CHAPTER SEVEN: I don't need to get steady, I know just how I feel

Kahlan had been jerked from sleep two hours early by the harsh ringing off the phone. She fumbled in the darkness for the receiver beside her bed and managed to maneuver it to her ear without sitting up.

"Yeah?" She muttered thickly, the word half-incomprehensible behind a mouth-splitting yawn.

"Mayor, we need you down at City Hall," the voice of Aydindril's Sheriff was serious enough to push her toward full consciousness. She sat up in bed, cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder as she tossed the covers off her legs. "There's been a situation. We found one of my deputies dead in the basement and it looks like there's been a break in."

The rest of the morning was a surreal blur. The hour was too early for Kahlan to feel comfortable about waking up Cara, as much as she would have preferred her presence for the air of safety it lent her. She dressed hurriedly, and decided to drive her truck instead of walk, a decision she felt good about when she stepped out into the early morning gloom to find that all the street lights down her street were out. It was still thirty or forty minutes to sun rise. She made a mental note to send out one of the city employees to check out the lights later.

Sheriff Brandstone liked to keep things low key. He didn't believe in encouraging rubbernecking, which so frequently became a problem when tragedies struck in small towns, so it was no surprise to Kahlan that there was just two sheriff's cruisers parked in front of City Hall but no visible fuss. She used her key to unlock the side employee entrance. The interior was dark, the Sheriff must be in the basement, and the dreadful oppression of the pregnant shadows. Again, she wished that she had woken Cara to accompany her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, accentuating the itchy anxiety that mounted along her spine as she made her way through usually familiar hallways. The door down to the boiler room was propped open by an office chair, and the glow of lights alerted Kahlan to the presence of the Sheriff. She was relieved to descend the stairs and into the presence of half of Aydindril's sheriff's department.

Three deputies, in tan uniforms and dark brown cowboy hats, were arrayed in a half circle around the back corner of the concrete room that housed the big oil boiler that heated the building. Standing off to the side, holding his hat in his hands and worrying the brim with thick fingers, was Sheriff Brandstone. The little window set at the top of the wall, allowing light in during the day, was broken with the glass fragmented inward and scattered across the floor.

When Kahlan arrived, the Sheriff glanced up. The worry lines set in his face were accentuated by the heavy shadows. However, he looked moderately relieved by Kahlan's entrance. Crime in Aydindril was minor, and the surrounding county was only sparsely populated. He dealt with the occasional break in by a drifter, or minor traffic violations. Sometimes he had to head down to Denee's to break up a bar fight, but the last murder that occurred in Aydindril had been when Kahlan was still in high school. One of the farmer's who worked a few acres of wheat just outside of town got drunk and killed his wife. That was before Brandstone had gotten elected, and it had been hard enough that it sent his predecessor deep into a bottle.

"Todd," Brandstone gestured toward whatever the deputies were shielding her from, "it looks like he took two to the back of the head. Execution style." The last words rung against the walls. Kahlan had never longed for Cara's solid presence like she did at that moment. Surrounded by law enforcement personnel could not lend the sense of safety that the blond provided all by herself. "And that window just isn't big enough for your average person to get through. Todd wasn't a small guy either, and he was on duty tonight, but he didn't radio anything in. Brad saw the broken window when he was walking home after his shift. Last time I heard from Todd, he was across town near the gas station."

Kahlan wrapped her arms around her midsection. Goosebumps were rising along her skin and she wished she had grabbed a sweatshirt and Cara. "Well, Chase, I'm not a detective," she tried to keep her voice even and reassuring; though the Sheriff was many years her senior and a broad, well-built man, she could sense the unease that he was radiating. "But it seems to me that maybe we should radio to the next county, see if they can send down someone from the city. Like a homicide detective. When this gets out, the whole town is going to be tied in knots and you'll need all your boys just to keep people feeling safe."

He nodded thoughtfully, obviously grateful for direction. "The coroner will be out soon. He was down at the Richards' place. Old Man Richard passed a few hours ago." He sounded more official, stronger now.

"I'll need to remember to send Lita a condolence card," Kahlan thought out loud. They were on safer ground now. "I'll be in my office. When you know more, bring me some info so I can do some damage control." She turned and headed back toward the stairs, reluctant to head back into the darkness alone. "Oh," she stopped at the bottom stair, "do you want me to call Todd's wife for you?" She glanced over her shoulder, unsurprised when Sheriff Brandstone nodded the affirmative.

Emily didn't arrive for hours, so Kahlan was left inside her locked office, jumping at every little sound. Several times Kahlan found herself reaching for the phone to call Cara, but it would be unseemly she decided and stopped herself. The rest of the morning moved in a flash after Emily arrived and she could relax into her work as best she could with the flood of phone calls that inundated her office starting a little before seven.

