Saved By The Baby

“A very long time,” he repeated, glancing at the calendar on his desk. Nine years, seven months and thirteen days, to be exact. The date she’d left him was a permanent scar on his heart, like a bad tattoo that no amount of surgery could remove. “I heard you did all right for yourself.”

“You heard?”

He shrugged, not willing to let her know how he’d scrounged for every drop of information, praying she’d make it big then praying she wouldn’t. He’d even fantasized about her coming back, broke and lonely. In his dreams, he’d been the man she needed, the only one who could help her. He’d been a dumb kid then who’d believed in the impossible.

Tate shifted the weight off his bad knee. Weather must be changing for the old injury to act up this much. Or maybe it was the eighteen-hour day he’d spent on duty, half of it on his feet, searching the lake woods for a lost child. But Tate had no complaints. He’d felt like a million bucks when he’d placed the boy in his tearful parents’ arms.

He knew his stance had given him away when Julee’s gaze came back to him, drifting down his body to rest at his aching knee. Though her attention was purely curious, Tate’s body grew warmer than the April weather dictated.

“I never did get a chance to tell you how sorry I was about your knee injury. Does it still bother you?”

So she had known. And never even called. Apparently, she hadn’t given him another thought once she hit the big city.

“Sometimes,” he admitted gruffly. Nearly ten years had passed. Why was she bringing it up now?

Julee touched his arm lightly, but enough that the electric shock of her touch still made his insides quiver. Not just physical wanting, though she had that power, too, but emotional need so intense he wanted to collapse at her glamorous feet. After all this time, he was still a fool.

“I always hated what happened to you.”

If she’d cared so much, why hadn’t she come home? Why hadn’t she been the one to see him through those black days? Why had she left him alone to drown in alcohol and self-pity and to marry the first woman who would tolerate both?

“That was a long time ago.” He stepped back from the subtle lure of her perfume, placing the desk between the two of them. “It all happened a long time ago.”

They’d been so young, thinking they could have it all. Julee would be a famous model. He’d play pro football. Then they’d find their way back to each other. Trouble was, her dream came true about the same time his died on the ten-yard line with three minutes to go in the first half of the season opener.

He’d fallen into the black abyss of anger and alcohol, too proud to call her, but furious when she didn’t call him. Then Shelly had come along, sweet and sympathetic, willing to tolerate his drunken rages and self-pity. She’d been his anchor during a time when he’d wanted to die. Out of some alcohol-distorted sense of gratitude, and because he needed to believe someone cared, he’d married her after less than a month.

Tate squeezed his eyes shut and blotted out the memories. Too much time had passed to go there now. “So. What brings you back to Blackwood?”

And how soon will you be on the next flight out?

Some emotion stirred behind her beautiful blue eyes. What was it? Nerves? Anxiety?

Squinting in thought, he studied the intense set of her jaw, the shadows above her elegant cheekbones. That’s when he knew. Julianna was afraid.

The loose rollers on his chair clattered against the brown tile as he pulled it away from the desk. One hand on the nubby gray backrest, he waited, cop instinct on alert.

What was she afraid of? And what on God’s green earth could it have to do with the hometown she’d abandoned years ago? Better question, what did it have to do with him?

“Mind if I sit down?” she asked. Tate tried to ignore the tingle in his gut whenever her lips moved. “I have some important business to discuss with you.”

Fighting the need to protect her from whatever demon chased her, and the greater need to protect himself from her, Tate indicated the green vinyl-covered chair across from his desk, then settled into his own. Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. Julee sat, crossing her long beautiful legs directly in his line of vision. His chest tightened. Sitting upright, he steepled his hands beneath his chin to block the view. He had to get her out of this office.

“Business?” Curiosity got the best of him. What kind of business could bring Julianna Reynolds back to Blackwood?

When she leaned forward, expression earnest, her silky blue blouse gapped slightly, affording him an unwanted glance of creamy skin. Infuriatingly, his body reacted. She was sexy, vulnerable and beautiful, a combination that spelled danger for any man but was deadly for him. She was big city and he was small town. She was rich and he was a working stiff. And she was, as her mother had once said, “too good for that McIntyre boy.”

