Once a Hero

“You’re a hero.”

“Stop saying that. I’m not,” Kent insisted. “I didn’t do anything that anyone else in the department wouldn’t have done.”

“But they didn’t step in front of that bullet,” Erin said. “You did.”

“It was reflex, nothing more.”

“Why won’t you take credit for it? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

He arched his brows. “Would you have believed me?”

“Probably not. I would have figured you’d made it up to impress me, to get me to change my mind about you.”

“So why do you believe it now?”

Dear Reader,

I think it’s important that we all have a hero—someone we aspire to be like or someone who inspires us to be more than we are or someone who takes care of us. When I was growing up, my big brother was my hero. He defended me against the neighborhood bully and piggybacked me across the creek because I couldn’t swim. Heroes also protect us—like the heroes in my CITIZEN’S POLICE ACADEMY series.

Writing Once a Hero, the second book in the miniseries (the first was also part of the MEN MADE IN AMERICA miniseries—Once a Lawman, HAR, Feb. 2009), was very important to me. Sergeant Kent Terlecki is a hero whose story needed to be told even though he’s uncomfortable with being called that. He doesn’t consider himself to be special, and neither does heroine Erin Powell. Well, not at first!

I hope you enjoy their story, in which they both learn Once a Hero, always a hero.

Happy reading!

Lisa Childs

Once a Hero
Lisa Childs

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bestselling, award-winning author Lisa Childs writes paranormal and contemporary romance for Harlequin/Silhouette Books. She lives on thirty acres in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters, a talkative Siamese and a long-haired Chihuahua who thinks she’s a rottweiler. Lisa loves hearing from readers, who can contact her through her Web site, www.lisachilds.com, or by snail mail at P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

With much gratitude to the

Grand Rapids Police Department for helping me

understand and appreciate the very special heroes

that police officers are.

And with love for my brothers,

Tony, Mike and Chris—for showing me my

first examples of heroism by being my heroes!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

Conversations stopped and heads swiveled toward her as Erin Powell walked into the meeting room on the third floor of the Lakewood Police Department. Since she was the first citizen to arrive for the Citizen’s Police Academy program, the people staring at her were men and women “in blue.” The Lakewood, Michigan, police department, however, wore black uniforms, which she believed matched one particular officer’s soul.

Despite all the stares, her gaze was drawn to his. Sergeant Kent Terlecki’s steely-gray eyes must have been how he’d earned his nickname Bullet. She had asked the blond-haired man a couple of times for an explanation of his moniker, but he had shrugged off that question, just as he’d shrugged off most of her others. Some public information officer he’d proved to be for the department—a media liaison who wouldn’t deal with the media.

Ignoring the unwelcoming looks and the awkward silence, Erin squared her shoulders and walked across the room toward where all the officers stood against the far wall. She dropped her organizer onto a table, the thud echoing in the large space.

As if he intended to cite her for disturbing the peace, Terlecki stalked over to her. His long-legged strides closed the distance between them in short order.

“Speak of the devil,” she murmured.

“I’m not, but that doesn’t stop you from demonizing me,” he accused as he held out a folded section of the Lakewood Chronicle.

Satisfaction filled her as she stared down at the article she had written—about him. She wanted everyone to see Kent Terlecki as the fraud he really was, and so she had titled her article, Public Information Officer’s Desperate PR Ploy.

“Did I hit a nerve?” she asked, tipping up her chin to meet that hard gaze of his. While she was above average height, he was taller, with broad shoulders. But he didn’t intimidate her, although she suspected he tried.

“You’d have to actually write a grain of truth to hit a nerve, so I don’t think there’s any chance that you’ll ever do that, Ms. Powell.”

Ignoring the sting of his insult, Erin smiled and asked, “If you think I’m such a hack, why did you let me into the class?”

The paper rustled as he clenched his hand into a fist. “Despite what your article claims, I’m not in charge of the Citizen’s Police Academy—not as a desperate maneuver to improve the department’s image or my own. Neither needs improving.”

“Really?” She lifted a brow skeptically. “According to the last poll in the Chronicle, the public believes the Lakewood PD could use some improvement.”

“That poll was hardly fair,” he griped. “There was no option for ‘no improvement necessary.’”

“Of course you would think no improvement was necessary.”

He lifted the paper. “Instead of writing about me, you should have written about the true purpose of this program.”

