Safe in His Arms

“Niece.” She lowered her voice. “She is Delia’s daughter. Her name is Emma Banks.”

“Oh.” Joe swallowed. He hadn’t seen that one coming. And the fact that he hadn’t considered it was another sign that he wasn’t at the top of his game.

“Delia made me Emma’s guardian.”

That sad, empty look entered her eyes again. Pressing her lips together, as if to settle her emotions, she smiled at the child. Emma had released her hand and was scrambling into a waiting-area chair.

“Emma, be careful. You’re going to get hurt.”

The child barely glanced back at her aunt before righting her backside in the chair and reaching for a brochure on the table next to her. She pretended to read the document on Michigan’s concealed-weapon permit laws, but she held it upside down.

“Honey, why don’t you put that back?”

“No.” Emma clutched the brochure to her chest.

“She can have that one,” Joe said.

Lindsay smiled, appearing relieved to skip the battle. “She’s a great kid … usually.”

“You’re lucky to have each other,” he said, when nothing else better came to mind.

He couldn’t help glancing again at Emma. The girl had lost her mother, a reality that no child should have to experience, and a horror that he knew firsthand. At least he could remember a few things about his own mother. Her sweet spirit. Her soft hair. Emma wouldn’t remember her mother at all, except through pictures and through the stories relatives like Lindsay would tell her.

A lump formed in his throat as he looked back to Lindsay, who was watching her niece, as well. Lindsay’s eyes were moist.

Joe knew he’d lost. Whether or not he was at fault for the accident, he couldn’t help feeling partially responsible for Emma losing her mother and for Lindsay being saddled with the responsibility of a child. The least he could do was to answer a few uncomfortable questions for them.

“How about we get out of here? There’s a park in New Hudson where Emma can play while I answer your questions.”

“Park?” Emma’s eyes lit up, and she was already climbing down from the chair.

“It’s settled then,” he said.

Lindsay looked back to him and smiled. Her smile was so potent, so mesmerizing, that Joe had to turn away to keep from gawking at her.

That he happened to turn toward Clara, who was watching him instead of her computer screen, was downright unfortunate. She gave him a knowing smile. He frowned. Clara had no idea what situation she was messing with.

“See you tomorrow, Clara,” Joe called out, as he opened the door for Lindsay and Emma.

“Park! Park!” the child called out.

With Lindsay balancing on her cane and holding Emma’s hand, it was slow going, but they finally reached the white four-door in one of the visitor spaces.

“Do you mean the park built on the old landfill?” she asked, as she opened the left rear door.

“That’s the one. James Atchison Memorial Park.”

He waited until she’d buckled the child in her car seat and climbed into her car before he jogged around the building to the lot where troopers parked their personal vehicles. He climbed into his quad-cab pickup, relieved to be inside, even if the interior was smoldering.

“You owe them this much,” he whispered to the inside walls of the truck cab.

Why did you save me instead of her? Her question reverberated through his thoughts again, as dread made his limbs feel heavy. How was he supposed to answer that? But he would answer it and her other questions, telling her as much of the truth as he could.

Only after he’d answered Lindsay’s questions and put her and her niece out of his life would he be able to tuck away his own questions about his instincts on the job and finally get his edge back. He had to reclaim it somehow—soon—before he lost his job or got himself or someone else killed.

“Push me again, Trooper Joe.”

“Okay, but only one last time, Miss Emma,” he said. “Then we need to take a break.”

His muscled arms flexing against the fabric of his polo shirt, Joe pushed the swing. This time Emma went so high that the swing jerked for a weightless moment at the top before gliding back down again. Instead of crying like Lindsay thought she might, Emma laughed with that delighted sound that only children can make.

“Do it again. Do it again,” Emma called out.

“Okay, but just one … more … time.”

The two of them had been playing like this for half an hour, and Lindsay didn’t see them stopping anytime soon. So much for the trooper answering questions. She shouldn’t have been surprised he was avoiding it, when he had appeared ready to cancel their meeting entirely until he’d learned that Emma was Delia’s daughter.

He’d only changed his mind because of Emma. Was it that obvious, even to a stranger, that Lindsay wouldn’t be a good guardian? She already had enough uncertainties herself, without having others question her. Why did Emma take to Joe so easily, even giving him a nickname after knowing him for ten minutes, when everything had been a struggle for Lindsay? She could barely get her niece to eat her vegetables or brush her teeth. Lindsay was the woman here. Where was the maternal instinct that was supposed to kick in when she needed it?

At least they were having fun, Lindsay decided, as she sat on a blanket, watching from beneath one of the park’s few shade trees. And she couldn’t have kept up with Emma’s running, anyway. Running was a part of a whole other life for Lindsay … the one before the accident.

Joe finally jogged up to the blanket, carrying Emma piggyback. “I think we’re both ready for a nap.”

“You must be,” Lindsay agreed, shifting, so her stiff leg would be in a more comfortable position.

But Emma shook her head. “I don’t want a nap.”

