The Cop, the Puppy and Me. Cara Colter

He had them. No escape.

      If you didn’t harden your heart to it all, you would drown in other people’s tragedy.

      He’d had to hurt Sarah. No choice. It was the only way to get someone like her to back off. Still, hearing her voice over the radio, he’d tried to stir himself to annoyance.

      He was reluctant to admit it was actually something else her husky tone caused in him.

      A faint longing. The same faint longing he had felt on her porch and when the scent from her kitchen had tickled his nose.

      What was that?

      Rest.

      Sheesh, he was a cop in a teeny tiny town. How much more restful could it get?

      Besides, in his experience, relationships weren’t restful. That was the last thing they were! Full of ups and downs, and ins and outs, and highs and lows.

      Sullivan had been married once, briefly. It had not survived the grueling demands of his rookie year on the homicide squad. The final straw had been someone inconveniently getting themselves killed when he was supposed to be at his wife’s sister’s wedding.

      He’d come home to an apartment emptied of all her belongings and most of his.

      What had he felt at that moment?

      Relief.

      A sense that now, finally, he could truly give one hundred percent to the career that was more than a job. An obsession. Finding the bad guy possessed him. It wasn’t a time clock and a paycheck. It was a life’s mission.

      He started, suddenly realizing it was that little troublemaker who had triggered these thoughts about relationships!

      He was happy when his phone rang, so he didn’t have to contemplate what—if—that meant something worrisome.

      Besides, his discipline was legendary—as was his comfortably solitary lifestyle—and he was not thinking of Sarah McDougall in terms of the “R” word. He refused.

      He glanced at the caller ID window.

      His boss. That hadn’t taken long. Sullivan debated not answering, but saw no purpose in putting off the inevitable.

      He held the phone away from his ear so the volume of his chief’s displeasure didn’t deafen him.

      “Yes, sir, I got it. I’m cleaning all the cars.”

      He held the phone away from his ear again. “Yeah. I got it. I’m on Henrietta Delafield duty. Every single time. Yes, sir.”

      He listened again. “I’m sure you will call me back if you think of anything else. I’m looking forward to it. No, sir. I’m not being sarcastic. Drunk tank duty, too. Got it.”

      Sullivan extricated himself from the call before the chief thought of any more ways to make his life miserable.

      He got out of his car. Through the open screen door of Della’s house—a house so like Sarah’s it should have spooked him—he could hear his nephews, Jet, four, and Ralf, eighteen and half months, running wild. He climbed the steps, and tugged the door.

      Unlocked.

      He went inside and stepped over an overturned basket of laundry and a plastic tricycle. His sister had once been a total neat freak, her need for order triggered by the death of their parents, just as it had triggered his need for control.

      He supposed that meant the mess was a good thing, and he was happy for her, moving on, having a normal life, despite it all.

      Sullivan found his sister in her kitchen. The two boys pushed by him, first Jet at a dead run, chortling, tormenting Ralf by holding Ralf’s teddy bear high out of his brother’s reach. Ralf toddled after him, determined, not understanding the futility of his determination was fueling his brother’s glee.

      Della started when she turned from a cookie sheet, still steaming from the oven, and saw Sullivan standing in her kitchen door well. “You scared me.”

      “You told me to come at five. For dinner.”

      “I lost track of time.”

      “You’re lucky it was me. You should lock the door,” he told her.

      She gave him a look that in no way appreciated his brotherly concern for her. In fact, her look left him in no doubt that she had tuned into the Tally Hukas show for the afternoon.

      “All Sarah McDougall is trying to do is help the town,” Della said accusingly.

      Jet raced by, cackling, toy high. Sullivan snagged it from him, and gave it to Ralf. Blessedly, the decibel level was instantly reduced to something that would not cause permanent damage to the human ear.

      Sullivan’s eyes caught on a neatly bagged package of chocolate chip cookies on the counter. His sister usually sent him home with a goodie bag after she provided him with a home-cooked meal.

      “Are those for me?” he asked hopefully, hoping she would take the hint that he didn’t want to talk about Sarah McDougall.

      His sister had never been one to take hints.

      “Not now, they aren’t,” she said sharply.

      “Come on, Della. The chief is already punishing me,” he groaned.

      “How?” she said, skeptical, apparently, that the chief could come up with a suitable enough punishment for Sullivan refusing to do his part to revitalize the town.

      “Let’s just say it looks like there’s a lot of puke in my future.”

      “Humph.” She was a woman who dealt with puke on a nearly daily basis. She was not impressed. She took the bagged cookies and put them out of sight. “I’m going to donate these to the bake sale in support of Summer Fest.”

      “Come on, Della.”

      “No, you come on. Kettle Bend is your new home. Sarah’s right. It needs something. People to care. Everyone’s so selfish. Me. Me. Me. Indifferent to their larger world. What happened to Kennedy? Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?”

      “We’re talking about a summer festival, not the future of our nation,” he reminded her, but he felt the smallest niggle of something astonishing. Was it guilt?

      “We’re talking about an attitude! Change starts small!”

      His sister was given to these rants now that she had children and she felt responsible for making good citizens of the world.

      Casting a glance at Jet, who was using sweet talk to rewin his brother’s trust and therefore get close to Bubba the bear, Sullivan saw it as a monumental task she had undertaken. With a crow of delight, Jet took the bear. She obviously had some way to go.

      If she was going to work on Sullivan, too, her mission was definitely doomed.

      “Why on earth wouldn’t you do a few interviews if it would help the town out?” Della pressed him.

      “I’m not convinced four days of summer merriment will help the town out,” he said patiently. “I haven’t been here long, but it seems to me what Kettle Bend needs is jobs.”

      “At least Summer Fest is an effort,” Della said stubbornly. “It would bring in people and money.”

      “Temporarily.”

      “It’s better than nothing. And one person acting on an idea might lead other people to action.”

      Sullivan considered his sister’s words and the earnest look on her face. Had he been too quick to say no? Strangely, the chief going after him had not even begun to change his mind. But his sister looking at him with disapproval was something else.

      It was also the wrong time to remember the tears sparkling behind Sarah McDougall’s astonishing eyes.