CHAPTER TWO
. . . .
. . .
Juliet's GPS, and the address she'd hunted down for Hank Mendel's farm, were guiding her out of Santa Barbara ever closer to Carlton.
She needed to see him—to talk to him—and waiting until his return in two weeks wasn't going to work. The past month had been hard enough, and she was done toughing it out.
The sky was gray and heavy—promising only more of the same—and she wasn't sure what kind of cosmic message she was supposed to draw from that, but the green meadows and trees countered the foreboding slate above, and she was sure about the message therein: keep going.
The day they fought, six weeks ago, she'd gone home utterly furious with him, which turned to fury at herself and then quickly to fury at Shawn, and for a good hour she was furious with all three of them until the fever of fury broke (after a few glasses of wine) and she was able to think clearly.
When Shawn showed up so she could take the two of them over to Taco Inferno, she told him she'd changed her mind. He was aghast. She pointed out that he'd agreed to take her to Cache, and had changed his mind about honoring the promise, and while she'd given in at first she now realized she was free to change her mind as well, since she'd rather go to Cache after all, as planned.
Shawn said reasonably that he'd already canceled the reservation and so it was probably too late. She asked if he'd canceled it after calling her… or before.
He deflected. She smiled. It was insincere.
He suggested an alternative: Frito Layla's. She countered with Stonehouse.
He offered Nacho Mama's. She advocated Petit Valentien.
He proposed Bettie Burgers. Juliet said, "Cache."
Shawn looked her over and—being of a keen intellect when motivated—magnanimously offered to call Cache and see about a table.
Naturally it would necessitate a ninety minute wait at this point on a Friday night, but Juliet was all for it, because she intended to put him to the test in this small way.
He grumbled about having to go home and find a tie and a proper shirt, but she drove him to his place anyway. She looked rather chic if she did say so herself, because although she was pretty sure they wouldn't actually be dining at Cache, she figured she might as well try out her new midnight blue dress and heels.
Waiting in the bar at the restaurant, Shawn… well, Shawn didn't wait with any skill or panache. Juliet asked him several times to settle down, to stop playing with the cocktail olives, to stop building a fort out of toothpicks, and to stop fussing with his tie. She also asked him to stop behaving like a sulky child the way he had on their 'retreat' months earlier, and made the observation that as a man in his mid-thirties in a committed relationship, he really should be able to make a simple effort to spend a little quiet time having drinks with his girlfriend while they waited for their table.
In response, unsurprisingly, he made jokes.
When the maitre d' finally summoned them, Shawn sighed as if this was when the real torture would begin. Juliet told the immaculate and surprised man with the menus to never mind, because they were leaving.
Shawn had to race to keep up with her, and in the parking lot she unloaded on him, never letting him get a word in edgewise to defend, deflect or defuse.
She couldn't remember everything she said, but she knew she covered a lot of ground, from how he belittled her during the Thane Woodson case, to how he forced her father back into her life despite her repeated objections, to how he bandied about details of their intimate life on the reality show; to how he almost always found a reason to go where he wanted to go instead of where she wanted to go, or how he behaved like a sullen teenager if they did do something of her choosing, to how Gus—God love him—was a permanent fixture in their socialization. She knew she made it clear that he made her feel as if she was just background, not an equal, as he spun his merry tales of manipulation and deceit.
Of course he protested. And of course he did love her. She knew he did; it was never in question. But she wasn't his first love: he was. Gus second. Then her.
She wasn't asking to be in Gus' place; it wasn't as if Shawn treated his best friend any better. It also wasn't worth arguing the diagnosis made by the late Dr. Eliot that Shawn was a narcissist; anyone could see he was.
But she'd hoped that his feelings for her would somehow trump his natural tendency to be… the star of his own world. She'd assumed at first—and then she only hoped—that love would take the edge off his self-absorption.
She'd hoped.
That night at Cache, she quit hoping.
Shawn asked for another chance.
