Dad In Blue

She couldn’t know the impact her words were having on him. Each was like a single bullet, and they were fired with the deadly accuracy of the bullets that had filled the air on the awful day that James Underwood died.

“What is the favor you have to ask of me?” he said.

“After I confided in him, Mayor Boyer told me about the program you and he were involved in. He suggested I call you.”

“The Buddy System,” Carlo muttered dully.

“Yes.”

Patterned after Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, the goal of The Buddy System was to match local children from single-parent homes with an older buddy of the appropriate sex. The program was the mayor’s baby, part of a community-oriented project he was heavily promoting in the year before his reelection. Carlo had agreed to oversee the project’s operations under duress, Douglas Boyer having twisted his arm a time or ten.

“So you want me to match Jeffrey with a buddy when the program is formally introduced a few months from now.”

“Not exactly.” Her big brown eyes bored into him, making him wonder if she could see into the darkest recesses of his soul, to the guilt that ate away at him like a cancer. “I want you to be Jeffrey’s buddy.”

Shock momentarily robbed him of the ability to speak. “Me?” he finally asked, blinking at her.

“Yes. Mayor Boyer seemed to think you would be the perfect buddy for my son. Especially now, since you’ve taken a leave of absence and have some time on your hands.”

Carlo had had to give the mayor some kind of excuse for his sudden request. He couldn’t recall exactly what he’d said, although he thought he’d muttered something about coming back to work too soon and needing more time to regroup.

Had the mayor seen through Carlo’s excuses to the underlying truth? The man was quite perceptive. Carlo couldn’t stem the thought that, by sending Samantha Underwood to him, Douglas Boyer was playing amateur psychologist.

If so, it was a dangerous game.

Carlo couldn’t help Jeffrey. He could barely take care of himself. How could he possibly be expected to act as a buddy to an eight-year-old boy? Besides, he couldn’t give the child the one thing he needed and wanted most: his father. If Jeffrey’s grief counselor hadn’t been able to help, surely Carlo wouldn’t be able to do any better.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Underwood,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m afraid I can’t be Jeffrey’s buddy. But I will promise to match Jeffrey with the most suitable buddy once the program is in place.”

Her face fell, and her voice was a whisper of pain. “I don’t think Jeffrey can wait that long.”

Her disappointment, and her obvious anguish, were almost too much for Carlo to bear. Harder yet to bear was that she had come to him, hat in hand, asking for his help. And he was letting her down. The way he’d let James Underwood down a year earlier.

“Why does it have to be me?” he asked, hearing the note of desperation in his voice. “Why not someone else on the force? I could give you the names of several men, all of whom would be more than qualified to do the job.”

“James respected you more than any other man he knew,” she told him. “He often spoke to Jeffrey about you. Although he hasn’t met you, Jeffrey knows who you are. You wouldn’t be a total stranger to him. Besides, I need someone who can help now. With Thanksgiving coming in a couple of weeks, and Christmas so soon after, I don’t think too many people will have the time to devote to Jeffrey that he needs. Especially if they have families of their own.”

“And I have the time,” Carlo murmured.

“Yes,” she agreed. “You do.”

It felt as if the walls of the room were closing in on him. “What about an uncle or a grandfather? Wouldn’t a relative be a better choice to spend time with Jeffrey?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Ideally, yes. Unfortunately, there are no uncles. For the most part, we’re a family of women. Jeffrey’s only surviving grandfather lives in Des Moines, and he’s not in good health. That leaves you, Chief Garibaldi.”

The walls closed in on him tighter, making it hard for him to breathe.

Samantha Underwood’s eyes pleaded with him. “I know I’m asking a lot. Too much, probably. But if you could see your way clear to helping Jeffrey, I’d be forever in your debt.”

That was it, then, he realized dully. He had no choice. Because the question had changed from could he do this to did he have the right to refuse Samantha Underwood’s request. And the answer was that he didn’t. He had to at least give being Jeffrey’s buddy his best shot. Because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t try.

