THE BRIDE WORE
SMITH AND WESSON

by JoAnn Baca

Joe vaguely heard his pal Detective Greg Hughs introduce his new second in command…a woman so gorgeous, so stunning, so completely out of his league, he could feel his mouth watering in response to his first sight of her.

He apparently hadn’t engaged his poker face, because instead of saying “Pleased to meet you,” she had sized him up and scornfully remarked, “Roll that tongue back into your mouth, Maxwell.”

He recovered enough to mumble “Sorry,” and he forced his attention back to Greg, but his eyes kept straying to the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty whose name he hadn’t registered. Greg droned on about the situation, but when he concluded, “So I’ve assigned Calabria here to shadow you, keep you safe,” Joe’s gaze snapped back to Greg’s face, those last words piercing the lustful fog in his brain.

“She…what, now?”

Calabria patted her sidearm. “Not to worry, Mr. D.A. Got ya covered.”

Joe slowly shook his head. “I don’t need a babysitter, certainly not one…”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “If the next words out of your mouth aren’t ‘so obviously overqualified,’ I’m marching you to HR by your ear to register a complaint, mister.”

“That’s what I was gonna say,” he managed to mumble, lying to save himself from the threatened indignity. He turned to Greg. “Since when are random acts taken as serious threats?”

“Since that bullet slammed into the wall of the courthouse just inches from your head.” Greg’s voice was harsh, but he softened it as he added, “Somebody with the money to hire a sniper wants you taken out. So I’m putting 24/7 protection on you, period.”

Unwilling to accept the truth, Joe countered with, “What if it was a stray bullet? Or just some joyrider shooting out of his car window?”

“The likelihood of either is about zero, and you know it, Joe.” Greg scowled at him, then thrust a thumb in Calabria’s direction. “She’s the best I’ve got. Take the help and shut up, OK?”

Admitting defeat, Joe glumly nodded.

* * *

“OK, you can get up now.” Calabria’s voice was a gentle murmur, its breathiness causing ripples of goosebumps down Joe’s back. Apparently, he didn’t rise as quickly as she expected, because a second later she barked, “You asleep back there?”

Joe sat up from his prone position in the back of her police vehicle. She had insisted he lie flat on the back seat to avoid making himself visible as they exited the D.A.’s office garage. He’d felt foolish but complied, already having ticked her off enough to cause an iciness that boded ill for their time together.

“I’m up, I’m up,” he grumbled.

They were now in his apartment building’s garage, a place he’d rarely seen, not having the wherewithal to own a car, let alone to pay for a parking spot.

“Which floor?” she asked, locking the door behind him. Her head was on a swivel, her gaze taking in the entire garage.

“Follow me,” he said, heading to the elevator.

She grabbed his shoulder. “Stairs,” she ordered.

He turned in surprise to face her. “It’s seven floors up!”

“Fewer surprises on a stairway than with elevator doors. Stairs. Now.”

She gently shoved his shoulder to get him moving, which he found irritating. He wasn’t used to being manhandled by the police, especially by the most beautiful member of the police he had ever seen in his entire life.

“Over here,” he mumbled, leading her to the stairway door. She put her hand on his shoulder to hold him back, then opened the door herself with one hand, the other holding her revolver. Once she was satisfied nobody was lurking inside, she let him through.

The climb was quick, her pushing him with a hand on his back while he did everything possible to keep the pace she wanted him to set. He tried hard not to breathe heavily as he rapidly ascended to the seventh floor, noting she was barely out of breath when they arrived.

“Hold,” she ordered, and exited the stairway first, examining the hallway before nodding him through. She repeated the exercise at his apartment door, then made him stand beside the closed door while she explored his apartment, pulling blinds down and tugging curtains closed. When she was satisfied that all was well, she holstered her weapon.

“Got a folding chair?” she asked.

“You can sit wherever you want,” he replied, not understanding her request.

“It’s for outside. I’ll be taking up position there until my relief arrives at midnight.”

