CHAPTER FIVE

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. . . .

So much had to happen in a short time.

Chief Vick assigned Juliet to help with pulling every piece of information they had on Gael Padilla and his known associates to assist the extraction team with the rescue of Elena and Tomasito.

Juliet understood this was to keep her from going insane while waiting for news about Carlton. She knew the rangers would end up sending him out of Los Padres by chopper; she knew that would take time, she knew he'd be unreachable at the hospital until they'd seen to him.

Rico managed to hit redial at least once to say he was back on Camuesa and saw the rangers' Jeeps approaching. He said Carlton was still breathing but also out cold.

And he still sounded nervous.

Juliet hated him for a few seconds, flat-out white-hot hate, but asked him what went on and he said simply, "I lost it. We fought. I took him down and stabbed him in the leg. He still won."

Sounded like her Carlton. Her Carlton. She blinked back a tear and thanked him curtly.

But he interrupted her attempt to end the call.

"You're the woman?"

"I'm… excuse me?"

"The woman he was texting about me?"

"Yes. I'm his partner."

"I can tell he's a good man."

Juliet swallowed. "Yes, he is."

"Give him a chance. If I didn't screw it up, give him a chance." Disconnect.

She was done, then, done. She had to get to Carlton. She would go to the hospital right now and wait; she could donate blood, prowl the halls, be asked to leave; yes, those were all excellent options.

But Chief Vick said no. And damn her, the Chief really did know best.

Dobson stepped in to help her do what she had no presence of mind to do, collecting the rest of the information, and soon they had enough to pass along to the extraction team. A judge was signing a warrant. The rangers checked in to say they had Carlton and the chopper was en route. The DEA agents were preparing to move in on Malo Mengual.

At two a.m. Chief Vick finally took a good look at Juliet and said, "Go."

She'd already been 'gone' a long time.

. . . . .
. . . .

In the hallway outside the room which had been assigned to him, she held the bag they'd thrust into her hands, the bag with his personal effects: wallet, car keys, phone.

There was blood on all of it.

It was deeply unsettling to know it was his blood. There were a few tears; she stopped them, and steadied her breathing.

He wasn't out of Recovery yet, and she hadn't been able to see him, but she would be seeing him. They were not going to keep her from seeing him.

Looking at his cell phone through the plastic bag, she realized there was something she needed to take care of: making sure his texts matched hers.

It was ridiculous; if the court for any reason wanted the text record, they'd either take the phones and find even the deleted messages, or they'd go to the phone company directly. But as she'd felt earlier, no one needed to have easy access to something this personal, and she owed it to Carlton to protect him as much as herself. If she ended up censured or suspended or dismissed because of this choice, she could take it. She would.

They knew each other's phone access codes. Partners.

Delete, delete, delete.

Pause to touch the screen where IWALU shone. Juliet sighed as her heart swelled.

Delete. Done.

With the phone still in her hand—a phone as much a piece of him as his desk or his chair or his favorite pen—she couldn't help but think of him in the trunk, in the dark, keying in those admissions. To her. About her.

She thanked God he was still alive, and she would, no matter how long it took, get Carlton to understand he had her now.

That maybe he'd had her all along.

. . . . .
. . . .

He was in the trunk, cramped and uncomfortable and staring at the screen of his phone, staring at a giant IWALU there, watching it change to She doesn't love you and She doesn't want you and Who are you kidding? and MORON and Rico should have finished you off and Danger Will Robinson and he knew he'd have to leave the SBPD because of this. He packed his little bag and his Civil War sword and his biggest coffee mug and the trunk lid opened and he climbed out but now he was in a much much darker place because she wasn't there and he didn't like it, he didn't like it one bit, so he got back in the trunk and unpacked his little bag and drank some coffee because he really really needed some coffee and texted her never mind that last message it only meant I Want A Large Umeboshi and then sent a followup text explaining that an umeboshi was a pickled plum, and she answered that she didn't believe him and he said okay it really meant Ivana Wears All Lacy Underthings and she texted that she still didn't believe him and couldn't trust him and he said just forget it I promise this will go away and it'll be business as usual. Business as usual. Business.

"… as usual."

He heard himself say it and started, opening his eyes to a white ceiling in a bright room. The light was strange. Why was the light strange? And dear God, why did everything hurt?

"Carlton."

He knew that blessedly comforting voice and wanted both to see her immediately and close his eyes against reality, because reality was a big bite-y thing and sometimes he loathed it.

But no matter how steadfastly he kept his gaze on the ceiling, she wasn't fooled. Not Juliet. Never, ever, Juliet.

"Carlton," she said softly, and touched his face. Her warm fingertips were gentle on his skin and he realized his hand was firmly clasped in hers.

Slowly he turned to look at her, and her smile was tremulous. She caressed his face again and withdrew, but kept hold of his hand.

"You're back." There was satisfaction in her tone. Relief.

And you're beautiful. She looked tired, but she was always beautiful. And he loved holding her hand.

"If you say so. Why does everything hurt?" Because everything did. Leg, head, and most points in between.

"What do you remember?"

I remember sending you a stupid, stupid, stupid text.

"Uh…" Think. Stop looking at her and think. "Did you get Elena and Tomasito?"

