Читать книгу Deputy Daddy - Patricia Johns - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Bryce was used to driving a regular police cruiser, and being in the “loser cruiser” made him feel like a kid with a dunce cap. He wasn’t here to do any real police work—and that point was made clear by the minivan. No one would take him seriously in this thing.

I can survive anything for two weeks, he reminded himself.

The discipline was the embarrassing part of this. He didn’t need to learn his lesson about not lashing out. He knew that full well, and he was going to make sure it never happened again. He didn’t need the attitude adjustment, so coming out here like one of the department’s problem officers stung. His dad had been a problem officer, and he wondered if this chastisement was because of the shadow his father had cast. Like father, like son, right?

He glanced at his watch. He was due to be in a meeting with the chief in about ten minutes. Today, the “book work” portion of his sensitivity training started. He wasn’t looking forward to this. This was the place where they outlined for him in painful, workbook-filled detail that he shouldn’t pummel fellow officers. It was like writing lines in elementary school.

I will not punch idiot coworkers.

I will not punch idiot coworkers.

I will not—

Bryce wouldn’t let himself be baited like that again. Part of what made this so humiliating was that Leroy was proving a point—Bryce was just like his father. His dad had been disciplined twice for excessive use of force, and in the end they’d found him involved with a couple of other officers who’d been taking bribes. While his father hadn’t been caught red-handed, he did resign quite promptly, and the rumors swirled. Richard Camden was a prime example of when good cops go bad, and his reputation was forever tarnished.

If he’d been innocent, why resign? Why not clear his name? By that time, Bryce was already a young officer on the force, and his father’s fall from grace had hurt him, too. The thing was, Bryce had hoped that he and his dad could bond over some mutual ground now that they were both cops. He’d hoped that his distant, negligent father would see someone in Bryce he could be proud of at long last, but there hadn’t been time for any of that. When his father was disgraced, Bryce lost a last, tenuous connection to his father. Turned out that his dad didn’t have a good excuse for his parental absence, after all. And now that Bryce was a cop, and his father was no longer on the force, it only pushed Bryce further away.

The Comfort Creek police station was a quaint little affair, and it reminded Bryce of Mayberry and The Andy Griffith Show. The whole town had that feeling about it—like all problems should be able to be solved in twenty-two minutes, and end with some time at a fishing hole. If only real life were so picturesque.

Bryce parked and hopped out into the warm summer sunlight. He stepped over the bulging cracks in the asphalt where the tree roots were barging through, and trotted up the front steps to the station. The receptionist gave him a curt nod as he came inside—obviously she was used to the run of visiting officers and hadn’t much time for pleasantries. It was just as well. He was feeling less than pleasant anyway.

He headed toward the chief’s office, and when he stopped at the door, Chief Morgan waved him in.

“Good. You’re here.” He sat behind a desk, typing away at something, and only glanced up for a moment.

“Hi, Chief,” Bryce said.

The chief motioned for him to close the door and turned back to his computer. Bryce sat down in the chair opposite and waited. The rattle of keys filled the room, and Bryce glanced around. There were a few pictures of the chief with a yellow Labrador retriever, but that was it for personal effects. There were a couple diplomas on the wall, an award or two, a picture of the chief in full uniform next to a portly-looking fellow—a mayor, maybe? He looked official. The smile didn’t seem to make it to either man’s eyes.

“Okay.” Chief Morgan hit the last button on his keyboard and turned toward Bryce. “So today we start the more in-depth part of your training.”

Bryce tried to look appropriately interested. “I’m ready, sir.”

“Great.” The chief leaned back in his chair. “So tell me about this fight.”

“It was stupid, sir. Nothing to tell.”

“Do you tend to hit other officers for no reason at all?” he inquired, arching one brow.

“Not normally, sir.”

“So there was more to this, then.” The chief looked at him evenly. “Because I’ve looked at your record, and you’re generally a good officer. You work hard. You take extra shifts. You hand in your paperwork on time, and besides being late a few times, your history is good.”

It was in direct contrast to his father’s track record, and while Bryce had been proud of his clean slate, there had been a small part of him—the boy inside—who worried that it would only push him further away from his dad. What would it take to get an “atta boy” from his old man?

