A Reunion And A Ring (Proposals & Promises 1)

“I know,” she almost whispered. “That was always what mattered to you most about becoming an officer. You wanted to uphold the law and serve the community. Hands-on, you said, not from the comfort of an office or a courtroom.”

If it surprised him that she remembered his rationalization word for word, he didn’t comment, merely nodded again as he parked in the space she indicated. “I still feel that way.”

Without yet reaching for her door handle, she stared at the stairs directly in front of them that led up to her apartment. “Avery said you left the force for a while.”

“That’s sort of a long story,” he said after a moment. “Do you want to hear it here in the truck or are you going to invite me in?”

Now she was rethinking her earlier decision. She should probably tell him what she needed to say and politely send him on his way now. When or why he’d left the force and returned was really none of her business, especially since she might never see him again, barring another surprise meeting. Inviting him up to her place, even just to talk, was certainly not the wisest course of action, considering. Some people just had that...that thing. Chemistry, she thought, remembering Stevie’s word from earlier. It didn’t mean they were meant to be together long-term, though. The same was true in reverse. Just because a connection was somewhat more serene, more understated, more cerebral, perhaps—take herself and Thad, for example—that didn’t mean a couple couldn’t have a long and quietly contented union. Right?

“Why don’t you come in?” she said with a sigh, despite her trepidation. “We do need to talk.”

Chapter Eight

Minutes later, Gavin stood inside her living room, looking around curiously. She studied her home for a moment as though through his eyes. The entire two-bedroom apartment was done in shades of cream with a select few deep-orange accents because she couldn’t resist adding touches of her favorite color. Everything was arranged just so, nothing out of place, not a speck of dust on anything. Her draperies framed a beautiful view of the Little Rock skyline at night. Stevie had helped her decorate, so everything looked classic, coordinated, tasteful and more expensive than it actually was. Exactly the tone she’d wanted to convey. Because she knew Gavin so well—or had at one time—she suspected it looked a little too calculated for his taste.

Her grandmother loved the place. She’d brought several friends over to see it, just to preen a bit about her granddaughter’s success. Thad approved, too, telling her she had excellent taste. He said he wanted to build a big home, and he wanted her to help him design it, decorate it, fill it with elegant dinner parties and intimate gatherings of vibrant conversationalists. Perhaps a couple of kids, maybe even a dog. As long as it wasn’t the slobbery, shedding sort of dog, he’d added ruefully. He just wasn’t the big, slobbery dog kind of guy.

Gavin loved big, slobbery dogs. His family had always had one or two when she’d known them.

“Nice place,” Gavin said, the compliment obviously no more than a social formality.

“Thanks.”

“I like the painting.”

It hung over the fireplace, an explosion of orange from peach to near-red, a depiction of a sunset over a tropical beach. The colors refracted in the gathering clouds, bled into the waves, stained the sand, spilled over a single shell lying in the foreground. It was the only item in the harmonized decor Thad didn’t care for. He thought the artist, a student Jenny had met at a local university gallery showing, had been too heavy-handed with the color. Jenny didn’t agree. She’d visited Hawaii once for a conference about six years ago, and she’d seen a sunset exactly like this, so bold and bright and fiery that it had completely engulfed her, had taken her breath away. In that moment, she had been purely, deeply happy in a way she hadn’t been since she and Gavin had...

She bit her lip, cutting off the thought.

Gavin turned away from the p

ainting. “You asked why I quit the force for a while.”

Despite all her internal lectures, she still found herself asking him to sit down, and she knew it was because she wanted to hear this. When it came to Gavin, she really was pathetic.

He looked so out of place on her delicate cream brocade wing-backed chair. Too big, too masculine, too colorful somehow for the neutral room. His words made that contrast even more jarring. “About four years ago, I got in the middle of a knife fight when I responded to a 2:00 a.m. disturbance at a sleazy club we’re called to at least once most nights. One guy, young, barely out of his teens, had been stabbed in the chest and I knew from looking at him he wasn’t going to make it. Others were bleeding. Someone pulled a gun and the shooting started just as we got there. I watched another kid go down. Saw one of my friends in uniform wounded so badly he spent two weeks in ICU. I watched the hysterical girlfriend of one of the punks pick up a knife and run at my friend who was down. I had to fire my weapon to stop her from shoving the knife into him.”

He’d given the details in a flat, emotionless monotone that sounded memorized, as if he’d told the tale many times before. Only his eyes told the real story, and that one twisted her heart. “Did you...did you kill her?”

“No. But I was prepared to in order to save Bob’s life.”

Enormous relief flooded through her, strictly for Gavin’s sake. She was glad he hadn’t had to live with that. She swallowed hard. “Were you injured?”

“Nothing serious.”

“It sounds like a chaotic scene, to say the least.”

Still in that oddly detached tone, he agreed. “It was. Not the first I’d dealt with. Hasn’t been the last.”

“So what was different about that one?” she asked perceptively.

He spread his hands, his face bleak now. “I saw the eyes of the kid who’d been stabbed before we got there. He was so young. Scared, but resigned. As if that was exactly the way he’d expected to end up. And I found myself asking what was the damned point of it all? Sometimes it feels like we do the same thing every night and then come back and do it all again the next. We arrest the same people over and over, then watch them get out and go right back to what they were doing before. I started having nightmares about being unable to stop the girl from slashing Bob while he was lying there hurt and unable to defend himself. Mom was nagging me to find a safer job, Dad was sick, the father of the woman I was dating kept offering me more and more money to work for him handling security for his company in Hot Springs. So, I gave it a shot.”

It didn’t escape her that he’d let himself be influenced to quit by another woman, though he’d refused with her. Had it been because he’d been ready to try something different for himself that time? She pushed that question away, as it shouldn’t matter to her at this point. Still, she couldn’t resist asking, “The woman who shops at my store?”

He grimaced. “No, someone else.”

So there had been several women after her. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Though she didn’t think of him as a player, Gavin Locke was never going to be a monk.