Armed With Steele (8 page)

My mother tucked a stray piece of her graying, light brown hair carefully behind her right ear. “Are you sure you’ll be alright with her away, dear? You know, with Sean off at school, we have plenty of room for you here.”

“No!” The word was out before I could catch myself. “Uh, what I mean is, you and Dad just finally got the house to yourselves. You don’t want me moving back home, mooching off you.”

It was a flimsy excuse, but I’d had to come up with something. I loved my mother dearly, but I loved her that much more with an hour’s drive between us.

“Oh, honey, that’s the least of my worries.”

“Leave her be, Shirley Mae,” my father muttered in mid-chew.

She narrowed her eyes at him. I could practically see the gears in her head turning, trying to find a way to go around my father. Then a smile spread slowly across her face. She stood, and gathered a few dishes in her hands. “Jessica, dear, would you mind helping me with the dishes?”

Ah, the ole divide and conquer. It’d been several years since she’d used that technique. I looked to my father for a counter attack, but this time he just shrugged. I had no choice but to comply.

When I reached the kitchen, my mother had her hand under the running water, waiting for it to warm. I set my dishes on the counter and braced myself for the pending onslaught of questions and guilt-tripping.

“I worry about you, sweetheart. Being so far away and living downtown by yourself.” She cast a probing glance my way, then reached for the dish soap.

I avoided her gaze. Focused instead on a black plastic measuring cup bobbing in the rising water, helpless. Oh, how I could relate.

“I hardly live
downtown
, Mom.” I reached down and rescued the cup, wishing someone could do the same for me. Then I scrubbed it, rinsed, and handed it to my mother.

She reached for a towel. “Close enough. And the crime rates in that big city!”

I rolled my eyes. Fort Wayne, Indiana could hardly be called a big city. Around these parts, that designation was reserved for places like Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me. I read the paper. I know that crime is up down there.”

I handed my mother—aka Joe Friday’s little sister—another clean dish. “But I live in a good neighborhood, Mom. It’s not like we’re plagued with drive-by shootings or anything. Heck, the worst crime I’ve heard about anywhere near us was when the little old lady who lives across the street backed into her neighbor’s mailbox.”

“Thieves watch people come and go from their homes, Jessica. They’ve probably already noticed that Grace isn’t coming home with you anymore. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were watching your place right now.”

“Oh, well in that case I sure as heck can’t move back home until Grace wakes up. If I did, they’d rob us blind before I’d even made it up to Angola!”

“Don’t use that tone with me, young lady.”

I sighed and added more dirty dishes to my sink full of soapy water. If only there was a way to keep her from worrying. Something foolproof.

Or better yet,
bullet
proof.

“Look, you don’t have to worry about me so much, Mom. I’m not always alone. I’m seeing someone now.” Though an outrageous lie, I couldn’t help but smile at how perfect it was. “I just didn’t want to say anything before because…well, it’s still early.” The lies were coming faster now. Easier.

And the twenty-questions will commence…now.

“You are? When did this happen? Who is he? Where did you meet? Wait.” She turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “I thought you were still hung up on Dan?”

Leave it to my mother to say the one name capable of puncturing a hole in my temporarily swollen ego. I stepped away from her touch to reach for a plate on the counter. “Hard to be hung up on someone when they’re several hours away.”

His decision to move to Nebraska had put a strain on our relationship. My not wanting to move out there with him had killed it.

“Not if you’re in love.”

I took my frustration out on an unsuspecting casserole dish. “Well, then I guess I wasn’t.”

“I’m rather glad, to be honest.”

I stopped in mid-scrub. “What?”

“Well, he was kind of…
boring
. Your father and I worried how our grandkids might turn out.” She flashed me a sheepish grin.

“Mom!”

She shrugged. “Honestly, Jessica. I don’t understand your taste in men.”

That makes two of us.
I went back to scrubbing, cheeks on fire. But I’d found comfort in her admission, as if it somehow helped validate my decision to stay. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you almost seemed happy with this one.”

I stopped trying to scrub the floral pattern off her casserole dish.

Almost.

She knew me too well.

“And besides,” she said, opening a cupboard overhead to put the dish she’d just dried away, “he was a hundred times better than that Neil guy.”

I couldn’t argue with her there. Neil had been a longhaired, tattoo-covered, impromptu blind date lined up by Grace right after graduation. He and Grace’s date played in a local heavy-metal band. She’d seen the light with her lackluster date within a week. It took me a few more months to get the wake up call. Literally. He’d called early one morning, in between a gig and his day-job at Burger Heaven, giving me the “it’s not you, it’s me” spiel. For once in my life, I was actually relieved to hear those words.

“So,” my mother said, interrupting my flashback, “tell me about this new guy.”

Bulging biceps, brilliant blue eyes, thick, dark hair.
“There’s not much to tell, really.” I handed her the sparkling clean casserole dish. “No one you know. Met him last week. Lives nearby.”

“Mmm, hmm. And what does he do?”

“He’s a cop.” The story rolled effortlessly off my tongue. I pictured Jiminy Cricket on my opposite shoulder, telling me I was surely going to hell.

