To Protect and Serve (26 page)

             
Eric joined in.   “Yeah, Uncle Doug.  It’s really better to at least try than not to try and forever regret that you didn’t.

             
Good grief!  When high school boys understood better what he should do than he did himself, he knew that he was in trouble.

             
What had ever happened to the love-em-and-leave-em guy he used to be?  When had it all gotten so complicated?

             
His gut twisted when he answered his own question.  It had all gotten complicated when he’d fallen in love.  He truly loved Nancy.  He felt more for her than he’d ever felt for anyone else in his life.  It might be a cliché, but she completed him.  She made him feel that he could do anything he wanted.  He felt that she made him a better man.

             
While Doug mulled over these thoughts, Bill, Patty and the boys went about dinner as though Doug was an active participant.

             
When Doug finally left for the evening, Patty handed him a bag of leftovers to take home.

             
She kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Doug, don’t make a mistake with Nancy.  At least have dinner with her.”

             
Doug kissed her back and thanked her for the great dinner.  He shook Bill’s hand and gave a playful punch on the arms of both the boys, trying to appear himself.

             
Except, the sad fact was that “himself” was now an empty shell.   He really didn’t know what he was going to do.

             
                                                        …………………

             
“If someone doesn’t do something about this, I’m going to go crazy!”  Jackson was pacing around the kitchen.

             
Kate and Christy were putting away groceries.

             
“Okay.  Tell us what to do and we’ll do it!”  Kate replied with a snap in her voice.

             
“Hey!  Don’t get angry at Jackson!  It’s not his fault!”  Christy was instantly defensive.

             
Reluctantly Kate walked over to Jackson and gave him a hug.  “I’m sorry, Bro.  This is just a really bad situation and it’s got me on edge.”

             
Jackson patted her on the back.  “It’s okay.  I understand.”  Christy smiled at Jackson.

             
“So what DO we do?”   Christy put the ice cream into the freezer next to the frozen veggies.

             
“I already talked with Mom and she’d adamant about not calling the police station again.  I told her that she’d only called once and just maybe Doug hadn’t gotten the call.  But she insisted that he wasn’t really interested in her and at least she’d have her pride.” Kate explained.

             
“Yeah, but pride won’t keep you warm on a cold night.”  Jackson just shook his head.

             
Just then Kate’s cell phone rang.  She pulled it out of her front pocket and looked at who was calling.  You’d think that she’d just been told she’d won the lottery!  She jumped once, grinned from ear to ear and leaving the room said “Catch you guys later!”  Then softly, “Hello?”

             
Jackson looked at Christy with eyebrows raised in question.

             
Christy looked back at him with a negative shake of her head indicating that she had no idea who was on the phone.  “I don’t think it was Robert, though.  She dumped him a couple of days ago.”

             
“Really?  What stupid move did this one make?”  Jackson enjoyed watching Kate go through boyfriends.  It always made him feel even better about his relationship with Christy.

             
“I believe he was critical of his parents.”  Christy grinned back at Jackson.  “Or, it could have been that he sided with the oppressors of any third world country, or he stated that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with hunting small animals for sport.  Take your pick.”

              “Babe, tell me again that we’re never going to split-up.”  Jackson held Christy lightly in his arms.

             
“Babe, we’re never going to split-up.”   Christy smiled sweetly.

             
“Unless you do something really stupid.”  Christy teased him.

             
Jackson tightened his arms.  “Don’t EVER kid about that.  I mean it.”

             
Christy could see just how much this had affected Jackson.

             
“Don’t worry, babe.  Never again.  You are my guy forever.”

             
“Damn right.”  Jackson hugged her hard.

CHAPTER 26

             
“Doug!  Someone is here to speak with you.”

             
The desk officer called down the hall to Doug, where he’d been filling out the endless pile of paperwork from that weekend.  It seemed that the weekend just before Christmas was always the busiest.

             
Doug had thought that the paperwork would have gotten less with the department having moved into the computer age.  However, it seemed like there were now more forms than ever!  Doug loved police work.  He just wasn’t a big fan of the paper chase.  Which was the reason he was still a cop with a beat.  Several years back when he’d been promoted to a desk job, he’d suffered through it for one year, finally took the pay cut and went back to the streets.

