Fighting Redemption

by Sidney Bristol

  “No one has gotten out of line, except you. There’s a huge difference between harmless fun and hostility. I know the difference, Alex. You do not.”

  “Yeah, well, Trevor needs to clean up his act.”

  “Trevor and I have been friends since I volunteered for SWAT.” In the beginning, Trevor had helped deflect the unwanted advances of the other guys simply by pretending he had a bigger claim. Eventually they’d all found their synergy, except Alex. She’d never had much of a rapport with him, which was probably her fault for having such a sad crush on him. Unrequited love was a bitch.

  “It’s not professional.” Alex was practically growling at her.

  “This has nothing to do with work. We’ve worked together for years and you’ve never had an issue until today. It’s about the kiss, isn’t it?”

  “No.” His answer was too fast.

  “Look, you pushed me away, you don’t get to be upset about what I do with who.” Her cheeks heated, but it was the truth. She’d kissed him, stupidly wanting the signs she’d read to point to a mutual attraction. And they hadn’t. Her mistake. But he didn’t get to go caveman on her.

  “You were under a lot of stress. Of course I had to push you away.”

  “Alex, seriously? We’re adults. You can tell me you didn’t want to kiss me and it's okay.” Oh, and I’ve had a huge, obsessive thing for you since the moment I laid eyes on you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.

  “It wasn’t the right time.”

  The right time?

  What?

  As in—there was a right time for making out, and last night wasn’t it? Had he wanted to kiss her? Was she reading him all wrong?

  “Crying out loud. What is this?” Jenna threw up her hands. For once, she wanted a straight answer. “Are you jealous or trying to let me down easy? I can’t tell and you’re pissing me off.”

  ALEX COULD CITE PAGE and paragraph where the handbook said officers and staff couldn’t date each other. At least not if they were both in the same department. Jenna might not be directly employed by the police department, but they worked together and that grayed all the lines. He was getting ahead of himself. Jenna was talking about a kiss. A wonderful kiss that maybe lasted all of five seconds, but which had kept him up most of the remaining night.

  He’d felt like a stalker himself with how many times he’d been up and down, taking any excuse that came to mind to go to the kitchen for a drink, the bathroom, just in case she’d be awake. To his knowledge, she hadn’t moved all night, and that was good. Jenna needed rest, especially as long as the stalking had been going on.

  “Ms. Martin?” An older man with white, thinning hair stood a few feet away, a cabbie’s hat clutched in his hands. He wore a plaid flannel shirt tucked into slacks and suspenders over his shoulders. He had a kind face, one with many laugh lines around his mouth, though he wasn’t smiling now.

  Jenna turned, and her expression changed. The scowl faded and a grin slowly spread, lighting her eyes. She recognized him. And damn it if Alex didn’t wish she was looking at him like that.

  Maybe they didn’t have a future. Maybe things between them wouldn’t work out. Who knew? Why shouldn’t he find out? If they did somehow make it, one of them would have to leave SWAT. The idea of giving up the unit made him pause. He’d been part of a SWAT team for over a decade. It was his favorite part of the job. But his team needed Jenna. No other medic had her experience or coolness under pressure. If it came down to it—he would have to give up SWAT. Could he?

  “Mr. Franklin, how are you? How’s that leg?” She crossed to the older gentleman and shook his hand. If Alex had to guess, this wasn’t their second or even third meeting. He’d lay money on Jenna checking up on the man. That was the kind of person she was.

  “Good, good. I’m walking again.” He gestured to his left leg and bent the knee a bit. That he was able to stand on his right leg and exhibit balance was a good indicator in Alex’s book. What was his story though?

  “That’s amazing. I’m so happy to hear that.” Jenna grinned, her happiness palpable at her patient’s recovery.

  “Yeah, it was scary there for a bit. They kept talking about taking it off but someone was watching out for me.”

  “Someone really was.”

  “I just wanted to say hi and thank you, again.”

  “Come find me anytime. Here, give me a hug.” Jenna gave the old man a quick squeeze before stepping back. Alex tamped down on the jealousy bubbling up in his chest. Trevor and an old patient were two entirely separate issues. Alex had no beef with her friendly bedside manner.

  The old man bid them goodbye and strode, albeit a little on the slow side, out to the parking lot. He paused at an older model Buick that had seen better days. Jenna watched him for several moments, her brows drawing down and her mouth screwed up slightly. Mr. Franklin eased out of his parking spot, slow and steady.

  “What’s his story?” Alex couldn’t keep his curiosity bottled up. What tragedy had brought the old man into her life?

  “Kid blew through a stop sign, T-boned his car. He was trapped in there for hours while we had to cut him out. The leg was really mangled. Alex, I’ve seen guys come through IEDs with less damage. It was awful, and there was hardly anything I could do for him until we got him out.” Though the accident must have been some time ago, she still spoke as if the trauma were recent. The anguish in her voice made him want to wrap his arms around her and offer comfort. One of the downsides of jobs like theirs was the helplessness that came with tragedy.

