Chapter 5

AN:More supposition about Karen's background and where she's from in the interests of artistic license. Carry on.

Exhausted, Karen stared sightlessly out her bedroom window as she idly drew a comb through her damp hair. The motion should have been soothing but truth was, nothing short of knocking her unconscious—preferably with great force—would serve to soothe her turbulent mind and heart.

Oh, Dad… why?

Except she knew why. Karen knew her father and now that she was a parent herself, she understood on a deeper level what his intent must have been. Horribly wrong and fatally misguided, but she got it. She could only pray to remember what this experience had been like—what it had cost—when it was Iris' turn.

She caught sight of her grim smile in the window's reflection. How utterly pissed off must he have been when he realized she still had every intention of becoming a cop. If she couldn't have Carlton, then she was going to have her career. She wasn't going to just become a cop, by God—she was going to become a great cop.

The irony that her drive and ambition had landed her in a position where she did have Carlton, in a manner of speaking, had not escaped her, although by the time it happened, she'd convinced herself he didn't matter any more or less than any of her other charges.

The Universe sure had a way of disabusing one of silly notions, didn't it?

The unmistakable sound of a car pulling into her driveway snapped her from her rambling musings. Despite the momentary flutter of anticipation deep in her chest, she knew it wouldn't be Carlton. The moment Marlowe had reentered his consciousness, he'd lit out like a bat out of hell. Good thing she'd stopped things when she had—he would never have been able to forgive himself had he given into temptation. The lure of the fantasy had been powerful, no doubt about it—the feeling that no time had passed and they were still those giddy, lovelorn kids—the passion and desire as potent and strong as ever, except now it was overlaid with the patina of years and experience. Her heart raced and a light sheen of sweat filmed her skin almost immediately despite the relative coolness of the room as she recalled the sheer ferocious hunger exposed by that single kiss.

They'd been very, very good together, once upon a time.

They'd be spectacular, now.

And it would be the worst possible thing either of them could do. She knew it and he knew it, which was why he'd backed away, his gaze holding hers until the last possible moment. Then he'd turned and driven away and she'd shut the door, climbed the stairs to her room, run the hottest shower possible, and cried in a way she hadn't since she was nineteen.

Dear God, the look in his eyes as he'd backed away… A perfect twin to the look in his eyes that day so long ago. Haunted and angry and deep blue with pain. She just hadn't been able to recognize the emotions through the turbulence of her own hurt and bewilderment and anger.

She had to hand it to her father—he'd combined their collective youth and inexperience with Carlton's deep-seated insecurities and played them against each other with the deftness and expertise of a master.

As the doorbell's chimes echoed through the house, she tossed her comb to the dresser and descended the stairs. Opening the door, she wasn't at all surprised to find Juliet on the opposite side—she wasn't even all that surprised to see her holding a large paper bag from which wafted the unmistakable aromas of Chinese food. What did come as a surprise was how readily she opened the door wider and allowed the younger woman to pass through after she held up the bag with a wry, "I would have brought wine but I figured won ton soup was maybe the safer choice."

Another surprise was how, once inside and settled in the kitchen, serving themselves from the various cartons, Juliet didn't press for conversation.

Well then.

"I suppose you're curious."

Juliet paused with a spoon halfway to her mouth. "Actually…" She shrugged. "I gathered enough from what I observed—at least the most pertinent information."

Karen nudged a dumpling through the broth with the edge of the spoon. "And yet it doesn't even begin to tell the entirety of the story."

"But it's your story to tell, Karen. Yours and Carlton's. I wouldn't push." Juliet's hand briefly lit on the back of hers. "But I will listen. And I won't judge."

"I don't know how you couldn't help but judge," she said miserably into her bowl. "I know I do."

Judgmental or not, however, the temptation to tell someone—especially someone who knew them both—was too strong.

