Distant Shores Silent Thunder

A few minutes later, Elana found Pia on the deck. She joined her at the rail and together they watched the night.

“Well, your description was certainly accurate,” Elana said after a few minutes.

“How so?” Pia asked dully. Once her body had quieted, which had taken far longer than she ever could have imagined, she tried to make sense of KT’s departure. She supposed it could simply be for the obvious reasons. KT wouldn’t be the first woman who had become angry at or frustrated by Pia’s desire to go slowly with the physical aspects of a relationship. Except I’ve been doing anything but going slow. She only has to touch me and I’m ready to explode. She has to know that. Shaking her head in frustration, Pia suddenly remembered her mother’s presence. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that she’s very attractive, and very intense, and somewhere, very wounded.”

Pia caught her breath. “She’s been hurt.”

“Yes, I’d say so.”

Suddenly energized, Pia turned to look at her mother. “Do you think that’s the reason she’s afraid to make love to me?”

Startled, Elana’s lips parted but she made no sound. With a small jerk, she cleared her throat and replied, “I’m afraid I don’t have an opinion on that. Perhaps she’s just being chivalrous?”

“Yes,” Pia said smiling. “That would suit her, wouldn’t it?”

“You do realize that any kind of relationship with her would be challenging.”

Pia laughed out loud. “Oh, what an understatement.” She leaned forward and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I had a great time, but I’ve got to run.”

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Pia called back over her shoulder as she hurried into the house. “But I’ll be okay.”

“What are you drinking?” Pia asked as she slid onto the bar stool beside KT.

“Ginger ale.”

Waving to the bartender, Pia called, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Then she edged closer on her stool until her thigh rested along the length of KT’s. “I like that you want to, but I don’t need you to protect me.”

“Protect you?” KT turned, her expression wary, “From what?”

Pia rested her hand on KT’s leg just above her knee. “From you.”

“How do you know I’m not trying to protect myself from you?”

“Are you afraid of me?”

Solemnly, KT nodded. “Oh yeah.”

“I thought you might be,” Pia said contemplatively. “I haven’t figured out why yet. Until I do, I can’t know if you have any reason to be.” She leaned forward and gently kissed KT’s mouth. “But I don’t think you do.”

“It’s complicated,” KT murmured.

“I know. For me too.”

“Are you afraid of me?” KT asked softly.

“No,” Pia answered immediately.

“Why not?” The question was asked with genuine seriousness.

“Because you’ve never given me any reason to be.”

KT found Pia’s hand and threaded her fingers through Pia’s. “You tie me up in knots.”

Pia smiled. “Good. Want to walk me home?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Fifteen minutes later, KT stopped on the sidewalk in front of Pia’s porch and kissed her softly. “Good night, Pia. Thank you for tonight.”

Gently, Pia brushed her palm over KT’s chest before turning to ascend the stairs. “Good night. I’ll see you at 9 a.m. for your session.”

KT laughed softly and watched until Pia disappeared into the cottage, aware of something she hadn’t felt in so long that she almost didn’t recognize it. Happiness.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“If there was any place lower than traffic I could bust you down to, I’d do it,” Nelson Parker growled as he stood, legs spread and hands fisted on his hips, glaring at his two youngest officers.

Wisely, neither Bri nor Allie commented, but both remained at rigid attention, staring straight ahead. Reese stood behind them and slightly to one side, her hands lightly clasped behind her back.

“The answer is no. I’ve a good mind to put you both on probation for that little stunt you pulled.” Nelson glanced at Reese. “Did you know anything about this before this morning?”

“No, sir.”

Nelson stared at his daughter, “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

Bri’s posture grew even stiffer, and she answered in a clipped, formal tone of voice. “In my opinion, it was a reasonable investigative”

“Oh, horseshit. Just what do you know about investigations? And your sidekick here,” he snapped, giving Allie a blistering glare, “knows even less.”

“Actually, sir,” Allie replied with a hint of indignation, “it was my idea, not Bri’s. And it worked.”

“That remains to be seen,” Nelson shot back. “And neither one of you is going to see anything but the intersection at Commercial and Standish for the next six months.” He turned his back and stalked across the room to the window.

Reese turned to the pale young officers, “You two step outside.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came their very subdued replies.

After waiting until they were alone in the room, Reese said quietly, “You have to give them credit for devising and executing an excellent plan.”

Nelson didn’t turn around. “I don’t have to give them credit for anything. It was a damn fool idea, and we’re just lucky the two of them didn’t end up out there in the dunes somewhere like that girl.” His shoulders shuddered as he took a breath, apparently searching for control. “Just because these are white-collar criminals with lots of money doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. When you’re moving 10 or 20K worth of drugs in an evening, you don’t take kindly to having your operation, interrupted.”

“I agree.” Reese crossed the room to join him and looked out the same window at the unremarkable view of the rear corner of the parking lot and a huge sand dune. “We’re going to have more dead bodies if we don’t shut down this operation. If not here in Provincetown, then in Truro or Wellfleet or Eastham or Chatham. It’s only going to get worse.”

“Are you saying you support their crazy plan?” Nelson eyed her angrily. “They’re goddamned rookies.” His expression grew even more fierce. “They’re kids.”

“No sir,” Reese said quietly. “They’re officers of the law, and they’ve been well trained, and they’re eager to do their jobs. I’m proud of them.”

Nelson said nothing, his eyes focused on something far beyond the mundane panorama, Reese wondered if he was remembering the night they had found Bri in the dunes, and she was grateful once again that she had not called him until they had transported his daughter to the clinic. He wouldn’t have to live with the memory of finding her battered and bruised and half naked as Reese had.

“Of course,” Reese mused, “I don’t intend to tell them that. I intend to kick their metaphorical asses. Sir.”

Despite himself, Nelson laughed. “Good. Coming from you, it will probably mean something.”

“So does your opinion, Chief. It means a lot to them,” Reese considered her next words carefully. “Especially Bri, What you think of her as her commanding officer’s one thing. What you think of her as her father is something far more critical.”

“Your father’s a general or something, right?”

“Yes sir. He is.”

Nelson turned and leaned his shoulder against the window frame, contemplating his second in command. He’d worked with her for years and still felt that he barely knew her. She was calm, controlled, steady under any circumstances. He’d never seen her rattled, not unless it had something to do with Tory. When Tory’s pregnancy had gotten difficult, he’d thought that Reese might just crack. But she’d held steady steadier than he would have. “Can you separate the commander from the father?”

Reese blinked. “No, sir. There’s never been any difference for me. But that’s not true for Bri.”

“Damn.” He ran his hand through his thick hair, tugging at it as if the pain would clear his mind. “I don’t think about something happening to any of my people when I send them out on the street. I can’t think about that and command.”

“I understand, Chief.”

“I know you do,” Nelson agreed readily. He met Reese’s eyes, and his were troubled. “But I can’t do it with Bri. I can’t send her out there knowing the risks.”

“That’s why you have me,” Reese said quietly. “I’ll give the order, and I’ll see that they’re both all right.”

Silence descended as they held one another’s gaze. Finally, Nelson spoke.

“Do it.”

“How much danger are they likely to be in?” Tory asked. Reese had come home later than usual from work and had been unusually quiet during dinner. When she’d said that she had to go back to the station house at 8:30 p.m., Tory had asked why. And now she knew. Allie was to call the number on the card at 9 p.m. to receive information about the drug party.

“Danger tonight? Probably none.” Reese scrubbed her hands over her face and rolled her shoulders to ease some of her tension. “I expect they’ll just be given an address or maybe even another phone number to call closer to the weekend to get the final location of the party. It’s the middle of the week, and I doubt there’s going to be a big party anywhere tonight.”

“And what about when they’re at the party?”

“They’re both going to be wired. We’ll be able to hear everything.” Reese shifted on the couch and curved her arm around Tory’s shoulders. “These parties aren’t known for violence, and all Bri and Allie are going to do is verify that there are drugs in quantity on the premises, make a buy, and give us a reason to go through the door.”

“What if someone suspects who they really are?”

Reese shrugged. “There’s no reason to think that they do or will. Why would they invite Bri and Allie to the party thinking that they were law enforcement officers? They just look like a couple of kids with too much money in their pockets, which is what got them the invitation in the first place.”

“Do you trust them to do this?”

“Yes. They’re both bright and resourceful. And when the time comes, they’ll follow orders.”

Tory looked slightly doubtful. “Are you sure? Sounds like they haven’t followed orders very well so far.”

“No, they didn’t,” Reese agreed. “But we’ve discussed that, and I expect they’ll exercise better judgment in the future.”

“Ah,” Tory said with a ghost of a smile. “Was your ‘discussion’ followed by them cleaning large areas with toothbrushes?”

Reese looked affronted. “You’ve been watching too many movies.” Then she grinned. “But every cruiser in the department has been washed and hand waxed, right down to the gleaming wheel wells.”

“It’s not as if I don’t know that any of the ordinary calls that you take during the day might be dangerous. Most of the time, I try not to think about it.” Tory picked up Reese’s hand and cradled it in her palm, running her thumb over the long, strong fingers. “But knowing that you’re going to be involved in something that’s potentially dangerous makes it impossible not to worry and imagine the worst.”

“Tor,” Reese said gently, moving closer on the sofa. “We’ll be well prepared. This is likely to be nothing more than a few hours of surveillance, a quick roundup of a few midlevel dealers, and a long night of paperwork.”

“I don’t imagine that Nelson’s very happy about Bri and Allie’s part in it.”

“No, but he’s behind the operation.”

Tory sighed. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to defend your professional decisions to me.”

“Hey,” Reese protested, “you have every right to ask about my work, and if it makes you feel better for me to explain, then I will.” She kissed Tory’s temple and then her mouth. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Sheriff,” Tory murmured, turning to tuck her head beneath Reese’s chin and holding her close with an arm wrapped around her waist. “Promise you’ll wear your vest.”

“I will.” Reese kissed Tory’s hair and smoothed a hand up and down her back comfortingly. She’d wear the Kevlar, but she wouldn’t be the one who’d really need it. And Bri and Allie, who might, wouldn’t be able to. They’d be lucky to get inside wired up without blowing their cover.

“You nervous?” Allie asked as she sat in the windowless interrogation room in the rear of the sheriff’s department.

“No. You?” Bri paced back and forth in front of the chipped and scarred table that was flanked on either side by matching pairs of equally decrepit slat-backed wooden chairs.

“No. Uh-uh.”

Bri stopped walking and stared at Allie, who stared back. Silence stretched between them for thirty seconds before Allie giggled.

“OK. Maybe a little,” Allie admitted.

A smile twitched at the corner of Bri’s mouth and then she laughed quickly. “Me too.”

“But I’m psyched, too,” Allie added quickly.

“Yeah. I know. It’s weird, huh?”

“I never expected to be doing this.” Allie drummed her nails on the top of the table, her only outward sign of nervousness. “I figured, you know, we’d be doing mostly community service and keeping the peace. But not really catching criminals.”

“I don’t know,” Bri mused. “My dad has arrested a few people who were really…bad. Someone held up the Cumberland Farms market when I was about ten. And then there was the guy burning down buildings for insurance. And there’s always, you know, the domestic stuff. That can get pretty crazy when you have to get in the middle.”

Allie nodded solemnly. “I know, and I’m not putting down our job. I love doing what we do. But…” Her eyes sparkled. “This is undercover. This is the real deal. Man.”

Before Bri could reply, the door opened and Reese walked in with a small cardboard box, which she put in the middle of the table. She looked from Allie to Bri. “Who’s first?”

When Allie quickly stood up, Reese motioned for her to come around the table. Then she reached into the box and extracted a wire so thin it was nearly invisible from several feet away. At the end was a round disk slightly smaller than a watch battery. She held it up. “This is the microphone. I want you both to see how and where it’s attached in case there’s a technical problem and one of you has to switch mics or try to fix this one.” Glancing at Allie, she said, “It’ll be easier if you take off your top.”

Without a second’s hesitation, Allie reached for the hem of the sleeveless, low-cut silk tee and pulled it off over her head. She wore nothing beneath it. Bri, who had come to stand beside Reese, turned bright red. Reese’s expression never changed.

“I can’t wear a bra with one of these,” Allie explained nonchalantly. “The straps just ruin the look.”

Reese dabbed a tiny amount of skin adhesive just below Allie’s right breast and slightly off center toward the midline. After waiting twenty seconds, she carefully pressed the tiny microphone to the spot. Her movements were precise and certain, and she managed the maneuver without touching Allie’s body anywhere. When she gave the thin wire a brief tug, the microphone remained securely in place.

“Good.” Then Reese applied the adhesive in two or three more spots leading down Allie’s abdomen and around her flank to the middle of her back, fixing the wire in place. The transmitter was a box about the size of a deck of playing cards.

“I can’t wear that back there,” Allie said matter-of-factly. “My jeans are cut low and if my blouse rides up, that’s going to show.”

“It’s the most secure spot.”

Bri shook her head. “That might work on a guy, but not a girl. Not at a party. Someone’s going to put their hand there. It’s just natural.”

Reese frowned and surveyed Allie’s outfit. Her jeans were skintight, and if they were any lower, they would be illegal. “You ‘re going to have to change into something a lot looser.”

“I can’t. It’s not my style, and if whoever was watching us in the bar is there, they’re going to know something’s up if I walk in wearing a baggy T-shirt and cargo pants.” Allie looked from Reese to Bri. “Just wire Bri. We’ll be together, so I won’t need one.”

“Not possible,” Reese said shortly. “If you get separated, I won’t be able to monitor you.”

“I’m not letting her out of my sight,” Bri said immediately.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen once you get inside,” Reese insisted. “You both go wired or you don’t go at all.”

Allie shrugged. “OK. Put it on my back, but higher up. Not where you’d put your hand if we were dancing. That’s”

“I think I can figure that out,” Reese said dryly.

Bri glared at Allie, who smiled sweetly back.

At shortly before 10 p.m. on Saturday night, Reese followed Bri’s motorcycle along Route 6 East into Wellfleet. Nelson sat silently beside her in the Blazer, his hands pressed fiat to his thighs, his eyes riveted to the two figures on the bike as they were intermittently illuminated by the headlights of the SUV.

“You sure we’ll be able to hear them the whole time?”

Reese answered his question exactly the same way she had the previous four times he’d asked. “Yes. These are powerful transmitters, and we should be able to get very close. I imagine there are going to be plenty of cars around, and one more won’t matter.”

“If the locale they gave Allie over the phone is legit, we’re going to be in a sparsely populated area very near the ocean side of the Cape. There might not be much in the way of cover. It could be one of those big solitary beach houses, which makes sense, if there’s a lot of money involved.”

“We’ll be able to hear them,” Reese repeated with certainty. Allie had been given directions but no specific location. Just follow the crowd, honey, the anonymous male had said. So Nelson and Reese hadn’t been able to do any advance planning beyond placing cruisers in the general area to move in once the target was identified.

“I don’t know why I ever thought I could stand having her on the job,” Nelson mumbled as he chewed a Turns.

“How about because she’s a natural at it, and you’re proud of her.”

“Hmmph.”

“Here we go,” Reese said quietly as the big Harley in front of them turned off 6 behind several other vehicles onto a much smaller road like so many that wound through the dunes along the coastline. Nelson turned on the receiver and adjusted the volume. All they could hear was the roar of the engine. Ten minutes later, Bri banked into a driveway that presumably led to a house that was hidden from view by a thick stand of trees.

“Damn it. We’re not going to be able to follow them up there,” Nelson said in frustration,

Reese drove another fifty yards until she could pull off the road and nosed the SUV into the trees so that it was less visible to casual inspection. “Looks like we’re going for a walk.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“I could do this a lot better if I took the wrist immobilizer off,” KT grumbled.

