Kansas City Cop

  She cheated death once... But a killer still lurks.

  After a gunshot rips streetwise police officer Gina Galvan from the line of duty, all she wants is to return to the front line and stop a shooter. But good guy physical therapist Mike Cutler won’t back down from a challenge, or his blazing attraction to Gina. Without a badge or a gun, Mike is ready to face anyone—including a killer—to prove he’s every inch a hero.

  The Precinct

  Mike Cutler.

  Gina tried to roll over and push herself up, but she couldn’t seem to get her arm beneath her. The snow and clouds and black running shoes all swirled together inside her head.

  “Easy, Gina. I need you to lie still. An ambulance is on its way. You’ve injured your shoulder. I don’t want you to aggravate it. And if that bullet is still inside you, I don’t want it traveling anywhere.” His warm hand cupped her face and she realized just how cold she was. She wished she could wrap her whole body up in that kind of heat. She looked up into his stern expression. “Stay with me.”

  “Catnip.”

  “What?”

  Her eyelids drifted shut.

  “Gina!”

  The last thing she saw was her blood seeping into the snow. The last thing she felt was the man’s strong hands pressing against her breast and shoulder. The last thing she heard was his voice on her radio.

  “Officer down. I repeat, officer down!”

  KANSAS CITY

  COP

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Julie Miller

  Julie Miller is an award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author of breathtaking romantic suspense—with a National Readers’ Choice Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award, among other prizes. She has also earned an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. For a complete list of her books, monthly newsletter and more, go to juliemiller.org.

  Books by Julie Miller

  Harlequin Intrigue

  The Precinct

  Beauty and the Badge

  Takedown

  KCPD Protector

  Crossfire Christmas

  Military Grade Mistletoe

  Kansas City Cop

  The Precinct: Bachelors in Blue

  APB: Baby

  Kansas City Countdown

  Necessary Action

  Protection Detail

  The Precinct: Cold Case

  Kansas City Cover-Up

  Kansas City Secrets

  Kansas City Confessions

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

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  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Mike Cutler, Jr.—A second-generation hero with a penchant for rescuing damsels in distress. Having barely survived a tragic childhood, this stubborn, do-the-right-thing physical therapist might not have followed in his father’s footsteps to become a cop—but that doesn’t mean he isn’t all about saving people. Stopping to help a wounded police officer will change his life in ways he never expected. It’ll change his heart, too.

  Officer Gina Galvan—This tough, working-class cop is the last woman who needs rescuing. But when a life-changing injury jeopardizes her future with KCPD, she turns to Mike Cutler to get her back into fighting shape. Although she’s attracted to Mike’s blue-eyed charm and tall, fit dependability, she can’t see any future for two people who come from such different worlds. But someone out there isn’t done hunting cops. And when the shooter targets Gina again, intent on finishing the job he started, she finds much more than an ally in Mike—she finds her very own hero.

  Derek Johnson—Gina’s partner. Is one of them the shooter’s real target? Or is any officer in uniform fair game?

  Harold Johnson—Derek’s father is an embarrassment to his son.

  Lupe and Rollo Molina—Gina’s elderly great-aunt and uncle raised her and her siblings.

  Sylvie Galvan—Gina’s younger sister. She’s the pretty one. And that gets her into trouble.

  Javier Galvan—Gina’s brother used to run with a gang.

  Bobby Estes—The creeper boyfriend who won’t leave Gina’s sister alone.

  Gordon and Vicki Bismarck—Ex-husband and wife. No cop wants to answer their domestic violence calls.

  Denny Bismarck—Gordon’s equally violent big brother leads a motorcycle gang...and protects the family.

  Michael Cutler, Sr.—Mike’s father, captain of the special weapons and tactics division at KCPD.

  To Edna Castillo, reader and bookseller extraordinaire.

  A fellow The Wizard of Oz fan, too!

  Thanks for your help with the Spanish.

  Any mistakes are my own.

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Bulletproof SEAL by Carol Ericso

  Chapter One

  The bright sunlight glaring off the fresh February snow through the police cruiser’s windshield was as blinding as the headache forming behind Officer Gina Galvan’s dark brown eyes.

  “No, Tia Mami, I can’t.” She glanced across the front seat to her partner, Derek Johnson, and silently mouthed an apology for yet another family crisis infringing on their shift time with KCPD. “I don’t get off until seven. And that’s if our paperwork’s done. That’s why I left my car at home and took the bus this morning—so Sylvie could drive you and Tio Papi to his doctor’s appointment.”

  “Sylvie no come home from school,” her great-aunt Lupe replied quietly, as though apologizing for the news.

  “What? Where is she?”

  “Javi said he saw her riding with that boyfriend of hers we don’t like.”

  “Seriously?” Anger and concern flooded Gina’s cheeks with heat. The boyfriend they didn’t like had too much money to have gotten it in the old neighborhood by any legal means. But Bobby Estes’s flashy cars and devilish good looks were too much for Gina’s dreamy, dissatisfied baby sister to resist. And if Bobby was a teenager, as he claimed, then Gina was Santa Claus. Clearly, her last conversation with Sylvie, about the definition of statutory rape and learning to act like an adult if she wanted to be treated like one, had not made a memorable impact. “I’m going to have to ground her. That’s all there is to it.”

