Blood Will Tell by Jean Lorrah

unaccustomed to women in the line of fire.
    And what if she had been hit by a bullet instead of flying glass? The one and only time she had been shot, it had ended another promising relationship. Her mother had threatened everything short of having her declared insane when she had refused to quit the force.
    Martin studied her with unreadable black eyes. Finally he asked, “What do you want me to say, Brandy? That it doesn't bother me that you were in danger today? How can I care about you and not be concerned? You may become very important to me—I don't know you well enough yet to be sure. But I want to know you better."
    “I want to know you better, too."
    Again there was a long pause. Brandy wondered why she had put him in this position. Did she want to drive him away before she even had a chance to know him?
    Martin asked, “Are you afraid I'll try to change you?"
    “Men always do."
    “If I like you as you are, why would I want you to change? Besides, people never actually change. They may play a role for a time, but they can't keep it up. What kind of life would you have if you had to spend it being something you're not?"
    “You have a knack for saying exactly what I want to hear,” said Brandy.
    “It happens to be the truth. But I don't know yet what you are, as you don't know what I am. Shall we give ourselves time to find out?"
    Brandy let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. “Yes,” she replied.
    Brandy's apartment was small. She served dinner in the living room, and afterward Martin insisted on helping her clear the dishes away. Then they sat on the couch and talked—she could never remember talking so much with a man she was romantically interested in.
    Sylvester came in and walked over both of them, meowing until Brandy got up to feed him. Martin picked up the newspaper. As Brandy was filling Sylvester's dish, he said, “There's a story about the robbery today, and the chase."
    “How accurate is it?” Brandy asked skeptically.
    “You'll have to judge. I wasn't there.” Reading further, he asked, “You shot one of the suspects?"
    “Mm-hmm. I've been lucky. I've never had to kill anyone."
    He closed the paper and looked up at her with a puzzled frown. “Are you saying you intended to hit his hand? I thought you were trained to aim at the largest target."
    “I had a rifle and a steady prop, and Anderson wasn't more than twenty yards away."
    “Brandy—"
    She grinned. “You really don't know that about me, do you?"
    “Know what?"
    Brandy went to the bookcase for two framed items. One was a gold medal on a red-white-and-blue ribbon. The other was a front-page newspaper article with the headline, MURPHY WOMAN GOES FOR THE GOLD.
    Martin read the article, then looked up at her, astonishment on his face. “I've never met anyone who even participated in the Olympics before."
    “It was when I was in college,” she explained. “The JPSU rifle team wins the nationals most years. That year I was the best on the team."
    “The best in the world,” he said in awe. “What was it like?"
    “It's so long ago now,” she said honestly. “It was strange, frightening, triumphant—and it all went by in such a blur it was over before I knew it."
    Martin stood, and carefully replaced the items on the bookcase. “This can't be the only medal you've won."
    “Mom has the others,” Brandy told him. “There's not room h—” She stopped. “I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. It's just a tiny apartment.” And she waited for him to digest the fact that she was the local Annie Oakley, and make the appropriate—or inappropriate—remark.
    But instead of some smartass crack about how no man would ever dare to offend her, he said, “How wonderful it must be to know that you're the best at something—anything. The very best."
    “Well,” said Brandy, “when it's a sport there's always someone waiting to take the title."
    “You lost it to someone else four years later?"
    “Four years