Learning To Trust Again

Walking away a few steps Jake considered the woman he had just saved as he searched his contacts for the number of the local station. Seeing her smile earlier and the dimples that appeared in her cheeks, he had had to work to remember what he had asked as he felt a stirring of his senses he hadn’t felt in over a year. The unexpectedness of it confused him. He didn’t want to be interested in her as a person. He didn’t want to be interested in anyone, so he needed to maintain a professional distance. Turning his back on her he moved his focus back to what he was doing as he heard the phone ringing down the line. This was his area and he knew the sergeant stationed there well. ‘Mal, it’s Jake Hunter’ he said as the other man identified himself.

‘Jake’ the man on the other end of the phone said, his pleasure at hearing who the caller was, was obvious in his voice. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Working mate’ Jake said ‘even when I’m not on duty.’                             

‘Really?’ the other man said sounding interested, ‘what’s going on?’

‘I just stumbled across an attempted assault on my way home.’

‘Where?’

‘In the lane next to The Commercial. Can you send some of your boys down to round these guys up?’

‘What you haven’t got them cuffed ready to go?’ the sergeant joked ‘you losing your touch mate?’

‘There were four of them’ Jake said with a frown, his voice stern, not in the mood for jokes ‘all I could do was scare them off.’

The other man laughed ‘Since when does being outnumbered stop you.’

‘When I’m unarmed and there is an innocent civilian thrown into the mix’ Jake replied, a hint of steel in his voice.

The other man dropped the levity. Slipping back into his professional demeanour he said, ‘okay Jake, I’ll send a couple of cars over. Will you be there to meet them?’

‘Yep, I’ll be here. How long?’

After a pause where Jake could hear him turning pages, the sergeant said ‘five minutes.’

‘Copy that. Thanks Mal.’

‘No problem. Stop by the station sometime, so we can catch up.’

‘Will do’ Jake said.

Turning back around, he inspected Rebecca as she leaned against the wall, her eyes closed.