A New Life

The next squeal Tricia heard came from her own lips, surprising her. Attending this game had been so much easier than she’d expected when Brett had first suggested it. At least this professional sport was hockey, rather than football and Rusty’s beloved Detroit Lions. Rusty had always said he would take the children to a Lions’ game when they were a little older. Just something else in a long list of things that would never happen now.

The temptation to grow maudlin filled her until she glanced at Brett. Turning back from whatever he’d been studying before, he patted her hand on the armrest and then lifted his soda from the seat’s drink holder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m having a great time.”

“Me, too,” she answered, trying not to react to what had been only a friendly touch. A buddy touch, nothing for her neck to get all warm about. She ought to feel lucky he hadn’t slapped her on the back the way men were wont to do with their friends to act chummy.

“And I think we should go out again.”

She wished he’d slapped her on the back instead of saying that. It had knocked the wind out of her, anyway. Her cheeks grew as heated as her neck, so Tricia took the coward’s way out and turned to sip her own cola.

“We’ll have to do something besides watch hockey, though. We’d never get playoff tickets.” He paused as if waiting for her to answer before he spoke again. “But if you don’t think that’s a good idea…”

As he allowed his words to trail away, letting her off the hook, her mind raced. Did she want an escape? This dating thing had no future, but they were having fun together, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself so much in adult company. And she really did need to get out more. They could probably even grow to be great pals, like some of the men attending this game together, if she only gave them a chance.

She was still convincing herself when Brett shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pressure—”

“I’d like that.”

Brett stared at her a few seconds and then grinned. “Well, good. That’ll be great.” He touched her hand again, and she had the strange feeling the brief caress wasn’t one a couple of hockey buddies might share. Their gazes met, and an awareness unfolded inside of her, until she forced herself to look away.

Obviously, she hadn’t explained the parameters of their new friendship to him, and he’d probably misunderstood her interest. With a quick brush to expel the tickle on her hand, she turned to him to clear up the misunderstanding.

However, whatever had caught her date’s attention near the Red Wings’ team box earlier had grabbed it again. The way his body tensed, he appeared at a strange full-alert. Tricia saw them then, several men, swilling tall plastic cups of beer and wearing jerseys for teams that weren’t playing. They crowded close around the tunnel through which hockey players were emerging from their locker rooms.

Someone must have alerted security guards to a possible disturbance because they were making their way across the stands. Before the guards reached the tunnel, though, one of the men upended his cup, narrowly missing a player.

At once, fists started flying—not from the players, who were being ushered by their teammates toward the ice, but from fans who took exception to the treatment of their hometown heroes. A huddle of bodies appeared from nowhere as reinforcements leaped into the fray and other fans stood to catch the action.

Brett came out of his seat just as quickly, but his movements were automatic—fast glances toward the exits and a hand reaching reflexively for his right hip. Coming away with nothing. A gun? A shiver clambered up Tricia’s spine, and bile backed up in her throat. Had he been reaching for a holster? Only after he patted his sweater-covered hip a few times did Brett lower into his seat again.

Further down the stands, security guards removed the instigators from the arena, but Tricia barely noticed. Brett shoved both hands back through his hair and shook his head as he turned back to her.

“Now that was embarrassing,” he said.

He seemed to want her to say something, but she could only stare, her blood now as cold in her veins as her cheeks from the arena’s refrigerated chill. Her pulse raced, and an icy sweat covered her hands. When she started to speak, she choked.

Brett’s eyes widened, and he reached over to pat her back, but she jerked away from his touch. The situation that had felt so comfortable before became awkward, and his nearness, suffocating.

Finally, she found her voice. “I need you to tell me something. Are you a cop?”

“I can’t believe no one ever told you I was a trooper,” Brett said with an exasperated sigh as he pulled out of the parking structure nearly an hour later. What he wanted to say was I can’t believe it matters so much that I’m a cop, but from her stiff posture and wringing hands, he’d be a fool not to see that it did.

