Blazing Star

As it turned out, such subterfuge was totally unnecessary. The instant she stepped into the lighted hallway, the smile vanished from Brick Bauer’s face. A shell-shocked look stilled the magic in his dancing eyes.

“Your aunt’s directions were quite clear, Lieutenant,” Karen said neutrally, firmly holding the suitcase handle. “I can carry my own things, thank you.”

Karen wasn’t sure why it hurt her to see Bauer change so drastically before her eyes. She didn’t know this man and couldn’t afford to like him. But she’d been spellbound by his delightful greeting when he’d assumed she was an utter stranger; now he was smoldering because he realized they’d met before.

“Captain Keppler?” His tightly controlled tone could not conceal the fury that now raged in his eyes. “My aunt didn’t mention her new lodger’s name. I didn’t realize that the new police captain would be—”

“Invading your home?”

His lips tightened at her bluntness. Karen almost regretted the hard words, but she knew that surprise and anger often drove people to reveal things they’d normally keep well hidden. If Bauer had any secrets, she wanted to find them out for Commander Harmon right away. She also wanted to clear the air about their respective positions. Sooner or later, they were likely to have it out over the way she’d been brought in to take the job he’d expected. Better to do it in private than in front of the men. They’d all be on his side. One to one, she had a better chance of victory.

“Captain Keppler, you are free to live wherever you like. I was just...startled to realize you were the new boarder. My information was incomplete.”

He said the words like a police detective who knew his stuff. Karen wondered how he’d managed to uncover so little in his investigation of the body found at the old Timberlake Lodge, recently purchased by Edward Wocheck.

So did Commander Harmon.

“I don’t like to advertise my private life, Lieutenant,” Karen told him. She didn’t need to add the obvious: she’d deliberately avoided revealing the nature of her job to chatty Anna Kelsey when they’d made arrangements on the phone. “I don’t have much off-duty time, but when I do, I want it to be all mine.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Good,” she said stoutly. “Then we have something in common.”

Bauer glanced away. He was fuming, she was certain, but trying to show respect. Karen had to admire him for it—even more than she had to admire his massive shoulders. Still, she couldn’t afford to let his hidden anger smolder.

“We have something else in common, Lieutenant. We both wanted the job I came here to do.”

His harsh gaze swung back on her. “Captain, I’m doing my damnedest to be courteous to you. Why the hell are you baiting me?”

“I don’t want you sandbagging me when we’re on the job, Lieutenant Bauer,” she told him truthfully. “I came here to run the Tyler substation to the best of my ability, and I’ll do it—with or without you. But as long as you remain here, we’ll have to work closely together. If you’ve got something to get off your chest, I’d rather deal with it right now.”

When he stared at her for a long, bitter moment, Karen had a sense of what it would be like to be a criminal collared by this man. He was a good six feet tall, his body a solid wall of muscle that looked as if he maintained it at a gym. Karen was used to dealing with all kinds of criminals. She was rarely intimidated just by a man’s physical strength, but this big guy had her struggling to keep her breathing even. She knew he would not be easy to control, physically or mentally. She’d flipped him over that fence only because he’d been oblivious to danger. She knew she’d never take him off guard again.

With slow, measured anger, he shut the door behind her. “On behalf of my aunt and uncle, welcome to Kelsey Boardinghouse, Captain Keppler,” he said as tonelessly as a robot repeating a coded message. Coldly he turned away from the door and began to head toward the back of the house, speaking as she followed. “Breakfast is served at seven o’clock. Dinner is served at six. There’s a refrigerator and a microwave you can use yourself as long as you clean up. The living room is for everyone. So is the phone. The den is my aunt and uncle’s private space. Only the family goes in there.”

He started climbing the back stairs, two at a time, and Karen found it hard to keep up with his long, angry stride while dragging the heavy suitcase she’d refused to let him carry. He took half a dozen steps down the hall, then dug into his pocket. “This is the key to the front door. This is the key to your room.” He dropped the keys in her palm, being careful not to touch her skin. Then he opened the door to her room and gestured for her to go inside.

With relief, Karen saw that the room was well-kept and charming. On the old four-poster lay a quilt, hand-pieced in yellows and blues. It matched the curtains. There was a small desk and a tallboy chest of Early American style. A chestnut-and-rust braided rug covered most of the shiny hardwood floor.

