Falling For The Cop

The first step is the hardest...

Everything can change in an instant, police officer Shane Warner learns when he’s shot in the line of duty. And his tough—pretty—physical therapist, Natalie Keaton, also knows it all too well. She wants to help Shane get better, but it’s hard to see him as any different from the reckless cops who ruined her life. As they work to get him walking again, he’s determined to change her opinion of him. If he can show her who he really is, his most important step will be the one that ends with Natalie in his arms.

Natalie could only stare into Shane’s eyes. The room was so still, so suddenly intimate.

It amplified the stilted rhythm of her breaths. And his. He’d spoken about a person making an effort to understand someone else. Hadn’t he done just that for her tonight? Strange how she’d never felt more understood.

It may have been surprise, or perhaps just want of a connection she hadn’t even realized she craved, but something powerful held her in place.

Shane’s gaze was unwavering, steady. A contradiction to the riotous feelings battling inside her, some calling for a poorly plotted charge and others, a hasty retreat.

She should listen to the one that told her to run for safety...

Dear Reader,

I am so excited to return with you to the True Blue series and to the world of the honorable men and women of the Michigan State Police Brighton Post. In the past few years, law enforcement has come under more scrutiny, and rightfully so for the bad behavior of more than a few officers. But I love writing about the much larger segment of the law-enforcement community, of brave men and women who wear the badge with pride and who make sacrifices and risk their lives daily for the safety and well-being of people they’ve never met. These are the officers I have met through the Lakes Area Citizens Police Academy and through interviews and ride-alongs with officers from several Michigan law-enforcement agencies. And these are the characters who populate the stories in True Blue.

In Falling for the Cop, I explored the impossible pairing of Shane Warner, an officer who is battling his way back from a possibly career-ending shooting injury, and Natalie Keaton, a physical therapist who blames all police officers for the high-speed police chase that left her mother a paraplegic. As with all of my characters, I loved challenging their wounds (both internal and external), their fears and their prejudices that keep them from having the lives of their dreams.

I love to hear from readers. Connect with me through my website, www.dananussio.com; through social-media channels Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads or Pinterest; or by regular mail at PO Box 5, Novi, MI 48376-0005.

Dana Nussio

Falling for the Cop

Dana Nussio

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DANA NUSSIO began telling “people stories” around the same time she started talking. She has been doing both things, nonstop, ever since. The award-winning newspaper reporter and features editor left her career while raising three daughters, but the stories followed her home as she discovered the joy of writing fiction. Now an award-winning fiction author as well, she loves telling emotional stories filled with honorable but flawed characters. Empty nesters, Dana and her husband of more than twenty-five years live in Michigan with two overfed cats, Leo the Wondercat and Annabelle Lee the Neurotic.

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To my father, James Corbit, who passed away in 2016. You were always my biggest fan, showing off my books and bragging about me to anyone who would listen. I hope when you look down on me now that I still make you proud.

A special thanks goes to Melissa Erickson, a compassionate physical therapist who works with special-needs students in the Novi Community School District. She not only gave up her evening hours to research medical issues and help ensure the believability of Shane Warner’s injuries, but she also became invested in the story and rode the ride-along with me as I wrote. (I hope you enjoy the finished product.) And a continued thanks to the many law-enforcement professionals from the Lakes Area Citizens Police Academy who helped me build the fictional world for the True Blue series. I appreciate your dedication and daily sacrifices for the safety of Michigan residents.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

“OFFICER DOWN.”

The words came to Shane Warner in a dream. At least it felt like a dream, its edges blurred and spreading like spilled wine. Flashing lights penetrated the fog in angry bursts, so bright that they seemed to have a sound all their own. The piercing squeals came from somewhere inside his head. The sounds built to a deafening pitch.

And something was dripping on his face.

“Hold on, buddy. They just got here.”

Shane blinked several times, trying to identify the vaguely familiar voice next to him. A voice that sounded too real to be a part of any dream. Hold on to what? Where was he, anyway? But the only words his mouth could form were “Who is—”

A rustle of cloth interrupted even that question as an umbrella unfurled over him. Of course. Rain. Not snow, though early December flurries had fluttered earlier in the day. His thoughts flicked to the windshield wipers that had been turned on in his patrol car. In a series of quick connections, he remembered. A domestic call. The angry shouts. The screams. The female victim crumpled inside the backyard gate.

Then the earsplitting blast.

As the stray dots of his memory scrambled back into a straight line, Shane jerked to lift his head.

And something set his back on fire.