“Thanks for that, sir.”

“So what’s the deal, then?”

Bryce sighed. “It was a low blow, sir. Officer Higgins had been pestering me about a personal matter for weeks, and one day after a long shift when I was tired, I snapped.”

“Hmm.” Chief Morgan nodded slowly. “Do you know that I know your father?”

Bryce felt the blood drain from his face, and he attempted to keep his composure, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was. He cleared his throat and looked away.

“I’m not my old man, sir.” Bryce glanced back at the chief irritably. “With all due respect.”

“Your father is the reason I’m the cop I am today,” the chief went on. “I worked for a few months in Fort Collins before I was able to get a position here at home. He was my first partner, and he showed me the ropes. We kept up with each other over the years. He wasn’t a conventional cop, but I don’t think he was dirty. If he’d been guilty of taking bribes, he’d have been charged.”

Bryce tried to hide his surprise. It was a small county, apparently, and this was the last place he’d think to look for someone who actually sided with his dad.

“Looks like you saw more of him than I did, sir,” Bryce replied.

Silence stretched between them, but Bryce could read sympathy on the chief’s face.

“I said he was a good partner, not a good father,” the chief said quietly. “There’s a difference.”

This was getting way more personal than he was comfortable with. “I’d rather not talk about it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“He called me,” Chief Morgan said.

Bryce suppressed a wince. So after all this time his father decided to take an interest in him? Great timing.

“What did he want?” Bryce asked warily. Somehow that made it worse, having his father know about his failure. Or was this a silver lining—something in common at long last? He didn’t want it this way. He’d never dreamed of bonding with his dad at rock bottom.

“He asked me to go easy on you.”

Bryce barked out a laugh. “This isn’t exactly Guantanamo Bay!”

“That’s pretty close to what I said.” The chief laughed softly. “The thing is, good officers climb and climb, and sometimes the pressure gets to be too much. They burn out. They make a bad choice, and then they topple from their pedestal.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Bryce said drily. “I’m just like my old man. I’m a good officer who made a dumb choice. Maybe I should forgive my father for his twenty-odd years of shortcomings.”

Chief Morgan ignored the dripping sarcasm and shrugged. “Forgive him or not, I don’t really care. And I didn’t say you were like him.”

“Then what are you getting at?” Bryce demanded. “Because this is pretty personal here.”

“I know that Officer Higgins had been needling you about your father,” Chief Morgan said.

“Oh.” So that little nugget had been passed along, too, had it? He might have opened with that and saved them this delightful back-and-forth.

“And I think that when you make your peace with your father’s failure, you’ll be a better officer.”

Bryce clenched his teeth and looked away. So now Chief Morgan was going to play shrink with him? Since when did his personal issues with his old man have anything to do with his ability to do his job? It was one mistake to hit Higgins, and everyone was treating him like some sort of ticking time bomb, ready to go at any moment. He was professional. He was thorough. He did his job, and when he clocked out at the end of the day, if he held a few resentments against the father who abandoned him, it was no one else’s business.

“You disagree?” Chief Morgan asked.

“I do.” Bryce shook his head. “I imagine you’ve got a few personal issues of your own, Chief. Every man has them, but it doesn’t make it the business of the precinct.”

“It is if it affects your ability to be a good cop,” came the reply. “You carry a badge and a gun. You’d better have your personal demons well in hand.”

The chief opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small notebook. He tossed it across the desk toward Bryce.

“What’s this?” Bryce asked.

“A notebook.” The chief nodded toward it. “I want you to write down every time you pretend to be something you’re not.”

“Excuse me?” Who didn’t pretend to be something they weren’t from time to time? Every man did it, from pretending to be stronger than he was to pretending not to feel things. That was the male experience. Men weren’t allowed to be scared. They weren’t allowed to cry. They kept tough. They proved their fathers wrong.

“That’s your assignment,” the chief said. “Write down every time you pretend to be something you’re not.”

“I heard you the first time,” Bryce said. “But that’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it? We do that constantly in this job. We have to look tougher than we are. We have an image to maintain. We don’t show fear, we show confidence.”

“Then you should fill it up pretty fast,” the chief said with a smile.

“And if I refuse?” Bryce asked.

