Once a Cop

by Lisa Childs

  “It’ll be okay, baby,” Aunt JoJo promised. But once again Kayla thought she was talking about herself, trying to convince herself everything was going to be okay.

  “It will,” Kayla agreed. Everything would be fine when her mom got married. She and Holly were too old to be flower girls. Would Mom let them be bridesmaids?

  ROBBIE STARED at the picture on the desk in Holden’s office and felt as if she was looking at an age-progression photograph of Holly. Lorielle had been a beautiful woman, much too young to die and leave behind a child.

  Robbie shivered as she considered the times she herself could have died. On the streets before the mayor had taken her in…and on the streets after she became a cop. Hell, in the back alley of the shelter, if she hadn’t had the strength to pull the trigger on the stun gun…

  At the sound of footsteps, Robbie turned toward the door. If only she’d heard them when she and Holden were kissing…

  But it was Holden this time, not the girls.

  “Did you find Holly?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Did you talk to her, or are you going to wait until we can talk to Holly and Kayla together?” Yet talking to the two of them together might do more damage than good; it might give the girls the impression that they were becoming a family.

  “Holly said she was cool with it. She got that we’re just hanging out because we’re both single and I’m not like a hundred years older than you.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Sometimes I can’t believe she’s only nine.”

  Robbie smiled and shrugged. “Maybe you should check her birth certificate.”

  Color drained from his face. “I don’t like looking at that. Seeing the father box marked as unknown.”

  Robbie turned back toward the portrait. “Lorielle really didn’t know, or she didn’t want to acknowledge him?”

  “I don’t think she knew,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “She was already living on the streets when she got pregnant.”

  “This is her, right?” Robbie tilted the black-framed picture toward him. “She has to be Holly’s mother. They look so much alike. She doesn’t even look much older than Holly.”

  “She wasn’t. She was young, like you must have been when you got pregnant. She was about the age that Skylar is now.”

  “Skylar? Was she the girl with Holly?”

  He nodded.

  “How’s she about the kiss? She seemed pretty upset.” She’d seemed jealous.

  “No, she was fine.”

  Robbie smiled at his male oblivion. “No, most likely she’s not. She has a huge crush on you. And your kissing me broke her heart.”

  He laughed. “You’re exaggerating.”

  “You need to be more careful,” she advised.

  “I put in metal detectors and hired more security guards,” he reminded her. “What else do I need to do?”

  “Be careful,” she repeated. “You’re too involved, too emotional, because of your sister. You’ve lost your objectivity.”

  He expelled a sigh of profound resignation. “I thought it might be different this visit, that you might finally approve of what I’m doing here.”

  “I approve,” she insisted. “I’m just concerned that that girl has mistaken your love for the shelter and your sister as love for her. And she’s going to get hurt. You might get hurt, too.”

  He shook his head in disappointment. “You’ve proved to me that you’re right. You can’t help these kids. You won’t let yourself care about anyone but Kayla. You won’t let yourself get involved at all.”

  She drew a calming breath as her own anger flared. “I’m not going to fight with you. I realize that I struck a nerve talking about your sister and that you’re lashing out at me. I understand.”

  He shook his head as if he pitied her. “No. You don’t. You don’t understand yourself. I doubt you can understand me.”

  He was the one who didn’t understand and couldn’t accept her. Robbie had been a fool to think another visit to the shelter would have done anything but prove to Holden that Robbie was not the woman for him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Holden pivoted in his seat as much as the belt would allow, so he could glance through the Plexiglas at Jaws. The German shepherd’s mouth hung open, as if he was grinning, perfectly content in the harness that strapped him to the back seat so he wouldn’t be hurt if the car was involved in an accident. “Where do the criminals ride? Not back there with him?”

  Ethan chuckled. “Maybe they should. Jaws would keep them in line. But I call for backup if I arrest someone. Usually we’re the ones called out as backup to track down suspects, and the arrest belongs to someone else, anyway.”

  “Do you mind giving up the arrest?”

  Ethan chuckled. “Nah, I don’t have to handle the booking or process as much paperwork.”

  Holden sighed. “I hear you on the paperwork. I never thought there’d be so much involved with running a shelter.”

  “The CPA session you and Rafe Sanchez did about community service was real cool,” Ethan praised him.

  They’d taken a class field trip, meeting first at Rafe’s after-school youth center and then at the shelter. “Yeah, it was cool,” he agreed. It would have been cooler had Robbie attended, but he couldn’t blame her for skipping the CPA since he’d been such a jerk that day in his office.

  “It was real inspiring, too,” Ethan continued as he shot a sympathetic glance at Holden. “Especially the part about your sister. I’m sorry about what happened to her.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” But maybe Robbie was right. Maybe it was time he let go of some of the guilt.

  “I’m sure you and Rafe got some more volunteers to sign up for your programs. Maybe you can find someone to handle the paperwork for you.”

  He could have hired someone to handle the paperwork and some of the counseling, too. Maybe he had taken on too much by himself. As penance for not being there for Lorielle when she’d needed him most?

  “You look like you could use more help,” Ethan remarked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look dead on your feet, Rev,” Ethan admonished him. “You’re working too hard.”