Before Karen could comment on the welcoming vase of flowers and the note she spotted on the nightstand, Brick marched over to the far door and pulled it open, revealing an equally quaint bathroom. “This is the bath. You share it with the lodger on the other side.” He opened the far door a crack as if to illustrate his point, but Karen couldn’t see much of the other bedroom.

When he took a stiff step and grimaced, Karen felt a sharp need to offer another apology. It was obvious that his scrapes and bruises were bothering him. As the secret investigator who might bring about his downfall, she couldn’t afford to show much mercy, but as a human being who prided herself on her quiet compassion and tact, Karen found it hard to keep from showing concern.

“Any questions?” he asked brusquely, interrupting her thoughts.

Will you always hate me? Will all the other Tyler cops hate me, too? Will I ever see those incredible dimples again?

Aloud she said, “No, Lieutenant. Thank you. Good night.”

“Good night,” he said stiffly, his cautious movements revealing his pain as he edged through the far bathroom door.

It took Karen a moment to realize the significance of that simple act. He’s the boarder who lives next to me! she realized in dismay. We’ll be sharing meals and the same bath.

As she juggled the memory of his anger with the realization that such proximity would make it easier to uncover Bauer’s secrets for Harmon, Karen closed the door between her room and the bath, locked it carefully, then read the note beside her bed. It started personally:

Dear Karen,

I’m so sorry we were called away tonight, but we’ll be back in the morning to fix you up with anything you need. In the meantime, you can count on my nephew to make you snug as a bug in a rug.

Isn’t he adorable? He’s Tyler’s finest police officer and single, too. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted. We’re so glad to have you with us. Just make yourself at home!

Anna Kelsey

Karen fought back a lump in her throat. Mrs. Kelsey would never know how much it meant to her to know that one person in Tyler actually welcomed her. The officers she’d met at the Schmidts’ had made it clear enough that they’d all been hoping Brick Bauer would be their new captain. And Bauer himself—why the hell did he have to be so handsome, why the hell had he greeted her with that dimpled smile at the door?—was probably already making devious tactical plans to oust her.

Wearily she began unpacking all she’d need for the first few days: her uniforms, a warm robe, jeans, sweatshirts and sturdy barrettes to clip her waist-length braid flat against her head whenever she was on duty. At the bottom of the suitcase Karen found the one sentimental item that followed her everywhere: a framed eight-by-ten glossy of her father in uniform, taken shortly before his death. He was smiling, as he’d so often smiled in life, and she felt his faith in his only child buoy her now.

“I’ll do it, Daddy,” she vowed softly. “I’m going to make you proud.”

She touched his beloved face through the cold glass, then placed the frame on top of the desk, took her gun out of its holster and laid it on the nightstand near the flowers. Quickly she took down her hair, shed her heels and peeled off her panty hose. She was standing in her bare feet, still wearing her slinky black dress and empty shoulder holster, when she heard a knock on the adjoining bathroom door a moment later.

“Yes?” she asked as she opened it uneasily. Karen wasn’t used to such domestic proximity with a handsome hostile stranger. Maybe he’s come to clear the air, she told herself hopefully.

Belatedly Karen realized that she truly didn’t want to go to bed in a strange place with her housemate and second in command furious with her, whether he was guilty of a cover-up or not. There was a fifty-fifty chance this man was innocent of any wrongdoing, and besides, a skilled police officer ought to be able to maintain civil relations with another cop without divulging any secrets. Surely she’d displayed enough strength for one night! Now maybe she could set things right.

But the minute she found herself face-to-face with that square, bloody jaw and those blue eyes dark with rage, Karen knew it was way too late for reconciliation.

“Captain Keppler, there’s something I think you should understand,” Bauer stated baldly, his great size seeming to fill the room. “I’m damn proud to be a Tyler cop, and that’s never going to change. If you can’t stand to work with me—” his tone grew nearly feral “—you’re the one who’ll have to move on.”

