Page 4 of Falling For You

This was the version of me that nobody knew. Not Doug. Not the precinct. I'd learned a long time ago what happens when you show people a side of yourself they don't think you deserve. They take it from you. Elliot was the only person I ever let see it. And I'd spent a long time trusting him before I did.

I picked up where I left off last night.

He brushed the hair from her face and held it there, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "You don't have to be brave right now," he said. "Not with me."

Elliot was working late again. Third time this week. He cancelled dinner on Saturday, rescheduled drinks on Monday, and tonight was another "don't wait up."

I picked up the remote and turned the page before I sank lower in the water.

I still remembered the first time Elliot asked me to dinner. FTEP had just ended. Six months of him teaching me how to read a scene, how to talk down a domestic and write a report that would hold up in court. Then he asked me out to a restaurant off the Strip where nobody from the department would see us.

That was four years ago.

We were the same rank when we started. Both patrol. It was easy then. Two officers keeping their personal life out of the precinct. Then Elliot made sergeant, and the chain of command made it complicated. Disclosing meant one of us would have to transfer. He didn't want that. I didn't either. I liked working with him. I liked being with him. So we kept it quiet, and quiet became the rule, and four years later I was still eating dinner alone on the nights he worked late.

She closed her eyes. She didn't know how to stop being brave. It was the only thing she'd ever been. But his hand was still on her face, and he wasn't moving, and for once she didn't want to be the strong one.

The water cooled. The candles burned. I just kept reading.

CHAPTER 2

Off-shift

WYATT

I'd figured out most things about raising a daughter alone. The one thing I couldn't figure out was how to be everything she lost.

"Lantern tonight?" Travis already had his locker open.

"Jill's got me on deck for her sister's birthday dinner tonight." Carl pulled his bag from his locker. "If I miss it, I'm sleeping in the truck."

"It's a Tuesday." Travis leaned out from behind his locker door.

"Her sister's birthday is on a Tuesday, Travis. I didn't pick the day."

Greene was heading to his parents' place. Knox was heading home to work on his bike.

I grabbed my keys off the hook. "I've got to get home before Barb walks Birdie out."

"What time is it?" Greene checked his phone. "Dude, you have like twelve minutes."

I was already moving.

Every shift change was about how fast I could get home, how much traffic was between me and my front door, and whether I'd pull up to my daughter running toward me or a quiet house and a note on the counter that said Birdie ate two waffles, we're out of milk.

This morning I made it.

Birdie came out the front door at full speed. Backpack bouncing, already talking about something that happened in her dream or at dinner or possibly both. I crouched down. She slammed into me hard enough to rock me back on my heels. Forty-five pounds of pure momentum.

"Daddy, did you know that starfish don't have brains?"

"Good morning to you too."

"Mrs. Metcalf told us. They don't have brains and they don't have blood. They have sea water instead of blood."

"Sea water?"

"Yeah. So if you cut them, the ocean comes out."