Secrets Of The Heart (Book 1, The Heart Series) (27 page)

Her red-haired friend smiled triumphantly, her green eyes dancing merrily. “We thought so. We’ve got a good cure for that. How about another all girls night?”

Bree groaned. “No way. The last time I did I nearly got a traffic ticket for my troubles.”

A peel of giggles erupted, so fast and so hard, that Tessa had to grab hold of the desk to keep steady.

Enjoying her friend’s delight put Bree in a better mood. “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”

“Uh huh.”

Searching the empty beauty salon, Bree grew curious. “Where’s your cohort?”

“Jewel? It was so slow. I talked her into going up to the Surplus store to buy Sean those expensive sneakers he’s had his eye on.”

Frowning, she asked, “But I thought he told her to forget it since she didn’t have the extra money.”

“He did, great kid that he is and all.” She shrugged, saying, “She dipped into her savings to buy them for him.”

“I’ll chip in. I’ve got extra now that I moved out of my apartment and in with Nick. Business is good, too.”

“My tips are up. I’ll pitch in, too. Sean deserves it. And she needs the help.”

The sudden shrill ring of the phone startled Bree, making her jump. She winced at her edginess; whenever she heard a phone ring these days she expected it to be
him.

“Want me to get if for you?” Tessa asked, clearly picking up on Bree’s discomfort.

Shaking her head, Bree rounded up the last of her dying courage. On the third ring, she lifted the receiver, automatically saying the shop’s name and tacking on, “May I help you?”

“Oh, thank God, it’s you, Bree!”

Worry formed a knot in her middle at the panicky tone. “Jewel, is that you?”

“I tried your house, but there was no answer. I’m so glad you were at the shop or I wouldn’t know what I’d have done.” The usually unflappable Jewel seemed totally out of sorts.

Bree pushed Tessa’s hand away as she tried to yank at the phone. “Let me talk to Jewel.”

“Wait, Tessa.” Returning the receiver near her mouth once again, Bree asked, “What’s wrong? Is it Sean?”

“No, no, not him.”

“You, then? Are you hurt? Were you in an accident?”

Tessa piped up, “An accident? Is she at the hospital?”

Gripping the phone, Bree felt a sliver of alarm snake its way down her spine. “Jewel, answer me!”

“Oh, Bree, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. I was shopping at the Surplus, that’s where I’m at now. And these people came in talking about something that went on at the police barracks.”

“Jewel, just tell me!”

She sucked in a shaky breath. “There’s been a shooting. Nick’s involved.”

The phone slipped through her nerveless fingers, cracking when it made contact with the desk.

***

Flying down the highway a few minutes later, Bree clung to the steering wheel. A paralyzing fear squeezed her insides, forcing the queasiness residing there to rise to her throat as she prayed, “Dear God, please let Nick be all right. I’ll do anything, promise anything, if you only keep him safe.”

A wave of emptiness crashed over her. She blinked back the sudden moisture gathering in her eyes. A whimper escaped as she imagined having to tell her daughter Nick was hurt, or worse, dead. “Oh no! Don’t do this to Sydney. Please, not her.”

As she honked at the slow moving car in front of her, and then skillfully weaved around it, she recalled the short span of time she and Nick had had together. Both sweet and painful memories collided in her mind.

“So much wasted time with all the mistrust, lies, arguments, distance…”

All because of me and my damn pride
.

“Just give me one more chance, God, and I’ll set things straight with Nick. I swear I’ll tell him the truth, I’ll tell him everything.”

Worry at his reaction stabbed her middle, but she thrust it aside. Nick had given so much, had tried so hard to find his way back to his faith, to trusting people, to her, that Bree knew she had to be the one to come the rest of the way in order to set them both free.

I’ll come clean with Nick, then, in time, we’ll tell Sydney together
.

“Please, let Nick be unharmed, then please let him understand why I’ve lied for so many years.”

A few minutes later, Bree swung her car into the police parking lot. Braking hard, she shoved the car into park. She raced to a waiting Jewel. All the while her heart hammered in her chest and bile threatened to erupt from her belly.

The serene parking area seemed at odds with what she’d learned. Grabbing her friend by the shoulders and shaking her, she asked, “Have you seen him? Have you heard anything?”