Pia tightened her arms around KT’s neck and settled more closely into the curves of her body. “You’re doing just fine.”

KT nestled her face into the lush thickness of Pia’s hair and closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation of Pia pressing everywhere against her Pia’s soft, warm skin brushing over the curve of her neck, Pia’s breasts caressing teasingly against her achingly sensitive nipples, Pia’s abdomen and thighs cleaved to hers. Everywhere so good, everywhere so breathlessly exciting. She rubbed the fingertips of her right hand in the hollow at the base of Pia’s spine, gently echoing the circular motion with her hips. When Pia sighed into her neck, a soft low moan of pleasure, KT’s heart lurched and her blood raced toward the boiling point.

“God,” Pia murmured, “you’re good at this.”

“You should see what I can do with two hands.”

Pia leaned back in the circle of KT’s arms and gave her a heavy-lidded, hazy-eyed look, her full lips parted into a lazy smile. “Considering that we’re in a room with a hundred other people, it’s probably better that you only have the use of one.”

KT was dimly aware of the other dancers and of the low, heavy beat of music keeping time with the pulse of blood deep in her belly, but her senses registered only the heat of Pia’s body and the fine mist of excitement on her skin and the hunger in her eyes. “You’re all I can see, all I can feel.” She brushed her lips over Pia’s forehead, then her lips. “You’re all I think about.”

“I like that,” Pia whispered. She combed her fingers through KT’s hair and caressed the back of her neck with one hand while bringing the other to rest between them in the center of KT’s chest.

As they swayed to the music, she danced her fingers over the inner curves of KT’s breasts. “I like that a lot.”

“You’re driving me out of my mind, Pia.” KT’s voice was a desperate groan. Her thighs trembled with the effort it took not to pump her hips in response to the insistent pulsations between her legs.

Marveling at the hard point of KT’s nipple against her palm, Pia skimmed her lips along the curve of KT’s ear. “I like that a lot, too.” It was true. So true. Never before had she taken such delight in another woman’s desire for her. Never before had she felt the exquisite pleasure of being wanted with a force that equaled her own. She’d had relationships with women she’d cared for, women whom she’d admired and respected and liked, women who had excited her with their kisses and their caresses, but never never a woman who made her yearn so desperately to give of herself and to take from her until she was empty and completely filled.

“Baby, stop,” KT implored when Pia’s fingers closed around her nipple and gently squeezed. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely see. “I can’t take it.”

Pia wanted more, not less. She wanted to feel KT quiver again the way she just had. She wanted to hear that swift intake of breath and the barely stiffed moan. She wanted KT to touch her and quench the fires that threatened to consume her. She wanted. Oh, how she wanted. “We can either go outside on the deck and cool off, or we can go back to my house and do what we both want.”

Summoning every ounce of resolve left to her, KT found Pia’s hand, turned, and led her through the crowd toward the rear of the dance floor and the deck beyond.

“You ready to party, babe?” Bri inquired as she and Allie walked hand in hand up the sidewalk to the front door of a multistory, rambling wood-framed home that stood on a tree-studded knoll above the beach and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. She wondered briefly as she spoke the prearranged words to signal that they were about to enter the house if Reese or her father could actually hear her. Then she put the question from her mind. They were out there. They said they would be.

“Can’t wait for the fun to begin,” Allie replied, squeezing Bri’s fingers as much for her own reassurance as Bri’s.

At Bri’s knock, a sandy-haired man in his thirties opened the door and greeted them with a wide smile. He stood with his body blocking the entrance, one arm extended along the door, sweeping his gaze over them with practiced calculation.

“Hey, girls! Glad you could make it. Tom tell you about our little gathering?”

Allie wrapped her arm around Bri’s waist and gave him a disdainful look. “Nuh-uh. Jimmy. And he said that Karl would take care of us.”

“You got that right, honey,” their host responded, apparently satisfied with the information since he pushed the door all the way open. “I’m Karl. Come on in.”

Tory leaned back into the corner of the couch in Jean and Kate’s living room, glancing at the baby monitor by her elbow as she stretched her legs out to the hassock at her feet. She fidgeted, unable to get comfortable and irritated by a nagging headache that just wouldn’t go away. When she heard Jean’s voice coming through the monitor, singing softly to Regina in the other room, her throat suddenly felt tight. She glanced at Kate, who was smiling tenderly. “I don’t know how I’d manage without the two of you looking after Regina. I can’t imagine how women without family to help out survive.”

“Believe me,” Kate said, “we couldn’t be happier doing it.” A hint of sadness tinged her eyes. “Jean and I would’ve loved to have had children together, but it just wasn’t to be.”

“Well, I’m eternally grateful. Dinner tonight was great, too.”

Kate propped her feet on a matching footstool and studied Tory intently. “Reese is out on some kind of operation, isn’t she?”

Tory nodded. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Because you were very quiet during dinner, and Reese left immediately after, and you haven’t been able to settle since then even though you’re clearly exhausted.”

“I can’t rest when she’s out doing something like this.”

“The baby is asleep and is likely to be for a good part of the night. Why don’t you at least close your eyes and rest.”

“I’m not sure if it’s having Regina and all the responsibility that goes along with that or if it’s just that the longer we’re together, the more I realize how much I need Reese, but it seems to be getting harder for me to tolerate her job.” Tory grimaced. “Reese would hate that if she knew it.”

“You know she’s very, very good and very, very careful. She wouldn’t do anything that would hurt you or Regina.”

Not if she could help it. The words hung in the air as Tory nodded, suddenly very tired. “Do you know that her father met her in Boston a few weeks ago?”

Kate gave a startled gasp. “No. She didn’t tell me. Is everything all right?”

“For the time being, I think so.” Tory hesitated, but she’d been keeping the secret too long, and she couldn’t bear to continue to carry it alone. “He hinted that a major military action was coming and that Reese might be activated.”

“Every time I hear about the escalation of violence somewhere in the world, I think about Reese going,” Kate confided. “But then, I was married to a marine and was always prepared for him to be gone. Before Reese was born, he did two tours in Vietnam.”

“Was that hard?” Tory asked quietly.

“Yes,” Kate answered truthfully, holding Tory’s gaze. “It was very hard. But as much as I wanted him to come home, I was proud, too. It was a very tumultuous period in my life.”

“I can’t get used to the idea,” Tory admitted. “I’m used to her going away for her reserve weekends and the two weeks during the summer, but I never really thought about her serving in a war zone. God, I just can’t imagine it.”

“There’s no reason you should be able to,” Kate said kindly.

“I don’t want her to go.” Tory said evenly as she met Kate’s eyes without flinching. “I want her here with me and Regina. Where she belongs.”

“Did you tell her that?” Kate asked calmly.

“Yes.” Tory drew a long breath. “Then I told her that if the time ever comes, I want her to do what she feels she needs to do.”

“That was a gift. She would have needed to hear that from you.”

Tory laughed without humor. “I wish I’d screamed and hollered and told her absolutely no way was she going. That she was to march right down to the Marine Reserve office and resign immediately.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because of who she is, Because I love her so much.” Tory’s voice broke, and she looked away. When she looked back at Kate, her eyes glistened with tears. “If it happens, do you think she’ll go?”

Kate’s expression softened. “Yes.”

“So do I,” Tory whispered.

“How’s the reception?” Nelson whispered, puffing only slightly from their rapid traverse over the hilly ground to a point where they could see the front door.

“Should be excellent.” Reese surveyed their surroundings. “Depending on the terrain, we’re good for up to two thousand feet with the SR-697.”

The SR-697 was a portable, multichannel audio body-wire receiver designed for the field. With it, Reese could monitor several audio bands and listen to both Bri’s and Allie’s conversations. Depending on ambient noise levels in the house, she could also pick up a fair amount of background chatter as well. The device had recording capabilities, and the tape was time and date stamped. Nelson had gotten a special warrant allowing them to employ wireless surveillance, so anything recorded would be admissible in court. “This location looks good. We have a sightline to the door and no major obstacle interference.” She toggled the frequency indicator, an expression of intense concentration on her face. “Got them both.”

“I’ll radio Wellfleet and key them to our location.” Nelson had organized the joint operation with the Wellfleet sheriff’s department, insisting that he and Reese take the lead and Wellfleet back up with cruisers around the perimeter, waiting to move in if a bust went down. Because it was Nelson’s people undercover, Wellfleet had readily agreed.

“They’re not going to be able to set up on this road,” Reese observed, listening to Bri and Allie introduce themselves to what sounded like a group of college students who had come over to the Cape from Boston for the weekend. “Maybe a parallel road where they can access the rear of the house to cover that exit. Failing that, at the junction with the main road. The last thing we want is for someone on the way to the party to see them.”

Nelson merely grunted. They both knew that the more people involved in an undercover surveillance operation, the more likely the chance of exposure. Although they regarded the risk of violence to be relatively low, that was far from certain. And Allie and Bri were unarmed.

“How long do you figure to get to them from here?”

“Thirty seconds.”

He clenched his jaw and said nothing. Thirty seconds was a lifetime.

Pia leaned back against KT and lifted her face into the breeze. The rear deck of the Pied stood directly on the beach overlooking Provincetown Harbor. At high tide, the water rose under the deck. The tide was out now, and reflections from the running lights of the many sailboats moored in the shelter of the breakwater shimmered and danced off the dark surface of the water, blending with the paler glow of the moonlight bathing the sea. Thousands of times she’d witnessed the eerie beauty of the ocean as it slumbered beneath the stars, but she had never tired of it. Tonight, with the warmth of KT’s body surrounding her, she felt the rhythm of the tide flowing in her blood and the steady cadence of the waves pulsing in her depths. That wonder was echoed by the sweet harmony of passion and peace that settled in the very heart of her.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Pia said simply.

“Pia,” KT moaned, her mouth against Pia’s temple.

Pia intertwined her fingers with KT’s and guided KT’s palm to the undersurface of her own breast, where she pressed it gently over her rapidly beating heart. “You are not required to answer. I just wanted to…say it.”

“You know I’m a decade older than you are?” KT murmured.

“Is there some significance to that?” Pia asked quietly, folding her arms over KT’s, holding KT even as KT held her.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last ten… no make it twenty years.”

“I don’t want to minimize your past,” Pia replied, leaning her head back against KT’s shoulder, “but your past is not about me. This moment, test weekend with my parents, tomorrow those are about me. About us.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m a lousy risk, Pia. And you’re God, you’re”

“What?” Pia turned around and put both hands on KT’s shoulders, looking intently into her eyes. “I’m what, KT? Incapable of making a mistake? Incapable of being selfish or stubborn or foolish? Do you think because no one ever made me want to give everything, to feel everything…” She pressed close to KT, her lips skimming KT’s mouth, and when she spoke again her voice was low, husky with desire. “Just because no one has ever made me want their hands all over me the way I want yours, that I’m special?”

“I can’t think when you’re this close,” KT groaned. “When you say these things, all 1 want is to be inside you. Pia, God, I want you so much.”

“Feel me,” Pia whispered, her arms tightening around KT’s neck again, her lips hungry on KT’s mouth.

KT was lost. She had no defense against Pia’s words repeating in her mind. I’ve fallen in love with you. Pia’s voice. Her own heart, echoing. With supreme effort, she broke the kiss. “Let’s go.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Your girlfriend’s really hot,” a small, tight-bodied Asian woman in skintight black Lycra slacks and a spandex top nicely displaying her small, high breasts commented to Allie. Bri had just left to investigate the house under the guise of searching for fresh beers.

“Yeah.” Allie sipped her beer and regarded the woman nonchalantly. “This is a kinda weird deal, you know? The secret code phone calls and stuff.” She laughed and sipped her beer again. “After all, it’s just a party.”

“Well, you know, there’s a lot of stuff hanging around and you don’t want just anybody crashing.” The tone of the woman’s voice indicated that she considered the party to be an elite gathering.

Allie shrugged. “I suppose although I haven’t seen anything too special in the way of party favors yet,”

“Is this your first time?”

“Hardly,” Allie snorted. Then she gave the other woman a knowing smile. “But I haven’t been around this circuit before. Just down by Providence. Do they have quality stuff?”

To Allie’s surprise, the smaller woman edged closer and snaked her arm around Allie’s waist before rubbing her cheek against Allie’s arm, almost like a cat twining itself around its human. “Mmm, usually.” She nuzzled her face against the curve of Allie’s breast. “I know who to ask. We can party, the three of us.”

“I want to know what I’m getting,” Allie said softly, stroking her fingers up and down the woman’s bare arm and shifting so that the woman’s hand settled on her butt. She didn’t want her to feel the transmitter. “I don’t want to get numbed out, you know? Especially if we’re going to play.”

“Play at what?” Bri asked as she edged up to them in the crowd. She caught the quick flicker of caution in Allie’s eyes and leaned in to kiss Allie on the mouth. Then she put her arm around Allie’s waist between the strange woman’s hand and the transmitter. “Who’s your friend, babe?”

“Hey, baby,” Allie purred to Bri, still caressing the other woman. “This is…” She turned her head and brushed her lips over the Asian woman’s ear. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Tamara.” Tamara extended an arm and trailed her fingers down the center of Bri’s chest and abdomen until she reached Bri’s belt. Then she curled her ringers inside. “Hi.”

Bri nodded warily. “We don’t usually do threesomes.”

“I can just watch,” Tamara replied, rocking her pelvis against Allie’s thigh. “Or I can help you do her or you can both do me. Whatever works.”

“Tamara says she can get us what we came for, baby,” Allie said soothingly. She kissed Bri’s neck, then along her jaw. When she saw Tamara’s hand drift lower down Bri’s fly, she caught Tamara’s wrist. “Ask permission first, honey. That’s private property.”

“Sorry,” Tamara whispered, looking anything but. “You want me to score us something? I can get us E or coke just about anything you want,”

Allie looked at Bri. “Come on, baby. Let’s play.”

Bri hesitated, then finally nodded. “Let’s all go get it together. If this is gonna be a night to remember, I wanna be sure I do.”

“What?” Nelson whispered urgently when he saw Reese stiffen and frown.

“They’re about to score the drugs,” Reese muttered. She was a little uneasy about the third party being involved. Allie and Bri had been particularly careful in not suggesting anything that could be considered entrapment, more careful than she would have expected them to be in light of their inexperience. Nevertheless, the sexual propositions might come back to haunt them if they weren’t careful. “They’ve hooked up with another woman who’s going to make the connection for them. I don’t think she’s a dealer. She’s just interested in…them.”

“Them?” Nelson asked, confused. When Reese said nothing, he bunched his shoulders and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

“We’re going to have to be very careful with a civilian in the middle of this if we make the arrests inside.”

“What about”

Reese held up a hand, interrupting him, the fingers of her left hand pressing the earpiece as if to make the transmission clearer. “Call Wellfleet. It’s going down any minute.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

KT pulled Pia down beside her on the wooden love seat that swung gently on Pia’s front porch, suspended from ceiling hooks by thick braided ropes. “Let’s talk for a second.”

“We’ve been talking every day, sometimes several times a day,” Pia said, her voice silky and low as she pulled her legs up onto the cushions and curled against KT’s side, “for almost a month.” She wrapped an arm around KT’s waist and nestled her head against KT’s shoulder. “And as much as I enjoy your mind, I’m more interested in your body right now.”

Despite her persistent unease, KT laughed, rubbing her cheek against Pia’s hair. “How is it that two weeks ago you told me quite emphatically that you weren’t going to sleep with me?”

“Two weeks ago you needed every ounce of your strength to get the drugs out of your system and your feet back under you,” Pia said softly. “You needed me to be your friend then, and I…I wasn’t ready to want you this much.”

