The Lawman Lassoes A Family (Conard County: The Next Generation Book 24) (Contemporary Romance)

by Rachel Lee

Inevitably, Vicki wondered if seeing Dan in uniform had exacerbated the problem. But then in fairness she had to admit that it had started the first night they’d been here, just as she was leaving Krys’s bedroom. If anything had stirred it up, it had been the move. It had just reached out to include Dan, as well.

  Vicki heard him coming down the stairs. “Sound asleep,” he said as he reached the bottom. “Vicki—”

  She waved her hand. “This isn’t about you. It started the day we moved here. Maybe it just needs to happen. Sooner or later she had to deal with the fact that Hal would never come back. Maybe she’s just getting to a point where she can adequately express her fear.”

  “Maybe.” He hesitated. “Was she worried about Lena going for the weekend?”

  “She never mentioned it.”

  “Then I’m a problem.”

  Vicki rounded on him, trying to keep her voice low so as not to wake Krystal. “You’re not the problem. The problem is a murdering SOB who took that girl’s father away. The problem is me moving her halfway across the country. She’s learning that sometimes things go away for good. The question is how to deal with it, because much as it stinks, Dan, it’s reality. It’s life. Everything goes away eventually. You and I know that. Now she does, too.”

  Vicki resumed pacing. He finally got out of her way by sitting on the bottom steps. “Talk to me,” he said quietly.

  “I worked for years with kids near her age. I saw it all the time. They have a full complement of emotions to deal with. Anyone who dismisses a child’s feelings is a fool. They’re real. They’re huge. The problem is that a child doesn’t have the means of expressing them completely. Or sometimes even a way to identify them.”

  “And a therapist can do that? Better than you?”

  “A good one with training, of course. I’m a teacher. That’s a whole different bailiwick.” She settled at last on a chair in the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee. He joined her. “A therapist would get her to act out the things she can’t put into words. Dealing with them in nonthreatening ways could be helpful.”

  “Then I guess that’s what you need to do. I know we have some psychologists in town, but I can’t evaluate them.”

  Vicki put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hand. “You need your sleep. I’m perfectly capable of worrying on my own.”

  “Hey,” he said. “You don’t have to worry alone, and if you think I’m walking out of here after everything that’s happened, you’re crazy. I’m staying. Live with it.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “Okay.” Then she closed her eyes. “I may be making too much of this. It wouldn’t be the first time. I was thinking that sooner or later she was going to deal with her loss in some way, and I guess this is it.”

  “But you’re sure I’m not making it worse?”

  Vicki’s eyes popped open. “No, you’re not. She’s worrying about me, too. What are you and I supposed to do? Desert her? Hardly. She’s afraid of losing us. That’s what we need to deal with, and the only way to make it worse is to withdraw in some way.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “But then there’s you. I shouldn’t have made love to you. You already told me your feelings about cops, and I should have kept a safe distance. Damn it, Vicki, you’ve got enough on your plate to worry about without adding me to the equation.”

  “Too late, cowboy.”

  “Ah, hell, how often do I have to hint to you that this isn’t a dangerous job? Do you have a computer? Look up the ten most dangerous jobs. Cops don’t even make the list. You’d have more to worry about if I were a logger.”

  “I’m starting to realize that,” she admitted. “Gut emotional reactions don’t give way easily to reason, though.”

  “No,” he agreed with a sigh.

  Just then thunder rumbled loudly, vibrating the entire house. Both of them instinctively looked up.

  “With any luck,” Dan said, “we’ll be rained out tomorrow.”

  She eyed him curiously, noting again how sexy he was. Even now, in the midst of all this concern about Krys, she was noting that. Broad shoulders, strong face, warm eyes... God, she had the bug bad. She’d have liked nothing more than to forget everything in his arms right now. She dragged her thoughts back into line. “You want the games to be canceled?”

  “Now I do. I don’t want to be away from you two that long. That’s me talking, not Krys, by the way. I’m in danger of developing some separation anxiety of my own over you girls.”