She sat still in the car seat next to him, the same way she’d been for most of the game’s third period and even during the walk through the tunnel that connected the arena to the parking garage. Jubilant fans had packed in all around them, still cheering and making the cattle sounds of the exit ritual, but Tricia had been eerily silent. Her strange reaction cut him a lot deeper than it should have, like history coming back to bite him on the backside. But he wouldn’t sit back and wait for it to happen this time.

“No one mentioned my job at all?” he asked, still incredulous. “Nothing about me moving to Livingston County so I could be close to work at the Brighton Post?”

She released a long, slow breath. “Charity didn’t tell me anything about what you did.”

What Tricia didn’t say, what she couldn’t possibly have known, made more difference to him than what she’d said. Had Jenny mentioned that he worked for the Michigan State Police, her friend would have passed that along to Tricia when they’d arranged the date.

Of anyone, his sister, who’d followed her own heart into nursing, should have understood his need to follow his, especially after Claire called off the wedding. But this was proof that even his sister was ashamed of the career that had become so much a part of his identity. Why should she be any different from the rest of the family?

“What exactly did your friend tell you about me?” He had to unclench his jaw to continue. “No, let me guess. Decent guy, twenty-nine, not a jerk, without any facial disfigurement. Goes to church. Has a job so he won’t expect you to pay for the movie tickets. That’s all, right?”

A strange sound, like an ironic chuckle, erupted in her throat. “That’s about it.”

“I can’t believe that. Jenny told me you worked part-time at Kroger, you were taking college classes, and you wanted someday to own a gourmet cooking store in Milford.” About him, his sister had purposely mentioned nothing. “If she didn’t tell you what I did, then why didn’t you ask?”

Tricia shrugged, her silence answering for her. It didn’t matter to her how he earned his living when she never intended to see him more than once. One blind date. No second one. Obviously, something had gone awry in her plan if she’d agreed to go out with him again. He remembered her reluctance to answer when he’d asked. Now it didn’t matter, anyway. She’d changed her mind about him. All because he was a cop.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I don’t get it. Why did you agree to be set up when it’s obvious you didn’t want to go?”

She sighed again. “It was easier than saying no and having Charity try to convince me. And it was easier to let someone do something for me than to let them feel sorry for me.”

Something struck inside him that he might have called a connection if he weren’t so determined to stay angry with the whole situation. “That’s why I agreed, too, but I made Jenny wheedle first.”

“And then I stood you up.”

The sides of his mouth pulled up against his will. “Yep, that’s the way I remember it.” He paused, searching for a safe topic. Since she’d finally started talking, he didn’t want to risk making her clam up again. “Hey, I think it’s time for that hockey quiz.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her turn slightly toward him, so he took it as a go-ahead. “What is the definition of a forecheck?”

“Hey, that one wasn’t on the study guide. I protest.”

“Okay, okay. A player forechecks when he blocks the progress of an opponent in his own defensive zone. So, what’s a face-off?”

“I know that one. That’s when two players from opposite teams stand in one of those circles and fight to get control of the puck.” She settled back into her seat, satisfied with herself.

Brett tried to continue the hockey quiz, but another question ate at him until he finally couldn’t resist asking it. “Tell me, how many blind dates have you been on…lately?” When she tightened, he was glad he hadn’t said “since your husband died.”

At first she didn’t answer, but finally she gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe fourteen.”

“Fourteen? Really?”

“It’s strange. I’ve been out with more people in the last year than I had in my whole life…before.”

He wasn’t the only one dancing around the subject of her late husband. “In the last year? That’s more than one a month. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be that many single guys around.”

She chuckled at that. “Not just single guys, single Christian guys. Remember?” For a second, she appeared relaxed, with her shoulders curving forward. “Almost every one of my friends knew someone I just had to meet. Some don’t realize that just because a guy has a strong faith doesn’t mean he’ll be the best date—for me, anyway.”

“Kissed a lot of frogs, have you?”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant.”