But it wouldn't work. She knew it. Time had to pass and he had to agree to grow up and look beyond himself, and until that happened, she wasn't going to tie herself to him. He would drive her mad, and she already had Carlton for that.
Carlton.
Juliet sighed and kept driving. The scary sky overhead warned her to hurry, and possibly to shut up, but she could only comply half-way.
The point was, Shawn was an ex now. He'd come to the station several times the week after the breakup but she kept their conversations short and out of anyone else's (Carlton's) hearing.
She hadn't been ready to have Carlton deduce that their argument led to the breakup. She hadn't been ready to… to thank him for being her friend in his own abrasive way, telling her so bluntly what she really really needed to hear.
But then he dropped the bomb on her about leaving for six weeks. Whatever order she'd thought was restored to her life was blown apart.
Juliet had always assumed—but would never have spoken aloud—that she and Carlton (despite their squabbling) would always have… whatever it was they had. Over the years, despite whatever was going on in his life or hers, they were a team. He would always need their connection.
She assumed.
... because her ego didn't allow her to consider that she needed him too, even when they were squabbling. Certainly her ego brushed aside the ridiculous idea that she might need her best friend around after breaking up with Shawn, just to be there and solid and real and dependable and all the things which made him Carlton.
So when he said blithely that he was going off to help Hank for six weeks, she was gobsmacked.
He, Carlton "I Never Take Time Off" Lassiter, was taking an unprecedented amount of time off from his beloved job.
Without suitable warning.
To help someone…
Someone who… wasn't her.
And he was in a really good mood about it, the bastard.
That meant…
Now wait, she told herself for the hundredth time. Hank Mendel was very important to Carlton. He'd clearly been a father figure of sorts and they shared a unique bond. It wasn't like he was running off to help some stranger, or throw his life into upheaval for someone like…
Marlowe.
Juliet swallowed. It still surprised her how much trouble she had about Marlowe.
His arm tight around Marlowe's shoulders as he stood protectively by her side.
She'd learned later that this protectiveness was based on only about ten minutes' total contact with the woman, with whom he'd felt connected immediately. Shawn and Gus were at her side dressed as vampires, all three of them staring at Carlton with this pretty woman who seemed perfectly nice and normal and obviously didn't mind Carlton's arm around her—and Juliet was uncomfortable, because she didn't like how it felt to see her partner like that.
She felt the unease washing over her again.
Were you jealous?
No lying now.
Trees whizzed by. She made herself slow the car down.
Yes.
I was jealous.
And I'm not even going to relive that other memory of seeing him half-undressed at the door to his condo, knowing he'd just been about to make love to HER, and feeling for a white-hot moment that there was no way in hell Marlowe could have him.
To see Carlton so quickly become attached, to go so far as commit to a relationship with a woman who'd intended to lure him to a place where her brother could drain his blood, a woman who ended up in prison for breaking into a blood bank—she couldn't fathom it.
Although of course she could, because Marlowe was nice and normal and had committed those crimes because she loved her brother. She was lovely too, dammit; Juliet couldn't fault Carlton's taste. (And technically she only committed the second crime, since she couldn't go through with the luring/blood-draining after she actually met Carlton).
It was selfish of her to consider it a blessing that Marlowe went to prison. She had to wonder how she would have handled Carlton's involvement with a woman there in town, someone he could see regularly and talk about casually, inadvertently but constantly reminding Juliet that he had someone now.
That he didn't need her. That she wasn't special anymore. That being his partner was all she amounted to.
You are so screwed up.
No arguing that point, she thought grimly, because the way she'd felt when Carlton revealed tersely that Marlowe had ended the relationship a while ago was something to be embarrassed about.
Not to mention that since she was with Shawn, it was also something to be puzzled and ashamed of: it's not cool to have any partner-oriented thoughts while you are with someone else, girl.
But there Carlton was now, busying himself with getting ready to leave her for six weeks, going to help a friend, happy about it, not groveling, not snarking—just… having a life? Without her? When she needed him? Even though she hadn't told him? Even though he'd have been totally confused and she couldn't have explained exactly what her problem was?