Carlo couldn’t help thinking—wishing?—that, if he was able to help the child, it would quiet some of his own demons. Leaving his job certainly hadn’t accomplished that task. Cleaning his house hadn’t. Neither had carving endless quantities of wooden figures. Maybe, if he could somehow reach Jeffrey Underwood, draw the boy out, he’d be able to come to terms with the past, which would in turn help him to come to some sort of decision about his future.

On the heels of that hopeful thought came doubt. What if he blew it? Because of him, Jeffrey Underwood didn’t have a father. Because of him, Jeffrey’s mother had been reduced to the point of begging so that the boy could have a male influence in his life. What if Carlo tried to help and only succeeded in making matters worse? Samantha Underwood had already lost her husband because of his incompetence. Could he bear it if she lost her son, too?

“Will you help me, Chief Garibaldi?” she asked again. “Will you help me help my son?”

Swallowing hard, he looked away from her hopeful face and tried to regain control of his emotions. Would it really be so hard? All he had to do was entertain the boy for a few hours each week. Having practically raised his four younger brothers, the youngest of whom had been more than a handful, Carlo felt fairly confident he could at least accomplish that task.

Returning his attention to the woman sitting across from him, he said, “Yes, Mrs. Underwood, I’ll help you. Until the program is up and running, and I can find someone else, I’ll be Jeffrey’s buddy.”

The smile she aimed at him as she surged to her feet transformed what had been a lovely face into one that was heart-stoppingly beautiful. Endless seconds passed as he stared at her, unable to summon the power to do anything else. For a moment he even thought she was going to reach out to him, to wrap her arms around him, and his heart thundered in anticipation.

When he came to his senses, self-reproach left a bitter taste in his mouth. What had he been thinking? That she was going to embrace him? And, if she had, would he have ruined what surely would have been a gesture of gratitude by covering her mouth with his own?

Lord, he had to be the biggest fool in town. If ever there was a woman who was off-limits, it was Samantha Underwood. Because if he ever told her the truth, she would never smile at him again.

“I can’t thank you enough, Chief Garibaldi,” she said. “You’ve taken such a weight off my mind.”

Carlo didn’t want her thanks. What he did want was for her to go, so he could think clearly again.

When he helped her into her coat, his hand accidentally grazed her cheek. He heard her indrawn breath of surprise in the second before he pulled away from the contact.

“Where do we go from here?” he asked, feeling decidedly shaky.

“You meet Jeffrey. Are you available Saturday morning?”

“Is ten o’clock okay?”

“Ten o’clock would be perfect.” She handed him a piece of paper with her address and phone number.

At the front door, he forced himself to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry about James,” he said. She’d never know how sorry. “He was a good man. It was a privilege to serve with him.”

The sorrow that filled her beautiful brown eyes let him know that, despite the spark of interest he thought he glimpsed earlier, her heart still belonged firmly to her late husband.

“Thank you.”

Carlo didn’t know what was worse. Receiving Samantha Underwood’s thanks, or realizing that, for the next several months, he would be spending a lot of time in her company.

“I really wanted to pay my respects, after James died,” he felt compelled to say. Unfortunately, his injuries had made that impossible.

She nodded her understanding. “And I meant to visit you in the hospital. Thank you again, Chief Garibaldi.”

He followed her out onto the front porch and watched while she climbed into her car and drove away. He was still standing there five minutes later, eyes shielded against the sun, when his brothers arrived.

“Did you speak to him?” her mother asked the minute Samantha walked through the front door.

Samantha shrugged out of her coat and hung it in the closet. “Yes.”

“And?”

She turned to face the older woman. “He’ll do it.”

Maxine Miller’s hands went to her heart. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“Yes,” Samantha echoed hollowly. “Thank goodness.”

Her mother frowned. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

The euphoria she’d felt after Carlo Garibaldi had agreed to be Jeffrey’s buddy had worn off during the drive home. While she was still thrilled that he’d agreed to help her, she was less than happy about the method she’d used to earn that agreement.

“That’s because I guilted him into it.”

“How did you do that?”

“By basically telling him that he was the only man who could do the job. He would have been heartless to refuse.”

“A less than honorable man would have had no problem refusing,” Maxine pointed out.