“What?! That’s crazy!” He could imagine his neighbors’ reactions to seeing a cop…especially this cop…sitting in the hall outside his front door. He’d have to endure weeks of teasing from his male neighbors and the suspicious looks of the old ladies.

“It’s protocol,” she argued. “I’ll let you know when Detective Miranda relieves me, and I’ll be back in time to escort you to your office in the morning.”

“Look, Greg’s a great cop and a good friend, but he’s over-reacting. That bullet could have been meant for any number of attorneys, witnesses, or even court personnel on those steps this morning.”

Calabria’s face was stony as she heard him out. He could tell he hadn’t made a dent in her position. When he finished arguing, she merely said, “Chair?”

After Calabria had taken her position, Joe puttered around his apartment, acutely aware of the policewoman on the other side of his front door. She was bossy and intimidating and aggravating and tough…and thoroughly fascinating. He wanted to get to know her, talk philosophy…heck, have her babies… Ridiculous ideas swirled through his brain. That was the effect she was having on him. How was he supposed to act civilized around her when she turned him into a molten pile of Neanderthal urges with just one look from those blazing brown eyes?

His telephone rang, and he welcomed the distraction. “Maxwell here.”

“Joe!” Catherine Chandler’s voice sounded as far away as she was. “Greg just called to fill me in. News travels slowly to San Francisco when it comes to gunfire in New York. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, he’s gone completely mother hen over this thing. The shot could have been fired at any of a dozen people. I don’t want you worrying, OK?”

He could tell she wasn’t buying it. She was as good a friend as Greg, maybe better.

“Me? Worry about big, tough you? The guy who wears a cape emblazoned ‘For the People’ on his shoulders? You’re darn right, I worry.”

“Look, I’m grateful you care. Really, no joking. But you concentrate on your FBI training course and leave this to the professionals. Since that Spirko situation, some hinky things have been happening in this city, and I prefer you out of harm’s way right now.” He paused for a moment, then decided to add, “Greg put his best cop on me, you know her? Calabria. No clue what her first name is.”

“Greg must really love you,” she said, a smile in her tone. “He keeps her for the most special of special assignments. You’d better feel as lucky as you are, Joe. She’s the best.”

He shook his head. “How am I the last to know about her? I never even heard her name before today.”

“You work too hard, and don’t listen to office gossip enough, I guess!”

He chuckled. “Guilty on both counts. Look, don’t worry about me then, if she’s so damn good at her job. Just come back safe, OK?”

“You take every precaution, boss. See you next Monday.”

* * *

The morning was a repeat of the evening before. Same actions in reverse. He felt like a puppet yanked back and forth, with his handler all eagle-eyed efficiency as he was moved helplessly to and fro. It bruised his ego, even as he recognized that Greg was only trying to keep him safe.

Calabria left him alone while he was in his office…at least, she left him in the care of patrolmen assigned to each entrance. The staff reacted with confusion and worry. He, however, acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary, by his example relaxing the others until work hummed as smoothly as usual. But when he was ready to leave for the day, there Calabria was, packing heat and looking even hotter than the day before. Sweat broke out on his upper lip, having nothing to do with the temperature.

“You catching a cold?” she asked. Without waiting for his reply, she added, “Let’s get going. You know the drill.”

Yes…yes, he did. It would be, as Edie used to say, “rinse and repeat.”

* * *

And his prediction was true. The week did go by in a rinse-and-repeat fashion. Calabria was all business, no nonsense, and unapproachable on a human level, as far as Joe could discern.

On Wednesday, he did manage to have a sort-of conversation with her while being driven home. While in his usual position, face-down on the back seat, he suggested he might cook her dinner before she took her chair out into the hall.

She contemplated his offer. “Whatcha got in the freezer?“

Quickly, he assessed his options. “There’s half a pizza, I got a coupla steaks, and I think I still have a container of Ma’s sauce for pasta.”

Calabria snorted in disbelief. “You’re Italian, with a name like Maxwell? Product of a mixed marriage?”

“Don’t you know it,” he replied with a smile. “Pa was best friends with my Uncle Sal on the force, met his little sister, and the rest is history.”