Slowly, Karen shared how during the fall of their sophomore year at UC Santa Barbara, two ambitious kids had been thrown together as project partners in an Intro to Criminal Justice class. How, while he initially seemed prickly and aggravated at being paired with, well… anyone, he'd soon realized her drive and focus more than matched his. For her part, she quickly recognized the prickly arrogance as a front he used to effectively keep people at a distance in an effort to mask an intense shyness and fear of doing the wrong thing. Once she'd cracked that defense, however—had convinced him she had no intention of making fun of him unless, of course, he absolutely deserved it—she'd found in that shy boy a partner whose ambition was not only equal to hers, but who wasn't threatened or put off by a woman who aspired to play on the same field as the boys as an equal. If anything, it seemed to fascinate and arouse him—much in the way his easy acceptance of her ambition did her. The blue eyes hadn't hurt, either.

"We were like a pair of magnets—perfectly matched in power and attraction," she recalled, their younger selves appearing in her mind's eye like players on a movie screen. "Once we were put within proximity of each other we were irrevocably drawn together and there was no pulling us apart."

Rather than look horrified or disbelieving to hear her reserved boss describing a relationship with her equally reserved partner in such terms, Juliet looked thoughtful. "I can see that," she finally said. "You two have always struck me as so similar—I always assumed that was the source of your friction, honestly." She smiled. "You're each convinced you know best and you're both always so damned sure you're right."

Karen felt a nostalgic smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "That hasn't changed."

Oh, how they'd argued. And oh, how they'd made up.

By the time Christmas break had rolled around, they'd been inseparable, but had found themselves nevertheless apart as she returned to San Diego while he remained at home in Santa Barbara.

"Those two hundred miles might as well have been two thousand. No cell phones, he couldn't afford long distance charges and while I could have called him every night, I knew he'd hate feeling as if he couldn't carry equal weight in the relationship." Her heart constricted as she recalled, "So he sent me letters—even if they were only a few lines—every day."

Juliet blinked, clearly somewhat boggled by the image of her hard-edged partner as a lovestruck teenager, bent over a sheet of paper, pouring out his heart. "What did your parents think?"

Karen shrugged as she stood to put away leftovers. "Not much, really. They'd expected I'd date and have a social life, of course. I think they were a little thrown that I was in a steady relationship, but on the other hand, it beat the alternative of imagining I was sleeping around with abandon. So long as I didn't let it interfere with my grades they pretty much stayed out it. I think they probably just figured Carlton for a typical college romance. Kind of over the top, stars-in-the-eyes puppy love, but nothing more."

Juliet carried their dishes to the sink and began rinsing and stacking them in the dishwasher. "You didn't tell them how serious you were?"

"Oh, God no." Last carton put away, Karen leaned against the counter. "I was afraid to burst that bubble, you know? I was perfectly content to keep the outside world at bay."

Juliet laughed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, I can relate."

Spencer. Of course. Making Carlton's reaction to his discovery of Juliet and Shawn's relationship more than a little ironic although she doubted he'd see it as such.

"I imagine you can. So you can understand how little I wanted to deal with the inevitable questions and doubts and accusations that I was ruining my future."

Even if she'd been absolutely certain she'd found her future.

Aching and missing Carlton so badly she could barely eat or sleep, she'd finally called him a few days after Christmas and told him she was coming back. Telling her parents she was returning early in order to hang out with friends and ring the New Year in with them, she hightailed it back to Santa Barbara where she discovered Carlton had taken some of his hard-earned savings and rented a motel room for them.

And on New Year's Eve, he'd proposed.

Two days later, they were married.

They'd rented a crappy apartment, bought third and fourth-hand furniture, and planned and dreamed and made love. As impetuous and mired in romance as they'd been, they nevertheless approached their future plans with the hardheaded pragmatism they both possessed in spades. They were already both attending school on scholarship—she made plans to get a job to supplement the income from the job he already worked—they even set aside a fund for a planned once-a-month splurge, and for six weeks had been blissfully, stupidly happy. They might have had more time if Carlton's damnable sense of honor hadn't reared its head.

It was one thing for him not to tell his mother—she was busy with her own life and the discovery of a previously unrealized sexual orientation, not to mention, this was the same woman who'd had a habit of dropping her son off for entire weekends at a Wild West reenactment park. In all likelihood, they could probably hold off telling her about their marriage until they had their first child—maybe even their second—with no ill-effects. But Karen actually had a good relationship with her parents. The last thing Carlton, child of a broken marriage and perpetually angry mother, wanted was for secrets to drive a wedge between them.