After the pain of handling the call to Todd's wife, she nearly had forgotten about Cara entirely. Until, the blonde burst into her office, disheveled and barefoot, preceded by the terrified shriek of her secretary. Her breath caught in her throat – there was something magnificent about Cara in that moment; her shoulder length hair was a halo around her face, flushed from running, and her tank top pulled across her heaving chest without benefit of a bra. It was her bare feet however that really struck Kahlan. She groaned, biting her lower lip to stifle the sound as a pulse of electricity set every one of her nerve endings on fire.

Tension and fear had worked on Kahlan all morning. The conversation with Todd's wife had drained strength, leaving her vulnerable to the wash of emotions that Cara provoked in her. She didn't know which one of them moved first, maybe it was better that way to alleviate the guilt, but before she knew it she was cradled against Cara's chest, face tucked in against her neck as she began to cry. Cara's arms enclosed her tightly. She could feel the muscles in her biceps flexing against her back as the blonde drew her in tighter.

Where the permission to let herself break like that came from, Kahlan wasn't sure but it felt exquisite to be perfectly safe, cherished in strong arms while she indulged in a little emotional excess. Only after they had stood tightly entwined for several long, delicious moments did Kahlan run her hands down the muscled expanse of Cara's back and encounter the cold metal of her gun. It shocked her back to reality, drawing back from the other woman, doing her best to try to hide the confused concern that swept through her.

"What's going on Cara? What are you doing like—" she gestured at Cara's entire presentation, "—that?"

There was a long pause between the point where Kahlan physically disengaged from Cara and when Cara finally pulled herself together enough to reply. She looked vaguely dazed in Kahlan's opinion, but she couldn't for the life of her remember if she looked that way when she walked in or whether it was a product of Kahlan's behavior.

"I thought," Cara began but her voice broke and she was forced to stop, scowling. She coughed, looking quickly away from Kahlan before trying again. "I thought that you were in trouble. You went to work early and you didn't tell me you were leaving."

Kahlan took a hesitant step backward until her knees hit the seat of her office chair and she dropped gratefully into it. There was a feeling, both familiar and strange, building in her stomach. A feeling that was supposed to be reserved for her husband – a feeling like affection and admiration, wrapped in dripping desire and full of longing. This was a very bad development. Simply wanting to sleep with Cara, which she felt willing now to admit was at least a little fantasy she had harbored, due in no small part to Cara's constant habit of not wearing a bra under white shirts, was not the worst thing in the world. Being married didn't make you dead, and being from a small town didn't mean that she was small minded about who it was acceptable to find attractive. The fact that she was Richard's friend made it a little worse. But feelings.

She reached up and rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead. It had been a long day, even though it was still only midmorning. She was drained. Maybe she should have a drink with lunch at Denee's, she considered. But that didn't solve the problem of Cara standing in front of her. Apparently her silence had solved the problem because Cara turned and disappeared so quietly on her barefeet that if Kahlan weren't watching her intently, she wouldn't have noticed her exit.

One thing after another, she grumbled to herself. Cara's feelings appeared to be hurt. Before she could really think about what that meant, how it made her feel, the phone on her desk rang again. She braced herself for another sobbing phone call from a grieving townsperson, only to be shocked by an affectionate man's voice murmuring her name.

"Richard?" she breathed his name, not wanting to even hope that it was really him. Nearly a month had passed since his last, brief call. There was no way for him to write letters, wherever he was, and no internet access. She knew he was alive because no one had come to inform her differently, but now he was there, as close as he had been in so long. "God Richard, I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Kahlan. Being away from you is like having an arm ripped off or something," Richard's voice sounded far away and tainted with static, but Kahlan felt like she could listen to it forever. Just when she thought she had stumbled into an emotional quagmire that she couldn't find her way out of, Richard simplified everything. "I'm hoping to get to come home, at least for a while, sometime later in the fall." That was nearly six months away and Kahlan couldn't stifle her disappointed noise. "I'm really sorry it can't be sooner, sweetie. I'm trying to make the world safe for freedom and democracy. But at least you have Cara there with you, right? She arrived safe and sound?"

And then, just as soon as her world seemed righted again, it was sent spinning out of control by the mere mention of Cara's name.

"She's here," Kahlan hedged, uncertain of how to discuss Cara with Richard. "Sound is another matter entirely. But, she's been helping out around the house and done some remodeling."

"Cara's the best. I know she's not much of a talker, and you're a talker, but I thought she needed a safe place to be and you were probably lonely out there. She'll protect you like I would, and keep all the guys from sniffing around my pretty wife while I'm away." The irony nearly made Kahlan throw up.

