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He nodded slowly. “If the price is right, yeah, I am.”
She considered that for a long moment, her expression giving nothing away. “And then what are you going to do?”
A small smile touched his lips. “I don’t know for certain, but the possibilities are endless.” He grew serious. “When my father died I automatically stepped in to take over the business because it’s what I believed was expected of me, but now I want to take the time to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life instead of making a split-second decision based on everyone else’s expectations. I can’t deny that starting over is a scary prospect after relying on the security of my father’s company for so long, but it’s one of many challenges I’m more than ready to accept.”
“Starting over is never easy,” she replied, her voice quiet, but filled with a depth and knowledge that caught his attention.
He tipped his head and made the spontaneous decision not to let her comment go despite the emotional territory he might be boldly trampling upon. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”
She hesitated, her blue eyes darkening with subtle but unmistakable traces of regret. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
There were still so many things he needed to understand about Jo, and he was feeling desperate enough to push emotional issues that would finally give him insight to her deepest insecurities. And if after this conversation she still sent him away, he hoped he’d at least leave knowing the reasons why she couldn’t give of herself.
“You know all about me, my past, and why I want to sell my father’s company.” And he knew of her devotion to her abduction cases. But one crucial piece of the puzzle that completed this woman was still missing, and he intended to fill in the gap. “Tell me, Jo, why did you quit the police force?” he asked, his tone gentle, but firm.
Her lips tightened, and her eyes flashed with a defiance he’d grown used to. He wasn’t at all surprised when she pushed back her chair, stood, and walked over to the windows overlooking the parking lot, putting more distance between them and automatically erecting emotional barriers.
One by one, he’d tear every last one down. “Was it because of what happened to Brian?” he persisted. All he k
new was that her partner had been shot in the line of duty, but the details of that incident were what concerned him now. “Is that why you quit?”
Arms crossed tight over her chest, she turned around to face him again, seemingly struggling with whether or not to reveal such painful secrets. Long moments passed, and she finally said, “I quit the force because I was responsible for what happened to Brian.” Her words were choked and as raw as the self-condemnation chasing across her features.
Despite believing he was prepared to hear anything, her brutal answer stunned him into absolute silence.
“I’m the reason why Brian is dead,” she reiterated. A rush of tears filled her eyes, and she resolutely blinked them back.
“Tell me about it,” he urged softly, aching for her and the obvious anguish swirling in the depths of her dark blue eyes.
She inhaled a shaky breath to gather her composure, and he waited patiently for her to make the decision to trust him. Finally, she did.
“When I went to work as a cop, because of my gender and slender size my colleagues constantly doubted my physical strength and endurance, and I had to work twice as hard at proving that I was capable of handling every aspect of my job.” Frustration underscored her voice and she shook her head in disgust. “But no matter how many two-hundred-pound men I managed to chase down and cuff, or the numerous times I had to restrain an obnoxious drunk or irate civilian, I never seemed to get the respect I deserved.
“Then I was paired up with Brian as a partner,” she said, turning back to look out the window, her voice distant and far away, seemingly caught up in past memories. “And for the first time since becoming a police officer I had the respect of a man and colleague. Brian believed in equality, and never once treated me as anything less than a fully trained cop. He never questioned my abilities, and he even gave me the confidence to believe in myself…and I repaid his faith in me by costing him his life.”
Dean watched a shudder course through her and knew they’d just barely scratched the surface of all the pain and grief she’d kept locked away for too long. Standing, he closed the physical distance separating them, but kept his hands to himself. “What happened, Jo?” He needed to know everything.
She swallowed hard and met his gaze, her own glazed with a wealth of guilt. “The two of us were on patrol, and we received a call to investigate a suspicious man who was hiding out in an abandoned house,” she said, her voice hoarse. “We went in and found the man in question, and he had a five-year-old boy with him. He had the boy’s mouth taped shut and his hands tied behind his back, and it was obvious that he’d been kidnapped. Brian and I drew our revolvers and blocked the perp’s exit from different doorways, but the other man had a gun, too. I told him to drop his weapon, and all he did was panic and thrust the kid away from him.