Joe lowered Emma to the ground and then he dropped on his knees on the blanket. When he was seated, with his legs stretched out and crossing his ankles, Emma settled next to him, sitting in the same position.

“Whew, it’s hot out here.” Joe brushed his hand back through his light brown hair that he wore trimmed close on the sides, but slightly longer on top. On his day off, he’d put a little gel in it.

“Whew.” Emma copied his move, brushing back her bangs.

“You’ve got a little mimic there.”

Joe only smiled. The last thing Lindsay would have expected was for a tough police officer to be good with kids. But then, Trooper Rossetti was nothing if not a contradiction, with his towering linebacker build and a face that could have landed him on the cover of GQ.

“Here. I brought these.” Lindsay reached into her bag and handed them juice boxes. She was pleased with herself that she’d remembered those and some animal crackers. At least she had the snack-preparedness part of being a guardian down.

“Thanks.” He helped Emma pop her straw through the hole in her box and started on his own.

By the time that both boxes were empty, Emma was already snuggling down on the blanket, her lids heavy.

“Somebody needs a nap after all,” Joe whispered.

For a few minutes, Joe sat brushing Emma’s sweaty bangs back from her face with his fingertips in a tender move that again didn’t fit with the image of a tough police officer. Lindsay couldn’t help but watch as his fingers continued their mesmerizing, gentle brushing.

She wasn’t really imagining what it would feel like if he were brushing her hair like that, was she? Lindsay pushed away the thought as ridiculous.

“Is she asleep?”

At Joe’s whispered words, she started, her face feeling warm. Joe gestured toward Emma.

“Well, is she?”

She nodded. “You’re really good with kids.”

“I have a niece, too. Kelsey’s thirteen now, and completely spoiled. Mostly by me.” He smiled down at Emma, as if remembering his niece at that age. “I used to baby-sit while my brother and sister-in-law took night classes.”

He probably thought Lindsay hadn’t baby-sat enough before being named Emma’s guardian, but he didn’t say so.

Finally, Joe looked up again. “Well, you wanted to ask me some questions.”

He straightened, as if preparing himself for an onslaught. Lindsay couldn’t blame him. She’d hit him with the toughest question yesterday.

She shifted again because her leg was already getting stiff. “It’s just that it’s killing me, having this blank spot in my memory. And don’t tell me I’m better off not knowing. Everyone says that.”

“Okay. I won’t.” He took a deep breath and began. “It was a rainy January instead of a snowy one, and it was pouring that night. The traffic was moving too fast and—”

She kept nodding her head until he paused, cocking his head to the side. Then she broke in.

“Those are the things you put in the police report. I want to know the things you didn’t put in it.”

He watched her in a measuring gaze, as if trying to decide if she could handle the truth. Could she? What if he told her that the accident was her fault? She’d suspected it, but that was different than hearing it spoken aloud.

“Okay. The scene was a mess. It was raining so hard that I was nearly on top of it before I saw it. Twisted, smoking metal was everywhere. Your car rolled and came to rest backward in the ditch.”

He paused, perhaps hoping she would tell him it was enough, but she only nodded for him to continue. She tried to picture the scene as he described it, but the images refused to come together in her thoughts.

“The semi driver made a mistake passing. A fatal one.” He traced a finger along the hemmed edge of the blanket as he spoke. “I called for backup and then rushed to the truck. After I determined the driver was a K— Uh, sorry, that means ‘killed.’ Well, after that, I went to the car.”

“Delia was still alive, right?”

He cleared his throat. “There was a pulse.”

“You know what I want to know, then. Why me?” She hated that her voice cracked when she asked, that her need to know had knotted her insides.

Joe brushed his palms on the legs of his cargo shorts. “From initial examination, I determined that the passenger’s injuries were more serious than the driver’s. The passenger was also unconscious. Since I was expecting backup, and I didn’t want to cause the victim further injury if I could avoid it, I assisted the driver first. I was hoping for a quick response from the EMTs.”

Lindsay wondered if he realized how strange his voice sounded, as if he was testifying in court instead of just filling her in on what happened the night of the accident. As a police officer, he had to know how to read body language to determine whether suspects might be lying. She might not have his level of training, but even she had to question the pointed way he was avoiding meeting her gaze. What wasn’t he telling her?

“But it didn’t turn out as you’d hoped, did it?” she asked him, when he didn’t say more.

“No, it didn’t.” He didn’t look up as he said it. “After assisting the first victim to safety near the underpass, I started back for the second victim.”

“You were too late.” She’d known this all along, so why did it create so much of an ache inside her now?

“I was too late.”

His softly spoken words carried the finality of a judge handing down a death sentence. Wasn’t that what he’d given her sister when he’d chosen not to pull her from the car first? No. Of course not. She wasn’t being fair, but she couldn’t help it. Whether she’d had serious injuries or not, he hadn’t even given Delia a chance to survive. No matter how rational his reasons, he had chosen between Lindsay’s life and her sister’s. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made the wrong choice.

“The car burst into flames,” Joe continued. “I sprinted back to it, but I couldn’t get past the heat.”