Lying on his side, Shane tried to reach behind him to examine the pain’s source, but his hands refused to cooperate.

“Stay still, Trooper Warner,” a woman called out from somewhere nearby.

“Listen to her, Shane,” Sergeant Vincent Leonetti said, taking possession of that earlier voice.

He knelt in front of Shane, some towels in his hand. “You’ve been hit.”

“Shot?” Shane managed, his words coming slowly as if spoken through sludge. “But...my vest?”

As Shane shook his head to deny what was becoming obvious—that the vest had failed—the pain struck again, branding him with an unrelenting iron. Bile rose to the back of his throat. The tree-nestled bungalow swam before him in the murky sky.

“Sorry.” Vinnie pressed the towels to the back panels of Shane’s vest. “But everything’s going to be all right.”

“Wait.” He held back an overwhelming urge to retch. “The victim. She—”

“Not sure. They’re checking her now.”

He cleared his throat. “The suspect?”

“Dead.”

Vinnie looked away, toward what had to be a body on the east side of the yard, and then turned back to him. “But you’re going to be okay. Have to be okay.”

That was the last thing Vinnie added under his breath as he tucked a blanket over Shane, but the words still echoed in Shane’s ears. Just how bad was it? Wall-of-honor bad? Or just a forced retirement from a job that meant everything to him? He squeezed his eyes shut to block the misery of either option. Now the ground beneath him felt cold. So wet. Was it just the rain or was it...blood? A chill scrambled from the earth to his core, setting off a shiver he couldn’t still.

In what could only have been seconds, a crowd surrounded him, his fellow officers mumbling something and EMTs asking impossible questions and then shoving an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Could he move his hands? Could he feel his feet? He wasn’t sure. Yes, the pain had clutched him before, but now he felt eerily numb. Was it just swelling, or would he ever feel anything again?

“Now, Trooper, we’re going to have to get you on this board so we can transport you,” one of the EMTs told him.

But as they shifted his body, slipping the board beneath it, something shook him. Either pain or the anticipation of it. The lights around him crushed into some crazy kaleidoscope, and the voices splintered into hundreds of disjointed sounds. His world blinked in and out of focus until the darkness swallowed him completely.

CHAPTER ONE

DEAD WOMAN WALKING. Natalie Keaton cringed over the hyperbole of death-row-inmate proportions as she crossed through the activity room, but that didn’t loosen the ankle weights slowing her steps or lift the dread bearing down on her shoulders.

Sure, she’d had frustrating days at work before. Like when clients expected range-of-motion improvements without doing their exercises, or when she had to come in on Saturdays for appointments. But never before had she wanted to walk away from her job at Brentwood Rehabilitation Services rather than meet with a new client.

Now she was dreading the whole day.

From the activity room, where two other physical therapists guided clients through exercises and stretches, to the shoes and the examination-bed wheels that peeked out from beneath the curtains of consultation areas, everything seemed wrong inside the clinic. The piped-in music was too loud, its notes jagged scratches over her eardrums. Even the usually comforting antiseptic scents from foaming hand cleaner and antibacterial cleansers only made her queasy.

The row of windows outside the activity room displayed an obstinately gray March afternoon, the stratus-striped sky belching and spitting without having the decency to really snow. That didn’t keep Natalie from shivering until long after the windows were far behind her. As she passed her boss’s closed office door, she gripped the file folder she held tightly. The file she’d just tried—and failed—to hand off to another therapist.

You’re a professional. You can handle a challenge like this. Meg Story’s words of support, sprinkled with censure, burned like a blister ripped wide. A challenge? How could Meg see it that way? Why had she matched Natalie with this client in the first place? Didn’t her history matter? Natalie didn’t doubt that this seriously injured client deserved compassionate care. They all did. She just wasn’t the right PT to provide it for him.

She pulled at the sleeves of her sweater and brushed her free hand down her maroon scrub shirt as she neared the clinic side of the registration desk. If only she could swipe away her unease as easily. But she needed this job, so her only choice was to help this client get back on his feet as soon as possible. In and out faster than a playboy on a one-night stand, if she had her way.

Still, for a heartbeat too long, Natalie rested her hand on the door leading to the reception area instead of opening it.

Anne-Marie Long, the impossibly young receptionist with a perky ponytail to prove it, glanced over from her computer, a telephone handset tucked between her shoulder and ear.

“You okay?” Anne-Marie mouthed, her eyebrows escaping to behind her bangs.

Natalie nodded, wishing it were true. She pressed her lips together and pushed open the door.

