you know, something that starts out relatively minor can escalate into something pretty dangerous really fast. Drunks react quickly. You push them too hard and they can blow.”
Just like someone with mental illness might. The question was whether Simon would automatically apply the same techniques to someone that was mentally ill as he would to someone who was drunk. Most cops normally didn’t. Mental illness was harder to spot. Often interpreted as aggression or willful defiance as opposed to something outside the person’s control.
“It’s better to give them a chance to wind down,” he continued. “Talking to them helps. Gives them a chance to sober up just a bit. So we talked to them. Me and the patrol officer. But even as we did so...”
“What?”
“On the streets, you can never completely let your guard down.”
No. She imagined cops kept their guard up while on the streets the exact same way she and her coworkers kept their guard up while in the hospital. Even when she was working with her dementia patients, she couldn’t relax completely. But she could certainly relax more than when she was dealing with a patient suffering psychosis. “Is that why you’re applying for a management position?” she guessed. “So you can let your guard down during the day once in a while?”
“Didn’t we just have this conversation?”
“Let’s have it again,” she teased.
He frowned heavily and for a minute she thought she’d angered him. Eventually, however, he sighed. “Do I want to be captain so I can let my guard down? If only it were that simple.”
“What do you mean?” When he didn’t answer, she changed her gait until she was close to him, then nudged him with her elbow. “Anyone ever tell you getting you to open up is like pulling teeth?”
He barked with laughter. “Yeah, well I hate the dentist. A lot.”
She snorted, but didn’t push. He glanced at her, smiled, then sighed. “What I meant was that making captain wasn’t what I thought it would be. Oh, I knew it would come with a whole new set of challenges, of course, but I didn’t think it would completely mess with my confidence, either.”
She practically held her breath. What he’d just revealed was huge. He was allowing himself to be vulnerable, to appear less than totally together, and for a cop, for him, to do that...
“I wanted to be higher up. But when I got there, I missed the action. Missed the adrenaline—that high every cop gets when pursuing a suspect or a perp.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“I didn’t expect it. I was so sure of my decision. Wondering if I’d made a mistake? That shook my confidence. I’d never doubted career decisions I’d made in the past.”
“Did anything else shake your confidence? Besides missing the streets more than you’d thought?”
He didn’t respond. Given he was such a straight shooter, she took that to mean something else had shaken his confidence, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
They exited the park and when they reached his car, he opened the door for her. She got in and watched him walk in front of the car, his legs long and lanky, his stride smooth. The view of his rear was a sight to behold.
Damn, but Simon Granger had one fine ass.
She couldn’t help thinking of the bawdy conversations she’d had with Mrs. Horowitz before she’d died. She’d often teased Nina about needing to work less and socialize more. With good-looking men, in particular. If she was here now, Mrs. Horowitz would have tried cajoling Nina into watching that porn and then putting the moves she learned about to good use with Simon.
And maybe she would, she suddenly decided. Well, not exactly the porn part. But putting the moves on him suddenly sounded too tempting to resist.
What was the harm? He was clearly interested. And although they were connected by the job right now, she was a private consultant—not part of the police department. Once her observation period was over, she would go back to her own life. Simon would go back to his. The kiss he’d given her before had made her insides liquid. Imagine what his mouth could do to the rest of her body?
He seemed willing enough to have a temporary fling. And maybe she’d had the right idea all along. Maybe instead of fighting the attraction between them so hard, she should let it run it’s natural course. It would burn out eventually. The sexual tension between them was only ratcheting higher and