“Sweet. Me, I’m a full-blood. Nobody in my family marries outside the coven, so to speak. At least, I don’t know anyone who lived to tell the tale.”

“Kinda assumed, with a name like Calabria, you had some Italian in your background.” His smile grew, lying there in the back seat. Taking a chance at piercing her armor a little further, he asked, “Got siblings?”

“Oh, yeah.” She snorted again. “Five older brothers. It was quite the treat, growing up with them.”

“Helped make you what you are today?” Joe guessed.

“Nope. Made myself all by myself. Didn’t need any help. Never have.”

Well, there’s the end of yet another line of conversation. He mentally shrugged, then asked, “So…pasta tonight?”

* * *

Thursday evening he was prepared with another question. As Calabria negotiated evening traffic, he called out, “Hey, Calabria, what do you do in your copious free time?”

She glanced quickly back at him. “You gotta be kidding, right?”

“Just making conversation. For instance, I like to hang with some guys at the gym, play a little b-ball. Then we all retire to O’Shaughnessy’s for a pint.”

“Male bonding rituals. Gotta love ‘em,” she replied, not offering a similar insight into her own downtime.

He tried again. “So…no female bonding rituals to report?”

“Like I’d tell you!” She snorted, seemingly her go-to response to his queries. A minute went by, then she added, “Nope, I’m too busy at the firing range or refining my hand-to-hand technique.”

“Wow, all business.”

“That’s how you rise to the top and stay there, Maxwell.”

He nodded. “I spend a lot of time at the office after hours, so I guess it’s the same for me. Got to keep ahead of things. When you didn’t go to a top-flight law school, you keep that chip on your shoulder, needing to prove yourself to yourself as well as the higher-ups.”

She startled him with a shouted, “Hey, I’m driving here!” while laying on the horn, then asked, “You say something, Maxwell?”

He sighed. So much for trying to share. “Nothing important,” he mumbled.

* * *

Friday morning’s routine didn’t require conversation – it was rote by now, every move seemingly choreographed, and he knew his part well. As he lay in the back seat, he tried to think of a line of inquiry that would get Calabria into a conversation consisting of more than one or two dismissive sentences.

“Been to Italy?”

“Nope. I don’t live in the past.”

“Right. How about out of state – any vacations anywhere?”

“What? And leave the center of the universe? With what money?”

“I get it. Uh…any future plans?”

“Sure, to keep you alive and get you out of my life. Sound good to you?”

“You don’t plan on us remaining friends?” He disliked being considered just a job. Here he was trying to at least establish an ongoing relationship, something where they could retain a collegial rapport, call on each other for help on occasion…that kind of thing. He’d take that, if it was all she wanted…but heck, she didn’t seem to want even that.

“Friends?” Again, she snorted. “You and me…friends. Gotta laugh. We’ve got so much in common, right?”

“I meant like…colleagues…people who can rely on each other in the future, if the need arises.”

“Well, I know I’m very reliable, but I don’t know squat about you, Maxwell, except that someone hates you so much they want you dead. Not the greatest recommendation.”

He sighed. “Right.” He fell silent, mentally exhausted from her repeated rebuffs. He was at a loss, but resigned himself to this uncomfortable coupling for the foreseeable future. Maybe he’d get lucky and the shooter would take him out.

Suddenly, she started a conversation of her own. “Dinner’s on you again tonight. We’ll have the steaks as soon as we get you home.”

“Well, I have to defrost ‘em first, but sure.”

“No need.”

“Huh?”

“I started them defrosting while you were putting your makeup on this morning.” She lifted a grocery bag from the front seat and shook it. “Picked up some potatoes to bake, and we’ll make a nice salad. Works for you?”

Wow, Hurricane Calabria plans dinner. “Uhhh…sure.”

* * *

“I’ll be back in the morning. What time do you get up on Saturdays?” Calabria asked when she’d retrieved her folding chair after their dinner, preparing to guard his door for the early part of the evening.

“I usually go for a run in…”

“Nope. What else do you do?”

