Janice Johnson - Between Love and Duty

When Miss Brooks said, “I spoke to Duncan Mac-Lachlan,” Tito looked at her in alarm.

“He didn’t tell me.”

“I asked him not to.”

That tasted bad, like broccoli. He had trusted Duncan, who had caught him, el stupido, breaking into his house. What had Duncan said to her?

“He told me he wouldn’t betray any confidences.” She fumbled for another way to say that, but Tito understood and relaxed. He wished secretly that he could live with Duncan, but, of course, he wouldn’t want a boy like Tito. Why would he? Tito wondered all the time why he was being so nice.

“Do you like spending time with Duncan?”

Tito smeared the words on the table some more, but he also nodded.

“He did tell me how you met.”

Tito’s head shot up, but she was smiling.

“Don’t worry. It has nothing to do with where you live. I won’t tell anyone else.”

That lump was again in his throat. “Gracias. Thank you.”

Still smiling, she said, “Here’s my phone number, Tito. It’s a cell phone, so you can reach me day or evening. If there’s anything you want to say.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be speaking to your father next.” She asked him if there were other adults she should talk to, but he shrugged. He had friends, sí, but he didn’t even know their parents. Truthfully, he didn’t have many friends, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

She signaled and Lupe came over to them. Tito hadn’t known that his sister had stayed. She looked so tired. He wondered if Papa could help her, once he got out. Would he be able to find work? If he couldn’t, how would he be able to take Tito?

What would Papa think of Duncan? Tito felt a heavy sensation in his chest at the idea of not being able to play basketball and soccer with Duncan anymore, but if he had to live with Papa and Papa said no…

“Was it all right?” Lupe asked him on the way home, and Tito only hunched down in the car seat and shrugged.

He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember what “all right” was.

TELEPHONE TO HIS EAR, Duncan rotated his big leather office chair so that he was gazing out the window at the sky. His office was on the second floor of the new redbrick jail and police station. Right next door, attached by a glassed-in walkway, was the matching courthouse.

On the fourth ring, a woman said, “Dance Dreams.”

Jane Brooks, of course. She had an intriguing voice. A little husky. Smoky. Sexy, damn it.

“Ms. Brooks. You’ve been dodging my calls.”

A couple of weeks had passed since she’d come to his house, and never another word from her. He’d left her four messages on her cell phone. They had been increasingly testy, he knew.

“Yes, I have, Captain MacLachlan. As I thought I’d made clear to you, I’m unable to discuss my recommendations until I make them to the court. I’d welcome new information. However, you didn’t sound as if you had any to offer.”

He restrained a growl. “Have you talked to the father?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss…”

He didn’t even try to restrain this growl. “Ms. Brooks, do you or do you not want what’s best for Tito?”

“That,” she retorted with a snap in her voice, “depends on whether we’re talking about what’s best for Tito as pronounced by you, Captain.”

“I’ve read the original police report on Hector Ortez’s crime.”

“As have I.”

That surprised him.

She continued, “The trial transcript, too. Have you read that, Captain MacLachlan?”

He hadn’t.

She waited politely. “No?” she said after a moment. “Since you’re so interested, you might want to do so.”

“I intend to.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have customers.”

He didn’t know whether it was more insulting to think that she was lying about the existence of those customers, or that she wasn’t.

Either way—she was gone. “Bullheaded woman,” he muttered, hanging up the phone.

Duncan didn’t like being bested by a pretty, feminine little thing who made her living selling, of all damn things, tutus.

Maybe not little, he conceded. She had the look of a dancer. Slender, small-breasted, graceful and long-legged, with the swanlike neck and unusually erect carriage he’d expect of one. In appearance, she was just plain feminine, with that mass of glossy hair the color of hand-rubbed maple wood, a sweet face and eyes of the darkest blue he’d ever seen.

All that, and the personality of a police dog on the job. Outwardly well behaved, sharp-eyed and ready, at the slightest excuse, to go for the throat.

He’d have expected as much if she’d been a defense attorney. But the proprietor of a dance shop?

Duncan might have been amused if he hadn’t been so pissed. She’d made up her mind, all right. He suspected she had from the beginning, whatever she said to the contrary. She had every intention of handing Tito back to his father, whose main virtue seemed to be a lack of any history of domestic violence calls. Never mind that he’d stabbed a man to death in the parking lot of a tavern at two in the morning.

From the ache in his jaw, Duncan could tell he was grinding his teeth again. Swearing aloud served to relax his jaw. Maybe he’d recommend the technique to his dentist for other patients.

The rest of him hadn’t relaxed one iota. He continued to brood when he should have been working.

At first sight, he’d had the passing thought that he might like to take Ms. Jane Brooks to bed. No more. He didn’t care what color her eyes were, or how much he’d liked her long-fingered, graceful hands. He didn’t object to social workers on principle, but he did object to idiots who believed in blood ties at the cost of common sense. He didn’t have to feel a whole hell of a lot to enjoy taking a woman to bed, but he drew the line at one he held in contempt.

He swiveled in his chair and pulled out his computer keyboard. If Jane Brooks had kept him in the loop, he might have shared his intentions with her. As it was, she might be surprised by some opposition.

In his present mood, he hoped she was.

CHAPTER THREE

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR recommendations, Ms. Brooks.” The Honorable Judge Edward Lehman peered at Jane over the top of his reading glasses. The judge had already greeted Hector Ortez, Lupe and the Department of Social & Health Services caseworker present in the small courtroom along with the recorder and bailiff.

Hector had been released a few days before. The decision had been made to hold this hearing immediately, before he had a chance to reestablish his relationship with his daughter and son on his own. Jane had had to hustle to finish all her interviews so quickly and put together a report for Lehman, but she was satisfied with the result if less than thrilled with any of Tito’s options. She’d tried very hard not to consider Captain MacLachlan’s outrage when she interviewed Hector at the correctional institute, but his voice and scathing gray eyes had stuck with her whether she liked it or not.

Now the judge continued, “I’ve received an additional opinion that I hadn’t anticipated… Ah.” He looked past her. “Captain MacLachlan.”

With a sense of inevitability and rising aggravation, Jane turned her head to see Duncan MacLachlan entering chambers. Speak of the devil. Or was it think of the devil. The smallish space immediately shrank. He wore a crisp blue uniform today, as if he’d wanted to emphasize his position in the law enforcement community.

“Your Honor,” he said with a nod.

Jane supposed the two men knew each other. Well, so what. She knew Judge Lehman, too. He was her favorite of the several family court judges with whom she’d dealt. She shouldn’t leap to assume the two men were comembers of some kind of old boys’ network.