Twice a Hero, Always Her Man Read online

  She didn’t have a good answer to that.

  Instead, she heard herself telling him, “You know I’m not going to let it go at just that, don’t you?” The expression on his face told her that he knew. But he was eating again and his mouth was full. “I can wait,” she said, leaning back in the chair.

  “It was an abduction,” he revealed once his mouth was empty and he could speak again.

  That got Ellie’s attention and she slid to the edge of her seat. “He kidnapped somebody? Who?” This time when Colin brought the fork up to his lips again, she caught his arm, stopped him. “Who?” she repeated.

  “His daughter.” Colin shook his head. Both parties were to blame in this. “It was a custody battle gone really wrong. Father got tired of being stonewalled, so when it came time for him to bring his five-year-old daughter back after a scheduled visit, he didn’t. The mother had a meltdown and called us.”

  “And you found him?” Ellie asked, clearly impressed. She made no effort to hide the fact.

  He didn’t want to make it sound as if he was the hero of the piece. It was luck more than anything else. “There was an Amber Alert out. Someone called in saying they’d spotted the father’s car going south on the 5 Freeway. We wound up cornering the guy twenty miles outside of San Diego.”

  “You?” she asked specifically.

  “And the other detective in the car,” he added. “It was a team effort.”

  She knew how these things worked. What she was surprised at was that Benteen was being so modest. The man really didn’t like being in the spotlight. “How’s the little girl?” she asked.

  “Scared.” The scene played in his mind again. It had been difficult to witness and even more difficult to do “the right thing.”

  “She didn’t want to leave her father. Seems she wanted to be with him instead of her mother.”

  “Little girls do love their daddies,” Ellie commented. However, that wasn’t always the case, which caused her to ask, “Did she say why?”

  Colin recalled the little girl’s words. “‘Daddy’s more fun.’ She said her mother had too many rules she had to follow.”

  “Rules can be good,” Ellie interjected, thinking of what Heather had said about her uncle having been more fun before she’d become his responsibility. She couldn’t help wondering if the girl had ever said that to the detective. That could have been the reason he seemed so sensitive retelling the tale.

  “Yeah, but a kid needs fun,” Colin countered. He frowned slightly, thinking of the man they had taken into custody. “Hated having to take the guy in. All he wanted was to be with his daughter.” He sighed. “I told him that he and his wife should have found a way to work it out for the little girl’s sake—and that he could still try.”

  “In a perfect world...”

  Her voice trailed off, but Colin knew what she was saying. In a perfect world, there would be happy endings no matter how rocky the road to get there might be.

  If only...

  “But this isn’t a perfect world,” Colin said, more to himself that to her.

  A shaft of sadness speared through her, making her heart ache. Tears came into her eyes even though she tried to block them. Sometimes all it took was a word, a familiar scent, a lyric, and she was catapulted into the past, reliving it again. Always with the same ending.

  “No,” she whispered, “It’s not a perfect world.”

  For a second, Colin thought that the woman had been affected by the story he’d just told her. If that was the case, the reporter had an incredible sense of empathy, he felt, amazed.

  And then, literally out of nowhere, a fragment of a thought darted through his mind, bringing with it a flash of the last case he’d had as a patrolman. He was on his knees in a convenience store, desperately trying to stop a man’s life from oozing away.

  Why the hell had he thought of that now? Colin upbraided himself. What possible connection did it have with the case he’d had tonight?

  And then he realized it wasn’t the Amber Alert case that had made him think of the other one; it was the name. The reporter’s last name.

  King.

  He looked at the woman now, then dismissed it. It couldn’t be. King was a pretty common surname. If there had been a connection between her and the man who had died on the floor of that store that night, the reporter would have said something.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Sure she would. Talking was what she did. She would have brought it up by now.

  He was just tired, Colin told himself. More than tired, he was wiped out.

  “Something wrong?” she asked him, approaching the subject cautiously, like someone tasked with defusing a bomb.

  “No,” he said, then explained, “Just something I thought of. But it doesn’t make sense.” Colin shrugged, dismissing the stray thought. “It’s nothing, just my overworked mind.”

  That was her cue to leave. More like escape, Ellie silently corrected. In either case, the man needed his sleep. So did she, although she didn’t sleep all that well anymore.

  “And I’m keeping you up, so I’m going to leave now,” Ellie told him, getting up.

  “You also fed me,” he said, indicating the empty plate. “And I have to say that was really good.”

  She took the plate and deposited it into his sink. “Well, you don’t ‘have to,’ but I’ll take it as a compliment.”

  He rose to his feet because she had. “Do you do this kind of thing often?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him, bemused. “What? Take compliments?”

  “No.” He nodded toward his sleeping niece. “Go out of your way like this to spend time with a fan.”

  Ellie smiled as she shrugged. “Why not? It’s good for my ego.”

  She didn’t strike him as someone with an ego. He also noticed she didn’t answer the question. He let it go. “I know that you made her day. Heather really appreciated this—so do I.”

  She picked up her messenger bag and secured it across her shoulder. “Call it payback.”