Lindsay nodded to let him know she’d heard him, even though his words made her feel as raw as she had right after the accident, when she wore her wounds on the outside as well as the inside.

Joe sat in a stiff pose, as if bracing himself for more questions. She wanted to ask him some, too. Like why he hadn’t realized that the car would burst into flames and why he hadn’t at least given Delia a chance by pulling her out first. But the points were moot, the consequences devastating. Still, Joe had put himself in danger, at least attempting to save them both, and he deserved her gratitude, even if she didn’t understand his decisions.

“Thank you—” she paused as each word caused a fresh pinprick to her heart, but she finally forced out “—for saving me.” She brushed thumbs along her lash lines, catching tears before they could fall.

“You’re welcome.” Color stained his cheeks, and he watched the child next to him, instead of looking at Lindsay. “I was just doing my job.”

“Well, thanks for doing your job,” she said. “Come to think of it, with the extent of my injuries, how were you able to walk me to safety?”

“I didn’t help you walk.” He drew his brows together and watched her, seeming surprised she hadn’t figured out that answer herself. “I carried you.”

Lindsay stared at him, her jaw slack. Maybe she couldn’t remember the accident, but she should have realized she never could have walked away from that car, even with help. But she was having trouble digesting that the handsome police officer had carried her.

“I really shouldn’t have moved you,” he said with a shrug. “It could have made your injuries worse. I thought your leg might be broken, but I didn’t know about the pelvis break.”

“My parents told me that I was in critical condition that first day or so.”

He nodded and glanced down again at the child, who had shifted and was using his leg as a pillow.

“So,” he began, when he looked up again, “how are you adapting to instant motherhood?”

Lindsay blinked. As much as she didn’t want to talk about her injuries anymore, she hadn’t expected him to ask about that. “Oh. We’re okay. It’s a transition … for both of us, but we’re learning together.”

She wished she could stop there. Should have. But she heard herself droning on anyway. “We’re going to be great. I just know it. I fixed up the second bedroom in my condo for her, and …”

At his smile, she finally let her words trail away.

“It’s got to be tough.”

“I never expected to struggle this much.”

“Parents struggle, even those who have their kids from birth.”

“Emma doesn’t even live with me full-time yet.”

He lifted a brow. “What do you mean?”

“After the accident, Mom and Dad took care of Emma while I was in the hospital and then at the rehab center,” she said. “Now that I’ve started back to work part-time—I work at a doctor’s office—I’ve been keeping Emma with me about half the time.”

“Things might get better after the transition.”

“I don’t know.” She glanced down at her wringing hands and lay them in her lap. “My parents are worried that I’m not up to the job of being Emma’s guardian.”

She didn’t expect a guy she’d just met to come to her defense, but his silence made her wonder if he agreed with her parents.

“Sounds like you’re up against a lot.”

Lindsay told herself that those were just more well-meaning words, like so many she’d heard the last six months, but Joe’s comment was so well-timed that it almost helped. Suddenly, she was reminded of another time that he’d helped, probably more than he realized.

“Thank you for giving me the poem at the hospital.” His strange expression made her pause. “You are ‘Joe’ from ‘to Joe’ written at the top, aren’t you?”

A guilty smile pulled at his lips. Instead of answering, he turned to watch two boys climbing a curly slide. Maybe it was good that she hadn’t mentioned how her nurses had told her about the young police officer who spent several hours with her at the hospital.

Finally, Joe turned back to her. “It was an impulse. The poem, I mean. My friend, Cindy, gave it to me a long time ago. I don’t know why I gave it to you.” He shrugged. “I thought it might help.”

“You were right. It did.”

That Joe seemed surprised only puzzled Lindsay. If he hadn’t really believed it would help, then why had he given it to her?

“You know how it says, ‘Don’t be afraid. You are a child of God. You are precious—’”

“I know what it says.”

His short remark surprised her even more, so she watched him for several seconds and then tried again.

“I mean the poem really reminded me to trust in God. I was devastated after the accident. After everything. During those first, dark weeks, I really needed to be reminded to rely on Him.”

She shook her head, breathing out a slow sigh. “Without my faith, I wouldn’t have survived. You know, like in the beginning of Psalm 46, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”

For a long time, Joe stared at her as if she’d just announced that the Earth was an asteroid or something. What was wrong with him? Was she not supposed to bring up the poem? Hadn’t he expected her to figure out that he’d been the one to give it to her? Why was he so uncomfortable about it? She’d thought about telling him that she’d been carrying the poem in her purse for months, but she thought it would bother him even more.

Then he shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“How, after everything you’ve been through, can you possibly still believe?”

Chapter Three

How could I not?

Lindsay’s words rang in Joe’s ears as he carried her blanket to the car. He could think of a dozen reasons why anyone who’d been through all she’d been through wouldn’t believe in God, and she couldn’t think of any? One would be the preschooler Lindsay was pulling toward the parking lot as she struggled along with her cane.

Yet, with all that had happened, Lindsay Collins still believed. She even quoted scriptures, when the words 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.