Christmastime Courtship

Sergeant Bailey had made the switch, saying something about “mixing things up and keeping them fresh”—whatever that was supposed to mean, Colin thought, grumbling under his breath.

As far as he was concerned, one route was as good as another. At least here in Bedford the only thing people shot at him were dirty looks, instead of bullets from the muzzles of illegally gotten handguns. He had to admit that patrolling the streets of Bedford was a far cry from patrolling the barrio in Los Angeles, or driving on the roads in Afghanistan. In those situations, a man had to develop eyes in the back of his head to stay alive.

Here in Bedford, those same eyes were in danger of shutting, but from boredom, not a fatal shot.

He supposed, after everything he had been through in the last ten years, a little boredom was welcome—at least for a while.

But he didn’t exactly like the idea of hiding on the far side of the underpass, waiting to issue a ticket to some unsuspecting Bedford resident.

Yet those were the rules of the game here, and for now, he wasn’t about to rock the boat.

First and foremost, he was here because of Aunt Lily. Because he owed her big-time. She had taken him in when no one else would, and to his discredit, he had repaid her by shutting her out and being surly. It wasn’t her fault he had behaved that way; the blame was his.

In his defense—if he could call it that—he hadn’t wanted to risk forming another attachment, only to have to endure the pain that came if and when he lost her. Lost her the way he’d lost everyone else in his life that ever mattered. His mother. Some of the men in his platoon. And Owens, his last partner in LA.

Colin’s method of preventing that sort of pain was to cut himself off from everyone. That way, the pain had no chance of ever taking root, no chance of slicing him off at the knees.

At least that was what he told himself.

Still, he reasoned, playing his own devil’s advocate, if there wasn’t some part of him that cared, that was still capable of forming some sort of an attachment, however minor, would he have uprooted himself the way he had in order to be here because Aunt Lily had asked him to?

He didn’t know.

Or maybe he did, and just didn’t want to admit it to himself.

Either way, it wasn’t something that was going to be resolved today. Today he needed to focus on the small stuff.

Right now he had a speeder to stop, he told himself, coming to life and increasing his own speed.

Because the woman in the old sedan was obviously not looking into her rearview mirror, Colin turned on his siren.

There, that got her attention. At least she wasn’t one of those foolhardy birdbrains who thought they could outrace his motorcycle, Colin observed, as the car began to decrease its speed.

Watching the vehicle slow down and then come to a stop, Colin braced himself for what he knew was about to come. Either the driver was going to turn on the waterworks, attempting to cry her way out of a ticket by appealing to what she hoped was his chivalrous nature, or she was going to be belligerent, demanding to know if he had nothing better to do than to harass otherwise law-abiding citizens by issuing speeding tickets for offenses that were hardly noteworthy, instead of pursuing real criminals.

After parking his motorcycle behind her vehicle, he got off, then took his time walking up to the offending driver. Because the street was a busy one, with three lanes going in each direction, Colin made his way to the passenger side, to avoid getting hit by any passing motorist.

As he approached, he motioned for the driver to roll down her window.

She looked nervous. Well, the woman should have thought about this before she’d started speeding.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked gruffly.

Miranda took a breath before answering. “Because I was speeding.”

A little surprised at the simplicity of her reply, Colin waited for more.

It didn’t come.

The woman wasn’t trying to talk her way out of the ticket she obviously knew was coming. He found that rather unusual. In his experience, people he pulled over in Bedford weren’t normally this calm, or this seemingly polite.

Colin remained on his guard, anticipating a sudden turn on the driver’s part.

“Right,” he said, picking up on her answer. “You were speeding. Any particular reason why?”

He was aware that he was giving her the perfect opportunity to attempt to play on his sympathies, with some sort of a sob story. Such as she’d just gotten a call from the hospital saying her mother or father or some other important person in her life had just had a heart attack, and she was rushing to their side before they died.

He’d heard it all before. The excuses got pretty creative sometimes.

He had to admit that, for some reason, he was mildly curious to hear what this driver had to offer as her excuse.

“There’s this little girl at the homeless shelter. It’s her birthday today and I’m bringing the cake. The party starts in ten minutes and I got off my shift at the hospital later than I anticipated. I work at Children’s Hospital and we had an emergency,” she explained, inserting a sidebar.

“Where at Children’s Hospital?” Colin asked, wondering just how far the woman was going to take this tale she was spinning.

“The oncology ward,” she answered.

He should have seen that one coming. “Really?” he challenged.

Was he asking her for proof? That was simple enough, she thought. Because she’d been in such a rush, she was still wearing her uniform, and she had her hospital badge around her neck.

Holding up her ID, she showed it to him. “Yes, really, Officer,” she answered politely. “Now if you’ll please write out the ticket and give it to me so I can be on my way, I can still make the party on time. I don’t want Lily to think I forgot about her, today of all days.”

About to begin doing so, Colin looked up sharply. “Lily?” he questioned.

“That’s her name,” Miranda answered. “Lily.”

Colin stared at the woman, a stoic expression on his face as he tried to make up his mind if she was actually serious, or trying to con him.

She couldn’t possibly know about his aunt, he decided.

“My aunt’s name is Lily,” he told her, watching her face for some telltale sign that she was making all this up.

“It’s a nice name,” Miranda responded, waiting for him to begin writing.

Colin paused for a long moment, weighing the situation.

And then he did something he didn’t ordinarily do. Actually, it was something he’d never done before. He closed his ticket book.

“All right, I’m letting you off with a warning,” he told her. Then added an ominous “Watch yourself,” before he turned on his heel and walked back to his motorcycle.

Chapter Two (#uda029983-d22c-565e-86fb-751b9ed4baff)

Miranda’s first impulse was to take off before the officer decided to change his mind about writing her that ticket. But as she thought about the fact that she had just dodged a bullet, an idea came to her. Rather than start her car and drive away under the police officer’s watchful eye, Miranda opened her door and got out of her beloved vehicle.

“Officer?” she called, raising her voice.

Colin had already gotten on his motorcycle. Surprised, he looked in her direction. After a beat, he sighed and then slowly dismounted.