“And what is that?” Although she had signed up to participate, she wasn’t entirely certain what the academy did offer.

“Watch Commander Lieutenant Patrick O’Donnell started the program three years ago so that interested members of the community could learn more about the department, about police procedure and about the challenges officers face while doing their job.”

His words grated her nerves. Whenever Terlecki actually deigned to speak, it was always in the form of a press release. To irritate him, she arched a brow and scoffed, “You have challenges?”

He sighed. “I have you, Ms. Powell.”

“Oh, so if it was up to you, I wouldn’t be here.” She had already guessed as much.

The sergeant planted his palms on the table between them and leaned forward until his face nearly touched hers. With his square jaw clenched, he lowered his voice and murmured, “If it was up to me…”

Erin drew in a shaky breath and braced herself as a rush of adrenaline quickened her pulse and warmed her skin. It had to be adrenaline; she could not be attracted to this man.

“If it was up to you?” she pressed.

His pupils widened until black swallowed the gray irises. “I’d—”

“I hope I didn’t miss anything,” a woman interrupted as she rushed up to join them.

Sergeant Terlecki stepped back. “Not at all. Class hasn’t started yet,” he assured her, before turning and walking back to his fellow officers.

Erin released the breath she’d been holding, as the other woman emitted a lusty sigh.

“Oh, I think I did miss something,” the newcomer insisted, staring after Terlecki.

Erin pushed her organizer farther down the table and settled onto a chair away from the younger woman. Erin was the one who’d missed something—hearing about whatever Sergeant Kent Terlecki wanted to do to her. But given the articles she wrote about how inept he was at his job, at keeping the public informed, she could guess….

HE WANTED TO WRING her pretty little neck. Kent relaxed his fingers, which had clutched the Chronicle so tightly the newsprint had torn. He tossed it on the table behind which most of the officers were talking amongst themselves, as the citizens filed in for class.

The watch commander, Lieutenant Patrick O’Donnell, glanced up from marking notes on index cards. “So what’s her deal with you?” he asked, nodding toward Erin Powell. “Did you break her heart?”

Kent snorted. “I doubt she actually has a heart. Or a soul.”

Paddy, as he was called by his friends, chuckled. “How do you really feel about her?”

Kent wished he knew. She was so damn infuriating, yet she fascinated him, too. “I think I need my head examined for agreeing to let her join the academy.”

Paddy narrowed his eyes, which were nearly the same reddish brown color of his hair, and scrutinized Kent. “I left it up to you. I would have been happy to decline her application.”

Paddy had begun the Lakewood Citizen’s Police Academy before he’d been promoted to watch commander, but even after his promotion, he continued as lead instructor. The program was his pet project and meant a lot to the lieutenant.

“I’m sorry about her article,” Kent murmured.

Paddy shrugged. “Why? You can’t control what she writes.”

No, he couldn’t, despite his best efforts. She always found something wrong with his press releases about accidents or shootings. She always accused him of hiding something from the public no matter how open he was with information. “She didn’t give you the credit you deserve.”

The lieutenant chuckled again. “I’m perfectly happy with her not writing about me.”

“That’s why I okayed her joining,” Kent admitted. “I’d hate to think what she would have written if you’d turned down her application.” Chances are she would have accused them of conspiring against her.

He glanced over, to find her scribbling something on her ever-present pad. Since class hadn’t started yet, he doubted she was jotting down notes on the CPA. She was probably working on another article about how incompetent he was in his undeserved position.

A lock of silky brown hair slid across her cheek until she pushed it behind her ear. Her eyes were the same chocolate-brown. And her figure…it was tall and slender, with curves in all the right places. How could she be so damn pretty, yet such a witch?

“I’m really not worried about her writing about me,” Paddy assured him. “She seems pretty focused on you.”

“Too focused.” Since Erin had been hired at the Chronicle a year ago, Kent had often been the subject of her articles. She was young, ambitious and obviously trying to make a name for herself, so he tried not to take it personally, but he couldn’t help thinking that it was personal.

Again he looked toward the table where she sat. While the young girl who’d interrupted them waved, Erin glared at him. “I don’t know what I could have done to her,” he murmured.

Paddy followed his gaze. “You’re sure you didn’t break her heart?”

