Elena had died. That jagged edge of reality blurred in Kiera's mind. Fraught with feelings of failure, she shuddered against her new partner. Carlos clutched her, anchoring her body with his. Her old partner had been here since 1975. Here it was, thirty-seven, going on thirty-eight years later. Fresh memories sprang to mind. The family Elena had allowed herself to have here would bury her.

Kiera buried her face deeper into Carlos' shoulder, the one she clung to as though it were a life preserver. She was wobbly; he wasn't. With his eyes closed, he continued lending succor. The feel of her silky hair against the palm of his hand as he stroked her, transported him to a simpler, less demanding time. The woman he had once loved loomed before him. She was telling him that she had been wrong. What he thought they'd had hadn't been real. She had made it clear that she must leave him behind. She needed to pursue her dreams, ambitions that didn't include him. Carlos just would never understand, she had insisted.

Those memories used to torment him until he'd put a stop to them. He'd had to for the sake of his sanity.

Her leaving him, 'cutting him loose,' as his ex-amante had put it, had been like curare, poisoning him. How and why the relationship had ended had embittered him, had soured his outlook on many things. Carlos had sworn that he would never be quite so trusting and gullible again. He would never allow himself to care. Caring, only to be shunted aside? He would never let that happen to himself. No, he vowed, never again. He was too smart.

He had no trouble attracting women. Even a casual glance brought them to him like a moth to a flame. He was no stranger to tawdry one-night stands. He had been a one-woman man until he'd been kicked in the teeth by a user. He never looked for meaning in meaningless hookups. True love was a myth. A heart wounded toughened over time. Carlos' had, he made no apologies. He wasn't the same man who had fallen so deeply, so passionately in love what felt a ridiculously long time ago.

This sobbing woman he was comforting, soothing her with soft, warm words, had begun changing him in subtle ways. From that first day when Kiera had bulled her way into his life, the delicate reversal had begun. What once had been stale and the everyday was now original and exceptional, a far cry from dull. Kiera was no fake, Carlos thought, as she sniffled gently. He couldn't stop thinking, scores of contradictory things, as Kiera, taking refuge in his arms, relived hosts of life and death situations with Elena. The recollections were vivid and sharp.

Her whimpers grew fainter, the heft of her body shifted against Carlos. She tried unmooring herself from him, but his big, strong arms around her felt like a second skin. The solace they lent was intoxicating. Effortlessly, she sank deeper into them. Deeper and deeper, she descended, thoroughly immersing herself, losing herself in the preservation her partner gave her.

She was drifting in limbo. All the negative events, which plagued her, blotted out by this one man's concern for her.

"It's going to be all right," Carlos kept repeating, as though applying balm to a pestilent rash.

Kiera clung to Carlos' safe solidity even harder. Words, not sounding a thing like them, muffled by the jacket sheathing his broad shoulder, wormed their way from her. "I…I…" Blanching, she faltered through a ragged breath. "M-might not have a family." She held Carlos tighter. "Not anymore." Kiera sounded stung, as if a nest of maddened bees had attacked her, she having the anaphylactic reaction.

Softly, though at a loss for anything placative to say Carlos asked, "What do you mean, Kiera? Once these prime terrorists have been defeated, along with whatever other groups they've spawned, you'll get back to your family." He almost said she would be able to move on, resume living a normal life. He wasn't so sure saying that was appropriate. Who was he to say? Since she worked for Section 6, it was safe to assume that once this assignment was through, the elite task force would assign her to something equally, if not more dangerous, than this current covert operation.

He didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to lose her.

Again, he heard her crying softly and he couldn't help it when he sighed into her. The hand stroking her hair cupped the back of her velvety shivering head. "It's going to be all right. It will. It will." But he couldn't promise. What he did know was that he would be just what she had said moments before they had entered Elena's room, seeing the empty bed. He was her partner and he had her back, for as long as she needed him to be there for her.

Kiera stopped crying, staying right where she was. After a few more moments passed, she was more composed, and able to say, "Thank you, Carlos." She was thankful for the multitudinous things he gave her, unstintingly, he never aware for one moment that he gave her so much.

Not easing away from her, Carlos inquired, "You say you see Sam every day. When was the last time he saw you?" He pushed the thought of her seeing the man responsible for Sam's birth back, way down into memory. "Are you allowed to see him?" From the way she had spoken about Greg Cameron, Carlos had gotten the impression that the two had grown apart before this imposed separation. "Has your son been kidnapped? Did your husband take him?"

Kiera went limp. Feeling the give in her body, Carlos gripped her more firmly, and waited for her to answer him. She struggled, knowing full well that she could not. "No, no. Nothing like that." Kiera's voice sounded strangled as her arm held Carlos more snugly. "Sam's fine." She prayed that was so.

Carlos knew when to refrain from pushing her too far. The weather had been great for the past few days, unbelievably beautiful days for this part of the world. He had time owed him and hadn't taken a day off in months. Kiera took off whenever she wanted and no one blinked an eye. Well, everyone except Gardiner. Carlos pushed that pest out of his thoughts. "I've got an idea." He was aware just how hard it was to stop hugging her. He held her for as long as she let him. "What do you say we drop off the radar for, uh, say…the next several hours, or so." A conspiratorial gleam was shining brightly in his dark eyes.

Grateful for his dropping the sorest subject in her life right now, Kiera responded, "What do you mean?"