“And what about now?”

“We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” KT murmured, realizing it was true and knowing that the last time she’d felt that way with a lover, it had been Tory. Thinking of Tory reminded her forcefully of just how bad she was at relationships. Still, Pia’s nearness invoked a familiar stirring in her body the growing knot of tension deep down inside her that always came when she held a woman, smelled a woman, imagined the glide of smooth skin under her fingertips. It was a hunger, a longing so profound to immerse herself in the mystery and wonder of all that was female that she’d often followed her desire without thinking. Now, when a beautiful woman a woman she wanted as fiercely as any she’d ever known told her not once, but repeatedly, that she wanted her, she did nothing. She held herself back while her body screamed for release, aching and close to breaking. And still, she waited. “Yes, we’re friends, That’s why I haven’t touched you, when I want to so much.”

Pia shifted until she could look up into KT’s face, shadowed in the moonlight. “Let me get this straight You don’t want to go to bed with me because you like me.”

No, because I love you. KT caressed Pia’s side, sliding her palm up and down the curve of her flank and over her hip. “You’ve waited all this time, Pia. Waited for something….someone…special.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m not special.”

“Tell me why you think you aren’t.” Pia rested her hand in the center of KT’s chest and slowly circled her fingertips, loving the subtle tensing of KT’s body when she touched her. She’d been aware of other women’s excitement before, of their need, but she’d never thrilled to the knowledge that she had created it. Not like she did with this woman. KT’s desire made her feel powerful in a way she had never experienced, powerful and humbled at the same time. It was all she could do to refrain from sliding her leg over KT’s, from cupping KT’s small, firm breast, merely millimeters away from her burning palm. “Tell me what I’m missing, because I think you’re very special.”

“I’ve spent most of my life meeting someone else’s expectations and never even questioning if those goals were my own. In the process, I was so focused on satisfying my own needs that I destroyed the most important thing in my life.” KT leaned her head against the wooden seat back and stared at the darkness overhead. “I didn’t even know it at the time, that’s how out of touch I was with everything that should’ve mattered.”

Pia didn’t answer; she merely held KT tightly.

“Since then well, let’s say I’ve been selfish when it comes to relationships.”

“Did you make promises you didn’t keep?”

KT shook her head.

“Did you lie about your feelings?”

“No,” KT rasped.

“Were you only concerned with your own pleasure?”

KT laughed wryly. “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

Pia kissed KT softly, then drew back until she could look into her eyes. “Then I don’t think you’ve been selfish. And I’m not asking for promises.”

KT brushed her fingers through Pia’s hair and closed her fist gently around the heavy richness of it. “You deserve promises.”

“Would you be so worried if I hadn’t told you that I’ve never slept with anyone before?”

“I don’t know,” KT answered truthfully. “But you did tell me. And one thing I know for sure. I never want you to regret anything that happens between us.”

“You have to trust me when I say that I won’t.” Pia shifted until she straddled KT’s thighs, her knees on the cushions on either side. She framed KT’s face in her hands and lowered her head until their mouths met. When KT’s hand came to her waist, then under her blouse to tremble against her flesh, Pia murmured, “Please.”

“Well, you three look like you’re ready for some real partying,” Karl said with forced friendliness as he surveyed Allie, Bri, and Tamara.

“We were ready when we walked in the door,” Allie replied in a tone halfway between sarcastic and seductive. Tamara’s hand was still firmly attached to her hip, and she was afraid that any second the other woman was going to take a bite out of something vital. “And so far, all we’ve seen is beer. Pissy beer, actually.”

“Looks like you’ve scored a little more than that,” Karl smirked, his eyes on Tamara.

“That isn’t what we came for,” Bri growled, releasing her grip on Allie’s hand in case she suddenly needed both of hers.

“Come on, Karl,” Tamara crooned. “Why are you being such a prick?” She insinuated her other arm around Allie’s waist and ran her tongue over the point of Allie’s nipple, leaving a small wet spot on the material before smiling up at the big man. “Be nice to my friends.”

Karl’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, and then he smiled again. “Well, we like to welcome newcomers.” His eyes flickered from Bri to Allie and then back to Bri. “Tonight everything is on sale.”

“So show me the merchandise,” Bri said steadily, her eyes on his.

“That’s it,” Reese said abruptly, removing her earpiece. “Put Wellfleet on the rear door now and another team behind us. You and I will go first through the front as planned.”

As she spoke, Nelson translated the orders into his radio, and then they were both moving through the low brush and taller scrub pines, ducking as much to avoid the swinging branches as to keep from being seen from the house.

“Maybe we should’ve brought more people,” Nelson panted, slightly winded.

“We’ve got the perimeter shut down,” Reese reminded him. “No one is going anywhere and we’ve got six going in. Two inside. We’re covered.”

Yeah. And the two inside are unarmed rookies. Nelson saved his breath and tried to ignore the sick knot of tension that had centered in his chest

Inside the house, Bri closed her hand around the six tabs of ecstasy and extended the wad of folded bills she’d pulled from her jeans. “Next time we’re going to want more.”

“Any time. Just call.” Karl grinned. “You’re on my VIP list now.”

“Come on, stud,” Tamara urged, tugging on Bri’s belt. “We’ve got everything we need. Let’s go find someplace to do it.”

Bri and Allie followed Tamara down the hall. With an arm still cinched possessively around Allie’s waist, Tamara peered into several rooms until she found an empty one. She stepped across the threshold of the darkened space and looked around, “Mmm, nice big bed.” She tugged on Allie’s hand. “Tell your girlfriend to pass out the goodies. I’m so, so ready.”

Bri said loud enough for Tamara to hear, “I’m going downstairs for a beer, babe. Why don’t you two get ready for me.”

“Uh-uh, lover,” Allie said, dropping Tamara’s hand and grabbing Bri’s. “I’m not letting you go off by yourself. Not now,” She smiled and bumped her hip against Tamara’s thigh. “This one’s already got me awfully hot, and I don’t want you getting distracted when you should be taking care of me.”

Bri looked put out. “Then come with me if you want to. But let’s go.”

Allie kissed Tamara’s cheek and stroked her as she might a favored pet. “We’ll be right back, beautiful. You can even start without us, but don’t you dare come,”

“Hurry,” Tamara demanded, one hand absently toying with her nipple.

“Oh, we will,” Allie replied as she turned away with Bri. In a voice too low to be overheard, she said, “You take the back, I’ll get the front?”

“Yeah. Be careful.”

Allie grinned. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Pia,” KT gasped, “we’re going to break this swing.” Somehow, they’d managed to end up lying down on the narrow porch swing with KT beneath Pia, one leg still on the floor and Pia between her spread thighs. Pia’s hand had edged down beneath the waistband of her trousers, and, minutes before, her own hand had found Pia’s breast. “If one of us doesn’t break something first.”

Pia threw her head back and braced herself on the swing with a hand on either side of KT’s shoulders. She thrust her pelvis gently between KT’s legs, reveling in the pressure building in her stomach and the harsh, ragged sound of KT’s breathing. “Are you ready to stop resisting me now?”

“Baby,” KT groaned, “if I don’t get my mouth on you soon, I’m going to die.”

It was Pia’s turn to gasp as KT’s words the image struck like lightning searing through her nerve endings. She moaned as her clitoris quivered in anticipation. “Oh God.” She pushed away to stand on unsteady legs and held out her hand. “Please come upstairs.”

Wordlessly KT followed, knowing only that she couldn’t go a moment longer without being as close to Pia as she could possibly get.

There were a few partiers in the kitchen when Bri arrived. She walked straight to the back door that led out to a fenced patio-pool area and unlocked it. She stiffened infinitesimally when a hand closed on her shoulder.

“Going for a swim?” Karl asked congenially.

“Thought I’d check it out in case the girls need to cool off later,” Bri replied, turning to him with a grin. “I expect they’re going to get awfully hot.”

He snorted. “Too bad I’m working. I could help you out with them.”

“I don’t need any help.” As she spoke, Bri moved back into the kitchen, hoping to draw his attention away from the rear of the property. She expected to see officers approaching any second since she knew that Reese was only waiting for money to exchange hands to make the bust solid. She also knew that Reese wanted her and Allie to stay clear of the arrests if possible, rather than identifying themselves as police officers. Their only function at this point was to facilitate entry and help calm the partygoers if needed.

“Sometimes,” Karl said in a flat, hard tone as he moved closer to Bri, “you don’t know what you need until you’ve had a taste.”

Bri stood her ground, even though Karl’s crotch brushed hers. “Karl, don’t be an asshole.”

“Bet you thought I’d go for the girls” he said softly, placing his index fingertip gently between the subtle swell of Bri’s breasts and pressing her T-shirt against her breastbone in tiny circles. “But I don’t. You know what I like, stud?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Bri caught a flicker of movement as the shadows in the yard coalesced into human form. At the same time, she heard surprised shouts from the front of the house.

Karl jerked, swiveling his head around. “What the hell?”

Before he could move, the back door burst open and two officers came through, shouting, “Sheriff’s Department. Everybody down. Everybody down.”

“Fuck this,” Karl never hesitated as he reached past Bri and lifted a carving knife from the counter. At the same time, he threw an arm across Bri’s chest and dragged her back against him, his elbow crooked beneath her chin, the blade swiftly at her throat “I’m going out the back door, and she’s coming.”

There were several indelible rules that Bri had learned in the academy. Never give up your weapon. Never become a hostage. Had she never learned those rules, her reaction would have been the same. She had been taken by force once, and it would never happen again. No one was ever taking her against her will again, no matter the price.

Even as she clamped her fingers around his knife hand, she felt the first bite of the steel.

KT stood in the soft glow of the bedside lamp and lifted her left hand. “I want to take this off tonight, when we’re together.” Anticipating Pia’s protest, she hurriedly added, “I’ll be careful. I promise.” She held Pia’s eyes. “I want to come to you whole. I need to.”

“Oh,” Pia whispered, resting her fingertips against KT’s cheek where the barest hint of a scar remained. “You are. ” Closing the ringers of her free hand around KT’s wrist, she lifted the damaged hand and kissed a spot that she knew KT could feel. “This doesn’t make you less. This makes you hurt.” She stroked KT’s face. “Hurts can be healed.”

“You’re healing me,” KT whispered.

“No.” Pia moved closer until their bodies touched. “You’re doing that all by yourself.” She kissed KT, a gentle kiss of soft lips caressing soft lips. “And that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you. That stubborn persistence of yours.”

Feeling anything but strong, KT wrapped her arms around Pia and returned the kiss. She covered Pia’s mouth harder than she had intended, entered deeper than she had meant, but she had waited so long to be touched inside, waited without even knowing she was waiting. Now she felt open and exposed, and only Pia’s tender strength could soothe the raw edges of her soul. Pia’s arms were around her neck again, and they were both moaning.

Pia got a hand between them and pushed KT away a fraction. “The bed. I have to lie down with nothing between us and feel your skin on mine, everywhere. I’ve thought about it, I’ve dreamed about it.” She took a step back and tugged on the tail of KT’s shirt, urging her to follow. “I’ve done other things, imagining your hands.”

“Oh, Christ,” KT groaned, fumbling with the buckle on her belt. Her head was reeling, her heart nearly bursting. She’d just managed to work the button free on her fly when another sensation penetrated her consciousness. A faint throbbing at her hip. For a moment she didn’t recognize it, although until a couple of months ago it had been an everyday occurrence. She looked down in disbelief. “Oh, no.”

Pia followed her gaze and then laughed shakily. “Please tell me this is not happening.”

“It is,” KT said grimly as she pulled the beeper from her belt and blinked, trying to clear her vision to read the numbers. “It’s the service, and they never call unless it’s an emergency.” Desolate, she looked at Pia. “I have to answer.”

Pia sank down to the side of the bed, gripping the mattress on either side of her body to steady herself. She was shaking all over. “Of course you do.”

“Tory,” Jean said softly. “Tory, honey.”

“Hmm?” Tory murmured, rolling over onto her side. She opened her eyes, disoriented, and struggled to focus on Jean’s face. “I fell asleep, didn’t I.” She sat up and ran a hand through her hair. Still fuzzy, she looked around the dimly lit room. “What time is it?”

“About two,” Jean said apologetically. “Kate and Regina are both asleep, and I wouldn’t have bothered you, except…” She held up a small rectangular object. “This was on the kitchen table with your keys, and it was going off.”

Instantly awake, Tory stared at her beeper, a cold hand closing around her heart. It could only mean one thing. With a steady hand, she reached for it. “Thank you.”

She read the number as she walked through the house to get her cell phone. It wasn’t the service, and she felt a faint stirring of hope. Just a wrong number. Then she realized where she’d seen the number before. KT’s cell phone.

Sick dread flooded her senses as she calmly punched in the numbers. On the second ring, Tory heard the clipped response that took her back fifteen years.

“O’Bannon.”

“KT, it’s Tory.”

“The service called,” KT said immediately. “Wellfleet paramedics are bringing someone to the clinic because we’re closer than the hospital. Knife wound.”

“Someone?” Tory repeated. Her heart trembled when she sensed hesitation from a woman who never hesitated over anything.

“KT?”

“It’s a police officer, that’s all I know.”

“I’ll be right there.” Matter-of-fact, controlled, professional. Inside, Tory had already begun to bleed.

“I’ll meet you there.”

Grateful for the absence of meaningless platitudes, Tory nodded, then realized that KT couldn’t see her. “Yes. Good. Thanks.”

As she grabbed her keys and rushed for the door, she realized just how glad she was that KT would be there. If it was Reese they were bringing in, she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not again. If it was any of the others, she just might be able to manage. But every time, it took more from her, and she wondered just how much was left.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tory drove with her eyes fixed on the dark road ahead, her hands clenched on the wheel, her gaze narrowed to the flickering columns of light cast into the shadows by her headlights. Her mind was blank. She forced it to remain empty, not to contemplate what she would do, how she would hold the terror at bay, if it were Reese.

“Set up the IVs, prepare the instrument tray, draw up the Valium, morphine, and lidocaine…” She spoke aloud to dispel the thundering quiet, and in the process made the ingrained transition to professional mode. By the time she pulled into the parking lot and saw a single car parked close to the front stairs, she had obtained the practiced calm required of her to deal with an emergency.

The door to the clinic opened as Tory stepped from her vehicle and Pia looked out

“Hi,” Pia said quietly. “KT’s in the back. She thought I might be able to help. Is that okay with you?”

Tory didn’t hesitate. “Sure. You can stand in for Sally.”

As she followed Pia down the hall, Tory gave only a moment’s thought to why KT and Pia had arrived together in the middle of the night. She wasn’t entirely certain how much KT would be able to do one-handed in the midst of a true emergency, and having another medical person available made sense. The paramedics would be able to help as well, but they would be busy monitoring vital signs, managing the airway and fluid resuscitation, and administering meds.

KT turned at the sound of Tory and Pia’s arrival in the treatment room. “Hi, Vic.”

“Where are we?” Tory asked.

“Pia’s setting up the IVs, and I just pulled a major suture tray.” She indicated a large sealed tray that bore the small sticker indicating that it had been autoclaved and the contents were sterile. She placed it on a tall Mayo stand, which resembled a stainless steel TV tray, On wheels, it could be pushed up to or even over the treatment table so that the surgeon could easily reach the instruments.

Tory nodded absently. “Did you draw up the drugs?”

A brief flicker of discomfort crossed KT’s face as she lifted her left hand. “No, I couldn’t.”

“I’ll get them ready, then,” Tory said, brushing her hand lightly across KT’s shoulder as she passed.

