Bachelor Cop

He levered away from the wall. “As it so happens, I don’t have anything to do,” he said. “And I happen to like ice cream.”

They were the last words they were able to share for a while as the class dismissed, and its small army of preschoolers swamped Officer Tanner. They each wanted to shake his hand, some wanted to touch his gun, and the big, macho cop, Jill quickly realized, Was out of his element.

His dark-eyed gaze sought hers over the tops of the kids’ heads, a plea for help if she’d ever seen one.

She gave him a slow, easy grin, and for a quick half moment, considered leaving him there to fight his own way out.

She didn’t recall the cop who’d given her that last traffic ticket taking pity on her.

But she knew she couldn’t do that.

Over a group of boys chorusing that they wanted to ride in a police car, she reached for his hand and gave a surreptitious nod toward a fire door down the hall.

Whit said a quick goodbye to the crowd, and they hurried toward the door, Brody following.

Jill was laughing outright when they’d safely reached the outside. “You haven’t had a lot of experience with kids, have you?” she said.

He frowned. “Zilch.”

“No nieces or nephews?”

“A pair of nieces—my sister’s kids. But they’re safely away in Minnesota.”

Jill caught the emphasis on safely. His interplay with Brody was apparently a rare occurrence, then, something totally alien to his nature. And he had been nervous standing in front of the class; she realized that now.

So why had he agreed to ice cream with her and Brody?

“How do you feel about Dairy Delight?” he asked the two of them when they reached the school’s circle drive where she’d left her car.

Brody exclaimed that not only was it his favorite, there was one near his house.

They made plans to meet there in a half hour.

Whit needed to run by the station and finish a quick report. And no doubt endure a bit of razzing about his afternoon at school, he was sure. But an afternoon at school had its own reward, he thought, as he watched Jill settle her son into a well-worn green station wagon.

He took a moment to enjoy. Just enjoy.

What was it the woman did to his senses? he wondered as he leaned back against the fender of the patrol car. And why did it scare him to death?

Just then the kids issuing from the front of the building spotted him and the car. “Oh, damn,” he muttered beneath his breath and prepared for a siege.

It had been a long time since Jill had primped for a man, and she wasn’t really primping now, she told herself as she ran a quick comb through her hair. She was merely freshening up after a long day at the shop, then a visit to Brody’s school.

So why was she changing earrings, putting on that new pair she knew bobbed enticingly at her ears? Why had she changed into a pair of jeans that cut off circulation to her legs and impaired her breathing?

Could it be that she wanted to impair the breathing of one certain sexy cop?

“Don’t answer that, Jill,” she said aloud.

“Mommy, we’re gonna be late. Hurreeee,” Brody said, jumping around in the hall outside her bedroom.

Jill put down the bottle of perfume she’d been about to spritz on herself. Her son had a way of adding reality to her life—and this was one of those times. She was a mother, and she didn’t need to be losing her head over some man, any man. Not without considering the consequences beforehand.

And she wasn’t sure she wanted to consider the consequences of losing her head over Whit Tanner.

“I’m ready if you are,” she told Brody.

The ice cream shop was a short walk from their house. Whit wasn’t there when they arrived, and for a quick moment she feared he might have decided against coming.

But not every man was like Michael, she tried to tell herself.

Besides, she’d seen him at school not forty minutes before. What could have happened in that length of time?

“Whit probably got detained at the station,” she said to her son. “Come on, let’s go find us a booth.”

“What’s d-de-tained?” Brody asked, sliding in ahead of her.

“Uh—that’s when something comes up that keeps you from being somewhere else.”

He pondered that for a moment. “Like when my daddy can’t take me to the park?”

Jill wasn’t sure how to answer that. Whatever else Michael Harper was, he was still Brody’s father. And though he wasn’t worth the effort, Jill steadfastly tried to preserve what image of the man she could. For Brody’s sake. Her own illusions of him had shattered long before.

“Not exactly, sweetie,” she said.

Fortunately she was saved from further explanation when Whit strode through the front door. Brody spotted him and let out a whoop of joy. Jill could have done the same, but held her own opinion of the man to herself, content instead to only take in the all-male look of him as he made his way toward them.