A New Life. Dana Corbit

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      “It’s strange. I’ve been out with more people in the last year than I had in my whole life…before.”

      He wasn’t the only one dancing around the subject of her late husband. “In the last year? That’s more than one a month. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be that many single guys around.”

      She chuckled at that. “Not just single guys, single Christian guys. Remember?” For a second, she appeared relaxed, with her shoulders curving forward. “Almost every one of my friends knew someone I just had to meet. Some don’t realize that just because a guy has a strong faith doesn’t mean he’ll be the best date—for me, anyway.”

      “Kissed a lot of frogs, have you?”

      She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

      At her reaction, melancholy settled over Brett, though he’d only intended to lighten the mood with his joke. She probably hadn’t been kissed at all since becoming a widow, and he didn’t like the thought of this beautiful woman having no haven in someone’s arms. A voice inside suggested his arms might be a perfect fit, but he tried to ignore that nonsense. He was no more ready to leap into a relationship again than she appeared to be.

      They drove in silence a few minutes as Interstate 696 merged into I-96, and they neared the Milford Road exit. Finally, Brett asked the question that had been twirling through his mind.

      “I know you’ve had fourteen first dates recently, but how many second dates have you had?” Her sudden intake of breath showed she’d realized what he was really asking. Would she or wouldn’t she still go out again with him?

      “I’m so sorry. If only I’d known—”

      “What do you have to be sorry about?” He interrupted her to delay the kiss-off that was building. “You didn’t answer the question. How many?”

      Her word came out like a whisper. “None.”

      “But you said you would—”

      This time she interrupted him, as if to prevent him from reminding her what she’d said. “I won’t be able to go out with you again.”

      Frustration melded with resentment over past and present slights until Brett couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s the big deal about me being a cop? You’d think I was a convicted felon or something.”

      “Your job involves risk.”

      He acknowledged her comment with a shrug. That was a given. A trooper took a certain amount of risk every time he climbed into his patrol car, every time he stepped out of it to ticket a driver for a traffic violation. He accepted it as part of the job but didn’t waste energy worrying about it.

      “And your point is?”

      She scooted closer to the passenger door. “Did anyone tell you about how Rusty died?”

      His head jerked and his stomach tightened at her question. They’d both been tiptoeing around the subject all night, and she’d just waded in waist deep. Now that she’d named him, the dead man seemed to be here, squeezed in the SUV between their two bucket seats. “A construction accident, right?”

      “Yeah. He was walking the walls on the project, something that’s dangerous even in the best conditions. But that morning it was damp from the last night’s storm. It was windy. Rusty still thought he needed to be up there walking atop a two-story wall that was only three-and-a-half inches wide. He lost his balance. He hit a pile of bricks at the bottom.”

      By the time she reached the end of the story, he wished he hadn’t encouraged her to tell it. She stared blankly into the darkness, reliving a moment no wife should have to endure. His hands ached so much to gather her into his arms that he gripped the wheel so he wouldn’t succumb to the need and drive them right off the road.

      The worst part was her husband’s accident sounded preventable. The man had no business being where he was—Tricia had nearly said so herself. What kind of idiot would have taken that chance when he had a family to think about? When he had someone like Tricia to come home to?

      “I’m sorry” was the only decent thing he could think to say, the only response that didn’t include referring to her beloved husband as an irresponsible imbecile.

      Tricia nodded at the windshield but didn’t look at him. “Rusty was always taking risks.”

      She said no more. She didn’t have to. In her roundabout way, Tricia had finally told him what he needed to know. His career mattered—a lot—because of the risks he accepted as part of the job. She’d buried her husband because of the risks he took. Now she didn’t want any part of someone else who took them.

      Brett tried to focus on the road as traffic slowed to twenty-five miles per hour at the Milford village limit, but he couldn’t keep from glancing at her stoic profile. Still, he felt compelled to defend his career choice that was as much a part of him as those children were part of her.

      “I don’t ever remember wanting to be anything else,” he began, waiting for her to turn to him, but she didn’t. “Whenever Jenny and I played cops and robbers with our brother, Kyle, I was always the cop. Jenny always had to be the nurse.” The notion struck him as strange that Kyle had always played the robber, fitting for the failure he’d turned out to be.

      “I even chose criminal justice as one of my majors in college. Business was the other.” He paused, remembering and regretting decisions he’d made. “But then Dad needed a new business manager at the dealership, and Claire and I decided it would be a better choice, so I—”

      “Claire?”

      He should have been glad that she was finally involved in the conversation, but he hated that she’d picked up on that little detail, and the fact that he’d even mentioned her. “My ex-fiancée.”

      “Oh.”

      Good. At least she hadn’t asked for gory details. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love Claire Davis, and he wanted to do nothing but forget her now.

      “Anyway, after that was over, I took the Civil Service written test. I tested twice before I was invited to take the physical agility test and then the oral board interview.”

      “Sounds like an intense selection process.”

      Shocked that she seemed interested at all, he continued. “That’s not the half of it. I still had to go through a psych evaluation, a drug test and a complete physical before I could go to the Michigan State Police Recruit School.”

      “Was it all worth it?”

      He smiled in the darkness before he answered her. “Oh, yeah. I get up every day, looking forward to going to work. I love all of it, patrolling the highway, working with the other troopers, even seeing so many sides of people. You just become so engrossed in it. It defines who you are.”

      “It sounds like the job suits you.”

      “It does.”

      Brett’s chest loosened as he pulled to a stop across the street from her house. Maybe she would relax, too, and give him a chance. At least he hadn’t been stupid СКАЧАТЬ