Simon flung himself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut, then inserted the key in the ignition and turned the car on, but instead of putting the car in gear and heading back to the police precinct, he dropped his hands to his lap and stared ahead. Her erotic thoughts were quickly swept away by concern.
“What is it, Simon?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Absolutely nothing.”
Yet more avoidance. But he obviously didn’t know her at all if he thought she’d simply take his denial and walk away like a good little girl. She gave him a few more minutes of silence, but when he still didn’t pull out, she couldn’t stay quiet any longer.
“Hmm,” she said softly. “I can tell how absolutely nothing is bothering you by the superb manner in which you are driving.”
He dropped his gaze down to his hands, still sitting idly in his lap, and barked out a quick laugh. “Looks like you got me, Doc.”
“So before you put us in traffic, you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”
Simon stretched an arm across the seat, setting his hand on the headrest behind her, and turned to face her. “Remember what you said about not getting all shrink-y on me?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
He drew in a quick breath through his nose, then spoke. “I said earlier that I doubted myself when I started my job as captain. Because I missed the action of the streets. But you’re right. That wasn’t the only thing that shook my confidence.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. Because as much as I missed the action on the streets, there’s a whole new set of action that comes with being a captain. A whole new set of responsibilities. Suddenly I just wasn’t responsible for my own safety, or even that of my partner. I was making decisions that were going to affect public policy. Policy that would impact the lives of citizens and cops alike. A lot of them. Hell, I hadn’t been captain for more than a week before I shut down a key program, leaving ten officers without jobs.”
“The program that man back at SIG mentioned? What did you say his name was? Hooper?”
“Yes. And yes, that program. It had to be done for budgetary reasons, but still, what if even that decision fucked up someone’s life?”
Simon paused and Nina gave him a few moments to breathe.
He focused his gaze somewhere in the distance. “I freaked. I was afraid I was going to mess up and make the wrong decisions. Screw up lives. Get people killed.”
His words hit her hard. She wrenched her gaze from his face and looked at her own hands in her lap, fingers now tightly wound together. How well she knew what he meant.
“I didn’t face my fear before, but I’m trying to now. I can’t keep stumbling around, avoiding the fact that someday my actions may kill someone,” he continued, oblivious to her pain. “So I’m going to take a chance and try management again. Whether that makes me a coward or one of the bravest men in the world, who knows?”
“It’s not an easy answer, is it?” she said. “It’s hard to even know what you’re feeling, let alone what it means.”
“Hard for me, maybe. It must be easier for you to analyze your feelings, right? You’re a shri...I mean, a psychiatrist.”
She laughed shakily. “No, it’s not easier for me. It’s kind of like operating on yourself. Or representing yourself at trial. You can’t be objective. You can’t see things that would be so easy to see in others. What’s that saying? That a person who represents himself has a fool for a client?” She shook her head. “I struggle with the same fears that you do, Simon. But all we can do is trust our instincts, remember? Move forward. Do the best we can. You applied to be captain before for a reason. There’s a reason you’re doing it now. Trust yourself. You’ll make a wonderful leader.”
“Even given my issues with psychiatrists?”
“Even then. Because you’re a straight shooter. You don’t hide who you are. What you believe. And you have an open mind. Allowing me to shadow you proves it.”
He shook his head. “You’re giving me too much credit. Commander Stevens said he wouldn’t recommend me for a promotion unless I agreed to partner with you.”
“And we both know that if you really didn’t want to work with me, if you really hadn’t wanted to talk to Kyle Shepard the day