“You’re well within your rights,” the chief said with a nod. “If you don’t want to do it my way, then you can do it Larimer County’s way. I have a room filled with training binders all about feelings and appropriate responses to them. You could get started today, and I’m pretty sure you could work through about fifteen to twenty of them by the end of your time here.”

That was playing dirty. Bryce could do it the chief’s way, or spend his next two weeks hip-deep in procedural training.

“You make a compelling argument, sir,” Bryce said. He reached for the little notebook and tucked it into his pocket. “We’ll do it your way.”

“Glad to hear it.” The chief shot him a grin. “You’ll be patrolling in town with the other officers, and we’ll sit down and discuss the list you’ve written in a few days. Have a good day, Officer Camden.”

The chief turned away, and Bryce rose to his feet. That was it? He waited for a moment to see if the chief would say anything more, but he didn’t look up again. Bryce walked to the door and opened it, then looked back.

“Say, Chief?” he said.

“Yes?” Chief Morgan looked up.

“If I’m going to be on patrol, what do you say about assigning me a better vehicle?”

Chief Morgan narrowed his eyes in thought, then slowly shook his head. “Sorry, can’t do it.”

“No other cars available?” Bryce asked.

“No, I have three in the parking lot, but this is good for you. It’ll give you a bit of a jump on your assignment there.”

Bryce bit back the retort that flew to his lips and shook his head.

“All right. Thanks anyway, sir.”

He stepped outside the office and was careful not to shut the chief’s door too loudly. So driving that ridiculous minivan was part of the game here, was it? Fine. He’d do his time, and when he was done, he’d go back to his regular post and his regular life in Fort Collins.

I can survive anything for two weeks.

* * *

Lily was the kind of woman who spoke her mind and then regretted it later. She’d gone over that conversation with Bryce in her mind thirty times already, and every time she came to the same conclusion: she’d gone too far. Bryce wasn’t from Comfort Creek. He wasn’t one of them, and she couldn’t treat him like he was. While his help was appreciated and his focus on her aunt was far preferable to his focus on her brothers, it was still a huge breach of professionalism, and she regretted that.

That evening, Lily dressed Emily in a sundress she’d been given by a neighbor and wondered if she could fix this. But how? Bryce had agreed to help them look into Aaron—that was worth something. Why, oh why, didn’t she think a little more before opening her mouth and telling a relative stranger all of their family business? Except that her brothers had tried to break into the house, and so that hadn’t been avoidable, and her aunt...well, she had been preoccupied with Aunt Clarisse, and apparently, Lily talked too much. And that talkative, too-open personality was her bane. She longed to be elegant and self-controlled. She just...wasn’t.

Emily’s little legs poked out the bottom of her sundress looking as fragile as porcelain. The baby socks she’d been given kept falling off—too big for those newborn feet—and so she decided to forget about them.

The daylight from the window lit up the room, but the veranda blocked the actual rays of sun. She could see the backs of two chairs from the front porch against the window pane, and she paused to look outside onto the expanse of lawn and that towering elm. Bryce’s minivan turned into the drive. He probably thought she was insane, but it was too late now.

Emily lay on a blanket on the floor. She looked up at Lily, her big brown eyes trying to focus on her face. She leaned closer to the baby and smiled.

“Hi, sweetie,” she crooned. “You look so pretty!”

Emily’s arms flailed, and in spite of all the other drama, a wave of affection rose up inside Lily. This little girl was so precious, yet she was starting out her life with so many challenges. The baby was trying to bond—to find out who would protect her—and Lily wasn’t her mother. She was temporary foster care. She wasn’t the one Emily was supposed to connect with. But how could a newborn not bond with anyone? She had to. And how could Lily stop her own growing affection?

The front door opened, and Bryce’s footsteps echoed in the foyer. He appeared at the door to the sitting room.

“You said before not to knock,” he said, shooting her a grin. “Are we leaving now, or—”

“Is this crazy?” she asked, picking the baby up and rising to her feet. “I mean...I’m overstepping tonight, aren’t I?”

“Oh, totally,” he replied, his expression deadpan. “This is positively nuts, but it kind of beats the other things I had planned.”

She laughed, then stopped short. “I’m serious, though.”

