Deputy Daddy

“You’re going to have to teach her to have better taste in men,” he said wryly, then turned back to the door. “Good night, Lily.”

Lily deserved her taste of freedom, and while he didn’t know if it was even possible, he’d like to be the one to break her out.

* * *

The next day, Lily stood in the guest room Bryce was occupying, pulling the sheets from the bed. Her mind was on the episode from the night before, her stomach clenched in anxiety. He was a cop—a cop! And her brothers had tried to break into the house where he was sleeping. She was grateful he hadn’t arrested them on the spot and brought them into the station. She was even more grateful he hadn’t pressed charges.

Not that they didn’t deserve it. That was the worst part. She tore the bottom sheet from the mattress and wadded it into a ball. This could have been the start of a criminal record for each. They were still her little brothers, and the thought of them facing authorities was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered. Why did the boys have to ignore every piece of advice she gave them? Why couldn’t they see the consequences waiting for them? And while she’d thought that a B and B would be a great idea for this town to house the visiting officers, last night she realized exactly what she’d done—set up her own brothers’ eventual arrests if she couldn’t get them straightened out.

She definitely needed to step back from any foster parenting—her hands were already full with the boys. What good was she to the kids who’d move through her home if she couldn’t be the same stable influence for her own brothers? Family was supposed to come first.

Bryce’s suitcase lay on one chair, zipped shut. If it weren’t for that bag, she would hardly have seen any evidence of him being here. She looked at it for a moment, pushing back the temptation to snoop. She wasn’t a snoop by nature—it was that little rebellious streak inside her that constantly wondered What if I just...

When her boyfriend had asked her to move to Denver with him three years ago, it was What if I just left? What if I started a whole new life in a big city? But even then, she knew enough to realize that if she walked away, she couldn’t live with the consequences of how it would affect the lives of her little brothers.

She’d been praying all morning that God would show her how to protect those boys, from everything...including the cop under her roof. It was crazy to think of an officer of the law as the enemy, because she’d always been a friend of the police force. But this was about her brothers, and her protective instincts superseded anything else. Maybe if they grew up a little more...maturity might make a difference. Randy and Burke were sixteen and fifteen respectively, and the twins were only thirteen. None of the boys were terribly mature yet.

And Bryce was kindly helping her look into Aaron Bay. A good thing—she knew that! But that also pulled him in closer to her personal life, and that included her brothers. She’d set this whole thing up, and she felt trapped.

After her brothers left, she’d gone back to bed, but she’d been woken up twice by a very hungry little Emily. And as she looked around this room, she wished that she could be more focused on her business. She’d wanted this for so long, and she was deeply proud of this house, the decor, her careful plans to make sure her guests had as pleasant a stay as possible, and she regretted being unable to focus on it completely. But with everything that was happening around here, she just couldn’t.

In fact, she’d just gotten off the phone with her aunt, who’d been gushing over honeymoon plans. Apparently, they wanted to go to Europe—a perfectly romantic-sounding trip, except that Lily’s first thought was that her aunt would be off American soil, which felt more vulnerable. Lily knew she was trying to protect all of them, but was she strong enough to pull it off?

She flapped a sheet over the mattress, and it came down in a white billow. As she tucked the corners in tightly, she remembered all her daydreams as she got ready to open her bed-and-breakfast. None of them had included all the other drama. Her vision of owning her own business had included her being able to focus on the running of it without constant interruption. She’d imagined herself doing laundry, cooking meals, making up the perfect brunch for her guests, picking apples from the trees out back to make homemade pies—

Okay, it was possible that her daydreams had been slightly idealized... She hadn’t anticipated how much real life would creep in, though. She’d wanted some freedom, but when you loved people as deeply as she loved her family, maybe that kind of independence wasn’t possible.

Lily flapped the next sheet over the bed and tucked it in with efficient swipes. She pulled a wrapped chocolate out of her apron pocket and deposited it onto the pillow, then grabbed the jar of flowers off the bedside table. She’d bring up some fresh ones later on.