  As a cop, he was supposed to make the world a safer, better place for people. And yet, horrible things happened all around him. There were times when it felt as though the job was useless and everything he worked for a silly pipe dream. And then there was the truth. There wasn’t an arm’s dealer in Ransom. Kids could play outside without fear of violence. People were safe and happy.

  “He’s okay though.” Alex placed his hand on the small of her back, unable to keep from touching her, offering one small comfort.

  “He is, but I worry about his mobility and getting around on his own. His wife passed away and all he has is a son who moved to Nevada, so he’s really alone.” She sighed.

  It wasn’t the first time Alex had witnessed someone Jenna had picked up in response to an emergency call approach her and thank her. Jenna was special. Patients remembered the way she treated them, and somehow she seemed to recall each and every one of them. She was one of those people who left her mark on every person she met, and people were better for it.

  Alex was. Or at least he liked to think her brightness chased the shadows away. He didn’t know what Mr. Franklin’s fate would be, but he had a guardian angel in flesh and blood looking after him. If Jenna could find a way to help, she would. Maybe Alex needed to pull the case files, see if there was something he could do.

  He’d loved and hated the small town mindset when he moved to Ransom. When everyone had already known his story he’d been taken aback and nearly left. His choices for where to go had been slim, so he’d stuck it out. Eventually people forgave him though no one ever forgot. He’d catch a whisper now and then. But what kept him here was the way people showed they cared.

  Like Delores. She’d worked at the station for decades. Maybe as long as Alex had been alive—though he’d never ask her. One day she’d come up to him, told him she didn’t care what everyone else said and given him a little tin of fudge. It’d been around Christmas and he hadn’t quite known what to make of the gesture, so he’d gotten her something. A snow globe if he remembered correctly. Instead of spending Christmas by himself, he’d become part of Delores’s family. She’d practically adopted him from that point on and through her, he saw another side of small town life. The part that took care of the residents because they were Ransom, not the buildings and the streets.

  He needed to drop by Delores’s after work. Check on her again. Maybe she had some advice for him where Jenna was concerned.

  Sure, people talked
and if he did wrong they’d hold it against him for a long time. But when he needed people, they were there for him. Even complete strangers could offer a helping hand.

  Alex’s radio beeped breaking into his thoughts. He tilted his head as dispatch radioed in a request for back-up.

  Jenna watched him, but there was a wall between them now that hadn’t been there before. He didn’t like it. He might never have fostered the close relationship she had with other officers, but they’d at least spoken.

  “Got to go?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but we aren’t done with this conversation.” To hell with rules.

  “Dinner?”

  “Fine.” It wasn’t a date, but it was something. “I still want to go by your place and document things.”

  Without a word, she dug her keys out of her pocket and pulled a single purple polka dot key off the ring.

  “You should think about staying somewhere besides home for a day or two. If we can establish proof someone was there, it’ll be a lot easier to get eyes on the case.”

  “I’ll work on it.” Her tone gave him goose bumps.

  “Do you know anyone you could stay with?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Jenna had been back in the states over two years. She no doubt had plenty of people in her life she’d call for help before him, but she needed to know he was there for her, too.

  “My guest room is there if you need it.” An arm’s length away. Temptation of the worst kind.

  “Thanks, Alex.” The way she said his name, he didn’t know what it meant.

  Jenna walked past him and into the hospital. Duty pushed him to his cruiser while all he wanted to do was figure out the mystery of what was going on in Jenna’s head.

  THE CANDY BAR FELL from his hands and hit the pavement. He’d meant to give it to her. Just a casual crossing of paths, nothing too demanding. He’d done it before. His Jenna had an important job to do, and he didn’t want to distract her, but he liked doing little things to show he cared. Except she was with that cop. Again.

  They had no reason to be speaking today. Last night was a fluke, something he could forgive Jenna for. After all, he understood her. They were soul mates. And she was spending more time than was necessary with that cop. It was unacceptable.

  6.

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON before Alex could swing by Jenna’s house. No one had asked questions when he’d checked out one of the high powered cameras. This wasn’t exactly by the book, but he didn’t care. It was Jenna, and she needed help. She was one of theirs—and the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  His stomach growled. He’d missed lunch because he couldn’t eat after seeing Jenna again and the way they’d left things. After so long spent wanting her and viewing her as out of his league was it possible things were different? She had kissed him. What if it wasn’t because of the immediate situation? What if she was attracted to him? He didn’t know what to think. She flirted with half the guys in their unit. Had she kissed them, too? That idea quickly went out the window. If Jenna were making the rounds, everyone would know. Someone would have bragged and it would have gone from there.

  No, she’d kissed him.

  Which made it harder to see where their future lay if they had one at all.

  Alex stood inside Jenna’s front door, surveying her home in the light for the first time. His first impressions hadn’t been wrong last night. The space was comfortable, inviting. There weren’t many personal touches, like photographs or keepsakes, but it still had Jenna’s stamp on it everywhere. A splash of color here, some flowers there.

  He could understand the allure of being in her home if he were a stalker. There was something about her home that made him feel closer to Jenna without her being in the same room. He’d walked a thousand people’s homes under hundreds of circumstances, and for the first time he got a skeevy vibe doing it. Probably because this was Jenna’s home and his intentions weren’t exactly pure where she was concerned.