“Thanks.” KT glanced across the room at Pia, who met her eyes and smiled gently. She had no time to think about how that smile settled in her chest and seemed to leave no room for pain or uncertainty, because suddenly the building was filled with the noise of clattering wheels and a cacophony of voices talking over one another. The treatment room was the only brightly lit room in the rear of the building, and it wasn’t hard for the emergency team to find them.

All three women turned to the door, braced for the imminent blur of activity and the adrenaline-charged moments that could spell the difference between life and death.

The first thing Tory saw was the irregular swatch of maroon in the center of Reese’s chest. She had tried to prepare for that, but the shock ran through her, leaving numbness in its wake. For one pain-filled second, her mind closed down, refusing to acknowledge what her eyes had registered. Then, with the next breath, her vision cleared. There was blood soaking Reese’s shirt, but Reese was walking, running, really, with her hand on the end of the stretcher being pushed by the paramedic.

It’s not Reese. It’s not Reese. She focused on the lean body recognizable even beneath the mountain of resuscitation equipment. Oh no. Not again. Bri!

“What do we have?” KT asked the paramedics, reaching out with her right hand to guide the stretcher alongside the treatment table as Tory placed a stethoscope on Bri’s chest.

“Lungs are clear,” Tory said.

“Knife wound to the neck,” the paramedic said, holding the oxygen mask against Bri’s face with one hand and a pressure dressing to the left side of her neck with his other. The gauze beneath his gloved fingers was soaked with blood, and a steady trickle ran down onto the stretcher.

“Airway?” KT knew that any knife wound to the neck could injure the trachea, causing blood to seep into the windpipe, fill the lungs, and prevent oxygen exchange. Many victims of penetrating trauma to the neck died from asphyxiation, not blood loss.

“Oxygen saturation is excellent, 99% on four liters,” a second paramedic noted, balancing the multiple monitoring devices on the far end of the stretcher with both hands as they moved. “No blood in the posterior pharynx either.”

“Good,” KT observed. The other structure at riskin addition to the many huge blood vessels in the neck was the esophagus, and if it were perforated, blood would back up into the mouth and eventually compromise the airway as well.

“Bri?” Tory said quietly, moving the oxygen mask aside enough to look at Bri’s face. Bri’s eyes flickered open, dazed but aware, “Hey, sweetie. Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Bri whispered hoarsely.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? Your chest, back, belly?”

“No.” Bri’s eyelids flickered closed, and then she opened them again with effort. “Neck hurts,”

“I know. We’ll take care of that.” Tory reached across the treatment table for the sheet beneath Bri. “Let’s get her over here.”

Many hands grabbed the sheet from both sides of the stretcher while one of the paramedics stabilized Bri’s neck.

“One, two, three,” Tory counted and everyone lifted, swinging Bri in the makeshift sling onto the treatment table. Then Tory took her first look around the room and saw an ashen Nelson and shell-shocked Allie standing inside the door. She looked up at Reese. “Take them out of here.”

Reese looked hesitantly from Bri to Tory, as if she might protest, but nodded grimly. “Okay.” She put her hand on Bri’s thigh and squeezed. With the barest hint of tremor in her voice, she repeated, “Okay. See you in a minute, Bri.”

As Reese turned and shepherded Nelson and Allie out into the hall, Tory moved to the head of the table next to KT. She met KT’s eyes and saw in them the steady focus and intensity she’d always found so comforting in the midst of a trauma. “Ready to take a look?”

“Let’s get the suction hooked up first and load the sutures. You’re going to have to be ready to clamp and tie.”

Tory shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with your dominant hand.” Her gaze never moving from KT’s, Tory said over her shoulder to Pia. “Can you glove KT’s right hand, please.”

“Of course,” Pia replied. She looked at KT. “Size?”

“Seven and a half.” KT stepped over next to Pia, removing the immobilizer on her left hand as Pia, wearing sterile gloves herself, opened a second pack of gloves. “Glove them both.”

Without a word, Pia held up the left glove, stretching open the cuff so that KT could slide her hand inside. “Careful not to extend your fingers when you push in here.”

“I’ve got it,” KT said as she eased her damaged ringers into the tight latex. “At least I won’t contaminate the field with it now.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” KT replied sincerely. Then she turned back to the table and said briskly, “Let’s get this bleeding stopped.”

“Give her four milligrams of IV morphine,” Tory said to the paramedic before reaching down, suction cannula in hand, and removing the pressure bandage from Bri’s neck. Immediately, a heavy stream of dark blood poured out of a five-inch laceration that extended along the side of her neck, parallel to her jaw, two inches below her ear. Precisely along the line where a knife being held by someone from behind would have rested.

Immediately, KT pressed the fingers of her right hand over the wound, squeezing it closed with her fingers. “From the location, it’s probably the external jugular.”

“Flow is pretty brisk,” Tory murmured. The external jugular vein was a relatively low-pressure vein almost 5mm wide, a quarter the size of its deeper partner, the internal jugular vein. She didn’t say what they both knew that the external jugular vein alone wouldn’t produce this much bleeding.

“Might be a partial transection preventing it from constricting and closing off,” KT observed. “Get the 3-0 ties ready, Vic, then take over the compression on the wound.” She motioned to the second paramedic. “You’re going to need to suction for us.”

“Sure,” he said as he moved closer to the field and took the suction from Tory.

KT picked up a hemostat in her right hand and glanced from Tory to the paramedic. “All set?” At their nods, she said, “Put the retractors in and let me have a look.”

For the next two minutes the room was entirely silent except for the gurgle of the suction machine pulling a steady stream of blood from Bri’s neck through the plastic tubing and into the container. Once, KT said steadily, “Suck right there. Over just a little bit. Good.”

While Tory and the paramedic stared into the depths of the laceration, struggling to clear the blood and hold back the subcutaneous tissue and divided muscle edges, KT used the hemostat to dissect out the external jugular vein from the surrounding tissue, identifying the segment that had been partially divided and that gaped open, accounting for the rapid hemorrhage.

“Got it,” KT muttered, clamping the proximal portion leading from the head toward the chest. Without taking her eyes from the other end of the vein that she needed to control, she held out her right hand. “Hemostat.”

Pia placed the instrument into KT’s hand, and KT clamped it around the distal end of the vein. The bleeding from the wound stopped.

“Scissors,” KT requested, again extending her open hand, palm up. The scissors settled smartly against her palm, and she closed her fingers automatically on the instrument. She finished dividing the vein so that the two ends were now free and could be ligated. After setting the scissors aside, she held up the first hemostat. She couldn’t tie with only one hand. “You’ll have to tie these off, Vic.”

“Vicryl okay?” Tory asked, reaching for the suture.

“Should be.”

Tory looped the suture around the end of the hemostat and, using both hands, tied off the vessel. She repeated the procedure as KT lifted the second hemostat. When she was done, the wound was nearly dry. Looking into KT’s dark eyes, Tory said quietly, “Beautiful.”

“Thanks. Let’s look around to make sure there isn’t anything deeper.”

With the paramedic retracting and Tory gently suctioning, KT delicately explored the wound, lifting tissue layers with her forceps until she had identified the carotid sheath undamaged and the nearby internal jugular vein, also inviolate. “Fortunately it doesn’t extend to the midline, so the trachea and esophagus should be fine. Looks like it nicked the submandibular gland. I should close the capsule just to prevent delayed bleeding,” She straightened and turned to Pia. “Can you load up that 3-0 Vicryl on the short needle holder for me.”

“Got it.” Pia opened the sterile suture package and clamped the jaws of the needle holder onto the semicircular needle. She passed it handle first into KT’s right hand.

“You’re pretty good at that,” KT murmured.

Pia smiled and nodded toward the wound. “You too.”

Twenty minutes later, Tory and KT had finished closing the laceration. Bri, only semiconscious due to a combination of shock and sedation, remained unaware of the procedure.

“We should ship her to Hyannis for observation, I guess,” Tory said reluctantly. “I know she’s going to hate that”

“She’s stable. We can watch her here until morning,” KT suggested. “She’s already had antibiotics, the wound is closed, and if you’re worried about blood loss, we can do a finger stick hemoglobin. But I doubt she’s going to need transfusion.”

Tory hesitated.

“Why don’t I talk to her father?” Pia suggested. “Then one of you can fill him in on the medical details, and you can make a decision about the next step.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Tory said with a shaky laugh. “Thanks. Let me just check her blood count, and I’ll be out.”

When Pia stepped out into the hallway, Nelson, Reese, and Allie rushed forward.

“She’s doing fine,” Pia said immediately, aware that that was all they really needed to hear and that they probably wouldn’t remember anything else from the initial explanation.

“The bleeding?” Nelson croaked. Christ, there had been so much of it. When he’d followed Reese into the kitchen and seen Bri on her knees, blood pouring from her neck, he thought he’d pass out. While he’d stood rooted to the spot in helpless fear, Reese had jumped forward and clamped her hand over the wound in his daughter’s throat. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s stopped. KT and Tory found the bleeder and controlled it.” Pia surveyed the small group. Nelson was obviously a wreck; Allie was deathly pale, her eyes dark pools of anguish; and Reese vibrated with tension so palpable Pia felt it even though their bodies did not touch. “Are any of you hurt?”

“No,” Reese replied abruptly. She glanced toward the treatment room. “We were just a little too far away.”

“It was my fault,” Allie said. “I was behind Bri on the stairs, and I didn’t see him follow us. I let that fucker get to her.” Her voice was hollow with self-recrimination and pain.

“We’ll talk about that when we debrief,” Reese said quietly. She looked at Pia. “What’s the plan?”

Tory appeared in the hallway, announcing as she approached, “She’s stable. Her hemoglobin is just a bit above eleven. I’ll check again in a few hours, but she’s not going to need a transfusion.” She walked directly to Nelson and put both hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look only at her. “She’s awake. She’s all right. She’s going to be fine. She wants to see you.”

Tears finally streaked his cheeks. “You’re sure about her being okay?”

“Yes. We need to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t develop an infection, but the knife didn’t strike anything vital. She’s going to be completely fine.”

Nelson gave a shaky laugh. “Then she might be the only one of us.” He rubbed his face. “Jesus. That kid…” He trailed off as his throat closed around another unanticipated swell of tears. When he finally managed to find his voice, he said, “Well. Let me go see her.”

“Go ahead, but expect her to be drowsy.” Tory looked from Allie to Reese. “You can both see her, as well. But just for a few minutes. I’m going to keep her here until morning. I’ll check her hemoglobin again then, and if she’s stable and everything else looks good, I’m going to take her home with us, Reese. There’s nothing they would do in the hospital but keep an eye on her. And I can do that.”

“Good,” Reese said gruffly. “I’d rather have her here.”

For the first time, Tory touched her lover. She took Reese’s hand and squeezed. “So would I. Sweetheart, change your shirt before you go see her.”

Reese glanced down and winced. “Yeah. I’ve got clothes in the Blazer. I’ll do that now.”

Tory watched Reese walk away, the relief so acute now that the crisis had passed and she knew that her lover was safe for another day that her legs felt weak. She leaned one shoulder against the wall and took a long breath.

“She’s really going to be okay?” Allie asked in a small voice.

“Yes.” After a second, Tory turned and put her arm around Allie’s shoulders, giving her a hug. “She really is.” To Tory’s utter surprise, Allie pressed her face to Tory’s shoulder and wept. Soothingly, Tory rocked her. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”

“That fucker,” Allie sobbed into Tory’s shirt. “That fucking bastard. I’m so glad she broke his goddamned arm.”

“Did she?”

Allie nodded, breath hitching as she struggled to contain her tears. “Dislocated his shoulder too.”

“Good,” Tory said vehemently.

“Yeah,” Allie said with a sigh, stepping away and brushing the tears from her cheeks with both hands. “The guys said she never even hesitated. Took him down with a shoulder throw even though he’d…” Her voice broke, “…cut her.”

Tory stroked Allie’s cheek. “She won’t remember very much about it. She’ll remember, but thankfully, the mind has a way of dealing with horrible things like that. She’ll need to talk about it you all will but you’re all going to be okay.” She lifted Allie’s chin and smoothed away the last of her tears. “All right?”

Allie nodded, then turned at the sound of Nelson’s voice.

“She wants to see you, Allie,” Nelson said, his color considerably better, the torment gone from his eyes. He smiled crookedly. “She sounds like a bullfrog, but she doesn’t look too bad.” He glanced at Tory. “The other doc says there won’t be too much of a scar.”

“She should know,” Tory replied with certainty. “She’s the surgeon.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Tory slumped, eyes closed, in the leather chair behind her desk. At the touch of a soft kiss on her forehead, she opened her eyes. Reese bent over her, her arms braced on either side of Tory’s body. Murmuring a soft hello, Tory reached up and wrapped her arms around Reese’s neck, burying her face against Reese’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes.” Reese knelt, sliding her arms around Tory’s waist and cradling her against her chest.

“When I got the call, driving here” Tory halted, collecting herself. “All I could think was that you’d been hurt again. I can’t stand it when you’re hurt.”

“I know you must have thought it was me. I’m so sorry, Tor.”

“Oh God,” Tory whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s not your fault.”

“I scared you. I don’t ever want that. And Bri…I put her in there. I thought I could cover her fast enough.” Reese shuddered. “I promised Nelson I’d take care of her, and I almost let her get killed.”

Tory leaned back, her arms still around Reese’s shoulders, and fixed her with an intent stare. “That is not your fault. If Bri hadn’t been as well trained as she is, who knows what could’ve happened. And you trained her.”

“The command part of my brain knows that I’d make the same decision again about the execution of the operation.” Reese rested her forehead against Tory’s wearily. “But I don’t mind telling you, I was scared there for a minute.”

“Me too. But she’s going to be okay,” Tory lifted an arm to check her watch. “I should go relieve KT. In another couple of hours, if Bri is still stable, we can take her home.”

Reese kissed Tory, gently but firmly, running her hands up and down Tory’s back possessively. “I love you. Thank you for taking care of Bri. Thank you…for Reggie and…” Her voice failing, Reese turned her face to Tory’s neck to hide the tears that blindsided her.

Shocked, Tory stroked the back of Reese’s neck, her lips pressed to Reese’s temple. “Darling, what is it?”

“When I saw her down…the blood everywhere, I thought we were going to lose her. I couldn’t let her die I couldn’t even fathom it.” She lifted her head, her blue eyes black with stunned awareness. “Because I don’t know what I would’ve done. All my training, all my life, I’ve been prepared to lose people. But you and Regina…and Bri…I couldn’t handle it” Embarrassed as well as tired and stressed, Reese put her head down on Tory’s shoulder again.

“It’s all right, darling.” Tory held her tightly. “It’s all right.”

Finally, Reese straightened, smiling faintly. “Why don’t you get some rest? I can watch Bri as long as you tell me what to look for. Then KT and Pia can go home too.”

“I’m fine for a few more hours. I got a little sleep last night.” Tory stood, bringing Reese up with her. She kissed her lover and stroked her cheek. “But you can sit with us if you don’t think you can sleep.”

Reese took her hand. “I don’t want to be away from you right now.”

Tory linked her fingers with Reese’s. “Good. Then let’s go take care of Bri.”

It was very nearly dawn as KT and Pia walked down the path to Pia’s cottage. When they reached the porch, KT stopped and took Pia’s hand.

“I don’t quite know how to tell you what it meant to me that you were there tonight.” Struggling to put words to emotions so foreign to her, KT kissed Pia gently. “I felt you, your faith in me and your certainty inside. I…needed that.”

“I’m glad I was there, too,” Pia replied, moving closer and wrapping her arms around KT’s waist. She settled her head on KT’s shoulder. “You would’ve been fine no matter what, but if I helped, I’m glad. You were wonderful.”

KT laughed and kissed the top of Pia’s head. “For a one-handed surgeon, I guess I did okay.”

