An Unfinished Life Read online

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, detective. You already know who I am, so how about we grab a cup of coffee and get to know one another a little better?” she said.

  Her hand was extended, waiting for me to shake it, but I was a goner. Duffy slapped my back to get my attention. What was I, a awkward prepubescent boy who could not speak around girls? Finally coming back down to earth, I greeted her with the standard pleasantries I would use with any cop. But she was the first one I had ever wanted to kiss—and by that I mean fucking devour.

  “After you,” was all I said while following her out the door.

  I almost put my hand on the small of her back, but I pulled back quickly before I was cited for sexual harassment. Thank God she was a few steps in front of me when I looked over my shoulder to the laughing Duffy.

  “Yeah, Paulson. Good luck not falling in love with her,” he said.

  I would gladly take his abuse for the next few days. I knew I was acting like a lovesick fool. What could I say? She made it easy.

  Fall was upon us, and it was the perfect time to walk in Central Park. The leaves were beginning to change color, and there was still a hint of summer before the brisk nights would follow. Minela and I grabbed some coffee and walked around the lake.

  “So tell me about yourself, tough guy. Who is Jacob Paulson? And why do I want to be his partner?”

  I laughed at her easy way of breaking the ice with me. I stopped and sat on a nearby park bench overlooking the water with the New York skyline serving as our backdrop for the perfect picture.

  I turned to face her. She was waiting for me to talk. She was patient, I’ll give her that. I tried to hide my smile, but I was failing miserably.

  “What would you like to know that you haven’t already read in a file or found on Google?”

  “Fair enough. Why did you become a cop?” she asked and then finished her coffee, tossing it into the trash can. “Score! Two points,” she screamed.

  Damn! Can this beauty actually like sports too?

  “After my injury made the decision for me to leave the game, I wanted more from my life. I had already earned my degree and just needed to enter the academy to make it official. No one understood my decision to leave the game behind me, especially my brothers who were playing alongside with me. It was our dream to play in the NFL from the moment we could throw the ball, and one third of the trio was leaving the band.”

  “I guess it all worked out in the end for you. You seem to have taken the career change quite well.”

  “And only knowing me an hour tells you that?”

  “No, but your record is impressive. You found success early on in your career and have moved up the chain of command rather quickly than others, so that tells me that you are one hell of a cop. Maybe playing football was just an appeasement for your father, not really for yourself. Am I close?”

  “No, you’re not. I’ve always loved the game. For years, football was all I knew, all I had, and then one day it just was gone. I needed to find fulfillment again in my life, and that’s where the law came in.”

  “A natural star on the beat, then Intelligence, and finally detective. You’re my hero.”

  “Okay, Miss Nosey Pants, you got me all figured out. What about you? How did the apple of her daddy’s eye become a cop? What are you, a rebel? That’s it. Probably treated like a princess from daddy and your brothers, so becoming a cop might shake up the family tree a bit. Now tell me, Minela, am I close?”

  “I’m hungry. How about a dog with the works, my treat.”

  “Way to go avoiding answering my question detective, and yes…you can pay.”

  The rest of our afternoon was filled with more questions about each other. She was easy to talk to, but not so easy answering my questions. She simply told me that she wanted to be a cop probably as long as I wanted to be a football player. Playing with dolls and tea parties wasn’t her thing, not when she had four older brothers in the house to grow up around. She loved all sports and played them too. I had never met anyone like her and definitely wanted to know her better.

  Of course I was right about her father. He was adamantly against her decision to join the force, but her mind was made up. She wouldn’t change her mind, not for anyone. Eventually they came around, she said, and her graduation picture in her blues was placed on her living room wall that joined her brothers’. She said her father had never been more proud of her, but he secretly wished she would occupy a desk job and not the streets. I guess if I had a daughter, I may have wanted the same thing.

  The days and months that followed our meeting were probably the happiest days of my life. I didn’t think I could feel that happy again since my days playing ball, but Minela sure kept things interesting. She was tough, kind of a badass, with legs that went on for days. We teased each other constantly. I called her Minela Vanilla once, and she basically told me that she would cut my balls off and feed them to me on a platter if I ever used that nickname again. I laughed at first, and then I stopped because of the way she was looking at me. I wasn’t the only one that called her that, and I promised I wouldn’t do it again. She had a tough skin when it came to being a cop, harassed by her brothers, but she always said she wanted things easy with me.

  I was a goner from the minute I met her. How could I not fall in love with Minela? She was everything I could want, and one day I grew a set of balls and came clean with her.

  She was leaning over her desk reading through some files with her glorious ass pointed right at me. Fuck my life! I have to just tell her. Minela, I love you. I’ve loved you from the first moment we met. We practically spend every waking minute together anyway. You’re not seeing anyone. I’m not seeing anyone, so why don’t we just see each other? What do you think?

  “Earth to Detective Paulson. Hey! Are you with me?”

  I felt a flick to my cheek and came back to the reason I was standing behind her.

  “What?” I questioned.

  “You are a million miles away. Can you come back to earth? I need some help.”