"A safe place for what?" As unhappy and lost as she felt, Kahlan couldn't resist the opportunity to find out more about her houseguest.

"Cara's…sick. It happens to soldiers sometimes, you know, they see things and things happen to them. Cara's seen a lot of things, and a lot of things have happened to her. But she's come a long way and I would trust her with my life." Richard paused for a moment, before asking, "She hasn't done anything that frightened you did she?"

"No," Kahlan sighed. And it was true, Cara hadn't done anything to frighten her, all the terrifying things were happening inside of Kahlan and while Cara might be the catalyst she wasn't at fault.

The rest of their conversation petered out into small talk until Richard reluctantly told Kahlan that he had to go and cut the line. She felt very alone as she set the phone down.

CHAPTER EIGHT: Love is not a victory march

There were two kinds of mistakes that Cara had made in her life. All of the missteps, miscalculations and bone-headed moves could all be ordered into two discrete categories: those that were caused by women and the pesky feelings they invariably provoked, and those caused by the men dating/married to the aforementioned women. Beating the hell out of your last lay's irate boyfriend had caused an evening to end in the lock-up several times. Lust and violence were really her only vices, she reassured herself. And maybe wrath.

She had just made one of the first kind of mistakes. Slowing down, probably would have helped, but it had been such a long time since she had actually worried about someone else's safety. Even with Richard, she was confident that he could take care of himself and knew how to alert her if necessary. Now she was walking back down the street, being stared at by rubber-necking hillbillies, with no damn shoes on and her gun out. Touching the gun made her skin crawl. Looking at it was difficult. But she hadn't even hesitated earlier when she thought Kahlan was in trouble, which only confirmed how in trouble Cara was. Now Kahlan knew. From the look in her eyes as she pulled away, Cara could tell that Kahlan knew; knew all the things that Cara thought about when Kahlan was around, like whether or not she was a screamer, what her skin would taste like under Cara's teeth, what it would feel like to hold Kahlan as she fell asleep.

She changed as soon as she got back to Kahlan's house, and remembered shoes this time. Without the adrenaline it was almost too much for her to slip her Agiel back into its hidey hole – her hands trembled. Kahlan would certainly have lunch at Denee's like she usually did, so in lieu of sitting alone with her own thoughts, Cara left for the bar early. She could get in a few drinks before Kahlan arrived.

Denee's was in a full uproar by the time Cara arrived. She pushed the door open, only to be hit by a blasting wall of sound composed of most of the town's population shouting, talking and whispering all at once. Only at that point did Cara realize that in the sudden rush of emotion that she had failed to control, she had never asked Kahlan what had prompted the crying or her early departure from the house. Instinct told her that it was probably related to whatever the towns' folk were vigorously gossiping about. She slipped through the crowd, avoiding full drinks and toes as she wended her way to the bar.

As she leaned against the bar, Denee herself came to offer her a beer. In the last couple of days she had become as regular as Kahlan, and begun to enjoy the privileges that attended her new status. At first, she hadn't realized that Denee was Kahlan's younger sister. Where Kahlan was dark haired and fair skinned, tall and curvaceous, Denee was blond and sun-kissed with a significantly slighter build. Kahlan had finally informed her off-handedly over lunch one day, and laughed at the look of surprise on Cara's face.

"What's going on?" Cara asked Denee as she gestured at the crowd with her beer.

Denee laughed lightly. "I thought you would know best. Didn't Kahlan tell you?" The looks Denee shot her when she thought Cara wasn't looking were confusing. She was almost certain that Denee could see right through her and knew precisely what the other blonde wanted to do to her sister, but she couldn't tell whether or not that made her angry. She had never talked to Denee about Richard, though to be fair she did her best to avoid talking about Richard anyway. Lately, just the mention of him made her guilty.

"Actually, Kahlan left for work early today and I haven't seen her," Cara lied smoothly. If Denee hadn't heard about her being a psycho, than there really was something big gumming up the small town gossip grapevine.

"Deputy Todd got murdered this morning at City Hall. It's a huge mystery. We haven't had a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty…well, ever. And they don't have any clues, like, I heard someone came through a window too small for a person and shot him-" she lowered her voice "—execution style."

Cara's glass of beer hit the bar top with a startling thud.

"I heard that they think a ghost did it because there aren't any footprints outside or anything," a helpful, slightly drunk man offered, leaning into the conversation from his position next to Cara at the bar. "Damndest thing I ever heard."

"Murdered at City Hall?" Right in the same building as Kahlan's office? Cara didn't add, but it was the most important point. She had known, since the phone call, she had been certain but Kahlan wouldn't listen to her. Rural burglars, and even drifters from the city, wouldn't have been able to pull off something like that, and in a place like City Hall.

The Mord-Sith had arrived.