Dana Nussio - Strength Under Fire

He indicated farther down the table with a tilt of his head. “Let Kelly know if you need something for it. She carries a whole pharmacy in that big bag of hers.”

“Hey, I resent that.” Trooper Roberts showed off a large lime-green purse without a bit of shame and then stowed it under the table.

Delia pushed around a piece of chicken on her salad. There was no way she’d be able to eat another bite. She wanted to believe that the past could no longer break her, but it was sure giving it the old college try.

At least Ben didn’t try to start another conversation because she couldn’t look him in the eye now. If she dared, she might do something unforgivable like melt into a puddle on the floor. Or, worse, tell him about her past. She squashed that thought immediately. That it had even crossed her mind was unacceptable. She would never again tell anyone. She’d shared her story once, and look where that had gotten her.

What was going on with her, anyway? For someone who prided herself on having an absolute immunity to men, she needed a booster shot where Ben Peterson was concerned. No, make that Lieutenant Peterson. Impersonal. Distant. The way it was supposed to be. Until she built up some resistance to this particular strain of male, she needed to avoid the exposure zone.

CHAPTER THREE

BEN STOMPED UP the front steps to the 1930s farmhouse his friends had deemed “the project.” To him it was just home. He grimaced as a loose floorboard creaked when he reached the wraparound porch. Something else to fix. Just like the mess he’d made at the Driftwood. As if things between him and a certain trooper hadn’t been awkward enough today, he’d just made them a whole lot worse.

His freezing hands fumbled with the keys, and they dropped to the snow-dusted wood with a thunk. It just figured he would have forgotten to leave the outside light on tonight. Why did he continually forget when he knew how dark it was out in the country? Grumbling, he crouched near the door and patted around him until his fingers closed over the keys. After several of his misdirected jabs, he finally slipped the key into the lock.

He pushed the door open, welcoming the rush of heat that struck his face even before he could reach inside to switch on the light. With the corncob-quality insulation in these walls, this would be the only time he felt warmth in this place all night. He kicked the door shut harder than he’d planned to and then braced for the sound of breaking glass. The near complete silence that only those who live outside of city limits ever experience filled the space instead.

As he rounded the corner into the formal living room, a collection of faces stared back at him, their photo frames askew but still clinging to the wall. Enlarged color snapshots featured a silver-headed couple with a boy at various ages, but most of the images were in black and white. A portrait of the great-grandparents he’d only known from their stories took the center spot in the display. They weren’t smiling, either.

“Your week must have been as bad as mine.”

As Ben hung his coat on the antique coat tree and zipped on the sweatshirt he always wore inside the house, his gaze followed the lines of the Victorian furniture that had been there for as long as he could remember. There probably wasn’t a single piece that had anything more than sentimental value, but they all had plenty of that to spare. Except for the goldfish bowl on the bookshelf, nothing in this room had changed in thirty years.

On his way through the house, Ben smoothed his hand along the dark wooden doorway molding. Admiring some of the woodwork he’d restored himself usually calmed him after a stressful shift, but there was nothing usual about this week. He braced himself for another onslaught of images he would never forget, shouts ringing again in his ears, the pungent scent of his own fear still fresh in his nostrils. He’d hated the stink of it, even then.

He shivered, telling himself it was only from the cold. He could lie to himself if he wanted to. The house felt chillier tonight, anyway. Bigger. And emptier. The hollow echoes of his own footsteps chased him on the creaky floors as he continued into the kitchen. As he’d done so many nights before, he washed vegetables, diced chicken and sprinkled spices. Only after the chicken in the wok had turned white and the pea pods and water chestnuts were sizzling in the sesame oil did he remember that he’d already eaten.

Slamming a plastic container on the countertop, he poured the meal inside it to refrigerate for later. He should have known better than to show up at the Driftwood tonight after his crazy day at work. And not just because of the pep session, either. If he’d known that Delia would be there, he would have headed straight home. Technically, she’d warned him that she planned to show up, but he’d had no reason to believe her. He could count on one hand the number of times she’d joined them at either of the haunts where the officers gathered after their shifts, so he couldn’t account for her presence any more than he could explain the spike of his pulse when he’d seen her there.

Even now, he wasn’t sure how he’d made it across the restaurant to sit next to her without falling over his feet like in a B-rated comedy flick with a D-list cast. Worse yet, that clumsy approach had been the most acceptable thing he’d done all night. He’d whispered close to her ear so he could sneak a whiff of her lavender shampoo, and he’d made up so many excuses to accidentally brush her arm that it must have looked like an elbow fight. He probably would have copped a feel right over her oh-so-proper black turtleneck if he could have gotten away with it. He’d sure helped her out of that sweater with his eyes.

Suddenly thirsty, he threw on the faucet and poured himself a glass of water. With his eyes squeezed shut, he took several gulps. What had happened to him? He used to be a professional. He knew the rules, and until now, he’d followed them. So how had he gone from finding ways to bring one of the troopers more fully into the post team to wanting to frisk her in all the best ways right there on the table?

It didn’t make any sense. He’d passed by Delia Morgan every day for months, wearing the same uniform, finishing up reports at the same desktop computer, and he’d never once suffered from a case of dry mouth. Until today. He couldn’t recall a single case of sweaty palms over her nearness, either. Until... But that was the thing. Something had tripped a switch in him today, and no matter how hard he tried to click it off again, she kept showing up in his thoughts, accentuated by nothing less than ideal lighting.

He took another drink and then held the cool glass to his cheek. Unfortunately, his face wasn’t the only thing that felt too warm over just the thought of her and that sweater.

This situation had disaster written all over it. He couldn’t be attracted to a trooper, even if he wasn’t her direct supervisor. He didn’t do interoffice romances. He wished he could make the excuse that it had been too long since he’d dated, but that disastrous blind date from last weekend probably still counted. As for “afternoon delights” as Vinnie would have called them, though, it had been a long, dry year in the whole delights department, afternoon or otherwise.

“Get your head on straight, Peterson,” he grumbled.

Polaski definitely would tell him that if he saw him now and probably with more colorful vocabulary. Whether or not Ben had sought out attention when he’d entered the bank yesterday, he’d become an object of curiosity. A hero in some people’s minds, even if he would never see himself as one. Well, he’d better start behaving like one. A hero would always be his best, most professional self, not someone who only thought about his own needs as his father had. A hero wouldn’t allow himself to see a coworker as anything more than a brother or sister in blue. He would work solely for the good of the public and the post.