Once a Hero. Lisa Childs

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      “You’re a hero.”

      “Stop saying that. I’m not,” Kent insisted. “I didn’t do anything that anyone else in the department wouldn’t have done.”

      “But they didn’t step in front of that bullet,” Erin said. “You did.”

      “It was reflex, nothing more.”

      “Why won’t you take credit for it? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

      He arched his brows. “Would you have believed me?”

      “Probably not. I would have figured you’d made it up to impress me, to get me to change my mind about you.”

      “So why do you believe it now?”

      Dear Reader,

      I think it’s important that we all have a hero—someone we aspire to be like or someone who inspires us to be more than we are or someone who takes care of us. When I was growing up, my big brother was my hero. He defended me against the neighborhood bully and piggybacked me across the creek because I couldn’t swim. Heroes also protect us—like the heroes in my CITIZEN’S POLICE ACADEMY series.

      Writing Once a Hero, the second book in the miniseries (the first was also part of the MEN MADE IN AMERICA miniseries—Once a Lawman, HAR, Feb. 2009), was very important to me. Sergeant Kent Terlecki is a hero whose story needed to be told even though he’s uncomfortable with being called that. He doesn’t consider himself to be special, and neither does heroine Erin Powell. Well, not at first!

      I hope you enjoy their story, in which they both learn Once a Hero, always a hero.

      Happy reading!

      Lisa Childs

      Once a Hero

      Lisa Childs

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Bestselling, award-winning author Lisa Childs writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Harlequin/Silhouette Books. She lives on thirty acres in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her Web site, www.lisachilds.com, or by snail mail at P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

      With much gratitude to the

       Grand Rapids Police Department for helping me

       understand and appreciate the very special heroes

       that police officers are.

      And with love for my brothers,

       Tony, Mike and Chris—for showing me my

       first examples of heroism by being my heroes!

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter One

      Conversations stopped and heads swiveled toward her as Erin Powell walked into the meeting room on the third floor of the Lakewood Police Department. Since she was the first citizen to arrive for the Citizen’s Police Academy program, the people staring at her were men and women “in blue.” The Lakewood, Michigan, police department, however, wore black uniforms, which she believed matched one particular officer’s soul.

      Despite all the stares, her gaze was drawn to his. Sergeant Kent Terlecki’s steely-gray eyes must have been how he’d earned his nickname Bullet. She had asked the blond-haired man a couple of times for an explanation of his moniker, but he had shrugged off that question, just as he’d shrugged off most of her others. Some public information officer he’d proved to be for the department—a media liaison who wouldn’t deal with the media.

      Ignoring the unwelcoming looks and the awkward silence, Erin squared her shoulders and walked across the room toward where all the officers stood against the far wall. She dropped her organizer onto a table, the thud echoing in the large space.

      As if he intended to cite her for disturbing the peace, Terlecki stalked over to her. His long-legged strides closed the distance between them in short order.

      “Speak of the devil,” she murmured.

      “I’m not, but that doesn’t stop you from demonizing me,” he accused as he held out a folded section of the Lakewood Chronicle.

      Satisfaction filled her as she stared down at the article she had written—about him. She wanted everyone to see Kent Terlecki as the fraud he really was, and so she had titled her article, Public Information Officer’s Desperate PR Ploy.

      “Did I hit a nerve?” she asked, tipping up her chin to meet that hard gaze of his. While she was above average height, he was taller, with broad shoulders. But he didn’t intimidate her, although she suspected he tried.

      “You’d have to actually write a grain of truth to hit a nerve, so I don’t think there’s any chance that you’ll ever do that, Ms. Powell.”

      Ignoring the sting of his insult, Erin smiled and asked, “If you think I’m such a hack, why did you let me into the class?”

      The paper rustled as he clenched his hand into a fist. “Despite what your article claims, I’m not in charge of the Citizen’s Police Academy—not as a desperate maneuver to improve the department’s image or my own. Neither needs improving.”

      “Really?” She lifted a brow skeptically. “According to the last poll in the Chronicle, the public believes the Lakewood PD could use some improvement.”

      “That poll was hardly fair,” he griped. “There was no option for ‘no improvement necessary.’”

      “Of course you would think no improvement was necessary.”

      He lifted the paper. “Instead of writing about me, you should have written about the true purpose of this program.”

      “And what is that?” Although she had signed up to participate, she wasn’t entirely certain what the academy did offer.

      “Watch Commander Lieutenant Patrick O’Donnell started the program three years ago so that interested members of the community could learn more about the department, about police procedure and about the challenges officers face while doing their job.”

      His words grated her nerves. Whenever Terlecki actually deigned to speak, it was always in the form of a press release. To irritate him, she arched a brow and scoffed, “You have challenges?”

      He sighed. “I have you, Ms. Powell.”

      “Oh, so if it was up to you, I wouldn’t be here.” She had already guessed as much.

      The sergeant planted his palms on the table between them and leaned forward until his face nearly touched hers. With his square jaw clenched, he lowered his voice and murmured, “If it was up to me…”

      Erin drew in a shaky breath and braced herself as a rush of adrenaline quickened her pulse and warmed her skin. It had to be adrenaline;