  If she hadn’t been in such a confused and worried state, Vicki might have laughed. It was such a sweet admission for him to make, though. “Thank you, Dan.”

  Thunder rolled again, and the house shook once more. Dan pulled out his cell phone, tapped it a couple times. “Bad weather but no tornado warning. Thunderstorms through tomorrow afternoon.”

  “There go the games.”

  “The fields will turn to mud if we try to play.” He set his phone on the table. “Assuming it rains. And we can’t play if there’s any danger of lightning.”

  Almost as if the heavens heard him, they opened up. Even from the ground floor, the rain sounded loud and heavy.

  “Question answered,” Vicki said.

  “Yeah. By the way, a cop is three times more likely to get struck by lightning than die in the line of duty.”

  Her head jerked a little. Why had he said that? But she knew why. Oh, yes, she knew. He was trying to reach past her emotional resistance to his profession. Gently, persistently, he just kept working at it.

  After their lovemaking, she had begun to think resistance was futile. She wanted him again. And then again. At no foreseeable time did she want Dan to back out of her life. She guessed that meant she was already in trouble.

  “I told Krys I was going to sleep on the couch. I hope that was okay.”

  “Of course.” Vicki decided that she had to put an end to this evening now. She had a great deal of thinking to do, all because she’d made love with him, and because of Krys’s reaction to his leaving.

  Vicki would be surprised if she slept at all.

  *

  In the morning, the storm showed no sign of abating. The games were officially postponed. Dan took over the kitchen, making pancakes and chatting with Krys as she sat at the table, coloring industriously. She was currently fascinated by coloring books that featured tropical fish.

  Vicki doubted that nature, for all its love of color, had created anything like what Krystal produced. At least the colors were bright and cheerful, she thought as she admired the two that Krys had already completed.

  At some point Dan must have darted back to his place, because he’d exchanged last night’s sweatshirt for a green one.

  Soon a platter piled with small pancakes sat in the middle of the table. Vicki helped Krys with the butter and syrup, then helped herself. Dan poured more coffee and joined them.

  Such a perfectly normal scene, Vicki thought. Like an ordinary family sitting around a breakfast table. But last night had blown up her illusions. She was getting seriously involved with a man who was a cop, and Krys had attached herself to him like a limpet. Worst of all, Vicki’s own uneasiness about herself had been completely swamped by her concerns about her daughter.

  She felt a momentary burst of resentment, then banished it. Sure, it would be nice if she could just revel in memories of what she and Dan had shared last night, if she could just look forward to spending the day and another night with him, acting like giddy kids in the first throes of a relationship.

  But that wasn’t going to happen, and she felt shame for resenting it even for a moment. She wasn’t a kid any longer, and she had a daughter who needed to be her top priority at all times. But Vicki was also human, as her all-too-frequent mistakes made abundantly clear. She had committed herself and her daughter to a path that might not have been the wisest choice.

  But back in Austin, even with all the concerned friends, she had felt a deep emptiness inside. At first she had put it down to missing Hal, but as t
ime passed she’d realized she desperately needed to try to find a normal life. She had a lot of years ahead of her, and much as she missed Hal, living them out as his widow forever wasn’t going to satisfy anything else inside her. She needed other things, a life that didn’t exist only in the past, or in the immediate moment when something needed her attention. She needed a future to look forward to, beyond watching her daughter grow up.

  Was that a crime? Of course not, but sometimes her emotions made her feel like a traitor. Then she wondered why. The life she had once planned with Hal was gone. All those desires needed to be replaced somehow.

  She watched Dan and Krys laughing about something, and felt an ache for all she had lost, but also felt the beauty of the moment. Krys moved ahead almost fearlessly, making new connections, coming to care for new people. She wasn’t afraid of putting her heart out there. But she did fear losses.