Which brought her back to her real fear: he was in a good mood because he'd figured out they were done as partners; because the things she said during their argument had pushed him to the edge, because Hank's request gave him an opportunity he intended to mine fully to see what he really wanted out of his life, and it might not be the SBPD, and it might not be her at his side.
Juliet felt like some internal tornado was ripping through her system. She didn't know what to focus on, what to try to make sense of first.
All she knew for sure was that he'd been gone a month now. Their communication had been minimal, texts mostly. She'd called him about a case once but he was meeting with a vet about one of Hank's horses, and when he called her back she was out in the field and couldn't talk. The rest of it was handled via text and she felt unduly deprived.
In fact, she felt… completely out of sorts all month long. Carlton not being at his desk or with her in the car—simply being out of reach and doing his own thing without her—was just wrong.
Shawn's absence from her life—if one could call daily texts and messages and frequent drop-bys being an absence—wasn't nearly as sharp and hurtful as Carlton's absence. He was more a nuisance than anything else, and she'd taken to asking Buzz to head him off at the pass long enough to give her getaway time.
You are SO screwed up.
"I know," she said aloud. "That's why I'm going to see Carlton. To get myself straight."
There was a crack of thunder above her little Bug—that was celestial approval, right?—and as if the reverberation alone had opened the heavens, the rain began to fall with tremendous force, shaking the car and turning the road to a river within minutes.
Juliet pushed on, praying her mechanical companion would get her another half mile to where the GPS said she would find Hank's driveway, which turned out to be all mud by the time she reached it.
Lightning, thunder, rain, wind—she made the turn almost blindly, and the car slid straight across the muddy drive and off into the grass, which was already more like a lake.
Startled and terrified, she sat for a minute catching her breath. She could make out the farmhouse in the distance, a two-story gabled structure which might have had a porch, but the rain was falling too hard for her to be sure.
Get out? Stay in? She'd be sloshing through the grassy lake if she got out, but it was obviously her only option, because the Bug sure wasn't moving.
At least it wasn't sinking.
Crap. Just get out, she told herself.
Forcing the door open against the wind, she stepped out into muddy water, the rain already obscuring her vision and shockingly cold against her bare arms.
Instantly drenched, she got the door closed again and braced herself against the hood while she made her way around the vehicle and closer to the road.
It was impossible to see, the rain was so hard, but when she lifted her head to figure out exactly where the driveway was, she saw something coming toward her.
Purposefully, down the drive from the house.
Tall, wrapped in a long green raincoat, and unmistakably Carlton.
A wave of I'm-so-glad-to-see-him overtook her, and for a moment she was fully aware that her trembling wasn't entirely from the cold rain.
"Juliet!" he shouted. "Stay where you are!"
But she was so close to the "dry" ground now, and so near to being with him, that she pushed on—and promptly stepped into a watery depression which the mud and grass and frickin' storm had concealed.
With a shriek she pitched forward, but Carlton, impossibly, was already there and lifting her off the road before she knew she'd hit it.
"Juliet," he said urgently, hoisting her soggy self into his arms. "I told you not to move, dammit."
His blazing eyes were the bluest they'd ever been, maybe bluer because of the full and mostly silver beard he now had, maybe because of the gray force of the storm raging around them.
But in his arms, cradled against his chest as the rain fell, Juliet felt warm and safe and protected instead of stupidly soaked and muddy and chilled.
"Juliet," he said again more gently. "You okay?"
Oh, God.
He's calling me Juliet.
And he's looking at me with those eyes… those eyes which hold a thousand secrets and every shade of blue there is.
She managed to say shakily that she was all right, nothing broken, and he turned to carry her back toward the house as if she were some sort of fragile treasure.
She was suddenly terrified. She was twice as gobsmacked as the day he told her about leaving for six weeks, and yet suddenly many, many things were perfectly crystal clear.
Dammit.
For the love of all that is holy, DAMMIT.
I'm in love with the son of a bitch.
. . . .
. . .