  But dealing with her sister’s rash choices didn’t get Tio Papi to the doctor’s office. Gina slipped her fingers beneath the base of her wavy brunette ponytail to massage the tension gathering at the nape of her neck.

  Derek nudged her with his elbow. “Need a ride home tonight?”

  Missing the point! Although, in his defense, Derek was only hearing half the conversation. Gina summoned a smile for the friend she’d been riding a squad car with for almost two years now. “It’s okay. Just a miscommunication at home.”

  “Gotta love our families, right?” Derek teased. She knew he had a strained relationship with his father. And there was no love lost for Derek’s mother, who’d divorced his father and moved away, leaving her teenage son behind to be raised by an aging hippie who had trouble keeping a job and staying out of jail.

  A difficult upbringi ng was part of the common ground they shared, and had helped solidify their working relationship and understanding of each other. Gina gave the sarcasm right back, whispering so her great-aunt couldn’t hear. “Do we really have to?”

  Derek grinned and directed her back to her phone. “Tell Aunt Lupe hi for me, okay?”

  “I will. Tia Mami, Derek says hi.”

  “You teach that young man to say hola, and bring him to dinner sometime.”

  “I’m working on it.” Gina continued the conversation with appropriate responses while her great-aunt rattled on about other concerns she’d have to deal with once she got home. While Lupe talked, Gina concentrated on the scenery as they drove past, partly because it was her job to observe the neighborhood and take note of anything that looked suspicious or unsafe, and partly because she’d already heard the same worried speech too many times before about fast cars and traffic accidents, young men who didn’t come to the door to pick up a date and Uncle Rollo’s deteriorating health.

  Now there was something different. Gina lifted her chin for a better look. A tall man in silver and black running gear came around the corner off Pennsylvania Avenue and ran down the narrow side street. A jogger in this neighborhood was unusual. Maybe he was one of those yuppie business owners who’d opened an office in this part of town for a song, or he’d bought a loft in one of the area’s abandoned warehouses, thinking he could revitalize a little part of Kansas City. Not for the first time, she considered the irony of people with money moving into this part of the city, while the natives like her were doing all they could to raise enough money to move out.

  But irony quickly gave way to other thoughts. The runner was tall, lean and muscular. Although the stocking cap and wraparound sunglasses he wore masked the top half of his head, the well-trimmed scruff of brown beard on his golden skin was like catnip to her. Plus, she could tell he was fit by the rhythmic clouds of his breath in the cold air. He wasn’t struggling to maintain that pace and, for a woman who worked hard to stay physically fit, she appreciated his athleticism.

  As they passed each other, he offered her a polite wave, and Gina nodded in return. Since he already knew she’d been staring, she shifted her gaze to the side mirror to watch him run another block. Long legs and a tight butt. Gina’s lips curved into a smile. They probably had a lot of scenery like that in the suburbs. A relationship was one thing she didn’t have time for at this point in her life. And no way did she want to tie herself to anyone from the neighborhood who might want her to stay. But there was no harm in looking and getting her blood circulating a little faster. After all, it was only twenty-two degrees out, and a woman had to do whatever was necessary to stay warm.

  Gina glanced over at her partner. Derek was handsome in his own way. He, too, had brown hair, but his smooth baby face was doing nary a thing for her circulation.

  “Do we need to take a detour to your house and have a conversation with your sister? I’d be happy to um, have a word, with that boyfriend of hers.” He took his hands off the steering wheel to make air quotes around have a word, as if he had ideas about roughing up Bobby on her behalf. As if she couldn’t take care of her family’s issues herself.

  Since the car was moving, Gina guided one hand back to the steering wheel and changed the subject. She covered the speaker on her phone and whispered, “Hey, since things are quiet right now, why don’t you swing by a coffee shop and get us something hot to drink. I haven’t been able to shake this chill since that first snow back in October.”

  Although the remembered impression of Sexy Jogger Guy made that last sentence a lie, her request had the desired effect of diverting Derek’s interest in her family problems.

  “That I can do. One skinny mocha latte coming up.”

  Distracted with his new mission, Derek turned the squad car onto a cross street, plowing through a dip filled with dirty slush as they continued their daily patrol through the aging neighborhood. With houses and duplexes so close together that a person could barely walk between them, vehicles parked bumper-to-bumper against the curb and junk piling on porches and spilling into yards, this was a part of the city she knew far too well. Add in the branches of tall, denuded maple trees heavy with three months’ worth of snow arching over the yards and narrow streets, and Gina felt claustrophobic. As much as she loved Kansas City and her job as a police officer, she secretly wondered if she was the reincarnation of some Central American ancestor and was meant for living on the high, arid plains of her people with plenty of blue sky and wide-open space, without a single snowflake in sight.

  Setting aside her own restless need to escape, Gina turned toward the passenger door to find some privacy for this personal conversation. “Did you call Sylvie?” she asked her great-aunt, once the older woman’s need to vent had subsided.

