“All right.” Simone sighed. “I’m heading home. I have to admit that I can’t keep up with you anymore.”
Luke threw her a surprised look.
“I start desk duty in a week.”
He didn’t smile, because Simone’s face was hard with resentment, but he was damned relieved. “I’ll try not to have any fun out there without you.”
“You’d better not.”
She left with shoulders slumped in defeat and a decidedly pregnant sway to her step. Halfway to the door, she met Pallin on his way back in, and Luke watched her gaze fall to the floor. Pallin stared straight ahead. He didn’t see the way her eyes rose to touch him as he walked away.
Luke’s anger solidified into a hot, burning sphere beneath his sternum. Not all of it was caused by Pallin, but his rage was thrilled to find a ready target.
He should go. Get out of here and go to the gun range to try to lose his anger in shredded targets. But then it occurred to him that Tessa would love going to the gun range, and the hot ball in his chest burned brighter.
Telling himself not to, he rose and walked to Pallin’s office. Pallin was just settling into his chair when Luke stepped in and closed the door.
“Asher. What can I do for you?”
“I’m not concerned about what you can do for me, Sergeant.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.” He didn’t. Not at that moment when he said the words, but Pallin’s face grew tight with suspicion as the seconds passed.
“You’re just going to leave her like this, huh?”
Pallin’s face lost all color in the time it took Luke to blink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. Don’t fuck with me. She needs child support. Hell, she needs all kinds of support, but apparently you’re not up for that.”
Pallin swallowed hard and glanced past Luke to the room beyond. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“You’re an asshole,” Luke snarled.
His boss’s shoulders dropped. “I didn’t want this. I thought my marriage was over. I swear to God. And by the time we found out about this…”
Luke put his fingertips on the man’s desk and leaned forward. “She. Doesn’t. Deserve. This.”
“I know. I know that! If I could, I’d… Look, I’m going to give her as much as I can, as often as I can. I swear. And I wish…” His eyes teared up, and he rubbed them hard with his hand. “Please don’t tell any one.”
Luke nodded and straightened, staring down his nose at this man he’d once liked. “You can’t stay here.”
“What?”
“You can’t stay here and be her boss and her ex-lover and the father of her child.”
“But—”
“Maybe you’re not getting this. I won’t allow you to stay here. Is that clear enough?”
Now some color returned to his cheeks. “I can’t just leave. This is my career. And what the hell am I supposed to tell my wife?”
“You just planned to stay here and treat Simone as nothing more than another employee?”
“I…I don’t have a choice!”
“There are plenty of other police departments around here. Denver, Aurora, Fort Collins. And smaller cities where they’d be glad to have you. You’ll start looking now, and when you find a position, you’ll tell your wife it’s an opportunity you can’t pass up. And then you’ll get the hell out of here and never come back.”
“Or what?”