Dana Corbit - Safe in His Arms

When Lindsay Collins cleared her throat, Joe Rossetti straightened. What was he doing, losing his focus like that?

“Here, let me buzz you back,” Clara, the department’s secretary, said. “You can have a private conversation at one of the desks in the squad room. I’m sure Trooper Rossetti will help you in any way he can.” Clara’s lips twitched as she reached for a button to the side of her desk to let Lindsay in. Always the matchmaker.

Joe took a deep breath. Couldn’t the people around this post mind their own business just once? He wasn’t used to failure, either, and Lindsay Collins represented the biggest failure of his career so far. She stepped through the door to the left of the counter with the aid of a tortoiseshell cane.

Like it or not, he had to face her. And she would want answers that he wasn’t prepared to give.

Dear Reader,

If you’re like me, sometimes you look in the mirror and see imperfections. I find myself thinking, “If only this were a little smaller or smoother.” Even away from the mirror, I sometimes wish that I had better math or timemanagement skills. I have to be reminded that I am a child of God, created in His image, and that as a Christian I should love all of His creations. Myself included.

I explored this idea in Safe in His Arms. Lindsay Collins has no trouble putting her trust in God, but she has a much more difficult time loving herself. Before she can find a lifetime love, she must learn that she is precious to God and worthy of love. I like the words in the beginning of Genesis 1:31a: “And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good.” If God sees such value in His creations, then shouldn’t we learn to appreciate ourselves, imperfections included?

I love hearing from readers and may be contacted through my website, www.danacorbit.com, or through regular mail at P.O. Box 2251, Farmington Hills, MI 48333-2251 or friend me on Facebook.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my very own hero, Randy … my partner, my best friend. Thank you for cooking more than your share of family dinners, being a great tag-team carpool dad and pretending to understand my roller coaster ride of a creative process as I tell my stories. Thanks to my friends, Cindy Thomas, who helped me finish this book by offering your cottage as a writing cave, and Dr. Celia D’Errico, D.O., who helped make the medical portion of this story believable.

Also, a special thank you to Michigan State Police Trooper Christopher Grace for opening his world and providing inspiration for the character of Joe Rossetti. Any mistakes in the story are my own.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

— Isaiah 40:11

Hot afternoons and hot heads made for some blistering combinations on the roadways, as far as Joe Rossetti was concerned. So, with the steamiest July day so far in the forecast, his anxiety was already building, and he wasn’t out on patrol yet.

“Hey, Trooper Rossetti.”

Joe stopped just as he pushed open the heavy steel door at the Michigan State Police, Brighton Post, and a wall of humidity reached out to steal his breath.

He glanced back over his shoulder. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Someone’s out there to see you.” Lieutenant Matt Dawson paused on the path to his office and looked at Joe over the top of the glasses he probably only wore to make him look older. He indicated the radio room with a tilt of his head.

Joe groaned under his breath, but he nodded and let the door close again. “Be right there.”

Patting along his black duty belt and brushing a hand over his holstered weapon to make sure everything was in place, he straightened his shoulders and headed to the radio room that separated the visitor area from the squad room.

A little excitement to start his day. Strange, how he used to secretly hope for diversions to break up a shift’s monotony. Nowadays he preferred to pull eight uneventful hours patrolling the highways of Detroit’s western suburbs. To him, excitement had come to mean having to tell another set of parents that their kid was never coming home.

“Are you Trooper Rossetti?”

The pretty redhead peering at him from across the counter didn’t strike him as familiar, but that didn’t surprise him. He came across a lot of people every day, more out in the community than he’d ever cuffed and put in his patrol car.

“That’s me. May I help you?”

She settled something beneath the ledge and leaned against it, gripping her hands together on the countertop. “You won’t remember me… .”

Strange, but as soon as she’d said it, Joe had the unsettling sense that he did remember her. Through his work, he’d learned to trust his instincts, so he took a good look at her. Something did look familiar, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Was it her mass of red hair, with all of the colors of fire in it, her almost translucent skin, or the dusting of freckles across her nose? When she looked up at him again, though, he realized that it was none of those things that tickled at the fringes of his memory.

It was her eyes. The same pale blue eyes that had filled his nightmares for the last six months. The eyes that had begged him for the kind of help he couldn’t give. At once a memory of the accident and the fire covered his thoughts like a shower of metal fragments and charred upholstery, as his failed attempt to complete a one-officer rescue burned through his memory. A bungled job of protecting and serving.

Joe blinked but couldn’t look away from her. He felt trapped by the intensity of her stare, convicted by the accusation in it. Recognition had to be written all over his face, but she must have missed it, because she cleared her throat and tried again.

“I’m sorry. I’m really nervous. My name is Lindsay Collins, and I …”

It was all he could do to avoid saying “I know who you are.” He could even fill in the details. Age twenty-eight. A Wixom address. She was the woman he’d hovered over for hours as she’d lay in that hospital bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. Staying with a victim too long to avoid becoming personally involved in the tragedy was a mistake but far from the only one he’d made that night. All of the mistakes demonstrated how he’d forfeited his professional distance and his edge as a police officer—all on one stormy night.

Had he consciously chosen which of the victims would survive when he’d pulled the driver out of the car, even as she’d begged him to help her unconscious sister first? Had he really believed that he had time to assist both victims before the car burst into flames, or had his oversize ego made him think he could pull off some superhuman feat? Was he to blame for a woman’s death?

The poem. He swallowed, remembering yet another mistake he’d made the night of the accident. It was just a poem about God that a friend had included inside his birthday card last February. Joe didn’t even know why he’d started carrying it around inside his trooper’s hat. If someone had told him that one day he would pass it along to someone in crisis, he would have laughed out loud. He wasn’t even one of those God people.

And then that night he’d done it. Lindsay Collins had looked so alone, lying in that hospital bed. Even her parents were down the hall on their cell phones, notifying relatives and preparing for a funeral. Joe had felt so helpless, watching her, that before he’d thought better of it he’d pulled the piece of paper out of his hat and tucked it in her hands. As if some poem that told her she was a child of God could make up for all she’d lost that night. As if anything could.