CHAPTER TWO

BRICK REACHED the station house early the next morning eager to arrive before Captain Curvaceous started turning his life upside down. Actually, she’d already done that, he mused darkly as he recalled the painful dawn battle between his razor and his half-scabbed face. Fortunately, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Karen Keppler while he’d limped down to the basement and done a very cautious workout in a futile effort to limber up his battered back. Brick would have preferred to present himself to a new boss feeling his best, but the Keppler woman’s acrobatic tricks had already nixed that.

He didn’t think she’d last too long, but he knew she’d keep him on his toes until she threw in the towel. Last night’s sparring had told him that his nemesis was tougher than he’d expected the new female captain to be. But a woman cop was still a woman cop, which meant she was weak, unpredictable and not to be trusted.

Brick did not consider himself a raging chauvinist. In fact, he generally liked matching wits with women and found them to be as bright and capable as men in most professions. He didn’t even mind female dispatchers and file clerks in prisons and police stations. His objection was to women serving on patrol with male partners whose lives depended on them.

Partners whose lives were lost because of them.

In Brick’s view, putting a female in charge of a group of fighting men—and what was a police squad but a military unit?—bordered on ludicrous. And hiring one from another substation to replace the man who’d been groomed for the position for years was just plain insane.

It was also troubling, because Brick knew that Commander Harmon felt much the same way he did about women in uniform. In fact, a year ago Paul Schmidt had confided that whether Tyler became a county substation or not, Brick was a shoo-in for the captain’s job. Last week Brick had asked Paul straight out what had happened, and Paul had looked him in the eye and said he didn’t know.

Brick didn’t know, either, but now that he’d taken stock of Karen Keppler’s physical attributes, he didn’t think it was going to take too long to find out. The only question was what bigwig she was cozy with...and whether he’d used blackmail or favors owed to put pressure on the commander or somebody up the line.

When Brick arrived at the station at 7:23, a full half hour before his shift began, he was surprised to find one of Tyler’s dispatchers, Cindy Lou, cowering by the police radio. The young blonde looked a bit bedraggled this morning. She could have been sick—this time of year there were a fair number of colds and sore throats going around—but illness wouldn’t account for her hangdog expression.

“What’s wrong, Cin?” he asked, taken aback by her uncharacteristic sobriety.

“I was over getting a cup of coffee when Clayton and Franklin called in,” she told him miserably, not even meeting his eyes. “It was just a doughnut stop, so I went ahead and put a spoonful of creamer in my cup before I came back over here and called back. By that time she had grabbed the mike and barked out a bunch of numbers I didn’t understand. She told me never to leave my post unless there was somebody else to cover me. Then she marched in there and slammed the door.”

Cindy Lou pointed to Paul Schmidt’s office, a place that Brick had once considered a source of warmth and strength. Now it was inhabited by a virago.

“I’ll talk to her, Cindy,” he volunteered. Serving as a liaison between the boss and the underlings had always been part of his job, but it hadn’t been all that taxing while Paul was in charge. “She’s new here and a bit high-strung. After a while she’ll figure out the way we do things in Tyler.”

Cindy Lou, who’d once set her cap for Brick but had recently resigned herself to being a good friend, smiled her gratitude. “Thanks, Brick. I don’t know what we’d do without you here. It’s so unfair that you—”

“I know. Let’s not talk about it, okay?” Before she could answer, he asked, “When did she get here?”

“About five. I was so shocked! Paul never came in until after daylight, and even you don’t show up that early!”

“Don’t ask me to understand the workings of that woman’s mind,” Brick replied darkly. “I think Captain Curvaceous attended police academy on some other planet.”

When Cindy Lou glanced up at Brick, giggling at the nickname he’d coined, her glance fell on his jaw for the first time. “Good heavens, Brick! What happened to you? I thought you were off duty last night.”

He was trying to think of a way to avoid confessing the humiliating truth when he heard the captain’s office door swing open.

To Brick’s dismay, that damned Keppler woman looked every bit as striking in a black uniform as she did dressed for a party. Her braided hair looked more prosaic than it did in a chignon, but somehow the stern image flattered her striking features.

“Bauer, glad you’re here,” the new boss briskly called out to him from across the room. “We’ve got a lot to cover this morning before roll call.”

“Roll call?” he echoed. With all of six men on each shift, it seemed like a ridiculous formality. “We, uh, don’t do roll call here.”

Karen Keppler straightened then, looking ominous in her uniform as she took a step toward him.

