Between Love and Duty. Janice Johnson Kay

drainage ditch. “The girl?” Jane asked.

       Duncan shook his head. “The boy. The girl’s still hanging in there.”

       “Oh, dear. I’m sorry.” She made a face. “When I have a lousy day, it means my receipts are down or an employee called in sick. Not that someone died.”

       Duncan took a bite and didn’t say anything else for a long time. Somehow she knew he intended to, however, so she waited.

       “The boy’s mother is a dispatcher. She was at work when…” He stopped.

       “Oh, no,” Jane whispered again.

       “Oh, yeah.” He sighed. “It really brings it home. You know?”

       “I can imagine.”

       He told her about how hard the responding officers were taking it, about how the car had been nearly flattened, about calling the boy’s parents himself. And then he talked about the proposed budget and about the maddening inability of city council members to grasp the needs of the police department they took for granted. His voice grew hoarse. Jane ached to reach across the table and take his hand in hers, but she kept hers on her own side of the table.

      We are not friends, she told herself, and had to repeat it. We are not friends.

       Uneasiness stirred in her. She hardly knew Duncan. They were strangers sharing a pizza. So how had this conversation morphed into something so…intimate?