Kent shook his head. He would have remembered if he’d ever dated Erin Powell. Her dark hair skimmed the edge of her delicate jaw, emphasizing those wide brown eyes and sharp cheekbones. She was really beautiful, but he’d rather date one of the K9s than her. The police dogs were less likely to bite.

FRUSTRATION SET ERIN’S nerves on edge. She hadn’t expected much from the Citizen’s Police Academy, since she was convinced that Terlecki had started it to promote the glowing image he constantly tried to sell of the police department. He had some reporters convinced he was great and wonderful; the local television networks fawned over him.

Erin had intended to make the most of joining the program, but even when the district captains and the chief had introduced the officers of the Lakewood Police Department, the public information officer had been the one who’d answered or evaded her questions.

“Chief,” she called out as she followed the giant of a man down the corridor leading away from the conference room. After the chief had given his speech, the watch commander had called for a break.

Chief Archer stopped midstride and glanced at Erin over his broad shoulder. “Ms. Powell, can I help you?”

“Yes,” she said, some of her frustration easing now that she had him alone. “You can answer some of my questions.”

Archer grinned the infamous trust-inspiring grin that had probably helped him earn the top spot in the department at a relatively young age. “You have more? It seems Sergeant Terlecki answered everything you asked during class.”

“Not the ones about him,” she pointed out.

The chief tilted his head, studying her. “What would you like to know about the sergeant?”

“How did he get his cushy job as your public information officer?”

The chief’s grin faded. “He earned it, Ms. Powell.”

“How? What did he have to do to become your golden boy?” she persisted. The nickname she’d given Terlecki fit him more aptly than Bullet. “How many innocent people did he have to arrest?” Besides her brother.

The chief’s jaw grew taut. “You really know nothing about the sergeant, Ms. Powell.”

She knew more than they thought she did. Even if Terlecki remembered Mitchell, he wouldn’t connect her to her half brother because of their different last names. Despite the year she’d spent scrutinizing the sergeant’s reports, she hadn’t found the proof she needed to free Mitchell. “He didn’t hold the Lakewood Police Department arrest record before his promotion?”

“Ms. Powell, the sergeant is—”

“The one who’s supposed to be answering your questions,” Terlecki interjected as he joined them in the hallway. “Thank you, sir. I know you’re in a hurry, so I’ll handle Ms. Powell.”

The chief sighed. “Kent, you should just tell her—”

Terlecki interrupted again with a shake of his head, then waved off his boss as if Kent was the superior officer.

“Tell me what?” Erin asked as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and drew her down the hall.

“Nothing you need to know,” he said dismissively.

Since she’d started at the Chronicle, he had been trying to dismiss her. She tugged on her wrist, but his grasp tightened. “So this is how you’re going to ‘handle’ me?”

After leading her into an empty room, Kent closed the door, then released her. “I’d hardly risk an accusation of police brutality, Ms. Powell. I simply thought you’d like some privacy for your interview.”

Shut inside a small room with no furniture, only cardboard boxes sitting about, Erin realized how completely alone they were. Terlecki stood between her and the door, blocking her escape. Unnerved, she licked her lips and repeated his last word. “Interview?”

“You were asking the chief about me,” he said, his deep voice vibrating with a hint of innuendo, as if her interest in him was personal.

Which it was, but not in the way his ego must have led him to believe.

“I—I…” she stammered, heat rushing to her face with shame and annoyance that she had let him rattle her.

“You don’t want to ask me about me?” he asked, his gray eyes glinting with amusement.

“You don’t answer my questions, Sergeant,” she reminded him.

“Because they’re not pertinent.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” she pointed out.

“That you’re impertinent?”

She bit her lip to hold in a reaction to his insult. She couldn’t let him get to her anymore; he was already much too arrogant. “It’s not for you to decide what the public needs to know.”

“The public?” He arched a blond brow. “I don’t think the public cares how I came by my cushy job.” He stepped closer. “Why do you care, Ms. Powell?”

Despite the adrenaline causing her legs to tremble, Erin refused to back away. “I’m a reporter, Sergeant.”

“You don’t need to remind me of that.” Kent wasn’t likely to forget, when all she’d ever done was fire questions at him. But sometimes, noticing how her eyes sparkled and her skin flushed when she argued with him, he forgot that she was a reporter who seemed to hate his guts, and he saw her as an exciting woman.