Pia lifted her head and tapped KT’s chin with a ringer for emphasis. “You won’t be one-handed forever.”

“Somehow, I think we’ve had this conversation before.” KT kissed Pia again, a longer, more probing kiss, before she drew away. “I know you’re probably tired, but I don’t want to say goodbye right now.”

“No,” Pia said softly, “neither do I.”

Holding one another securely, they made their way inside.

“Nelson,” Tory murmured, shaking the sheriff gently.

“Huh?” Nelson’s eyes opened, and he shot upright, instantly looking toward his daughter, who slept a few feet away. “What?”

“She’s fine. You need to go home and get some sleep.” Tory tilted her chin toward the other officer curled up on a portable stretcher nearby. “And Allie needs the day off, at least. I’ll take her home with me. She’s only going to be hanging around the house asking after Bri anyhow.”

“Yeah,” Nelson said, his voice rough with sleep and worry. “The two of them are going to wear me out.”

Tory laughed quietly. “I won’t disagree with you.”

As they talked, Reese leaned over the patient and whispered, “Hey, Bri.”

After a moment, Bri opened her eyes and frowned, struggling to focus on Reese’s face. “Hi.” Her voice was weak, but her eyes were clear. “He didn’t…get away…did he?”

“Not a chance.” Reese squeezed Bri’s shoulder. “He never moved after you put him down. They’ve got him up at Wellfleet while we sort out all the details. How are you feeling?”

Bri appeared to give that serious thought. The sheet covering her twitched as she moved her arms and legs, “I’m okay, I think. What happened?”

“You got dinged up, but Tory and KT took care of things. It’s not bad.”

“I feel…sort of weak.” To demonstrate, she tried to sit up and failed.

“Hey,” Reese cautioned. “You’re not ready to move around yet. We’re going to take you to our place so you can recuperate for a while.”

“Nobody told Carre about this, did they?” Bri said anxiously. “I don’t want her to be scared.”

“It’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about.” Reese bent down close to Bri’s ear, one hand smoothing back her damp hair. “I’ll take care of talking to Caroline. I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

“Thanks. Okay…thanks.” Bri closed her eyes and, a moment later, drifted off.

Pia and KT faced one another across the bed, the room aglow in the dawn light, the air alive with the fresh scent of the sea. The town still slept.

“You must be exhausted,” Pia said quietly as she unbuttoned her blouse, her eyes on KT’s face.

“You too.” KT unbuckled her belt, then opened her pants. She hesitated before removing them. “Everything?”

“Yes,” Pia replied with a soft smile.

KT pushed down her trousers and underwear, then stepped free of the crumpled clothes along with her shoes and socks. Deftly, she unbuttoned her shirt but left it hanging open as she watched Pia’s blouse drift down her arms and fall away behind her.

With a hand behind her back, Pia loosed the clasp on her bra and drew it from her breasts. She watched KT’s face, saw her eyes flicker down. When KT’s lips parted with a quiet sigh, a flush of heat kindled in Pia’s belly. Slowly, she lowered her jeans and underwear over her hips. The corner of her mouth lifted in a smile as KT stood frozen in place, her expression one of stunned pleasure. “Your shirt.”

“What?” KT asked, her tone befuddled. Pia was beautiful, just as she knew she would be. But it wasn’t the loveliness of her body or the wondrous smoothness of her skin that made her head spin, but her own amazement that she should be so lucky. So lucky that Pia should allow her, with all her failings and failures, to be the one to touch her first. She sought Pia’s eyes. “Thank you.”

It was Pia’s turn to grow still, her heart hammering wildly as the flutter of pleasure in her depths soared into a thousand wings beating through her blood. “If I feel this way from just your eyes on me, I won’t survive your hands.”

“Before I touch you,” KT whispered, shrugging her shirt from her shoulders to stand exposed, “I need to tell you something.”

“You don’t,” Pia whispered gently. She extended her hand across the bed.

KT took a step closer, her fingertips a breath away from Pia’s. “Pia.”

“Just come to me.”

KT took Pia’s hand, her eyes holding Pia’s, and said, “I love you.”

Naked, Tory slipped into bed with a long sigh. She slid across the cool crisp sheets toward Reese and fit herself to the curve of her lover’s body. She kissed Reese’s shoulder, then settled her cheek against Reese’s chest.

“Are they both asleep?” Reese asked quietly, curling her arm around Tory’s back and resting her hand just beneath Tory’s left breast.

“Yes. Allie’s sacked out on the couch and Bri seems to be resting pretty comfortably. How was Regina?”

Reese smiled. “Hungry. Once she ate, she went right back to sleep. I’m surprised, since Jean said she slept all night.”

“I think she senses that we’re all going to be sleeping late today.”

“Do you think she really can tell if there’s something going on?”

“Babies are intuitive. The house is quiet, our routine is different. She’ll sense that.”

“That’s amazing.” Reese nuzzled her face in Tory’s hair, breathing the fresh scent of her shampoo. “You were great last night with Bri. With everyone.”

“Everyone was great. KT did an incredible job with Bri’s injury, even with only one hand.”

“Do think she’s going to be able to operate again?”

“I think if Pia has anything to do with it, she will.” Now that she had a moment to reflect on the tumultuous evening, Tory realized there had been an unspoken communication between Pia and KT that was obviously strong and unexpectedly tender. “Ah.”

“What?” Reese asked drowsily, smoothing her palm over the arch of Tory’s breast.

“KT and Pia.”

“KT and Pia what?” Reese shifted, sliding one leg between Tory’s and brushing her lips over Tory’s. She was about to deepen the kiss when she made the connection. She pulled back and studied Tory’s face. “You mean KT and Pia as in…together?”

“I think so. KT mentioned something about being interested in Pia, but I didn’t think it would go anywhere.”

“Why not?”

Tory was silent, absently drawing strands of Reese’s hair through her fingers. She thought about the woman she had known so many years ago, before the relentless pace of KT’s singular drive to succeed had come between them. She remembered tenderness and laughter and the warm sense of belonging. KT had had all of those qualities and even moments of uncertainty when she had turned to Tory for encouragement and support. Tory had seen glimpses of that woman tonight. “I was wrong, thinking that KT and Pia wouldn’t be good together.”

Reese settled onto her back and pulled Tory into her arms, cradling her close. “People change.”

“You won’t, will you?” Tory murmured, circling her palm over Reese’s chest.

“My life already changed forever when I met you. And nothing will ever change the way I feel about you.”

“I love you so much.” Tory kissed Reese’s neck and closed her eyes, certain, secure, and forever safe in their love.

Still holding hands, KT and Pia slid beneath the sheets and turned to face one another. KT leaned forward and softly kissed Pia. The only points of contact between them were their lips and their fingertips. Despite the minimal physical connection, KT felt her body roar to life. She pulled back, her breath nearly deserting her.

“I should say something like, ‘I know you’re tired, and we can just hold one another and go to sleep,’” KT murmured, her voice thick and low. She shivered and grinned weakly. “But I can’t. I just can’t hold back anymore.” She let go of Pia’s hand and placed her arm around Pia’s waist, slowly drawing her forward in the same motion until their bodies touched. Groaning, KT brushed her mouth over Pia’s. “I’m dying for you.”

“Oh, I don’t want to wait anymore. I want you.” With a nearly inaudible whimper, Pia clutched KT’s shoulders, slipped her tongue into KT’s mouth, and pressed as close as she could.

At the touch of Pia’s skin to hers, KT’s mind filled with searing white light and every barrier physical and emotional disintegrated. She slid her hand down Pia’s back to her hips and turned Pia beneath her, moving over her to settle upon her. As she kissed her, probing kisses that teased and claimed, her fingers drove into the rich fall of her hair, twining in the soft, thick waves. Pia was everywhere, filling her senses, drowning her in a flood of desire. When Pia’s hand found its way between them and cupped her breast, lightning struck between KT’s thighs. She jerked her head away. “Christ. God, you feel so damn good.”

“Tell me what you like,” Pia gasped, closing her fingers on the erect nipple beneath her palm. Her heart skipped when KT groaned. “I want to touch you everywhere. I love to make you want me.”

KT laughed, shivering beneath the onslaught of sensation. “Want you?” She dipped her head and nipped at the skin just above Pia’s collarbone. While Pia tormented her breast with tiny tugs and pinches, making her pulse stutter and soar, she eased her thigh between Pia’s. Pia was wet, hot against her skin. The unbridled evidence of Pia’s desire made KT desperate to be inside her. “Pia. God, Pia.”

Pia sensed the storm brewing in KT’s taut body as the nipple hardened beneath her fingers. She loved the way KT’s breath caught and fled as she worked her teeth over KT’s breast. More. She wanted more. She wanted KT to feel the ache she had inside for her. She wanted to infuse KT’s body with the terrible, wonderful pressure she felt building inside her own. She wanted things she couldn’t describe and barely knew how to contain. She dug her fingers into KT’s back and pressed her face hard to KT’s breast. “Help me. Help me make love to you.”

Nearly out of her mind from the pleasure flowing from her breast through her belly and pooling between her thighs, hungry for the taste and feel of Pia’s body, KT was beyond thought. “You are. Baby, you are. Can’t you feel what you’re doing to me?”

“I want… “Pia dragged her hands over KT’s shoulders, fisted in her hair, pulled KT’s head back until she could stare through glazed eyes into her face. “I want to make you come. Tell me how.”

“I think…” KT pulled in great gasps of breath, trying to form sentences. Pia’s desire cut through her, a sweet piercing pain that made her bleed from the beauty of it. “I think I’m supposed to… please you… the first time around.”

Pia laughed, a wild, urgent laugh, “Says who?” She placed her palms against KT’s chest and pushed gently. “Lie down. I want to touch you.”

KT had waited so long, so long to hear those words and all that lingered in their depths. Even more than her body craved the blessed relief of Pia’s hands, her heart longed for Pia’s tender solace. She didn’t struggle, couldn’t resist, wanted to shed the past all of it: all the long, empty nights; all the frantic, desperate days; every regret and sorrow and shame. She wanted another chance. As she turned onto her back, she cupped Pia’s cheek, brushing her thumb across Pia’s mouth. “There are things I want to say. I can’t I don’t know how.”

“You will,” Pia whispered, her mouth moving along the column of KT’s throat. “We both will. Not now.”

KT eased her fingers into Pia’s hair, gently now, unhurried, almost peaceful despite the frantic beating of her heart in her chest, in her belly, in her loins. She guided Pia down, back arching, muscles tightening, as Pia’s lips and mouth explored her breasts and her abdomen and finally the tender hollow at the juncture of her thighs. In the last thinking part of her brain, KT worried that it was too fast or too soon, but the low hum of pleasure that reverberated through Pia’s chest and throat and into KT’s flesh drove all thoughts of caution from her mind. She nearly screamed when Pia gently parted her thighs and kissed the very heart of her need.

“You’re so beautiful,” Pia murmured, toeing her thumb between the flushed and swollen folds. She hesitated for an instant before pressing the base of KT’s clitoris and moaned softly at the sudden jerk of KT’s hips. “I want to taste you.”

“Please.” KT’s hand trembled against Pia’s face as she raised her head, urgently seeking Pia’s eyes. “I need you so much.”

Pia clasped KT’s hand with hers, intertwining their fingers as she lowered her head and drew KT inside her mouth. KT’s hand tightened around Pia’s as she surrendered to the spell of passion and sweet, tender promises.

“Take me,” KT whispered. “Oh, Pia, please…just take me.”

Pia wasn’t certain when she started breathing again. It seemed like forever that all she knew, all she heard, all that filled her senses was KT. The wonder of KT exploding beneath her hands, between her lips, inside her heart. She wanted more. She wanted it never to end. She might not have stopped exploring, taking, driving KT higher and higher, beyond reason, if KT had not finally twisted away with a hoarse plea.

“Baby…stop, before I have a heart attack.”

Shakily, Pia laughed and rested her cheek against the inside of KT’s thigh. She couldn’t bear not to be touching her, though, and ran her fingers lightly over KT’s clitoris. KT twitched and groaned. “You feel amazing.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so good,” KT muttered, weakly stroking Pia’s hair.

Pia raised her head and peered at KT. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” With effort, KT turned on her side and curled around Pia’s body, gently urging Pia up until they lay side by side. She traced Pia’s lips with her fingers. “I’m going to get addicted to your mouth.”

“I hope so,” Pia said fervently, kissing KT lightly. “Because I’m already addicted to you.”

“How do you feel?” KT asked gently, smoothing her hand over Pia’s breast and down her belly. She felt the muscles in Pia’s abdomen quiver beneath her fingers. She knew what Pia had not yet sensed. She was ready. And KT wanted her, wanted her enough to go slowly.

“Fabulous.” Pia’s voice held a note of wonder. She was reliving the sounds of KT’s pleasure, the taste of her, the incredible sense of awe she’d experienced as KT climaxed again and again beneath her demanding mouth. As she felt it ail, heard it all again, she didn’t realize that her hips had begun to thrust against the palm that KT had laid between her thighs. As her clitoris swelled with remembered pleasure and the soft steady brush of KT’s fingers, Pia’s belly tightened and her nipples grew taut. When KT lowered her mouth and caught one between her teeth, Pia cried out. “Oh. I oh, I want to come!”

“I know,” KT soothed. She gentled her fingertips just on the verge of entering and let Pia push against her, drawing her in, setting the pace. She wanted more, she wanted fast, she wanted deep…and she waited. “Take me inside, Pia. Let me please you.”

Pia braced both hands on KT’s shoulders and rested her forehead against KT’s. With her eyes holding KT’s and her breath shuddering, she pushed down slowly, another small cry of wonder escaping as KT filled her. She wanted to let go, she wanted to scream and thrust until the pressure between her thighs exploded, but even more she wanted to fix in her memory that first miraculous instant when they were completely joined. She tried to hold back, but the orgasm caught her by surprise and wiped her consciousness clean in a single wild rush of heat.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Allie woke to the sound of insistent tapping somewhere nearby. It took her a moment to place her surroundings.

Couch? Sunlight…ugh. Bri!

She sat up in a flash, the memories flooding back. The party, the raid, Bri and all that blood. Her stomach lurched, and she pushed the faint nausea away. Bri was okay. Would be okay. She looked around the room, her fears abating. Tory and Reese’s. Everything is okay.

She’d fallen asleep almost immediately, despite her protests that she wouldn’t be able to relax until she was certain that Bri was all right. Tory had simply handed her a T-shirt, said, “Stretch out on the couch and close your eyes,” and the next thing she knew, the sun was streaming in the double glass doors that led to the deck and someone was outside, wanting very badly to get in. Still a little groggy from the combination of stress and fatigue, Allie rose and stumbled to the door, scrubbing a hand over her face to wake herself up. She slid open the door and stared at a very frantic blond.

“Oh!” Allie said. “How?”

“Is she here? Reese said she would be here.” Caroline Clark peered past Allie anxiously. “Is she all right?”

Allie stepped aside, automatically reaching for the overnight bag Caroline carried. “She’s asleep in the guest room. How did you?”

“Reese got me the tickets.” Caroline took a step inside, her eyes tracking across the room to the hall that led to the bedroom as if she would able to see Bri through the walls. Then she turned her attention to Allie, her expression narrowing briefly as she took in the oversized T-shirt and the apparent absence of any other clothing. Evenly she asked, “Did you stay with her?”

“Couch,” Allie muttered, tilting her head toward the sofa. “I just wanted to be sure she was okay.”

Caroline studied her, saw the shadows beneath her eyes, “Thanks. It’s good to know she has a friend.”

Allie grinned briefly. “She does.” She met Caroline’s appraising glance. “There was a time well, you probably know.”

