Close Encounters (22 page)

“Do you know where you are?” he asked.

“What are you doing?” she demanded in a soft, bewildered voice.

“Sooner or later you were going to have to come through here again.”

She turned to him, her eyes bright in the dark interior of the car. “
What are you doing?
” she asked again, her voice rising.

They were passing the temporary construction canopy in front of the building under which she had walked that night for the last time with Max. Carol closed her eyes tightly, her breath coming short and quick. She moaned deep in her throat and pressed stiffly against her seat. “Oh, my God…”

“Carol… it’s all right.”

She sat up again and glared at him. Her face was a poignant mixture of pain and helpless rage. “No, it’s
not
all right! How the hell would you know it’s all right?”

“Look, I’ve seen this kind of shock before. You survive, and then there’s this denial that it really happened to you, that you faced death and won. You start being careful, afraid to be outside or get too close to people. Everybody on the street starts to look like the ones involved that night.”

“If you know so much, why are you doing this to me?”

“I want you to recognize it for what it is. Fear. I don’t want to see it rule your life, change things you’re used to doing.”

“Fine time to worry about that. It’s already too late,” she declared.

“No, it’s not. Deal with it, Carol. Now. Get it over with. It happened right here. Gunfire. There was blood on the ground. Yours and Max’s. Your dog died… but you didn’t…”

Lee stopped when he realized that she was struggling to get out of the seat belt, feeling for the door handle to open it. He reached in front of her and held her in place against the seat as he grabbed the door and pulled it shut.

“Aaaaggh!” Carol cried out, bringing her arms up protectively over her chest where his arm lay.

The car swerved slightly and he quickly regained control. He drove to the end of the block, turned onto the avenue to continue to her street and her building. He sensed that he had risked everything. And then it occurred to him that it mattered very much that he had. Never before had he so wanted everything to be right.

He pulled up slowly in front of her building and turned off the engine. She sat motionless, making no attempt to get out of the car. Lee turned toward her. He reached out and touched her hair, sprouting from beneath the brim of her hat. He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek. She flinched slightly but otherwise remained still.

“There’s a name for what you’re going through. It was invented to describe people’s experiences in war, but it pretty accurately describes what people go through when they’ve faced death and beaten it. Whether it was one time, or again and again.”

“And you’re an expert on war,” she murmured, sounding tired.

Lee sighed, turning to stare out the window, jumbled thoughts going through his head. “The urban kind. Yes.”

He rubbed a hand over his head in frustration and gave his attention back to her.

“Look… my job is about enforcing the law, saving lives. I’ve never had to worry about what happens to people after that. It was none of my business. Frankly, I didn’t care.” He brushed her cheek again. She slowly turned to gaze at him.

“I care about you,” Lee said quietly and clearly.

Having said the words, he knew that they were true.

“Something happened to both of us that night, Carol. So far, you’re dealing with it much better than I am. You don’t know that, but you are.”

She blinked. “Am I? You say that like it’s a terrible thing to care about me.”

“God, no. Not terrible, but… unexpected. I wasn’t… I’m not prepared for this.”

Carol sighed. “Now you know how I feel.”

This time when she moved to get out of the car Lee did not try to stop her. He got out too and came around to meet her on the curb. He took hold of her arm lightly, to test her response to him. He let his hand slide down until it reached hers. And he held it. Carol clasped his firmly in return.

They entered the building together and headed toward the elevator like two people in a daze. On the ride up neither spoke. Lee continued to hold her hand. He took the key from her and opened the door. The silence was not strained or uncomfortable, and rather than either of them drawing back into the relative safety of the parts they had both been playing in the drama of the past few weeks, they both seemed to be holding their breath, curious, anticipating what awaited them.

Lee stood and watched Carol as she turned on lights, unbuttoned her coat, pulled off her hat. He took the hat out of her hand and tossed it gently onto a chair. She took off her coat and hung it in the hall closet, hesitating there for a moment. Lee opened his coat and stood with his hands braced on his hips.