The doorbell rang, and Lily trotted down the stairs to open the door. She glanced into her sitting room where Emily slept, then came to the front door and pulled it open.

Bryce stood on the doorstep. He’d arrived in a police minivan. Her heart skipped a beat—a cop on her doorstep...just like she’d feared. She looked around him at the unimpressive vehicle.

“Since I’m only here for a couple of weeks, they assigned me the loser cruiser,” Bryce said with a grin.

Lily laughed, pushing back her anxiety. This was her job—this was her guest. She could only take care of what was in front of her.

“As a guest here, you don’t have to ring the bell, you know,” she said.

“Didn’t want to be mistaken for your brothers.” He shot her a teasing grin. “You looked like you could have done damage.”

If only he could forget about her brothers. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really.” He stepped inside. “I did do a little digging for you, though.”

“Oh?” Lily’s curiosity flared up at those words. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for, but some answers about her aunt’s fiancé would be a bigger relief than he probably realized. She led the way to the kitchen, where she tossed the old flowers into the garbage and put the mason jar in the sink. She turned back toward Bryce. “What did you find?”

“Good news and bad news.” He paused, that little smile toying at his lips again. “The good news is that he has absolutely no criminal record. No outstanding warrants.”

“That’s a relief.” Maybe she’d been worrying for nothing, after all.

“He also has no tickets or driving infractions.”

“Okay.” Was Bryce just rubbing it in now? “I guess we were wrong. That’s a good thing. Thanks for looking into it.”

She turned on the water and rinsed out the jar, then put it onto the dish rack to dry. Bryce didn’t say anything else until she turned again and saw him watching her, arms crossed over his chest.

“The bad news is that he’s most definitely not who he claims to be. He doesn’t have much of a government paper trail at all.” Bryce’s voice was low and soft. “He has a credit history that’s about ten years old. Anything before that is a black hole. He has a driver’s license—again, obtained ten years ago. No birth certificate. I can dig some more, though. I could find out what ID he used to get the driver’s license here.”

Lily turned this information over in her mind slowly. How did a person go through life without leaving much of a trail? She personally had all sorts of proof of her existence, from parking tickets to the mortgage on this house. A person put their signature down so many times during a lifetime, even in order to move into another state, that it seemed impossible to have no paper trail fated further back than ten years. Obviously something happened ten years ago.

“There are about two hundred Aaron Bays in the United States right now, so investigating could take some time.” He gave her an apologetic smile.

“So, what’s he hiding?”

“Hard to tell without a little more digging,” he said. “And now I’m curious. There is definitely something up.”

Lily nodded. It looked like her suspicions had been right, after all. It was one thing to imagine the worst, and quite another to have her worry supported by a police officer.

“I should add, though,” Bryce said, “while I’m looking into this, it would be best not to tell anyone else about it. If we come up with a perfectly logical explanation for it all, and in the meantime we’ve turned your entire family against the guy—”

Lily nodded and leaned back against the sink. “That’s a good point.” Her mind went back to her aunt’s invitation to dinner tonight. She’d turned her down, saying that she had a lodger and couldn’t get away, but an idea was percolating. It was risky—it would pull him in closer to her family matters, but it could also distract him from her brothers, and possibly give them all the answers they needed before this wedding.

“How would you like to see him in person tonight?”

Bryce raised an eyebrow. “How would you pull that off?”

“My aunt asked me to dinner so she could see Emily.” She shrugged. “What self-respecting aunt doesn’t want to snuggle a baby?”

“Wouldn’t it be a little strange for me to come along?”

It would, she had to admit. But if Bryce were more than a friend, his presence would be explained easily enough.

“We could take our chances on that,” she said. “We’ll tell them that you’re my first guest and that I’m terrible with professional boundaries. Which is entirely true.”

Bryce was silent for a moment, and she wondered if she’d overstepped once more. Then he nodded, humor sparking in his eyes.

“Yeah, that would be good. I’m curious to sit down with the guy.”

“So should I tell her that we’ll be there?” she asked.