He was joking around, and she was trying to find her footing here.

“Me, too.” He shrugged. “Look, I could check into Aaron in a less obvious way, if you want. I don’t have to come along. But now that you’ve given me the heads-up, I’m definitely going to look into him. Whether this little dinner happens tonight or not. So no pressure.”

“Are you comfortable coming along?” she asked.

“I look at it as undercover work.” He flashed a grin. “Speaking of which, I’d better get changed. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Bryce’s footsteps moved up the stairs, and she looked down at Emily. How had she gotten herself into all of this? A baby to care for, a wedding to investigate, her brothers picking the worst time imaginable to beg for attention in the most effective way possible... Add to that this handsome officer that she found herself attracted to, and she needed to keep her head on straight.

A few minutes later, Bryce came back down dressed in a pair of jeans and a gray polo shirt.

“So how are your brothers today?” he asked.

What could she say? He already knew too much about the boys.

“They’re fine...far as I know.” She shook her head. “They aren’t normally quite that bad, so I have to apologize—”

“Sure they are,” he countered.

Maybe they were, but she didn’t like to admit to it, especially to a police officer. She knew how they looked—how they all looked. She saw the boys differently than anyone else did, though. She saw the little round cherub faces that they used to have. She felt her cheeks heat at his directness.

“So we aren’t going to politely pretend that everything is hunky-dory?” she asked. “We can’t rewind a little bit there and let me have this?”

“Not tonight,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not going to judge, though. I used to be a lot like them.”

That did help a little bit. She’d called it before—sensed he was just like her brothers on some level. Maybe he’d be less inclined to teach them a lesson legally, or was she being too hopeful there?

“I could see that,” she replied.

“Yeah?” He laughed. “Well, I turned out all right—” He paused, grimaced. “Besides being here for disciplinary action, of course. But that’s complicated.”

“How much like them were you?” she asked cautiously.

“I stole a car...my uncle’s. I was arrested for it. My dad—the cop—called my uncle and talked it out with him. He dropped the charges. It was pretty serious. I could have ended up in juvenile hall.”

“Ouch.” Yes, it sounded like he did understand. “Getting arrested—did it do you any good?”

He was silent for a moment, then shrugged. “It certainly scared me straight.”

Lily glanced at the clock on the wall. They’d need to leave soon to get to her aunt’s place on time, and this conversation was getting more personal. What was it about Bryce that kept her slipping right back into that unprofessional territory?

“You ready?” he asked.

“I just need to put the car seat into the back of the car,” she said. “And I’ll drive.”

She felt more comfortable driving—it kept her in control, and right now she needed that.

As Lily turned toward the door, her sandaled foot hit something wet on the hardwood floor. Her heel slipped, and her heart flew to her throat. Just as the thought sparked in her mind that she was about to fall, a solid arm shot out and clamped around her rib cage, catching her in one arm, with the other broad hand placed protectively over the baby’s back. Bryce pulled her hard against his side, and she could feel the solidness of his ribs against hers.

Lily sucked in a surprised breath and looked up, past that strong shoulder and into Bryce’s face, which was now only inches from her own. She could see the roughness of his stubble, the tiny lines around his eyes, and could feel the heat of his breath against her cheek.

“You okay?” His voice was low and warm, and his grip on her loosened as she regained her balance.

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.” She looked down at the baby, who didn’t seemed the least fazed by their near fall.

“Good.” He released them then, and her waist felt suddenly cool where his arm had been. She looked over to find his eyes pinned to her, his expression revealing nothing of what he was feeling underneath. She was struck by how quickly he’d moved and by how easily he’d caught her.

She let out a shaky breath.

“Let’s go then,” she said quickly, unwilling to admit to herself how nice it had been to fall into those strong arms. She couldn’t get used to that. He was helpful, he seemed genuine, he was willing to look into Aaron for them...but he was also very temporary, and he knew too much. She should at least try to regain some professional composure with this man. He was her first guest, after all, and she wanted to do this right.

Unfortunately, she was bringing him to a family dinner to investigate her aunt’s fiancé. “Doing it right” had pretty much sailed. She might have to start fresh with the next guest, and just accept that things had gotten out of hand with Bryce from the start.