Читать книгу A New Life - Dana Corbit - Страница 11

Tricia turned the knob as quietly as she could, but the front door still squeaked, causing four small figures on the living room floor to jerk before they snuggled deeper in their character sleeping bags. Following the only remaining light into the kitchen, she found Hannah hunched at the table over a thick textbook, a cup of tea set within arm’s reach.

“Did you have a nice time?” Hannah’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Tricia nodded and then shrugged. “It was probably a bad idea to go.”

“You liked him, didn’t you?”

A startled breath escaped her before she could cover it. How could someone so young be so intuitive? But then she answered her own question: pain could make a person grow up fast. “No, it isn’t that,” she answered after a pause too long for Hannah not to have drawn her own conclusions.

Hannah nodded and moved over to the sink, pulling a second mug from the cupboard and pouring hot water into it. She waited until she’d dunked a bag of chamomile in to steep and had set it in front of Tricia before she spoke again. “Then what is it?”

“He’s a trooper for the Michigan State Police.” But it wasn’t that image of a man in uniform that sneaked into her thoughts then. This was the Brett she’d known only as a distracted bowler and a hockey expert. His smile was inviting and his laughter contagious.

“Oh.”

Hannah’s single-syllable answer pulled Tricia back from her forbidden thoughts. So strange that the young woman instinctively seemed to know why Brett’s job would matter so much to her.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know that before you agreed to go out with him,” Hannah said.

Absently, Tricia swished the tea bag in her mug, squeezed it out and set it on the table top. “There was some confusion about matchmakers not passing along the information. If I had known, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“I know. But you did.”

Neither spoke for several minutes. Tricia sipped the bland tea, wishing her thoughts could be equally benign. But the truth was, Hannah’s first observation was dead on—Tricia liked him—and now she was having trouble reconciling this man she liked with the one she imagined wearing a badge. And trudging up to car windows, never knowing what kind of armed thug might be inside.

“Did you enjoy your first hockey game?” Hannah asked, glancing at the wall clock instead of Tricia. “I caught the score on the news. Looked like a good game.”

“It was. Everything was so fast—the skating, the passes and the goals. I couldn’t believe how exhilarating it was.” Tricia was equally surprised at how animated she became, just describing a sport she’d known nothing about until tonight. So she backtracked. “There was just so much action.”

Hannah met her gaze then. “It’s okay if you had fun, you know. Even if you kind of liked Brett. Rusty wouldn’t mind. He’d want you to be happy.”

But Tricia shook her head, her eyes burning with tears she refused to cry. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“You know how many horrible blind dates I’ve been out on? Well, this time I was having fun, mostly because it was so laid-back. No pressure.” She paused. “But that was before I found out what he did.”

“Well…before…maybe you were finally feeling that you’re ready to start really dating again.”

Tricia took another sip of her lukewarm tea and pondered that possibility. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. Besides, if I were, I wouldn’t feel so guilty about it.”

“Like you’re betraying Rusty?” She didn’t wait for Tricia’s nod before she added, “Dad says he always feels like that when he takes a woman out.”

“Reverend Bob is dating again?” As incredulous as she was that the widower was finally having a social life, Tricia was relieved to talk about something besides her own nightmares of being set up. Then, remembering her son’s reaction to Brett, she studied the minister’s only daughter. “How do you feel about that?”

It was Hannah’s turn to be reticent. “Oh, I suppose it’s time,” she said with a negligent wave. “Mom’s been gone more than five years now. Dad’s only been out with a few women—all of them from other churches, for obvious reasons.”

“I can see why he’d want to do that.” Dating, though a tricky subject for all divorced or widowed church members, was extra sensitive for a minister. If she needed an example, she had only to think of youth minister Andrew Westin and his wife, Serena, who’d had to weather accusations of sexual impropriety when they dated. She didn’t envy Reverend Bob the microscope he would be under as each potential relationship warmed or cooled. “Have you liked any of the women he’s dated?”

Hannah made a noncommittal sound in her throat. “They’ve been nice, but none of them have been quite right for him.” Her lips turned up in a sheepish grin. “At least in my opinion.”

Tricia sensed that Hannah would never find a woman good enough for her father. An emptiness filled Tricia as she realized that was exactly how Rusty, Jr. felt about her, how Lani and Max may have felt, too. Rusty, Jr. had been acting out more than the other two, but he was the only one who’d convinced himself he was now the man of the house. She only wished he could be her little boy.

“It’s got to be so hard for your dad to move on.” Restlessness making it impossible for her to sit any longer, Tricia stood and stepped around the half wall to watch her three sweet children and little Rebecca sleep. “For me, it’s impossible.”

While Tricia expected Hannah to respond to that comment, or even to finally reveal something of her own painful secrets, Hannah rounded the table and stood next to her.

“It takes a special kind of person to have a career in law enforcement.”

Tricia glanced at her and Hannah smiled, having slyly returned to an earlier subject. The conversation had come full circle, right back to Brett.

“I’m sure it does, Hannah, but—”

“No, listen. These are everyday heroes. They put their uniforms on each day and go to work, knowing at any moment they might be called upon to be heroic.”

