Still, he paused for several long seconds, breathing in the chilly air until his lungs ached. He started toward Vinnie’s SUV, but when he reached it, he couldn’t help glancing back at the unimpressive, single-story brick building.
Why did it feel as if he was seeing the place for the last time? He pushed away the thought, but the sense of loss remained. It was like saying goodbye to a place that had felt more like home to him than anywhere he’d ever lived. The loss hurt more than any bullet wound ever could.
“You don’t look okay,” Vinnie continued.
Shane stared at him until it sank in that he hadn’t answered Vinnie’s earlier question.
“I’m fine.” His laugh sounded strained. “Anyway, you’ve seen me far worse than this. Bleeding like a stuck—”
“Don’t!”
“Not funny yet?”
“It never will be.”
“Never’s a long time.”
“Yes, it is.” Vinnie pushed the automatic button for the SUV’s tailgate, opened it and pressed the transfer board into Shane’s hands.
Apparently, the subject of the shooting was closed, at least for tonight. Shane wasn’t the only one who carried scars from that night. His might be on the outside, but Vinnie’s scars were every bit as real and, perhaps, even deeper.
“Any chance you’d consider just taking me home instead of going out tonight?” Shane asked as he shifted himself from the chair to the SUV’s bucket seat.
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s just that I’m pretty tired.” Maybe his friend would let him off the hook after all.
Vinnie closed the door and, after loading the chair in the back, settled in the driver’s seat. “The guys will sure be disappointed if you don’t come.”
“Is that right?” Shane grinned into the darkness. He’d spoken too soon.
“How about we just make an appearance? Thirty minutes...tops,” Vinnie said. “Just so they all won’t think you’re avoiding them.”
“Okay. Fine,” he said, although their visit tonight should have been enough proof that he wasn’t dodging anyone.
“Great.”
Shane gripped his hands in his lap. As great as it would be to spend time with the rest of the team, hearing the war stories and chuckling at Vinnie’s classic jokes, going to Casey’s would serve as a reminder of everything he’d lost when that bullet had penetrated his back. The laughter. The fellowship. The unique understanding of the risks they willingly faced every day, for each other and for people they’d never met.
All the things he might never have again.
* * *
APPLAUSE BROKE OUT the moment Vinnie pushed Shane’s chair through the front door of Casey’s Diner, the bells jingling like a charity bell ringer with an empty kettle.
“Thank you. Thank you.” Vinnie took a bow. “I’ll be signing autographs for those who would like to cover my dinner.”
“Then put your signing pen away,” Trooper Trevor Cole called from across the room.
Shane’s coworkers usually sat at two booths across from each other, the separation wall between them lowered, but tonight they’d moved to a line of square tables. One of the chairs on one end had been removed, leaving an empty spot for Shane.
“Aren’t you glad you came?” Vinnie said as he pushed Shane’s chair into the spot.
“You knew I would be.”
And he was. These were some of the best people he’d ever known. The most honorable. From the senior officers to the new arrivals. A dozen officers crowded around the table, more than would usually go out on any given Thursday. It couldn’t have been more obvious that they’d come because they’d heard he would be there.
As Vinnie took a seat farther down the table, Ben Peterson leaned over and patted Shane’s shoulder. “It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Wondering how you’ll live without all of these people if you can’t come back.”
Shane blinked at Ben’s directness, but the lieutenant knew what he was talking about. Not so long ago, Ben’s job and freedom had been in jeopardy when he’d been a suspect in an evidence-tampering investigation at the Brighton Post. The officer responsible was in a cell now, but Ben had faced his own long days of uncertainty.
“You’ve got that right,” he answered finally.
“You’ll have to forgive Vinnie for trying too hard. He’s still beating himself up for not being there.”
Shane shot a glance down the table, but Vinnie was deep in another conversation. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“Yeah, try telling him that.”
“I have. Repeatedly.”
“And yet here we all are.”
Shane shifted in his seat, sweating but not ready to take off his coat. A waitress, a little older and harder on the eyes than their usual server, stepped up and started taking orders.
“Too bad Sarah isn’t working tonight,” Lieutenant Scott Campbell said. “She could pretend you’re invisible, like always.”
At the opposite end of the table, Kelly leaned forward.
“Hey, Shane, I was just telling Delia about your new physical therapist.” She paused long enough to exchange a meaningful look with the other female trooper across the table. “That she seems to be keeping you on your toes.”
As if all the officers took a collective breath and held it, the side conversations stopped. Only a clattering of pans could be heard coming from the kitchen.
Kelly cleared her throat. “Well...you know what I mean.”
Shane did the only thing he could do—he started laughing. “She’s right. The PT’s not even bothering with regular steps. I’ll be dancing en pointe in no time.”
When a collective groan replaced the awkward silence, he was relieved. The elephant in the room had at least garnered a mention.
A short while later the waitress delivered their orders, and they all got down to the business of consuming too many late-night calories. Shane couldn’t help watching them as he ate. These unique individuals shared something larger than any one of them: the commitment to serve and protect.
With a gesture toward his phone, Shane signaled to Vinnie that his thirty minutes had run out. Instead of stalling, Vinnie stood up from his seat.
“I’m gonna call it a night. Days off are exhausting.” He glanced Shane’s way. “You ready to go?”
“I could go, I guess.”
After zipping his coat, Shane backed away from the table, waved and started toward the door. He wouldn’t think about not being able to work with these people again, of losing a family built on mutual respect and shared risk. He would have to find his way back to this work and these people, just like Ben had. And he would look at these past few months as more a temporary detour than a permanent road closure.
“SO WE MEET AGAIN.”
A startled sound escaped Natalie’s throat as she froze in front of the closed curtain. She didn’t need to see the spoked wheel and the running shoes beneath to identify the voice that filtered out like a sneaky caress from the base of her neck to her tailbone, but she peeked anyway.