Bryce turned toward the doorway of the kitchen, then paused and looked back at her.

“Sure,” he said with a nod. “I’ve got a meeting with the chief in about fifteen minutes, so I should head out.” A smile twitched at the corners of his lips. “I have to say—my stay in your town isn’t turning out to be anything like I expected.”

It wasn’t anything like she’d imagined, either.

“We’re like that around here,” she replied. “Welcome to Comfort Creek.”

Chapter Three

Bryce was used to driving a regular police cruiser, and being in the “loser cruiser” made him feel like a kid with a dunce cap. He wasn’t here to do any real police work—and that point was made clear by the minivan. No one would take him seriously in this thing.

I can survive anything for two weeks, he reminded himself.

The discipline was the embarrassing part of this. He didn’t need to learn his lesson about not lashing out. He knew that full well, and he was going to make sure it never happened again. He didn’t need the attitude adjustment, so coming out here like one of the department’s problem officers stung. His dad had been a problem officer, and he wondered if this chastisement was because of the shadow his father had cast. Like father, like son, right?

He glanced at his watch. He was due to be in a meeting with the chief in about ten minutes. Today, the “book work” portion of his sensitivity training started. He wasn’t looking forward to this. This was the place where they outlined for him in painful, workbook-filled detail that he shouldn’t pummel fellow officers. It was like writing lines in elementary school.

I will not punch idiot coworkers.

I will not punch idiot coworkers.

I will not—

Bryce wouldn’t let himself be baited like that again. Part of what made this so humiliating was that Leroy was proving a point—Bryce was just like his father. His dad had been disciplined twice for excessive use of force, and in the end they’d found him involved with a couple of other officers who’d been taking bribes. While his father hadn’t been caught red-handed, he did resign quite promptly, and the rumors swirled. Richard Camden was a prime example of when good cops go bad, and his reputation was forever tarnished.

If he’d been innocent, why resign? Why not clear his name? By that time, Bryce was already a young officer on the force, and his father’s fall from grace had hurt him, too. The thing was, Bryce had hoped that he and his dad could bond over some mutual ground now that they were both cops. He’d hoped that his distant, negligent father would see someone in Bryce he could be proud of at long last, but there hadn’t been time for any of that. When his father was disgraced, Bryce lost a last, tenuous connection to his father. Turned out that his dad didn’t have a good excuse for his parental absence, after all. And now that Bryce was a cop, and his father was no longer on the force, it only pushed Bryce further away.

The Comfort Creek police station was a quaint little affair, and it reminded Bryce of Mayberry and The Andy Griffith Show. The whole town had that feeling about it—like all problems should be able to be solved in twenty-two minutes, and end with some time at a fishing hole. If only real life were so picturesque.

Bryce parked and hopped out into the warm summer sunlight. He stepped over the bulging cracks in the asphalt where the tree roots were barging through, and trotted up the front steps to the station. The receptionist gave him a curt nod as he came inside—obviously she was used to the run of visiting officers and hadn’t much time for pleasantries. It was just as well. He was feeling less than pleasant anyway.

He headed toward the chief’s office, and when he stopped at the door, Chief Morgan waved him in.

“Good. You’re here.” He sat behind a desk, typing away at something, and only glanced up for a moment.

“Hi, Chief,” Bryce said.

The chief motioned for him to close the door and turned back to his computer. Bryce sat down in the chair opposite and waited. The rattle of keys filled the room, and Bryce glanced around. There were a few pictures of the chief with a yellow Labrador retriever, but that was it for personal effects. There were a couple diplomas on the wall, an award or two, a picture of the chief in full uniform next to a portly-looking fellow—a mayor, maybe? He looked official. The smile didn’t seem to make it to either man’s eyes.

“Okay.” Chief Morgan hit the last button on his keyboard and turned toward Bryce. “So today we start the more in-depth part of your training.”

Bryce tried to look appropriately interested. “I’m ready, sir.”

“Great.” The chief leaned back in his chair. “So tell me about this fight.”