"A friend of mine has a cabin up in the mountains, not far from Kewlona, at Missezula Lake. He doesn't use it this time of year. Lots to do…boating, hiking, exploring, a private lake, or just plain old relaxing, if you like that sort of thing."

"What do you have in mind, Detective Fonnegra?"

"Well, I'd like to say I'd be kidnapping you, but that sounds too criminal for a hardnosed cop like me to say."

His plan was music to her ears, Kiera thought. At least for a little while, she wanted to put distance between herself and all these worries. Unlike the last time she ditched the city, and him, her selfless partner, this time, Carlos was going to be the one taking her away from all this madness, at least for a little while, so she could regroup and come back stronger than ever. She'd let Alec know where she was, but not Kellog. She didn't want to think about the self-serving interferer. She wished that she'd never had the misfortune of knowing him.

Kiera vowed she wouldn't make the same mistake with Carlos as she had with the man who loved to flaunt his yacht and the fact that he'd had her.

"I'll go willingly, Carlos."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Kiera eased away from him, but not that far. "When do we leave?"

"Does right now sound too soon?"

"Right now sounds perfect," Kiera graciously awarded.

"I'll swing by your place first, so you can pack what you need." Enthusiasm flowed from him. "I'll throw some stuff together and then we're on the move." His grin was infectious; Kiera marveled at her rapid change of mood. Just moments before it had appeared as if she would never stop crying. But, the time for tears had passed. She was going to spend quality time with a man, who knew what it meant to be a real one.

In less than an hour they were on the road, bound for the promised land. Out the corner of her eye, Kiera watched Carlos drive. He offered to do the honors first. It made wonderful sense since he was far more familiar with the locale than she was. As Kiera quietly observed him, Alec murmured to her.

"The two lovebirds going off together at last," he jested. He was having a field day with the deactivated suit the CPS operative had left in his care. "I do hope safe sex is something you practice, Kiera."

Carping silently to herself, Kiera donned her mobile phone. Making believe she was talking to the caller who supposedly had just made her phone vibrate, she nit-picked, "Self-control is the best defense…"

"Have fun," Alec wished her.

"Oh, I intend to. Believe it or not, I do know how. Bye, for now. See you when I get back." She had thought to bring along the book Elena had left for her.

"When you get back, there's someone I want you to meet."

"Bet I know who," Kiera flourished.

"Emily…"

"Who," she said with conviction. "You forget I already did, well, sort of. When she was checking you out."

"Bye, Kiera."

"See ya." The soft-spoken kid had really grown on her. It was hard thinking of him as a manipulative old man in her time.

Carlos raised an eyebrow, biding his time. He had patiently waited to ask who it was once Kiera ended the call. "Anyone I know?"

Maybe one day, she thought. Pleasantly, she replied, "One of my sources. The most reliable one."

"You'll have to introduce me one of these days."

As he pulled into the passing lane to get by a pickup truck that was doing less than fifty m.p.h., jostling, Kiera quipped with a twinkle in her smiling eyes, "There're a lot of things I have to introduce you to." The question was, would she?

"Oh yeah?" Carlos arched, breathing in a generous dose of unadulterated mountain air. "You're going to trust me with your deep, dark secrets?"

"It's either you, or Agent Gardiner. Between you and him, you have kinder eyes. And he gives pushiness new meaning."

Drinking in Kiera's mischievous deportment, Carlos fired back, "Present lovely company lends itself to greater frankness, easily."

They got very quiet after that, more or less staying that way, until Carlos filled the car with music from the radio. Classical music, he was a buff. An hour and a half later, he turned into the cabin's driveway and pulled up alongside the rustic wrap-around, porch lofted log cabin made of spruce. The setting lived up to what she had pictured it being in her mind's eye, perfect, gloriously woodsy. The trees canopied about the cabin were tall, majestic pines. The floor of the porch bore some of their needles, but on the whole, the place was as neat as a pin.

Carlos set the bags he carried down and opened the cabin door. He held it open for her. "Let me know if it's bear-free."

"You first," Kiera taunted.

The bundles made it inside before they did. Carlos used the front of his foot. He caught the visitor from the future off guard, thoroughly off guard. Carlos swept Kiera off her feet and into his arms. Laughing uproariously, he said, "How about together?"

"Partner." Kiera nodded, with her arms gracefully looped about his neck.

Definitively, he responded, "Partner…"

Carlos gave her a brief tour. The cabin was deceptively bucolic; the interior had a more modern flair. The log house had a light, airy kitchen, a spacious living room, complete with a leather rust sofa and matching Truffle chairs, four bedrooms and three baths. Each bath had a hot tub. The owner had spared no expense. Carlos' friend loved to entertain, regardless of whether he was physically on hand, or not.

Kiera chose where she would sleep, in one of the rooms across from where Carlos had chosen to bed down. If the doors remained open, they could talk with each other before falling asleep.

At about six o'clock that evening, he made dinner and they sat before the fire in the fireplace, which he had lit, eating. Over the steak fajitas and chimichurri along with stuffed red and green peppers they were having, Carlos asked, "What would you like to do tomorrow?"

"Anything that doesn't involve dodging bullets." Or, agonizing over what the future held.

Chuckling, filling her glass with a spot more wine, not having to be told, Carlos rejoined, "Oh…I think I can arrange that." He sipped from his fluted absinthe glass. "Have you jet skied?"

She had never heard of it, let alone tried it. The wine sparkled, but not half as much as Carlos' eyes were glimmering. "No."

"Good. You're gonna love it."

TBC…