Her Second-Chance Man

“Look,” he said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea if I let her win on this one.”

“Really?” Jessica said, and set her legs wide apart in a posture that mirrored his, exactly. “She looks to me like a kid who could use a few wins. If it’s not too hard on your ego, that is.”

“It’s not about my ego,” he said, every word bitten out.

“So, if it’s not about you, should I assume it’s about me? For some reason you’ve decided I can be trusted with a dog, but not with your niece, is that it? Was she right? Do you think I have a little hemp patch over by the compost?”

“That is not it! I don’t remember you being difficult!”

“You spent less than two hours with me, fourteen years ago. You never gave me a chance to show if I could be difficult or not.” But he remembered correctly. Oh, no, she had not been difficult. Not at all. She had been falling all over herself trying to get him to see who she really was. And for a mad moment, under the moon, she thought he had. She was certain of it. She had seen a light come on in his eyes, had seen him lean toward her, had felt his breath in her hair when he’d whispered, I’ll call.

“Jessica, I didn’t give you a chance because I was a dumb kid. I was superficial and self-centered, and I doubt if I’m much improved. But you’ll be thrilled to know there is justice. Here you are surrounded by sweetness and flowers, and I’m picking up drunks and spending half my life in a car that smells like puke and, well, worse things.

“You know what else? Not one of those kids who thought the world revolved around them has what you have here.”

“What do I have here?”

He hesitated. He looked around. His tone softened. “Michelle saw it. I can see it in your face. In this place. Some kind of peace.”

Ha. Until half an hour ago!

“So, since I’m Mother Theresa’s little sister,” though hopefully better looking, “what is the problem with having Michelle stay?”

“I never forgot what you did for that dog that night, and I need you to help my niece keep her dog, if that’s at all possible. And it’s not that I don’t trust you with her. Let me tell you, my job requires instant judgements of people. My life sometimes depends on whether I’m right or wrong. You have that look that is eminently trustworthy.”

“What look is that?”

“Oh, you know. The kind of miffed librarian look.”

“Really?” she said, and felt her lips pursing up just like a miffed librarian.

“Don’t take it the wrong way. There aren’t nearly enough people devoted to doing the right thing. Who are good. And kind. And gentle.”

“Don’t forget spunky,” she said, since he was making her sound about as exciting as A Child’s Little Book of Prayers.

“That remains to be seen.”

Did it? That could be interpreted in the very same way as I’ll call by someone with the least inclination for romance, which of course he had cured her of long ago. Thank goodness.

“I don’t want her to stay here with you in case the damned dog dies,” he said, his voice suddenly low, looking cautiously over Jessica’s shoulder. “I don’t think she can take much more.”

Jessica sighed. It really wasn’t about his ego. She could see the worry etched in his eyes.

Firmly, she said, “Brian, it’s not up to you to decide how much she can take, or can’t.”

“It’s my job now to protect her!”

The fierceness with which he said that actually made her feel the teeniest desire to be nice to him. Just for a few minutes. Until she got her way.

“There are some things that aren’t even remotely in your job description,” she told him. “Believe it or not, the sun rises and sets without your help. You seem to have a few control issues. They won’t help you with Michelle.”

“Better than hocus-pocus.”

Her guard snapped firmly back into place. “That’s what I do. Hocus-pocus. You knew it when you came here.”

“A dog is different than my niece.”

“Brian,” she touched his arm, “you can’t protect her from life, not unless you’re prepared to lock her in a closet. Even then, a tree could fall through the roof.”

“Hey, guess what? I already figured out I can’t protect her. If I could, don’t you think her mom and dad would still be here?”

“Leave her here,” Jessica said. “We’ll heal the dog, or we’ll help him die. Either can be an incredible experience. Trust me. Just a little bit.”

He looked at where her hand rested on his arm, and she went to move it away, but he laid his own hand over top of it. She could feel the leashed power in that hand, feel her own yearning.

“Okay,” he said, his voice low and gruff.

“Okay,” she said.

“Maybe she’s better off out here,” he conceded reluctantly. “I hate leaving her alone when I’m on night shift. She says she’s too old for a baby-sitter.”

“She is. She could be baby-sitting herself, for heaven’s sake.”

“Well, not for anyone who liked their baby.”

“She does okay with the dog.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s just me that she’s mean as a rattlesnake to.”

“Probably.”

“So,” he said, “are there weapons in your house? Or illegal drugs?”

“I’m the miffed librarian, remember?”

He touched the side of her cheek with the palm of his hand. The gesture was unexpected and made her heart race anew. He studied her.

“That was a mistake. More like Tinker Bell, with fairy dust.”

“Does that bring us back to the illegal drugs?” she asked, trying to hide the way his hand on her cheek made her feel. Feminine. Beautiful.