“Yeah.”

“That was before we started working together and got tight.” Allie shrugged. “She’s only ever gonna be yours.”

Caroline’s eyes flooded with tears, but her smile was brilliant. After a few seconds, she blinked away the moisture and took a deep breath. “Tell me what happened,”

“Uh…”

“Reese didn’t give me the details only that Bri had been hurt and that Reese thought I should come home. But she said Bri was all right.” Caroline’s voice trembled. “Is that the truth?”

“She’s okay,” Allie said immediately. “She got…injured… during a drug bust last night. But Tory and another doctor took care of it They said she’s going to be fine.”

Caroline’s face was white. “Injured. What do you mean, injured!”

Allie stalled. “You should probably talk to Tory.”

“No. I want to see Bri right away,” Caroline insisted, “and I need to know what happened before I do. I need to know what she needs.”

“You’re here,” Allie said softly. “I think that’s just about everything she needs.”

“Thanks. It…it goes both ways.”

“Then you’re both lucky,” Allie said, no trace of envy in her voice.

“Yeah. I know.” Caroline touched Allie’s arm. “So, tell me what kind of trouble my girl got into this time.”

Without opening her eyes, Pia stretched, gave a contented sigh, and murmured, “That’s an amazingly nice way to wake up.”

“Mmm,” KT agreed, continuing to run her tongue over Pia’s nipple while softly stroking Pia’s other breast. She’d awakened feeling better than she had in years. Fresh, energized, and with the warmth of Pia’s body against hers, instantly aroused. The October air from the open window was brisk, invigorating, and as she’d drawn a deep breath, a wave of desire that felt very much like life returning to the long-dark recesses of her being coursed through her. Pia. Pia had brought light back into her life, dispelling the shadows and the loneliness. As she’d marveled at that unexpected gift, she’d smoothed her fingers over Pia’s body, meaning only to satisfy her need to be near her. But when Pia’s nipple rose beneath her fingertips and Pia murmured softly in her sleep, KT needed more. Needed her inside. And she’d put her lips to Pia’s breast.

“Astonishing.” Pia rested her hand lightly on the back of KT’s head, caressing her neck and shoulders languidly. The tantalizing attention to her breast had ignited the first tendrils of heat deep down inside, but she was enjoying the slow rise of pleasure too much to want to hurry. “It’s even better than I imagined,”

KT laughed softly and raised her head. “Sex?”

“No,” Pia remarked lazily, opening her eyes and fixing them on KT. “Making love with you. I knew it would be wonderful, I just didn’t realize how very much.”

“Pia,” KT whispered. “Pia. I can’t seem to think of anything but you. You do the most amazing things to me.” As she spoke, she leaned on her left elbow, her injured hand still protected with the wristlet, and smoothed her other hand over the soft hollow of Pia’s abdomen up and down, up and down until finally her fingers rested between Pia’s thighs. When Pia caught her breath and lifted her hips, KT slowed her explorations.

“Don’t stop,” Pia said thickly. “Feels so good.”

“To me, too. And you aren’t the only one who’s been imagining this.” KT lowered her head and nipped at Pia’s breast, laughing again when Pia gave a cry of pleased surprise. “So I don’t want to rush.”

“What if I want you to?” Pia rocked her hips insistently beneath KT’s hand. “I like the way you made me feel last night.”

KT feathered her fingers over the tender folds between Pia’s legs, watching Pia’s expression intently. “I want to learn everything about you. What makes you happy…” She traced a finger up and down the warm, moist valley just a little bit harder, just a little bit deeper smiling when Pia caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “What makes you excited…” She caught Pia’s clitoris between her fingertips and squeezed ever so lightly.

Pia trembled and closed her fingers hard around KT’s wrist. “There. Oh, like that.”

“Yes.” KT’s voice was heavy with desire as she moved away, away from the spot that she knew would take Pia too high too fast. When Pia moaned in protest, KT lowered her head and kissed her, swallowing her moans and soothing her need with gentle strokes of her tongue. When she drew away, Pia’s breathing had deepened and her eyes had grown liquid with the desire spreading within like a flame banked beneath a layer of coals. “I want to know you,” KT whispered. “Inside.” She pressed a fingertip, then two, just inside, waiting for Pia to relax enough for her to move deeper. “Inside the way you’ve touched me. Not just in my body…” Deeper now, nearly filling her. “But all the way to my heart.”

“I love to feel you like this,” Pia murmured, both hands twisted in the sheets, back arched to take KT deeper. “Everywhere inside me.”

As KT slowly eased almost all the way out and then back in, she inched down on the bed until she could put her mouth over Pia’s clitoris. She swept her tongue in long, smooth strokes that matched the rhythm of her fingers sliding in and out, ignoring Pia’s increasingly frantic pleas to go faster, harder, deeper. Her need for Pia to climax was an ache in the pit of her stomach, her hunger for the sound of Pia’s pleasure ringing out in a breathless cry all but consuming her, but she held back. She was desperate to feel each pulse of Pia’s excitement building beneath her lips and to thrill to the clench of Pia’s passion around her fingers. Then, when they were both poised to explode, then she would take her.

Her heart thudded wildly in her chest; her stomach quivered with the need to come. If she caught Pia’s leg between her own and pressed her clitoris to Pia’s warm, smooth skin, she knew she would. But despite the piercing urgency for release, she didn’t want anything to cloud her awareness of Pia, not even her own pleasure, Pia was everything. Everywhere. All she wanted.

“I’m almost there,” Pia moaned, her head rocking with each labored breath. “You’re making me come…oh, yes. Oh yes. Oh. Now.”

At the first quiver of Pia’s orgasm, KT thrust harder. Eyes fixed on Pia’s face, she was beyond stopping now. Pia’s pleasure was her own, and with each sharp cry, she drew closer to her own release. She knelt astride Pia’s thigh, hips pistoning along taut muscles as each thrust of her arm lifted Pia’s body from the bed. “Come, baby. Come.”

When Pia reared up on the bed in the throes of her orgasm, clutching wildly at KT, KT buried her face against Pia’s breasts and soared over the edge.

Bri was having the nicest dream. Carre was whispering in her ear, telling her how much she loved her and how she couldn’t wait to be with her all the time. Carre’s voice always gave her a rush. But it was even nicer when Carre not only talked to her but touched her. And Carre was touching her now. Stroking her face and her hair and her arm. It was all so real, she could even smell the scent of fresh air and bright sunlight that she always associated with Carre.

“Yeah,” Bri muttered. “You feel so good, babe.”

“Don’t wake up, baby. You just sleep, and I’ll be right here.”

Smiling, Bri rolled to her side, wanting to feel Caroline against her body, even if it was just a dream. The movement triggered a stabbing pain in her neck that shot deep into her chest, and with a cry, she jerked awake.

“It’s okay,” Caroline said quickly, placing the hand that wasn’t stroking Bri’s face on her shoulder to hold her still. “Bri, baby. It’s okay. Just lie still.”

Despite the pain, Bri could only think of one thing. Caroline was leaning over her, inches away, and she seemed…real. “Carre?”

“Yes, baby. It’s me.”

“Carre?” Bri blinked, and then she remembered the night before. She remembered feeling pretty righteous about the way she and Allie had orchestrated the bust, and then she saw Karl’s face again as he snarled in the direction of the officers coming through the door and then lunged for the knife. In the next instant, she felt the bite of steel slice through her skin, sharp and hot. “Oh, Jesus, Carre. He cut me.”

Caroline’s face lost all color, but her voice remained even and soothing. “Tory took care of you. Reese told me you’ll be fine.”

Bri stared, unseeing, still caught in those few terrifying seconds before she had done what she had practiced hundreds of times. Before she’d pulled her chin down hard to her chest to protect her windpipe and the big vessels in her neck. Before she’d wrapped both hands around his knife arm and held it back with all her strength, despite the agony in her neck. Before she’d dropped her center of gravity below his and then pushed up with her legs, the strongest part of her body, to flip him over her shoulder and onto the floor. The maneuver replayed in her mind like a video, stark and clear, but the cold lump of terror in her stomach was all she could feel.

As the panic flashed across Bri’s face, something Caroline had never witnessed before, her heart nearly broke. She leaned down and kissed Bri gently, then murmured against her mouth, “I love you. You’re all right. I promise.”

“Don’t leave me,” Bri whispered, tears streaking her cheeks.

“Oh, baby. Never.” Carefully, Caroline settled onto the bed next to Bri and curled one arm around her waist. Gently drawing Bri closer, Caroline stroked and kissed and petted her until Bri fell asleep. Then she merely held her, determined never to let her go.

“We have to get up,” KT said quietly. “I need to go check on Bri.”

“Mmm. Okay.” Pia lay with her cheek on KT’s chest, tracing a fingertip in a small circle around KT’s navel. It was two in the afternoon and they had spent the day in bed, waking only long enough to make love and then drifting off again. “Tory would have called, though.”

“Uh-huh.” KT brushed her fingers down Pia’s neck. “I’m not sure how it’s possible, but you’re turning me on again.”

Pia chuckled contentedly and sketched a line down the center of KT’s abdomen with a fingernail. “From this?”

“From everything. Anything.” KT’s legs twitched, “Jesus. Yes. Stop that.”

“I think that’s a mixed message.”

“Tell me something,” KT gasped, grabbing for Pia’s wrist just before Pia’s fingers closed around her clitoris. “How is it possible that you’re so good at this, and seem to like it so much, and you’ve never done it before?”

“That’s two questions.” Pia cupped her hand between KT’s thighs but just rested there without teasing her. “It’s not as if I’ve been living in a nunnery, you know.”

KT laughed.

“And there has been more than one woman who’s made me pretty hot, so I know what I like.”

“I don’t want to hear about them,” KT growled.

“My point is,” Pia said with exaggerated patience, “that it wasn’t from lack of interest or some archaic innocence that I didn’t sleep with someone before now.” She raised up on an elbow and kissed KT. “I just couldn’t see myself with anyone for longer than a few weeks, and it didn’t seem worth it. Too many complications.”

KT grew very still, and Pia felt it.

“KT, you don’t owe me anything.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that we slept together and it was great and”

“Bullshit.”

Pia blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I said,” KT replied in clipped tones, “bullshit.” She placed her hand over the one between her thighs when she felt Pia start to withdraw, and her expression softened. “Don’t talk to me as if last night didn’t matter. It meant everything to me.”

“Oh.” Pia’s lips parted and her eyes grew large. “I…you…” She shrugged helplessly, her throat too tight for words.

“I told you last night that I love you. I mean it. I’m crazy about you. Totally, certifiably nuts.”

Pia smiled shakily. “Is that good?”

“It’s good for me,” KT replied seriously. “You’ll have to be the one to decide if it’s good for you.”

“I already know it’s good for me.”

“Well, we know one part of you it’s good for.” KT’s tone was light but her eyes were serious.

“If you so much as hint that you think I’m in it only for the sex,” Pia said threateningly, “I will be not only furious but insulted. And you, even you, couldn’t possibly be that arrogant.” KT lifted an eyebrow.

Despite herself, Pia laughed. “All right, Doctor O’Bannon, perhaps you could. And I admit there was a time when I was so attracted to you that I did intend to sleep with you just for the sex,” She leaned down and slowly bit KT’s lower lip, rugging at it gently until KT groaned. “But between the time I realized I couldn’t look at you without getting hot and last night, I fell in love with you.”

“I like to hear you say that,” KT murmured as she pressed down on Pia’s hand, guiding Pia’s fingers through the wetness that had gathered again while they were talking and inside. She sighed. “Say it again.”

Pia stroked her tongue over KT’s lips as she buried herself inside her. She waited until she knew that KT felt her everywhere body and soul before she spoke.

“I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Looks like they’re having a party,” KT remarked as Pia pulled in behind a line of cars double-parked in Tory and Reese’s driveway.

“I’d say we arrived just in time for visiting hours.” Pia turned off the ignition and leaned across the seat to kiss KT briefly. “That’s to hold me until I get you alone again.”

KT edged closer and ran her right hand up and down Pia’s thigh. “When we’re done here, maybe we can have dinner out someplace and then go back to bed.”

“Maybe we can skip dinner.”

Laughing, KT opened the car door and stepped out. She looked across the top of the car at Pia, glad for the distance between them. It seemed that when they were anywhere within touching distance, she felt compelled to put her hand on her. It was a disconcerting and wholly enjoyable sensation. “There’s always takeout.”

“Now there’s an idea. Let’s go see Bri.” Pia walked around the side of the car and joined KT, taking her hand as they walked up the stone path to the rear deck. “I know this sounds silly, but I’ll miss you.”

“No,” KT said quietly, closing her fingers tightly around Pia’s. “It doesn’t sound silly at all. It sounds wonderful.”

Tory answered the knock, her expression registering no surprise at finding KT and Pia waiting on the deck together. So together they appeared not to notice that they were holding hands. KT holding hands? She tried not to stare. “Hi.”

“How is she?” KT asked.

“She’s doing great. Temp is normal. She’s tired, probably more from stress than blood loss.” Tory stepped aside so the two could enter. Across the living room in the kitchen alcove, Reese and Allie were cooking. Nelson sat at the breakfast bar, a cup of coffee cradled in his hands. Kate and Jean relaxed on the sofa with Reggie between them on a blanket.

“Full house,” KT remarked as she glanced around.

“Bri is everyone’s sweetheart.”

“Did you check the wound yet?” KT realized that she and Pia were still holding hands and, after giving Pia’s fingers one more squeeze, let go.

“No. I thought I’d wait for you to change the dressing the first time. I knew you’d be by eventually.”

Tory caught Pia’s grin out of the corner of her eye and smiled. “Come on, let’s go see the patient.”

“I’ll wait out here,” Pia said. “I’m sure Bri has seen enough people for one day.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” KT said as she and Tory turned away.

“Tell her I said hi,” Pia called after them, while nodding hello to Kate and Jean on her way to the kitchen. She took a seat next to Nelson and rested her hand on his arm. “How are you doing?”

“Not bad,” he said, his voice gravelly from lack of sleep but his expression relaxed. “She looks good. A little beat up, but good.”

“That’s terrific.”

“Want a cup of coffee?” Allie asked Pia as she refilled Nelson’s.

“That would be great. Thanks.” Pia waved at Reese, who nodded back as she dropped a pound of pasta into a huge pot of boiling water.

“Tory said that O’Bannon is some kind of hotshot surgeon over from Boston,” Allie commented as she passed a mug to Pia.

“I suppose you could say that,” Pia replied carefully.

Allie waited to speak again as Nelson took his coffee and left to join Kate and Jean in the living room. Then she leaned across the breakfast bar, her voice pitched low. “I heard about her hand. Is that going to ruin her career?”

“Hopefully not.” Pia regarded Allie thoughtfully, trying to figure out what about the young officer was ringing bells in her subconscious. She supposed the questions could just be idle curiosity, but there was a note of concern in Allie’s voice that belied simple inquisitiveness. As if her concern for KT was more personal.

Allie glanced down the hall toward Bri’s room. “Tory said it was really good that she was here last night. I’m glad she’s going to be okay, because an injury like that it can really mess you up. That would be a shame. She’s…cool.”

There it is again that undercurrent of concern and sympathy. And then Pia finally made the connection, remembering the woman she’d only seen shadowed in moonlight, but who, in retrospect, had looked very much like Allie. “Did you by any chance walk her home a few weeks ago? When she was a bit…under the weather?”

“As in…sick?” Uncertain, Allie hesitated.

“You probably thought she’d had a few too many, but she was actually ill, not drunk.” Pia’s voice held an edge. She knew that Allie hadn’t intentionally abandoned KT in such a dangerous condition, but she would never forget KT’s suffering.

