This Good Man

He gave a short, harsh laugh. “No.” He’d been with the Hales for a year or more before he felt anything close to that for them. “You’re saying I need to prove myself to Caleb.”

“I’m saying that he’s testing you. He’s pushing you away to see if you’ll go.” She leaned forward a little, as if to underline the urgency of what she was saying. She exuded such intensity, he couldn’t have looked away from her if someone wearing a ski mask had walked in with a gun and told the cashier to stick ’em up. “What you have to do is refuse to go,” she said. “He needs to see you digging in for him. By fighting for custody of him, if necessary, or only by giving him an ear and a refuge.”

An ear and a refuge. Wasn’t that what he’d been trying to offer? He couldn’t be Caleb’s home, although he thought he’d provided an even better one. He was giving everything he could. Pushing himself into places he’d never gone.

“He’s testing me,” he said slowly.

“Without having met him, I can’t say for sure, but that’s my guess.”

“It fits,” he admitted. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

There was more, of course; Caleb had wanted his big brother to wade in with fists flying to rescue him. Eventually, he’d see that this way was better. Safer.

A thought crept into Reid’s head, a follow-up to things he’d been brooding about anyway. Okay, it was possible he had, without realizing it, come to love Paula and Roger, but...would they actually love Caleb? Did they love all the kids they took in? Some of them? None? Certainly, back then Reid hadn’t thought of the word in association with them. His mother was the only person he’d ever been sure loved him—or known he loved, despite the limitations on her love.

Whatever Paula and Roger gave was enough for me.

He was stunned by the voice that whispered, Was it?

No, that was ridiculous. Sure, what kid wouldn’t rather have a normal family? Mom, Dad, sister, brother, cat and dog. The cynic in him thought, Fresh-baked cookies when I came in the door from school, gentle lectures when my grades dropped, a parent in the stands at every football and basketball game. A father who talked openly to me and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder while he listened when I told him my worries. A warm-hearted TV-sitcom childhood. If they existed, he hadn’t seen one up close and personal. Some of his friends seemed to have it good, but who knew what went on behind closed doors? Shame had kept him from telling any of those friends his father beat the shit out of him on a regular basis. He’d never said, My father killed my mother and got away with it. So they might have been keeping quiet for the same reason. Once he became a cop, stable, loving families weren’t the ones he saw.

But that’s what I wanted.

That’s what Caleb wants.

A sound escaped him, one even he didn’t know how to label. Glimpsing Anna’s startled expression, he snapped his guard back into place. She’d seen too much already. He knew better than to lay himself out naked like this.

“That helps,” he said, sounding easy, but for a residual roughness in his voice. “Thank you.”

She studied him long enough to make him sweat, but he playfully snitched a French fry from her tray, since his were gone, and then stirred the last of his float before peeling off the lid and drinking it.

“You’re welcome,” she said and swatted at his hand when he reached for another French fry. “Hey!”

“You’re not eating them.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach.”

She’d hardly made a dent in the fries and half her root-beer float was left. No wonder she stayed skinny.

Delicate.

They chatted for a few more minutes. He made a concerted effort, though he needed desperately to be moving, to be alone. He didn’t want her to know how he felt, especially since, as usual, he didn’t know what he did feel.

“I was kidding. Here, you can have the rest of these.” She offered the fries, but he shook his head.

“I’ve had enough.”

“I should get home,” she said, her expression completely unrevealing.

They bused their table, then walked out together. The other diners had long since left. The parking lot was dark and empty; the only remaining vehicles besides their own were parked toward the back of the building and probably belonged to employees. He wanted to kiss her good-night—and yet he didn’t want to. Or didn’t dare.

More to be confused about. He felt some of the same panic he had when he’d admitted to Paula that he both wanted and didn’t want to take Caleb home.

Even if he’d formed the impulse, Anna unlocked her Toyota and hopped in too quickly to have given him the chance to act on it. “Good night, Reid,” she said, slammed her door and started the engine immediately. She was backing out before he’d circled around to the driver’s side of his own vehicle.