He seemed to realize he was touching her face, so he dropped his hand and then shoved it in his pocket. “I have this parenting book that I read under my covers with a flashlight and it says not to be afraid to ask. You know. About the drugs and weapons.”

“Brian,” she said taking pity on him, “it won’t help you to be a cop around your niece. I understand that you care about her, and that’s why you conduct these inquisitions before you let her do things, but even that crack about the baby-sitting shows you don’t trust her judgement. Doesn’t the book say anything about that?”

“I haven’t got to that part yet. I’m not much of a reader.” He shook his head sadly. “I had no idea she named the pup after a writer. I bought her the candy bar after she named him that. I didn’t know why she didn’t eat it.”

Jessica felt a terrible stab of tenderness for him. He was trying so hard.

A shiver went up and down her spine, but she shied away from the thought that followed it. No, she owed him nothing. For the child and the dog she would do her best.

But Brian Kemp? Healing him was way out of her league.

Still, what could it hurt to offer an opinion?

“I just feel,” Jessica said, choosing her words carefully, “you would make more headway with Michelle if you were able to tell her the truth.”

“About?”

“The way you feel about her. Instead of grilling her friends and looking at her pupils with a flashlight you need to tell her you love her more than the earth, and that you’re worried about her.”

He actually flushed, a lovely shade of crimson that moved up his neck. “If I told Michelle that, she’d tell me to take a leap. And then she’d go dye her hair green and say, ‘Do you still love me now?’”

“And wouldn’t you say yes?”

“No. Okay. Maybe.”

“Let her know you love her.”

“She’ll use it against me.”

“You look like a big, strong guy. You can probably handle it,” Jessica said dryly.

“You know, the truth is not always the best policy. For instance, when you do an interrogation, you always tell the bad guy that his friend spilled the beans, so he might as well give. It’s generally a bald-faced lie, but sometimes it works. So, it’s a lie but it accomplishes something good.”

“Well, yes, maybe on the bad guys, which your niece isn’t.”

“She seems to think I am! You haven’t been living with us for the last six months. She doesn’t like me much.”

Jessica reminded herself, firmly, that his healing was not her business. On the other hand, there would be places, and probably many of them, where his healing and Michelle’s would be interwoven like threads in a tapestry.

“Look what happened the last time she loved,” Jessica reminded him softly. “They died.”

“Are you telling me she’s scared of caring about me?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“She sure as hell doesn’t act scared. What makes you think she’s scared?”

Because I loved once, too. Oh, yes, it was a teenage love, more a fantasy than a reality, but that hurt made me afraid to give my heart again, too. How much worse must it be for Michelle?

“Good old hocus-pocus,” she lied.

Chapter Three

It had been a hell of a night, Brian thought wearily as he drove home after his shift. A pair of drunks had taken him on, split his lip and given him a pretty good couple of punches to the ribs. The bruised flesh ached, and he was willing to bet it was ugly. Of course, after all the excitement, one of them could not resist puking in the back of his car.

After the paperwork, he’d gotten a break-and-enter call that had resulted in a foot chase. He’d run six city blocks, full out, until his heart felt like it was going to explode and his legs felt like they were turning to gelatin under a hot sun.

He’d gotten the perp, a young man at least half his age.

It was the kind of night that had once filled him with satisfaction—action-packed, a few bad guys off the streets, pitting his strength against all that was wrong out there and winning. But somehow, since the deaths of Kevin and Amanda, he questioned everything and nothing felt the same as it used to. He felt old. Last night after catching the young burglary suspect, all he could think was that he would have to spend the rest of his shift in a shirt encrusted with his own dried sweat.

The discontent had been there, vague and hovering around the edges of his mind. It had never been something strong enough for him to articulate. Until yesterday, blabbing his fool head off to Jessica about picking up drunks and driving around in a car that smelled like puke.

“Don’t forget sweat,” he muttered. “Maybe next time I see her.”

To add to his general sense of discomfort, he had not seemed to be able to shake Jessica’s words: just tell her you love her more than the earth.

It was that New Age sensitivity gibberish, of course, the type of thing he was terrible at and detested. Besides, his attempts to win over females—any age, any interest group—had always been colossal failures, starting with his mother. Kevin had been the golden child, who met her every expectation, including his choice of a career as a lawyer.

Brian had never been anything his mother wanted him to be. She wanted children who were quiet, obedient and respectful; he’d been loud, independent and rebellious. His unfortunate memory of his mother was of her face sucked in with disapproval every time he entered the room. He’d gone on to earn that very same look from most of the women he’d ever been with.