“I didn’t know that,” Allie said in surprise. “Jeez. I never would have left her alone if I’d realized.”

“Well,” Pia relented, her tone softening, “she’s fine now. And you may have saved her life by helping her get home. So… thanks.”

Now Allie regarded Pia intently. “Ah.”

Pia laughed. “Ah?”

“You and the surgeon. Cool.”

“Me and the surgeon,” Pia repeated contemplatively. “Yes. Very cool.”

“Hi,” Bri said uncertainly as she watched KT approach with Tory just behind her.

“You won’t remember me,” KT said easily. “I’m the surgeon who helped Tory take care of your neck last night.” She held out her hand. “KT O’Bannon. Good to see you awake, Officer Parker.”

“Bri.” Bri’s eyes flicked to KT’s injured left hand as she took her right in a firm handshake. “Thanks a lot.”

KT followed her gaze. “Wrong end of a knife.”

Bri swallowed and met her eyes. “Tough one.”

“Yeah. But it’s mending. These things do.”

“Yeah,” Bri smiled weakly. “Look, thanks for not making me go to the hospital.”

KT smiled. “You can thank Tory for all of that. Like I said, I was just helping out.” She gestured to the square of white gauze taped over the laceration in Bri’s neck. “I’d like to check your incision.”

“Okay.” Bri glanced at Caroline, who still sat beside her on the bed. “You don’t have to stay for this, babe.”

Caroline carefully climbed off the bed and stood where she would have an unimpeded view of Bri’s neck while KT worked. She put her hand on Bri’s hair and stroked softly. “I’m staying.”

“This shouldn’t hurt much,” KT remarked as she carefully detached the tape. “Looks excellent.”

“Good,” Bri sighed. “So now what?”

“Usually at this point, we leave the incision uncovered. The bandage really isn’t doing any good and can sometimes be irritating. It’s up to you.”

Bri inched around until she could locate Caroline. “Carre?”

“It’s okay,” Caroline said in a thin but steady voice as she studied the incision. “Just a red line with…” She leaned down, her eyes narrowing. “Blue stitches?”

KT laughed. “Prolene. They only come in blue.”

“Cool,” Caroline and Bri said simultaneously.

Still laughing, KT gently palpated Bri’s neck, checked the carotid pulse and the function of the facial nerve branches running through the area, and declared Bri “doing fine.”

“So,” Bri said again. “Can I go back to work before the stitches come out?”

“Ah, no.” KT glanced at Tory, who was shaking her head and muttering something about having heard this story before. “You’re looking at about ten days before you’re ready for work.”

“Ten days!” Bri croaked. “But I…”

“If she says ten days,” Reese interrupted from the doorway, “it’s ten days.” She entered carrying a tray with a plate of pasta and a glass of iced tea and set it down on the bedside table. Then she asked, looking at Tory, “What about desk duty? If she doesn’t drive or leave the building?”

“KT?” Tory punted, having no desire to negotiate with both her lover and her stubborn young protégé.

“One week. Nothing before then.” KT’s tone indicated it was not an issue open to discussion.

“Good enough,” Reese pronounced. She turned her attention to Bri. “Try to eat something and make sure you at least drink. And take advantage of the fact that Caroline is here for a few days. Work will keep.”

Bri reached for Caroline’s hand and nodded as much as she was able. “Yes, ma’am. I got it.”

“Very good.” Reese smiled at Caroline. “Tory and I want both of you to stay here while Bri’s recuperating.”

“Thanks,” Caroline said softly as she reached for the plate and silverware. “For everything.”

“What about my black belt test?” Bri asked suddenly, ignoring the food that Caroline offered. “It’s next week. I need to train.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Reese replied.

“But”

“Honey,” Caroline chided gently. “You have to get well first”

Bri looked as if she were about to protest, but as she focused on the faces of those around her, she seemed to accept that she was outnumbered. Grouchily, she muttered, “Okay. Right. Fine.”

Caroline prevented her from saying anything else by sliding a forkful of pasta into her mouth.

KT and Tory walked out onto the deck where they could discuss Bri’s case in private.

“What do you think?” Tory asked. “The incision seems fine, don’t you agree?”

“I do.” KT leaned her elbows on the railing and studied the harbor beyond the low dunes that separated the house from the beach. “The only real danger at this point is delayed bleeding. As long as she’s relatively quiet for another day or two, that shouldn’t be a problem. I said a week because it’s been my experience that the young, aggressive types like her are hard to hold down.”

Tory laughed. “That’s an understatement. But let me tell you, it has nothing to do with age. Reese is the same way whenever she’s injured.”

KT glanced at Tory. “You sound as if that’s a common occurrence.”

“Unfortunately,” Tory said with a wince, “it is.”

“That’s hard.”

“Very.”

“And I guess there’s nothing you could say to make her give it up.”

Tory shrugged. “She would, if I asked her to. But I can’t. It would take too much from her.”

“You’re happy with her, aren’t you?”

“More than I can say.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“And how are things going for you?” Tory inquired gently.

“At the rate I’m going,” KT said quietly, “I’ll know in another month or two if I’m going to be able to operate again.”

“And then?”

KT blew out a breath. “I guess it depends on what the answer is. If I can operate then I’ll go back to work.”

“In Boston.” Tory said it as if it were a given, not a question.

“Well, yes.” KT sounded far less certain. She kept her eyes on the water. “But there’s Pia.”

“Yes. I noticed.”

“I know what you think about me and her, but”

“I was wrong.” Tory lightly grasped KT’s forearm. “I was wrong to make judgments concerning something I knew nothing about. About people I don’t know as well as I thought I did.”

KT turned, her eyes searching Tory’s again. “You know me. The good and the bad.”

“Yes, I do.” Tory smiled faintly. “But not as well as I once did. And for a while, I couldn’t see the good. Or maybe, maybe it’s that falling in love with Pia has brought all those good things out.”

“How did?”

“I know?” Tory laughed. “It’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s looking. Pia is a wonderful woman. She’ll be good for you.”

“She already is.”

Startled by KT’s humble tone, Tory spoke without thinking. “Then why are you thinking about going back to Boston?”

“I what would I do here?” KT asked in frustration. “You have to admit, I’m only a passable family doctor.”

Tory laughed. “The patients love you.”

“Well, it takes more than personality to do your job, and I don’t want them to find out the hard way.”

“KT,” Tory said gently. “Don’t lose her because of a job.”

“Like I did you?”

Tory shook her head. “Maybe I don’t know, and even if I did, it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is now. I don’t know what you want in your life. I don’t know what Pia wants. But you need to find out before it’s gone.”

KT closed her eyes for a second, then slowly nodded. “Thanks. I’ll try.”

“I’ve never known you to fail at anything you’ve tried.” Tory leaned close and kissed KT’s cheek. “My money’s on you.”

An hour later, Pia backed out of Tory’s driveway and headed west on 6A toward town. She reached across the space between them and stroked KT’s thigh. “You’ve been awfully quiet. Something happen with Tory?”

KT turned on the seat, covering Pia’s hand with her own and holding it against her leg. “What do you mean?”

“The two of you looked like you were having a very serious conversation out on the deck. Since then, you’ve been somewhere else.”

“Sorry.”

Pia glanced at her quickly and then back to the road, shaking her head. “You don’t need to apologize. Is there something wrong?”

“No,” KT said solemnly. “Everything is…great.”

Pia laughed quietly. “You don’t sound like it.” She rubbed her hand in a gentle circle on KT’s thigh. “Is it Tory?”

“Tory?” KT’s voice held a hint of confusion and surprise. “Why?”

Still staring straight ahead, Pia asked, “Are you still in love with her?”

“I’m in love with you, ” KT said immediately. “Only you. And that’s the problem.”

Pia frowned and looked at her quickly. “Why?”

“Because it isn’t simple. Because for the first time in my life, when I try to see my future, I don’t see anything.”

“Do you see us?”

“I want to.”

“Then that’s enough,” Pia said gently.

“How can that be?” KT’s frustration made her voice harsh. “I’ve always known where I was going, what I needed to do to get there. Now I…I’m not even sure where I’m going to be in two months. Who I’ll be.”

While they’d talked, Pia had driven through town. She pulled into the parking lot at Herring Cove and stopped on the long stretch of blacktop that fronted the beach. It was sundown, the air had grown cold as it did near the water at night, and only a lone walker far up the beach shared the solitude. Pia turned on the seat, wrapped her arms around her raised knee, and regarded KT seriously. “Who are you, KT?”

KT ran a hand through her hair distractedly. “I used to be a surgeon.”

“And if you can’t be?”

“I don’t know.” KT shrugged her shoulders. “That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

“No. It just sounds like you haven’t been paying attention to much of anything else for a while.”

KT laughed shortly. “For a while? Try fifteen years.”

“Maybe.” Pia regarded KT evenly. “You’re also bright and determined and focused. You could do almost anything you wanted to do,” At KT’s expression of dismissal, Pia laughed, “I know. Medicine is what you do. Would you consider working with Tory at the clinic?”

“Oh man, I don’t know. It takes a certain kind of person to be good at that. Not just the medicine part, but the people part. That’s never been my strong suit.”

“Everyone has their own style. Some of us like the strong, self-assured type.”

The corner of KT’s mouth twitched. “I thought we were talking about doctoring.”

“I am among other things.” Pia stretched out her arm and ran a finger along the edge of KT’s jaw. “You could work in the ER in Hyannis.”

“I’ve thought of it. I could probably work in the ER in Boston, too.”

“But,” Pia reminded her, “you and I still have a long way to go on that hand, and I think you’ll be operating again before the beginning of the year.”

“If that happens, I think I want to go back to the trauma unit.” KT said it quickly, as if to get the words out before she changed her mind.

Pia was silent for a few moments, and when she spoke again, her voice was carefully neutral. “That makes sense. You’ve been there a long time, and that’s what makes you happy.”

KT’s head snapped around. “You make me happy. Being a trauma surgeon satisfies a need in me to do what I’m good at, to make a difference with my own hands. But you…you make me happy.”

Pia smiled. “I’m glad. You make me happy too.”

“Well hell, then. What are we going to do? You live here.”

“Are we talking about that future that you can’t see clearly now?”

KT laughed. “Yes, God damn it. I’m not comfortable unless I know where I’m going.”

“I want you in my future. I want to be in yours.”

“I want that too.” KT’s gaze was fierce. “I want you, more than anything.”

“Well, then, you’ll commute. It’s only twenty-five minutes by plane. Plenty of people do it.” Pia edged closer, sliding her arm beneath KT’s and cupping her palm on the inside of KT’s thigh. She rested her cheek against KT’s shoulder. “You come home when you can, and I’ll be here.”

“I already hate the thought of being away from you,” KT confessed.

“Good. Then you’ll be sure to come home often.”

KT kissed Pia slowly, enjoying the soft liquid heat of her mouth . “I love you.”

Pia snuggled closer “I love you too. That’s the picture I see when I look ahead”

“Yes,” KT murmured. “So do I.

Chapter Thirty

Reese halted in the parking lot of the Wellfleet Sheriff’s Department and waited while the driver of the Jaguar XKR parked, got out, and walked over to her. “Hello, Counselor.”

“Hello, Sheriff,” Trey Pelosi replied. “Congratulations. I hear you got your man.”

“Thanks, but we only got a little piece of the great big pie. There’s a lot more where Karl Smith came from, I’m afraid.”

“There always are.” Trey shifted her briefcase and tilted her head toward the building. “I understand you also got a name for the girl in the dunes.”

“Is this an official inquiry?”

Trey smiled. “Just a favor for the family. They don’t want their son to live under a cloud for the rest of his life, and the less mystery surrounding the case, the better. I told them I’d find out what I could.”

“In the last three days we’ve interviewed three dozen of the kids we rounded up at the party Saturday night. Two of them recognized both the dead girl and your client. We made a positive ID this morning from information they provided us Angela Fisher.” Reese grimaced and shook her head. “I notified the family as soon as I got a name. They thought she was living with a cousin in Boston and going to school at night. Maybe she was. The family didn’t know she was missing, and the cousin assumed she’d just taken off with some ‘dude’ she’d run into somewhere.”

“So there’s no evidence to suggest that their meeting was anything but coincidental.”

“Your boy’s story holds up. In fact, no one remembers him doing anything heavier than drinking a beer. Nobody’s going to be charging him in Angela’s death.”

“Thanks for the information. I’ll just put in an official appearance inside.” Trey regarded Reese speculatively. “Why do I think you’re overqualified for your job and probably wasted out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“I can’t imagine.” Reese laughed. “Believe me, Counselor, I am precisely where I want to be.”

Trey’s eyes dropped to Reese’s left hand and the gold band she wore there. “I see that.” She extended her hand to Reese, who took it. “I’ve enjoyed working with you, Sheriff. I hope we meet again someday.”

“Same here,” Reese replied, watching while the attorney walked away. As Trey disappeared inside the low building, Reese had a feeling their paths would cross again.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Bri grumped.

“You sure don’t. You need to get your ass out of this house.” Allie sauntered into the kitchen and rummaged in the refrigerator. Looking over her shoulder, she called, “Coke?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Bri flung herself, albeit gently, onto the sofa and kicked her feet up onto the coffee table. “Besides, Caroline has to go back to Paris in two days, and I don’t see why she has to go out shopping now.”

“Ooh,” Allie crooned, settling a hip on the arm of the couch and handing Bri the can of soda. “Someone’s very cranky. Is someone getting bored? Is someone maybe not getting enou…”

“Cut it out,” Bri snapped, but she was grinning. “You try sitting around here all day long with nothing to do except read.”

“Uh, well gee, hot stuff, I bet I could think of something else to pass the time.”

“Ha ha. I’m not supposed to…” Bri blushed, which made Allie laugh again, “…exert myself, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Allie said, still laughing. “It’s just that you’re so cute when you’re all out of sorts like this.”

“Fuck.” Bri dropped her head onto the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe I let that bastard get hold of me.”

Allie’s laughter instantly disappeared and her face grew serious. “I missed it totally. I never got violent vibes from him. Who knew he was going to freak out?”

“I should’ve been ready for it. Reese hasn’t said anything, but she must think that I screwed up.”

“No!” Allie leaned forward and rested her hand on Bri’s shoulder. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. I saw him come down the stairs behind you and head toward the kitchen. I just didn’t think he was going to be that kind of problem. But I was your backup. I screwed up. Not you.” Her eyes glistened but she kept the brimming tears at bay. “I’m so sorry.”

Bri’s brows furrowed as she regarded Allie in confusion. “You were handling the front, just like we’d been briefed. You weren’t supposed to be in the kitchen backing me up.”

Allie shook her head, refusing to listen. “I saw him follow you, but I was so focused on meeting the team in the front that it just didn’t register. At least, not as something I should worry about. God, Bri, I let him get to you.”

“That’s crap. We both had jobs to do, and we were doing them. There are some things you can’t plan on, and he was one of them. He freaked out; I handled it. It’s done.”

“I was scared, Bri,” Allie whispered. “I was so scared when you got hurt.”

Bri reached up and took Allie’s hand, squeezing it gently. “I’m sorry. It’s tough, working with people you care about so much, especially when they might get hurt.”

Allie nodded wordlessly.

“I think if it was you or Reese or my dad, I’d be really, really scared, too. You’re all special to me.”

“Caroline’s got you pretty well trained.” Allie smiled weakly. “You know just the kind of thing a girl likes to hear.”

“Well, yeah.” Bri grinned. “But it’s true. And I like us being partnered, so just forget about apologizing. It’s part of the job, right?”

“Yeah. It is.” Her eyes clearing, Allie looked across the room at the clock. “You know, sitting around here is starting to make me kind of nuts. Let’s go for a drive.”