“We tried reasoning with the man, but he was so skittish and refused to cooperate. For the most part he kept his aim trained on me while we tried to talk him into giving up.” She touched a hand to her chest and paused for a moment before continuing. “The adrenaline that flowed through my body was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. My heart was pumping hard in my chest and my head was swimming with a thousand thoughts, but I managed to keep my gun steady. Then backup units arrived and he completely freaked out and threatened to shoot the little boy who was cowering and whimpering on the floor. And while I kept talking to the man to try to calm him, Brian eased his way closer to the kid, and that’s when the perp lost it, redirected his aim, and shot Brian.”
She visibly shuddered, as if reliving the awful moment. “Oh, God, Dean…” She looked at him, her tear-filled eyes reflecting deep pools of agony. “The second the goddamn perp shifted his gun to Brian, I should have fired my weapon without hesitation to stop him. I knew that, my mind screamed at me to pull the trigger, but everything happened so fast and all I could do was watch in horror as Brian took a bullet and crumpled to the ground because I couldn’t fire my weapon.”
She blinked, and a lone tear trickled down one cheek. Very gently, he wiped it away with the pad of his thumb, offering a small measure of comfort. Sensing she wasn’t done, he remained quiet.
“The window behind the perp was busted out, and backup was there to watch what happened to Brian and they did what I couldn’t do. They shot the guy and killed him before he could turn his weapon back on me.” She swiped at another stray tear before he could do the deed himself—maintaining that in-control facade he knew to be a ruse. “All I can remember is dropping my gun and scrambling over to Brian. He’d been wearing a bullet-proof vest, but the bullet hit him in the neck and severed an artery and he was bleeding all over the place. I tried to put pressure on the wound and begged him not to die, but he drew his last breath in my arms.” Her voice faded away on a note of despair.
You can’t die. You can’t. I won’t let you. Dean’s gut clenched as those words came back to haunt him—a hysterical plea straight out of the nightmare that had plagued Jo their first night together. Now her actions that evening made sense, and knowing the source of her pain, he pulled her into his embrace to console her.
Her body was tense and stiff, her arms still crossed protectively over her chest. Reluctantly, she accepted his comfort, seemingly still struggling with the effort to remain tough and strong when at the moment she was as vulnerable and fragile as glass. His heart squeezed tight, and he wished he had the ability to make all those ugly, disturbing memories disappear.
But he didn’t have that power, and so instead he opted for soothing words and gentle caressing sweeps of his hands down her unyielding back. “Jo…you couldn’t have known that the guy was going to shoot Brian,” he tried reasoning.
She lifted her head to meet his gaze, her expression filled with blame and self-reproach. “The moment that perp took his gun off of me to train it on Brian and threatened his life I should have pulled the trigger, no questions asked.” She shook her head, her jaw clenching in bitterness. “I wasn’t thinking straight, and not covering my partner went against everything I learned in training. Dammit, I couldn’t follow through with pulling the trigger, and I proved to everyone from my brothers on down to my colleagues that when it came to making the kind of life or death decisions some cops face during their careers, I couldn’t handle the job.”
He resisted the urge to shake her, to make her realize that she couldn’t wallow in blame and guilt forever. That she couldn’t remain chained to the past or she’d never be able to embrace a full and emotionally satisfying future. “You made a mistake, Jo,” he argued lightly. “It happens to the strongest of people sometimes.”
She wriggled out of his arms and pushed him away, her mouth pinched with a frown. “That mistake cost a man his life, Dean,” she said, angry now—at herself, possibly at him, and even fate for delivering such a devastating blow. “He was as close to a best friend as I’ve ever had. After the accident, I had no choice but to resign from the police force, for my sake and everyone else I worked with, all of whom didn’t want a skittish partner. And I don’t want to be responsible for another person like that ever again,” she added in a raspy whisper.