At her reaction, melancholy settled over Brett, though he’d only intended to lighten the mood with his joke. She probably hadn’t been kissed at all since becoming a widow, and he didn’t like the thought of this beautiful woman having no haven in someone’s arms. A voice inside suggested his arms might be a perfect fit, but he tried to ignore that nonsense. He was no more ready to leap into a relationship again than she appeared to be.

They drove in silence a few minutes as Interstate 696 merged into I-96, and they neared the Milford Road exit. Finally, Brett asked the question that had been twirling through his mind.

“I know you’ve had fourteen first dates recently, but how many second dates have you had?” Her sudden intake of breath showed she’d realized what he was really asking. Would she or wouldn’t she still go out again with him?

“I’m so sorry. If only I’d known—”

“What do you have to be sorry about?” He interrupted her to delay the kiss-off that was building. “You didn’t answer the question. How many?”

Her word came out like a whisper. “None.”

“But you said you would—”

This time she interrupted him, as if to prevent him from reminding her what she’d said. “I won’t be able to go out with you again.”

Frustration melded with resentment over past and present slights until Brett couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s the big deal about me being a cop? You’d think I was a convicted felon or something.”

“Your job involves risk.”

He acknowledged her comment with a shrug. That was a given. A trooper took a certain amount of risk every time he climbed into his patrol car, every time he stepped out of it to ticket a driver for a traffic violation. He accepted it as part of the job but didn’t waste energy worrying about it.

“And your point is?”

She scooted closer to the passenger door. “Did anyone tell you about how Rusty died?”

His head jerked and his stomach tightened at her question. They’d both been tiptoeing around the subject all night, and she’d just waded in waist deep. Now that she’d named him, the dead man seemed to be here, squeezed in the SUV between their two bucket seats. “A construction accident, right?”

“Yeah. He was walking the walls on the project, something that’s dangerous even in the best conditions. But that morning it was damp from the last night’s storm. It was windy. Rusty still thought he needed to be up there walking atop a two-story wall that was only three-and-a-half inches wide. He lost his balance. He hit a pile of bricks at the bottom.”

By the time she reached the end of the story, he wished he hadn’t encouraged her to tell it. She stared blankly into the darkness, reliving a moment no wife should have to endure. His hands ached so much to gather her into his arms that he gripped the wheel so he wouldn’t succumb to the need and drive them right off the road.

The worst part was her husband’s accident sounded preventable. The man had no business being where he was—Tricia had nearly said so herself. What kind of idiot would have taken that chance when he had a family to think about? When he had someone like Tricia to come home to?

“I’m sorry” was the only decent thing he could think to say, the only response that didn’t include referring to her beloved husband as an irresponsible imbecile.

Tricia nodded at the windshield but didn’t look at him. “Rusty was always taking risks.”

She said no more. She didn’t have to. In her roundabout way, Tricia had finally told him what he needed to know. His career mattered—a lot—because of the risks he accepted as part of the job. She’d buried her husband because of the risks he took. Now she didn’t want any part of someone else who took them.

Brett tried to focus on the road as traffic slowed to twenty-five miles per hour at the Milford village limit, but he couldn’t keep from glancing at her stoic profile. Still, he felt compelled to defend his career choice that was as much a part of him as those children were part of her.

“I don’t ever remember wanting to be anything else,” he began, waiting for her to turn to him, but she didn’t. “Whenever Jenny and I played cops and robbers with our brother, Kyle, I was always the cop. Jenny always had to be the nurse.” The notion struck him as strange that Kyle had always played the robber, fitting for the failure he’d turned out to be.

“I even chose criminal justice as one of my majors in college. Business was the other.” He paused, remembering and regretting decisions he’d made. “But then Dad needed a new business manager at the dealership, and Claire and I decided it would be a better choice, so I—”

“Claire?”

He should have been glad that she was finally involved in the conversation, but he hated that she’d picked up on that little detail, and the fact that he’d even mentioned her. “My ex-fiancée.”

