Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall

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       Chapter Sixteen

      Lucy stared at the screens ahead of her and held her breath as she listened to the radio. Gunshots were fired at the scene. Her heart stopped as she waited on the officers to check in.

      “I’m sure everything is all right,” Carla said as she patted Lucy’s shoulder.

      Lucy and the other dispatcher had worked this end of a robbery before, but Lucy had never felt more fear and helplessness than she did now. Her shift ended an hour ago. She could leave and turn it over to the day shift, but she couldn’t leave. Carla wasn’t leaving her, either.

      Lucy gripped her hands in her lap. She willed the phone to ring from the teller; she prayed she’d hear Noah’s voice over the radio. She wanted this entire situation to come to an end with Noah safe. The nerves swirling around in her stomach were so much more than she could bear.

      She couldn’t go through this again. She couldn’t lose a man she cared about. Lucy bit on her bottom lip, willing the burn in her throat and eyes to subside. Now more than ever she needed to hold it together.

      An image of Emma flashed through Lucy’s mind. There was no way fate would be that cruel to steal both parents from her life.

      “Officer down.”

      The report over the radio had Lucy gripping the mic on the desk. “Repeat,” she demanded, desperately hoping she’d heard wrong.

      “Officer Spencer is down. The suspect is down, too. We’ll need two squads on the scene,” Captain St. John confirmed. “All hostages are okay. We’ve secured the area, but will let the EMTs through.”

      “What’s the status on Spencer?” Carla asked, reaching across the desk to hold Lucy’s hand.

      She was too stunned, almost sick to her stomach, to think, much less to speak.

      “He’s coming around,” McCoy chimed in. “He hit his head. He needs to be checked out.”

      Hit his head? Lucy didn’t know whether to be furious at how they’d scared her or relieved that he hadn’t been shot.

      “EMTs should be arriving on the scene in three minutes,” Carla told them.

      At least one of them was able to still do their job. Lucy wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to do this on her own.

      Time seemed to speed up a little more now that they knew what was going on and the situation had been resolved. Once the EMTs reached the scene and triaged the injured, Lucy got a report from the captain. The suspect was getting checked out after getting grazed on the arm with a bullet. He’d be accompanied to the hospital by two officers. More important, Noah would be fine, though he too was being transported to the hospital to get checked out.

      He apparently had fired the shot that struck the suspect. When the suspect had fired back, Noah had ducked and lost his balance, hitting his head on the curb behind him.

      Relief flooded her, yet she still had an overwhelming desire to see him for herself. She wanted to go to the hospital and be with him, then offer him a ride home. But she didn’t know if he even wanted to see her. Earlier, before all this went down, she’d told him to be careful, but he hadn’t replied. Not that it would’ve been professional, but she’d hoped he would’ve said something.

      In the end, Lucy went home. She was too wound up to sleep, she had no schoolwork to do at the moment, and the meetings were already planned out for the next three weeks.

      Which left her alone with her thoughts. Not a good place to be. She stripped from the clothes she’d worn to work and pulled on a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt. She’d end up at the barns tending to the horses in a bit. Since she’d gotten in late her stomach was growling, so she needed to grab a bite first.

      As she sat on the bed and pulled on her socks, she glanced to the photo on her night table. There was nothing wrong with keeping pictures, and there was nothing wrong with having them on display. But Lucy completely saw where Noah was coming from. She understood his frustrations.

      But Lucy had come to her own understanding earlier. She’d been right not to let Noah deeper into her world. When she’d been on the other end of that robbery, she had been close to a panic attack. She’d only known fear like that one other time. She couldn’t go through that every day of her life. How was that any way to live?

      Noah had been right to leave last week. He’d been right to walk away before they grew even closer with the bond they’d started. The sooner she could get out of working with him, the better off she’d be. Lucy needed to break free from Noah. She needed to not have that fear of loving someone all the while knowing he was risking his life every single day.

      Leaving the picture where it was, Lucy headed to the kitchen where her muck boots were waiting by the back door. Surely once she cared for the horses she’d be tired enough to fall into a mind-numbing sleep. She needed to do something to work off her energy and carry her away from her thoughts.

      But every single thought circled back to Noah. Once upon a time her mind only held Evan. He was still there, but Noah occupied the space in the forefront now. That was how Lucy knew she’d moved on. Unfortunately, she’d moved on with yet another man who took risks.

      Lucy stepped into the barn, the sunshine beaming in through the open ends. As she stepped up to pet Gunner, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Emma painting her horse back in Texas.

      The sound of a vehicle pulling up her driveway had Lucy stepping to the entrance to the stables. That black truck she’d become so familiar with pulled in like it СКАЧАТЬ