“Being a reporter, I have certain instincts,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “which are screaming at me that there’s a story behind your made-up position in the department.”

“Made-up?”

“Public information officer?” she scoffed. “That hardly sounds like a real job.”

He stepped closer, until his badge brushed her shoulder. She was tall, even without the low heels she wore, and slender, in black pants and a lightweight red sweater. Pitching his voice low, he asked, “What do you know about positions, Ms. Powell?”

Her eyes widening, Erin stumbled back. “Sergeant!”

“Positions within the department,” he explained, as if he hadn’t baited her, as if he didn’t enjoy rattling her cage. Hell, that was the most exciting part of his cushy job. Although she was a pain in the ass, she wasn’t boring. “What did you think I meant?”

“I’m never sure,” she admitted. “You talk out of both sides of your mouth.”

He grinned at her insult. “Then I guess I’m good at my made-up position.”

“So you admit it was?”

Kent swallowed a groan. He probably shouldn’t have talked to her at all, let alone dragged her into an empty room. “And you wonder why I don’t answer your questions….”

“Since you’re not going to, let me out of here.” Erin pushed past him to open the door and step into the hall. Beyond the conference room, in the atrium, the elevator dinged. She watched the doors close on most of the CPA participants, on their way to the ground floor.

“Look what you made me do,” she declared. “I missed the last part of the class.”

“Just tonight’s,” he reminded her. “You have fourteen more to go.”

“You’re not going to get me kicked out of the program?”

After what he’d heard her asking the chief, he admitted, “I’d love to.”

“I’m sure you would. But you said you’re not in charge of the academy, remember?” she taunted.

No one had ever antagonized him as she did, not even some of the belligerent drunks he’d pulled over during his years as a patrol officer. All he had to do to get her tossed from the program was tell Paddy he’d changed his mind. And Kent was damn tempted to do just that.

“So what are you in charge of, as public information officer?” she asked. “Damage control?”

“You.”

“You’re only here to muzzle me? Did you purposely keep me from the second half of the program? Is there something you didn’t want me to hear?” She fired the questions in her usual manner, without giving him time to answer one before she moved to the next.

He couldn’t get her thrown out of the program. She would never let up on the department—or him—if he did. But he hadn’t approved her application because he feared what she would print. He wanted to change her opinion of the department. The chief and his fellow officers worked hard for the community; they didn’t deserve the bad press she’d been giving them.

“You can find out what you’ve missed. I’ll take you where they’ve all probably gone,” he offered.

“Home,” she scoffed.

“No. There’s another place.” Where officers went before or after their shifts, to eat, relax and just hang out with people who understood the complexities of doing their job. They wouldn’t appreciate his bringing her there. “Just don’t make me regret this….”

“YOU BROUGHT ME TO A BAR? This lighthouse is a tavern?” she asked as she passed through the door he held open for her. While all conversation didn’t cease as it had at the police department earlier, some people stopped talking and turned toward her and the sergeant. But the jukebox continued to play, over the sounds of several conversations and raucous laughter.

“It’s the Lighthouse Bar and Grille,” he replied, probably thinking she hadn’t seen the sign when they’d pulled into the parking lot in their respective cars.

The mingled aromas of burgers, steaks and salty fries filled the air. Peanut shells crunched beneath her feet as she followed Kent across the room toward a long table near the game area. Several members of the Citizen’s Police Academy sat together. She glanced around and noticed that except for those civilian patrons, the rest of the faces were familiar from law enforcement.

“How have I never known about this place?” she wondered aloud. She’d been living here a year. How had she not known that the Lakewood PD hung out at a lighthouse on the Lake Michigan shore? She’d asked around if there was any place the officers frequented, but no one had told her about this place. Out of loyalty to Terlecki?

“You don’t exactly inspire confidences,” Kent pointed out.

“So why did you bring me here?” she asked.

His lips lifted in a slight grin. “Where did you think I was leading you? Off the pier?”

“Of course. Right into the lake.” She had considered that might be what he’d had in mind. “Don’t tell me you weren’t tempted.”

“Trying to put words in my mouth again, Ms. Powell?”

“There isn’t room for me to put words,” she insisted. “Not with your foot there most of the time.”

He shook his head and laughed. “Nice try, but you’re not going to get to me.”