Something unsettling moved inside her, but was it fear or a temptation to buy into what Hannah was saying? She couldn’t dispute any of it. Still she couldn’t go as far as to say that Brett’s career didn’t matter to her. Even if she was ready to have a relationship with anybody—and there were so many glaring signals she was not—then his badge would flare like a fiery red stop sign to discourage her. The career, which Brett freely admitted defined him, involved more risk than Rusty ever took, even on his best daredevil day. And she’d had enough risk to last a lifetime.

“Well, I’m glad people like that are out there, aren’t you?” Tricia asked, hoping Hannah would drop the matter. Sure, she hoped police officers were out there somewhere, but not close to home, where she had to be the one to worry about them. Or him.

With a wave, Hannah headed off to sleep in Lani’s frilly pink bedroom, leaving Tricia to her nighttime ritual of checking the locks on the front and back doors—twice—and flipping off the lights. But tonight she didn’t want to be alone in the dark with her thoughts. She’d discovered a few things about herself that she wasn’t ready to swallow.

For one thing, she was lonelier than she’d realized. Her other discovery was that she could enjoy herself in the company of a man other than Rusty. She refused to take it a step further and admit she could be susceptible to attraction, especially to someone like Brett.

She shook away the thoughts as she climbed into bed and squeezed her eyes shut. The disquiet inside her, though, refused to subside. She longed for an escape from this day when she’d so easily forsaken the husband she’d promised to love forever, when she’d agreed to the unthinkable—a second date—whether it would ever happen or not. But as she closed her eyes, she had no doubt her troubled thoughts would follow her into her dreams.

Just before the 6:00 a.m. beginning of Saturday’s day shift, Brett slammed his locker door and set aside his shiny black duty belt that, like fellow troopers, he often fondly referred to as a “Sam Brown.” But not today. He wasn’t in the mood to refer to anything fondly today.

“What’s with you, Lancaster?”

Brett jerked his head to the sound of Trooper Joey Rossetti’s voice, knowing full well that only somebody with a death wish would call the former line-backer his lifelong neighborhood nickname instead of “Joe.” He was just surly enough this time to test the theory. “Lay off, would you?”

“I could.” Joe nodded a few times as if considering it, but then he shook his head. “But then if I couldn’t watch you banging around in here, what would I do for entertainment?” One side of Joe’s mouth pulled up in a smirk before it returned to its usual hard line. “Really, do you…um…need—anything I can do?”

Can you pound it into my family’s heads that my days at the dealership are over? Can you make paper cuts the most dangerous part of my job so Tricia Williams will go out with me? But he only said, “Nah, it’s nothing,” as he buttoned the top button of his navy uniform shirt over his Kevlar vest, knotted his gray tie and pinned on his silver badge.

“Yeah, it sounds like nothing.”

Brett put on his duty belt, making a production of checking to see that all of its contents were in place—pepper spray, collapsible baton, handcuffs case, mini-flashlight, radio and extra magazines. Then he patted his hands over the .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol at his right hip. At least it was here this time.

Apparently, Trooper Rossetti was tired of his silence because he tried again. “This isn’t still about Claire, is it? She didn’t come crawling back, did she?”

The venomous look Brett tossed at his buddy, who he’d once tapped to serve as best man at his defunct wedding, must have spoken for him because Joe nodded. “Good. I keep telling you there are plenty of fish in the sea. No use reeling the same one in all the time.”

That coming from a guy who’d often vowed he couldn’t be dragged to the altar with anything less threatening than a howitzer.

“Sounds like something you should put on a greeting card.”

“Ya think?” The younger trooper flashed a grin that he’d used for bait on his own frequent “fishing” trips. “So then I have a career in greeting cards after I lay down my badge?”

They both laughed at that, and Brett slapped Joe on the back as he passed. Neither of them would ever turn in his uniform without a fight. Not for anybody.

“You were at the Red Wings game last night, weren’t you?” Joe asked as he finished putting on his uniform. “I saw something about a fight that broke out in the stands.”

“Yeah, I was there, but—” he paused for a few seconds “—I didn’t have my gun.” Brett wasn’t accustomed to breaking rules, and this one was a law that required State Police troopers to carry a firearm at all times.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. It happens sometimes. Besides, the last time I went to a concert in Detroit, security made me lock up my gun, anyway.”

Brett pushed the door to head out into the squad room, relieved he’d managed to get through the conversation without having to discuss his miserable date. But Joe followed him out the door.

“How’d your date go?” he asked from behind.

When Brett jerked his head to the side, he caught Joe studying him with a knowing smile. He’d figured out the source of Brett’s sour mood. Brett shouldn’t have expected to keep a secret for long, especially from the trooper who used to be his partner on the midnight shift. He was glad now to be on days, where he didn’t have to share his car or his thoughts with anyone.

But since Joe wouldn’t go away, he filled him in on the story, even the part about him going for his nonexistent gun.

“So why are you wasting your time and energy on a woman who refuses to date a cop?”

Brett’s shrug must not have been a good enough answer because Trooper Rossetti was still looking at him as if he was daft when their patrol cars passed on the way out of the parking lot. That sure appeared to be the question of the day: why was he completing this exercise in futility?

He pondered that as he examined the car ahead of him at the stoplight, the one with the expired license plates. With a few keystrokes on his laptop, he connected with the Law Enforcement Information Network’s direct link to the Michigan Secretary of State’s office to run a license plate check. Because the driver had an otherwise clean driving record, he gave him a break and didn’t pull him over.