Juliet smiled. "You are back. Yes, we got them. And all but one of Padilla's men."

He scowled. "What happened?"

"Relax," she said, reaching out to smooth his frown, which had the effect of freezing and heating him simultaneously. "He won't get far. He's got a giant tattoo of a spider on his face and the IQ of a mole. He'll turn up soon."

Ignore the touch, he advised himself. Himself didn't listen. Himself rarely listened. "The little boy… he's okay?"

"He's fine. He and Elena were both scared but they hadn't been mistreated. Everyone else is in custody, including Malo Mengual and the kilo of coke."

"Excellent. Rico knows?"

"Rico knows. He's very happy, even though he's in custody too." She sounded almost apologetic. "He carjacked and assaulted a police officer… we kinda didn't have a choice."

Carlton shrugged, which hurt. He knew Rico didn't deserve any special leniency, but felt a flash of guilt at having provoked, in a way, that final battle. He only hoped Elena and her son hadn't needed Rico around to pay any bills, because he wouldn't be able to do that any time soon.

"Then there's you," Juliet said, and he glanced at her again, wondering why she always had to look so damned kissable. The curve of her lips, the perfect shade of blue in her eyes, the touchability of her soft wavy dark blonde hair…

"Me?"

She patted his chest, as if it were commonplace for her fingers to brush the skin exposed by the vee opening of his gown and make his pulse jump crazily. "No concussion from the blow to the head, but you're bruised all over from the fight Rico told us about. They fixed up your leg wound and gave you a few gallons of blood, and the doctor said you're going to feel like crap for a while."

He felt like crap now, but put that aside to give her A Look. "Gallons might be an overstatement."

Juliet hesitated. "It seemed like gallons. I've seen the inside of your car."

His car? "They got it back here already? What time is it?"

"It's after ten."

"In the morning?" He was incredulous… but it did explain that strangeness to the light.

"Carlton," she said with a laugh, "you had to be brought back in a chopper. You've had surgery. You're on drugs. The passage of a night isn't that shocking."

He didn't like the fear he could hear lurking behind the laugh, and wanted to ease it. "So where is the car?"

"The rangers delivered it to the station. It's evidence right now, but you'll have it back by the time you return to work."

If I return.

"Which won't be for a couple of weeks," she added.

"A couple of—are they crazy? I could go back this afternoon!" Just because he might have to leave Santa Barbara—her—didn't mean he wanted anyone else deciding when he could go back to work. Damned doctors.

Juliet squeezed his hand to calm him, and why wasn't he pulling back from her? Why did she seem to be determined to keep hold of him? Why was she laughing at him but looking as if she liked him anyway?

"Not happening, cowboy."

He sighed, and bits of the drug-induced dream floated in his head. "I guess if I'm leaving I can sneak in after Vick goes home and clean out my desk when no one's looking." He hadn't meant to say that out loud exactly, but meh, drugs did odd things to him. Damned doctors.

Her grip tightened. "Why would you do that?"

Carlton met her gaze squarely. "Why would you want me to stay?"

The grip became a vise, and he winced. "Why would I want you to go?"

"Well, you're not going. It makes more sense for me to move on."

Juliet cast his hand free and crossed her arms, giving him her death glare. "Just you try, buster."

He'd stared that glare down before. Sometimes it even worked.

Okay, not very often, but... okay, almost never.

He missed the feel of her hand in his.

And he was so tired. So damned tired. "O'Hara, admit it. I freaked you out by saying something I shouldn't have said and if we can't get past it, then we probably won't be able to work together. You won't want me around and I won't..." He took a breath. "I won't be able to handle..." Crap. He couldn't say it.

The death glare diminished.

It became a look of sadness, of regret. Not pity—he knew her better than that.

She asked, almost in a whisper, "When did you know?"

It wasn't what he expected, and he foundered. "When did I know what?"

"Carlton."

Hell, with as much as he'd already said to both her and Rico, no point resisting now. "That I... had these feelings? Or that they weren't going away?"

Her dark blue eyes were wide and lovely and he could not read them.

"What difference does it make?" he continued evenly. "The real question is what you want to do about it. Because for damn sure there's nothing I can do about it."

Juliet seemed to be trembling. He wished he could hold her until the trembling stopped. He wished there was a world in which she wanted him to hold her.

Since he was blabbing everything like Guster after a bag of Milky Ways, he went on, "Not even sure I want to do anything about it. But I guess I'll have to. And it'll be easier for both of us if I'm somewhere else." In a place that's darker because she's not in it.

"Carlton, I don't want—" But she stopped, because the door opened and Chief Vick came in with a smile.

"Welcome back to us, Detective!"

He took in her greeting and returned it, not even sorry for the interruption because this was hard, too hard. Everything hurt outside and now everything hurt inside; he simply wasn't built to communicate feelings the way other people were.

Juliet cared about him; he accepted it. But it wasn't what he felt for her, and she wasn't even remotely ready to hear the full extent of that.

So he asked Chief Vick to run down the chain of events for him, focusing his attention on her, and then the nurse came in, and the doctor, and Juliet—who was on duty—got called away, and he was left alone.

Which was familiar.

And everything still hurt.

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