Love by Association

“I learned something from Max, yes, but not one of the two things I was talking about. And there was no breakup. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”

She couldn’t lose Wayne’s respect. It was one of her most valued assets. Clasping her hands together, she faced him fully. “You’re half-right. I did think I was in love with him. But it started long before Meri’s disappearance last year. I fell in love with him when Jill did. And when I saw her putting the job before him, risking her life unnecessarily while he was at home trusting her to keep herself safe...it was the one time I really had a problem with her. I’m not saying that what she did...saving that rookie’s life... It was the right thing to do. I’d have done the same. So would you have and any officer worth his salt. But there were times... I don’t know, it was just like Jill thought she was invincible or something...”

Picturing her friend, in uniform, with a grin on her face and a gun in her hand—just after shooting practice when Jill had hit three bull’s-eyes—Chantel’s gut clenched with a longing that nearly killed her. Like when Jill had first died.

Would she and Max have ended up together if Chantel hadn’t been too lost in her grief to pursue him?

“Anyway, so, yeah...when I came up here to help him last year, the old feelings...they were still there. But seeing him with Meri, or rather, not with her, seeing how much he believed she was in serious trouble, when all of us were certain that she’d left him of her own free will, seeing how hard she fought to stay alive, to get out of that house when she should have been passed out on the floor—I’d never felt anything like that. But I knew, then and there, that I wanted it and that I couldn’t accept anything less. I’m not going to date a man until I feel something more for him than a desire to not be alone.”

She looked at him, expecting derision, and instead met the serious expression on his face.

“You think I’m nuts, don’t you?”

“No, honestly, I feel sad for you.”

“Because I’ve never been in love?”

“Because you didn’t even recognize what love is.”

“You’re telling me that you believe in being in love?”

“Of course I do. Why do you think I was ready to jump off a roof when I thought I’d lost Maria all those years ago? And why do you think she took me back?”

“Because I was pretty damned persuasive?”

“Probably.” He grinned. “But also because she’s in love with me as much as I’m in love with her.”

Damn. So it happened more than once in a blue moon. Who’d have guessed?

“Jill wasn’t in love with Max like that.” Jill had been turned on by Max. She’d loved him. But she hadn’t been in love. Chantel, as her most trusted confidante, was certain on that score.

So, well, she had hope, then. Maybe someday...

“You were going to tell me about the two things you’d learned.”

Right. Thanks for the reminder, Stanton. She didn’t have a hell of a lot of hope. Maybe someday... Not. Maybe when hell froze over.

“First, I’m attracted to alpha men. You know, the strong, protective types. The ones who rule the world.”

“Aren’t all women?”

She didn’t think so. Since there were men who weren’t so filled with testosterone that they’d fight first and ask questions later. Not all men were aggressive go-getters. And yet, there were women who loved and needed them.

She just wasn’t ever going to be one of them. More the shame.

“I guess I wouldn’t know,” she told Wayne. “Jill was. I am. Meri is. That’s pretty much the sum total of my experience. And it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “Because the second thing I’ve learned is that aggressive men don’t like aggressive women, unless it’s in their beds, and then only when they want it that way. Protective men like to protect. They don’t want a woman who says, ‘Stay down. I’ve got this,’ while facing the bogeyman alone with a gun in her hand. Near as I can tell, it emasculates them. Or, at the very least, makes them feel incompetent.”

Wayne’s silence wasn’t a surprise. Because he was one of those protective guys.

He knew she was right. The upside was, he left her alone after that so she could pursue the work she’d stopped in to do.

To no avail.

No matter how she searched, either as victim or perpetrator, Julie Fairbanks was not in the system.

Keeping an eye over her shoulder, lest someone see what she was doing and wonder why she was looking at the commissioner’s wife, she tried to find what she could about Patricia Reynolds. It took her two seconds to discover that the woman didn’t have a police record. No real surprise there.