The Lawman's Second Chance. Ruth Herne Logan
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Yes?”
“Took them for juice and cookies. That was after Becky noted how Emma got to come the other day when you were handing out freebies all over the place.”
“Caro’s a softie.” Lisa winked at Emma. “I’d have let them starve.” She turned her attention to the gardening layouts and handed a copy of the front and east side to Alex. “What do you think? This is without pockets of color from annual flowers.”
“And life as we know it would be remiss without pockets of color.”
She ignored that he was teasing her for her choice of words, and smiled. “Yes, it would. I love color.”
“Especially pink,” Emma added.
Lisa turned, perplexed, saw Emma’s gaze sweep the outdoor displays, and understood the girl’s assumption. Without pausing to consider the possible fallout, she took advantage of a God-given opportunity. “Oh, you think that because of our breast cancer campaign. I’m actually a bold color person myself. Reds, golds, fall tones. But when you’ve walked the walk, it’s important to join the mission to find a cure, right?”
Emma stared at her, confused. And maybe a little nervous?
Alex’s face stilled. He glanced around the office and paled, as if hoping he’d misheard. His crestfallen expression said he hadn’t.
Pictures of the Fitzgerald family throughout the last ten years lined the walls. Local commendations, benefits they’d hosted, people they’d helped, the growth of a family business chronicled a decade of success. But in the more recent area, photos of Lisa with the telltale chemo hats lined the wall with all the rest.
A part of her hated those pictures. Another part championed them as a battle won. And the extra curl in her current hair was an interesting change from the straight locks she’d had for twenty-eight years. Soft curls and waves? She didn’t mind them at all, but she minded the look that dulled Alex’s eyes. The pain she saw on Emma’s face.
Emma recovered first. “You had breast cancer?”
Always direct, Lisa refused to sugarcoat things. “Yes. Five years ago.”
“Oh, Lisa.” Emma reached out and took her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Lisa wouldn’t have expected grown-up empathy in ten-year-old eyes, but Emma was a one-of-a-kind kid. “Thank you, honey. As you can see, I’m doing quite well now.”
“I’m glad.”
Emma’s expression said more. Alex looked battle-worn and possibly shell-shocked, but Lisa had faced that reaction before. She’d seen it on her husband’s face every day for nearly six months, until he packed up, saying he couldn’t stand the idea of waiting around for her to die.
Yup.
She recognized the body language. And it still stuck a knife-like pain into her heart, because if the conditions had been reversed, she’d have stayed and fought with Evan.
“So.” She stood, handed Alex the four sheets of paper, handed a second set to Emma, and said, “Let me know if you approve this, Alex, and we’ll get things going. We’ve got a few weeks to get rid of old plantings and perennial weeds so we start out with good weed control.”
“Good weed control is important,” Emma told her father, repeating what Lisa had explained earlier. Emma didn’t appear to notice her father’s sudden silence. Lisa couldn’t notice anything else. “That makes our job easier in the long run.”
“Weed control. Dig up old stuff.” Politely dismissive, he held the papers up, moved outside, called for Becky and Cory to head for the car, and started toward the SUV. “I’ve got to get these guys home for supper. Thank you, Lisa. I’m sure this is all fine. I’ll get back to you on the details.”
Cool. Crisp. Concise. A business deal.
She felt ridiculously hurt, a ludicrous response, because she’d just met this man a few days before. Something in his face, the humor and warmth she’d witnessed made old wonders and wishes spring back to life inside her. And even though she couldn’t act on those feelings, she couldn’t deny it felt nice to be admired.
But he’d drawn the curtain closed on humorous repartee the minute he saw the pictures of her during her year-long fight. She’d refused to hide during chemo and radiation, and she’d scheduled her bi-lateral mastectomy for early January so she’d have plenty of recovery time without messing up Christmas-tree and wreath sales. She’d used all of her strength to battle this disease, and maybe win the war. Only time would reveal that.
She waved to the girls and walked back to the fountain area, avoiding Caroline and her father. They’d read her like a book. She needed a few minutes to recover, because somewhere inside her she’d known this would happen. Men didn’t want damaged goods. Alex was no exception. And while it shouldn’t matter, it did. And that came as a wake-up call.
She didn’t bargain on meeting Adam near the mulch station.
He and Rosie came around from the back barn. The toddler raced for Lisa, arms out, eyes wide, her broad smile easing the sting of Alex’s rejection. This was the reason she worked to raise awareness. So Rosie’s generation wouldn’t have to go through the rigorous treatments she’d undergone.
“What’s wrong?” Adam’s face said she hadn’t done a good job of hiding her emotions. Given five more minutes, he wouldn’t have been able to tell, but right now she was an open wound, raw and bleeding.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing when it makes you look like you want to cry,” Adam scolded in a none-too-gentle brotherly voice. “Who hurt your feelings? And where are they? I’ll punch them for you.”
“You can’t. You’ll get fired and then who will buy Rosie pretty dresses and fancy shoes?”
“You. You spoil her all the time.”
“Love doesn’t spoil children,” Lisa told him. She sighed, rubbed her cheek against the toddler’s soft, dark curls and shrugged. “I forget how cancer scares people. And then I see the reality in their eyes when they find out, and—”
“Alex Steele?” Adam interrupted her with a nod toward the road leading to town.
She nodded.
He rubbed his jaw, made a face and said, “Listen, sis—”
“It’s okay, Adam. I get it. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with those expressions before. I’m a big girl. I can handle this.”
“You don’t get it.” Adam looked torn, then lifted his shoulders. “I don’t talk about private stuff at work. None of us do. When we’re on the job, we stay on the job. Full focus. Troopers that lose their focus can get killed.”
She knew that. They’d buried a young trooper two years before, a victim of a hit-and-run driver on the Interstate while he wrote out a speeding ticket. Focus was clutch in police work.
“But I know this much—Alex’s wife died of breast cancer.”
Lisa’s heart gripped tight.
Her pulse bumped down, then up.
Realization made her feel foolish. She hadn’t seen revulsion in Alex’s eyes, on his face. She’d seen naked fear, a replica of the emotion she knew so well. Too well.
“She fought just like you did,” Adam continued. “I know this because one of the other guys that transferred in worked Monroe County with him. But we don’t talk about it. We just figured he could use some prayer. And moral support. It’s hard coming in as a boss in a new setting. Not all the guys are happy when outsiders are brought in. But we needed a new lieutenant in B.C.I., and Alex wanted a fresh start for his family. Something without reminders.”
He’d lost his wife, the mother of three sweet children.
He’d