Shielded By The Lawman
One conflicted cop must protect a woman living a lie
A riveting True Blue story
Trooper Jamie Donovan suspects there’s more to Sarah Cline than the waitress reveals. And Sarah, on the run with her son from an abusive ex-husband, won’t trust Jamie with the truth. But when danger—greater than she realized—catches up to Sarah, Jamie confronts the biggest dilemma of his life: uphold his oath or aid and abet the woman he loves?
DANA NUSSIO began telling “people stories” around the same time she started talking. She has been doing both things nonstop ever since. The award-winning newspaper reporter and features editor left her career while raising three daughters, but the stories followed her home as she discovered the joy of writing fiction. Now an award-winning fiction author as well, she loves telling emotional stories filled with honorable but flawed characters. Empty nesters, Dana and her husband of more than twenty-five years live in Michigan with two overfed cats, Leo the Wondercat and Annabelle Lee the Neurotic.
Also By Dana Nussio
True Blue
Shielded by the Lawman
Strength Under Fire
Falling for the Cop
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
Shielded by the Lawman
Dana Nussio
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-09366-8
SHIELDED BY THE LAWMAN
© 2019 Dana Corbit Nussio
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Version: 2020-03-02
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“You leap out of your skin every time the bells chime at the diner.”
Sarah shook her head. “I already—”
He kept going, despite her attempt to interrupt. “I know. But how could you never get used to sounds you hear all day...every day? And there’s more. You’re always watching the front door of the diner...as if maybe you’re dreading whomever the next customer will be.”
“Now, that’s just silly. I’m just doing my job being prepared for customers.”
“You didn’t want anyone to know about Aiden...or your last name.”
Now she only shrugged. If he hadn’t bought her excuse the first time, he was unlikely to buy it now.
“Do you have any idea how many times you looked over your shoulder at the zoo today?”
“I did not.”
Why couldn’t Jamie stop asking questions? Just because he’d told her his deep, dark secrets didn’t mean that she had agreed to share hers. Besides, he was getting too close to the truth. What if he found out everything?
* * *
Dear Reader,
Hello, Harlequin Romantic Suspense readers! I’m excited to be in my new publishing home at Harlequin Romantic Suspense and to share Shielded by the Lawman with you. As a huge romantic-suspense fan myself, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to write the same type of stories that are on my Kindle or on the tattered pages of my own paperback collection. Sarah and Jamie’s story has lived in my thoughts for several years now, so it was a joy—and a relief—to finally get the chance to write it. I hope you’ll love these characters and their journey to trust, healing and love as much as I do.
True Blue is a brand-new series for Harlequin Romantic Suspense, but it is also a continuation of the contemporary romance series I wrote for Harlequin Superromance. Bonus! True Blue is about the lives and loves of the brave men and women from a Michigan State Police post. Now with Romantic Suspense, these characters get to face an even rockier—and more sinister—road to forever love. If you can’t get enough of the True Blue crew for now, then meet a few more of the gang in my Superromance backlist titles, Strength Under Fire and Falling for the Cop. Meanwhile, I’ll be back at my computer, working on the next dark and dangerous adventure.
I love staying in contact with readers, no matter how you choose to connect. Learn more about me and sign up for my newsletter through my website, www.dananussio.com; connect with me on Facebook or Twitter, @DanaNussio1; or drop me a line on real paper at PO Box 5, Novi, MI 48376-0005.
Happy reading!
Dana Nussio
To Randy, for believing in me and supporting my dreams, even when that means you must keep wearing dress clothes and fighting traffic while I’m at home telling stories in my PJs. Thanks for loving me and ensuring that our three daughters didn’t starve during deadline mania and, let’s admit it, most of the other times, as well. You are my hero.
A special thanks to Officer David Willett, of the Michigan State Police, for patiently answering all my questions, even the strange ones; and to my dear friends Angela Armstrong, for inspiring me through your own true-life romance with a hunky police hero, and Cindy Thomas, for your constant support and superior country-music-festival matchmaking. As always, I would like to thank the real heroes in law enforcement, those who every day don the uniform with dignity and accept the duty and risk of protecting the rest of us. May God go with you all!