“I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. I believe I heard you say something like ‘we don’t do roll call here.”’

Reluctantly Brick nodded, trying to stifle a new wave of resentment. He was uncomfortably aware that the door behind him had just opened and several day-shift guys had just wisecracked their way into the room. “That’s what I said, Captain Keppler. Paul always—”

“Lieutenant, I am not interested in the sections of the county code violated by my predecessor unless they are serious enough for prosecution,” she cut in, her gray eyes showing all the warmth of a glacier. “I am interested in instituting proper police procedures in accordance with the newly revised manual. I did not devote most of a year of my off-duty time to updating this edition in order to have it ignored by the men under my command. Is that clear?”

During this unexpected speech, Clayton and Franklin had joined the day-shift fellows, gaping wordlessly as the new boss tongue-lashed the man they all considered their true leader. Brick couldn’t say that Paul had never chewed out a man in public, but he’d only done it when the man had failed to respond to more subtle direction.

Not once, not ever, had he done it to Brick.

With all the strength he could muster, he refrained from cutting Karen Keppler down to size. “I’m sure that Tyler’s officers will follow whatever regulations are important to you, Captain,” he reported stiffly. “I merely meant to explain that they had not been willfully violating any county requirements. Paul simply had a different way—”

“I am not interested in former Chief Schmidt’s ways, nor in his shockingly unprofessional habits,” the captain interrupted, ignoring the communal gasp of dismay from the men behind Brick. “From now on you will refer to him by his proper name, and you will address me by my proper rank.” Her tone was so sharp it almost left nicks on Brick’s still-bloodied face. “Do we understand each other, Lieutenant?”

Brick had not expected to like Karen Keppler. He had not expected to enjoy serving under her command. Last night he’d realized he would have to swallow a great deal of pride to tolerate being her subordinate, but it was not until this moment that he realized how seriously this woman was going to color his world. She’d stolen his promotion; she’d invaded his home. Brick was sworn by duty to uphold her orders and demand loyalty to her from his men.

But no duty could keep him from wanting to throttle her at this moment. And no badge would keep him from calling a spade a spade if she ever dressed him down in public again.

* * *

“SO HOW DID your first day of work go?” Anna Kelsey cheerfully asked Karen as her new boarder sat down to dinner. She was such a pretty girl, even if she was a bit sparing with her sweet smile. “You should have told me you were going to be the new police captain. I hear you took my favorite nephew by surprise.” Actually, she’d heard the story of Brick’s real surprise—being flipped on his backside by his new boss—from no fewer than six different people today. Dr. George Phelps, Anna’s boss, had told her the tale firsthand.

Karen took her napkin off the table and laid it carefully across her lap. “Well, it’s a small town, Mrs. Kelsey—”

“Anna, dear. Only strangers call me Mrs. Kelsey.”

Karen’s smile was genuine but strained. “Until I have time to buy my own place, Anna, I’m bound to brush elbows with some of my men.”

Anna tried to swallow a chuckle as she pondered other possible interpretations of that phrase, but red-haired Tisha Olsen, never one to pull her punches, laughed outright.

“It’s a worthy goal for most girls your age, honey,” the eccentric hairdresser teased with a good-natured grin. “With all the fine boys on our force, I imagine you’ll find yourself a man in no time.”

Anna was surprised to see Karen color; she knew Tisha had meant no harm. Still, it wouldn’t be easy for any woman of Tisha’s generation to understand why the girl wanted to be a police captain. Tisha had certainly never understood why Anna’s future daughter-in-law, Pam, wanted to be a football coach. Anna didn’t really understand it, either, but if it was what Pam wanted, she wanted it for Pam, and if Karen wanted to take her job seriously, then so should everybody else at Kelsey’s. Granted, it was a bit hard for Anna to feel happy about anybody taking the job Brick had wanted for himself, but it wasn’t Karen’s fault she’d been appointed.

“A pretty girl like Karen could get married anytime she wanted to,” Anna pointed out cheerfully. “She’s just got more important things to do right now. Isn’t that right, Karen?”

Karen flashed Anna a grateful look. “That’s about the size of it. My job is my life. I can’t imagine that any man would put up with it.”