Because she didn’t want to start anything with him? Or because he’d had his chance and blown it?

Or—most unwelcome possibility of all—because she’d read him all too accurately and knew a man running scared when she saw one?

He swore under his breath and told himself it really would be better to keep his distance.

CHAPTER FOUR

“ANOTHER FIRE?” REID stopped midstride, only peripherally aware of other people parting to go around him, barely sparing him a glance. The snowy sidewalk meant everyone needed to watch their footing. Having become accustomed to Southern California winters, he had almost forgotten that mid-and even late March did not qualify as spring in this part of Oregon.

It was Monday morning, and he had been striding from the parking lot toward the public safety building, wishing he’d worn boots for better traction, when his phone rang and he saw that Roger was the caller.

“Not as major,” Roger assured him. “Might’ve been the snow that made it fizzle.”

Reid stepped off the sidewalk into deeper snow on the lawn, separating himself from the stream of people heading into work. A late-winter storm had left three or four inches of snow the past couple of days. Gazing at the ice-rimmed Deschutes River, he asked, “What was lit this time?”

“Woodshed. One of the boys got up to take a leak and spotted it.”

Not Caleb, then. No, wait. Reid visualized where the woodshed was in relation to the cabins and lodge, and realized that Caleb could have seen this fire from his bedroom window. God damn it. Had this been a direct attack on Caleb?

Not a very effective one, he reassured himself. Caleb would have seen the flames in time to escape downstairs and out.

“Which boy?” he asked.

“Trevor.”

Reid grunted; he recognized all the boys by now, but couldn’t say he knew them.

“You think to do a bed count?”

“Yeah, I did. Felt like a shit, but I went cabin to cabin. Everyone was where they were supposed to be except Trev, who’d come running to get me, and his cabinmate, Diego, who’d dragged the hose over by the time I got out there.”

Both men were silent for a moment, Reid thinking. Video cameras were out. They’d need too many to cover grounds that extensive.

“Damn,” he concluded. “What you need are regular patrols.”

“Yeah, I think Paula and I are going to start taking turns making the rounds.” He gave a rough, unhappy chuckle. “Give us a couple nights, we’ll be feeling like new parents constantly having to get up with a screaming baby.”

“Yeah, you can’t keep doing that. I might sneak out and set up surveillance some night.”

“In this weather?”

“You’ve got some empty cabins.”

“Let me know so I don’t shoot you if our paths cross.”

“Good enough. Hell.” Reid rubbed the back of his neck and discovered his hand felt like a block of ice. “I don’t like this,” he said unnecessarily.

“You and me both.”

“I wish you were inside the city limits.”

“What would you do, send patrols by?”

Of course he couldn’t do that. “All right,” he said. “Let me know if anything develops.”

“Glad you’re here,” Roger said unexpectedly and then was gone.

The foot traffic had thinned somewhat while Reid had stood out in the cold talking. Snow crunched underfoot until he was back on the sidewalk, where the smooth sole of his dress shoes skidded. To hell with this, he thought. Nobody would notice or care if he wore dark boots with a decent tread. And...this was March. With April to follow. How many more times was it likely to snow before the seasons turned?

He wasn’t looking forward to his day. The morning plan was for him to interview a couple of applicants for the personal-assistant position. He’d been just as glad his temp apparently hadn’t wanted the job; she didn’t seem to be all that well-informed and he had the impression he’d scared her. He was hoping to hire internally; he felt so damn ignorant, it would be good to have a PA who knew the ropes. About once an hour, he cursed Colin McAllister for having taken his PA with him when he changed jobs.

This afternoon, he intended to take a tour of every department in the building, starting with Records in the basement. He was beginning to realize that he’d misinterpreted his “territory” when he arrived in Angel Butte. He’d felt satisfied after driving damn near every road inside the city limits, memorizing the way house numbers ran, which neighborhoods looked run-down, where the bars and taverns were, the location of parking lots that would be dark enough at night to put women walking alone to their cars in peril.

