Don't Call Me Hero (15 page)

“It’s
fine
, Julia. I’ve had much worse.” I had the scars to prove it.

She rolled her eyes. “Rose thorn cuts can cause
sporothrix schenckii
. There’s a fungus on the thorns. Do you want to keep your fingers?”

I might have been imagining it, but I thought I saw her cheeks tint at the mention of my fingers. Normally I wouldn’t have let such an opportunity pass and would have made a smart comment about how Julia was probably more concerned about me keeping my fingers than I was myself, but I was a little spooked by this rose thorn mushroom disease. I happened to like all of my body parts where they were.

Julia didn’t bother waiting on me to make a decision. She strode through the lawn to the backdoor of her house, and I silently followed.

The rear entrance led into the kitchen. I wanted to pause to take in the gourmet room with its high-end upgrades, seeing it for the first time in the daylight, but not wanting to get lost in the mansion, I kept close behind Julia who continued to move swiftly through the house.

The powder room on the first floor was just large enough for a toilet and sink. Julia pulled a small basket of first-aid supplies from the cabinet beneath the sink.

“Give me your hand,” she commanded.

“Which one?”

Julia rolled her eyes. “The one with the cut, Detective.”

“Oh. Right.”

I stuck out my right hand and tried not to flinch at her touch. Julia wet a cotton swab in peroxide and dabbed at the cut on my finger. I shoved down my protest as the stinging liquid cleaned out the wound. Pain was weakness leaving the body.

The silence in the small room was palpable. Julia’s voice was quiet as though speaking any louder was forbidden. “I know you have questions.”

“I do,” I confirmed. “But it isn’t any of my business.”

“It’s okay to ask.”

“Is your mother … is she not well? I’m sorry,” I forced out. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“She has dementia.” Julia cut a square of gauze and wrapped it around my finger. “Her mind started to go about five years ago. That woman who came to pick her up is my mother’s live-in nurse. Taking care of her is a fulltime job.”

“Your father doesn’t do that?”

“My father is the Mayor. He can’t be bothered to look after his sick wife.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

Julia’s mouth quirked into a tired frown, knowing her raw emotions had been momentarily exposed. She tugged the bandana from her head and ran a hand through her hair.

“I would have her live with me–-this is her childhood home, after all—but I’m at City Hall all day and night, much like my father, and it’s too far of a drive into town if something were to happen to her.”

“You’re not on trial, Julia. I’m not here to pass judgment on you or your family.”

“People talk,” she said stiffly. “I know they think I’m heartless, letting my own mother be taken care of by strangers.”

“Let them think what they want,” I shrugged. “They’re just bored with their own lives so they need to scrutinize others to bring a little excitement into an otherwise dull existence.”

Julia exhaled deeply. “The perks of small-town life.”

“Why stay?”

“In Embarrass?”

“Yeah. You’re a really good lawyer. Your talents are being wasted on prosecuting bike thieves and drunken property damagers. You should be the District Attorney or at least the city prosecutor in a bigger city.”

She scoffed and flipped her short, raven hair. “Whatever for? It’s not like I need the money or the notoriety. I have them both here.”

“But don’t you ever want, I don’t know…
more
?”

“Once,” she said darkly. “But it didn’t get me very far.” She unwrapped a Band-Aid and dressed the small wound with the gauze and sticky bandage. “There. All done.”

I flexed my finger and inspected her work. “Not bad.”

Before I could dig more deeply into what I was sure was a sensitive topic, Julia was changing the subject and smiling too brightly. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

I quirked an eyebrow. “I feel like this is a trick question.”

“How could that ever be construed as a trick question?” Julia let out with building annoyance.

“You ask me if I’d like to stay for dinner. I say ‘yes,’ and you say, ‘too bad.’”

Julia shook her head at the overly-cautious approach. “I can guarantee I’ll do no such thing. So?”

“So what?”

Julia rolled her eyes. “Dinner, Miss Miller. Are you staying or not?”

I smiled serenely. “I thought you’d never ask.”

+ + +

Dinner was an Italian wedding meatball soup with red kale and crusts of still-warm sourdough bread. I had two bowls, not caring if Julia judged me for having an appetite. The soup was too good not to ask for seconds.

Julia watched me with amused, dark eyes as I devoured the food in front of me seemingly without taking a breath. Meals were for survival, not savoring. I ate, hungry, tense, on the edge of my chair with my feet cemented to the floor, and legs bent at a forty-five degree angle. My left hand, the one not used to mechanically move food to my mouth, remained flat on my knee.

“If you’ve left anything in the Dutch oven, I can package it up so you’ll have leftovers,” Julia offered, taking a sip of her red wine.

I slowed the movement of my spoon. “It’s really good,” I said, defending my appetite.

“Thank you, dear.” Julia spared me additional embarrassment even though it would have been easy. Too easy.

I used the cloth napkin to wipe my mouth. A grandfather clock chimed the late hour from somewhere in the cavernous house.

“You should probably get going, Miss Miller. I know you have to work tonight, and I wouldn’t want you to overstay your welcome.”