  She’d called him on his jealousy—and she’d been right. Of course, in the moment, he’d just wanted Trevor to stop talking to her, because it wasn’t Trevor she should be kissing. It was him. Alex.

  He pushed the twisted mess of his personal life aside and focused on taking pictures. First, he took wide shots of the room to set the scene, then moved on to capturing the details, how books were arranged, the exact way she’d left things.

  If he were following Jenna’s every move and wanted to feel closest to her, where would he spend time in the house?

  Alex studied the living room. The way she’d organized the furniture. The little desk piled with mail was too cluttered to get much done while sitting there, which meant she checked it while standing and would toss the junk into the waste basket. His gloves squeaked as he made a fist. The stalker probably sifted through her mail.

  He approached the desk and leafed through a couple envelopes and mailings sitting on top, but they told him nothing. A cordless phone sat in a cradle with an answering machine light flashing.

  Messages were another way of burrowing into her life. What would a stalker learn listening to them? He pressed the play button and moved on rolling the questions around in his head while he snapped more shots of the kitchen and dining area. While it appeared the two areas were high traffic, he didn’t think either were what he was looking for.

  The machine played several telemarketer messages, two more calls for phone services and one for cable. One message though, wasn’t a business at all. A woman’s voice spoke in a thick accent as she gave a rambling account of how her son was doing. Another patient checking in?

  Damn, but she was something else.

  “Hi, this is Kristen from Dr. Wier’s office. Per your HIPPA form, I’m allowed to leave medical information at this number. I’m calling to inform you that I have a copy of your last psych eval ready for pickup. Sorry about how long that took, Dr. Wier wanted to review the request first. I’ll have them at the front desk at the VA.”

  VA? As in the Veterans offices? And why was Jenna looking at her psych eval? Was something wrong? She hadn’t had an injury on the job since...last year? He’d make a note of it and tell her at dinner.

  Alex progressed into her office where another desk with her laptop was set up. He wouldn’t touch that, but it was worth getting her to comb through the history, see if anyone had been on the machine while she wasn’t here.

  Why would she want to see her psych eval? Did it have to do with the stalker? Or was something else wrong?

  I shouldn’t have pressed play on the machine.

  Now he had questions he didn’t have any right to ask. He took a deep breath and tamped down on his curiosity. If he could bring it up later, he’d ask.

  The office was where she’d fed Mittens, it was where she worked out and did her on-line activity. This was where she spent a good deal of her time. Just about every officer had connected with everyone else through some social media platform or another. Jenna was more active than most, which meant she spent considerable amounts of her off-the-clock time right here.

  Alex stood at the desk and documented exactly what was around the laptop. The odds and ends lining the back edge of the desk. He’d have to make sure she looked at each one tonight.

  He paused mid-photograph and stared at the green hexagon hiding behind a photograph of Jenna holding Mittens.

  The coaster.

  THE SUN WAS JUST above the horizon by the time Jenna walked out of the hospital. She was beyond ready to be on her own time. It had taken every bit of her focus to keep her head on the job today, which wasn’t typical of her. Before the stalker, before the chance of PTSD, before she’d kissed Alex—her patients were the most important thing to her. She hated being distracted. There was a much greater chance of making a mistake, and unlike another job where she could hit an undo button, people suffered if she didn’t do the right thing. She loved being a paramedic, but damn it made for some tough days.

  It was a we
ight she usually managed well, but today it was too much. All she wanted was a cup of hot chocolate, a warm blanket and something on TV to take her mind away from it all.

  Jenna glanced around the employee lot and frowned. She always parked on the third row from the end. It had a direct path to the door with clear sight lines. She counted the rows, and no, she was on the right one. That morning she remembered parking just south of the second light pole because it still had a big, red bow tied to it that someone had missed when the holiday decorations came down months ago.

  She walked up and down the row, her anxiety rising.

  Had she been wrong? Had she parked on another row? Was she remembering a different day? She’d been scatter-brained when she’d gotten to work after the near silent breakfast she’d shared with Alex. Her nerves had been so tied up in knots it had taken a jog to loosen her up enough to focus.

  She walked up and down the row, but her car wasn’t there. If she’d driven and parked on auto-pilot, wouldn’t she have done exactly what she always did? But if she’d somehow checked out mentally on the drive, if she wasn’t herself, would she still have parked on this row?

  Jenna took a deep breath.

  Think, damn it.

  Her keys. Duh! She had a key fob with an emergency button.

  She held the keys up and pressed the red button. A car two rows over began to flash its headlights and honk. She blew out a breath—it was there—and clicked the button again. Had she parked it there?

  Jenna crossed to her little hatchback car but stopped a few feet away.

  This wasn’t right. It was parked nose-in. She always backed into a spot for a quick exit and to keep the afternoon sun off the dash.

  This was wrong. Everything about it felt wrong. This wasn’t her. She was a creature of habit, maybe a little OCD at times, but she wouldn’t do something this abnormal. It wasn’t like her. It wasn’t right.

  She backed away from the car, glancing up and down the row.

  What if it was a stalker? What if he had access to her car?