Rough Around the Edges

The policeman shook his head. “The wife made me give up smoking. Called it an anniversary present. It was cheaper than buying her that gold bracelet she fancied—but twice as hard.”

O’Rourke nodded knowingly. “That it would be,” he said sympathetically. “Never mind, then,” he consoled the policeman. “I’ve got a cigarette lighter I can use. Provided it works,” he added almost under his breath. “Never had any use for it myself.”

Looking embarrassed now for his intrusion, the policeman withdrew from the van, the flashlight dangling by his side. “Um, I’ll go call for an ambulance,” he said, jabbing a thumb in the air behind him toward his squad car.

“You do that, Officer,” O’Rourke encouraged him from the front of the van.

“O’Rourke?” Kitt called to him weakly.

“In a minute, love.” Waiting a moment after pushing the lighter in, he pulled it out again and passed the glowing red circle over the shaft of the Exacto knife blade. He blew on it to cool it. “There, that should do it.”

He popped the cigarette lighter back into place, then snaked his way back to Kitt and the baby. Sitting on his heels again, he blew out a breath. He didn’t exactly relish this part, but it had to be done.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” he promised Kitt. Or so his mother had said. His eyes went from her to the baby she held against her breast. Nothing prettier than that, he thought. “Either of you.”

Kitt pressed her lips together apprehensively. It wasn’t herself she was thinking of, but the baby. The way O’Rourke phrased his assurance told her he’d read her thoughts. “How did you know?”

“You’ve got that new-mother, protective look about you. I’ve seen it often enough to be familiar with it.” Taking the umbilical cord, he made a quick cut, severing the connection. Then, with a bit of thread, he tied it around the tiny part left above the baby’s navel.

“Where did you get the thread?”

The grin flashed again. “I’m a handy man to have around. Never know what’s up my sleeve—so to speak,” he added with a wink.

Probably a lot of tricks, she thought. She knew his type. As handsome as the day was long and as honest as a leprechaun’s promises.

The policeman returned, popping his head in. “Ambulance is on its way,” he told them. This time he made his way into the interior to keep the rain from coming in. “Here, I think you could use this.” Stripping off his raincoat, he handed it to O’Rourke. “You don’t want a bed right next to your wife’s in the hospital, do you?” He followed the question up with a hearty chuckle that turned into a belly laugh.

O’Rourke put on the rain slicker. “She’s not my wife,” he corrected the policeman.

Although he’d been in love with someone once, he thought as he glanced at Kitt, who looked a great deal like her. Susan O’Hara. Susan got tired of waiting for him to propose and married the banker’s son as soon as she was out of high school, he recalled with a touch of nostalgia. Last he’d heard, they had four children and were expecting a fifth. He hoped she was happy.

“We’re not married,” Kitt chimed in.

The policeman, his attention almost completely captivated by the smallest person in the van, shook his head at the information. Looking from one to the other, he seemed genuinely disappointed.

“I know it’s not supposed to be necessary in this day and age, having a marriage license and all, but believe me, inside—” he thumped his barrel chest “—you’ll both feel a whole lot better if you give this little guy a stable home and a full-time mother and father he can have around him every night.”

“She,” O’Rourke corrected him before Kitt had a chance to do the same.

“She,” the policeman repeated with a nod of his head. “Even more important, then. Girls need good examples to help keep them on the straight and narrow.” He eyed O’Rourke. “You wouldn’t want her having babies of her own without a wedding ring and a loving husband somewhere in the picture, now, would you?”

No, he supposed he wouldn’t, O’Rourke thought. If the little doll in Kitt’s arms was his. “But you don’t understand,” he began.

The policeman laughed dismissively. “Hey, just because I’ve got a few years on you doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to be young. I do. I remember it real well.” Shifting toward O’Rourke, he slung one arm around his shoulders in camaraderie. “But marriage is better, trust me. There’s something great about having one person to come home to. One person to turn to no matter what.” He smiled at Kitt. “Now, you might say that you can do all that without a silly piece of paper, but if it’s so silly, I say, what’s the harm in having it? Right? And believe me, in the end, it’ll come to mean a lot to you. It’s the thing that makes you try one more time when you think you’ve had it and it’s time to go your own way.” He sighed deeply, as if remembering. “I know what I’m talking about. Why, if it wasn’t for my marriage license—”

This had the earmarks of going on even longer than the storm outside, O’Rourke thought. “Officer—” he began, trying to explain.

