Safe in His Arms. Dana Corbit

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СКАЧАТЬ her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Effortless beauty. Julianne Moore with all that red hair and none of the paparazzi.

      Joe cleared his throat and squashed those thoughts at the same time. If those musings weren’t signals that he should cancel this meeting, then he didn’t know what was. He needed to establish a professional distance with this woman, where he’d failed the night of the accident. He would tell her that everything he knew was already in the police report and send her on her way. Simple, right? Right.

      Lindsay was leaning heavily on her cane and appeared to be struggling with the door, so he stepped over and pushed it wide for her. The source of her struggle was attached to her other hand: a preschool-age girl who stared up at him with eyes as pale blue as Lindsay’s.

      “Hi, Trooper Rossetti.” Pulling off her sunglasses, Lindsay gestured with a tilt of her head to the child beside her. “This is Emma.”

      Joe looked back and forth between them, searching for other similar traits. From the police report, he’d figured Lindsay was single. He didn’t recall anything about her having a daughter and couldn’t remember having seen a child-safety seat in the back of the crushed car. And yet, while the girl’s dark, curly ponytails couldn’t have been more opposite from Lindsay’s fiery mane, those eyes connected the two of them.

      He crouched in front of the child. “Hello, Emma. My name is Trooper Rossetti.”

      “Hi.” Emma dipped her head, staring out at him from beneath her bangs.

      “How old are you?”

      She grinned bashfully and held up three fingers.

      “Well, then you’re a big girl.”

      Joe grinned first at the woman and then at the child. So much for his tough-cop image. Little girls like his own niece had always been able to turn him to mush. Sending Lindsay and her tough questions away would be hard enough. Adding a cute kid to the equation just wasn’t fair.

      Lindsay cleared her throat. “I almost didn’t recognize you out of uniform.”

      “It’s my day off,” he told her as he came to his feet.

      “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” Lindsay’s gaze darted to the woman who’d scheduled the appointment and then back to him. “If you want to do this another day …”

      She was giving him an out, and he was tempted to take it. “Maybe you and your daughter—”

      “Niece.” She lowered her voice. “She is Delia’s daughter. Her name is Emma Banks.”

      “Oh.” Joe swallowed. He hadn’t seen that one coming. And the fact that he hadn’t considered it was another sign that he wasn’t at the top of his game.

      “Delia made me Emma’s guardian.”

      That sad, empty look entered her eyes again. Pressing her lips together, as if to settle her emotions, she smiled at the child. Emma had released her hand and was scrambling into a waiting-area chair.

      “Emma, be careful. You’re going to get hurt.”

      The child barely glanced back at her aunt before righting her backside in the chair and reaching for a brochure on the table next to her. She pretended to read the document on Michigan’s concealed-weapon permit laws, but she held it upside down.

      “Honey, why don’t you put that back?”

      “No.” Emma clutched the brochure to her chest.

      “She can have that one,” Joe said.

      Lindsay smiled, appearing relieved to skip the battle. “She’s a great kid … usually.”

      “You’re lucky to have each other,” he said, when nothing else better came to mind.

      He couldn’t help glancing again at Emma. The girl had lost her mother, a reality that no child should have to experience, and a horror that he knew firsthand. At least he could remember a few things about his own mother. Her sweet spirit. Her soft hair. Emma wouldn’t remember her mother at all, except through pictures and through the stories relatives like Lindsay would tell her.

      A lump formed in his throat as he looked back to Lindsay, who was watching her niece, as well. Lindsay’s eyes were moist.

      Joe knew he’d lost. Whether or not he was at fault for the accident, he couldn’t help feeling partially responsible for Emma losing her mother and for Lindsay being saddled with the responsibility of a child. The least he could do was to answer a few uncomfortable questions for them.

      “How about we get out of here? There’s a park in New Hudson where Emma can play while I answer your questions.”

      “Park?” Emma’s eyes lit up, and she was already climbing down from the chair.

      “It’s settled then,” he said.

      Lindsay looked back to him and smiled. Her smile was so potent, so mesmerizing, that Joe had to turn away to keep from gawking at her.

      That he happened to turn toward Clara, who was watching him instead of her computer screen, was downright unfortunate. She gave him a knowing smile. He frowned. Clara had no idea what situation she was messing with.

      “See you tomorrow, Clara,” Joe called out, as he opened the door for Lindsay and Emma.

      “Park! Park!” the child called out.

      With Lindsay balancing on her cane and holding Emma’s hand, it was slow going, but they finally reached the white four-door in one of the visitor spaces.

      “Do you mean the park built on the old landfill?” she asked, as she opened the left rear door.

      “That’s the one. James Atchison Memorial Park.”

      He waited until she’d buckled the child in her car seat and climbed into her car before he jogged around the building to the lot where troopers parked their personal vehicles. He climbed into his quad-cab pickup, relieved to be inside, even if the interior was smoldering.

      “You owe them this much,” he whispered to the inside walls of the truck cab.

      Why did you save me instead of her? Her question reverberated through his thoughts again, as dread made his limbs feel heavy. How was he supposed to answer that? But he would answer it and her other questions, telling her as much of the truth as he could.

      Only after he’d answered Lindsay’s questions and put her and her niece out of his life would he be able to tuck away his own questions about his instincts on the job and finally get his edge back. He had to reclaim it somehow—soon—before he lost his job or got himself or someone else killed.

      “Push me again, Trooper Joe.”

      “Okay, but only one last time, Miss Emma,” he said. “Then we need to take a break.”

      His muscled arms flexing against the fabric of his polo shirt, Joe pushed the swing. This time Emma went so high that the swing jerked for a weightless moment at the top before gliding back down again. Instead of crying like Lindsay thought she might, СКАЧАТЬ