“We are in a good place, aren’t we?” she said thoughtfully.
They’d met on a case fifteen months ago in Liberty Lake, Washington, when Kara had found a dead body and ended up assisting Matt and his newly formed Mobile Response Team in tracking down a serial killer. At first, it was mutual lust. Then... over many months... she realized that she loved this man. Matt knew it first, but then again, Matt was supremely confident in everything he did and felt. It took her a bit longer, but she knew the moment when it was real for her.
Last October, they’d been on the roof of her old condo in Santa Monica. Her entire world had fallen apart, and she learned that the people she had trusted the most had betrayed her. Except Matt. Matt was there for her and whatever decision she made. It wasn’t a switch flipping when she realized she loved him. It was a dam breaking. There was no putting the water back in the lake or the genie back in the bottle or whatever cliché she could think of; it was out and she felt a peace she had never felt before.
It couldn’t end like this. Locked in an abandoned building by a pair of serial killers.
“We should get married,” Matt said.
“Matt,” she said, a firm warning in her tone.
“Well, we should.”
“We just agreed we were in a good place, and now you want to raise the stakes?”
“Not tomorrow,” he said with a humorous lilt in his voice.
“Oh, goody.”
“I want kids.”
She stiffened. His arms wrapped around her tighter.
“Don’t you?” he added.
“I don’t know,” she said. A year ago she would have said no fucking way was she bringing a baby into this messed-up world. “I mean, you’d make a great dad.”
“You’d make a great mom.”
She snorted.
“Seriously,” he said, “you would.”
“I amnotmaternal.”
“I’ve watched you talking to kids, to victims, to witnesses. Winnie and her little niece in St. Augustine. And remember Hazel in Friday Harbor? You knew exactly how to get information out of a three-year-old.”
“By letting the firefighter talk to her.”
“You always rewrite history to make yourself look less heroic, Kara.”
“I’ll concede that I’m good with kids who have been dealt a bum rap. But kids aren’t babies.”
“They were at one time.”
“Why are we talking about this now?”
“Because we have a future, and we have to find a way out of this so we can enjoy it.”
She considered that. She loved Matt, and if he really wanted to get married and have a kid, she would think about it. But that sort of commitment—not marriage, which she could probably handle. But a child? The responsibility of bringing a life into the world, of protecting and providing for a helpless infant? It terrified her.
“Have you ever thought about adoption?” she asked, surprised that she was having this conversation.
“Not really. You don’t want to be pregnant?”
“I don’t care. I mean, being pregnant is temporary. It’s the baby that I’m terrified about. But it’s not really about that. I guess, well, I haven’t really thought about having my own kids because I always pictured myself adopting older kids. There are so many out there who have crappy lives, no parents, or their parents are in prison, or... well, I don’t know. Abusive or something.” She paused, thought about the Santana family—she hadn’t thought about them in years.
“What?” Matt said. “What happened, Kara?”