Her stony expression frustrated Bree even more. “I’m sorry, Bree, I was waiting for you to get here. I was too scared to find out by myself.”

“Yo, Bree!” The sweetest sound she’d ever heard came from the direction of the brick building.

She whipped around, catching sight of Nick jogging toward her. A cry caught and broke in the back of her throat as she ran to him. “Oh, Nick.”

He scooped her up the moment she reached him. His arms never felt so good to her.

He’s safe!

“You’re all right!” She silently sent up a prayer of thankfulness to the powers that be.

“The minute I could I got to a phone and finally hooked up with Tessa. She told me how bad you were shaking and how you’d floored the car out of there. Lord, I had visions of you wrapped around a metal post.”

Pulling back from the warm welcoming embrace, she just had to look at him, touch him, smell him, and taste him. She kissed him urgently at first, with a hunger born of desperation. Then, she slowed and gentled her lips, savoring his firm, masculine ones.

He broke away. “Ah…sweetness, I’m still on duty.” The reluctance in his voice brought a smile to her mouth and a joy to her core.

Running her hands over him, she demanded, “Tell me what happened. Jewel said you were involved in a shooting.”

Just then, he seemed to notice her friend. Bree heard the light footsteps approach from behind. Hesitantly, Bree loosened her hold on him, and then released him all together.

When Jewel drew near, she cuffed him on the shoulder. Tears swam in her violet eyes, stunning Bree at the uncharacteristic display of emotion. “Don’t you die on us, you big lug,” Jewel choked out.

“Us?” he asked.

“Yeah, Bree and Sydney. And my son. He’s gone and got a bad case of hero worship.”

“What about Tessa and you, if I keel over you two won’t have anyone to gossip about anymore, is that it?” The underlying roughness in his tone alerted Bree to how Jewel’s concern had deeply affected her husband.

Jewel sniffed loudly, swiping at her fast falling tears. “Of course, why else would I care about your sorry butt, Carletti?”

“Yeah, why else?” He grinned boyishly.

“Well, now that you’ve gone and scared me half to death, you’ve ruined my day.” Her no-nonsense attitude returned in full force. “I’m going back to the shop now. I have an afternoon perm to do.”

She made to leave, but turned back suddenly and hugged Bree, squeezing her so tight that Bree thought her ribs would crack. Then Jewel cuffed Nick again, saying, “Don’t let it happen again.”

Five minutes later, Bree giggled as Nick stole kisses as they sat in her now correctly parked car. The small cramped space added to the air of sacred intimacy. “You still haven’t explained anything to me.”

“Didn’t I tell you I love you a million times already?” His wicked grin melted the last of the iciness from her veins.

Sighing happily, she said, “A million and one, but who’s counting.”

Sobering, he said, “They were bringing in a disorderly drunk. His hands were cuffed in front of him, those plastic cuffs. He bucked and twisted, then grabbed one of the officers’ guns right out of his holster. I was right there. Everything happened so fast, my instincts just kicked in. When he lifted the gun up to aim, I shot the drunk in the hand. He dropped the weapon and lunged at me like a raving lunatic. He never made it, because he had ten cops wrestling him to the ground before I could ever blink.”

Aftershocks set in. Bree quaked with the overabundance of unused adrenaline. The tears she’d so successfully held at bay until now began to cloud her vision.

He’d saved a fellow officer. How like Nick!

“I thought…” She couldn’t even voice her concerns.

Pulling back slightly, he rubbed his thumb along a long, wet trail a tear had just taken. “Shhh, now. I’m fine. Still in one piece.”

Her chin quivered. “I thought my worst nightmare had come true. You don’t know how many prayers I say for you when you walk out the door to go to work.”

A deep rumble vibrated in his chest. It sounded like part moan, part cry of a wounded animal to Bree. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how much you suffered?”

“I didn’t want to concern you with my problems.”

His curse, loud and fierce, shocked her. Framing her face between his palms, he forced her to look directly into his eyes. “You look at me when I say this because it’s the last time I’m going to waste my breath on this, understand?”

She nodded slightly, restrained by the weight of his hands.