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
Dear Reader
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Another day, another death. A continual supply of senseless carnage. Solutions buried deeper than the corpses fallen by their own hands.
Jamie Donovan squeezed his eyes shut and took several gulps of dank air to slow the pulse pounding like hi-hat cymbals in his ears. He would give anything for the pummeling inside his head to let up, even if the deluge pelting his hoodie refused. But he couldn’t keep pacing in the frigid early April rain outside Casey’s Diner like a despondent person. Did he want someone to call the police on him?
So, he yanked open the door and ground his molars as the wind caught it and clanged those obnoxious bells against the glass. He stomped inside and wrestled the door closed. Rain dripped off his coat and puddled on the mat. As if to punctuate his misery, water trickled from his hood to his nose. He brushed it away with a soggy sleeve.
Why had he agreed to come at all? The answer to that was clear, even before nearly a dozen expectant faces turned to him from the line of tables on the far wall. If he hadn’t at least made an appearance at the diner tonight, his fellow Michigan State Police troopers would have known he was not okay after the events that occurred during his shift. And they’d have had proof that he’d lied when he said he was. How was he was supposed to fake normalcy when the usually delicious scents of frying bacon, cinnamon and fresh-baked somethings were rolling his insides like six-foot swells trapping a boat on Lake Michigan?
“Whoa there, Hercules!” Sergeant Vincent Leonetti called out.
The others laughed the way they usually did at Vinnie’s jokes, but the sound fell flat. Everyone was trying too hard. They all thought he was just sensitive to the type of case he’d investigated tonight. Weak-stomached even. If they only knew. But because they seemed to need him to pretend, Jamie pushed back his hood and started toward the table.
Suicide attempt. Why did they call them attempts? Like a gymnast trying out an amazing, double-twist dismount. That guy’s effort wasn’t an attempt, anyway. It was a frigging success, with blood spatter like a Jackson Pollock painting on the living room wall to prove it.
Jamie had been too late. Again.
Though his face felt hot, a chill edged up his spine and gooseflesh peppered his skin beneath his sleeves. Bile that he’d forced back earlier crawled from his stomach again, lukewarm and bitter. He had to get control. As he turned his head to the side, he hoped to avoid eye contact with any of the officers who knew him too well and yet not at all.
Her gaze snagged his instead.
Jamie could only stare back at her. Somehow, he managed to prevent his mouth from falling open, but keeping his feet moving toward that table was damn near impossible. Sarah. The petite, ethereal beauty who’d never once looked back at any of the Brighton Post troopers when they’d tested their best lines on her. Whose last name no one knew and whose first name they probably still wouldn’t know after two years if it wasn’t emblazoned on her waitress badge and she didn’t have to scribble it on their bills each time she waited on them.
That Sarah was watching him.
Stranger still, her haunting, pale blue eyes were piercing him deeper than an RIP bullet at close range. As if she could see everything he was trying to hide from his coworkers. Everything he wished he could forget.
And then it was over. She looked away and tucked those wavy, dark blond tendrils that fell loose from her ponytail behind her ears. That was one of her nervous habits he’d observed. Twisting her gold locket was another. They were things she did when she thought no one was watching. Now she smoothed her apron and grabbed a tub to bus a vacated table.
Jamie blinked several times. Had he imagined their moment of connection? Wow, his mind had really gone off-road this time. His lips lifted as he reached his coworkers, hung his sweatshirt over the back of the lone empty chair and dropped into it.
That he could smile at all after everything that had happened tonight was as surprising as his reaction to poor Sarah’s simple glance. Of course, she’d looked at him. This was her table. She’d taken note of him only so that she could drop by an extra water glass and more wrapped silverware.
Anyway, just because he’d secretly watched her for months didn’t mean she’d paid any attention to him. And he’d watched her, all right. As closely as a witness expected to give expert testimony. What did it say about him that he could describe her impossibly pale skin and dancer-like movements and could almost feel the silk of wavy hair he’d never touched?
He rubbed the damp sleeves of his Henley shirt as much to settle himself as to relieve the chill. He should have known better than to go out in public tonight.
“Did you drive here or swim?” Vinnie asked.
“Both. Did you see how it was coming down out there?”
Kelly Roberts watched him closely. “It wasn’t raining yet when we came in.”
