It was bad enough that the brunette was a strikingly beautiful woman who’d gotten the better of him. Under any circumstances, Brick would have hated lying here on the ground, dizzy and wounded, with a looker like that leaning over him. Knowing that she was the one who’d hurt him, knowing that she was his new boss, knowing that she had stolen the job that was rightfully his and would lord it over him—lady it over him!—as long as she lasted in Tyler...it was just too damn much.
Incredibly, the brunette had the unmitigated gall to offer a hand to help him up. Brick ignored it. Still steaming, he struggled to stand up on his own, but when his wobbly knees gave out he plopped back down on the ground.
“I’m Captain Keppler, Lieutenant,” the beauty informed Brick, still towering over him. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. Are you injured?”
Brick tried to swallow his fury as the front door opened and he heard Paul Schmidt call out, “We thought we heard somebody out here. Glad you found the place all right, Captain.” Then, after a sharp breath, “What the devil—”
“Lieutenant Bauer had a little accident,” his new captain said bluntly, her husky voice devoid of humor or concern. “He’s bleeding.”
The next few minutes were a nightmare for Brick. Paul instantly called out, “Somebody get George Phelps out here!” and rushed over to his side. “Brick, what happened? Are you all right?”
Brick had to steady himself on the gate as he tried—and failed again—to stand. His spine felt battered and his scraped jaw stung. Blood dribbled down his chin to the gravel.
By this time half a dozen people had bounded out of the house. Through the din of worried friends and co-workers, he recognized a few voices: Judson Ingalls’s, Janice Eber’s, and—it was inevitable—Shelley’s.
She sounded just the way she used to when he’d gotten hurt playing football. “Brick! Oh, Brick! You’re bleeding! Let George take a look at you and—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” he burst out, ready to strangle the whole lot of them. He was fully upright now and his head was finally clear. “I’m fine, my suit’s a wreck and Aunt Anna wants me to meet some damn boarder at home by nine o’clock. I just dropped by to say hello to Shelley, goodbye to the chief and to meet Captain Keppler. I guess I’ve done all three, so if you don’t mind—”
“It won’t seem right without you here, Brick,” protested Zachary Phelps, a former chief of police, a fellow Kelseys’ boarder and a member of the town’s council. The tone of his voice said more than his words: Zachary was still feeling guilty for having voted to merge the Tyler Police Department with the Sugar Creek County Sheriff’s Department, even though he’d explained to Brick in detail why the town’s financial situation demanded it. Brick was certain that neither Zachary nor anybody else on the council had ever believed that the regional commander would bring in outside talent to run Tyler’s law enforcement in the wake of Paul Schmidt’s retirement. As Zachary studied Karen Keppler in the dim porch light, Brick read the same dismay on the old man’s face as he was sure Zachary read on his own.
“Brick, I thought we’d have a chance to talk,” Shelley said quietly, so quietly that probably no one but the nearby captain could hear. “I haven’t seen you in years.”
Brick gave his old flame a quick glance, trying to remember why he’d wondered if some seed of love for her still lingered within him. Oh, she was still pretty...though she’d cut her long, black hair. But she was a stranger, a woman who’d chosen the big city and the scientific world over anything Brick could offer, and he knew that his earlier momentary fantasy had had nothing to do with her.
Kindly he said, “I’ll call you, Shelley. Maybe we can have lunch sometime before you go.”
He saw something different in the eyes of Captain Keppler, who still stood tensely in front of him. Calculation, assessment...disapproval that did not bode well for a police officer under her command.
By this time George Phelps, head of staff at Tyler General Hospital and Aunt Anna’s boss, had pushed his way through the gathering crowd. “Everybody get back!” George commanded, like Moses parting the Red Sea.
They did pull back, but they didn’t disperse. Impatiently Brick snapped, “There’s nothing wrong with me a dab of Bactine won’t cure, George. If you want to help, just get all these folks to stop gawking at me, would you?”
George seemed to get the picture faster than anybody else. Then again, he was a doctor, and he knew when blood was serious and when it was just as embarrassing as hell.
His eyes were sympathetic as he called out, “Okay, everybody, Brick’s fine. Let’s go back inside.”
Before Brick could thank him, Captain Keppler asked in a businesslike tone, “Are you feeling strong enough to drive, Lieutenant? I can ask one of the other officers to take you home.”
“I can take care of myself, Captain,” he snapped. If she’d been a man, he would have been hard-pressed to keep from decking her. But he’d been raised to be gentle with women; he’d been raised to obey his boss. Still, he wasn’t used to the raging fury that was strangling him at the moment. It was something new and terrible, a beast he knew he must learn to subdue. A beast that drove from his heart the slightest interest in getting reacquainted with Shelley, lauding his old boss or kissing up to his new one.
Reluctantly Shelley said good-night, then turned back to the house. Her father shooed a couple of other men after her. Captain Keppler, rebuttoning her coat, had the nerve to look downright pretty as she brushed past Brick without another word and followed them inside.
While the sounds of laughter from the house drifted out to his still-red ears, Brick limped out to his truck. On the street he ran into two more late arrivals from the substation—Sergeant Steve Fletcher and tubby Orson Clayton—but he ducked into his truck before they could see that he’d been roughed up. Tomorrow would be soon enough for them to start their ribbing.
By the time he turned on the ignition, the scrapes on Brick’s jaw were beginning to clot over, but his backbone was hurting worse than ever. He’d broken up barroom brawls with less pain and certainly less humiliation! By morning every damn soul in Tyler would know how Brick Bauer had been bested by the new female captain who’d been hired instead of him. The gouges on his face would heal a lot sooner than the scars on his pride.
* * *
KAREN STAYED at the party longer than she’d intended, not because she was enjoying herself—she wasn’t—and not because she thought courtesy demanded it. It was Paul Schmidt’s moment of honor, which in a town this size meant that most of his fans and foes were likely to make an appearance. Karen wanted to study those people with great care...particularly the ones who’d been an important part of Schmidt’s life for the past forty years or so.
At the top of the list was Judson Ingalls. Everybody kowtowed to him as though he owned the town. Ditto for his elegant blond daughter, Alyssa Ingalls Baron. Ingalls also had a niece named Janice Eber, who seemed sweet and unassuming, but Karen wasn’t taking anything at face value. The doctor was a Tyler fixture, as was the lady who owned the diner and the flamboyant one who cut everybody’s hair.
And then there were the other cops. Lieutenant Bauer—why did they call him Brick?—had only lived here since high school, according to Karen’s information, but his relatives had lived here for generations, and that might be highly significant. Both Alyssa and Janice were Bauer’s aunt’s close friends. The fact that he had some sort of relationship with Schmidt’s daughter might also prove important, and not just because it had provided the catalyst for his unfortunate first meeting with Karen.
If only that handsome man had been able to read her mind! If only he’d guessed how terrible she felt about embarrassing him, how frightened