And then there had been the brief engagement to his high school sweetheart, Lucinda, but her reaction to his career as a cop had been identical to his mother’s. Horror. Lucinda Potter was not marrying a cop.

And Michelle, after meeting the only woman he’d brought home since she’d moved in, a gorgeous blond personal fitness trainer, had rolled her eyes, and said, “Where on earth do you find someone like that?” He resented her insinuation that his failure in the companionship department might have something to do with his selection process. Anyway, that was the last time he’d been out. Four months ago now.

He’d decided women just didn’t get it, or he didn’t get them. You didn’t decide a chat about the state of the relationship was imperative during the Super Bowl. You didn’t tell a man you thought he should trade in a truck—one that had been faithful to him for more than a decade—for a brand-new car with a name he couldn’t pronounce. Personally, if Brian never heard one more word about a broken fingernail or split ends, it wouldn’t be soon enough.

But Brian had looked at Jessica’s fingernails yesterday, on his way to looking for the wedding band or lack thereof, and she hadn’t had any fingernails to speak of, broken or otherwise. And her hair had surely been too short to be split.

There was something about her eyes, a calmness that invited confidences, that made a man feel as if she could solve the mysteries of a restless heart.

“My heart is not restless,” he said, and snorted with derision, just to prove it.

But when he pulled up in front of his house, moments later, it mirrored the way he felt. Empty. His house looked unlived in and uninviting.

It was a modest two-bedroom, stucco bungalow in a newer subdivision of Esquimalt. He kept the lawn mowed and the newspapers picked up, but this morning the house looked cold. He realized, embarrassed by such an unmanly thought, that it would be improved with some flowers, a little landscaping.

Some of the neighbors had landscaped with twig trees surrounded by tiny shrubs.

He realized he yearned for something more flamboyant. Flowers mixed with grass falling all over each other. Since the look would be totally out of place in his well-ordered neighborhood, he supposed that was about her, too.

How could one visit have left him feeling so unsettled? As if he was suddenly seeing his life through Jessica’s eyes?

There was an easy solution to that. Don’t see her again. After all, it had worked last time. But even thinking that felt like a cheap shot.

He went around the side walk and in the back door. He had become accustomed to sharing mornings with Michelle as she got ready for school. She was perpetually grumpy, but better company than no one. More recently, the puppy had added some liveliness to the morning routine, particularly if somebody stepped in some pee.

He took off his boots, went up the four steps into his kitchen, and looked at his surroundings as if he was seeing them for the first time. The room was not messy, because he always shoved the dishes in the oven until he ran out, but it seemed suddenly lacking in any kind of personality.

Jessica’s kitchen had not exactly been tidy. Why had it felt like it was brimming over with warmth and liveliness?

He had a plain, wooden kitchen set, its lines straight and clean and modern—Danish it was called. The fridge and stove gleamed white, and there were European-style cabinets as white as the fridge and stove. Venetian blinds, closed, covered the window over the sink. Now that it had been pointed out to him he found the odd little finger smudge, but it was still a nice room. Efficient. Roomy. Bright. But it needed something.

“Yeah,” he said sarcastically, “like plants hanging from the ceiling and hundred-year-old chairs painted red and yellow.”

A voice inside him did not pick up the sarcastic note. It said exactly.

There she was again, Jessica making her presence known in his life, even though she was thirty miles away. She was just a bit of a thing. How did she manage to exude so much power?

Hocus-pocus, he reminded himself. Well, he wasn’t falling under her spell.

Okay, so his kitchen needed some color. Something over the window—a valance, he thought it was called—some cushions on the chairs, place mats on the table. That’s why Sears had their whole-home plan, so guys like him could pick out some matching stuff without the complication of the little woman.

He stepped in the dog’s water dish, something that was part of his morning routine, and wondered if he should get rid of it, just in case the dog did not return. O’Henry was painted on it in pink nail polish, the handwriting ridiculously curly, childish and feminine at the same time.

Had O’Henry made it through the night? The answering machine wasn’t blinking, not that he was at all certain Michelle would call him to report a life tragedy. Brian glanced at the clock. Just now seven o’clock. Way too early for him to phone there.

Not that calling seemed like the right thing to do for a man who wanted to keep things tidy and impersonal. What was he going to say? Good morning? Did the dog die?

He wanted to hear her voice. Was Jessica casting a spell on him?

Annoyed with himself, he picked up the dish and emptied it, thought about it for a minute, and then tucked it into the cupboard under the sink, behind the garbage can, where it wouldn’t be a reminder in case the dog was not coming home. He would not have been so sensitive a few months ago.

He looked at the clock again. He should sleep, but a different plan was formulating. If he showered, he could pick up some breakfast for all of them and be out there by eight-thirty That seemed more diplomatic than phoning and asking if the dog had died.

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