He frowned. “Can I at least go to the police gym if I can’t run?”

She considered his request, then shook her head no. “Should have told me beforehand, so I could have arranged for patrol personnel at the doors. Too late to do that tonight without disrupting shifts.”

Exasperated, he blew up at her. “Look, I’ve been patient with this ridiculous situation, but enough’s enough! I want my life back, and I’m sure you have much more important things to do with your time than sit in my hallway!” He could tell by her narrowed gaze that he wasn’t getting through to her, so he tried a conciliatory tone. “You must have had to cancel plans, right? So…why not call your boyfriend and tell him you’re available. I’ll be fine here on my own. I won’t go out, I promise.”

“My private life is none of your concern. Oh, and…nope.” She walked to the door with the folding chair.

“Look, Calabria…oh, heck, what’s the rest of your name? We’re together all the time and I don’t even know it.”

She stood with one hand on the doorknob and looked back at him, saying, “It’s Calabria, like Hughs said.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, can’t you unclench just a little? Me knowing your first name isn’t going to change anything.”

With a stubborn set to her jaw, she regarded him stonily. “It could change something for you. If I told you and then you ever used my full name, I would have to seriously hurt you in places you would least like to be hurt.”

He nodded, intrigued. “Whatever you say. It would just be nice to know who you are…besides the most badass cop I’ve ever known…other than my dad, that is.”

“Your dad is a cop?” Her voice softened considerably as she said it.

Nodding, Joe replied, “Was. Killed in the line of duty. Ma didn’t want me to be a cop myself, so I became the next best thing – still in law enforcement, but in a safer job.” Realizing how that sounded – the bullet having made the “safer” description seem silly – he smiled.

When she smiled in return, he nearly fainted from shock. She became even more gorgeous, and he hadn’t thought that could be possible. That smile…it knocked him for a loop. Lordy, what he wouldn’t do to earn another one from her.

“You always listen to your Ma, do you?” The smile widened, revealing two delicious dimples.

“It’s always best to. You wouldn’t want to tick her off. She’s…”

“A badass?” Calabria supplied the term.

He chuckled. “Ooooh, yeah.”

Her smile turned into a smirk. “I like your Ma better than you already.”

“Well, since you don’t like me at all, I imagine it wouldn’t take much to like her more.”

Calabria’s face turned somber. “Who says I don’t like you?”

“Uh…everything you’ve ever said or done indicates you prefer my absence to my presence. I can take a hint.” He tried not to let the hurt color his voice but he suspected she could tell he was frustrated that she hadn’t warmed up the least bit to him in the time they’d been together.

“You’re my protectee, not my date, Maxwell.”

As if he needed the reminder. He already felt emasculated; he didn’t need her to rub it in. “Right. Got it. No run. No first name. Ma’s your favorite.”

Unexpectedly, she laughed at his last comment. Unbending the tiniest bit, she said, “Oh, you’re not sooo bad.” She turned and peered out the peephole, then opened the door. “I’ll let you know when the shift changes.”

* * *

Joe woke up rough after a restless night. It was Saturday. Usually his favorite day of the week. But the prospect of being cooped up on a glorious spring day just depressed him. No exercise, no leaving the apartment…

The knock on his door roused him from his miasma of glumness. Calabria must have arrived. He grabbed his bathrobe and trundled into the living room. He opened the door while rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Calabria took in his disheveled appearance and frowned. “Don’t you ask who it is?”

He shrugged. “Guards 24/7, and you think asking a question from one side of a closed door would prevent me being shot if a bad guy was standing there?”

She considered his question for a moment. “Point taken.” Thrusting a large paper cup into his free hand, she announced, “Hot and black. Drink it, get dressed, and I’ll take you out.”

He needed no push after hearing that. He was washed and dressed and back in his living room in 20 minutes.

“Where are we going?” he asked as she did her usual protective dance from his front door to her vehicle. He laid across the back seat without being prompted, knowing the drill by now, and knowing that arguing wouldn’t change the inevitable.

“You’ll see.”