  Vicki took a hard look at herself and wondered if she was less courageous than a four-year-old. Krys had left everything behind, too, when they moved here. And to this day Vicki honestly didn’t know how much Krys missed her father. Or how much she remembered him, apart from photographs. Surely some of her sense of security had been affected, but Vicki wondered if the move up here, which had started all those pleas for people not to go away, might be the real source of Krys’s anxiety. It was recent, a fresh wound, and might be the whole problem.

  Yet Krys had never asked to go back to Austin. Overall, she seemed to be happy here. And Vicki was spinning in circles, wondering what she could do about any of this now.

  Dan leaned toward Krys. “I need to go home and shower and change. Is that okay?”

  Vicki held her breath. Then, to her amazement, Krys nodded. “Okay.”

  Dan smiled. “I won’t be long, pumpkin.”

  “We’ll do the dishes,” Vicki announced—cheerfully, she hoped. Had they just crossed a hurdle? Would it last?

  “Save some for me.” Dan grinned. “I made quite a mess.”

  “Ah, but you cooked,” Vicki retorted, managing a smile of sorts.

  Dan walked out, the front door closed behind him, and Vicki felt herself on tenterhooks again. But Krystal didn’t react negatively at all. She slid off her chair and carried the first plate to the sink. “Let’s go, Mommy.”

  Dan took far longer than was necessary for a shower and change. Vicki wondered if he was testing the waters...or if he needed some escape. Certainly, he hadn’t had a moment to do things his way since walking in here yesterday. He needed some space. Who wouldn’t?

  But the thought made her glum, even though she scolded herself for being unreasonable. The man had a life. He had things to do. No reason she and Krys should just take over his every waking moment, apart from his job.

  Then she wondered if he’d gotten a call. At once her heart slipped into high gear. Could he be responding to a dangerous situation right now? What if he never came back?

  She glanced at the clock. It really hadn’t been that long. She was overreacting and being unfair, all at once. Krys had resumed her coloring, and asked if purple and orange went together.

  “If you want them to,” Vicki answered a bit absently.

  Finally, the phone rang. She jumped to answer it. “Hey,” said Dan’s warm voice. “Sorry, but I have to go into work. It should be only a couple of hours.”

  Vicki glanced at the clock, setting a timer in herself even though she knew it was foolish. “Okay.” She bit back the question about whether it was dangerous.

  “Want me to explain to Krys?”

  “She seems okay right now. Coloring.”

  “Leave well enough alone. Be back as soon as I can.”

  She hung up and looked at her daughter. “Dan had to go to work for a little while.”

  Krys nodded, and Vicki felt a huge wave of relief, as no crises or disturbances seemed to ensue. The only thing that drew Krys out of her preoccupation was loud rumbling from the sky.

  “I don’t like thunder,” she said decisively.

  “Really? I do.” Vicki sat with her at the table.

  Krys eyed her. “Crazy” was her pronouncement, and despite fears that were determined to nibble at Vicki, she had to laugh.

  “Maybe I am,” she agreed. Lately, she was wondering if that was a serious possibility.

  At noon, Dan still hadn’t returned. By then Vicki was trying to keep a leash on major anxiety. When the phone rang, she flew to pick it up.

  “Hi,” said the familiar voice of Janine Dalrymple. “Can I come over and steal Krys?”

  Her mind had been so far away that Vicki blinked and had to replay the question in her head. “Steal her?”

  “The only thing more tiring than two four-year-olds having a good time together is one of them creating trouble out of boredom,” Janine said wryly. “Help? I’ll pick up Krys and they can have some playtime over here for a few hours.”

  Krys wanted to go. Vicki knew a moment’s surprise, then wondered why. Of course Krys wanted to play with Peggy. Her daughter showed no signs of wanting to check out on normal life. What she did show was separation anxiety, but only sometimes. Vicki guessed she’d wait and see for a while before hunting for a therapist. If the problem didn’t ease, or if it grew, she’d take action, but right now a lot of this could be explained by the move. Whatever bugged Krys from time to time, it certainly wasn’t bugging her today.