“Oh.”

Good. At least she hadn’t asked for gory details. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love Claire Davis, and he wanted to do nothing but forget her now.

“Anyway, after that was over, I took the Civil Service written test. I tested twice before I was invited to take the physical agility test and then the oral board interview.”

“Sounds like an intense selection process.”

Shocked that she seemed interested at all, he continued. “That’s not the half of it. I still had to go through a psych evaluation, a drug test and a complete physical before I could go to the Michigan State Police Recruit School.”

“Was it all worth it?”

He smiled in the darkness before he answered her. “Oh, yeah. I get up every day, looking forward to going to work. I love all of it, patrolling the highway, working with the other troopers, even seeing so many sides of people. You just become so engrossed in it. It defines who you are.”

“It sounds like the job suits you.”

“It does.”

Brett’s chest loosened as he pulled to a stop across the street from her house. Maybe she would relax, too, and give him a chance. At least he hadn’t been stupid and talked about putting his life in his fellow troopers’ hands and holding theirs in his. Not everyone could handle that reality, and Tricia probably was one of those.

“I had a nice time tonight,” Tricia started.

Brett heard the “but” before she had a chance to say it. “Wait, Tricia.” Suddenly he needed to prove himself to her in the same way he’d being trying to show his family he could make more of a difference in police work than he ever could with the Lancaster money.

“You know, we’re only going out as friends. It’s not as if either of us has anything long-term in mind, right?” He saw that she was about to interrupt, so he pressed on. “And we have fun together. You said that yourself. Why don’t we just play it by ear? You know, casual. I don’t know about you, but I really needed a night out.”

Tricia tilted her head, as if she was considering his offer. He hated that it mattered so much that she say yes.

Finally, she shook her head. “It wouldn’t be a very good idea.”

“Come on, Tricia. You know you want to. And I like you. I think you like me, too.”

But she only shook her head again.

His chest felt heavy as a disappointment too intense for a simple rejection following just one date festered inside him. “Then tell me why.”

She expelled what sounded like a long-held breath. “Going out with you would be a constant reminder of all I’ve lost.”

Chapter Four

Tricia turned the knob as quietly as she could, but the front door still squeaked, causing four small figures on the living room floor to jerk before they snuggled deeper in their character sleeping bags. Following the only remaining light into the kitchen, she found Hannah hunched at the table over a thick textbook, a cup of tea set within arm’s reach.

“Did you have a nice time?” Hannah’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Tricia nodded and then shrugged. “It was probably a bad idea to go.”

“You liked him, didn’t you?”

A startled breath escaped her before she could cover it. How could someone so young be so intuitive? But then she answered her own question: pain could make a person grow up fast. “No, it isn’t that,” she answered after a pause too long for Hannah not to have drawn her own conclusions.

Hannah nodded and moved over to the sink, pulling a second mug from the cupboard and pouring hot water into it. She waited until she’d dunked a bag of chamomile in to steep and had set it in front of Tricia before she spoke again. “Then what is it?”

“He’s a trooper for the Michigan State Police.” But it wasn’t that image of a man in uniform that sneaked into her thoughts then. This was the Brett she’d known only as a distracted bowler and a hockey expert. His smile was inviting and his laughter contagious.

“Oh.”

Hannah’s single-syllable answer pulled Tricia back from her forbidden thoughts. So strange that the young woman instinctively seemed to know why Brett’s job would matter so much to her.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know that before you agreed to go out with him,” Hannah said.

Absently, Tricia swished the tea bag in her mug, squeezed it out and set it on the table top. “There was some confusion about matchmakers not passing along the information. If I had known, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“I know. But you did.”

Neither spoke for several minutes. Tricia sipped the bland tea, wishing her thoughts could be equally benign. But the truth was, Hannah’s first observation was dead on—Tricia liked him—and now she was having trouble reconciling this man she liked with the one she imagined wearing a badge. And trudging up to car windows, never knowing what kind of armed thug might be inside.