His nose picked up a sweet scent he knew well. In astonishment, he asked, “Cannoli?”

“Can’t visit Ma without bringing something, right? Or do you just drop in and expect her to feed you?”

“You’re taking me to see my mother?!” He nearly popped up in the seat in his astonishment.

“You wanted to go out. I couldn’t arrange a gym visit on short notice here in Manhattan, but the cops in your dad’s old precinct were happy to oblige me with patrol cars at your Ma’s for a visit.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder when they were stopped at a red light. “Does that meet with your approval, or shall I call your mother to tell her you don’t want to see her?”

Joe tried to remember the last time he’d visited his mother. He’d been busy with several cases recently, but even before those, he had excused himself from some family events, pleading work-related reasons. Now that he thought of it…it had been months. Christmas? Was that really the last time he’d visited her?

Chagrinned, and dreading being called out in front of Calabria, he lost his appetite for the cannoli in the front seat.

* * *

“It’s safe. Come out,” Calabria barked at him. She had asked a patrolman to knock on the front door to let Mrs. Maxwell know her Joey was in the driveway. The side door stood open now, awaiting his entrance.

“Listen,” he mumbled as they rushed to the doorway, “she might be mad at me or…” But they were through the door before he could finish his warning.

“Joey!” His Ma enveloped him in a big hug, and he gratefully sank into it. Behind him, Calabria murmured to the patrolman and sent him to stand outside the door. She took the opportunity to roam through the Maxwell house, checking that it was safe herself. By the time she returned to the kitchen, Ma Maxwell’s dressing down of her son for it being so long between visits was over, and Ma was all smiles over the box of cannoli.

“Thank you for remembering how much I love these!”

Joe opened his mouth to refuse the compliment, but Calabria spoke before he could.

“He told me they were your favorites. Since he couldn’t go himself, I picked them up for him.” She smiled warmly at Ma Maxwell, earning an approving nod.

Joe nearly fell off his chair. Had Calabria just done him a favor with his Ma?!

“Joey can be very thoughtful…” Ma eyed him, and added, “when he chooses to be.”

“He always speaks glowingly of you, Mrs. Maxwell.”

Who IS this woman?! Joe thought, trying to match the current behavior of his protective detail to the hard-as-nails, no-nonsense toughie he’d been dealing with all week.

Ma Maxwell was relaxed and happy now, chatting with Calabria, even letting her make coffee for the three of them. They spent a pleasant couple of hours in the kitchen, eating cannoli…after devouring the lasagna Ma had thrown together upon getting the call that Calabria was bringing Joey home for a visit.

* * *

As Joe hunkered down in the back seat of Calabria’s patrol car for the drive back to Manhattan, he considered Ma’s last words. When she’d hugged him, she’d whispered, “I like this Leontina Rosetta very much.”

“Can I ask you something, Calabria?”

“C’mon, Joe, you know the correct question is ‘May I?’!”

“Huh?”

She shook her head. “Never mind, you philistine. What’s your question?”

“You told Ma your name.”

“Sorry, that’s not in the form of a question.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you watch Jeopardy?”

“Huh?” He was getting more confused by the minute.

“Again…never mind. You are a heathen, Joe.”

Heathen…philistine…what the heck? Joe had been insulted twice, and he hadn’t even gotten his question answered.

“If you are asking if I told your mother my full name, yes, I did.”

“Why her and not me?”

“Because she asked nicely. And because I doubt she would use my name against me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Correct.”

“Huh?”

* * *

The bullet shattered the passenger-side window, whizzing past Calabria’s right ear before going through the vehicle’s rear window. A shower of safety glass hit Joe’s body as he huddled low in the back seat.

Calabria shifted into another lane and pulled off the highway, moving fast. She wove quickly through surface streets until she was sure she had eluded anyone following her car, eventually pulling into the police lot at her precinct. She had called ahead, and a phalanx of on-duty detectives and patrol cops lined the sidewalk, offering protection as Joe was hustled inside.