  He wasn’t sleeping, because every time he closed his eyes he saw Robbie’s face. He missed her, and he doubted he’d see her anytime soon. In addition to not being at the CPA classes, she wasn’t available for the ride-along. When he’d talked to Lieutenant O’Donnell about it, he was informed that he’d have to do a ride-along with Ethan, that Robbie had already done one.

  Truth was, she wasn’t available to him. He couldn’t blame her. He’d overreacted to her observations at the shelter. She’d touched a nerve, and he’d lashed out like one of the resentful teenagers he wanted to help.

  “I tried to get Robbie to come work at the shelter,” he admitted.

  Ethan snorted. “When would she have time? Any minute she’s not working she’s with her daughter. She doesn’t have a minute to spare, Rev.”

  “I didn’t want her just to volunteer in her free time. I wanted her to quit the department and work with me,” he explained.

  Ethan laughed so loudly Jaws barked in reaction, as if joining in. “So how hard did she hit you?”

  “Why would she hit me?”

  “Asking a cop to quit the job? God, Rev, that’s like asking one of us to cut off a leg. We’d never be the same again. The job is part of us. For some, it’s all of us.”

  “It can’t be all of Robbie. She has to think about Kayla,” Holden said. “She has to make sure she’ll be there for her daughter.”

  “She will be,” Ethan assured him. “She’s a smart cop. She doesn’t take risks.”

  “I was there when she chased that drug dealer on her own.”

  “Okay, that might not have been her smartest move. But she handled him all by herself, in the end. She’s tough and prepared. She’ll be fine.”

  “You think so?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Oh
, yeah. And Lakewood’s not that dangerous of a city, anyhow.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, not after some of the things I’ve witnessed,” Holden said.

  “Sure, bad things happen here,” Ethan responded. “But bad things happen everywhere—even in small towns.”

  “True.”

  “And it’s looking like the chief and the mayor might be coming to an agreement about the budget. When we get more officers on the streets, it’ll be safer for everyone.”

  Holden breathed a ragged sigh of relief.

  Ethan shook his head. “I thought you and the social worker had something going on, but you have feelings for Robbie.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Officers are trained to be observant. But I think a blind man could see how you looked at her at the Lighthouse. And it killed you that she left with Sean O’Donnell.”

  Holden pushed a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I have it bad.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” Holden said. “We’ve both decided it would never work.”

  “Well, at least you agreed on something. You have that in common.”

  “We probably have too much in common.” They were both so stubborn and single-minded.

  Ethan sighed. “That’d be easier than being too different. I understand that whole ‘opposites attract’ thing, but I doubt they manage to stay together long when they have nothing in common.”

  Holden said, “I think a relationship works better when you complete each other, when you can provide the other person with something they don’t have.”

  Ethan rubbed a hand over his face. “I never thought about it that way.”

  “Have you found someone special?” Holden asked.

  The sergeant sighed. “I did, but it would never work—we’re just too different.”

  “You won’t know unless you try. You have nothing to lose,” Holden pointed out. Whereas he had much to lose, but maybe he had even more to gain.

  “True—”

  A voice came over the radio. “Shots fired, corner of Lakeshore and Oak. Officer assist. Unit’s been hit…”

  Holden’s heart slammed against his ribs as he recognized the voice. “That’s Robbie. Is she saying that someone’s shooting at her?” His voice cracked. “Has she been hit?”

  “The car, for sure,” Ethan said as he snapped on the sirens and lights.

  “Just the car? Not her?” Holden needed reassurance.

  “If she’d been hit, she would have said, ‘Officer down.’” Ethan’s hands tightened on the wheel as he sped through Lakewood. Other sirens echoed his as all units responded.

  When they pulled up at the scene, lights were flashing like a Christmas show. As per the rules of the ride-along, Holden was supposed to wait until Ethan cleared him to leave the vehicle, but he opened the door and jumped out even before the car came to a complete stop.

  “Where is she?” he yelled as he shoved through the people.

  Lieutenant O’Donnell caught hold of him, jerking him back with his arm around him. “She’s not here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “At the hospital.”

  Holden’s legs shook, threatening to fold beneath him. “Oh, my God…”

  “No, she’s fine,” O’Donnell said.

  “Really?” He stared at the other man through narrowed eyes. “Then why is she at the hospital?”

  “She rode in the ambulance with the suspect.”

  “She shot him?”

  “Her. But Robbie didn’t shoot her. Discharging the gun hurt the girl’s hand,” O’Donnell explained. “She probably broke her thumb or wrist.”

  “And Robbie rode in the ambulance with the person who tried to kill her,” Holden said, hating himself for saying she didn’t care about anyone but Kayla. God, had he known her at all?

  “She doesn’t think the girl was trying to kill her,” O’Donnell explained, “just scare her.”

  “Scare her?”

  “Yeah, away from you.” The lieutenant gestured at Ethan. “Brew will take you to the hospital, and then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

  And he would be able to assure himself that Robbie was truly all right. But even if she didn’t have a scratch on her, he wasn’t sure his heart would ever slow back down to normal. This girl might have meant to scare Robbie, but Holden was the one who’d been scared. Terrified, in fact, that he’d lost the woman he loved.