  I saw her in front of me, and I heard everything she said, but no words would come out of my mouth. I was frozen to the spot, because I just didn’t know how to tell her that I had fallen in love with her.

  “Good chatting with you, Jake.”

  She patted my shoulders and walked away. What was wrong with me? When I was in high school and college, I had girls all over me all the time, and when it came to Minela, I went mute.

  Duffy stuck his head out from his office and called me in, “Paulson, my office.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cut the formalities, Jake. You look like your about to drool all over yourself.”

  “Sorry, Duff, but I can’t help it. I become an adolescent anytime I’m around her. How I’ve done the job with her this long without screwing up is a miracle. I need to tell her, or I’m fucking transferring to Alaska.”

  “Oh, I love it when I’m right, but you’re also right. You have to talk to her. You’re lucky I love you like a son, because if you were any other one of my guys, I would have kicked their ass already. I told you not to fall in love with her, and that’s exactly what you did, son.”

  “I guess it had to happen eventually. I’m my parents’ first born son, and my kid brother gets married first. I’m sorry, Duff, but she’s the one. If she doesn’t return my feelings, I give you my word that I will walk away clean, but I have to know one way or another.”

  “Fine, go be stupid, but don’t marry her.”

  “Yeah, okay, boss. If she tells me that she loves me, I am so putting a ring on that finger. I will make it known to the world that she is mine. Knocking her up will be at the top of my priority list, and lastly…”

  “Oh please! There’s more? I can’t wait to hear this.”

  I held my stomach I was laughing so hard. Duff was just so easy to talk to. He had become a good friend over the years, and I did respect his opinion on my life. My parents were in California, and I w
as on my own here in New York. Duff was like a second father to me.

  I turned away, and before I left the room, I said to him, “I plan on making Minela LaRocha the happiest woman in the world. It will be my vow to make her smile and laugh every single day. She’s the next Mrs. Paulson. I just know it, Captain.”

  I left his office with a new sense of purpose. Yup! Tonight would be the night I made her mine.

  I’d never forget the sound of that gunshot. The feel of blood on my hands. The feel of a higher than life physical form was now lifeless in my arms.

  “No baby, please don’t leave me. Please baby, help is on the way. You stay with me, baby. Don’t you fucking die on me. Not here, not now, not in the middle of the street. Come on, baby! Where’s my tough Boston girl who took on her brothers in a hockey game? They had nothing on you. You scored three goals. I’ll never forget the look on your brothers faces. Come on, baby. We have another game in our future. Please Minela, please? Don’t leave me!” I screamed as loud as I could and prayed for a response back. “Our life is just beginning. Don’t you know that, baby? You have to stay with me, please. I hear the sirens getting nearer. You’re going to be okay. Just hang on.”

  “Ja...” was all she could push from her lips. Her voice was so faint, I could barely hear her say my name.

  I was internally struggling with what I wanted to believe and what I knew was actually happening. She tried to say my name, so I convinced myself that if she could do that, she would be okay. I didn’t want to believe the alternative. I tried to pull myself together to show her that I actually believed she would make it through this, but I knew better. The bullet nearly hit directly into her chest and didn’t go through to the other side, so I knew it shredded her chest wall on account of the blood she was losing. I tried to calm her, but she was determined to talk. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us. Just a mere hour ago, we had everything: love, life…a future.

  “Shhh, don’t try to talk. Help is on the way.”

  She was struggling to breathe, struggling to stay alive. My thumb was on her pulse. I knew I only had seconds left with her, but that didn’t stop me from begging her to live and to stay with me.

  “I love you Minela, so much. I love you. I love you.”

  In her last moment of clarity, she looked right into my soul and whispered her last words to me, “I…love you too…Paulson…I’m so happy…you didn’t listen…to Duff…and fell in love with me…anyway.”

  I was crying, screaming, shaking her, but she was gone. She half smiled at me, then closed her eyes, and her hand slipped from mine.

  The ambulance arrived with the two EMT’s trying to separate me from her, but no matter how vehemently they tried to save her, she was dead in my arms.

  The t-shirt I was wearing was no longer white. It was red from Minela bleeding out. I brushed the hair away from her forehead and placed my lips down to kiss her. Her skin was already beginning to go cold. Why? Why did this happen to her? And to us?

  “Jacob, wake up. Please open your eyes and look at me.”

  “Minela?” I called out.

  “No, Jake. It’s Zoey. You were having a nightmare. Please open your eyes.”

  I felt her soft hands glide down my jaw. I opened my eyes and took in Zoey’s bright blues staring back at me. They were beautiful pools of the ocean, but I also saw fear in them. God knows how loud I was and how it must have frightened her. I could never predict when the PTSD will strike again, but when I succumbed to the nightmares, I was just pulled down deeper and deeper into a bottomless abyss until I came up for air. This time it was Zoey who breathed life into my heart.

  I wasn’t ready to talk to her, certainly not about my past. I took Zoey into my arms and kissed her passionately.

  “Are you okay?” she breathlessly asked.