Carol came back into the room and stopped, as if not sure what she should do or say next. He was standing directly in front of her, looking at her slightly bowed head. The angle presented her face in a soft and calm repose. He found it alluring.

Carol’s hand lay on that space above her breast.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked very quietly.

Carol peered up at Lee through her lashes. “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

Lee gently pulled her hand away. He held it the way he had as they entered into the building and rode up the elevator. Her fingers twisted until they were in the right position to hold on to his in return.

They looked into each other’s faces, each other’s eyes, as if this was the last moment in which life would continue as they knew it. They were embarking on another close encounter, which would overcome myths and legends, history and expectations, biases and the unknown, and would leave them a man and a woman who were instinctively attracted to each other, who felt a growing desire to trust those instincts.

Lee sighed. And then he took a leap of faith that was so uncharacteristic that he unconsciously gripped Carol’s hand tighter, as if to prevent himself from falling. He started out slowly because he was not used to making confessions. He was not used to trusting anyone.

“That night… I was heading up an undercover narcotics team that had staked out a local drug kingpin. It was a case we’d been trying to put together for almost six months. We could bring him in on drug-related charges, but we really wanted him for several homicides for which we still had only circumstantial evidence.”

Lee spoke in a low, even cadence, the details of his story clear and precise. For the moment it was just a story to Carol. She was interested, listening silently, waiting for the conclusion. She was aware of the warmth of his hand, the incredible strength and power in it. Unconsciously her thumb moved, stroking the back of it.

When Lee started talking again, Carol closed her eyes. Ever since that night, she hadn’t been able to imagine fully what had gone on. Now she let him fill in the blanks, provide the setting and the characters.

“We had a man inside who’d gotten close to the suspect. He was one of our direct lines. Another was someone I’m not at liberty to discuss. But the operation went haywire. We tried to close in, to contain and gather as many of the perpetrators as we could. Some slipped out and got away. Some we chased down. We were making a sweep of the neighborhood, passing through Tenth, when a dog started barking. There was the sound of a gunshot. I went in pursuit. As we approached the area where we’d heard the shot, my partner and I were suddenly fired upon. There was a rapid exchange of gunfire. Two suspects fled. A third went down, wounded.”

Carol drew in a short breath, remembering her struggle with a man holding her. The gunshot and Max yelping. The repeated explosions bursting into the night. She didn’t remember so much what she’d seen as what she’d felt. The thud against her body that penetrated her skin and burned.

Carol held her breath for a second. “That… was me,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She pulled her hand free and once again placed it on her chest, turned away from Lee and sat down in her favorite chair, somewhat hunched over.

“I didn’t even want to go into that block,” Carol began in a quiet, incredulous voice. “Max led me. He didn’t follow my command to turn back. There were two men. They were coming toward me, talking. I didn’t know what they were saying. I couldn’t understand.”

“Were they speaking Spanish?”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s it. I was a little nervous about walking past them, but not overly concerned. Then Max started barking at them. They… they got upset. And then… then, I think…” She frowned, closed her eyes again. “I think there was a car on the street. But there were no headlights.”

“That’s right,” Lee confirmed.

“The two men got angry because Max was barking. They told me to make him stop, but I couldn’t. The next thing I knew there was a gun. And a loud sound like an explosion. Max was lying on the ground. When I tried to reach him, one of the men grabbed me. He covered my mouth completely and I couldn’t breathe. I was trying to breathe and I couldn’t move his hand, and…”

Lee hunkered down in front of her, rubbing her shoulder, taking her hand again. “Carol… take it easy. Slow down.”

She shook her head, as if trying to force the memory out so she could see it clearly. “He had something on his wrist. Some kind of bracelet, I think. It was pressing against my nose. It was hurting me.”

Lee leaned forward to hear her. “You think he was wearing a bracelet?” he repeated.

