Rookie Cop

Without waiting for a last comment from his friend, Jake hung up the phone, then pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes in an effort to ease the subtle pressure that warned of a full-blown headache on the way.

As he had so many times already, he thought back over the months that had passed since he’d first returned to Serenity, and tried to figure out what he’d been doing wrong. He wanted his wife back. But he wasn’t any closer to his goal than he’d been a year ago.

Jake didn’t want to have to resort to force to get Megan to listen to what he had to say. But lately he had begun to think that hauling her off to some secluded place and holding her captive might not be such a bad idea, after all.

He had tried to consider her feelings—heaven help him, how he’d tried. For months now he’d been so busy tying himself up in knots worrying about making the wrong moves that he hadn’t made any moves at all. In fact, she had shut the door in his face the one and only time he’d attempted to confront her face-to-face.

Wincing as he remembered that particularly disheartening exchange, Jake sat back in his chair again.

He had gone to her house one Saturday morning nine months ago. She had opened the door without hesitation, and she’d met his gaze quite calmly. She’d offered him no greeting, though. Standing just inside the doorway, dressed in faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her dark curls a tantalizing tangle begging to be touched, she’d simply looked at him, her chin tipped up defensively, her wide, pale gray eyes filled with reproach.

Not a single one of the casual, clever opening lines Jake had rehearsed had come to his mind. He hadn’t been so close to her in such a long, lonely time—close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body, close enough to breathe in her special scent. Lavender, he’d thought, every nerve ending in his body tingling with awareness.

He had wanted only to put his arms around her, to hold her close and feather kisses along her cheek as he begged for her forgiveness.

He had known that she wouldn’t let him touch her, though. Known it with a certainty that had made his heart ache. But surely she would listen to what he had to say….

“I need to talk to you, Megan,” he’d begun, his voice rasping in his throat.

“Oh, really?” she had replied, the look in her eyes changing to one of utter disdain.

“Yes, really. Please, just let me come in. Give me a chance—”

“The time for talking has passed, Jake,” she’d said, her tone ever so polite as she cut him off.

Her gaze never wavering, she had closed the door in his face with a finality that had sliced straight through to his soul.

Since that long-ago day, Megan had ignored him every time he’d arranged for their paths to cross at one public place or another. In fact, the studious way in which she avoided any contact with him had not only become cause for comment in the close-knit community, it had also reached laughable proportions.

Jake had wanted to give Megan the time and space she seemed to need. But for all the glimpses of him he had made sure she’d catch around town, she hadn’t warmed up to him in the least. The time had come to take more vigorous action.

Now all he had to do was think of some way, short of kidnapping her, to gain her complete and undivided attention. And then, of course, he would have to find the words to tell her how very sorry he was for letting her down—words that he had no way of making her believe.

Closing his eyes again, Jake tried rubbing his temples, pressing hard in a futile attempt to ease the throb in his head.

Megan seemed happy enough with the life she had made for herself in Serenity. Maybe she didn’t really want him around anymore, and he was simply failing to take the hint. And maybe, just maybe, the rumors he’d heard about a new man in her life were actually true.

Though Jake had yet to see Megan and Steven Barns—the high school principal who had lost his wife almost two years ago—together himself, he had it on good authority that they had danced quite a few times at the senior prom they’d chaperoned. They had also shared a table at the school picnic.

Jake ground his teeth at the thought of good old Steve, one of the town’s designated nice guys, putting his hands on Megan. She might not be his wife anymore, but that didn’t mean he—

A subtle but noticeable shift in the atmosphere outside his office caught Jake’s attention. The activity level in the station had been fairly low, but until a moment ago, the steady drone of voices—two of his younger officers kidding around with Darcy Osgood, the clerk who maintained the files and answered the phones—had been audible. The sudden, unexpected silence was deafening by comparison.

Turning in his chair, Jake glanced out the window in his office wall to see what was going on, then all but doubled over at the painful lurch that sucked the air from his lungs as it grabbed at his gut.

As if conjured by the force of his thoughts and memories, Megan walked slowly toward his office, weaving her way among the scattered desks as his officers and Darcy looked on in surprised silence. And she was holding a baby in her arms—an infant hardly more than a couple of months old.

Flung back to another time in another place, Jake recalled all too vividly watching Megan walk toward him just so, her gaze turned inward, her mouth softening with a tender smile as her cheek brushed their son’s dark curls. Slashing through him as they did, the knife thrust of those memories, shut away for so long, made it momentarily impossible for him to draw a breath, to push away from his desk, to stand and close the distance still between them.

Get up and go to her and find out what the hell is going on, he ordered himself, aware that he had to gather himself quickly and take control of the situation, not only for his sake but for Megan’s, as well. She wouldn’t have come to him unless she needed his help—needed it desperately.

