Chapter Eighteen
Josie peeked out her window, watching as Officers Horton and Vogel talked in low tones to Detective Copeland, who was holding what looked like a large pizza box in one hand.
Her heart gave a small leap at the sight of the tall, handsome detective, while her stomach growled hungrily.
She chose to ignore the former and acknowledge the latter.
She hadn’t eaten anything for dinner yet.
She’d felt awkward in the presence of Horton and Vogel, despite the fact that they seemed to be nice men, so she’d gone upstairs to get some privacy.
She’d tried to work a little bit, but her mind had insisted on wandering, and she kept yawning.
She’d finally lain down for a little while.
She was exhausted after not sleeping well the night before, waking up early, and then dealing with the unsettling and chaotic emotions that had clobbered her after discovering the posted articles and experiencing the dismal garage sale.
That people came to gawk at me, she thought with an internal grimace. Now…
Josie watched as Detective Copeland said some parting words to Horton and Vogel and then they got in their police cruiser and backed out of her driveway as he stood in front of her porch watching them leave.
Balancing the pizza in one hand, he disappeared up her front steps, and she heard her front door open and then close softly below her.
Josie disengaged the locks on her bedroom door and then went down the hall to the bathroom where she took a quick shower. Squeaky clean, she piled her hair on top of her head in a messy bun, returned to her room, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
The heavenly scent of pepperoni drew her downstairs, and when she walked into the kitchen, she saw Detective Copeland standing half turned away from her, staring at the pots and pans on the floor. A drop of water pinged into one, and he looked up, squinting at the stain on the ceiling.
“Hey,” she said, and he turned quickly, his expression morphing into a smile.
“Hey. Little leak, huh?”
“It was little. Now it’s bigger.” When it’d first appeared, she’d only had to put out one pot to catch the drips, but now six were necessary. Pretty soon she’d be able to use her kitchen as a shower. She took a few steps into the room, checking the various water levels in each.
“I have a buddy who does roof repairs. He could probably come out in the next few days and take a look. I’d be happy to call him. It’s probably not the greatest time to have strangers in your home.”
“Oh, well, this isn’t exactly at the top of my list right now anyway.
” She looked away so he couldn’t see her embarrassment.
She really didn’t want to talk about her pitiful financial situation with this man who probably already thought she was pathetic in practically every way. “Is that pizza I smell?”
When she looked back at him, she saw he had a knowing look in his eyes, but he quickly schooled his expression and turned his attention to where he’d set the pizza box on the table. “I hope you like pepperoni.”
“Who doesn’t, Detective?”
“No one trustworthy.” He smiled, his white teeth flashing, and her stomach gave a little twist. God, he really was distractingly handsome, and as she stood there watching him remove two plates from her cabinet and begin dishing up pizza slices, a tiny sensation of…
amazement sparkled through her. In a way, her reaction to the detective was a revelation.
She could still respond physically to a man.
Whether she’d ever want to take a next step was beside the point.
She wasn’t broken beyond repair. At least she didn’t think so, not after this.
She would not fall into old bad habits—seeking the attention of men in order to validate herself, looking for love in all the wrong places.
She would not. Especially when a relationship of any sort with the man tasked with protecting her safety would probably be a conflict of interest. She’d gone down that particular road before, and it hadn’t ended well.
And anyway, it wasn’t as if he’d look at her that way, knowing what he knew.
But never mind all that. To realize she could still feel that rush of sexual attraction when she never thought she’d be capable of it again made her feel…
hopeful. Happy. As though she’d won something back.
“You’re smiling,” he noted.
Josie glanced up at Zach in surprise as she brought her fingers to her mouth, smoothing out the smile she hadn’t realized she was wearing.
“I meant it as a positive. You should do it more.” His own smile grew, making him look even more handsome than she’d thought him before. She let out a small laugh as he set the plates down at the table and moved the box to the counter.