Criminy! Why he was thinking this way? He didn’t know this woman. Hadn’t known her for years. All they had was the past, and that was better left alone.

The phone emitted a soft buzz, and he barely held back a curse. He was too busy to worry over Julianna Reynolds, and the sooner he found out what she wanted, the sooner she’d be gone and he’d be safe from thinking too much.

Holding up one finger of his left hand in a “wait-a-minute” gesture, he punched a button with the right. “Yeah?”

His receptionist’s voice came out of the speakerphone. “Mrs. Barkley needs you to drive by her place. She’s sure the Peeping Tom is back.”

Taking out his annoyance on the receptionist, he growled, “Where have you been?”

“Even Rita the Magnificent has a bladder, Tate. Don’t get your tail in a twitch.”

He glanced at Julee, saw her struggling with a grin, and was relieved when she rose and starting roaming the room. He swiveled sideways to avoid watching the swish of her blue skirt against silken thighs.

Having Julee in his office was bad enough without the hired help humiliating him. Smart-aleck receptionist. But he knew better than to cross Rita the Magnificent. She was a lot more than a receptionist, and he couldn’t manage without her. “Tell Mrs. Barkley I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Oh, she said there’s no big hurry. And she wants to know if you’ll stop by the store and get Penelope some cat food before you come out.”

Tate gave in to a grudging grin. He’d investigated her “Peeping Tom” four times in as many months. Poor old Mrs. Barkley. Anything for a little company. He wondered what kind of cake she’d baked this time and hoped he’d have time to eat a piece of it while she entertained him on the piano.

“No problem.”

From the corner of his eye he could see Julee surveying the row of framed certificates and citations hanging around his small, cluttered office. He hoped she wouldn’t miss the college diploma. She’d had success handed to her on a silver platter, but he’d worked plenty hard for his.

As he started to disconnect, Rita spoke again. “Don’t forget you need to be back in time for Little League practice.”

“Anything else?”

“I left the list on your desk. A meeting with the county commissioner at four, the task force tomorrow morning, Martha’s birthday party and the slave auction at the high school—”

“Hold on.” He scrounged around in the enormous stack of folders and papers. The list lay in plain sight beneath a snow globe paperweight that Jacob, his seven-year-old buddy from the Big Brother program, had given him last Christmas.

“I found it.” He stuck the list in his shirt pocket and shut off the receptionist’s disembodied voice.

Julee’s blue gaze, wide with curiosity, drifted back to him. “You are a busy man.”

“Goes with the job. So if you don’t mind…” He let the words trail off hoping she’d take the ball and run with it. Her visit was starting to get under his skin.

Before she lost her nerve, Julianna settled back into the green chair and plunged into the story she’d rehearsed for days.

“I’ve come home to Seminole County to do some charity work. You know. One of those celebrity things that are good for an income tax break.”

She blasted him with a hundred-watt smile as fake as the words she’d spoken. She’d never done a “celebrity thing” in her life. Though she’d worked tirelessly to increase bone-marrow donors and had even headed a previous drive, celebrity had nothing to do with it. Outside the modeling industry and this small town she had no celebrity status, but Julianna prayed Tate wouldn’t know that. Finding cures for sick children had simply become her passion.

Tate arched an eyebrow. Stacking his hands behind his head, he tilted back in his rather bedraggled roller chair. “What could that possibly have to do with me?”

Julee crossed her arms over her middle. She hadn’t expected a red-carpet welcome after all these years, but his cool appraisal turned her butterflies into swarming buzzards.

Behind him, through the window, Julianna vaguely comprehended the ebb and flow of light traffic out on the street. A single horn honked. Car doors slammed. The quiet, unhurried normalcy of everyday life in a small town soothed her.

Normalcy—a condition she could hardly recollect. For a while three years ago, life had almost been normal. They’d been sure Megan had been cured by the chemotherapy treatments.