Carol nodded. “I think so. When I tried to pull his hand away from my mouth, I could feel it.” She stopped for a second and took a deep breath. “He had a smell. But it was a nice smell. I remember thinking how strange that he was wearing perfume.”

“Go on…” Lee coaxed. Her body stiffened suddenly, and she gave a quiet little whimper.

“There… there was gunfire. The man wouldn’t let me go. He kept jerking me around. I wanted to take a breath. I thought I was going to pass out. I tripped and couldn’t seem to get my footing. And then… something hit me. I couldn’t stand up anymore and I knew I was going to fall. He let me go and I fell to the ground, and…”

“Carol…” Lee moved even closer.

She didn’t hear him. “There was this unbelievable burning. I… I didn’t know I’d been shot. I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like. I wanted to turn over to see if I could find Max. I couldn’t seem to move. And someone was bending over me. A man. But it wasn’t the same man.” Carol blinked rapidly, lost in the memory. “He said something to me. And he was in blue,” she finished as if it was a revelation. “A blue coat and a hat. And he touched me, I think. Here.” She demonstrated, placing her hand on her neck just below her ear.

Carol refocused and brought her attention back to Lee’s face. She’d been back there again. And she could tell from the look in his eyes that he’d been there with her. She sighed, closing her eyes as her body relaxed and the tension drained out of her. Thinking about it day after day had been much worse than talking about it and reliving it. When she gazed into Lee’s eyes, she realized he had been right in forcing her to face the demons of that night. The incredible loneliness that had overwhelmed her ever since she’d regained consciousness in the hospital had never gone away completely… but now it made sense.

Lee stood up, taking her hands and pulling her to her feet. His hands were sliding gently up and down her arms. He meant to comfort her, she understood that. But there was more to it.

“Do you mind if I hold you?” he asked in a voice that was deep and gravelly.

She shook her head. “You didn’t ask before,” she observed.

Lee sighed deeply, his hands beginning to travel to her back, her waist, to coax her forward into his arms. “That was different. I didn’t know then what I know now.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“Not yet,” he murmured.

And then, with no thought and no time to prepare, and no consideration of the consequences, Lee closed his arms around Carol, and she transferred her hands to his chest, flat, so she could feel not only the rock-solid firmness of him, but also his body heat and the pumping of his heart. She was suddenly thinking that he wasn’t the kind of man who would wait for an invitation. But she didn’t feel the need to offer one. She closed her eyes, knowing that he was going to kiss her. And knowing that she wanted him to.

Lee pressed his mouth to hers, and there was no mystery. He knew what to do… and
he
wanted to do it. To let Carol feel his attraction. His need to get close to her. The odd, compelling drive to protect her. And a strong desire to touch her in a way that went far beyond the boundaries imposed by society and circumstance. He wanted to give Carol not only comfort but also something of himself.

And he wanted something from her in return.

He slid his arm around her waist and drew her closer, careful this time of her healing wound. He bent forward to settle his slightly open mouth on hers. He felt no need to test the waters, take it slow. He tilted his head so that his lips fit comfortably against hers. When Carol parted her lips slightly, he only teased at a deeper kiss, aware of the inviting warm cavern of her mouth but more aware of satisfaction at the contact than of any expectation of arousal. But that was there, too. Their tongues touched and teased.

Carol shifted position as she tunneled her arms inside his coat to circle his waist. Lee didn’t move, didn’t try to avoid the inevitable when her hand hit his gun butt, holstered and attached to his waist by a clip. She let her hand blindly explore the shape of it before pulling back.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know that Lee carried a gun. But it was startling to have it confirmed, to know he was licensed to kill. And he might have killed her without them ever knowing anything about each other.

Now that had irrevocably changed.

Carol lightly touched his face, exploring the contours of his jaw. Slowly she withdrew her mouth from his and let the tips of her fingers touch his lips. She opened her eyes to stare at him. There was no surprise in his gaze and she felt none at all herself. Just a peace and quiet that started at the very center of her.