“Yes,” Samantha agreed. “And, as we all know, Carlo Garibaldi is an honorable man. Which just proves my original argument.”

A look of sympathy crossed her mother’s face. “You did the right thing, honey. In this case, the ends definitely justify the means.”

“Knowing that doesn’t make me feel any better.” Samantha sighed. “Where’s Jeffrey?”

“Upstairs in his room.”

Her already heavy heart grew heavier. “I suppose it was too much to hope he’d be outside, playing with one of his friends.”

“Oh, Sam.” Maxine’s eyes filled with tears.

Samantha felt her throat thicken, and she quickly looked away. Though she longed to, she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of a good cry. She was afraid that, once she started, she would never stop.

“I hate to see you worry like this,” her mother said. “You have to understand that what happened to Jeffrey is a tragedy few children his age experience. It’s only natural he would withdraw the way he has.”

“I didn’t.” Nineteen years earlier, under circumstances eerily similar to the ones that had cost James his life, Samantha’s father had been killed in the line of duty.

“You were thirteen when your father died, not seven. And you had your two older sisters to help you through.”

“Maybe. But it’s been a year, Mom. What should have been the hardest part is already behind us. The first Thanksgiving without James. The first Christmas. The first birthday. Yet Jeffrey isn’t getting any better. If anything, he’s getting worse.”

“Have patience, honey. And faith. He’ll come back to us. I know he will.”

Samantha wished she could be so certain. She drew a long, shuddering breath. It tore at her heart to think of her child being so alone. Before James’s death, Jeffrey had been so outgoing, so alive. And now…

Swallowing, she said, “To tell you the truth, Mom, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

She was a nurse. She’d dedicated her life to helping others. It tortured her that she couldn’t do anything to help her own son. She could bandage a cut, soothe a fevered brow, but she had no idea how to heal the bruising of Jeffrey’s soul. With every day that passed, he slipped further and further away from her. No matter how hard she tried, Samantha couldn’t reach him.

“Would you like me to come over for a couple of evenings this week, so you can get out on your own?” Maxine asked. “Maybe some time by yourself would help.”

“It wouldn’t do any good. I worry about Jeffrey whether I’m with him or not.”

“I could just come and keep you company.”

Once again, Samantha found herself blinking back tears. “I’d like that, Mom. Very much.”

“I think going to Chief Garibaldi was a step in the right direction. Having Jeffrey spend time with someone who knew and worked with his father might just be able to bring about the breakthrough we’ve been praying for.”

“I certainly hope so,” Samantha said fervently. So much rode on this relationship working out. The stakes were incredibly high. Too high?

“What’s he like?” Maxine asked.

“Who?”

“Chief Garibaldi.”

Samantha’s heart thudded as she recalled her first glimpse of him. “Oh.”

“Well?” Maxine gazed at her pointedly.

“He’s…just like James described him.” And so much more.

“His picture was in the paper last week. He was honored for his actions that day.”

“I know,” Samantha said softly. “I saw it.”

After speaking to Mayor Boyer that morning, Samantha had dug the newspaper in question out of the pile to be placed at the curb on recycling day. Though grainy, the photograph on the front page had arrested her attention. She’d seen his cap of unruly black hair, his broad forehead, his piercing brown eyes that gleamed with intelligence, his classic Roman nose and his determined chin, and had known exactly what to expect when she met him: a man who, like her husband, was filled with an unswerving dedication to right all wrongs.

What she hadn’t expected was his smoldering sensuality, or the helpless way she had responded to it.

Guilt stabbed at her as she faced a truth she’d been trying to hide from since the moment she’d laid eyes on her son’s buddy. Her husband, whom she’d loved more than life itself, had been gone just over a year, and she’d stood on Carlo Garibaldi’s front doorstep, gaping at him like a hormone-struck teenager. Her son needed help desperately, and all she’d been able to think about was the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his brown eyes, and the fullness of his lips. What had gotten into her?