“A police officer?” She stopped drying and stared at me. Searched my face for any hint of bullshit. But I had my game face on today. The same one I’d perfected in high school under this very roof. “Name?”

“Officer Steele.”

“That’s what you call him when you go out,” she said flatly. “
Officer
Steele.”

“
No
,” I said, scrambling to remember his first name. Damn, what was it? It’d been on his business card. Thankfully, it popped into my head a second later. “
I
call him Nathan. But to everyone else, he’s Officer Steele.”

“Nathan,” she said, trying it out for herself. “Sounds like a wholesome young man. He is young, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Mom.” I chuckled. “It’s not like I hooked up with some crusty old, donut-loving cop or anything. I think he’s around my age.”

Her left eyebrow hiked up a notch. “You don’t know?”

“Mother!” I feigned shock. “Why is it that men aren’t supposed to ask women their ages, but you think it’s okay for me to ask him about his?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Nope. Does that bother you?” I handed her a clean dinner plate and worked to suppress a smirk.

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, it does. I don’t want my young, innocent, little—”

“Okay, stop.” I reached for a nearby towel and turned to face her. “I’m not some clueless teenager anymore, Mom. I run my own business, pay my own rent.”

I found strength in those words—a strength that had abandoned me this past week.

“And if I can do all of that, then I ought to be capable of selecting a decent guy to date.”

A medley of looks crossed my mother’s face—surprise, then indignation, and finally defeat. “You’re right, dear. But I’ll always worry about you. It’s what mothers do.”

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze.

“I’m not asking you to stop
caring
, Mom,” I said, my voice softer now as I drew back and met her watery gaze with my own. “I’m just asking you to trust me.”

Even as I stand here, lying through my teeth about an imaginary boyfriend
, I thought with a twinge of guilt.

She placed a hand on my cheek. “Alright, dear. I’ll try.”

* * * *

By the time I reached the alley behind our house, it was well past dark. I carefully navigated the usual obstacle course of trashcans and lazy parking jobs as best I could, then hit my garage door opener button as our lot came into view. The door began its ascent, and I watched as the light inside flickered on and then promptly died.

Just my luck.
I pulled inside, guided only by my car’s headlights, and came to a stop. Our tiny garage was usually a tight fit. But with Grace’s car being God-knows-where the past week, I had a little more room to maneuver. A good thing, since I couldn’t see where the heck I was going.

I shut off the ignition, grabbed my purse and got out of the car. Its interior light faded to black, and I was left to fumble for the back door in total darkness. I debated going inside to get a flashlight and replacement bulb, then decided it might be best to wait until morning when I could actually see what I was doing.

Preoccupied with the annoyance of my bad luck, I stepped out from the garage and pulled the door shut behind me. The lighting outside the garage wasn’t much better, with our backyard lit only by the hanging bug lights from the neighbor’s house. I rubbed at my eyes, and turned to start the short journey up the path leading from the garage to our back door.

A hand reached out and grabbed my arm. I sucked in a breath to scream, but a second hand flew up to my face and clamped my mouth shut. I tried to break free, but it was no use. Whoever it was had me easily out-muscled.

I was trapped.

Chapter 6

I planted a heel in my assailant’s shin and heard him bite back a howl. He pulled me in tighter against him and hissed into my ear, “Damn it, it’s me—Officer Steele. Stop…fighting…me…”

I froze. Struggled to make sense of the situation.

He mistook my paralysis for compliance. “Thank you. Now listen, I’ll explain everything in a minute, but I need you to stay quiet. If I take my hand away from your mouth, do you promise not to scream?”

The more he spoke, the more convinced I was that the voice did in fact belong to Officer Steele. I nodded, eager for his explanation. After nearly giving me a heart attack, it’d better be a good one.

He slowly withdrew his hand from my mouth. His grip on my arm lightened as well, but he didn’t release me. I suddenly became very aware of the warm breath on my neck and firm chest pressed into my back. But even that wasn’t enough to allay my extreme irritation at being ambushed in my own yard.

I turned my head toward him and whispered, “You know, usually our visitors just ring the
doorbell
.”

“Or climb in through your
open windows
,” he whispered back.

“Huh?” My gaze shot to our back kitchen window. Grace’s yellow gingham curtains rustled in the autumn breeze. “Shit! I
knew
I forgot to do something before I left.”

“Maybe next time you could spring for a radio advertisement. Get a real thief to come by instead of the kid that’s prowling around in there now.”

I didn’t appreciate his tone. Or his accusation. I yanked my arm free from his grip and whirled around. Would have been nose to nose with him if he hadn’t been several inches taller than me. “And how do you know someone’s in there?”

Even in the dark, his brilliant blue eyes pierced right through me. “Because I stopped by to talk about the Sullivan case. You didn’t answer when I knocked, so I checked to see if you were out back.”

He’d come to talk about Grace? At this time of night? The fact that he was sans uniform had me confused. Not that I minded the view—Officer Steele managed to make even casual street clothes look sexy as hell.

“I didn’t see you back here,” he continued, his eyes moving to the window. “But as I turned to walk back to my car, I spotted some scraggly kid shimmying through your kitchen window. Your
open
kitchen window.” His eyes returned to mine. Narrowed.