“No, I’m fine. I’ve been drinking coffee all day.”

“You look tired, Catherine,” the chief of psychiatry said kindly, thinking to herself that the woman across from her looked more than tired. She’d lost weight, there were new stress lines around her green eyes, and a few more wisps of early gray in her hair. “Even considering the fact that it is Friday night, and with your clinical load, you have every right to be weary.”

“I am. That’s why I’m here, in part.”

“From the beginning, then,” Hazel urged, settling back and looking for all the world as if she had nothing better to do than to listen to her younger colleague indefinitely.

“I’m not sleeping.” They were in Hazel’s private home office, and the warm comfortable atmosphere was a welcome relief from the too bright, too impersonal spaces of the university clinic. Still, Catherine found it difficult to relax as she leaned forward, her clasped hands on her knees, her fingers intertwined to hide the faint tremor. “I think I have post-“

“Let’s wait before we worry about the diagnosis, shall we? Just tell me what’s happening.”

“Of course.” Catherine smiled ruefully and ran a hand through her collar-length auburn hair, then regarded her friend and mentor apologetically. At sixty Hazel was fit and vigorous, her quick blue eyes catching every nuance of expression, and allowing nothing of consequence to pass without comment. “Is there anything worse than a physician as a patient?”

“Not many I can think of right off hand.”

“This is hard…”

“Being a psychiatrist doesn’t make it any easier. That’s for television programs. Maybe I can help. This isn’t about work, I take it? You would have come to the cafeteria for that.”

Catherine smiled. When she needed a curbside consult, or just assurance that she was following the right clinical course in a difficult case, she sought out Hazel’s advice during her chief’s morning ritual of coffee and Danish in the hospital cafeteria. “No. It’s not work. It’s the shooting.”

“What about the shooting?”

“My…part in it.”

Hazel regarded her steadily. “What part was that?”

“I insisted on going to meet him,” Catherine said slowly, looking beyond Hazel’s face into the past. “Rebecca didn’t want me to go, practically begged me not to get involved. But I wanted to. I wanted to. I thought I could stop him.” She brought tormented eyes to meet Hazel’s. “My arrogance almost got her killed.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Hazel asked, choosing not to comment but to let her talk. She had known Catherine since the younger psychiatrist was a resident, and she considered them friends as well as colleagues. What Catherine needed was for her to listen, not to point out the obvious fallacy in her reasoning. Reason carried very little weight where the emotions were concerned.

“I dream,” Catherine replied, her voice choked. “I…feel him. He’s hurting me, and I want her to come. I want her to make him stop. I want her to kill him.”

“Go on.”

“She comes for me, and I’m so glad. And then he shoots, and she’s bleeding, there’s so much blood…oh god, there’s so much blood…”

Catherine pushed back in her chair, as if pushing away the images, breathing rapidly, struggling to erase the vivid memories. “It was my fault.”

“No, Catherine,” Hazel said firmly. “It was the fault of the man who pulled the trigger, and I suspect you know that. I’ll wager that’s not much help, though, is it?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“I know. We’re going to need more time than we have tonight to talk about why you feel that you’re to blame. What I’m more interested in right now is a quick fix so you can get some rest.”

Catherine smiled. “Such heresy.”

“Fortunately, no one will ever know,” she replied with a grin. “How do you feel about medication?”

“I’d rather hold off for now,” Catherine responded. “I was hoping it would be better when she was better. But it isn’t. It’s worse.”

“How is she?”

“Recovering well. Chomping at the bit to get back to work.”

“She intends to resume active duty?” Hazel asked noncommittally, watching Catherine carefully.

“Yes. The minute she’s able.”

“And there’s no possibility she would change her mind…if you asked?”

“No, and I couldn’t ask her. She loves being a cop. It’s more than a job; it’s who she is.”

“So, she’ll be on the streets again soon.”

“Yes.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

Catherine stared at her. Finally she admitted, “It terrifies me.”

“I should think it would. I don’t need to tell you about the fear that every partner of someone in a life-threatening occupation lives with on a daily basis. And you have not only that general anxiety to contend with, you have the actual experience of witnessing her almost die in the course of doing her job.” She shrugged. “You need to give yourself a break.”