“Did you enjoy your first hockey game?” Hannah asked, glancing at the wall clock instead of Tricia. “I caught the score on the news. Looked like a good game.”

“It was. Everything was so fast—the skating, the passes and the goals. I couldn’t believe how exhilarating it was.” Tricia was equally surprised at how animated she became, just describing a sport she’d known nothing about until tonight. So she backtracked. “There was just so much action.”

Hannah met her gaze then. “It’s okay if you had fun, you know. Even if you kind of liked Brett. Rusty wouldn’t mind. He’d want you to be happy.”

But Tricia shook her head, her eyes burning with tears she refused to cry. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“You know how many horrible blind dates I’ve been out on? Well, this time I was having fun, mostly because it was so laid-back. No pressure.” She paused. “But that was before I found out what he did.”

“Well…before…maybe you were finally feeling that you’re ready to start really dating again.”

Tricia took another sip of her lukewarm tea and pondered that possibility. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. Besides, if I were, I wouldn’t feel so guilty about it.”

“Like you’re betraying Rusty?” She didn’t wait for Tricia’s nod before she added, “Dad says he always feels like that when he takes a woman out.”

“Reverend Bob is dating again?” As incredulous as she was that the widower was finally having a social life, Tricia was relieved to talk about something besides her own nightmares of being set up. Then, remembering her son’s reaction to Brett, she studied the minister’s only daughter. “How do you feel about that?”

It was Hannah’s turn to be reticent. “Oh, I suppose it’s time,” she said with a negligent wave. “Mom’s been gone more than five years now. Dad’s only been out with a few women—all of them from other churches, for obvious reasons.”

“I can see why he’d want to do that.” Dating, though a tricky subject for all divorced or widowed church members, was extra sensitive for a minister. If she needed an example, she had only to think of youth minister Andrew Westin and his wife, Serena, who’d had to weather accusations of sexual impropriety when they dated. She didn’t envy Reverend Bob the microscope he would be under as each potential relationship warmed or cooled. “Have you liked any of the women he’s dated?”

Hannah made a noncommittal sound in her throat. “They’ve been nice, but none of them have been quite right for him.” Her lips turned up in a sheepish grin. “At least in my opinion.”

Tricia sensed that Hannah would never find a woman good enough for her father. An emptiness filled Tricia as she realized that was exactly how Rusty, Jr. felt about her, how Lani and Max may have felt, too. Rusty, Jr. had been acting out more than the other two, but he was the only one who’d convinced himself he was now the man of the house. She only wished he could be her little boy.

“It’s got to be so hard for your dad to move on.” Restlessness making it impossible for her to sit any longer, Tricia stood and stepped around the half wall to watch her three sweet children and little Rebecca sleep. “For me, it’s impossible.”

While Tricia expected Hannah to respond to that comment, or even to finally reveal something of her own painful secrets, Hannah rounded the table and stood next to her.

“It takes a special kind of person to have a career in law enforcement.”

Tricia glanced at her and Hannah smiled, having slyly returned to an earlier subject. The conversation had come full circle, right back to Brett.

“I’m sure it does, Hannah, but—”

“No, listen. These are everyday heroes. They put their uniforms on each day and go to work, knowing at any moment they might be called upon to be heroic.”

Something unsettling moved inside her, but was it fear or a temptation to buy into what Hannah was saying? She couldn’t dispute any of it. Still she couldn’t go as far as to say that Brett’s career didn’t matter to her. Even if she was ready to have a relationship with anybody—and there were so many glaring signals she was not—then his badge would flare like a fiery red stop sign to discourage her. The career, which Brett freely admitted defined him, involved more risk than Rusty ever took, even on his best daredevil day. And she’d had enough risk to last a lifetime.

“Well, I’m glad people like that are out there, aren’t you?” Tricia asked, hoping Hannah would drop the matter. Sure, she hoped police officers were out there somewhere, but not close to home, where she had to be the one to worry about them. Or him.