Truth was, he should have been mapping this building and the maintenance garage, where most of his responsibilities lay, so he had the slightest idea how to respond the next time someone came to him with a request.

Once the first applicant showed up, Reid blocked everything else from his mind, including both his afternoon agenda and the threat to Caleb and the shelter. His skill at compartmentalizing was useful.

This applicant currently worked in Technical Services and might be a whiz at computers and social media, but the way her eyes shied from his and her cheeks stayed rosy the whole time they talked, he could tell she was intimidated by him, too.

Irritated after he saw her out, Reid wondered—not for the first time—why he had that effect on so many people, not only women. He was a big man, sure, but lean, not mountainous. He didn’t have an alarmingly ugly face. He rarely raised his voice. So what the hell was the problem? Why couldn’t he find someone like—

There she was, in his head again. Anna Grant, of course. She hadn’t been afraid of him.

So, okay, he needed a woman like her, someone brisk, businesslike, organized and determined. And, please God, someone who knew the police department from the lowliest of supply closets to the most obscure of requisition forms.

Applicant number two turned out to be a maybe. This one was a man who at least didn’t jump every time Reid shifted in his chair. He was internal only in the sense he was already a city employee, however; his current position was second assistant in the mayor’s office.

Maybe, Reid thought, hiding his grin, that was why the guy wasn’t scared. After all, he’d presumably gotten used to Mayor Noah Chandler, who was an ugly bastard and, rumor had it, tended to be brutally direct.

Reid thanked the man for coming, said he’d let him know and glanced at the clock. He was embarrassed at how much he looked forward to lunch.

Last week, Lieutenant Renner had told him the best place to eat lunch in Angel Butte was the Kingfisher Café, only a couple of blocks from the police station. Reid had given it a try on Friday, walking down there late enough to miss the lunch rush. The door had opened before he reached for the handle, and he’d found himself face-to-face with Anna. She had appeared as startled as he’d felt. After their dinner at the A&W, he sure as hell hadn’t intended to seek her out again.

But courtesy demanded they exchange a few polite words, during which he’d asked whether she was a regular at the café.

“I come at least two or three days a week,” she had admitted, then wrinkled her nose. “I know I shouldn’t eat out so often, but I’m not a morning person. Half the time, I forget to pack a lunch.”

“Ah. Well, maybe I’ll see you here another day,” he’d remarked and was unable to interpret a look that might have been wary, shy or hopeful.

Damn it, after that accidental meeting, she’d been in his head all weekend, with the result that here he was Monday morning, panting to sit down to lunch with her. Stupid thing to do or not, he wanted to talk to her.

Since finding his brother and moving to Angel Butte, Reid had never felt lonelier. He didn’t understand it and sure as hell didn’t like it. No matter who he was with, he felt an uncrossable distance.

The one exception was Anna. He refused to analyze why. Did it matter? She was someone he could talk out some of his confusion with, that was all.

He was going to be very disappointed if this happened to be one of the days she’d remembered to pack herself a lunch. It wasn’t quite time to leave yet, though, which gave him a few minutes to brood.

He envied Mayor Chandler his view of Angel Butte, the volcanic cinder cone that rose right in the middle of town and was topped with the huge marble angel that gave the town its name. His office looked out on the brick wall of the jail. Not bothering to swivel his chair to look out the window, instead, he frowned, unseeing, at the closed door while he let his thoughts rebound to the shelter and the fact that a second fire had been set only a week after the first.

He briefly pondered the timing. The first fire had been set on Saturday night, the second on Sunday night. Chance? Or was there a reason their arsonist had chosen weekends?

This fire wasn’t an escalation. That was a positive. The lodge or one of the occupied cabins, now, that would have been scary. This fire, too, could have been set for entertainment value. It could have been a warning...although of what, Reid couldn’t figure. What worried him most was the possibility it was part of a campaign of terror. Everyone at the resort must be edgy now. No one would be sleeping well. The boys would all be watching each other. The fight Caleb had been in wouldn’t be the last.

Nobody out there would feel safe.