The minimalist reception area through the doorway was always cramped, with barely enough seating for a family of five, but the man in the manual wheelchair at the room’s center and his uniform-clad valet overwhelmed the tiny space. She had to force herself to close the door behind her when she longed to retreat behind that shield of hollow wood veneer.

The man in the chair was an exaggerated cartoon version of what she’d expected, his overdeveloped physique a contradiction to the benign nylon sweat suit and running shoes visible below his coat. And the state police uniform his friend wore might as well have been a billboard announcement for the both of them. Navy shirt with a knotted gray tie. Shiny silver shield. A telltale hat on his head, which he wore even indoors. Did they have to throw this awful assignment in her face by showing up at the clinic with everything but a squad car?

Oh, that was probably parked outside.

She swallowed as the image of another police cruiser slipped from behind the veil of her memories with blurry lights and squealing tires. Her mother, once vibrant, now broken...inside and out. It was only a blip of a digression, like that pinpoint moment of impact from eight years before, but it left her raw and exposed.

Natalie blinked away the image and schooled her features as she returned her attention to the man in the chair. The one not wearing a uniform, though she could easily picture him in one. But she wasn’t prepared for the fathomless blue-gray eyes that stared up at her from beneath a black stocking cap. Intelligent eyes that seemed to pick up on more than they should have in that moment. Things that weren’t any of his business.

“I’m Natalie Keaton,” she managed and then coughed into her sweater sleeve to clear her strangely clogged throat. “Sorry. Dry air. Anyway, I’m a physical therapist. You must be Mr. Warner.”

“That would be Trooper Warner,” the other man answered for him, gesturing toward her client as if they all weren’t perfectly aware whom they were talking about. “Of the Michigan State Police.”

Warner had been trying to pull off his gloves, something that required more effort than it should have, but at these words he stopped and frowned at the younger man. He then went back to work on the gloves and finally pulled them off before stretching his arm up to pluck off his hat. An awkward move, given his injuries. As light brown strands of an overgrown crew cut sprang to electrified life, he reached stiffly for his head a second time and gripped a disobedient fistful on top.

“I mean Troop—”

She was relieved when he dropped his arm and cut off her comment. It didn’t feel right calling him by his title, anyway.

“Don’t mind him.” Warner gestured toward his friend. “He’s all out of whack, having to start his shift here instead of stopping by the doughnut shop for a vanilla cream with frosting and sprinkles.”

Then Warner flipped on a smile so dazzling that it hit Natalie like an elbow to the diaphragm and spread warmth over her skin faster than a steaming bath. She blinked. What was that all about? Maybe the rest of female society might have joined in a collective swoon at the sight of this guy’s sculpted jaw, aristocratic nose and lips that were fuller and softer looking than any tough guy’s should be, but she wasn’t like other women. She could never be. They hadn’t lived her life. Or experienced the guilt she carried.

Still, when the other officer chuckled, Natalie startled. Had she been caught staring at him? Ogling the last type of man she should have been seeing through anything other than the most remote, clinical lens. Her face warmed, and her pulse rushed to announce her humiliation.

The officer, who looked barely old enough to shave, kept laughing. “I’m a raspberry-filled man, and Trooper Warner knows it.” He pointed at Natalie. “We miss his humor around the Brighton Post lately, but you’d better watch out. If he’s already starting with the cop jokes, you’re going to have some long sessions ahead of you.”

He didn’t know the half of it.

One side of Warner’s mouth lifted as he allowed his friend to help him out of his coat. Even without the extra padding, Warner still looked like a football player, his broad shoulders and burly arms pulling at the sleeves of his warm-up suit. His lack of muscular atrophy suggested he’d been rolling that wheelchair around all by himself.

“Thanks, buddy.” Warner glanced up at Natalie. “You see the quality of help you can find after you get your butt shot? Anyway, before the rookie’s rude interruption, I was going to tell you to call me Shane.” He gestured toward the other officer. “And this is Trooper Jamie Donovan. But he’s just leaving.”

The younger man gave a shy wave of hello, the introduction barely registering as Natalie glanced down at the information on the file folder.

Warner, Shane. Age twenty-eight.

It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. Of course, the officer recovering from a gunshot wound would have a name like Shane. He even looked like a Shane. Like he could have acted the part of the gunslinger in that old Western with the same title. Only this guy’s version of the Wild West was a sanitized suburban wilderness some fifty miles from downtown Detroit.

