Ruth Herne - Healing the Lawman's Heart

But that was probably nonsense, whereas baseball was real, so he concentrated on team rivalries because he understood that.

Life and faith, intertwined? Not so much.

* * *

Sixty minutes of exercise did nothing but make Julia hungrier.

She’d ignored the brownies.

She’d turned away from the fresh hoagie bread her father brought home from the McKinney Dairy Farm store, baked daily by an Amish woman over on County Road 4.

She’d grabbed a pack of fresh veggies, told herself that cucumbers were the new chocolate, but it was no use. She needed coffee, good coffee, and she needed it now. The best place to find that was at Tina’s Corner Café. The popular gathering spot was now tucked into an expanded corner of The Pelican’s Nest, a family owned restaurant on the shores of Kirkwood Lake. No way was she going back home without a proper caffeine fix and maybe some girl talk. Knowing she was going to be working side by side with a grumpy cop and trying to analyze Vic’s moves made the company of other women essential.

She walked through the door, smiled at Tina, looked at Tina’s aunt Laura and promptly burst into tears.

“Julia! Sweetie, what is it?” Laura wrapped her arms around Julia and hugged her close. “Are you okay? Are the boys okay? Is it Zach? Or your father?”

Julia shook her head, tried to talk, failed miserably, then sighed when Tina handed over a fistful of tissues. “Men.” Tina muttered the word with typical Martinelli emphasis. “Can’t live with ’em. Can’t shoot ’em.”

“Which of course would be a dreadful sin,” added Laura, “but if some wretched man has broken your heart, honey, I’m not afraid to help make his life miserable, and I’ll do it in the most sincere manner a Sunday-school teaching woman can employ and stay right with God.”

Julia burst out laughing. The thought of sweet, mild-mannered Laura D’Allesandro taking up Julia’s cause sounded real good right now. “I’ll be fine, and yes, it’s a man. How did you know?” she asked, and Tina just rolled her eyes.

“Let’s just say I used to be familiar with the symptoms. Before Max, that is.” She smiled when she mentioned her husband’s name. “I’ve kissed a few frogs in my time.”

“Kiss a few toads, sweep our share of ashes,” Laura exclaimed with a quick swipe of a washcloth to the empty tables.

“But you didn’t marry the frogs,” Julia reminded Tina. “You waited for the prince to come along.”

Tina’s expression said otherwise. “I was engaged to one and almost engaged to the other. So pretty close, darling.”

“You’re among friends, now tell us. What’s going on?” Laura asked. “You’re never upset, you’re the most even-keeled, optimistic person I know. This has got to be really nasty to have you this riled up.”

“Coffee, first,” Tina inserted. “I think a caramel macchiato would be just right.”

Julia glanced up at the calorie board and hesitated.

Tina groaned.

Laura sighed. “Don’t tell me a pretty thing like you is worried about her weight? Because I’ll just fall down laughing.”

“And I’ll join her, and then there’ll be no one to make your coffee,” Tina continued. She reached out and grabbed Julia’s hands as Julia sank onto a counter stool. “I don’t know the story, but I’m going to guess he cheated on you and you’re trying to figure out why.”

Julia stared at her. “How did you know that?”

“Because women tend to assume it’s our fault first.” Tina moved back behind the counter and started building Julia’s drink. “We see their cheating as the result of our lack, instead of their choice to stray.”

“Which is ridiculous, of course,” Laura chimed in. “What does God tell us about women in Proverbs 31? That a woman opens her hands to the poor and reaches out to the needy. That she works for her family, and provides for them? I don’t recall seeing anything about being a size six, Julia. Or trying to reform ourselves to win affection. Shouldn’t we be loved as God loves us? For ourselves?”

“It’s wonderful in theory.” Julia smiled at Tina when she set the steaming caramel coffee in front of her. “Unfortunately reality says something different these days.”

“My dose of today’s reality is to head to work.”

The sound of Tanner’s voice made all three ladies turn as he came around the corner from the main restaurant dining area.

Laura smiled. Clearly familiar with Tanner’s tastes, Tina called a greeting, grabbed a large to-go coffee cup and moved to the espresso machine.

Julia was glad she hadn’t been griping about Tanner when he walked in. She met his eyes as he approached the coffee counter. “Thanks for hanging with Zach this afternoon.”

“Piper’s stepmother came over to make sure he was doing okay. He drifted in and out of sleep the whole time I was there, which meant I could cheer for the Pirates and no one reamed me out. I found it oddly disappointing.”

“You’ll be safe for a while because he’ll be on heavy-duty pain meds for days.” Julia sipped her coffee, glad she hadn’t insisted on the plain black version. This amazing concoction was so much better. Or maybe it was her proximity to this puzzling man with soft but tough gray eyes. “But he’ll be glad you came by, Tanner.”

Tina extended his coffee across the curved wooden coffee bar and waved off his money. “You know better, even though you’re not at this end of the lake all that often,” she teased. “Coffee for cops is on the house.”

“You just want me to be nice to Max, since he’s new on the force.”

“After ten years of military special ops, I can assure you that Max Campbell has plenty of tricks up his sleeve,” Tina told him, “so I’d be careful treating him like a normal probie. Just a word to the wise.”

“I got to work with him last month.” Tanner raised his coffee cup in salute. “And he did okay. For a military guy.”

Tina laughed. “I won’t tell him you said so because I know how the loyalty game plays out. But just so you know, he spoke well of you, too.”

Tanner grinned. He turned back toward Julia. “According to your father, I’ll see you Tuesday night. Six o’clock. Your place.”

He aimed a smile at the two women behind Julia, then walked out. Julia read their expressions, and put up her hands. “It’s not what you think, even though he’s funny, gentle, sensitive and wretchedly good-looking.”

“It should be.” Laura exchanged a look with Tina, a look that said Tanner Reddington was positively swoon-worthy. “Oh, honey, I promise you. It should be.”

“I have enough on my plate right now.” Julia watched Tanner as he crossed the parking lot. Tall, square-shouldered and decisive, he looked as good from behind as he did from the front, but something in his reticence tripped mental red flags. She switched her attention back to the women. “For the moment I’m trying to figure out what my ex-husband is up to all of a sudden. There is no time in the world for that. Unfortunately.” She waved toward the door Tanner had just closed.

“Mmm-hmm.” Laura’s knowing smile said she wasn’t buying it. Tina’s said the same.

For a moment, Julia wondered if that gleam in Tanner’s eye went deeper than gentle amusement. Was he interested in her?

Of course not. He was always one step shy of rude during their conversations, and what she absolutely, positively did not want, ever again, was to have to prove herself to a man, because Laura was right. God’s command to man was to cherish women, to love them as he loved the church.

She’d lived that failure once. She never wanted to face that outcome again.

Chapter Four

Tanner steered his car off of Main Street and onto Lower Lake Road.