“We both know I get to you,” she said, “but then I don’t expect you to admit that.” She had to find some other way to extract the truth from him, because she had a horrible feeling he’d covered his tracks too well for her to get the evidence she needed. And if she didn’t find proof, she couldn’t help the man who mattered most to her.

“Erin,” Kent began, but he wasn’t the only one calling her name.

She ignored him, leaving his side to join the other members of the CPA. An older couple who had admitted joining the program for thrills waved at her. “Look,” the woman, Bernie, said. “We’re just like the police officers.”

Most of Erin’s classmates sat around the table, except for two teachers, the youth minister and the saleswoman who’d, thankfully, taken the chair between Erin and the college girl before class started. The participants all beamed as if they felt a sense of belonging—a sense that Erin envied, doubting she would ever feel it herself. Most of Lakewood, out of loyalty to the police department or Kent personally, disapproved of her articles.

The college girl who had earlier interrupted her conversation with Terlecki grabbed Erin’s arm and pulled her down onto a chair beside her. “What’s going on with you two?” she asked, her voice giddy with curiosity. She turned away from Erin, tracking Terlecki’s long strides toward the bar.

“Uh…” Erin searched her memory for the girl’s name from the introduction part of the class. “Amy. Nothing’s going on, really.”

The woman sitting on the other side of Erin snorted in derision.

Amy giggled. “See, everyone knows that you two have something going on.”

“No, we don’t,” Erin insisted.

“But you both disappeared during the class, then you just walked in together,” the blonde stated, unwilling to let it drop.

“Come on,” the other woman said, pulling Erin to her feet. Despite her thin build, her grip was strong. And despite her youthful appearance, fine lines on her fair skin betrayed her age as probably almost twice the college girl’s. “Let’s play darts.”

Erin followed, willing to use any excuse to escape the nosy girl, even though she hadn’t thrown darts since she had with her older brother. And now she couldn’t play with him…thanks to Kent Terlecki, who had sent Mitchell to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed. Mitchell would have never dealt drugs.

“I’m surprised you walked in at all,” the older woman mused, “let alone with Sergeant Terlecki.” She pulled darts from the board and stepped back. Like Amy, she had long blond hair, but a couple of silver strands shone among the platinum. “I thought he’d finally gotten rid of you.”

Erin turned toward her, surprised by her barely veiled animosity. She expected it from police officers, but not civilians, although some of them weren’t shy about telling her she was wrong. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.”

“Marla. Marla Halliday.” She waited, as if Erin was supposed to recognize her name. Then she added, “My son is a police officer—Sergeant Bartholomew ‘Billy’ Halliday with the vice unit.”

The name still meant nothing to Erin—it hadn’t come up in any of her research—but the woman’s attitude made complete sense now. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. When you attack the department, you’re attacking every one of those hardworking officers—not just Sergeant Terlecki,” Marla admonished, with a mother’s fierce protectiveness.

“I’m sure your son is a fine officer, but—”

“That’s your problem, honey. You’re sure regardless of the facts. You’re sure even when you’re wrong.” Marla’s porcelain skin reddened. “Not that my son isn’t a fine officer, because he is. But he’s not Sergeant Terlecki.”

“Then he is a fine officer.” He wouldn’t frame a man for a crime he hadn’t committed just to pad his arrest record and further his career, as Kent Terlecki had.

“But Billy’s not a hero,” his mother said.

“You’re saying Sergeant Terlecki—Kent Terlecki is a hero?”

Marla nodded. “Why do you think they call him Bullet?”

“I have no idea.” The mystery of his nickname had been bugging her since she had moved to the west Michigan town of Lakewood. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Hey, Ms. Halliday,” Kent said as he joined them.

“Do you have some kind of radar for whenever I ask a question?” Erin asked, her stomach knotted with frustration over how close she’d come to learning one of his secrets before he’d thwarted her again.

“You have to be careful of this one,” Kent said to Marla Halliday. “She tries to interview everyone.”

“No interview here,” Marla said. “We were just going to play darts.” Her blue eyes twinkled. Kent grimaced, but she ignored him. “Here, Erin, why don’t you go first?”

Erin closed her fingers around the proffered bunch of brightly colored darts. She chose one to throw, then turned to the board to find someone had pinned a blown-up picture of her there.

Not someone. Him.

Kent Terlecki was no hero.