Janice Johnson - To Love a Cop

“I— He was only five and a half when it happened.”

The kindness and sympathy in this man’s expression made her feel shaky. She didn’t want to be weakened, but...was it so bad, just for a minute, to feel grateful for someone who seemed to understand? “A little boy,” he said. “Too young to know the difference between a real gun and a toy gun.”

Her head bobbed. “Yes. Except... The boy who died was Jake’s first cousin, Marco. They were best friends. It was really gruesome. The bullet hit him in the head.” She hardly knew her hand had lifted and that she was lightly touching her cheek, letting him know where the bullet had entered Marco’s head. “I don’t think Jake will ever forget.”

As if she could.

“No.”

“He didn’t see his father, thank heavens. At least Matt didn’t do that to us,” she said bitterly.

“But you found him.”

She shuddered. “Yes.”

Detective Winter swore, rose to his feet and came to her, sitting on the coffee table close enough for him to take her hands. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to carry something like that with you.”

She had the oddest moment of bemusement. A man was holding her hands in a warm, comforting clasp. He leaned forward in concern, so close to her that she saw his eyes were hazel, mostly green streaked with gold, and that his lashes were short but thick. If she were to lift her hand to his hard jaw, she’d feel the rasp of his late afternoon beard growing in.

A near complete stranger was holding her hands.

She could not afford to think of him as a man. He wasn’t here because he was interested in her. He was here because he’d caught Jake at a gun show.

All her fears rushed back. Even so, she couldn’t make herself retreat from that comforting clasp. She looked down to see the way his thumbs moved gently, almost caressingly, on the backs of her hands.

“I put him in counseling, of course,” she said in a stifled voice. “He...regressed, after Matt killed himself.”

“Of course he would.”

She nodded. “But he’s done really well. He makes friends. He’s close to a straight-A student. I thought...I thought we were through any danger period.”

Detective Winter waited with seemingly limitless patience. Ethan , that was his first name, she thought, finding it fit the man.

“Only, recently I’ve caught him watching TV shows he knows I don’t allow. All he seems to want to watch are police shows. There’s that reality one.” He nodded. “And he’s slipped a few times and said things, so I know he’s seeing some pretty violent stuff at friends’ houses. Movies I’d never let him go to or rent. And when the news is dominated by some awful crime, he’ll stay glued to CNN or whatever channel follows it.”

“He’s a teenage boy. His father was a police officer. His interest might be natural.”

“Why would he admire that, given what happened because his father carried a gun?” she said sharply.

Detective Winter’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t say anything. He straightened a little, though, and his clasp on her hands loosened.

“And then I was changing the sheets on Jake’s bed,” she went on, her voice slowing. “I found some gun catalogs under the mattress.” She gave a sad excuse for a laugh. “ Playboy magazine wouldn’t have shocked me. These...seemed way more obscene.”

“Understandably.”

“And now this.” She searched his face, as if she’d find any answers.

“Matt must have had friends Jake could talk to about some of this.”

“Friends?” She huffed. “You mean from the department? No, they all did a disappearing act. He was probably their worst nightmare come true. Why hang around to watch the epilogue?”

The detective’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “ None of his friends on the job stuck around to be sure you and Jake were all right?”

“No. I quit hearing from the wives right away, too. I definitely embodied their worst nightmares.” She didn’t admit that, as angry as she’d been, Matt’s cop friends and their wives were the last people she’d have wanted to hear from or see. She might have ignored their calls.

Had ignored some.

But there hadn’t been all that many, and they’d tailed off within a couple of weeks. Nobody had been persistent enough to come by when she couldn’t be reached by phone. Out of sight, out of mind.

“You have family?” he asked.

“My sister and her husband and kids. They’re the only reason I didn’t move away. Sometimes I think I should have.”

Those eyes, clear as they were, had somehow softened now. “Fewer reminders.”

“For Jake,” she said briskly, sitting straighter and sliding her hands from his. She watched as he flattened them on his chino-clad thighs, long, taut muscles outlined beneath the cotton fabric. “I could move to Beijing and I wouldn’t forget a thing.”

He saw deeper than she liked. “Matt had a big family.”

“Yes, he did.”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember seeing them at his funeral.”

“That’s because they weren’t there.”

“His parents didn’t come to his funeral.”

“Nope.” Anger had long since buried any pain at that loss. She lived with a whole lot of anger. “Neither did a single one of his three brothers and two sisters.”

“They ditched you?” he said incredulously. “Because of a tragic accident?”

“Marco’s father, Rinaldo, is the brother Matt was closest to. They had...a really horrible scene and never spoke again. I thought...after Matt died...” She grimaced. “But no. Either they held Jake responsible even if he was only five years old, or they blamed me.” For good reason.

“ What did you say?” This man, this stranger, was glowering at her.

She gaped at him.

“You think it was your fault?”

Oh, no. She’d said that aloud.

But it was the truth.

“I went outside to water the annuals in pots and left two five-year-old boys alone in the house.” For five or ten minutes. That’s all. But it had been long enough. “I should have checked first to be sure Matt locked up his gun. I’d gotten so I usually did, because he was so careless with it. But that one time...that one time...” Her voice wobbled. She couldn’t finish.

He gripped one of her hands again. “Laura. It is Laura, right?”

“How did you know?”

He shook his head. “It stuck in my mind. The gun was Matt’s. Not yours.” His jaw muscles flexed, and his gaze bored into hers. “He’d carried it for years. He was a professional. He knew better. Him leaving that damn gun where his little boy could get his hands on it was not your responsibility .”

There was so much grit in those last words, she quailed. Then she squared her shoulders. “I did a couple of things wrong that, coupled with what Matt did wrong, led to something horrible. I will not forget my part.”

Ethan Winter just shook his head.

“Would you take advice from me?”

She eyed him warily. “It depends what that advice is.”

“I saw Jake’s expression when he looked at those guns today. Whatever is going on in his head is powerful. You’re not going to be able to stamp it out by making guns taboo. I’d strongly suggest you consider enrolling him in a gun safety class—”

This time, she jerked back, pulling her hand from his and curling both hands into fists. “You think I should put a gun in his hands? No! No, no, no . I swore I would never allow one in my house again.” She glared at his holstered weapon. “I shouldn’t have let you in. Not carrying that .”

His eyebrows drew together. The silence bristled with too much said. After a moment he nodded and pushed himself to his feet.