Karen—still resistant to the thought of the outside world intruding in the world she and Carlton had created—had objected. Had wanted to wait. But when Carlton had hesitantly voiced his concern that perhaps Karen was resistant because maybe… she was embarrassed by him, she had instantly caved. The last thing she was, was embarrassed by Carlton. It would be like being embarrassed by a part of herself.

"I knew my parents weren't likely to react well," she mused over coffee. "Not because of Carlton, but because it wasn't the future they'd envisioned for me. Then again, nothing of the future I'd envisioned for myself was like the future they'd envisioned for me."

"How so?" Juliet asked as she stirred cream and sugar into her coffee and settled back into the corner of the sofa they'd moved to after finishing in the kitchen.

"My becoming an attorney was always Dad's dream—not mine. No matter how insistent I was that no, I wanted to become a cop, all he ever heard was his own ambition for me. And as I only just learned today, he apparently used the power of that dream as well as a few well-misdirected words to scare Carlton right off." Karen stared down into her mug, studying the swirls of creamy white blending into the ink dark of the coffee. "And Dad almost got his dream in the end."

Karen lifted her head to find Juliet staring at her, gaze steady and sympathetic. She wouldn't press. She wouldn't judge.

"I was pregnant when he left."

"Oh, Karen," Juliet breathed, but Karen shook her head.

"I didn't know it at the time. We'd been careful… mostly." She lifted a shoulder, recalling the times they hadn't been. Crazed with lust and desire and unable to stop—not even for a second—and besides, they were together. It was okay. They'd be okay.

The hubris of youth.

"By the time I figured it out, he'd left, I'd transferred to UC San Diego, and I was so mad and hurt, I wasn't about to tell him. Wasn't about to use it as some sort of lure to draw him back out of obligation."

Because he would have come running back, oh yes, he would, bound by honor and an unshakable need to do the right thing. But she was proud, too, and if he didn't want Karen for herself, then she sure didn't want him back just because of their baby.

The damnable hubris of youth.

"But I held the thought of that baby close—if I couldn't have Carlton, I at least had part of him. And then, I didn't. I woke up one morning and it was over. Just like that."

She meditatively rubbed her thumb along the warm, smooth edge of the mug's rim. "Ironically, it's the one thing that would have pushed me into law school and a partnership with my father. Would've been a safer career."

"You never told him, did you?"

Karen lifted her head to meet Juliet's knowing gaze and shook her head. "I've never told a single living soul until now."

"God," Juliet sighed, eyes dark blue with a damp sheen. "Poor you. Poor Carlton."

Karen felt a corresponding prickling at the backs of her eyes, yet felt the unmistakable relief of sharing a burden too long carried alone. She knew Juliet, now knowing the depths of Karen and Carlton's shared past and what had torn them apart, would understand why she hadn't told him then, and as his closest friend now, would understand why Karen wouldn't ever be able to tell him.

She could still see him, moments after Iris' birth, holding her with that dazed look of wonder turning his eyes a brilliant pale blue and confessing one reason his marriage to Victoria had failed was her assumption he didn't want kids. Trapped in a stupor caused by the aftermath of intense pain and the euphoria of having actually produced the tiny, living being he currently held, not to mention the surreal experience of having Carlton in the delivery room with her and not her husband, she'd shrugged it off. In a pretty cruel, dismissive way, really. Later, however, lying in her dark room while she'd cradled Iris's warm body close and nursed her, she'd experienced a deep pang, realizing the extent to which Carlton had erected walls around his heart. Just how closed off he had to have become, such that he'd been unable to reveal such a fundamental desire to his wife.

A desire he'd so readily shared—again—with her, in those heady moments following Iris' birth.

To learn she'd been pregnant with his child and had lost it in the wake of their breakup? The man was Irish and Catholic. The levels of guilt and self-recrimination would be immense and probably unsafe for the public at large.

Karen shook her head slowly, the memories and emotions tumbling through her mind, one after the other, like pebbles into a stream. "You know, in retrospect it might have been easier if I'd just fooled around with my roommate. She really was a rather lovely girl."

