Secret Desire. Gwynne Forster

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      Kate got to her store shortly before twelve and let out a deep breath when she saw nothing untoward, but as she unlocked the door she noticed the squad car sitting across the street and walked over to it.

      “Are you stationed here, or just resting?” she asked the officer.

      “Ma’am, Second Precinct detectives don’t rest during working hours unless they want another job. I’m posted here.”

      “Well…thank you,” was all she could manage. She went in her office and made coffee. Then she took a cup to the officer, who accepted it gratefully.

      “Does everybody get this kind of service?” she asked him.

      He took a few sips of coffee, and she could see how much he enjoyed it. “This is good stuff, and I was dying for some. Thanks a lot. Oh, yes,” he said, remembering her question. “We do this whenever it’s necessary. Just ignore me and go on about your business.”

      She didn’t know what to make of Luke, protective yet distant. She wasn’t a lamb born the day before, so he couldn’t tell her that every citizen in Portsmouth could count on that level of protection. She was grateful that she hadn’t seen her store defaced and that she didn’t have to look over her shoulder every minute, but she hated that when men got interested in her they insisted on enclosing her in some kind of shell, as though she were a fragile embryo. She thought she’d left that behind when she buried Nathan. Still, she wouldn’t dare complain because Randy needed her safe and healthy. It hung in the mirror of her mind like a brilliant Picasso painting that she was all her son had.

      By the end of the day, three more people had signed up for the reading club, among them two sexy young women. If providence was kind to her, Axel would flip over one of them. The likelihood of that seemed remote, however, when Axel arrived at closing time bringing an embarrassingly large bouquet of red and yellow long-stemmed roses. She loved roses of all colors, and she didn’t have the heart to scold him.

      “You like them?” he asked, more pleased with himself than he had a right to be.

      She tried to sound moderately disinterested. “I love roses. Is there a woman anywhere who doesn’t?”

      Self-satisfaction radiated from every part of him, and she knew he thought he’d scored big with her. “If I know anything,” he boasted, “it’s how to treat a woman, and especially one like you.”

      The door opened and Randy bounded in, followed by an off-duty policeman. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see her son or anybody else.

      “I made my rounds, Mom, and delivered the stuff to all my clients.” He turned to the officer who’d arrived with him. “I did real good, didn’t I? Mom, this is my partner, Officer Jenkins.”

      She greeted the officer and shook hands with him, but she couldn’t hide her embarrassment as Jenkins stared with all-knowing eyes from Axel to the oversize bouquet in her hand.

      A frown eclipsed Randy’s face as he stared at the flowers. “Where’d you get those, Mom?”

      “Officer Strange just gave them to me.”

      Randy looked at the man. And looked and looked, while Jenkins watched. She couldn’t help wondering how early in life the male of the species adopted territorial prerogatives. Randy had just served notice that he did not like Axel Strange and didn’t want him around.

      “Captain Luke helps me with my lessons,” Randy said. “He’s my friend.”

      She would have banished Randy to her office for that piece of one-upmanship, had not Jenkins begun laughing. And the more he laughed, the more he laughed. She squelched a giggle when she noticed that Randy had gone to stand beside Jenkins, and that Axel’s face had become bloated from his ripening anger. Unable to think of a way out of it, she laid the flowers on a table and started toward the office for a vase. “I’d planned to tail you and Randy home, ma’am,” Jenkins said, “but—”

      She cut in quickly. “Thanks so much, officer. I’ll be ready as soon as I get a container for these flowers.”

      She didn’t know what the three of them said to each other in her absence, and she hardly cared, but she’d forever be grateful to Jenkins. Not that she disliked Axel—she didn’t. But the man didn’t seem capable of modest behavior. She brought out a plastic Chinese-style vase that she’d filled with water, arranged the roses in it, put the vase on the table, and left it there.

      “Now the store will have a nice feminine touch,” she said in a gesture to Axel, and thanked him for the roses. But a bunch of flowers, however beautiful and expensive, didn’t purchase her company, and he’d have to learn that.

      She’d thought that had ended it until later that evening when Randy had leaned both elbows on her lap, looked up at her, and said, “I don’t like him. Don’t let him come in the store anymore.”

      She put an arm around him, loosely because he hated to be petted. “Randy, my store is a public place, and unless people misbehave, I can’t prevent their entering it. That’s the law. Besides, he’s not a bad person.”

      “He’s not like Captain Luke and Officer Jenkins, and he doesn’t like for us kids to go to the precinct. I don’t want him to give you any flowers.”

      As much as she loved Randy, she couldn’t let him run her life, but he needed assurance that Axel wasn’t important to her. “Don’t worry about him, Randy. He isn’t special to me in any way.”

      “He isn’t?”

      “No, darling. Not at all.”

      “Gee.” Evidently satisfied, he skipped out of the room.