Drinks. They’d need drinks. “I, ah, don’t have any soda,” she said, flustered, moving toward her refrigerator. “But I still have iced tea and water.”
“Iced tea would be great,” he said, sitting down. As she poured tea in two glasses, she thought about how she’d done the same thing for this man just two days before, and yet that felt like a lifetime ago.
They sat together eating in silence for several minutes before he grabbed a napkin from a basket in the middle of the table and wiped his mouth, watching her for a moment as she chewed but seeming to be thinking about something. “We should get you set up with an alarm system.”
Josie set her pizza down, using her napkin to wipe her fingers and the corners of her mouth.
She didn’t disagree; in fact, she’d wanted to get one when she’d first moved to Oxford.
But again…finances. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but he spoke before she could.
“I’ll put in for it at the department. My boss wants someone here in person until…
” He gave a strange pause. “Until this is cleared up, but if someone did try to break in again, it would help whoever is here to be forewarned.” He glanced away and then back to her. “Ever thought of getting a dog?”
She exhaled. “Not right now. I’m too busy getting this place fixed up. And…” She dropped his gaze, her eyes moving to the cabinets behind him. “If it doesn’t work out here and I have to move back into an apartment, it would make things more difficult finding a place that takes pets.”
“I have no doubt you’ll make it work here if you want to.”
She met his eyes again, deciding she was not going to try to sugarcoat her circumstances. “I’m doing the best I can, Detective—”
“Zach.”
She lifted her chin. “Zach. I’m doing the best I can, but the truth of the matter is that I might be in over my head.
I might not have what it takes to make this work.
” She’d been thinking about that all afternoon and into the evening, wondering if it would really be the worst thing in the world if she sold the damn place to Archie, wiped her hands of it, and moved back to Cincinnati into a small apartment where some landlord took care of leaky roofs, and plumbing problems, and all the rest of it too.
She could call the companies she’d done transcribing for, start working from home again.
It’d been joyless work, but it’d paid the bills and even more importantly, perhaps, it’d kept her mind occupied.
“Josie, your life was…derailed nine years ago in the worst possible way, and I’m sure that some days, maybe lots of days, you feel like you’re just starting out, whereas others your age are settling into their lives.
Their careers.” The way he was looking at her was so serious, so earnest, it made her heart swell.
“But you have more grit, more courage, and more determination than anyone else I know. So yeah, I have no doubt you’ll make it work here if you want to,” he repeated.
She gave her head a small shake, but she couldn’t deny that his words of encouragement had warmed her, buoyed her, sent a jolt of that determination he said she had straight to her gut.
The truth was, growing up, no one had ever expressed that type of passionate belief in her.
And funnily enough, she’d finally found what no one else had given her—inner strength—in the bowels of hell as she’d waited to die.
Afterward, her aunt had helped her hold on to what she’d grasped with her bare fingertips in that dank warehouse.
At least for a while. But now that she was gone, Josie still struggled to hold on to what she’d fought so mightily for.
She could hardly express what his words meant to her. “Thank you, Det—Zach, but—”
“No buts.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I want to tell you something.” He took a sip of his tea as she waited to hear what he had to say.
He looked slightly apprehensive suddenly and it made her nervous.
“Eight years ago, when I was just a rookie cop, I was assigned to guard your hospital room door.”
“Oh,” she breathed. She looked away, the memory of that day washing through her.
The sudden freedom.
The hope.
The desperation.
The clawing grief.
The trauma.
Snatches of her arrival at the hospital came back to her right then, and she almost groaned aloud at the overwhelming flood of emotions.
But she took a deep breath, looking up into the eyes of the man who had guarded her safety that night and was guarding her safety now.
Despite the emotional onslaught, a smile tugged at her mouth. “My guardian,” she murmured.
He smiled, and she swore two spots of color appeared beneath the bronzed skin of his cheekbones. “Lots of good people had your back that day. But, Josie, you’re the one who survived, who made it out, and you should never cease giving yourself the credit you deserve. You amaze me.”