“I love you with everything that’s in me, Bree Hansen Carletti. All your problems are
mine
, however big or small. If you hurt, I hurt. If you cry, know that I’m crying on the inside, too.”

Stunned wonder rained down on her as she gazed into fiery dark brown eyes filled with a wealth of love. Should she risk telling him her fears?

Taking a deep, shaky breath she tried to put her worries into words. “I’m so scared, Nick. Losing Vinnie hurt me. Partly because I'd lost a friend long before the bullet took him away. A lot of what I felt were self-recriminations for not trying hard enough, not going the extra mile to repair the damage that I helped inflict. But…” Her voice broke. “But it’s not even close to the pain I’d endure if you died. I love with all my heart.”

Placing a quick, hard kiss on her lips, he dropped his hands, and then set back in the driver’s seat, still facing her with a hand gripping the back of her seat. “Are you asking me to quit, Bree?”

A part of her longed to say yes, but she refused to give in to the weak side of herself. “It’s who you are, Nicholas Carletti. I could no more ask you to leave the force than to ask you to cut off your right arm.”

The tension leaked out of him like the air from a shredded tire. “Thank you, sweetness, because I sure didn’t have an answer for that one if you had said yes.”

She smiled at his unvarnished honesty. “You love it. It’s in your blood, otherwise you’d have taken early retirement or stop refusing the promotions because you’d never be happy sitting behind a desk. I guess I’ll just have to learn to live with your job.”

A line formed between his brows. “You once asked me to take a leap of faith, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, now I’m asking you to have faith in me. What happened today is unusual. In fact, in all my twenty plus years on the force that’s the first time I’ve ever pulled the trigger in the line of duty.”

The more she discussed this with him, the better she felt. She’d never be fully at ease with what he did, but there were signs of improvement already. “And you rely on common sense, strong hunches, and gut instincts,” she pointed out, recalling his words of wisdom he’d imparted on his son many a time.

He winked at her, stealing her breath away. “Works every time, sweetness.”

“And having faith helps, too, right?”

He made her wait for long seconds as he searched her features. Finally, he turned his attention to her stare. “I never realized how much blind faith is connected to what I do. That, and trust in people, in my fellow officers. You helped me see that. I’ve got to admit, I still have some problems with figuring out the reasons why things happen, but I do believe,
really
believe, in something bigger and better than all this. Call it trust, faith, or love.” He tapped his chest. “Whatever it is I feel it right here and I’ve got you to thank for it, sweetness.”

A well of joy filled her. She yearned for this wondrous revelation to see him through his darkest days. But somehow she wondered if he’d feel so magnanimous when he learned the hidden truth about her.

***

Waiting for Bree to return from grocery shopping as her note explained, Nick wondered at the rest of his wife’s missive.

What more do we have to talk about?

“I’ll find out all in good time,” he figured, shrugging it off as he plucked a few more withered leaves free from Nana’s potted plant.

The crinkly sound only confirmed how dry the rest of the drooping flowers had become. Giving them a healthy dose of water, he shook his head, hoping he’d found the solution to reviving the room full of once blooming buds.

“Why didn’t you leave me some kind of advice or something on taking care of all this,” he asked his dead grandmother. “And, while you were at it, you could have left an instruction booklet about life.”

Grinning, he could almost hear her wise reply,
Now, Nicholas, you can’t always know the answers, you’ve got to learn these things for yourself
.

He acknowledged that fact, along with the unshakable certainty that after discussing the last of their problems earlier today Bree and he would start on a new path tonight. A path he knew he was filled with love and honesty.

A new beginning
.

Finishing his task, he cleaned up the litter and went to dispose of it in the trash bin. He passed the dining room table, his eyes landing on the note Bree had left him.

Relief surged inside him; Sydney had a play date at the park with her best friend Sherrie and two little girls from school. Clearly his granddaughter hadn’t been shunned for not having a father.

Hopefully, with their differences finally settled, Bree would agree to his adopting her daughter and sealing his desire to have a loving family.

Smiling widely, Nick said, “That’s it! Bree wants to talk to me about adopting Sydney.”

The shrill peel of the doorbell had him redirecting his footsteps. Dropping the debris on the table top, he moved to the front door, saying, “What did you do, buy the whole store out and tried to carry everything in at once, Bree?”