More Than Words: Stories of Strength: Close Call / Built to Last / Find the Way

“All right. Suit yourself. I’m on my way to Nova Scotia. I’m fine.”

She grabbed the phone off his nightstand. “You left your bike and kayak.”

“Don’t need them.” She could hear the note of victory in his tone now that he’d succeeded in getting her on the line. “Place I’m going has its own bikes and kayaks.”

She noticed his bed was made, not that neatly, but he’d put in the effort. “Why sneak off?”

“I didn’t want a lot of grief from everyone.”

“Brendan—come on. You had a bullet whiz past your head yesterday. You need to be with family and friends.”

“The bullet didn’t whiz through my head. Big difference. It just grazed my forehead. A little blood, that’s it. I get banged up worse than that playing street hockey. A couple days’ kayaking and walking on the rocks in Nova Scotia, and I’ll be in good shape.”

“Did you bring your passport? You know, they don’t just let you wave on your way across the border these days—”

“Quit worrying. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine,” Jess said. “You sound like you’re trying to sound fine.”

“What are you now, Stewart? Ex-cop, hard-ass prosecutor, or would-be girlfriend?”

She stood up straight, catching her reflection in the dresser mirror. Chestnut hair, a little frizzed up given the heat and humidity. Pale blue suit in an industrial-strength fabric that didn’t wrinkle, repelled moisture, held its shape through the long hours she put in.

Definitely a former police officer, and now a dedicated prosecutor.

How on earth had she become Brendan O’Malley’s would-be girlfriend?

“Don’t flatter yourself, Detective. Just because we’ve seen each other a few times doesn’t mean I’m mooning over you—”

He laughed. “Sure you are.”

“I’ve known you forever.”

“You haven’t been sleeping with me forever.”

True. She’d slept with him that one time, two weeks ago. Since then, he’d been acting as if it had been a fast way to ruin a perfectly good friendship. Maybe she had, too. They’d known each other since her days at the police academy, when O’Malley had assisted with firearms training. He was only two years out of the academy himself, but even then everyone knew he was born to be a detective. She’d been attracted to him. What woman wasn’t? They’d become friends, stayed friends when she went to law school nights and then took her job as a prosecutor. She’d never even considered dating him—never mind sleeping with him—until two months ago.

She could feel the first twinges of a headache. “Some crazy fairy with a sick sense of humor must have whacked me with her magic fairy wand to make me want to date you.”

“Honey, we haven’t just dated—”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Best night of your life.”

He was kidding, but she knew what had happened that night. Brendan O’Malley, stud of studs, had gone too far. He’d been tender and sexy and intimate in a way that had scared the hell out of him. Now he was backpedaling. Pretending it was her chasing him and it was all a game.

“O’Malley—Brendan—”

“I’m losing the connection. I’m up here somewhere in moose country. Quit worrying, okay? I’ll call you when I get back.”

“I might never make it out of this damn apartment of yours. I’ll need a compass to navigate through all your stuff.”

But he wasn’t making up the bad connection, and his cell phone suddenly blanked out altogether, leaving Jess standing there in his bedroom, his phone dead in her hand.

She cradled it with more force than was necessary.

Bravado. That was all this was about.

O’Malley was shaken by yesterday’s close call. He and his partner had entered a seedy hotel to question a possible witness in a murder, only to have the guy throw down his backpack, turn and run. An ancient .38 fell out of the backpack, hit the floor and went off.

The bullet just barely grazed O’Malley’s forehead.

It could have killed him. It could have killed anyone in the vicinity.

O’Malley was treated on the scene. He wasn’t admitted or even transported to the hospital. As he’d said, he was fine.

Physically.

It was his third close call that year. The sheer randomness of this latest one had gotten to him. He wasn’t a target. The witness wasn’t a suspect in the murder, wasn’t trying to kill him or anyone else, said he had the .38 for his own protection—never mind that he was now charged with carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a weapon in violation of his probation, and assault with a deadly weapon.

Over dinner with Jess last night, after he’d been debriefed, Brendan had admitted he didn’t think he’d get this one out of his mind that easily. He kept seeing the gun fall out of the backpack. He kept feeling himself yell, “Gun!” and jump back, an act that had saved his life. The heat of the bullet, the reaction of his partner, the paramedics—he remembered everything, and it played like a movie in his head, over and over.

“In the blink of an eye,” he said, “that would have been all she wrote on the life of Brendan O’Malley.”

He’d wanted to be alone that night.

When Jess called to check on him in the morning, he blamed his moroseness the evening before on the shrinks and too much wine and said he was heading off on his own for the weekend.

She’d talked to a few people, who all agreed it might not be a good idea for him to be alone right now. He needed his support network. Family and friends. Time to process what was, after all, a scary incident, no matter that it had a happy ending.

Not that Detective O’Malley would listen to her or anyone else.

Jess wandered back out to the dining room and flipped through the brochures and guidebooks on Nova Scotia. She’d never been to the Canadian Maritime Provinces—she’d only been to Canada a few times, including the usual high-school French-class trip to Montreal in Quebec.

The brochures were inviting. The pictures of the rocky coastline, the ocean, cliffs, beaches, kayakers, fishing boats, harbors, quaint inns and restaurants. The Lighthouse Route. Cape Breton Island. The Evangeline Trail.

So many possibilities.

How would she ever find him?

No one had shot at her lately, but Jess could feel the effects of her months of nonstop work. She’d just finished a major trial and could afford to take a few days off. She knew better than to get in too deep with O’Malley, but she had to admit she’d fantasized about going somewhere with him. She kept telling herself that she was well aware he wasn’t the type for long-term commitments—she had her eyes wide-open. She didn’t mind if they just had some fun together.

He’d mentioned getting out of town together for a few days. Casually, not with anything specific in mind, but it at least suggested that the only reason he hadn’t invited her to go with him to Nova Scotia was the shooting. It had only been a day. He wouldn’t want to inflict himself on her.

She noticed that he’d circled a bed-and-breakfast listed on a Web site printout.

The Wild Raspberry B and B.