First Date

These good fellows don't belong to me but I promise when I'm done to pick um up, dust um off and with a kiss on the cheek return them safely home.

"A thing belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image." Joan Didion

Chapter 10

"If I had carpet you'd put a hole in it," Kanda said as Roy paced the floor in front of the living room window. She knew he was upset but his apprehension over Chris was putting her stomach in a knot. Thank goodness she knew him well and loved him so much otherwise the look he shot her would have ticked her off to say the least. Realizing what he'd done he immediately softened his features and took her by the hand.

"I'm sorry, this whole thing just has me on edge. I hate Chris being in the middle of it."

Wrapping her arms around his waist she kissed him, "Johnny isn't going to let anything happen to him." They turned together to watch, through the sheer curtains of the window, as the detective's plan unfolded.

Actually the plan was relatively simple. Johnny presented Carter as an acquaintance who wanted to buy some horses then Kanda had Paul call all the hands in to gather and show the animals. Carter walked with Chris holding his hand down the line of men holding horses as he pretended to be evaluating the condition of the stock. Johnny stayed right beside Chris the whole time. Carter stopped at each man and horse while Johnny told him about it with fine details as if Carter actually understood what he said. Standing with them were two plain clothes officers in blue jeans, button down shirts and boots posing as Carters own hired help.

Johnny was a nervous wreck as he talked about each horse giving Chris time to closely look at the ranch hand holding onto him and decide if he was one of the three men. The signal was that the child would tightly squeeze Carter's hand to indicate a positive identification.

As Paul moved down the line with the group of men he was not happy. Normally purchases were done by appointment and Kanda had pulled this on him first thing this morning forcing him to delay the work that needed to be done on the ranch. And where was she? It was very unusual for Johnny to be directing the sale and not her. Something wasn't right.

Chris walked down the line with the policeman feeling like every hand there knew who he was and what he was doing. He kept looking to the house where his dad was waiting. Even being told that he was safe didn't help the fact that there were three bad men between him and his father right now. They moved down the line some more. He had to focus on what his job was, to find the ones who wanted to hurt his family.

On the fourth horse and holding Chris caught his breath and Carter heard him. Damn, he knew the child was too young to get through this. But Johnny immediately stepped over to Chris and started talking, "Hey Chris, I bet you're surprised to see Smokey looking so good huh?"

Chris just looked at him and nodded. He knew that Johnny was trying to help calm his fears as he tightly squeezed the officer's hand.

Johnny strolled over and patted the tall black horse on the neck. "Mr. Carter, wasn't too long ago that Smokey got caught in some of the barbed fencing and got hurt but thanks to my sisters tender loving care he is back to perfect."

"I see that," Carter said, also knowing what Johnny was trying to do. Now for the signal to the other officers. "Mark, I like this one." One down, two to go. The other officer wrote down some jumble in a small book he held.

They continued on. The next time Carter felt his hand squeezed tightly he noted with admiration how well Christopher was doing now. He seemed to be almost enjoying the endless litany of information that Johnny was dishing out about breed, stock, confirmation and immunizations on each animal. Two down, one to go.

Johnny finished talking about the last one and they all realized that Chris never indicated who the third man was. "Johnny, go ahead and take Chris in for some breakfast. I'll be right there." Carter told him as he passed the small hand over to the dark headed man.

"Sure. Uh, Paul will help you out with anything else you need. Kanda and I will be inside," Johnny felt mild panic. They didn't know who the third man was and things were going a little south.

"No problem," Carter said with a smile. "We're all good."

Johnny took Chris by the hand and lea him to the house. Before they could get in the door good Chris was babbling nonstop. "He wasn't there Uncle Johnny, he wasn't there!"

Almost putting his hand over his mouth Johnny rushed him in the door where Roy was right there waiting on him.

"What happened?" They both asked.

"Only two of the men were here," Johnny told them.

Roy knelt down beside Chris, "Son, are you sure?"

Chris nodded and the tears ran down his face. The stress of it all had finally got to him and he felt like he had let down everyone. Roy took him and held him close, "It's alright. You did everything right. It's not your fault."

They looked up to see Paul coming in with Carter and his two 'friends'.

Kanda raced through her mind as to who was missing. Paul was in full charge of all the hired help on the farm and although she had records for each man, home, phone, resume and history she didn't know them instantly. Many were transient and only stayed at the farm for a short time. Sometimes even just day help. What if they couldn't find the other man?

Carter indicated for them to sit down. Paul was now dumbfounded. These three strange men were telling Kanda what to do and she looked on the verge of tears. Protectively he moved towards her and stood beside her chair.