“A drive?”

“Uh-huh.” Allie stood and extended her hand. “Come on. It won’t exert you too much to sit in the car, will it?”

“Ha ha,” Bri muttered, but she followed willingly. Anything for a change of scenery. On the way to the door, she abruptly stopped. “Wait. I need to leave a note for Carre.”

Allie groaned, but grinned good-naturedly while muttering something about being whipped.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t you wish,” Bri grumbled back.

Surprisingly serious, Allie answered, “Yeah. Sometimes.”

Ten minutes later, Allie pulled into the parking lot shared by the New Provincetown Playhouse and the Provincetown Martial Arts Center.

“What’s going on?” Bri asked, frowning.

“I forgot some of my gear here earlier today. Come on in while I get it.”

“Who knows when I’ll be able to train again,” Bri groused as she followed Allie inside. Despite the fact that it was almost 9 p.m. and no classes were scheduled, a light burned in the practice room. Bri narrowed her eyes and looked around. Something felt off. “Allie, what?” She halted abruptly as Tory, in her gi, stepped from the shadows near the door.

“You need to get changed, Bri,” Tory said quietly, extending a pristine tournament-weight gi top in Bri’s direction.

“Whose is this?” Bri whispered, not even knowing why she kept her voice down. She did know that a gi jacket like this cost a quarter of her weekly take-home pay.

“Yours,” Tory replied.

Bri looked in confusion to Allie, who was quickly changing into her own uniform. Then, not knowing what else to do, she stepped out of her jeans and took the new white pants that Tory offered her. Once fully dressed, she followed Tory and Allie into the practice room. Her entire class knelt in a single line along the edge of the practice mat. What shocked her into a stumbling standstill, however, was the fact that her father and Caroline sat on a bench on the far side of the room. She could feel Caroline’s smile all the way to her heart. Her stomach suddenly fluttering, she followed Tory to the mat, bowed, and knelt wordlessly by Tory’s side. Then, as she always did when she prepared herself for this place, for these moments when thought was abandoned and harmony flowed between mind and body, she placed her hands palm down on her thighs and closed her eyes. In some distant part of her consciousness, she registered the faint rustle of fabric and a whisper of air brushing past her face. Then, as if summoned in the silence, she opened her eyes.

Reese, dressed in a similar snowy white jacket and black billowing hakama, knelt facing Bri and the rest of the students. Folded in front of her on the mat lay a black belt bearing the symbol of the dojo embroidered in gold on one end. She looked directly at Bri.

With her eyes fixed on Reese, Bri placed both hands forward on the mat, fingertips touching, thumbs spread, and knelt slowly until her forehead touched the mat in the triangle formed by her hands. In response, Reese placed first her left and then her right hand in precisely the same position and returned the bow. Then she straightened, rested her hands on her thighs, and spoke while continuing to look into Bri’s eyes.

“We train for many reasons. For peace of mind, for health of body, for harmony of spirit. But always, we train for the moment when we will be challenged.”

Bri’s heart pounded, and she was afraid that everyone in the room would see her tremble. But she kept her eyes on Reese’s, one of the safest places she had ever known.

“Sun Tsu said, ‘If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. But if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’” Reese lifted the black belt and balanced it between her outstretched palms. “You have trained hard. You have been tested in battle.”

Reese’s voice, strong and deep, resonated in Bri’s body and settled in her chest, at once soothing and yet so powerful she could barely breathe.

“You have earned this. You have made us all proud.”

Breaking with custom, which dictated that Bri should come to her, Reese glided across the tatami to Bri’s side in a fluid movement designed hundreds of years before when the samurai fought by necessity from a kneeling position in the courts of their masters. She passed the black belt to Tory, who held it in the same position as Reese had, across her outstretched hands, while Reese reached down, untied Bri’s white obi, and removed it. Then Reese took the black belt, wrapped it around Bri’s waist, and knotted it in place herself.

“Well done, Parker sensei.”

“Thank you, sensei” Bri managed, although her voice was barely audible, it was so thick with tears.

Never taking her eyes from Bri’s face, Reese moved back to her original position, bowed, then left the totally silent room.

The minute Reese was gone, pandemonium erupted. Students swarmed Bri, and if it hadn’t been for her recent injury, she would have been inundated with back slaps and hugs.

“Way to go, Bri,” Allie said exuberantly. “Man, that was awesome.”

“Yeah.” Bri was still too stunned to take it all in. “Yeah. Wow.”

While her classmates continued to celebrate, Tory was the first to kiss Bri’s cheek.

“Congratulations, sweetheart.”

Bri grabbed Tory’s hand and held it almost desperately. “Thank you. Thank you. Do you think it’s okay? This way? That I didn’t test?”

“If Conlon sensei promoted you, you can be absolutely certain you deserve it.”

“Did you know?” Bri asked.

Tory shook her head. “No. She doesn’t discuss those decisions with me. In this room, we are all students.” Then she held out a folded black hakama. “From me. Ready to put it on?”

“Will you…show me?”

“Of course.” Tory helped Bri step into the flowing ceremonial pants that covered the white gi pants and demonstrated the proper cross-over pattern to tie the four strands of the waistband. Then she stepped back and surveyed the dojo’s newest shodan. “Very handsome.”

“I’ll say,” Caroline pronounced, wrapping her arms around Bri’s waist in a fierce hug.

“Hey, babe,” Bri said, turning to see her father’s eyes shining with pride and her girlfriend’s wet with tears. That was enough to bring on her own. Embarrassed for anyone else to see, she pressed her face to Caroline’s neck. “I’m so glad you were here. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

Caroline held her tightly, stroking her cheek and back. “I would have come no matter what. I’m so proud of you. I love you so much,”

“I’m so lucky.” Bri raised her head when she felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. She grinned at him. “What do you think, Dad?”

“I think your fellow officers are going to be damned jealous. I wouldn’t be surprised if the dojo gets a few new students.” He touched her face, his eyes on the healing wound in her neck. “I think you’re a helluva police officer and the best kid a man could have.”

“Oh man,” Bri whispered as she felt tears starting again. “I gotta cut this out.”

Caroline brushed her fingers beneath Bri’s eyes. “It’s been a tough few days, baby. It’s okay.”

At that moment, the room went silent as Reese entered, still in her gi but without her hakama now. Then, seconds later, conversation began again. Reese crossed the room directly to Bri and extended her hand. As they shook, she asked, “Are you ready for the job of assistant instructor?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bri said instantly. “I should be able to start this weekend.”

Reese laughed. “I believe your doctors said two weeks for that.”

Bri looked as if she were about to protest, but after one glance at Tory, Reese, her father, and Caroline, she surrendered. “Okay.”

“Good,” Reese responded. “Remember, responsibility to those you love, to those who love you, to yourself, to your community, to your country that is one of the most important things you must teach.” She cast her eyes around the room at her students and her friends. “And here, we live what we teach.”

Quietly, Bri whispered, “Yes, sensei.”

“That was beautiful,” Tory said as she and Reese headed for home. “I thought Nelson was going to burst with pride.”

“I didn’t tell him until today because I was pretty sure he’d give it away. And I wanted it to be special for her,” Reese smiled. “I remember when she first came to me and declared that she wanted to train. She reminded me so much of myself at that age.”

Tory shifted in the seat and put her back to the door so she could watch her lover as she drove. “I’ve always thought of her as a younger version of you.”

“No,” Reese said with a shake of her head, “She’s much braver than I ever was.” She glanced quickly at Tory and then back to the road. “She’ll take Nelson’s place in the department some day. She has the heart of a warrior, and others will follow her gladly.”

“You underestimate yourself, Sheriff,” Tory said softly, “Bri is an amazing young woman. Brave and strong and valiant, true. But she looks to you to stay the course. Not that Nelson doesn’t love her, or Bri him, but it’s your hand that has guided her into adulthood, and it will be your example that shapes her life. She loves you.”

Reese’s voice was husky as she said, “I love her.”

“I know, and I think it’s wonderful.” Tory smiled, watching the moonlight play on her lover’s handsome face. It was one of those moments when she couldn’t think of a single thing about her life that she would change. “Regina is very lucky to have you for a parent.”

“Thank you. That means…everything to me.”

“Mmm. You mean everything to us.” Tory sighed. “It seems like forever since we’ve had a chance to talk alone.”

“Is something wrong?” Reese asked in concern.

“No. Everything is right.”

Reese stretched out her hand between them and Tory took it When their fingers intertwined, Reese asked, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“The wedding.”

Epilogue

Thanksgiving Weekend

Bri emerged from her dreams to the sensation of warm lips against the back of her neck. She lay on her stomach with her arms curled around her pillow and Caroline’s mouth against her skin. When she shifted to turn over, a firm hand held her down.

“Don’t move, baby,” Caroline whispered, smoothing her palm down the center of Bri’s spine as she nuzzled her face in the curve of Bri’s neck. She traced her lips over the faint red ridge of scar tissue, the persistent reminder of all she had nearly lost. “I don’t get to wake up with you very often, and I want to remember everything about the way you feel right now.”

“I feel good,” Bri muttered. “I’d feel a whole lot better if I could turn over and get my hands on you.”

Caroline laughed. “I know. Which is why you’re not going to.” She nudged her leg between Bri’s, settling her pelvis on Bri’s hip. “I got here first.”

Bri made a sound between a growl and a groan. “Come on, baby. Don’t torture me.”

“Sorry, too late.” Caroline leaned down and set her teeth into the fleshy triangle between Bri’s neck and shoulder. She nuzzled her breasts against Bri’s back, moving slowly from side to side as her nipples hardened, drawing the sensitive tips across the firm planes of her lover’s body. “Oh, I love the way that feels. My nipples are connected directly to my”

“Let me suck them.” Bri’s hands were fisted in the pillow, her voice urgent, but she did not try to turn although she easily could have. “I can make you come that way.”

“I know,” Caroline whispered, sliding her hand between their bodies and into the cleft between Bri’s thighs. “But you have somewhere important to be this morning, remember?” She pressed gently with her thumb as she fanned her fingers over the tender folds.

“Not for hours.” Bri moaned softly and lifted her hips, urging Caroline deeper.

Caroline curled around her lover, resting her cheek in the hollow above Bri’s hips as she slowly entered her, taking what was hers with gentle reverence. “I love you.”

Bri closed her eyes as Caroline claimed her, allowing the certainty of those words to ease her fears and fill her heart. This was the woman who loved her. This was her safe harbor.

A boye the steady drum of the water against the shower tails, Pia heard her name. Smiling, she slid the glass door open and peered through the steam into the bathroom. KT stood on one leg, kicking off her trousers. She was already shirtless, and the sight of her bare breasts and stomach made Pia’s thighs tighten with instant arousal. “You made it.”

“Said I would,” KT replied, grinning. “Want some company?”

“If it’s yours.”

“Better be.” KT stepped into the shower and wrapped her arms around Pia’s waist, drew her close, and kissed her for a long moment as water cascaded over their heads and shoulders. When she finally relinquished Pia’s mouth, she tilted her forehead to Pia’s and kissed the tip of her nose. “Miss me?”

“Nope. How was the drive?”

KT laughed. “Fine.”

“Long night?” Pia reached around KT for the shampoo and squeezed a ribbon onto the top of KT’s head. As she worked her fingers through the short, thick hair, she leaned her thighs and pelvis against KT’s.

“I got some sleep.”

“How’s your hand?”

“A little better than useless, but still not worth much.”

“It will come. You’re not overusing it, are you?”

Eyes closed, KT leaned into Pia’s hands, which had moved to her back and were slowly massaging her tight muscles. “Don’t see how I can. I can hold a few instruments for a minute or two, but I can’t really operate with it. Still, I can triage and handle most emergencies.”

“Good. Rinse.” Pia waited until KT was suds free, then leaned back against the shower wall and pulled KT with her, dropping her hands to KT’s hips and guiding KT’s thigh between her legs. “Because if you’re going to spend four nights a week in Boston, I don’t want you to be wasting your time.”

KT braced her elbows against the wall on either side of Pia’s shoulders and rhythmically thrust her leg between Pia’s. Pia moaned and KT smiled. “You did too miss me.”

“Maybe.” Pia tilted her head back, her eyes hazy and her smile soft. “You?”

“Every minute,” KT growled as she lowered her mouth to Pia’s. She kissed her hard this time, her tongue insistent as she drew her thigh in and out between Pia’s. She found Pia’s breast, closing her fingers around it as she thumbed the nipple. She felt Pia’s fingers dig into her buttocks, urging her to pump harder, and she knew that Pia was ready. When she moved her left hand down, eager to satisfy her, Pia caught her wrist.

“No,” Pia gasped. “You can’t.”

“Damn it,” KT muttered, angling her body to fit her right hand between Pia’s legs. “I need both hands to touch you. I need all of you.”

On a laugh that was nearly a sob, Pia guided KT inside her. “Touching me or not, you have all of me.”

“I love you,” KT whispered, reveling in the heat of Pia’s body. She thrust more gently than she had intended, her hunger sharp but her pleasure tempered by awe. She was where she wanted to be, needed to be, and she was desperate for this moment never to end. “Tell me. God, Pia, tell me.”

Pia drew one leg up, circling KT’s hips, taking her even deeper inside. She knew what her lover asked, and she never tired of answering. It was no hardship to bestow what she wanted so very much to give. She would come for her in a minute, holding nothing back. But before that, she would give her what they both needed. “I love you. Always.”

“It’s quiet here without her, isn’t it,” Reese said, softly running her hand up and down Tory’s arm.

“Almost too quiet.”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder how long it will be before she can stay overnight with her grandmothers and we won’t miss her.” Tory drew one leg over Reese’s and curled into the side of her body, murmuring contentedly as she nuzzled Reese’s neck. The windows were open, and the breeze carried winter on its wings.

“Not ever, I don’t think.” Reese kissed Tory’s forehead, her fingers drifting lazily along the curve of her lover’s breast. “But it is nice that it’s just the two of us now and then.”

“Especially today.” Tory raised up on an elbow, kissed the tip of Reese’s chin, and smiled. “Nervous?”

Reese laughed and pulled Tory on top of her. She bent one leg at the knee so that Tory could settle between her thighs. “No. Excited. You?”

“Mmm. Excited and happy.” Tory smoothed her cheek over Reese’s breast, absently brushing the nipple with her lips. “It’s funny,” she mused, unmindful of the quickening of Reese’s breath. “We’ve been together for years now and have a child, but I still feel like a bride.”

“It’s special, standing up in front of our friends and family to pledge our love.”

“Are you okay that KT will be coming with Pia?”

“Of course. I like her.”

“Funny, me too.” Tory made absent circles on Reese’s stomach with her fingertips, aware now of the tension humming in Reese’s body. “And I love that Bri is going to stand up with you. The two of you will look so handsome.”

Laughing, Reese threaded her fingers into Tory’s hair, unconsciously guiding Tory’s mouth back to her nipple. “Everyone knows how much I love you, but I want to say it out loud for all the world to hear.” Her voice was husky, deep with emotion and desire. “I want everyone to know that I belong to you.”

“And I to you,” Tory murmured even as her focus shifted from the upcoming ceremony to the woman in her arms. Always, always there was Reese, and only Reese. Reese kept nothing from her, not her tenderness or her fears or her devotion.

No matter where they were, no matter what convention said of them or what circumstance befell them, the only thing that truly mattered was what bound them, heart and soul the love they had forged. Reese was her answer and her hope, her home and her destiny, her partner and her passion. Reese was her heart, as she knew she was Reese’s. She would say that aloud to all who would listen today, tomorrow, and every day to come. They would live with their love as their shield and their banner, for all the days of their lives. This was their truth.