“It was stupid, sir. Nothing to tell.”

“Do you tend to hit other officers for no reason at all?” he inquired, arching one brow.

“Not normally, sir.”

“So there was more to this, then.” The chief looked at him evenly. “Because I’ve looked at your record, and you’re generally a good officer. You work hard. You take extra shifts. You hand in your paperwork on time, and besides being late a few times, your history is good.”

It was in direct contrast to his father’s track record, and while Bryce had been proud of his clean slate, there had been a small part of him—the boy inside—who worried that it would only push him further away from his dad. What would it take to get an “atta boy” from his old man?

“Thanks for that, sir.”

“So what’s the deal, then?”

Bryce sighed. “It was a low blow, sir. Officer Higgins had been pestering me about a personal matter for weeks, and one day after a long shift when I was tired, I snapped.”

“Hmm.” Chief Morgan nodded slowly. “Do you know that I know your father?”

Bryce felt the blood drain from his face, and he attempted to keep his composure, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was. He cleared his throat and looked away.

“I’m not my old man, sir.” Bryce glanced back at the chief irritably. “With all due respect.”

“Your father is the reason I’m the cop I am today,” the chief went on. “I worked for a few months in Fort Collins before I was able to get a position here at home. He was my first partner, and he showed me the ropes. We kept up with each other over the years. He wasn’t a conventional cop, but I don’t think he was dirty. If he’d been guilty of taking bribes, he’d have been charged.”

Bryce tried to hide his surprise. It was a small county, apparently, and this was the last place he’d think to look for someone who actually sided with his dad.

“Looks like you saw more of him than I did, sir,” Bryce replied.

Silence stretched between them, but Bryce could read sympathy on the chief’s face.

“I said he was a good partner, not a good father,” the chief said quietly. “There’s a difference.”

This was getting way more personal than he was comfortable with. “I’d rather not talk about it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“He called me,” Chief Morgan said.

Bryce suppressed a wince. So after all this time his father decided to take an interest in him? Great timing.

“What did he want?” Bryce asked warily. Somehow that made it worse, having his father know about his failure. Or was this a silver lining—something in common at long last? He didn’t want it this way. He’d never dreamed of bonding with his dad at rock bottom.

“He asked me to go easy on you.”

Bryce barked out a laugh. “This isn’t exactly Guantanamo Bay!”

“That’s pretty close to what I said.” The chief laughed softly. “The thing is, good officers climb and climb, and sometimes the pressure gets to be too much. They burn out. They make a bad choice, and then they topple from their pedestal.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Bryce said drily. “I’m just like my old man. I’m a good officer who made a dumb choice. Maybe I should forgive my father for his twenty-odd years of shortcomings.”

Chief Morgan ignored the dripping sarcasm and shrugged. “Forgive him or not, I don’t really care. And I didn’t say you were like him.”

“Then what are you getting at?” Bryce demanded. “Because this is pretty personal here.”

“I know that Officer Higgins had been needling you about your father,” Chief Morgan said.

“Oh.” So that little nugget had been passed along, too, had it? He might have opened with that and saved them this delightful back-and-forth.

“And I think that when you make your peace with your father’s failure, you’ll be a better officer.”

Bryce clenched his teeth and looked away. So now Chief Morgan was going to play shrink with him? Since when did his personal issues with his old man have anything to do with his ability to do his job? It was one mistake to hit Higgins, and everyone was treating him like some sort of ticking time bomb, ready to go at any moment. He was professional. He was thorough. He did his job, and when he clocked out at the end of the day, if he held a few resentments against the father who abandoned him, it was no one else’s business.

“You disagree?” Chief Morgan asked.

“I do.” Bryce shook his head. “I imagine you’ve got a few personal issues of your own, Chief. Every man has them, but it doesn’t make it the business of the precinct.”

“It is if it affects your ability to be a good cop,” came the reply. “You carry a badge and a gun. You’d better have your personal demons well in hand.”

The chief opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small notebook. He tossed it across the desk toward Bryce.

“What’s this?” Bryce asked.