This was where, reluctantly, he had to ask himself whether it was a coincidence that Caleb had been the most recent arrival.

What if Caleb was angry enough to light the world on fire? Or what if this was a campaign not to terrorize, but to make Reid believe he should take his brother home to live with him?

To keep him safe.

Or—and this was the most unwelcome speculation of all—was there any possibility that their father had found his runaway youngest son? Had Reid screwed up big-time by moving to Angel Butte? Could he absolutely swear that when driving out to the old resort a couple times a week, he hadn’t been followed?

“Damn,” he murmured.

He hadn’t let Caleb know how much that phone call from their father had shaken him. In the nearly twenty years since he had seen Dean Sawyer, Reid had tried to think about him as little as possible. He didn’t like knowing how much he resembled his father physically. Sometimes he’d stare at himself in a mirror with an incredulity he had to shake off. But he couldn’t have so much as described his father’s voice.

But the minute he heard it on the phone, the hairs on his arms had stood on end as if he’d come in contact with a bare electrical wire. The feeling that rushed over him had been bad. He’d been thrown back, as if all the years since had never happened. Dad had just walked in the door, and Reid could see that he was mad about something. Could have been anything—some imagined slight at work, a detective junior to him getting a headline for a press-worthy arrest, an asshole who’d cut him off on the drive home. Didn’t matter what, unless the “anything” had to do with Reid directly. Say, the school counselor had called and said, “We’re concerned about the number of bruises your son has had recently.” Those days were the worst.

By fifteen, Reid had been as tall as his father; he thought he must be a couple of inches taller now that he’d reached his full height. But then he’d been skinny, like Caleb was now. Unable to stand up to a muscular, angry man.

He shook off the recollection, if not the shadow of the memory, of blows falling.

The day he’d called, the first words out of his father’s mouth had been “So you’re a cop like your old man.”

“Not like you,” he’d said flatly, just as he had to Caleb. “I’m the kind of cop who should have investigated Mom’s death.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dean had snarled.

“Sure you did. I was young, not deaf and blind.”

“You ever make an allegation like that, you’ll find yourself in court and I’ll take you for every cent you make in the next fifty years.”

He had managed to sound bored. “Is there a point to this call?”

And that was when he’d demanded to know whether Reid had snatched Caleb.

It wasn’t even a lie to say no. Helping the boy get away was a whole other story.

But mocking his father...that wasn’t a good idea. It was bound to have made him suspicious.

Shit, Reid thought again. I need to find out whether he could be in Angel Butte.

His gaze strayed to the time at the bottom of his computer monitor.

Yeah, he’d have to make a few calls...but not now. Right now, he was going to wander down to the Kingfisher Café and hope to feed his unexpected craving for another person’s company.

* * *

ANNA TOLD HERSELF she’d chosen to sit where she did because the light was better if she ended up pulling out her book to read while she ate. Not so she could keep an eye on the door. If Reid happened to eat here again today, what were the chances he’d be alone? He’d consider the lunch hour to be a good time to conduct business.

But she remembered the way he’d asked You come often? And every time the door opened, she glanced that way.

The waitress was taking her order when he came in. Alone. He scanned the entire restaurant in one lightning sweep, analyzing and dismissing everyone he saw, until his gaze reached her and stopped. She felt as if a heat-seeking missile had just locked on target.

He lifted an eyebrow, the slightest of quirks, but it was enough to ask a question. Throat closing, Anna inclined her head toward the chair opposite her. He smiled, ignored the hostess as if she wasn’t there and crossed the room to Anna’s table.

“May I join you?” he asked in that deep, velvety voice.

The waitress turned, startled. “Oh!”

“Of course you may,” Anna said, then, to the waitress, “Why don’t you hold off on my order until Captain Sawyer decides what he wants?”

“Yes. Um, of course.” Plump and tattooed, the young waitress retreated in disarray.

He pulled out the chair across from Anna, immediately making her feel crowded. This table beneath the window was tiny, sized for two who knew each other really well. His knees bumped hers, and he murmured, “Sorry.”

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