  So a half hour later, Krys left with Peggy and Janine, bouncing happily as she went out the door.

  Which left Vicki alone with a clock. A couple hours? It had already been four.

  The nightmare slammed her—the nightmare of Hal’s delayed return from the convenience store, followed later, much later, by the arrival of the department chaplain and a couple of Hal’s friends. The News.

  She paced almost insanely, arguing with herself. The job had just taken longer than expected. Dan was no kid, having to report in every time he got delayed. She was overreacting. Nothing had happened.

  But deep inside, she didn’t believe it. She couldn’t. Something terrible was wrong.

  Chapter Ten

  Janine called at four. “If you don’t mind, I’m keeping Krys for the night. The girls are happy and have already built a tent in the living room they want to sleep in. If Krys has any problem or gets homesick, I’ll call you and bring her home.”

  Vicki’s instinct was to say no. She wanted Krys at her side right now. She needed to touch her, see her, be sure she was all right. The need grew proportionately with her fears about Dan.

  But she caught herself, tried to speak calmly with Krys, and when she realized her daughter really wanted to spend the night, she agreed. It was a good step for her.

  Even if it was hell for Vicki.

  All the day’s stress overwhelmed her, exhausting her. Finally numb, she collapsed on the couch, trying so hard not to think about what the next knock on the door might bring.

  Starkly, she faced the fact that if something had happened to Dan it was going to hurt every bit as much as her loss of Hal. No amount of arguing with herself could change that.

  She faced something else in those long hours, too. She faced the loss of Hal, and the near loss of Krys to a maniac driver, and accepted at last that it was impossible to care without taking the risks that went with it. Nobody could escape that.

  But understanding didn’t ease her fretfulness. Loving meant risking, and now Vicki faced her demons all over again.

  Numerous times she thought of calling Dan just to be sure he was okay, but stopped herself. Hal had long ago explained that calls while he was working might distract him at exactly the wrong moment.

  But when Dan had called that morning, he’d made it sound so much as if this would be routine. A couple hours. They were well past that and then some.

  Anxiety made her skin crawl, and inside she could feel herself bracing for the blow of bad news. What the hell had she been thinking, letting another cop into her heart?

  She had known him such a short time. How
had he come to mean so much? And now, with Krystal so engaged, there was no way to back out of this. It had happened, and this rock was rolling all the way down to the bottom of the hill.

  Vicki almost hated herself as she watched the minutes tick by, so slowly that time seemed nearly to stop. She’d dropped her guard and done the very thing she had vowed never to do again. How had she been so stupid? The anticipated pain was already shredding her.

  Then she heard the front door open. She stood up, ready for disaster, but instead saw Dan. He was still in uniform, and the sight almost made her sick. A cop. A damn cop.

  “Vicki?” Evidently, he could read something on her face. He paused on the threshold of the living room, hands at his side, worry creasing his brow.

  “You...you...” Words failed her and she flew at him. His hands caught her elbows, but that didn’t stop her from pounding his chest. “I was scared,” she cried, the entire day’s worry pouring out of her. “So scared! Where the hell were you?”

  He caught her hands, stopping her blows. “Easy,” he said quietly.

  “Easy? How can I be easy? Damn you, I’ve been waiting for news and...” She choked and tears began to flood her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m sorry. I was out of phone range and it went on longer...”

  “You could have died and I wouldn’t even have known!”

  He wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to his sides, turning into a strong but gentle straitjacket. “I was safe. We were looking for a lost little girl...”

  “That makes me feel better how?” But her tears renewed, and along with them came hiccups. Then, with shocking abruptness, she realized she was acting like a wild woman. The shock froze her and everything within her.

  Strong arms surrounded her protectively, and at last, at long last, the tension seeped out of her. Reason made a steady return. Still crying, but more quietly, Vicki sagged in Dan’s arms and rested her head on his chest. He was here. He was safe.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured repeatedly. “It’s okay. Next time things run over, I’ll make sure you get a call.”