The Baby Cop

The Baby Cop
Roz Denny Fox

They call him "the baby cop"Ethan Knight, a detective in Desert City, Arizona, believes in putting children first. He's created an unofficial network of foster care for abused and abandoned kids; he's done this by calling on family and circumventing the system to get kids the help they need, when they need it.They call her "the battle-ax"Regan Grant is a by-the-book social worker, a woman who doesn't believe in "unofficial." She's the new supervisor at Child Help services, and she's been hired to make sure the rules are followed. All the rules, all the time… The other cops figure that if anyone can persuade her to bend those rules, it's Ethan. If anyone can charm her, it's Ethan. If anyone can make her fall in love, it's Ethan…and four rescued babies.

“I need Angela’s pacifier. It’s in my room. Would you bring it, Regan?”

Regan raced into Ethan’s room and found the pacifier. She saw that his bed wasn’t made and a couple of dirty shirts lay where he’d dropped them. Dust had collected on his dresser. His room had been immaculate before the babies’ arrival. Ethan clearly needed a housekeeper. Or a wife. That last thought pulsed in Regan’s head as she dashed down the hall and handed him Angela’s pacifier.

“Thanks,” he whispered, still rubbing the baby’s back. Smiling up at Regan, he asked unexpectedly, “Have I thanked you for all your help over the past couple of weeks? If not, I want you to know I couldn’t have done this without you. I said I could, but I was wrong.”

He looked and sounded so serious, all Regan could do was nod. She wanted to hug him back and somehow wipe away the signs of fatigue. If only she could turn back the clock—to the last time he’d proposed. She’d accept the second he got the words out. The realization hit her like a load of bricks. She’d just admitted to herself that she wanted to marry Ethan Knight.

And not just because of the babies, either. Not at all…

Dear Reader,

Since I’m blessed with several police officers in my extended family, you might think a “cop story” would be easy for me to write. Not so. You see, my sources come from different aspects of police work—state, county and city bike patrol. Also the SWAT team. While generous with their information, these fine keepers of our peace don’t always agree!

Like many of my books, The Baby Cop began with a couple of small news clippings. In this case, they concernerd horribly abused quadruplets, plus a hiker lost for several days in our mountains. Add to that a lot of library research on Child Protective Services. But the book is wholly a work of fiction. (Up to and including the totally fictitious mention of a not-so-nice group of cops attached to the Phoenix police. Trust me, Phoenix has a super contingent of hardworking officers!) Oh, and I can’t forget Internet research on search-and-rescue dogs.

Any errors or discrepancies are strictly mine.

Cops, babies, dogs—I guess you’ll have to read the story to see how I got all of that to come together in a romance novel. I hope you like the way Ethan Knight and Regan Grant cut through a heap of personal and professional problems to find lasting happiness—the bottom line (so to speak) of what love stories are all about.

I enjoy reading from readers. Write me at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, AZ 85731.

Sincerely,

Roz Denny Fox

The Baby Cop

Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE (#u23aeb7d1-10b0-5108-b8ae-b92b818c16e6)

CHAPTER TWO (#uf4ad91e2-2555-5859-bbe7-d7856e0d5fe7)

CHAPTER THREE (#uac9f2ca6-8eda-5338-8ed2-98bd80a34112)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u3bd31814-bb0e-5934-9698-5f53a95519c5)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE

ETHAN KNIGHT tried to block out the chirp of his cellular phone. He’d just gotten to bed after forty-eight tense hours dealing with a hostage situation—armed robber holding a mother and child. He sighed; the inconsiderate caller showed no sign of giving up. Rooting around under his pillow, Ethan found the phone and flopped over so his ear fell across it. “’Lo,” he muttered. His free hand batted at the cold wet nose of his big Alsatian, Taz.

“Sorry to bother you, Detective,” said an anxious voice. “You probably barely hit the sack. It’s Sergeant Vince Paducah. We need you here, man. Our team rolled on a routine nuisance call. We walked into a helluva mess.” The sergeant rattled off a street address and an apartment number.

Ethan reared up from his crumpled pillow and snapped on a light. Before his eyes focused, he’d scribbled the information on the ever-present notepad sitting on his nightstand beside a locked box holding his police revolver. Cursing, he shoved his legs into dirty jeans. “I know that address, Vince. What is it this time? Did Brucie-boy tie one on again and beat the crap out of his poor wife?”

Detective Knight shrugged into his shirt and tucked it into his jeans while reaching for his boots. The caller’s voice dropped. “Way worse. The worst.” Vince uttered a string of codes—department lingo for domestic violence resulting in murder.