  Colin wasn’t following her. “For what?”

  That had just slipped out and she hadn’t meant it to. Her mind scrambled to do a little damage control, searching for an explanation she could give him.

  “For the interview segment I did on you earlier this week,” she finally said.

  “Oh, that.” He waved it away as he walked her the short distance to the front door. “To be honest, I really didn’t think I was going to get to review the footage before you aired it.”

  She didn’t understand. “Then why did you call to tell me I lied?”

  “Probably to teach you not to make promises you couldn’t deliver—and I thought it might be a way to get you to agree to meet Heather,” he admitted. “I was just hoping you’d give her an autograph or something.” He glanced back into the living room, where his niece was sleeping. “This is something she’s going to remember for a long, long time,” he told the reporter.

  Ellie put his words into a more realistic setting. “Until she gets her first crush on a boy and he’s nice to her.”

  Colin groaned. “Boys. Oh God, I hope that doesn’t happen for another ten years or so.”

  “Good luck with that,” Ellie laughed. “Your niece is very advanced for her age,” she pointed out. “Try another six months—or less.”

  He almost seemed to go pale right in front of her eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Do you even remember girls at that age?” she prodded. “Think back to when you were ten or eleven.”

  “I was a saint,” he told her. He almost managed to say the words with a straight face.

  “I really doubt that.” Ellie gave him a highly skeptical look.

  “What makes you say that?” he asked, doing his best not to
smirk precisely because he did recall himself at that age.

  “Let’s just call it keen reporter’s instincts,” she told him, patting his face. “Good night, Detective,” Ellie said as she crossed the threshold onto his doorstep. “It’s been an interesting evening in more ways than one.”

  “Same here,” he told her.

  Colin stood in his doorway, watching as the woman walked to her car in guest parking. He continued standing there as she got in behind the steering wheel.

  “Good night, Ellie King,” he murmured.

  As he closed his door, Colin couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something.

  Chapter Eight

  The deliveryman threaded his way across various cables and wires that were on the studio floor, not an easy feat, given that his vision was partially blocked by the large profusion of flowers he was carrying and charged with delivering. Whenever possible, he stopped to ask where he could find the intended recipient of the flowers.

  The last person he asked pointed him to Ellie’s desk. But when he set down the arrangement, there was no one sitting at the desk.

  Haplessly, the deliveryman looked around for someone he could snag long enough to have them put their signature on the electronic pad he’d tucked under his arm.

  “Um, I need to have someone sign for this,” he said, raising his voice and hoping to get someone’s attention.

  Hearing what almost amounted to a plea as he entered the bull pen, Jerry quickly cut across the floor to Ellie’s desk in order to put the man out of his misery.

  “Here, I’ll sign,” Jerry volunteered. With a flourish, Jerry signed his name with the stylus that was attached to the pad. Giving the pad back to the deliveryman, he glanced at the effusive basket and commented, “Nice arrangement.”

  “Boss insists on the best,” the deliveryman replied, glancing over the pad to make sure everything was in order. An automatic smile momentarily came over his lips as he said, “Have a good day.”

  “Yeah, you, too,” Jerry murmured. Because he had signed for the delivery, he felt that gave him the right to peek at the card, which he did. And then he smiled. “Well, well, well.”

  “‘Well’ what?” Ellie asked, entering the room from the opposite direction. She’d just finished reviewing several upcoming segments with the program manager, including the one he wanted taped today. The clock was ticking.

  Jerry stepped back, giving her a clear view of her desk. He gestured grandly toward the basket. “Well, it looks like someone made a good impression on someone else.”

  Seeing the flowers for the first time, Ellie stopped walking. No one sent her flowers. Her first thought was that it had to be a mistake. The flowers were meant for someone else.

  She looked at Jerry. “Where did those come from?”

  “My guess is it wasn’t the flower fairy.” He grinned, unable to contain himself. He parked himself on the edge of her desk, leaning his hip against it. “So, you talked with the detective like I suggested.”

  Her eyes widened. “These are from him?” she asked, quickly crossing the rest of the distance to her desk.

  “See for yourself. There’s the card.” Jerry pointed to it. Cocking his head to underscore the innocent tone he affected, he asked, “Who’s Heather?”

  “Detective Benteen’s niece,” Ellie answered, searching through the flowers for the card. “You ask more questions than my mother.” Finding the card, she pulled it out. “What are you doing reading my card, anyway?”

  “Someone had to sign for the flowers,” he told her. “I figured that entitled me to see who sent them.” Since she hadn’t acknowledged what he’d said earlier, he repeated himself. “I guess you and the good detective had that talk and came to terms, eh?”

  Ellie refused to answer him. Instead, she read the card. Thank you for Saturday. I haven’t seen Heather this happy in a long, long time.

  Ellie looked up to see Jerry watching her smugly. She knew it would have been a lot easier just to let her cameraman assume that he was right, but she wasn’t in the habit of lying, even about minor things, and she didn’t want Jerry thinking she’d followed his advice when she hadn’t yet. The man had a big enough ego as it was.