"Kanda, who's not here today?" Carter asked.

She looked up at Paul who shook his head, "I have a couple of men who didn't show up today." He then looked at her, "Kanda, what's going on here?"

Carter had told her first thing not to let Paul in on the plan but what he didn't tell her was that he wanted to see Chris's reaction to Paul first. Knowing now that Paul was not one of the three men he stood up and extended his hand. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you earlier who I was but I'm Detective Carter with the LaPD. We are here investigating a threat made against Kanda and Roy."

Paul felt like a claw gripped his gut, "Threat?"

Kanda took his hand, "Chris heard some men in the barn threatening Roy about seeing me. Paul they have also threatened the children. We needed to try and get Chris to identify them but he only saw two of the men."

"The horses you picked?" Paul was quickly figuring this out.

"Yes," Carter said. "I need you to take these two officers to those men please. But we are still missing one. How do we reach them?"

"I have their numbers and addresses," Paul said.

Carter nodded to the other two men and they knew what to do. Within minutes two ranch hands were in handcuffs and being put in the unmarked police car. Paul provided the address and information about the missing two men and with one phone call Carter had someone on the way to pick them both up.

"Roy, I'm going to need you and Chris to come down to the station when they are picked up so he can identify the third man and you have some paperwork to fill out for me."

Roy nodded at Carter. His head told him to relax now, they would all be in custody soon but his gut still kept him on edge.

Carter headed out with his men and as the dust settled down the long driveway they all took a deep breath. Johnny slapped Roy on the back, "Told you it would all work out today."

"I know. Thanks Johnny for everything you've done," Roy told him. He was sure they couldn't have done this without him.

"Hey, someone's got to watch your back since you keep getting into trouble," Johnny said with a crooked smile.

Roy had to laugh, him in trouble? It was definitely usually the other way around. "Alright, whatever you say. Chris let's get some breakfast."

Following a hearty country style cooked breakfast Johnny and Roy worked on cleaning up the kitchen while Kanda excused herself to go talk to a friend. Crutches and all she hobbled out to the barn and went into the small office that Paul had made himself.

"Can we talk?" She asked him.

He looked up and gave her a big smile, "Sure, have a seat." He pulled a chair around for her to have. "I'm going to have to nickname you gimpy."

She laughed for a moment then took his hand, "Paul I'm so sorry that I couldn't tell you what was going on right away. Carter wouldn't let me."

He squeezed her hand and smiled, "Kanda, it's all right. I would want you to do whatever they said in order to be safe."

"I wanted to tell you," she said revealing the deep trust she had in him.

"I understand. He had to make sure I wasn't one of the three, right?" Paul said with a grin.

"Yes," she replied softly.

"I will be here as long as you need me Kanda. I promised Allen a long time ago to keep you safe if he couldn't. You know I would never do anything to hurt you right?"

She nodded.

"As for Roy," he got serious for a moment. "I think that he's the best thing that has happened to you in a long time. You deserve to be happy and anyone would be blind to miss how much you love him."

She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, "Thank you Paul. You will never know how much that means to me."

The day went by uneventfully. They all stayed close to home knowing the phone could ring anytime for Roy and Chris to leave. About three o'clock the call came that sent a wave of relief through all of them. Carter had the other two men at the station and the other two men had confessed to what had been heard by Chris. However, of course, they both swore that the other man was the one who made the actual threatening statements. Roy gathered up Chris and they headed into the city with Kanda and Johnny to watch after Jenny.

Johnny sat in the floor with Jenny playing the grumpy giant that was invading her dollhouse much to the amusement of Kanda.

"I'm gonna get my other Barbie," she said as she took off up the stairs.

"Okay Jennybear," he stood up with a groan. "Uncle Johnny needs to stand up and stretch anyways." He looked over to Kanda who was comfy on the couch with her poor achy foot elevated. "Want something to drink?"

She nodded, "Yea, thanks."

She heard someone coming down the driveway and got up to greet Roy and Chris, very anxious to hear about what had transpired. When she opened the door it caught her off guard to see Dr. Adler standing there with flowers in his hand.

"Dr. Adler, what brings you way out here?" She said with a smile.

"Well since you went and got hurt and couldn't come see me I decided to come and see you instead," he said as he held the flowers out to her. "These are for you of course."

She took them and took a deep breath of the lilac, roses, and babys breath. "They are beautiful, thank you. Come in."

He came into the large living room and saw that she was alone. He knew that Roy had already left since he watched him go earlier and hoped he would never return. Despite all the mess up's and blunders he could now have exactly what he had wanted for so long. She didn't know it yet but tonight he would have her for his own.