She supposed it had something to do with the fact that he was nothing like she had anticipated. When he’d answered his door, her first reaction, before awareness set in, had been amazement that he wasn’t taller. After the way James had sung Carlo’s praises, Samantha had expected him to be almost Paul Bunyanesque in stature. To discover that he was a good two inches shy of the six-foot mark had been a surprise.

What he lacked in height, however, he more than made up for with his dark good looks, sheer force of personality and well-muscled physique. He’d looked so strong, so capable, that Samantha had found herself repressing a ridiculous desire to lean her head on his shoulder and tell him all her troubles.

When she’d realized how he affected her, she’d almost turned on her heel and walked away. Instead, for Jeffrey’s sake, she’d forced herself to offer him her hand.

Since there was no way she could talk to her mother about this, Samantha decided that a change of subject was in order. “When do you leave on your cruise?” she asked.

“A week from tomorrow.”

Because Lawrence Miller had been killed on Thanksgiving Day, Maxine always took a cruise over the holiday—the exception being the preceding year because it had been too soon after James’s death. Getting away was her mother’s way of dealing with her loss.

“You really don’t mind me going?” Maxine asked.

“Why should I mind?”

Her mother shrugged. “I’m not sure I should be leaving you alone just now.”

“I’m not alone, Mom,” Samantha said gently. “I have Jeffrey. We’ll be just fine.”

She was stretching the truth somewhat. Things wouldn’t be truly fine until Jeffrey was himself again. But the last thing Samantha wanted was for her mother to worry about the two of them while she was on her cruise.

“If you say so.” The doubt in Maxine’s voice made her ambivalence clear.

“I say so.”

“If only your sisters didn’t live so far away.”

Bridget, Samantha’s oldest sister, was a financial analyst on Wall Street. Colleen, the middle child, was an electrical engineer and lived in Los Angeles. Both were so wrapped up in their careers that they rarely made it back home.

“It’s a sign of the times,” Samantha said.

“A sad sign, if you ask me,” her mother replied.

Silence reigned while Maxine followed Samantha out to the kitchen. Against her will, Samantha’s thoughts returned to Carlo Garibaldi and her reaction to him. Her mother had grieved for nineteen years now for the man she had lost. To the best of Samantha’s knowledge, in all that time Maxine had never looked at another man.

Samantha had looked long and hard at Carlo Garibaldi. What did that make her?

Her unwelcome awareness of him wasn’t important, she told herself. She certainly wasn’t going to act on it. All that mattered was that Jeffrey get well again.

Pairing Jeffrey with Carlo Garibaldi was a last-ditch effort to break down the walls he had erected between himself and the rest of the world. With all her heart and soul, Samantha prayed it would work. Because, while she herself didn’t know how to reach her son, she was certain of one thing. If someone didn’t get through to Jeffrey soon, she stood a good chance of losing him altogether.

Chapter 2

Hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, Carlo slowly walked the twelve blocks separating his home from the Underwood residence. Overhead, the sky was covered by a blanket of gray clouds that did or did not, depending upon which meteorologist one favored, hold the promise of the first snow of the season.

When he reached the foot of the cement path leading up to 221 Lincoln Drive, he came to a reluctant halt. At first glance, the house where Samantha Underwood lived with her son looked a lot like his own: older—probably built in the early twenties—constructed of brick, square in shape and two-and-a-half stories tall. It was only when Carlo peered closer that he glimpsed the subtle signs of neglect; signs all pointing to the absence of the man who had been in charge of its upkeep.

Leaves from an old oak tree carpeted the yard. The forest-green paint on the shutters flanking the front windows had begun to flake. A jagged crack marred one of the windows of the detached two-car garage.

Carlo shivered when an icy wind stung his cheeks and snuck its way into the folds of his jacket. Once again, he pondered the wisdom of the decision that had led him here. He’d half decided to walk back home when Samantha opened her front door and stared out at him.

She wore a pair of brown corduroy pants and a matching cotton sweater with a deep V neck that drew his gaze to the long, slender column of her throat. Her straight blond hair had been combed back off her forehead to fall freely to her shoulders.

At the sight of her lovely face, Carlo’s breath clogged in his throat. She was like the sunlight to a man who had been trapped in a dark cave for far too long. Try as he might, he couldn’t look away.

