Safe in His Arms. Dana Corbit

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СКАЧАТЬ had lost impact on him a long time ago. He couldn’t understand her resilient faith. If a loving God existed, wouldn’t Emma still have a mother? Wouldn’t Joe still have his? Wouldn’t his little-boy prayers have had an impact, instead of slamming against the ceiling while his mother wasted away in slow, deadly steps? And he wouldn’t let himself get started on natural tragedies, like Hurricane Katrina, or manmade ones, like 9-11. Those wouldn’t have happened, either, would they?

      “I don’t want to go to your house, Aunt Lindsay,” Emma whined as they struggled along. “I want to go to my house.”

      “Sweetheart, that’s not—” Lindsay stopped herself with a frustrated sigh.

      Joe didn’t have to wonder if her next word would have been “possible.” Lindsay had already told him that Delia Banks’s house had been sold as part of the estate. Emma would have a tough time understanding that she could never go home again.

      “I want to go to my house,” Emma hollered this time.

      “Come on, Emma. We’re leaving now.”

      Joe wanted to tell Lindsay she was handling the situation all wrong, but he doubted she would appreciate his opinion. Not for the first time this afternoon, he wondered if Brian and Donna Collins were right in questioning their daughter’s ability to raise a child.

      Maybe he should give her a few tips—no. He put a quick stop on the path his thoughts were taking. He’d already fulfilled his promise to tell her about the accident—well, most of it. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the rest. What possible good purpose would it have served? She already had some serious survivor’s guilt. The last thing she needed was to learn that her pleas for help for her sister first had fallen on deaf ears. It was more likely that he just didn’t want to confess that those deaf ears had been his.

      “I don’t want to go,” Emma started again.

      “You’re just tired.”

      The little girl shook her head hard, her ponytails hitting her aunt’s hip with each swing. “I’m not tired. I want to stay. Want to play with Trooper Joe.”

      He couldn’t help but to smile at that, so he turned his head so they wouldn’t see. Wasn’t it just like a kid to forget what she was causing a ruckus about in the first place and to just keep arguing for the point of arguing?

      She tried to pull Emma along again, but the child had gone limp. Lindsay couldn’t pull her without falling.

      “That’s enough, Emma.” Her jaw flexed as she gritted her teeth. “We have to get home, and Trooper Rossetti doesn’t have time to play with us all afternoon.”

      “No!”

      Emma jerked free from her aunt’s hold, making Lindsay struggle to keep her balance. The little girl only made it a few steps toward the playground before Joe caught her around the waist and lifted her from the ground. He wasn’t doing a good job of not getting further involved.

      “Where are you going, Little Miss?”

      “I want to play,” she wailed.

      Holding her away from him to avoid kicking legs, Joe started up the path toward the parking lot again. He had to give the child credit for her effort, but she’d picked an opponent accustomed to wrestling squirrelly suspects into handcuffs. It wasn’t much of a contest.

      “I’m sorry we can’t play right now, but whipping around like a tornado isn’t going to make anyone want to play with you.”

      After Emma settled in his arms as he’d hoped she would, he smiled at her. “Now, that’s better.”

      Joe sensed before he saw Lindsay watching him. At his lifted brow, she mouthed the words “thank you,” and then she struggled forward again. He hadn’t done anything all that amazing, so it shouldn’t have pleased him so much that he’d impressed her.

      But as Lindsay stopped next to her car, Joe saw the reminder that it provided and felt the slap he deserved. The nondescript midsize with the child seat in the back was nothing like her sporty two-door that had fried in the accident. What was he thinking, trying to impress Lindsay Collins at all? Did he need any further reminders that he should cut his losses and put Lindsay and her niece in his rearview mirror without delay?

      Lindsay opened the right-rear door and Joe handed the child to her.

      “I want to play with Joe.” Emma struggled against the constraints of Lindsay’s arms.

      The child’s wiggling caused her aunt to lose her balance, the cane skidding from its position of support. On instinct, Joe reached out for them from behind, catching Lindsay and steadying her from beneath the elbows. He was almost convinced he felt her shiver under his touch. His fingers tingled so much from the contact that he almost opened his hands again and let the woman and child drop to the asphalt. What was wrong with him? That jolt inside him had to be the same adrenaline he felt at an accident scene. Any other type of reaction to Lindsay Collins would be unacceptable, and he wasn’t about to cross that line.

      As quickly as he could without being obvious in shoving her away, he set Lindsay back on her feet and released her. Ignoring the prickles in his fingers that refused to subside, he stepped up to Emma and tugged on one of her ponytails.

      “Didn’t we already talk about this tornado business?” He gave her a stern look. “We can make plans to play together again soon, but only if you stop this nonsense and let Aunt Lindsay buckle you in your seat.”

      Joe was as surprised as Lindsay appeared to be by his offer, but he guessed he shouldn’t have been. He’d already been too personally involved in this case, and he’d chosen to dig in deeper the moment he’d suggested the trip to the park when he could have answered Lindsay’s questions right in the Brighton Post parking lot.

      But he’d had to make sure Lindsay and her niece would be okay, and now that he’d witnessed Lindsay’s struggles, he couldn’t resist stepping in to help. He was caught now in a trap of his own making. He should drive away as fast as the high-performance tires on his patrol car could carry him, but he knew he wouldn’t, any more than he would leave a stranded motorist on the side of the interstate.

      “Promise?”

      Joe startled as Emma’s question drew him back from his thoughts. Sitting docilely now in her aunt’s arms, Emma looked back at him with a skeptical expression.

      “That we can play together? Of course, I promise.”

      But Lindsay shook her head. “I don’t think—”

      “Come on. It will be fun.”

      Lindsay’s jaw tightened as she buckled Emma in her seat and closed the car door. Finally, she turned back to him.

      He held his hands up the way he usually expected suspects to do. “Before you say anything, let me make a suggestion. I really do have a lot of experience in taking care of kids, so maybe when we meet again I could give you some tips.”

      “You mean tips about how to bribe kids into behaving?”

      Because her lips had formed a straight line, he couldn’t help grinning at her. She had spunk. “Worked, didn’t it? And it wasn’t that big of a bribe anyway.”

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