“Gary,” the policeman interjected. “Officer Gary Brinkley.”

“Gary,” O’Rourke allowed. “You don’t understand. We’re two strangers.”

The smile on the round face turned knowing. “Everyone feels like that sometime or other. Hell…” He stopped abruptly, slanting a look at Kitt. “Excuse me, heck, my wife and I feel that way, too, sometimes. But it’s the long haul that counts.” He fixed O’Rourke with a look, then swept it toward Kitt. “Promise me you two’ll think about it.”

O’Rourke and Kitt exchanged glances and both smiled as if on cue.

“Okay,” O’Rourke allowed, knowing there was no other way to call a halt to the kindly lecture. “We promise we’ll think about it. Won’t we, love?”

She was aching and exhausted. Why being addressed by a generic term should have caused a small thrill to dance through her made absolutely no sense to Kitt. So she didn’t even try to figure it out.

Chapter Three

O’Rourke stood outside his van in the rain as the two ambulance attendants, a maternal-looking woman named Martha and a thin-faced man of about thirty, quickly placed Kitt and her baby onto a stretcher.

Because no one seemed to be doing anything to try to keep the rain away from them, O’Rourke took off the rain slicker and held it above Kitt and the baby. He succeeded in keeping their faces dry.

The smile she flashed him made up for the fact that he was now soaked clear down to the bone.

“Can’t seem to keep you dressed, can we?” the policeman commented. But as O’Rourke glanced back at him, he could see that Gary approved of the gallant gesture.

O’Rourke slipped the rain slicker onto his now-drenched arms. He might still be a wee bit rough around the edges, he thought, remembering something his mother had once said about him, but at least chivalry wasn’t entirely dead within his heart.

“You coming?” the female attendant asked as her partner stabilized the stretcher inside the rear of the ambulance.

O’Rourke shook his head. Chivalry notwithstanding, his part in all this was technically over now that there were more competent people on the scene. Time for the Good Samaritan to be finding his own way home. He began to back away.

“No, I—”

“Sure, he’s coming,” Gary told the woman, putting out one hand to stop her from closing the ambulance doors. “He’s the daddy.”

Time to set this man straight. “Actually—” But O’Rourke got no further.

Like a conspirator, unmindful of the rain, Gary lowered his head in close to O’Rourke. His voice was nothing if not sympathetic. He spoke like a man with years of domesticity behind him.

“Now, you don’t want to go planting seeds of doubt and discord with the little mother at a time like this, do you? She’s been through a great deal.” Gary arched a knowing, shaggy brow. “Whatever went down between you from your first time together to now’s all in the past. She needs you, boy.” The policeman all but pushed him toward the ambulance. “Go hold her hand and tell her she’s beautiful.”

With rain plastering his hair to his head and pouring down his face, O’Rourke stared at the other man incredulously. In his experience, policemen didn’t stand around, doling out advice like some kind of psychologist. “What?”

“Beautiful. Tell her she’s beautiful,” Gary repeated, raising his voice as the wind began to pick up. “A woman needs to hear stuff like that, especially when she looks as if she could scare the paint right off the walls.” He looked toward the interior of the ambulance. The female attendant was scowling at him, waiting to close the door he wasn’t releasing. “She’s just had your kid, and it looks like she’s done a great job, if you ask me. Give her the support she needs. Believe me, you’ll come out a winner in the end.”

Before O’Rourke had a chance to say anything to protest the blatant assumptions the policeman had made, Gary propelled him into the ambulance.

“Got one more for you, Martha,” Gary announced triumphantly.

Suddenly, O’Rourke found himself inside the ambulance. The doors behind him were being closed and Kitt was looking up at him in dazed confusion. He had no choice but to take a seat beside the strapped-in gurney.

“I’ll follow you in.” The policeman’s voice wedged itself into the ambulance just before the rear doors were shut. “It’s a slow night.”

Not for everybody, O’Rourke thought.