her feel special?” Ford argued, his shoulders tensing. “Everyone wants to feel special, and there’s nothing wrong with flirting.”
“She’s not just anyone, and you’re going back to Reno in a few weeks,” Harris pointed out, and Ford felt his hands tighten. “Then what? The next birthday or holiday rolls around, you send another unsigned gift?”
Ford dropped his head in his hands again, because no matter how much he wanted to deny the scenario, he couldn’t. Past actions—and a ton of desperation—had him asking, “What do you suggest?”
“Have you considered telling her the truth?”
Ford looked up through his brows. “That I made her husband a promise that turned me into her mystery benefactor?”
“I was thinking more of an I’m the one who rescued your son, and your husband loved you. But coming clean is always a good thing when it involves a beautiful woman.”
“I don’t want her to relive his death.” And hate me.
“But it’s okay that you do?” Harris asked. “Because that’s selfish thinking, man. The longer you hold on to this, the longer your team goes without its leader. Sam didn’t make it, but Paxton did. What other kid is going to need you when you’re riding a desk and handling missing senior calls?”
Ford would find a new career before it came to that.
Harris let out a tired breath. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but what if you got to know her a little? Let her get to know you. She can see you’re a skilled officer, and you can see that she’s doing fine. Then you can walk into that certification clearheaded and guilt-free.”