Clearly, Trooper Shane Warner was just another cowboy in blue. Another risk-taking police officer who thought of no one but himself, just like—

Natalie cut off the thought with a firm clamp of her jaw. She couldn’t let herself go there. Even if the cavalier way he’d referred to his injury basically proved her point. Even if every minute of working with him would force her to relive the worst day of her life. She still had a job to do.

“Well, let’s move you to one of the exam rooms so we can do some range-of-motion and manual-muscle tests.” She shifted so she was behind his chair. “Let me help—”

“No!”

At Shane’s sharp tone, Natalie’s hands stopped inches shy of the wheelchair’s push handles.

He cleared his throat. “I mean, no, thank you. I can do it. Just tell me where you need me to go.”

Natalie frowned. As if this assignment wasn’t hard enough, now her client was going to be a difficult patient.

But Jamie only chuckled again. “It’s not easy for this guy to accept help, so he’s pretty grouchy.”

She could figure that one out for herself. He probably also hated looking up to Trooper Donovan like hell, who was no more than average height, when Shane must have towered over him...before.

“Didn’t I just say you were leaving?” Shane didn’t even look at him as he said it.

“Guess those are my walking orders.” Jamie snapped his heavy jacket over his uniform. “Oh. What time do you need me to be back?”

Shane turned to him this time. “Thanks, but you’re off the clock. Kelly’s picking me up.”

Kelly? Natalie’s gaze flicked to Shane, expecting him to answer the question she would never ask. The name shouldn’t have surprised her. Of course, a guy with his looks and his mastery in the art of flirtation would have a Kelly. Or a Jenny. Or a Kelly, a Jenny and a Jill. But that made no difference to her. She didn’t care if they all carpooled over in a minivan to pick him up as long as they showed up as soon as his appointment ended.

“Whew. That’s a relief.” Jamie brushed his hand back over his hat in an exaggerated gesture. “I don’t know how much longer I could’ve put up with this guy.”

But he paused to pat Shane’s shoulder. “Text if you need anything. Seriously. Day or night. Just ask.”

Shane couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable, but he nodded. “Thanks, man.” He waved and then watched as Jamie crossed to the door.

Natalie should have been going through a mental list of the exercises she might use to increase Shane’s flexibility. She should even have been checking her watch and counting down the minutes until this session would end. Instead, she found herself watching her client. Trooper Warner was exactly what she’d expected, right?

But the obvious friendship between these two officers didn’t fit well with the mental image she’d painted earlier. Was that bond just some extension of the “blue code” that police officers used to cover for each other? Maybe, but she couldn’t help wondering if it was more than that. The rookie appeared to have genuine respect for Shane, the type that self-centered jerks seldom earned. It didn’t fit.

Shane glanced over at her, catching her watching him. Her cheeks burned so badly that she could only hope the waiting room’s low lighting helped to hide it.

“Well, let’s get to work then.” She buried her nervous hands in the pockets of her cardigan.

“Good, because I thought we were going to spend the hour standing around in the waiting room.”

He didn’t crack a smile as he said it, though one of them was clearly not standing.

Instead of responding, she stepped over to the sliding window of the receptionist’s desk. “Anne-Marie, could you—”

She stopped as the receptionist and the longtime office manager, Beverly Wilson, stared out from the suspiciously open desk window. At Beverly’s wink, Natalie tightened her jaw and her hold on the medical file.

“The buzzer?” she prodded.

“Oh. Right,” Anne-Marie said.

She reached below the counter, and a short buzz was followed by a click.

Natalie pulled the door wide. “After you, Mr. Warner.”

He glanced up at her again, those unnerving eyes trapping her and searching for stories she wasn’t prepared to tell. Her pulse dashed toward some unknown finish line, and her hands were so damp that she could barely grip the door handle.

“You mean...?” he prompted.

“Shane,” she choked out.

He smiled as if he’d won a competition and then carefully rolled his chair past her and through the door. Annoyed, Natalie stepped in behind him. She shouldn’t let this guy get under her skin any more than she should notice how his shoulders and arms flexed as he rotated the wheels. If only she could stop looking at those things.

“Which way?”

She didn’t know why he bothered asking for directions when he didn’t even pause as he rolled down the hall. He probably didn’t look both ways before crossing the street, either. Or check the date on the milk before chugging it right from the carton.

At the intersection where the hall and the activity room connected, Shane stopped so suddenly that Natalie bumped into the back of his chair. A whoosh of air escaped her where the handle hit her at the top of her thigh, and his file fell from her hands, pages fluttering to the ground.

“Sorry,” he said with a muffled chuckle. “You didn’t say which way.”