In Bed With the Badge by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

detective.”
    She turned toward Wyatt. “Isn’t that right, Detective Wyatt?” she asked, keeping her voice purposely sweet.
    He merely nodded, not unlike a man about to slip into shock.
    “Wyatt, you okay?” she asked.
    Sam waved off her concern. “I’ll get the car started.”
    To her knowledge, his car didn’t need to be warmed up but she didn’t contradict him. Instead, she turned her attention to the little girl. She did her best to sound cheerful and reassuring. “Need help packing something to take with you?”
    Lisa eyed her uncertainly. “Then I am staying at this other person’s house?”
    Lisa’s voice was soft and low, but it seemed to Riley to hum with intelligence.
    “Just for a few hours. You’ll be coming back here later today. Tonight at the latest,” Riley augmented. As detectives, they did have shifts, but their hours could still be rather erratic. If that home invasion had been reported last night, she had no doubt that both Wyatt and she would have gotten calls in the middle of the night to come to the scene of the crime.
    She saw the solemn look on Lisa’s face. Tears began to fill the little girl’s eyes. Was she afraid? “What’s the matter?”
    Lisa swallowed before answering. “That’s what Mama said before she left me. She didn’t come back.”
    Riley bent down to embrace Lisa. She felt the littlegirl stiffen at first, then melt into her arms. Poor thing just wants to be loved, she thought.
    “Honey, your mama was in a car accident.” As she spoke, Riley stroked Lisa’s hair soothingly. “She wanted nothing more than to come back to you, but well, it didn’t turn out that way.”
    Lisa raised her head to look up at her. “You’ll come back?”
    Riley rose to her feet. “We’ll come back,” she promised. She crossed her heart before she took the little girl’s hand in hers.
     
    Lisa asked her the same question again just before she and Wyatt left.
    Wyatt was ahead of her, obviously anxious to get going. He said a quick goodbye to Lisa. She looked so lost, standing there so forlornly, that Riley bent down and hugged her. That was when Lisa asked her again. “You’ll come back?”
    “Your dad’ll come back, honey,” she promised, thinking that Lisa meant her question for Wyatt. “I guarantee it.”
    “No, you,” Lisa corrected urgently. “You’ll come back?”
    Riley exchanged looks with Wyatt, caught off guard by Lisa’s question. This wasn’t the time for a philosophical debate as to her place in the scheme of things—or rather her lack of a place.
    Instead, she rose to her feet and promised, “I’ll come back. We both will.”
    Only then did Lisa’s anxious expression begin to relax. “Okay.”
    Brenda moved forward, slipping her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “C’mon, Lisa, let me introduce you to my kids.”
    Lisa allowed herself to be led away, although she kept looking over her shoulder at them until Wyatt closed the front door, effectively separating them from his daughter’s view.
    He blew out a breath as if he’d been holding it the entire time they’d been at Brenda’s house. “Looks like she’s already bonded with you.”
    Was that relief she saw in his eyes? “If her mother never married, Lisa’s probably more comfortable around women.”
    “Great,” he murmured under his breath.
    “You’ll rise to the challenge,” she assured him. “Granted Lisa’s a bit younger than you’re used to, but once you turn on that charm, I’m sure you’ll have her eating out of your hand.” Her attempt to tease him out of his solemnity failed. She dropped her kidding tone. “What’s the matter?”
    He paused by his car. “I don’t think I can be a father, McIntyre,” he told her.
    “You’re perfectly normal. I’d say probably ninety-five percent of all fathers say that at the beginning.”
    “Yeah, but they all get nine months to get used to the idea. I didn’t even get nine seconds. One minute I’m a bachelor. The next,