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“When do I get to meet your partners?”
“Come listen to me be on my best behavior in court.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Dinner? Breakfast?”
She missed Lex; she needed to reconnect with her boss so they could go back to their old comfortable camaraderie when she returned to the squad.
“Text me. I’ll see if I can get out.” He paused, assessed her. “You like your team, right? Costa, the others?”
“Yeah, sure.” She wasn’t going to mention that she and Matt were in what Matt called a relationship. The term made her squeamish, and she was actually looking forward to a more long-distance relationship. She liked Matt—a lot—and she liked sex with Matt—a lot—but it was getting...well...she didn’t know how to explain it to herself, let alone someone else. She wanted to be with Matt, but she also wanted her own space, and it was increasingly difficult to balance those two needs.
“They’re good cops,” she continued. “They have my back, that’s what’s important. Why do you care?”
“Because I care about you. I want you to be happy.”
“Well, happy is a tall order.”
“You look good.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been challenged, that’s always good. I like the travel, which I didn’t think I would. Even went to the San Juan Islands for a case, got to spend Fourth of July weekend on R & R after we solved it.”
“Now I’m jealous.”
“But there’s no place like home.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Always.”
“Let me introduce you to the new guys. Rob, of course—you’ll like him—and we have a lateral move from San Francisco who has experience in sex crimes, training under Charlie because he’s retiring at the end of the year.”
“Retiring? Charlie?”
“He has twenty-plus years. He had a heart scare over the summer.”
She frowned. Talking about the health of her friends and colleagues made her squeamish. She worried enough about her grandmother that she didn’t want to worry about anyone else.
“I’ve been thinking about retiring, too,” Lex said after a moment.
That surprised her. “You said a thousand times you never wanted to retire.”
“Well. Yeah. The last couple years have been pretty damn crappy. I’m thinking, haven’t made a decision. I have a couple cases I want to see through. But sometimes the idea of buying a couple acres in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, sounds awfully good to me.”
“Wyoming. With cows and horses and not much else.”
“Peace, Kara. There’s a lot of peace up there.”
He sounded wistful. Almost...sad.
“I have to get to work,” he said.
“I thought you were going to introduce me around.”
“Next time. A meeting reminder just popped up on my computer. I’ll walk you out, meet these feds of yours.”
She rolled her eyes. “Kicking me out so soon.”