A few of the others murmured their agreement. He was later than the rest of them, but it wasn’t because he’d let tonight’s events get to him. That would mean he’d allowed his past to seep into the present again, its persistent spread threatening to smother his plan to help at-risk youth.
“We already ordered, but we can call Sarah over if you’re ready.” At the other end of the table, pretty boy Nick Sanchez waggled an eyebrow.
“Oh, he’s ready,” Vinnie said, managing to draw a stilted laugh from the others.
“And who knows? Maybe the earth will shift, and Sarah will be primed like an Indy car engine, too,” Dion Carson quipped.
Jamie pressed his lips together. He hated the way the guys talked about women when they were off work. About Sarah in particular. No matter how many times he’d called them on it, they never stopped.
“If she is primed, you know she’ll be coming right over to me,” Nick added.
The women and even the men frowned at Nick and then shrugged. Now that the post’s resident Adonis, Shane Warner, was married, Nick had the best shot with any woman. Female drivers gawked at him, even when he was issuing traffic citations.
“That’s enough, guys. She’s a person,” Jamie ground out. “Leave her alone.”
Chuckles spread around the table. Had they been baiting him to see if he would react as he normally did? Well, he’d passed that test. Yes, he was Jamie, defender of women and hero to lost kittens. A nice guy, and everyone knew where they finished.
“You guys are lucky she’s still willing to serve at our table at all,” he groused. “And you’re lucky I don’t recommend all of you for another round of sexual harassment training.”
“Please, not that. We can be good.” Dion lifted his right hand to back up his promise. “Anyway, we’re not that bad.”
“And we pay great tips,” Kelly supplied.
Jamie nodded. Sarah probably needed that tip money, too. Working the night shift at a diner in Brighton, a southeast Michigan city of less than eight thousand, didn’t shout financially secure.
The image of her eyes stole into his thoughts again, huge orbs of liquid sky, so striking and yet so...guarded. Were there secrets behind them? Or just regrets, like his?
“Anyway, won’t you guys ever give up on her?” Delia Morgan Peterson called from the head of the table. “She doesn’t want anything to do with any of you.”
“And give up a challenge like that? Never!” Vinnie shoved his fist into the air.
Lieutenant Ben Peterson rested his hand on Delia’s slightly rounded tummy. “If the alien here turns out to be a girl, we’ll have to protect her from guys like you.”
Kelly handed Jamie a menu. “Now would you guys let him order? We’ll be paying our bills before his food comes.”
Jamie made a show of studying the photos of omelets and pancakes and the extensive burger collection, though he could recite the list from memory. Anything he ate would sit in his stomach like a hunk of granite, but the sooner he shoved it down, the sooner he could go home and wrestle in private with the memories tonight’s events had unearthed.
“What will it be?” Dion asked.
Jamie turned to find Sarah standing right behind him, the starched white apron of her pink cliché uniform nearly brushing his chair. She shot a quick glance toward the front door, as she often did, and then set a cup and saucer to his right.
“Decaf?” she asked, already tipping the carafe.
“Never know. He might be in the mood for orange soda tonight,” Vinnie quipped.
“Oh.” She stopped mid pour and cleared her throat. “Sorry.”
“Don’t pay attention to him. Decaf’s fine.” In fact, decaf was the only choice for his insomnia.
“You guys.” She tipped the carafe again. “You ready to order?”
“Oh. Right.” He chose the same hamburger he ordered at least once a week.
She jotted down the information on the pad inside her black binder, and then she disappeared into the kitchen behind the swinging door.
Suddenly, Jamie wished Sarah, or any of them, had seen through his act as he’d pretended that that nothing was out of the ordinary tonight. It didn’t seem right that a human life could have been snuffed out a few hours before and their days would just rumble forward as if nothing had happened. Just another Western burger, medium-well. Another round of coffee refills and jokes they’d all heard before. As if that life had never mattered at all.
“What did you think about that rain?” Trevor Cole asked from the seat to his left.
Jamie rested his forearms on the table edge. “A little early for swimming.”
“Right about that,” Trevor said. “Lucky it wasn’t snowing like it did last week. It’s going to be a while before I take my boat out on Kent Lake.”