I stood on Julia’s front stoop with a Tupperware container filled with leftover soup tucked under my arm.

“Go on a date with me?” I blurted out.

“A date?” Julia said the word as if it held no meaning. “I don’t
date
, Miss Miller
.”

“You just have illicit affairs?”

“I’d hardly call this an affair,” she scoffed.

“Well, I don’t know what to call it.” I flapped my free arm at my side. “I’m kinda new to all this.”

“Your tongue would indicate otherwise, dear.”

“Relationships, I mean,” I said, feeling the blush on my cheeks. “I-I’ve never had a proper girlfriend.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Why ever not?”

“I’ve only been out of the Marine Corps for a year.”

Her features furrowed. “But wasn’t Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repealed before then?”

“Yeah, but that didn’t mean I was ready for my own Coming Out parade.”

Julia made a humming noise. “I can’t give you any more.” She hugged herself when a brisk wind fluttered her hair. “This is all I have to offer. Is it enough?”

“I’m not sure.”

+ + +

I was halfway home before I remembered the purple lace underwear still in my pocket. I’d have to give them back another time, I thought with a wry smile. It gave me a reason to see the city prosecutor outside of office hours again, soon.

When I returned to my apartment, I stashed the leftovers in the refrigerator and slipped into clean clothes, not that it really mattered what I wore on duty.

A brisk knock at my front door made my heart to flutter. Maybe I wouldn’t have to wait very long to see Julia again after all.

I unlocked the deadbolt and threw open the door.

The person standing in the hallway frowned deeply. “You don’t write. You don’t call. Are we breaking up?”

I leaned my head against my forearm and barked out a laugh. “It’s nice to see you too, Rich.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When I came out of the bathroom, Rich was mid-mouthful in the soup Julia had packaged up for me to take home. “Hey! Way to make yourself at home,” I complained.

He smiled around the spoonful and swallowed it down. “This stuff’s dreamy, Miller,” he hummed in approval. “When did you learn to cook?”

I ran my fingers roughly through blonde locks before pulling them back in a ponytail. “I didn’t. A friend made it.”

Rich continued shoveling the soup into his mouth. “I want your friend to be my friend.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the surprise, but what are you doing here?”

“I was out on the bike today and decided to keep driving,” he shrugged.

“That’s a pretty long impromptu road trip.” The drive from the Twin Cities to Embarrass on a motorcycle was at least three and a half hours, maybe even four. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just needed a break from the city.”

I frowned. “How is that guy doing? The one cop you told me about?”

Rich ran his hand over his shaved bald head. “We had to let him go. The family of the woman who died was going to sue the department for gross negligence if we kept him on the payroll.”

“Shit.”

“I know. I really wanted to help the guy out, but it was just too much of a fuck up to come back from.”

Another knock interrupted our conversation. I stomped over to the door. “God, I’m feeling popular today,” I grumbled.

Grace Kelly looked startled by the force with which I opened the door.

“Hey,” I greeted with a grunt. “Join the party,” I waved her inside.

Grace poked her head through the doorway, looking uncertain. “Uh, is this a bad time?”

I flopped down on the easy chair and began pulling my leather boots on over my jeans. “Nope. Just getting ready for work. Come on in.”

Grace took a step forward. When she saw Rich standing over the kitchen sink, finishing off Julia’s soup, she hesitated in the doorway. “Are you sure I’m not interrupting anything?”

“Rich, meet my neighbor, Grace Kelly Donovan. Grace, this is Detective Richard Gammon. We used to work together in Minneapolis.”

Rich wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then wiped his palm clean on his jeans. “Nice to meet you.”

Grace looked skeptically at Rich’s outstretched arm as though it carried disease. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Detective,” she said as they shook hands.

“Is this your friend, Cass?” Rich asked.

“No.”

Grace’s eyebrows shot up.

“No! I mean she’s
a
friend,” I quickly recovered. “She’s just not
the
friend—the soup friend.”

Grace looked more confused than ever. “Soup friend?”

“Nothing. Not important. So what’s up?” I asked, finishing zipping up my boots.

“Oh.” Grace blinked a few times as if she’d forgotten the reason for her visit. “I wanted to invite you to the Summer Solstice festival tomorrow. It’s to celebrate the longest day of the year. The town has a little festival on Main Street. It’s fun.”

“Will there be beer?” Rich asked.

“Yes.”

“And will
you
be there?”

Grace’s eyelashes fluttered. “Uh huh.”

“Then I’m in,” he beamed. “What time should we pick you up?”

“We’ll try to make it, Grace,” I pumped on the breaks. I didn’t like the way Rich was ogling my pretty neighbor. “Thanks for the invite.”

Grace continued to look between Rich and myself. I could tell her inner reporter was filing away questions to interrogate me with later. “We should do dinner again soon, Cass.”

“Yeah, that would be great.” I ushered Grace towards the door with my hand in the small of her back. The longer she stuck around, the more opportunity Rich had to spill my secrets. 

“Okay, well, I hope you can make it tomorrow!” she chirped as I practically pushed her out of the apartment.

“See you later, Grace!” Rich called after her.

I shut the door and released a long sigh.