  She was completely taken off guard with my assault on her mouth. What an inviting mouth it was, and one I never wanted to stop tasting.

  I let out a breath, and then placed my forehead to hers.

  “I need to make love to you, Zoey. Please let me love on you and help me forget. Can you do that for me? Help me forget?”

  I heard the words slip from my mouth, a raw vulnerability I had no control over. The dam had been breached, with my soul just gutted wide open.

  I was ashamed with how broken I sounded, so weak and lost, and here I was asking a woman to comfort me with her body. This was not who I am. This man was not the same man my father raised me to be. I couldn’t undo the past no matter how much I fought it. Minela was gone, and I had to free myself of this loss, or I would never truly be able to experience the joy I had with her, with anyone else. My God! Zoey’s beauty just brought me to my knees. She was absolutely perfect, and my nightmare was nearly forgotten just focusing on the beauty before me.

  “Yes, please make love to me,” she responded.

  She held my face and kissed me. I carried her back to the bedroom and made love to this beautiful woman who in just a few short days had managed to break down my walls and make me want more out of life.

  After I knew Zoey was asleep, I leaned on my elbow to watch her. She looked so peaceful, which left me wanting that same feeling. I couldn’t pretend like time spent with her hadn’t been amazing, but the fact remained that I was here for work, and by all accounts Zoey was here for me.

  I had breakfast ordered up. Not knowing what she would like, I ordered everything on the breakfast selection list. I was just putting my suit jacket on when she walked out from the shower wearing only a towel.

  “Good morning. How did you sleep?” I asked her as she toyed with her towel.

  Any other time, I would be game to playing, but I needed to get downtown. Please, you tease…do not drop that towel. Thank goodness she didn’t and just walked up to me standing on her toes to kiss me.

  “Good morning to you too. How are you? Did you manage to get any sleep?” There were those concerned eyes again.

  “I think you know the answer to that one. You wore me out. Were you a gymnast or dancer back in school?” I teased her, earning a smile in return.

  “Pilates, baby. It’s addicting.”

  “Well, I may have to send a thank you note to your instructor, because you are an A student.”

  She had beads of water still lingering on her shoulders, making me want to lap them all up with my tongue.

  “I know you have to be going, so I won’t keep you, Jake. I’ll just get dressed and get out of your hair.”

  What? I don’t want her to leave, and where to, back to New York? Since she has arrived, all we’ve done is have sex, with her helping me through my nightmare last night. I needed to say something without making myself sound desperate or needy.

  “Um, Zoey, when you say ‘leaving,’ what does that mean exactly?” I asked her the question, nearly biting the inside of my mouth.

  She stepped out of my embrace and grabbed a croissant off the breakfast tray. She took a small bite and turned back to me.

  “What do you think it means? I’m curious to know.”

  She continued to nibble on her food while teasing the shit out of me with that sexy mouth of hers.

  “I’m not sure, so that’s why I asked. Are you leaving LA and returning to New York? Will I see you again?”

  She dropped her food and walked back over to me. I wanted to take her up against the wall for making me wait for her answer. She looked at me. No words, just touched. She pulled me down to her lips and pushed her tongue inside of my mouth. Fuck my life! Now I was hard.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Jake. My father has a condo here, not too far from this hotel. I’m going to go back there and get some much needed sleep. You see, some ex-football player who is built like a brick wall really worked me over last night. He could go all night like a freaking sex machine. He says I’m very bendy, but it was he who was the physical phenomenon.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at this beautiful girl.

  “I would rather have you wait in my
place, in my bed, but I guess we can both take today to do what we have to do. I’m not sure when I will return tonight, but can I call you when I do?”

  “Of course you can. My number is programmed in your phone. And Jake, do me a favor today?”

  “What would that be?”

  She kissed me again, this time biting my bottom lip, leaving it slightly swollen. I fucking loved it. She almost ran back to the bathroom but first turned to say, “Don’t drive yourself too crazy today with all those unanswered questions spinning around in your mind. When you’re ready, we will have that conversation. Okay?”

  I just nodded back while she blew me a kiss and closed the door behind her.

  I had declined the car service today. I needed to definitely think and clear my head. Zoey already knew me too well, and I liked it. I called Tenley and hoped she would be able to give me some more info about her best friend.

  “Hey, Jake, how are you?” asked my very happy friend.

  “I’m good. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything?” My fingers were crossed behind my back. “Are you still in New York?”

  “No, we’re back in Wyoming. Jagger is already out somewhere on the property. I’m just staring at my new, huge home and trying to figure out where to put everything.”

  “I thought you had a furnished home already to move into?”

  “I do, but my things arrived today from my apartment in New York, so I’m surrounded by boxes. No worries, I’ll manage. So how are you doing, and how’s the current case? Can I help you with anything?”

  “The case is complicated, and I’m just beginning to get into it, but that’s not why I called. It’s about Zoey. She followed me out here, and other than the obvious, and I’m so confused to why.”

  “Oh, Jake! Now it all makes sense.”

  “What makes sense? Because I’m completely in the fucking dark.”