“At least you’ve got a boat.”
“As much work as old Esmerelda is, I think she’s got me rather than the other way around.” But then Trevor leaned close and spoke to Jamie in a low, stiff voice. “You doing okay? Because if you need someone to talk—”
“I’m good,” Jamie whispered. A white lie wasn’t so bad when they both needed for him to say it.
Vinnie reached over to poke Trevor’s shoulder. “You mean Esmerelda’s still floating?”
Jamie tried to settle back in his chair. At least they were talking about inane things like Trevor’s boat and the big-top theme for Ben and Delia’s nursery. The regular stuff of life instead of the tragic consequences of unfortunate decisions and mental distress that played equal roles in their working lives.
“There’s some speedy service for you,” Vinnie said, as Sarah returned to the table, carrying a tray laden with plates.
“Hope you know we won’t be waiting for you to eat.” Nick stuffed a French fry in his mouth.
“No. Go ahead. Eat while it’s hot.”
Vinnie took a big bite of his hamburger and then spoke with a full mouth. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Jamie laced his fingers together and rested his wrists on the table. At least no one was watching him now. He’d only assumed that the others would make a big deal out of his investigation tonight. Most of them didn’t even know about Mark’s suicide. Didn’t know about the guilt Jamie carried over the things a big brother should have noticed but hadn’t.
No, he couldn’t think about that. Not when his senses were still filled with the pungent scents of a discharged weapon and blood, and the dark images of a crime scene. Not when he needed his coworkers to see that he could shake this off. Needed to believe it himself.
Sarah appeared again, with Ted, one of the owners, trailing behind her. Both carried trays full of food. The other officers ate their meals, their conversations ending or limited to those seated closest to them.
In the cacophony of plates scratching, silverware clinking and ice cubes tinkling, Jamie let his thoughts slip back to that night’s grisly discovery. Then further. Even nine years later, he couldn’t think of his funny, smiling brother without seeing Mark’s lifeless body dangling in the garage.
Regret, the kind that only someone who has known true loss could understand, covered him, filling every crevice with emptiness, hopelessness and damnation. He’d tried to stop reliving the day of Mark’s death, but that night’s events had cued up the scene again.
“I got this out here as soon as I could.”
The soft, feminine voice from behind him startled him from his daze.
Sarah held another tray and indicated the other diners with a shift of her head. “They’re nearly finished.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He wished he had something clever to say, but as usual, he came up empty. Dion beat him to it.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready for dessert,” Dion announced. “What kind of pies have you been baking today, Miss Sarah?”
“A bit of chocolate heaven or blueberry rapture?” Vinnie suggested hopefully.
Jamie didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that Sarah’s face would be as pink as her uniform. She seemed so uncomfortable whenever anyone mentioned her baking. He wished Ted hadn’t let them in on the secret that she was responsible for all the new pies, cakes and breads on the menu.
She cleared her throat. “We have eclair cake with chocolate ganache and just one piece left of the lemon cake with whipped frosting and—”
“Stop right there,” Nick interrupted. “Sold. Both.”
She bent her head to jot a note. “And for pies, we have apple amaretto, strawberry rhubarb and lemon meringue.”
Several of Jamie’s colleagues placed orders, and a few declined in defense of their waistlines. When she reached him, he shook his head. “I shouldn’t.”
“No, you should,” Trevor said. “Give him his favorite. The apple. On my ticket.”
Jamie didn’t bother arguing. It would be too obvious if he turned down free pie. Even if his slice was Trevor’s second clumsy attempt to comfort him.
“Sorry. I owed him,” Trevor said, as Sarah returned to the kitchen. “And no, I don’t owe any of the rest of you anything.”
When the waitress rested the dessert plate next to his barely touched burger, Jamie could only stare. Whoever had cut the pies must have flunked division in math because that slice made all the other pieces look like slivers. Had Sarah picked up on Trevor’s pity-pie ploy and decided to stuff Jamie in sympathy? He glanced right and left, but the others were too busy inhaling their own desserts to notice his.
From the first bite, Jamie nearly forgot about his awful day and his shaky stomach. He closed his eyes and savored the sweet almond-liquor flavor that counterbalanced the tart apples. The flaky crust melted on his tongue.