The Sergeant's Secret Son

A tree, uprooted by the storm, was balanced precariously against the roof. Torn shingles littered the ground like fallen leaves, and there wasn’t a soul in sight who seemed to be doing anything about it. The clinic was busy, though, if the number of cars in the small parking lot was any indication.

Block stepped inside the door and threaded his way through a maze of patients on hard plastic chairs and asked the harried receptionist if she needed the tree taken down.

The woman looked up, a wary expression on her face. “How much?”

Block suspected there were already people out there charging exorbitant fees for work, but he wasn’t one of them. “It’s on me,” he said as the phone rang. “I just want to help.”

“Have at it,” the woman said with a weary smile. She turned to answer the phone.

He hadn’t seen Macy, and maybe he should have checked with her, but the woman hadn’t hesitated when she’d told him to go ahead, so he figured it was all right.

“I’VE TAKEN a throat culture, Mrs. Pelham, but I don’t think it’s…strep—” Macy stopped at the sound of thumping on the roof. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was footsteps.

“Sometimes we have squirrels in the attic,” she said to her patient’s mother. If it was a squirrel, it was a very big squirrel, she thought as she wrote out a scrip for an antibiotic. “I’m going to give you a prescription, but don’t fill it until I get the labs back and call you. Chances are, by the time the tests come back, Cassie will be feeling her old self again anyway. Just give her lots of liquids and let her eat if she’s hungry.” She gave Mrs. Pelham, a new mother, a reassuring smile.

Before Mrs. Pelham could respond, the sound of a chainsaw at close quarters ripped through the air.

“What the…!” Macy went to the window and opened the venetian blinds just as a large mass of green and brown fell past the window and landed on the lawn with a thump.

She turned back to Mrs. Pelham. “Do you have any other questions?” Macy asked. “I hate to rush you, but I have to find out what’s going on.”

“No, ma’am, I understand.” The woman gathered up her baby and assorted paraphernalia and turned toward the door.

Macy left the chart on the exam table and brushed past the woman and child in the hall and hurried out to the reception desk.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Macy asked the receptionist as she headed for the door.

Bettina looked up from a phone call and said, “A guy came by and asked if we’d like to have the tree taken down. He said he wouldn’t charge, so I said to go ahead.”

“You didn’t check with me first?”

Bettina gestured toward the teeming waiting room. “I didn’t think I needed to bother you.”

Macy sighed. “You could have warned me. Who is it?”

The receptionist shrugged. “I don’t know. Sure is good-looking, though. He could definitely be Mr. October in some hunk-of-the-month calendar.”

“I’m going out to check on our benefactor, and then I’ll be back for the next patient.”

She stepped outside and shaded her eyes with her hands to see who was up on her roof. With the sun in her eyes, all she could see was a silhouette, but if the silhouette was any indication, hunk was right.

“Hello, up there. Can I speak to you for a minute?”

Chapter Three

Block had wondered when Macy was going to come out and investigate. He’d tried to be quiet as he moved around up on the roof, but a chainsaw was anything but subtle. Block looked down and grinned. “Morning, Macy. Nice day, isn’t it?”

The expression on Macy’s face told him that she was less than pleased to see him.

She glared up at him, one hand shading her eyes and the other planted firmly on her hip. “Alex Blocker, you come down from there right this instant.”

Lord, she sounded like a starchy old-maid schoolteacher instead of the soft and sexy woman he’d kissed last night. Block chuckled and saluted. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right down.” He scrambled to the other side of the roof and climbed down the same way he’d gotten up.

Macy was fuming, that was sure. Her arms were crossed over her small, round breasts and one foot was tapping fit to beat the band as Block rounded the corner of the building. Even in that crisp white lab coat, she looked sexy as hell. Block wondered what had her in such a snit. Surely it wasn’t because he was trying to help?

“What can I do for you, Dr. Jackson?” he said, pulling the bandana off and swabbing his damp forehead. “Hot business up there,” he commented while he waited for her to have her say.

Macy seemed to have lost her voice. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. It wasn’t often that he’d seen Macy Jackson speechless. Even as a pesky kid, she’d had no trouble speaking up. Block liked the idea that he might have something to do with keeping her off balance.

Suppressing a grin, he watched her, enjoying the play of emotions as they crossed Macy’s face. She drew in a deep breath, then finally managed to speak. “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your offer to help, but this is a medical office,” she said primly. “Is there any way you can manage to do that a little more quietly?”

“Well, I could hack at it a little bit at a time with my pocket knife. I’d be here till Christmas, but you wouldn’t hear a thing. If I had my regulation K-Bar knife, it could go a little faster.”

Macy looked at him for a moment, then broke into a slow smile. “I guess I deserved that,” she said, then suppressed a chuckle. “I was just surprised when I first heard that saw going without any warning. I do thank you for helping out.”

Block’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t had anything to eat since a sausage biscuit when he’d first come out. “Say, it’s almost lunchtime. How about you take off a few minutes and join me for lunch? Handy’s is open.”

Macy gnawed at her lip, a look of indecision on her face. She looked at Block, then she looked back toward the clinic. “See all those cars in the lot? For every car out here, there are about three people sitting in my waiting room. I’ll be lucky if I get a chance to grab a granola bar between patients today.”

Block shrugged. “Let me know if you change your mind.” He turned and looked back over his shoulder. “I’ll try to be as quiet as that saw will let me. Once I get the branches cleared away so I can see what I’m doing, maybe the rest of the tree can wait till the weekend.” He waved and strode away.

Macy watched as he disappeared around the side of the building. Last night he’d seemed almost diabolic as he’d ripped at the shattered trailers in the flickering light of the gas fires and the strobing blue lights of the police cruisers. Today he seemed like a guardian angel and looked like any other guy. If the guy happened to be about six-four and built like a linebacker.

She managed a wry chuckle. The Alex Blocker she knew was anything but angelic.

“Dr. Jackson?”

Macy looked up to see Bettina looking out the clinic door. “Yes?”

“We have a full waiting room in here. Are you ready for the next patient?”

“Oh, sure. I’m coming.” With Alex Blocker around, she’d better be on her guard and ready for anything, Macy told herself. She wasn’t sure what she was ready for. The next patient, yeah.

Alex Blocker? Maybe not.

BLOCK WORKED at the pine tree, carefully removing one branch at a time until only the main trunk rested on the roof. It had been slow going, but now he was certain that if it shifted, the tree would do no damage to the building.

Block swiped at his brow again with the soaking-wet bandana. He needed some chow, and he’d bet Macy needed a ration of energy just as much. She’d been up most of the night last night, too, and there was only so far a body could go on little sleep and less food.

He knew that too well. He’d done it before.

How could he go and enjoy a big fat burger and fries when she was looking at crackers and a diet soda grabbed on the fly?

He grinned as an idea popped into his mind. Yeah, that just might work, he thought as he climbed down.

He did what he could to make himself presentable, then stepped inside the clinic and had a brief conversation with the receptionist. “Great,” he said after they’d finished. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then he hurried off to lunch.

MACY DIDN’T know how long it had been, but she came to the realization that she had heard no noises from the roof in quite some time. Had she become so accustomed to the thumping that when it stopped the place seemed eerily quiet? Just how long ago had Alex finished?