Joe was shaken. He hadn’t really believed the shot at the courthouse was aimed at him, but this time there could be no doubt. Someone was after him…and had nearly gotten Calabria instead. And if he’d been sitting upright in the back seat…

Calabria came in, bearing two cups of probably stale and disgusting precinct coffee, but right now he’d drink sludge as long as it was hot.

“Our follow car managed to catch sight of the shooter,” she told him as she sipped from her own cup, not even grimacing at the taste.

“Follow car?” He knew he was asking a lot of questions today, but he didn’t understand half of what she’d told him, and none of what was going on.

“You think I’d go off on my own with you?” She looked insulted.

“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted, but added, “and you don’t tell me much.”

She accepted the truth of his statement, shrugging. “I always have a car in front and one behind when we’re on the road, guys with their eyes peeled in the passenger seats. Greg approved the overtime and let me pick my team, so I have crazy confidence in who I’m working with. One of the team spotted the muzzle flash and took off after the shooter. Caught up with him and disarmed him…eventually.”

“Whoa.” Joe was impressed. “If I thought you were badass before, forgive me for underestimating just how badass.”

Again, she shrugged. “It’s my job. I do it well.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “As Greg told you.”

“He did. And I owe him one. Well, one would be shortchanging him.” Joe shook his head in admiration.

“Greg’s got him in the box right now. I imagine he’ll have a name soon, and we’ll be arresting whomever hired him soon after.”

“And then this will be over?”

She gave him one of her rare smiles. “If you mean that you will lose the pleasure of my company, yes. You’ll go back to your old life, Mr. Maxwell.”

He wasn’t entirely sure he liked the sound of that.

* * *

It had been all over the news on Sunday: a wealthy couple had attempted to derail the prosecution of their only son by intimidating the district attorney’s office, but after getting caught in the attempt, their hired gun had given them up. By Saturday afternoon, they were all pointing fingers at each other, with the promise of a juicy family drama about to be played out in the court system. Nobody mentioned Joe’s name; the papers had all moved on to what they considered the more interesting parts of the story.

Catherine, back from training, was on the phone when Joe arrived at work on Monday morning…without his police guard. But as he sat down at his desk, she appeared in his office doorway, at the head of a crowd of concerned officemates.

“How are you doing, Joe?” Catherine’s query was on behalf of all of them.

“Good.” He raised his voice so those behind her could hear him clearly. “I’m fine! Everything’s back to normal, and you all should go back to work!”

The group scattered, but Catherine remained.

“Need something, Radcliffe?”

“Not me, but you do.”

“Huh?” He was getting really tired of having to use that word.

“You need something, and I have it.” She smirked.

He’d have to ask.

“OK, what do I need that you have?” He sat back in his chair, waiting for the punchline to some joke.

“Leontina’s phone number,” she said, a coy tone in her voice.

He sat forward abruptly. “Did everyone but me know her first name?!”

Laughing, Catherine approached his desk and set down a notecard. “I suspect she would like to hear from you.”

“I sincerely doubt it,” he grumbled. “She made it clear that I was a giant pain in her…”

“Now, Joe, would I pull your leg about this? Especially after all you’ve been through?”

“Yes.”

She realized he was probably right. “Look, as your friend, I’m telling you…seriously, call her.”

She was not joking around, he could tell. “Really?”

Catherine nodded. “Just don’t use her first name, OK?”

* * *

As June weddings went, this one was quite different. The police escort was exceptionally large. There was no wedding cake, just tray upon tray of cannoli. When it came time to recite their vows, it was no surprise to the groom that his bride was referred to, even by the priest, as simply “Ms. Calabria.” And it didn’t surprise the groom at all when he hugged the bride for their first kiss, and he felt something hard against her thigh. Of course. She was strapped…at her own wedding.

Joe gave a brief thought to how life would never be dull with this uncustomary woman by his side. Then he realized he was kidding himself. She would never be “by his side” – he would always be running to keep up. Well…he could use the exercise!

___________________

*Title: from Harvard’s Education by Suzanne Brockmann, one of Chan’s favorite writers.