life involved the daily possibility of danger. Yet his mother worried about him driving a major highway after dark. “Sure thing, Mom. Love you.”
James hung up with a smile on his face. The family always ended every call with “I love you.” Only in his teens did he balk. A guy couldn’t say “love you” to his mother—forget his dad—if anyone else was around. But he’d always known he was loved, and surrounded by enough family to make a man sometimes wish he could hide out from them. But mostly it was just good to know that they would always have his back. Time to go home.
Yet once behind the wheel, James just sat without putting the key in the ignition. He couldn’t forget the look in Shay Appleton’s gaze as they walked away. She looked more than defeated, she looked abandoned.
The setting sun slanted down through the trees in the parking lot, highlighting the warm colors of the autumn leaves. The colors reminded him of her dappled gold and brown eyes. Those eyes held secrets he didn’t begin to understand but they moved him just the same. The look said she didn’t have options, or someone to back her up. And that resurrected an old and painful memory he thought he’d successfully buried.
It happened his first year on the job. A domestic-abuse call from a neighbor who’d heard a woman’s cries coming from the apartment next door.
He’d responded with his senior partner to find a young woman, plain and thin and wearing little more than a man’s shirt, and a bruise the size of a fist that had spread across her cheek to swell her eye shut. She wouldn’t let them in and wouldn’t answer any questions except to say that she had fallen over a toy and struck her face on the coffee table. There was a small child crying in the background. If there was a man behind that door, menacing her, they could only speculate.
His senior officer had tried everything to get her to open that door, cajoling her, offering to settle the crying child, to take her to the emergency room. She wouldn’t budge. But the gaze of fear and pain from her one good eye had branded James.
As they turned away, he’d been hot with frustration, calling his partner unfeeling.
His partner had waited until they were back in their squad car to speak. “You got emotionally involved. That’s not the job. If they don’t ask for our help, we can’t force them. If they say no, then you leave a card and walk away. They aren’t your problem anymore.”
His seasoned partner would repeat this speech several times in other vastly different circumstances his rookie year, but he never completely bought it. It didn’t help that, a few weeks later, they were called back to that same address to find a dead mother and child.
James massaged his brow in weariness. Shay Appleton didn’t want his help. She couldn’t have been clearer about that if she’d told him to eat dirt and die.
“You leave a card and walk away.”
His murmur drew a whimper of response from Bogart.
James shook his head as he gazed at his partner. “You don’t get a vote this time. You’ve become emotionally involved.”
He started the truck. He had become a good police officer. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to win a spot on the K-9 force after just three years on the force, the minimum. That required the hard-won ability to be unemotional in emotional situations. And to know when to step away from a situation when it didn’t call for his intervention. Shay Appleton wasn’t his problem by any stretch of the imagination. He was out of his jurisdiction. Hell, out of his emotional comfort zone. He had only one obligation at the moment, and that was to get back to Charlotte to square away the details of his actions so that he and Bogart could return to active duty.
Still, the sight of her standing on the porch as they drove away, clutching the railing as though without it she might collapse, made him feel like one cold bastard.
During the course of the day
James hung up with a smile on his face. The family always ended every call with “I love you.” Only in his teens did he balk. A guy couldn’t say “love you” to his mother—forget his dad—if anyone else was around. But he’d always known he was loved, and surrounded by enough family to make a man sometimes wish he could hide out from them. But mostly it was just good to know that they would always have his back. Time to go home.
Yet once behind the wheel, James just sat without putting the key in the ignition. He couldn’t forget the look in Shay Appleton’s gaze as they walked away. She looked more than defeated, she looked abandoned.
The setting sun slanted down through the trees in the parking lot, highlighting the warm colors of the autumn leaves. The colors reminded him of her dappled gold and brown eyes. Those eyes held secrets he didn’t begin to understand but they moved him just the same. The look said she didn’t have options, or someone to back her up. And that resurrected an old and painful memory he thought he’d successfully buried.
It happened his first year on the job. A domestic-abuse call from a neighbor who’d heard a woman’s cries coming from the apartment next door.
He’d responded with his senior partner to find a young woman, plain and thin and wearing little more than a man’s shirt, and a bruise the size of a fist that had spread across her cheek to swell her eye shut. She wouldn’t let them in and wouldn’t answer any questions except to say that she had fallen over a toy and struck her face on the coffee table. There was a small child crying in the background. If there was a man behind that door, menacing her, they could only speculate.
His senior officer had tried everything to get her to open that door, cajoling her, offering to settle the crying child, to take her to the emergency room. She wouldn’t budge. But the gaze of fear and pain from her one good eye had branded James.
As they turned away, he’d been hot with frustration, calling his partner unfeeling.
His partner had waited until they were back in their squad car to speak. “You got emotionally involved. That’s not the job. If they don’t ask for our help, we can’t force them. If they say no, then you leave a card and walk away. They aren’t your problem anymore.”
His seasoned partner would repeat this speech several times in other vastly different circumstances his rookie year, but he never completely bought it. It didn’t help that, a few weeks later, they were called back to that same address to find a dead mother and child.
James massaged his brow in weariness. Shay Appleton didn’t want his help. She couldn’t have been clearer about that if she’d told him to eat dirt and die.
“You leave a card and walk away.”
His murmur drew a whimper of response from Bogart.
James shook his head as he gazed at his partner. “You don’t get a vote this time. You’ve become emotionally involved.”
He started the truck. He had become a good police officer. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to win a spot on the K-9 force after just three years on the force, the minimum. That required the hard-won ability to be unemotional in emotional situations. And to know when to step away from a situation when it didn’t call for his intervention. Shay Appleton wasn’t his problem by any stretch of the imagination. He was out of his jurisdiction. Hell, out of his emotional comfort zone. He had only one obligation at the moment, and that was to get back to Charlotte to square away the details of his actions so that he and Bogart could return to active duty.
Still, the sight of her standing on the porch as they drove away, clutching the railing as though without it she might collapse, made him feel like one cold bastard.
During the course of the day
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