Jake couldn’t seem to make his legs work, though. Couldn’t seem to find the strength to stand and meet her halfway. In an effort to steady his roiling thoughts and emotions, he shifted his gaze from Megan.

He saw that she had left a stroller parked near the station doorway. He also saw that Darcy and his officers were gawking at her curiously. When he shot a pointed glance at them, they moved hurriedly to their respective desks and pretended to busy themselves with paperwork, and he allowed himself another look at Megan.

She was almost at the door to his office, but she seemed intent only on watching where she was walking. As if she preferred not to acknowledge his presence until the last possible moment, even though she could be there for no other reason than to see him.

She was dressed just as she had been that day nine months ago when he’d gone to see her, in faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt that emphasized how thin she’d gotten over the past few years. Too thin, he thought. And today she was also far too pale for his liking. Against the artful disarray of her dark, chin-length tumble of curls, her face had an almost ghostly cast.

Whatever the reason behind her sudden, unexpected arrival at the Serenity police station, baby in her arms, she was noticeably upset by it. And so, by association, was he, Jake admitted, finally pushing his chair away from his desk so he could stand.

He had wanted to believe that they had each put the death of their son behind them—he in his way and Megan in hers. Now he realized how mistaken he’d been. From the look of her, Megan had to have been jolted as surely as he by the mere sight of the baby she held so protectively. A baby that had to be for her, as it was for him, a living, breathing reminder of all they’d lost.

As Megan paused just inside his office doorway, Jake started toward her, bumping a hip against the edge of his desk hard enough to make him wince.

“Megan…?” he began, his voice sounding harsher to him than intended as he tried to gain some control over his unsteady emotions. “What’s going on?”

Raising her head slowly, she met his gaze at last, the wariness in her icy gray eyes halting him in mid-step. She couldn’t have told him more succinctly how much she regretted having to be there with him if she’d said the words out loud. The message radiated from her very core, coming at him in an almost tangible wave meant to keep him at a distance—as it did.

Jake shoved his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants, mentally cursing himself for thinking, as he had for just a moment, of reaching out to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and drawing her close to his side. She hadn’t come to him seeking comfort, and she wouldn’t appreciate the offer of it. Not by a long shot….

“I need your help,” she answered with just the slightest hesitation, her voice surprisingly cool and utterly, completely detached.

Only the pulse beat of a vein at her temple hinted at her apprehension. Coming to him was costing her much more than she was willing to admit, Jake knew. But come to him she had, and he had nothing to gain by giving her a hard time. In fact, he might be able to win some much needed points by smoothing the way for her as best he could.

“I’m here to serve and protect,” he said, lightening his tone considerably as he offered her a wry smile. “Just tell me what I can do for you, and consider it done.”

The wariness in Megan’s eyes deepened almost imperceptibly, warning him anew that she wasn’t about to be easily tempted to lower her guard. He had been just a tad too genial and she hadn’t been favorably impressed.

“An odd thing happened this morning,” she said after another moment’s hesitation. Then she glanced away with seeming uncertainty.

“Would I be correct in assuming it has something to do with your young friend there?” Jake prompted gently.

He knew that it did, of course. But a nudge in the right direction might make it easier for her to give him an explanation.

Megan nodded her head, then met his gaze again. As she did, Jake saw that the wariness in her eyes had been replaced by a pleading look that caught him off guard. When she spoke again, her tone had also changed, revealing the agitation she had, up until then, succeeded in hiding from him.

“Someone left him on my front porch,” she blurted out. “Just left him in a stroller. His name is Matthew, and he seems to be healthy. He’s obviously been well-cared-for, too. Whoever left him, left diapers and formula and clean clothes for him in a diaper bag. And a note—a note addressed to me personally—asking me to take care of him.” She sighed. “I want to do that. More than anything, I want to take care of him. But I know I can’t. Not the way she meant. I can’t just pretend he’s mine and go about my business. I have to turn him over to the proper authorities.

“That’s why I’m here. To turn him over to Children’s Protective Services. And to ask you, please, to see if you can find his mother. I’m afraid she’s in some kind of trouble. Otherwise, why would she leave her baby with me?”

Her voice breaking suddenly, Megan ducked her head again, but not before Jake saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. He closed the distance between them then, her misery lodging deep in his own heart. Limiting himself to just a light touch on her shoulder so as not to upset her any further, he guided her to one of the two chairs positioned in front of his desk as he tried to make sense of all that she’d told him.

“Let me make sure I understand the situation,” he said after she’d settled into the chair and drawn a steadying breath. “This morning someone, most probably the mother, left the baby you’re holding on your front porch?”

“Yes, unbelievable as it sounds, that’s exactly what happened,” Megan replied.

Against her shoulder, the baby squirmed and snuffled, then snuggled back to sleep as she smoothed a soothing hand down his back.