“A notebook.” The chief nodded toward it. “I want you to write down every time you pretend to be something you’re not.”

“Excuse me?” Who didn’t pretend to be something they weren’t from time to time? Every man did it, from pretending to be stronger than he was to pretending not to feel things. That was the male experience. Men weren’t allowed to be scared. They weren’t allowed to cry. They kept tough. They proved their fathers wrong.

“That’s your assignment,” the chief said. “Write down every time you pretend to be something you’re not.”

“I heard you the first time,” Bryce said. “But that’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it? We do that constantly in this job. We have to look tougher than we are. We have an image to maintain. We don’t show fear, we show confidence.”

“Then you should fill it up pretty fast,” the chief said with a smile.

“And if I refuse?” Bryce asked.

“You’re well within your rights,” the chief said with a nod. “If you don’t want to do it my way, then you can do it Larimer County’s way. I have a room filled with training binders all about feelings and appropriate responses to them. You could get started today, and I’m pretty sure you could work through about fifteen to twenty of them by the end of your time here.”

That was playing dirty. Bryce could do it the chief’s way, or spend his next two weeks hip-deep in procedural training.

“You make a compelling argument, sir,” Bryce said. He reached for the little notebook and tucked it into his pocket. “We’ll do it your way.”

“Glad to hear it.” The chief shot him a grin. “You’ll be patrolling in town with the other officers, and we’ll sit down and discuss the list you’ve written in a few days. Have a good day, Officer Camden.”

The chief turned away, and Bryce rose to his feet. That was it? He waited for a moment to see if the chief would say anything more, but he didn’t look up again. Bryce walked to the door and opened it, then looked back.

“Say, Chief?” he said.

“Yes?” Chief Morgan looked up.

“If I’m going to be on patrol, what do you say about assigning me a better vehicle?”

Chief Morgan narrowed his eyes in thought, then slowly shook his head. “Sorry, can’t do it.”

“No other cars available?” Bryce asked.

“No, I have three in the parking lot, but this is good for you. It’ll give you a bit of a jump on your assignment there.”

Bryce bit back the retort that flew to his lips and shook his head.

“All right. Thanks anyway, sir.”

He stepped outside the office and was careful not to shut the chief’s door too loudly. So driving that ridiculous minivan was part of the game here, was it? Fine. He’d do his time, and when he was done, he’d go back to his regular post and his regular life in Fort Collins.

I can survive anything for two weeks.

* * *

Lily was the kind of woman who spoke her mind and then regretted it later. She’d gone over that conversation with Bryce in her mind thirty times already, and every time she came to the same conclusion: she’d gone too far. Bryce wasn’t from Comfort Creek. He wasn’t one of them, and she couldn’t treat him like he was. While his help was appreciated and his focus on her aunt was far preferable to his focus on her brothers, it was still a huge breach of professionalism, and she regretted that.

That evening, Lily dressed Emily in a sundress she’d been given by a neighbor and wondered if she could fix this. But how? Bryce had agreed to help them look into Aaron—that was worth something. Why, oh why, didn’t she think a little more before opening her mouth and telling a relative stranger all of their family business? Except that her brothers had tried to break into the house, and so that hadn’t been avoidable, and her aunt...well, she had been preoccupied with Aunt Clarisse, and apparently, Lily talked too much. And that talkative, too-open personality was her bane. She longed to be elegant and self-controlled. She just...wasn’t.

Emily’s little legs poked out the bottom of her sundress looking as fragile as porcelain. The baby socks she’d been given kept falling off—too big for those newborn feet—and so she decided to forget about them.

The daylight from the window lit up the room, but the veranda blocked the actual rays of sun. She could see the backs of two chairs from the front porch against the window pane, and she paused to look outside onto the expanse of lawn and that towering elm. Bryce’s minivan turned into the drive. He probably thought she was insane, but it was too late now.

Emily lay on a blanket on the floor. She looked up at Lily, her big brown eyes trying to focus on her face. She leaned closer to the baby and smiled.