  “If you must know, no,” she said, annoyed. “We didn’t have that talk. He asked me to meet his niece. Turns out that she’s a fan, so I said sure. We met at Josie’s Café. It was only supposed to be for an hour, but while we were talking, he got a call telling him to come to the scene of a crime. I volunteered to stay with his niece until he got back.”

  It was more complicated than that, but there was no point in going into babysitting neighbors or any of the rest of what had been involved. She was trying to keep her story streamlined.

  Ellie glanced at Jerry and saw the knowing expression on her cameraman’s face. It was bordering on a smirk.

  “Don’t give me that look,” she told him.

  “What look?” he asked innocently.

  “You’re grinning,” Ellie accused.

  “Who, me?” he said with far too much feeling. “No. I’m just enjoying listening to you tell your story.” And then he gave up the ruse. “It’s just nice to see you getting out again.”

  “I wasn’t ‘getting out,’” she insisted, knowing that the cameraman thought she’d gone out with the detective. It wasn’t like that. “I was just—” Ellie gave up. There was no point in beating her head against the wall. Jerry was going to see things his way no matter what she said to the contrary. “Oh, never mind. Marty wants us to cover a story at Bedford’s animal shelter. Grab your gear,” she ordered.

  “Animal shelter?” Jerry repeated as he hurried after her. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, why?” She spared him a look over her shoulder. To her relief, the flowers—and the reason for them—had been forgotten.

  For now.

  “Last time we did one of those stories, I came home with a geriatric dog and a rabbit. Betsy wasn’t very happy about it,” he recalled. “If I come home with anything else, she’s going to put us all out on the driveway.”

  Ellie laughed because she knew Jerry’s distress was genuine. He might talk big, but he had a heart made out of mush.

  “Just stay strong, Jerry—and remember to say no,” she advised.

  “I can’t help it if I have a marshmallow center,” he protested, hustling behind her.

  “It goes well with your marshmallow build,” Ellie deadpanned.

  Jerry grumbled under his breath. Ellie pretended not to hear him. At least he wasn’t asking any more questions about her meeting with the detective, she thought, relieved. She had a hard enough time trying to figure out why she’d done it herself, much less answering any of the questions Jerry could come up with.

  The next moment, she put the whole thing out of her mind. She had a segment to tape and it deserved her full attention.

  * * *

  The assignment ran twice as long as she’d anticipated.

  The shelter, it turned out, was also planning to have an adopt-a-pet event that following Saturday and the people in charge were using the volunteer drive she had been sent to cover to promote that.

  Ellie had always had a weak spot for animals. Caught up in the story, Ellie found herself losing her heart to a mixed-breed puppy with the improbable name of Pancakes. Pancakes was all paws, licking tongue and tons of unbridled energy.

  Before she realized it, Ellie had paid the very nominal fee the shelter charged for the dog’s shots, a certificate of ownership and a license. And just like that, she became Pancakes’s new owner.

  “I can’t keep you, you know,” Ellie informed the puppy, who was riding in the back of her sedan. Not exactly riding, she amended. Pancakes was running back and forth on the floor like a claustrophobic prison inmate searching for an avenue of escape.
“I sprung you in a moment of weakness because you are just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, but it wouldn’t be fair to you if I took you home. I’m hardly ever there. You need a hands-on owner.” Coming to a stop at a red light, she glanced over her shoulder to her frantic furry passenger. “You realize that, don’t you?”

  Ellie sighed. “Lord, I must be losing it—I’m having a conversation with a dog. A one-way conversation.” At which point the dog yipped. “Okay, maybe not so one-way,” she corrected herself, putting her foot back on the accelerator. “But you still need someone who can walk you and play with you. I’m hardly home long enough to put my laundry away.”

  Pancakes yipped again, louder this time.

  “You need a keeper, you know.” And then she thought of the flowers on her desk.

  Belatedly, she remembered that she hadn’t had a chance to call Benteen to thank him yet. This would be a way to thank him and to get Pancakes a home that was more suited to his energetic personality.

  Ellie smiled. Two birds with one stone.

  Perfect!

  “Hang on, Pancakes—I’m going to take you to your new home.”

  Ellie made a sharp right at the next corner.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, overzealous puppy in her arms and carrying a bag of dry dog food she’d bought at the shelter, Ellie found herself standing in front of Colin Benteen’s door. She knocked once and mentally crossed her fingers that he was home.

  Colin had gotten home in time to watch the evening broadcast of the news with Heather. She talked through most of it until the segment with Ellie came on. Then his niece became as silent as a tomb, rabidly watching every move her idol made and listening to every word as if each one of them was a singular golden pearl of wisdom. The fact that Ellie’s segment tonight was filmed in the city’s animal shelter, with Ellie surrounded by a dozen yapping dogs and one duck that seemed to think it too was a dog, only endeared her all the more to Heather.

  The segment and Heather’s reaction to it were still very fresh in his mind as Colin went to answer the door. He hadn’t heard from Ellie and was beginning to wonder if perhaps he’d overstepped his bounds by sending her flowers.