Shelley Cooper - Dad In Blue

“Where do we go from here?” he asked, feeling decidedly shaky.

“You meet Jeffrey. Are you available Saturday morning?”

“Is ten o’clock okay?”

“Ten o’clock would be perfect.” She handed him a piece of paper with her address and phone number.

At the front door, he forced himself to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry about James,” he said. She’d never know how sorry. “He was a good man. It was a privilege to serve with him.”

The sorrow that filled her beautiful brown eyes let him know that, despite the spark of interest he thought he glimpsed earlier, her heart still belonged firmly to her late husband.

“Thank you.”

Carlo didn’t know what was worse. Receiving Samantha Underwood’s thanks, or realizing that, for the next several months, he would be spending a lot of time in her company.

“I really wanted to pay my respects, after James died,” he felt compelled to say. Unfortunately, his injuries had made that impossible.

She nodded her understanding. “And I meant to visit you in the hospital. Thank you again, Chief Garibaldi.”

He followed her out onto the front porch and watched while she climbed into her car and drove away. He was still standing there five minutes later, eyes shielded against the sun, when his brothers arrived.

“Did you speak to him?” her mother asked the minute Samantha walked through the front door.

Samantha shrugged out of her coat and hung it in the closet. “Yes.”

“And?”

She turned to face the older woman. “He’ll do it.”

Maxine Miller’s hands went to her heart. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“Yes,” Samantha echoed hollowly. “Thank goodness.”

Her mother frowned. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

The euphoria she’d felt after Carlo Garibaldi had agreed to be Jeffrey’s buddy had worn off during the drive home. While she was still thrilled that he’d agreed to help her, she was less than happy about the method she’d used to earn that agreement.

“That’s because I guilted him into it.”

“How did you do that?”

“By basically telling him that he was the only man who could do the job. He would have been heartless to refuse.”

“A less than honorable man would have had no problem refusing,” Maxine pointed out.

“Yes,” Samantha agreed. “And, as we all know, Carlo Garibaldi is an honorable man. Which just proves my original argument.”

A look of sympathy crossed her mother’s face. “You did the right thing, honey. In this case, the ends definitely justify the means.”

“Knowing that doesn’t make me feel any better.” Samantha sighed. “Where’s Jeffrey?”

“Upstairs in his room.”

Her already heavy heart grew heavier. “I suppose it was too much to hope he’d be outside, playing with one of his friends.”

“Oh, Sam.” Maxine’s eyes filled with tears.

Samantha felt her throat thicken, and she quickly looked away. Though she longed to, she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of a good cry. She was afraid that, once she started, she would never stop.

“I hate to see you worry like this,” her mother said. “You have to understand that what happened to Jeffrey is a tragedy few children his age experience. It’s only natural he would withdraw the way he has.”

“I didn’t.” Nineteen years earlier, under circumstances eerily similar to the ones that had cost James his life, Samantha’s father had been killed in the line of duty.

“You were thirteen when your father died, not seven. And you had your two older sisters to help you through.”

“Maybe. But it’s been a year, Mom. What should have been the hardest part is already behind us. The first Thanksgiving without James. The first Christmas. The first birthday. Yet Jeffrey isn’t getting any better. If anything, he’s getting worse.”

“Have patience, honey. And faith. He’ll come back to us. I know he will.”

Samantha wished she could be so certain. She drew a long, shuddering breath. It tore at her heart to think of her child being so alone. Before James’s death, Jeffrey had been so outgoing, so alive. And now…

Swallowing, she said, “To tell you the truth, Mom, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

She was a nurse. She’d dedicated her life to helping others. It tortured her that she couldn’t do anything to help her own son. She could bandage a cut, soothe a fevered brow, but she had no idea how to heal the bruising of Jeffrey’s soul. With every day that passed, he slipped further and further away from her. No matter how hard she tried, Samantha couldn’t reach him.

“Would you like me to come over for a couple of evenings this week, so you can get out on your own?” Maxine asked. “Maybe some time by yourself would help.”

“It wouldn’t do any good. I worry about Jeffrey whether I’m with him or not.”

“I could just come and keep you company.”

Once again, Samantha found herself blinking back tears. “I’d like that, Mom. Very much.”

“I think going to Chief Garibaldi was a step in the right direction. Having Jeffrey spend time with someone who knew and worked with his father might just be able to bring about the breakthrough we’ve been praying for.”

“I certainly hope so,” Samantha said fervently. So much rode on this relationship working out. The stakes were incredibly high. Too high?

“What’s he like?” Maxine asked.

“Who?”

“Chief Garibaldi.”

Samantha’s heart thudded as she recalled her first glimpse of him. “Oh.”

“Well?” Maxine gazed at her pointedly.

“He’s…just like James described him.” And so much more.

“His picture was in the paper last week. He was honored for his actions that day.”

“I know,” Samantha said softly. “I saw it.”

After speaking to Mayor Boyer that morning, Samantha had dug the newspaper in question out of the pile to be placed at the curb on recycling day. Though grainy, the photograph on the front page had arrested her attention. She’d seen his cap of unruly black hair, his broad forehead, his piercing brown eyes that gleamed with intelligence, his classic Roman nose and his determined chin, and had known exactly what to expect when she met him: a man who, like her husband, was filled with an unswerving dedication to right all wrongs.

What she hadn’t expected was his smoldering sensuality, or the helpless way she had responded to it.

Guilt stabbed at her as she faced a truth she’d been trying to hide from since the moment she’d laid eyes on her son’s buddy. Her husband, whom she’d loved more than life itself, had been gone just over a year, and she’d stood on Carlo Garibaldi’s front doorstep, gaping at him like a hormone-struck teenager. Her son needed help desperately, and all she’d been able to think about was the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his brown eyes, and the fullness of his lips. What had gotten into her?

She supposed it had something to do with the fact that he was nothing like she had anticipated. When he’d answered his door, her first reaction, before awareness set in, had been amazement that he wasn’t taller. After the way James had sung Carlo’s praises, Samantha had expected him to be almost Paul Bunyanesque in stature. To discover that he was a good two inches shy of the six-foot mark had been a surprise.

What he lacked in height, however, he more than made up for with his dark good looks, sheer force of personality and well-muscled physique. He’d looked so strong, so capable, that Samantha had found herself repressing a ridiculous desire to lean her head on his shoulder and tell him all her troubles.

When she’d realized how he affected her, she’d almost turned on her heel and walked away. Instead, for Jeffrey’s sake, she’d forced herself to offer him her hand.