tentatively reached out a finger to the panther crouched atop the shield. Symbol of Panther City, a nickname for Fort Worth since the late 1800s.
“He looks mean,” Cory whispered, stroking the big cat almost as if he could feel the animal’s thick, muscled coat under his fingertip.
“He does, doesn’t he?”
“Like he could eat bad guys.”
Gray drew a sharp breath. It had been two years since Duke Lopez had taken a bullet while drawing a gunman’s attention from his fallen partner. Cory would have been, what? Four? How well did he remember his father?
“Cory, your mom is here,” Miss Gilbert called from the doorway. “I see her coming down the hall.”
Good. The little guy’s mother wasn’t late after all.
The boy’s eyes reflected evident surprise at her on-time arrival, then he gave the panther a final pat. Their gazes met in solemn recognition of a mutual bond that caught Gray off guard.
“It’s an honor to meet the son of Duke Lopez.”
The boy nodded, then in a flash scampered to his workstation to clean up and gather his things. Gray rose and turned, preparing to give the boy’s mother a courteous nod. But his smile froze. Whoa. That was the kid’s mother? Since when did moms look like that?
Even in profile as she stood chatting in the doorway with Miss Gilbert, she was a beauty. Dark flashing eyes. Dazzling smile. A warm, flawlessly creamy Hispanic skin tone. Shiny black hair pulled into a demure bun contrasted with the spiky heels, short skirt and a molded-to-her-figure blazer.
Cory hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and raced to the door, breathlessly pointing toward Gray.
“Mom! A policeman! And he knows Daddy is a hero.”
She turned startled eyes toward him—and the open, friendly expression evaporated from her striking features. Her lustrous brown eyes locked on his for a long moment before narrowing slightly. She then put a protective arm around her son’s shoulders and ushered him from the room.
* * *
“But Mom,” Cory protested for at least the tenth time since leaving the elementary school. “I wanted you to meet Officer Wallace. He doesn’t know Daddy, but he remembers him. He knows he saved his partner. Don’t you even care?”
“Of course I care.” Elise Lopez attempted to keep her voice even, not wanting Cory to sense how upsetting his growing obsession with policemen had become for her. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she parked her compact car in front of the tiny fourplex they’d called home for the past year and a half. Far from being the most fashionable of the city’s districts—it bordered on rough—it was all she could afford right now. Close to school and her job at the clinic.
“Then why didn’t you talk to him?”
“Now, Cory, you know I never have time to chat when I pick you up. Billie Jean is expecting you and I’ve got to get back to work.”
His shoulders slumped. “You always have to get back to work.”
“I know.” Hearing his sigh as they exited the vehicle and headed across the sparsely grassed, hard-packed sand yard, she thrust aside memories of the well-cared-for landscape of their former home. She placed a hand on her young son’s shoulder. “But I go to work because te amo. Sí?”
I love you.
And she did, with every breath she’d taken since she’d first suspected she was pregnant. She’d held him even closer to her heart since his father’s murder two summers ago. Duke. Her hero, whom she’d learned not long after his death had more than a bit of tarnish smudging his shining armor.
But there was no point in rehashing that and making herself miserable. It was what it was. She could never have foreseen how his gambling debts would come back to haunt her, draining his life insurance and their savings and leaving her and Cory in dire circumstances that they had yet to dig out of. But Duke had otherwise been a good man. A loving father. A courageous cop.
“Oh, man.” Cory’s groan startled her as he jerked to a halt and dropped to his knees, frantically searching through his backpack. “Oh, man.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I left my ball glove at school.” The glove his father had given him. He looked up at her, his dark eyes reflecting panic. “We’ve got to go back and get it, Mom. Someone might steal it.”
She looked at her watch, torn. Why did he always do this to her? Forgetting things she’d reminded him about a million times. She’d even warned him that very morning not to take the baseball glove to school, but he’d apparently sneaked it into his pack.
“There’s no time. I’ll be late getting back to work again.”
“Oh, man.” But Cory didn’t cry or beg as he might have several months ago. Instead, he cut her a dirty look, snatched up his backpack and raced ahead of her into the open door of the fourplex’s miniscule entryway.
Her stomach knotted. That baseball glove meant the world to him, but she couldn’t go back to hunt it down. Last month a coworker had been let go for being late. Like Elise, she was a single mom juggling the logistics of a full-time job and kids, but chronic tardiness and absenteeism at the clinic hadn’t been tolerated for long.
With a glance at the potted pink geranium she’d set on the front step last spring—a pitiful remnant of her former lush gardens—she followed her son into the building, passing the lockboxes where residents received mail. All except her. She had a post-office box elsewhere, ensuring no friends or family members could search for her street address online and learn the truth about the neighborhood where she now resided.
Slowly she climbed the threadbare carpeted steps to their second-story apartment, a sparsely furnished space unlike any she’d ever imagined living in.
Yes, Duke had been a courageous cop. But his surreptitious penchant for playing the ponies had been his—and her—downfall.
Which brought her back to Cory’s fascination with policemen—like the well-built, good-looking guy at the school that afternoon. All spit-shined and polished in an official black uniform for his career day appearance, his dark chestnut hair neatly clipped, he exuded that quintessential cop aura. Confident. Authoritative. A bit cocky.
And a proud Texan.
She could see it all there in the flashing seconds when he’d held her gaze. He hadn’t even had the courtesy to cloak his appreciative glance as it fleetingly swept over her, his expressive eyes questioning if she returned his interest.
Which she did not.
She’d never again willingly put herself in a position to wait up late at night, anxiously listening for the garage door to signal the safe return of her hero. There would be no more haunting reminders, when embraced in the arms of a body armor-clad man, that the bulletproof vest was there for a reason. No heart-stopping moments when an unidentified police officer was reported as injured on the 5 o’clock news. She’d never again risk the nightmare of two somber officers at the door in the dead of the night, waiting to take her to the hospital. Or endure the heartbreak of not getting there in
