Page 243 of Her Reluctant Hero
“I was married. Before.”
The words hit him like a hammer in the chest. He hadn’t expected it, but couldn’t say why. She wasn’t a kid. But hell, she’d walked away from all those jobs. Had she done the same to her marriage? He didn’t know what to say, except, “You still love him. You think you might go back to him?”
She lifted both hands to her head, like she was holding herself together. “No, he died. Nineteen months ago.”
Gabe felt a rush of relief at the same time he felt idiotic about his assumptions. Like he needed proof he was an asshole. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head as if she’d heard those words so many times they’d lost all meaning. “It was another lifetime.”
He folded and unfolded his hands on the dresser behind him, wanting to hold her, not sure he should. Not sure he should ask, but he did. “How did he die?”
She sucked in a deep breath. “He was on the SWAT team. First through the door, every time. The last time someone was waiting for him.”
Though he sensed what was coming, the words hit hard. “God.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. He hated seeing her in pain, wanted to stop the flow his question had brought.
“They’d staked out a chop shop for months and were ready to bring it down.” She gave a little laugh. “Bring it down. I even talk like he did. Anyway, it was totally by the book, the flashbangs, the count. Dan was first through the door, except someone was coming out. They shot him in the face a second after he came in.”
Gabe didn’t have the best imagination, but damn, those words brought a chilling picture to his mind. He wondered how good of an imagination she had, how forthcoming the police department would have been with those details, and a thought struck him.
“You were there.”
“I was.” The words were rough. “I was new at the paper, where I worked before I got this job, writing, which I knew I could love. I wanted to make a splash, and I was following a scoop, so I went to the chop shop with my photographer. I didn’t know I’d end up as the story, screaming over the death of my husband.”
Had she pulled further away or had he? There was a definite chasm between them, painful after last night. But if he was honest, she hadn’t opened herself to him last night.
He hadn’t opened himself to her completely, either, but more than he had to any other woman since Jen.
She choked, and he couldn’t bring himself to reach for her.
“Dan knew I was there. He was mad about it. But he was usually so focused. I didn’t think I was putting him in danger. If I’d listened—” She swallowed, looked down at her hands. “I loved him.” Her voice was thinner, higher, a ghost of the voice of the woman he knew. “He settled me down in a way nothing else could. I mean, we were thinking about having kids. He wouldn’t have been the same person if he hadn’t been a cop, if he hadn’t been so good at it, committed. It made my life hard, but he loved who he was. It gave him this confidence, this belief in himself that he was invincible.”
Gabe knew something about that. “I guess there are people who have to do this kind of job to make them feel like they’re alive.”
“Except it’s an easy way to get not alive anymore.” She took a deep breath, drawing back tears. They rattled in her throat. “They gave him a hero’s burial, a twenty-one-gun salute. I have the flag from his casket. After he died, well, I woke up. I had to find a focus or drown.”
He pictured her at the graveside, too young to be a widow. Had anyone been with her to comfort her? Or had she been alone?
“What about the guy who killed him?” He turned the conversation, needing it to be about results instead of questions. “Did they catch him?”
“He’s still awaiting trial.”
“After nineteen months?”
“Justice is a slow process.” She gave him a sad little Mona Lisa smile. “It just doesn’t matter now. It won’t bring Dan back.”
“And you writing these articles? It’s because of him?”
She nodded. “All because of him.”
Guilt. It made you do things you never thought you’d do. But as Gabe pulled the hotel door shut behind them, he wished he didn’t know she’d wanted her husband to be someone he wasn’t.