After a charged, startled moment, Juliet laughed, her infectious giggles drawing the same from Karen until the two of them sagged against the sofa cushions, laughing hysterically. At some point, the laughter evolved into tears, Karen sobbing helplessly against Juliet's shoulder, overwhelmed once more with a pain she hadn't allowed herself to feel for years. A tiny voice in the back of her mind tried to get her to stop—she was the Chief for God's sake, this was her employee—she needed to keep that divide, keep that respect, keep the image of the Chief as infallible.

The tiny voice could suck it.

She was also a woman who was hurting badly and she needed a friend. Unlikely as it seemed, Juliet O'Hara appeared willing to be that friend.

The sobs finally subsiding, she sat up, wiping at her heated face with the hem of her t-shirt. Not Carlton's. That one she'd saved for later. When she'd try to sleep. Stupid and masochistic as hell, perhaps, but right now, she needed to hang on to what little of him she had. "God, what a mess."

Juliet dug through her purse and unearthed a package of tissues. "How's Carlton?"

Karen accepted the tissues, wiping her swollen eyes and blowing her nose. "Angry at me. Angry at my dad. Guilty he didn't say anything to me twenty-five years ago. Guilty that he didn't say anything to Marlowe. Really angry at himself."

Passionate. Hungry. And so damned desirable it had taken every ounce of fortitude she possessed to not beg him to stay.

"Typical Carlton, in other words."

"Yeah," she said softly, shredding the tissue into tiny, confetti-like bits that fell to her feet like rice tossed in celebration.

"Is there anything at all that I can do?"

Karen lifted her head and smiled at Juliet who, really, had been remarkable. Especially considering her first allegiance honestly should have been to Carlton, that she'd stuck by her today had been nothing short of miraculous. Maybe the Universe wasn't all bad—sending Juliet to be her ally—because now Karen knew what she needed to do.

"You've already gone far beyond anything I had any right to expect."

"Dammit, Karen, would you cut yourself some slack? It was a mistake—" Juliet exclaimed, her expression intent. "A hell of one, admittedly, but let's be honest—it's a mistake that was compounded by Carlton's own silence on the subject. If he'd just been honest with Marlowe from the beginning—"

Karen held up her hand, stopping the indignant barrage of words. "Maybe so, but it doesn't absolve me of being in the wrong here. I was wrong, Juliet—it was an inappropriate thing to say at a wildly inappropriate moment." A shuddering breath escaped. "And I wound up hurting two people who absolutely did not deserve to be hurt."

Juliet remained silent while Karen released a quiet sigh knowing she'd successfully made her point. She didn't need to drive a wedge between this partnership either. She also desperately needed Juliet to remain Carlton's ally.

At the door, she hugged the younger woman, waving off her assurances that she would check on her the next day.

"Really, Juliet, it's okay. But there is one thing I will need you to do."

She cocked her head. "Of course—anything."

Karen bit her lip, fighting to break free from years' worth of distance and reserve. "Take care of Carlton, okay? Whatever happens, he's going to need a friend now, more than ever."

Juliet's brows drew together. "Karen, come on—you work together—the two of you are going to have to talk at some point."

"Maybe. But it can't be right now. Which is why I need you to take care of him. You know he'll never ask or show that he needs help."

Juliet looked as if she wanted to keep arguing—to insist that they had to talk and clear the air. Karen suspected if she could have grabbed Carlton by the ear and yanked him over Right Now and locked them in a room until they cleared the air, she would have. But Karen knew damned well clearing the air was the last thing that would happen if they were locked in a room together and would, in fact, just muddy the situation further.

Nope. She'd done quite enough, thanks.

After a final hug, Karen closed and locked the door behind Juliet and returned to the sofa. Picking up her phone, she contemplated it for several long moments before finally turning it on and pressing a key. The line rang three times before it was picked up at the tail end of the third ring, just as she'd known it would be.

"Hi—Mom? We need to talk. No, no… everything's okay—Iris is fine. She's with her dad this weekend. No, this is about Daddy. And... Carlton."