  “She don’t answer.”

  “What about Javi?” Her brother, Javier, was twenty-one, although that didn’t necessarily mean he was making better choices than Sylvie. She kept hoping for the day when he would step up as the man of the family and allow their great-uncle to truly enjoy his retirement. “Can he drive you?”

  “He’s already gone. He’s picking up some extra hours at work.”

  Well, that was one plus in the ongoing drama that was Gina’s life. Maybe so long as Javi was intent on saving up to buy a truck, he would focus on this job and avoid the influence of his former friends who’d made some less productive choices with their lives, like stealing cars, selling drugs and running with gangs. “Good.”

  “Papi says he can drive,” Lupe Molina offered in a hushed, uncertain tone.

  Gina sat up as straight as her seat belt and protective vest allowed. “No. Absolutely not. The whole reason he’s going for these checkups is because he passed out the last time his blood pressure spiked. He can’t be behind the wheel.”

  “What do I do?” Lupe asked quietly.

  As much as she loved her great-aunt and -uncle who’d taken in the three Galvan siblings and raised them after their mother had died, Lupe and Rollo Molina were now both close to eighty and didn’t need the hassle of dealing with an attention-craving teenager. Especially not with Rollo’s health issues. “I’ll call Sylvie. See if I can get her home to help like she promised. If you don’t hear from her or me in ten minutes, call the doctor’s office and reschedule the appointment for tomorrow. I’ll be off except for practicing for my next SWAT test on the shooting range. I’ll make sure you get there.”

  “All right. I can do that. You see? This is where having a young man to help you would be a good thing.”

  Gina rolled her eyes at the not-so-subtle hint. There was more than one path to success besides getting married and making babies. “I love you, Tia Mami. Adios.”

  “Te amo, Gina. You’re always my good girl.”

  By the time she disconnected the call, Derek had pulled the black-and-white into the coffee shop’s tiny parking lot but was making no effort to get out and let her deal with her family on her own. Instead, he rested the long black sleeve of his uniform on the steering wheel and grinned at her. “Sylvie off on another one of her escapades?”

  Gina might as well fill in the blanks for him. “She’s supposed to be driving my uncle to the doctor. Instead, she’s cruising around the city with a young man who’s too old for her.”

  Derek shook his head. “She does look older than seventeen when she puts on all her makeup.” He dropped his green-eyed gaze to her black laced-up work boots. “She’s got the family legs, too.”

  Ignoring the gibe at her five-foot-three-inch height, Gina punched in Sylvie’s number. Then she punched Derek’s shoulder, giving back the teasing camaraderie they shared. “You’re eyeballing my little sister?”

  “Hey, when you decorate the Christmas tree, you’re supposed to celebrate it.”

  “Well, you don’t get to hang any ornaments on my sister, understand? She’s seventeen. You could get into all kinds of trouble with the department. And me.”

  Derek raised his hands in surrender. “Forget the department. You’re the one who scares me. You’re about to become one of SWAT’s finest. I’m not messing with anyone in your family.”

  The call went straight to Sylvie’s voice mail. “Damn it.” Gina tucked her phone back into her vest and held her hand out for Derek’s. “Could I borrow yours? Maybe if she doesn’t recognize the number, she’ll pick up.”

  “That means I’ll have her number in my phone, you know. And Sylvie is a hottie.”

  “Seven. Teen.” Gina repeated the warning with a smile and typed in her wayward sister’s number.

  She’d barely been a teenager herself when her mother had passed away and their long-absent father had willingly signed away his parental rights, leaving the three Galvans orphans in No-Man’s Land, one of the toughest neighborhoods in downtown Kansas City. They’d moved out of their cramped apartment into a slightly less cramped house. Instead of prostitutes, drug dealers and gangbangers doing business beneath Gina’s bedroom window, they’d graduated to the vicinity of a meth lab, which KCPD had eventually closed down, at the end of the block. Naturalized citizens who were proud to call themselves Americans, her great-aunt and -uncle had stressed the values of education and hard work, and they’d grown up proud but poor. With her diminutive stature, Gina had quickly learned how to handle herself in a fight and project an attitude so that no one would mess with her family or take advantage of her. That hardwired drive to protect her loved ones had morphed into a desire to protect any innocent who needed her help, including this neighborhood and her entire city. But she couldn’t forget which side of the tracks the Galvans and Molinas had come from—and just how far she had to go to secure something better for them.

  “Hey, don’t jinx the SWAT thing for me, okay?” A little bit of her great-aunt and -uncle’s superstitious nature buzzed through her thoughts like an annoying gnat she thought she’d gotten rid of. If she made Special Weapons and Tactics, the rise in status with the department and subsequent raise in pay would finally allow her to move her whole family into a house with a real yard in a safer suburb. She wasn’t afraid of setting goals and working hard to achieve them, but it was rare that she allowed anything so personal as wanting some open space to plant a proper garden or get a dog or owning a bathroom she didn’t have to share with four other people to motivate her. “I’m not the only recruit on Captain Cutler’s list of candidates for the new SWAT team he’s forming. There are ten people on a list for five spots. Including you.”