Pain exploded in Ethan’s head as his fingers closed around his standard issue Smith & Wesson .38. Damn, his body was getting too old to handle the increase in after-hours cases—especially bad ones like this. “The kids?” he asked softly, trying to quell the flow of acid pumping into his gut. The team might want him ASAP, but Ethan figured he’d have to comb his hair and run a razor over a prickly chin or risk scaring two already frightened children with his wild-man look.

“They’re spooky kids. No hysterics, no tears,” Vince said. “Have you got a good safe place for ’em?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Closing his eyes and taking a steadying breath, Ethan pictured a four-year-old girl with huge blue eyes and her stoic six-year-old brother. Two children who’d witnessed more violence in their short lives than any human beings in a civilized society ought to see. Only that was the problem; some people weren’t civilized. Bruce Hammond ranked high among the least civilized SOBs.

“I’ll make some calls on the way, Paducah.” Ethan checked his shield and slid it into a jacket pocket. “I’ll be there inside fifteen minutes.”

“Good.” Paducah expelled a relieved sigh. “My partner said that since Anna M. passed on, you probably don’t have the same deal with the new supervisor. He said to phone the Child Help Center direct. But I’ve heard Anna’s replacement is a regular battle-ax.”

Ethan had received a memorandum announcing that a Regan Grant was taking over Anna’s post. He’d never met this Grant woman, nor would he add to unfounded rumors. He merely grunted a noncommittal response and reiterated his estimated time of arrival as he hung up and stowed his phone in the pocket with his badge.

While he did a cursory shave, Ethan thought about his fifteen-year tenure on Desert City’s police force. For more than half of those years, he’d been called the Baby Cop. It was a nickname that had nothing to do with age but with his far-reaching connections in the city and outlying communities, which allowed him to instantly place kids who needed temporary shelter in loving homes. Homes where the adults cared more about a child’s welfare than the money the state paid every month for that care. Ethan had started by educating his eight brothers and sisters about the need in the community for safe homes. What had begun as a small network expanded over the years to include the families of police buddies and other friends. He’d convinced all these people—anyone of good heart and moral character who could offer a bed, food and TLC to traumatized kids—to license their homes for care. He’d done all this with the assistance and support of Anna M., the previous Child Help supervisor. Although he was a bachelor, even he was approved to provide emergency housing. An erratic work schedule precluded his taking a kid for longer than a night or two, but there had been times he’d used his vacation hours to turn up a safe house for a child.

Ethan’s grandfather, the first Knight to be a cop, had willed Ethan his rambling four-bedroom home. The old man’s charge to Ethan had been to fill the house with a passel of noisy kids. Of course, he’d meant that Ethan produce a family in the normal way. Ethan’s failure there hadn’t been for lack of trying, he frequently assured his nagging parents and siblings. He just hadn’t managed to connect with the right woman.

Running a hand over a now-clean jaw, Ethan turned his thoughts from his family to his job. He had worked out a good system with the compassionate Anna Murphy. Her unexpected death of a heart attack last month at only fifty-five had caused a lot of hardened men on the force to shed tears as they bore her casket to her final resting place. None shed more than Ethan. Anna had been one of a kind. Not a bureaucrat like the majority of city caseworkers who made police officers wade through miles of red tape in order to help victims of violent crimes. Anna’s focus from the outset had been to do everything possible to speed the care of innocents. Especially kids hurt by family disputes. Or kids who lost their next of kin to accidents and random crime.

Anna had trusted Ethan to take care of the children first. She allowed him to file the reams of messy paperwork once things calmed down and he had time to concentrate. Ethan would then supply Anna with the name and address of a foster family, and she’d do her requisite visit, making it appear as though she’d placed the kids all along. There was nothing wrong with their procedure except that it was backward. Unorthodox in the eyes of some Family Assistance personnel. Namely Nathaniel Piggot, the CHC director.

Fortunately for the kids, Anna Murphy had said screw protocol—and Director Piggot. Her first priority had been to ensure a child’s safety. To alleviate a child’s heartbreak.

“Anna’s and my method was the only sensible one,” Ethan grumbled as he let Taz into the front passenger seat of a perpetually unwashed Suzuki SUV. Flipping his headlights on high, Ethan headed into a dark moonless January night, determined to do his part to help two sweet kids make the transition into a cold cruel world that no longer held their anchor—a mom who’d served as punching bag for the scum she’d had the misfortune to marry.