  ROBBIE TENSED her muscles, fighting the urge to sympathize with the girl’s tears of pain. “You obviously never fired a gun before.”

  Skylar sniffled and shook her head as an intern applied plaster to her broken wrist.

  “Where’d you get the gun?” Robbie asked.

  “On the street.”

  The cheap weapon had misfired—not that Skylar would have hit Robbie if it hadn’t.

  “Why did you shoot at me?” Robbie had been driving through the east district when the shots had rung out, shattering the lights on top of the police cruiser.

  “Because he’s mine.”

  “Who?” Robbie asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  The girl sniffled again. “Reverend Thomas.”

  “He’s not mine, Skylar,” she said. “But he’s not yours, either. He’s only trying to help you.”

  “Because he loves me.”

  Robbie shook her head, and now she did sympathize with the teenager, who wasn’t the only one wanting Holden’s love. Some noise, or perhaps a feeling, drew her attention to the privacy curtain of Skylar’s corner of the busy emergency room. Holden stood there, his face tight with worry, which turned to resignation when she met his gaze.

  Whatever hope she’d once harbored that he might change his mind about her being the wrong woman for him died. In his mind, he now had irrefutable proof that marrying her would be breaking his promise to Lorielle.

  She waited for him to rush in and defend Skylar, but instead, he turned and walked away—leaving her puzzled and oddly disappointed.

  She turned her attention back to the girl. “He loves you,” she agreed, “but like he loved his sister. He’s so involved because he wants to make sure you don’t wind up like she did. Dead.”

  Skylar flinched and dropped her surly facade. The kid was scared, as scared as Robbie remembered being when she’d run away from home. “I’m tough,” the girl insisted, but her voice quavered with fear.

  “Yeah, I thought I was, too, when I was living on the streets.”

  Skylar snorted. “You did not.”

  “Yup, and to make it even harder,” she shared with her, “I was pregnant.”

  The girl’s eyes widened in shock. “You were? Really?”

  “It’s dangerous out there, Skylar,” she warned. “I know that. Holden knows that, and he’s trying to protect you. He does care about you, but he isn’t in love with you.”

  Tears streaked down the girl’s already puffy face. “Why? Because he’s in love with you?”

  Robbie resisted the urge to laugh and shook her head. “No.” If he had been close to falling for her, he wouldn’t now, not since she’d proved all his fears about her were true.

  Her heart aching for her own loss and also for the girl, she slid her arm around Skylar’s shaking shoulders. “It’s going to be okay…”

  She felt like crying, too, as she uttered the lie. It wasn’t going to be okay. Not for her. She’d already fallen for Holden, and she didn’t know how she was going to get over him.

  HOLDEN LIFTED a hand and wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead. He’d nearly gotten sick—with relief—because she wasn’t hurt. To get himself together he’d walked away, but only for a moment. He couldn’t stay away from her.

  Hell, he’d never been able to stay away from her. And even though he was breaking his promise, he wasn’t going to try to stay away anymore. Hearing the certainty in her voice when she told Skylar that he didn’t love her, Robbie, filled
him with regret.

  A big hand settled on his shoulder, startling him, and he whirled around to face the chief. The man must have come from home; he wore jeans and a sweater, instead of his uniform. He guided Holden back into the waiting room. “She’s good with the girl,” Frank Archer commented.

  Just like Holden had thought she’d be, once she let down her guard and shared her experiences.

  “Yes,” he agreed. He wouldn’t have known what to say to Skylar himself. The way he’d been talking to the girl since she’d shown up at the shelter had obviously given her the wrong impression.

  “I remember the first time I saw Roberta Meyers,” the chief reminisced. “She should be proud of how far she’s come and how much she’s achieved.”

  “She should.” And maybe by sharing her story with Skylar, she was beginning to believe that herself.

  “Now if she could just find someone who truly appreciates her and all she’s accomplished,” Archer said pointedly.

  “Did she tell you that I asked her to quit the department and come to work at the shelter?”

  The chief shook his head. “No. Someone else mentioned it.”

  Sergeant Brewer.

  “My wife used to worry a lot about my job, too,” Frank Archer said.

  “I can understand why.”

  “I lost her just a year ago.” Sorrow and regret dimmed the chief’s eyes. “To cancer.”

  Sympathy filled Holden. And a realization. The chief, despite his dangerous career, hadn’t been the one to leave his spouse behind, heartbroken with loss. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re still here?” Robbie asked as she walked through the E.R. doors.

  Holden nodded, unable to speak as emotion clogged his throat.

  “You can go see Skylar now,” she said, “before I take her and book her.” She looked tense, as if she expected an argument from him.

  But he wasn’t ready to talk to her yet, even though she deserved his apology. He simply stared at her for a full moment, their gazes locked, before he turned and pushed through the swinging doors.

  He still hadn’t found his voice when he ducked around the curtain and joined Skylar. Her eyes damp with tears, she met his gaze and then quickly looked away.