She was giving him an out, and he was tempted to take it. “Maybe you and your daughter—”
“Niece.” She lowered her voice. “She is Delia’s daughter. Her name is Emma Banks.”
“Oh.” Joe swallowed. He hadn’t seen that one coming. And the fact that he hadn’t considered it was another sign that he wasn’t at the top of his game.
“Delia made me Emma’s guardian.”
That sad, empty look entered her eyes again. Pressing her lips together, as if to settle her emotions, she smiled at the child. Emma had released her hand and was scrambling into a waiting-area chair.
“Emma, be careful. You’re going to get hurt.”
The child barely glanced back at her aunt before righting her backside in the chair and reaching for a brochure on the table next to her. She pretended to read the document on Michigan’s concealed-weapon permit laws, but she held it upside down.
“Honey, why don’t you put that back?”
“No.” Emma clutched the brochure to her chest.
“She can have that one,” Joe said.
Lindsay smiled, appearing relieved to skip the battle. “She’s a great kid … usually.”
“You’re lucky to have each other,” he said, when nothing else better came to mind.
He couldn’t help glancing again at Emma. The girl had lost her mother, a reality that no child should have to experience, and a horror that he knew firsthand. At least he could remember a few things about his own mother. Her sweet spirit. Her soft hair. Emma wouldn’t remember her mother at all, except through pictures and through the stories relatives like Lindsay would tell her.
A lump formed in his throat as he looked back to Lindsay, who was watching her niece, as well. Lindsay’s eyes were moist.
Joe knew he’d lost. Whether or not he was at fault for the accident, he couldn’t help feeling partially responsible for Emma losing her mother and for Lindsay being saddled with the responsibility of a child. The least he could do was to answer a few uncomfortable questions for them.
“How about we get out of here? There’s a park in New Hudson where Emma can play while I answer your questions.”
“Park?” Emma’s eyes lit up, and she was already climbing down from the chair.
“It’s settled then,” he said.
Lindsay looked back to him and smiled. Her smile was so potent, so mesmerizing, that Joe had to turn away to keep from gawking at her.
That he happened to turn toward Clara, who was watching him instead of her computer screen, was downright unfortunate. She gave him a knowing smile. He frowned. Clara had no idea what situation she was messing with.
“See you tomorrow, Clara,” Joe called out, as he opened the door for Lindsay and Emma.
“Park! Park!” the child called out.
With Lindsay balancing on her cane and holding Emma’s hand, it was slow going, but they finally reached the white four-door in one of the visitor spaces.
“Do you mean the park built on the old landfill?” she asked, as she opened the left rear door.
“That’s the one. James Atchison Memorial Park.”
He waited until she’d buckled the child in her car seat and climbed into her car before he jogged around the building to the lot where troopers parked their personal vehicles. He climbed into his quad-cab pickup, relieved to be inside, even if the interior was smoldering.
“You owe them this much,” he whispered to the inside walls of the truck cab.
Why did you save me instead of her? Her question reverberated through his thoughts again, as dread made his limbs feel heavy. How was he supposed to answer that? But he would answer it and her other questions, telling her as much of the truth as he could.
Only after he’d answered Lindsay’s questions and put her and her niece out of his life would he be able to tuck away his own questions about his instincts on the job and finally get his edge back. He had to reclaim it somehow—soon—before he lost his job or got himself or someone else killed.
“Push me again, Trooper Joe.”
“Okay, but only one last time, Miss Emma,” he said. “Then we need to take a break.”
His muscled arms flexing against the fabric of his polo shirt, Joe pushed the swing. This time Emma went so high that the swing jerked for a weightless moment at the top before gliding back down again. Instead of crying like Lindsay thought she might, Emma laughed with that delighted sound that only children can make.
“Do it again. Do it again,” Emma called out.
“Okay, but just one … more … time.”
The two of them had been playing like this for half an hour, and Lindsay didn’t see them stopping anytime soon. So much for the trooper answering questions. She shouldn’t have been surprised he was avoiding it, when he had appeared ready to cancel their meeting entirely until he’d learned that Emma was Delia’s daughter.
He’d only changed his mind because of Emma. Was it that obvious, even to a stranger, that Lindsay wouldn’t be a good guardian? She already had enough uncertainties herself, without having others question her. Why did Emma take to Joe so easily, even giving him a nickname after knowing him for ten minutes, when everything had been a struggle for Lindsay? She could barely get her niece to eat her vegetables or brush her teeth. Lindsay was the woman here. Where was the maternal instinct that was supposed to kick in when she needed it?
At least they were having fun, Lindsay decided, as she sat on a blanket, watching from beneath one of the park’s few shade trees. And she couldn’t have kept up with Emma’s running, anyway. Running was a part of a whole other life for Lindsay … the one before the accident.
Joe finally jogged up to the blanket, carrying Emma piggyback. “I think we’re both ready for a nap.”
“You must be,” Lindsay agreed, shifting, so her stiff leg would be in a more comfortable position.
But Emma shook her head. “I don’t want a nap.”
Joe lowered Emma to the ground and then he dropped on his knees on the blanket. When he was seated, with his legs stretched out and crossing his ankles, Emma settled next to him, sitting in the same position.
“Whew, it’s hot out here.” Joe brushed his hand back through his light brown hair that he wore trimmed close on the sides, but slightly longer on top. On his day off, he’d put a little gel in it.
“Whew.” Emma copied his move, brushing back her bangs.
“You’ve got a little mimic there.”
Joe only smiled. The last thing Lindsay would have expected was for a tough police officer to be good with kids. But then, Trooper Rossetti was nothing if not a contradiction, with his towering linebacker build and a face that could have landed him on the cover of GQ.
“Here. I brought these.” Lindsay reached into her bag and handed them juice boxes. She was pleased with herself that she’d remembered those and some animal crackers. At least she had the snack-preparedness part of being a guardian down.
“Thanks.” He helped Emma pop her straw through the hole in her box and started on his own.
By the time that both boxes were empty, Emma was already snuggling down on the blanket, her lids heavy.
“Somebody needs a nap after all,” Joe whispered.
For a few minutes, Joe sat brushing Emma’s sweaty bangs back from her face with his fingertips in a tender move that again didn’t fit with the image of a tough police officer. Lindsay