LITMIR.BIZ

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Before she could answer, he asked, “When did she get here?”

      “About five. I was so shocked! Paul never came in until after daylight, and even you don’t show up that early!”

      “Don’t ask me to understand the workings of that woman’s mind,” Brick replied darkly. “I think Captain Curvaceous attended police academy on some other planet.”

      When Cindy Lou glanced up at Brick, giggling at the nickname he’d coined, her glance fell on his jaw for the first time. “Good heavens, Brick! What happened to you? I thought you were off duty last night.”

      He was trying to think of a way to avoid confessing the humiliating truth when he heard the captain’s office door swing open.

      To Brick’s dismay, that damned Keppler woman looked every bit as striking in a black uniform as she did dressed for a party. Her braided hair looked more prosaic than it did in a chignon, but somehow the stern image flattered her striking features.

      “Bauer, glad you’re here,” the new boss briskly called out to him from across the room. “We’ve got a lot to cover this morning before roll call.”

      “Roll call?” he echoed. With all of six men on each shift, it seemed like a ridiculous formality. “We, uh, don’t do roll call here.”

      Karen Keppler straightened then, looking ominous in her uniform as she took a step toward him.

      “I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. I believe I heard you say something like ‘we don’t do roll call here.”’

      Reluctantly Brick nodded, trying to stifle a new wave of resentment. He was uncomfortably aware that the door behind him had just opened and several day-shift guys had just wisecracked their way into the room. “That’s what I said, Captain Keppler. Paul always—”

      “Lieutenant, I am not interested in the sections of the county code violated by my predecessor unless they are serious enough for prosecution,” she cut in, her gray eyes showing all the warmth of a glacier. “I am interested in instituting proper police procedures in accordance with the newly revised manual. I did not devote most of a year of my off-duty time to updating this edition in order to have it ignored by the men under my command. Is that clear?”

      During this unexpected speech, Clayton and Franklin had joined the day-shift fellows, gaping wordlessly as the new boss tongue-lashed the man they all considered their true leader. Brick couldn’t say that Paul had never chewed out a man in public, but he’d only done it when the man had failed to respond to more subtle direction.

      Not once, not ever, had he done it to Brick.

      With all the strength he could muster, he refrained from cutting Karen Keppler down to size. “I’m sure that Tyler’s officers will follow whatever regulations are important to you, Captain,” he reported stiffly. “I merely meant to explain that they had not been willfully violating any county requirements. Paul simply had a different way—”

      “I am not interested in former Chief Schmidt’s ways, nor in his shockingly unprofessional habits,” the captain interrupted, ignoring the communal gasp of dismay from the men behind Brick. “From now on you will refer to him by his proper name, and you will address me by my proper rank.” Her tone was so sharp it almost left nicks on Brick’s still-bloodied face. “Do we understand each other, Lieutenant?”

      Brick had not expected to like Karen Keppler. He had not expected to enjoy serving under her command. Last night he’d realized he would have to swallow a great deal of pride to tolerate being her subordinate, but it was not until this moment that he realized how seriously this woman was going to color his world. She’d stolen his promotion; she’d invaded his home. Brick was sworn by duty to uphold her orders and demand loyalty to her from his men.

      But no duty could keep him from wanting to throttle her at this moment. And no badge would keep him from calling a spade a spade if she ever dressed him down in public again.

      * * *

      “SO HOW DID your first day of work go?” Anna Kelsey cheerfully asked Karen as her new boarder sat down to dinner. She was such a pretty girl, even if she was a bit sparing with her sweet smile. “You should have told me you were going to be the new police captain. I hear you took my favorite nephew by surprise.” Actually, she’d heard the story of Brick’s real surprise—being flipped on his backside by his new boss—from no fewer than six different people today. Dr. George Phelps, Anna’s boss, had told her the tale firsthand.

      Karen took her napkin off the table and laid it carefully across her lap. “Well, it’s a small town, Mrs. Kelsey—”

      “Anna, dear. Only strangers call me Mrs. Kelsey.”

      Karen’s smile was genuine but strained. “Until I have time to buy my own place, Anna, I’m bound to brush elbows with some of my men.”

      Anna tried to swallow a chuckle as she pondered other possible interpretations of that phrase, but red-haired Tisha Olsen, never one to pull her punches, laughed outright.

      “It’s a worthy goal for most girls your age, honey,” the eccentric hairdresser teased with a good-natured grin. “With all the fine boys on our force, I imagine you’ll find yourself a man in no time.”

      Anna was surprised to see Karen color; she knew Tisha had meant no harm. Still, it wouldn’t be easy for any woman of Tisha’s generation to understand why the girl wanted to be a police captain. Tisha had certainly never understood why Anna’s future daughter-in-law, Pam, wanted to be a football coach. Anna didn’t really understand it, either, but if it was what Pam wanted, she wanted it for Pam, and if Karen wanted to take her job seriously, then so should everybody else at Kelsey’s. Granted, it was a bit hard for Anna to feel happy about anybody taking the job Brick had wanted for himself, but it wasn’t Karen’s fault she’d been appointed.

      “A pretty girl like Karen could get married anytime she wanted to,” Anna pointed out cheerfully. “She’s just got more important things to do right now. Isn’t that right, Karen?”

      Karen flashed Anna a grateful look. “That’s about the size of it. My job is my life. I can’t imagine that any man would put up with it.”

      “Brick’s the same way,” Johnny added laconically. After thirty-five years of marriage, little that her stalwart husband said took Anna by surprise. Despite his apparent indifference to the conversation, she knew he was trying to bolster the new young boarder in his own quiet way. “There’s something about being a cop, he always says. It’s not a job, it’s a way of life. From the time he was a little boy, it’s all Brick ever wanted to be.”

      “I thought he wanted to be a football player,” Tisha countered, reaching for another poppy-seed roll. “Isn’t that how he got his nickname?”

      Anna watched Karen carefully. Yes, her eyebrows did rise a trifle. She was a bit interested in Brick’s personal life!

      “He was a wonderful guard,” Anna explained with renewed enthusiasm after she’d recapped the story of his childhood for Karen. After all, shouldn’t the girl know that Brick had lived with his aunt and uncle since his father died when he was fifteen? Shouldn’t she know that his mother had died when he was ten? “One night he stopped the Belton team practically all by himself. The sports reporter said they’d have had the same luck trying to score through a brick wall. Our boy, Patrick, started calling him Brick the next day. It caught on, and we’ve been calling him that ever since.”

      “Except for your mother,” Johnny corrected her. “She’s the only one I know who still calls him Donald.”

      “Well, Martha’s a bit long in the tooth to start changing her ways,” Tisha replied with a chuckle. She served herself some meat loaf and passed the serving dish to Karen. “I keep hoping she’ll match up with some friendly old codger at Worthington House, but she seems content to sit and sew.”

      “She quilts,” explained Anna, who didn’t like to think of her darling, bright-eyed mother

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