Damn. The awareness was still there. If anything, it had intensified. He’d hoped—prayed, actually—that it had just been a fluke, the result of a desperate man latching onto the sight of a beautiful woman standing on his doorstep. Especially now that he knew the impossibility of there ever being anything between them.

But it wasn’t a fluke. The way she made him feel inside wasn’t fading. Which meant he had to ignore it.

“Are you going to come in?” she called.

Since the choice of beating a hasty retreat had been taken away from him, Carlo moved up the walkway and climbed the steps of her front porch.

“Sorry I’m late.”

That she looked happy to see him made his breathing grow even more erratic. Actually, maybe relieved was a better description, an impression she confirmed with her next words.

“For a minute, I thought you weren’t coming.”

“For a minute, I almost didn’t,” he answered honestly.

Hand still on the brass knob of her front door, she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “Having second thoughts?”

“And third and fourth and fifth. Aren’t you?”

“No,” she replied, without a hint of hesitation.

The way she stood firm in her conviction that he was the one person who could help her son illustrated how deceptive appearances could be. To look at her, a man might mistakenly believe that Samantha Underwood was as delicate as blown glass. But, though she looked slight and insubstantial, the woman had an inner strength that transcended her seeming fragility. Something told Carlo she was as fiercely and stubbornly independent as his sister. But then, she would have had to be, to survive the past year.

Unfortunately, her strength made her all the more attractive to him. He never had been drawn to women who clung tighter than the rose vines that climbed the trellis in his front yard every summer.

“So you’re having second thoughts,” she commented.

About more than just his promise to help her son. “Yes.”

“Why? Don’t you like children?”

“I like them well enough. It’s the responsibility that’s getting to me.”

She seemed to mull his words over. “From everything I’ve heard about you, you’re a man who thrives on responsibility. You wouldn’t be chief of police otherwise.”

A year ago, that had been more than true. He’d once been a man who’d prided himself on his ability to look out for others. The operative word being once.

“That may be so,” he said, “but while I’m responsible for directing the actions of the people under my charge, I always leave their mental welfare to others. I’m no mental health expert, Mrs. Underwood. I’ve never pretended to be.”

She seemed to relax. “He’s just a little boy, Chief Garibaldi. A lost little boy who needs a man’s guidance. That’s all. How about we leave his mental health to his grief counselor?”

Put that way, the task didn’t seem so daunting. “Carlo,” he said.

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The name’s Carlo. Since we’re going to be seeing each other rather frequently, it only makes sense to drop the formalities.”

She stood aside. “Would you like to come in…Carlo? And please, call me Samantha.”

He stepped into a small foyer, the walls of which were lined with framed photographs. While Samantha collected his coat and hung it in a closet, Carlo rubbed his hands together to restore their warmth and allowed his gaze to rove over the gallery. Some of the pictures were very old, a few appearing to have been taken more than a century earlier; others had been shot more recently.

One in particular caught his eye. In it, Samantha smiled her radiant smile at the camera. Her arms were wrapped around a small boy who wasn’t more than three or four, and her chin rested lovingly atop his head. The openness of that smile, and the look of supreme contentment and quiet joy in her clear, brown eyes, held him riveted.

Suddenly, he wasn’t in such a hurry to leave. Not only did he want to stick around, but he wanted to see her smile that way again. Worse, he wanted that smile to be for him only. He wanted to take away the cares and worries weighing so heavily upon the pair of shoulders that appeared too delicate to bear them.

And he really was losing it, if a mere picture could affect him so deeply.

The click of the latch on the closet door signaled that Samantha had finished hanging up his coat. Tearing his gaze away from the photograph, he turned to face her.

The picture’s impact didn’t even come close to how she affected him in the flesh.

“Why’d you grow a beard?” she surprised him by asking.

His hand automatically went to the growth covering his cheeks. Since the day he’d handed in his request for a leave of absence, he hadn’t shaved or gone to the barber. In that short period of time, he’d managed to cultivate a fairly respectable beard, and for the first time in years his hair now brushed the collar of his shirt.