             
Doug finished the sentence he’d been writing, stood up and went to the front desk area.

             
And stopped.

             
Standing there were Kate, Christy and Jackson.  All three had their arms folded across their chests and were not smiling.

             
“Hi, there!”  Doug stood on the other side of the half-wall and waited for one of them to speak.

             
“What exactly were your intentions regarding Mom?”  Christy was the first to speak up and it was not in a friendly tone of voice.

             
“Yeah.  Why haven’t you called her?”  Kate’s tone was not any better.

             
“Did you just get what you wanted and then dumped her?”  Jackson spoke up, too.

             
By this time, there was a small group of smiling officers paying attention to the conversation, and Doug was not about to answer any of these questions with an audience.

             
“Would you guys like to go get a cup of coffee with me and we’ll talk?”  Doug had the desk officer buzz him through to the police station lobby area and he closed the door behind him, so it was just the kids and him.

             
Kate and Christy looked at each other.  Christy looked at Jackson, and all three looked at Doug.

             
“Okay.  You’re buying.”  Kate answered.

             
“Of course.  Let’s go to the cafe next door.”  Doug led them out of the police station and they walked the half-block to the small cafe in silence.

             
They found an empty booth and ordered coffee.  Christy and Jackson sat on one side of the booth, and Kate begrudgingly sat on the other side next to Doug.  She seemed to be perched on just three inches at the end of the booth.

             
Doug indicated she could scoot closer, but Kate just shook her head “no” as though he had cooties or something.

             
Christy was the first one to speak up.

             
“You made Mom cry.”

             
With that declaration, she’d put the ball into Doug’s court.  All three of the kids sat there looking at him like he was some kind of bug that needed to be stepped on.

             
“I don’t think you understand what you’re talking about,” Doug replied.

             
“That’s a load of bull.”  Jackson was actually angry.

             
“We know exactly what we’re talking about.”  Kate was trying to stay level-headed, but Doug could hear the hurt and anger under her calm demeanor.  “First Dad hurts her, then you do.  Why don’t you want to be with her anymore?”

             
Doug was stunned into silence for a moment.  Not want to be with her?!  He’d give anything if she’d ask him back.

             
“See?  You don’t care!”  Christy was vehement.

             
“She doesn’t want me.”  Doug wasn’t sure if he gave voice to his thought or if Kate could read minds.

             
“She thinks you don’t want HER!”  Kate had just about had enough of dense men.  “Why did you stop seeing her?”  Doug thought to himself that if she wanted, Kate could have a successful career as a police investigator.  He’d seen the same look that was in her eyes in some of the force’s best cops.

             
“This is going to sound lame.”  Doug figured things couldn’t get any worse, so he decided to bare his soul.

             
“Try us.”  Christy’s tone left Doug in no doubt that whatever came out of his mouth next needed to be really, REALLY good.

             
“I got so involved in Andy’s legal case and trying to make amends to him and Sue that by the time I came up for air, it was really awkward to call Nancy.  Since she hadn’t tried to reach me, I figured she was no longer interested.”

             
“What do you mean?  She called and left a message for you several weeks ago!”  Jackson wasn’t buying it yet.

             
Doug was puzzled.  “When did she call?  I never got any message.  I swear it!”

              Kate took pity on him.  “I believe you.”  She looked at Christy and Jackson.  “I tried to get her to call again, but she said that he’d call her if he wanted to.”

             
“You mean she’s been waiting for me to call her?”

             
“Look.  We understand that this is a modern society and women call men all the time, but Mom is basically an old-fashioned girl at heart.  You need to pursue her, not the other way around.”  Now Jackson was giving Doug dating tips.

             
“That’s exactly what Patty said.”  Doug thought out loud to himself.

             
“Who’s Patty?”  Christy was once again on the offense.

             
“My best friend’s wife.  The two of them have practically written me off.  Patty told me that I should just call Nancy, but I didn’t believe her.”  Doug looked back at the comedy of errors that had been building between Nancy and himself.  He shook his head slowly back and forth.

             
They sat there waiting for his next move.

             
Doug finally pulled himself from his thoughts and looked expectantly at the kids.  “Is it too late?”

             
They looked back at him as slow smiles started to cover their faces.