“Brick’s the same way,” Johnny added laconically. After thirty-five years of marriage, little that her stalwart husband said took Anna by surprise. Despite his apparent indifference to the conversation, she knew he was trying to bolster the new young boarder in his own quiet way. “There’s something about being a cop, he always says. It’s not a job, it’s a way of life. From the time he was a little boy, it’s all Brick ever wanted to be.”

“I thought he wanted to be a football player,” Tisha countered, reaching for another poppy-seed roll. “Isn’t that how he got his nickname?”

Anna watched Karen carefully. Yes, her eyebrows did rise a trifle. She was a bit interested in Brick’s personal life!

“He was a wonderful guard,” Anna explained with renewed enthusiasm after she’d recapped the story of his childhood for Karen. After all, shouldn’t the girl know that Brick had lived with his aunt and uncle since his father died when he was fifteen? Shouldn’t she know that his mother had died when he was ten? “One night he stopped the Belton team practically all by himself. The sports reporter said they’d have had the same luck trying to score through a brick wall. Our boy, Patrick, started calling him Brick the next day. It caught on, and we’ve been calling him that ever since.”

“Except for your mother,” Johnny corrected her. “She’s the only one I know who still calls him Donald.”

“Well, Martha’s a bit long in the tooth to start changing her ways,” Tisha replied with a chuckle. She served herself some meat loaf and passed the serving dish to Karen. “I keep hoping she’ll match up with some friendly old codger at Worthington House, but she seems content to sit and sew.”

“She quilts,” explained Anna, who didn’t like to think of her darling, bright-eyed mother as growing old. “She belongs to a group of ladies who get together and piece quilts the old-fashioned way. They made a lovely one for Phil when he hurt his hip— Oh, you don’t know Phil, do you, Karen?”

Karen was eating carefully now, but her pretty gray eyes reflected interest as she shook her head.

“Phil is another of our lodgers. He’s a retired gardener. Used to work for the Ingallses. Have you met Judson Ingalls?”

“Briefly, at Paul Schmidt’s party.”

Johnny snorted. “You probably met his daughter, Alyssa, too. She never misses an opportunity to make a public appearance.”

Anna hoped that Karen hadn’t heard the bitterness underlying his neutral tone. Years ago, Alyssa had spurned Johnny’s best friend, Eddie Wocheck, and as a result, Eddie had left town. The fact that he’d recently returned to visit, rolling in money and justifiably proud of his accomplishments, had not changed Johnny’s feelings toward the woman who’d broken Eddie’s heart. But because Alyssa was one of Anna’s best friends, he tried to keep those feelings to himself.

Anna pressed on with her story. “Well, Phil’s lived with us for years—was our first boarder—and he’s only been at Worthington House—that’s our local convalescent home—since he slipped and broke his hip. He’ll be back soon, God willing. He’s the dearest old man...”

She stopped as Johnny interrupted with a comment of his own. “Honey, I forgot to tell you that Eddie’s going to use Phil’s room.”

“Oh? He’s back in town?” To Karen, she said, “Eddie grew up in Tyler but he’s been gone a long time. Recently he bought Timberlake Lodge from Judson Ingalls, and he’s going to add a wing to create a resort out there. He drops by every now and then—”

“What I meant was, he’s coming back to stay. Until things get under way at the lodge, at least. I told him he could stay in Phil’s room until Phil’s ready to come back.”

Tisha smiled, clearly enjoying the Kelseys’ attempts to educate their boarder about the town. “Phil is Eddie’s daddy, Karen, and Anna and Johnny forgot to tell you that their daughter Kathleen lives here, too, when she’s not gallivanting off to Switzerland for the winter. You ought to take notes. You might forget some of this, and you cops need to keep track of local gossip to solve your cases, don’t you? Would you like to wiretap my shop?”

Karen smiled warily, so warily that Anna wondered if she’d already figured out that Tisha deliberately tossed off outrageous comments to help maintain her flamboyant image. Karen had chosen a tough career, so she must be a pretty tough person. But Anna suspected that she’d had a hard first day at work, and tonight she needed warmth and support from her fellow boarders. Tisha often showed her affection for people by teasing, but Anna didn’t think Karen was in the mood to be teased. “You were about to tell us how things went today,” she tried again.