“That’s it? That’s your medical opinion?” Despite herself, she was smiling.

“In a nutshell, yes. That and the fact that you need to see me on a regular schedule for the time being. If your detective intends to go back to work, I suspect there’ll be some things you need to sort out.”

“I know,” Catherine said quietly. If she and Rebecca were to have any future together, she would have to accept the fact that every time Rebecca walked out the door, it might be for the last time. She would have to learn to say goodbye, and she wasn’t at all sure that she could.

CHAPTER TWO

CATHERINE WATCHED REBECCA pack with a sense of loss. It had taken her by surprise when after breakfast that morning Rebecca had announced that it was time for her to move back to her own apartment, before “the super rents it out from under me.” That excuse was so thin Catherine could practically see it hanging in the air between them like a curtain of smoke. The news shouldn’t have been unanticipated, because in the last week the detective had improved dramatically; nevertheless, Catherine’s first response had been one of disappointment. It was an occupational hazard to ask herself why, especially when she was elated to see her recovering so quickly, and as she leaned against the dresser watching Rebecca carefully fold jeans and T-shirts into a duffle, she struggled for perspective.

Too many conflicting emotions, that’s all it is. Things will settle down in a week or two. As soon as I get used to the fact that she’s all right, I won’t feel as if my world is teetering on the brink of disaster . She jumped as the sound of the bag’s zipper rasping closed cut sharply through the silence, a knife severing ties with heartless finality. “I’ll miss you.”

Surprised, Rebecca looked up, a crease between her brows. “I’m not planning on going anywhere. But I can’t stay here any longer.”

Why not? But Catherine knew why not. Her heart might not, but her head did. Too soon. We’ve spent most of our time together in crisis mode, and that kind of intensity can push things too quickly. We need time to know one another better. There are far too many secrets still to tell .

“I don’t want us to end up practically living together by accident,” Rebecca continued, placing her bag by the bedroom door. You might discover you’ve made a mistake. You might decide I’m not relationship material, just like the others did when they spent enough time with me. She slipped on a dark gray blended silk blazer and automatically reached under the left side to adjust her shoulder holster. Of course it wasn’t there, and wouldn’t be until she was no longer on medical leave and had re-qualified on the range. Some rule from the City Council about preventing impaired police officers from having access to service weapons. Impaired. Its absence was a constant reminder that she was not herself. At least they hadn’t taken her shield. The weight of the slim leather case in the inner pocket was some comfort; small comfort perhaps, but a reassurance that she would be whole again. And soon. Today I start getting my life back. “Especially not because you were taking care of me.”

“I was hardly taking care of you. You barely tolerated me cooking dinner every night without trying to do the dishes before you could even stand upright. I don’t consider grocery shopping and a few loads of laundry a hardship. Skilled nursing it was not.” Smiling to herself, Catherine thought about the two weeks she had taken off to spend with Rebecca after her discharge form the hospital and realized that they were two of the most relaxing weeks she’d had in months. Vacations had become a rarity for her between trying to juggle private practice with her university teaching responsibilities. They’d watched a dozen movies on DVD, discovered that they shared a passion for screwball comedies, and managed to actually complete the Sunday Times crossword puzzle together—a first time for them both. Solitary and private by nature, she had never shared that much of her life with anyone before, other than her parents, and that had been far in the past. It had been surprisingly easy. “Besides, I liked it.”

“So did I,” Rebecca said softly, quickly crossing the bedroom to her side. She lifted Catherine’s chin in her palm, searching her eyes. “I like a whole lot of things about being with you—having dinner with you, unwinding with you, and especially being there when you wake up.” She blew out a breath, searching for the words to explain that she didn’t want to build a relationship on the foundation of her own weakness. Finally she said, “When things are back to normal, I’ll feel like I deserve you.”

“What makes you think you don’t already?” Catherine asked, knowing even as she spoke the words that Rebecca would only feel worthwhile if she were also a cop. “There isn’t some test you have to pass with me, Rebecca. You don’t have to qualify at anything to be cared about.”