Mary Nealy - Ten Plagues

“Francis isn’t here.”

Paul lifted Keren away from the dead man and pulled her into his arms.

“Be careful of her arm,” O’Shea shouted.

Higgins was calling for an ambulance.

Paul carefully picked her up and strode out of the room.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and cried.

Keren still couldn’t stand the thought of going back to her apartment, and she hadn’t had any luck finding a new one, so she worked all day and kept long hours at night with LaToya. The coma wasn’t as deep as before and LaToya occasionally stirred and responded to sound without fully waking up, but Keren hoped and prayed it would happen soon.

Keren’s arm, where the chisel had stabbed her, was healing.

The lieutenant had put her on sick leave, but she’d prevailed on him to let her do something, using the argument that she would go out of her ever-loving mind if she didn’t keep busy.

For now she was assigned to desk duty. She’d been forbidden from anything active until her doctor released her.

The long days and short nights caught up with her as she kept her bedside vigil.

“Keren?”

Keren’s eyes flickered open. Her vision was filled with Paul. She hadn’t seen him for days.

“How’s the arm?” His movements as gentle as his voice, he lowered himself into the chair beside Keren.

“Fine, if I’m careful.”

“Which you never are.” Paul sounded grumpy, but he didn’t have much room to talk. He’d stayed with her at the hospital until she’d been treated, then he’d vanished. It had been four days.

Keren straightened in her chair and ran a hand over her face in case she’d been drooling in her sleep. She couldn’t imagine what a mess her hair must be.

Which reminded her… “You put a tracking device in my hair tie?”

“Yeah.” He smirked, completely unrepentant.

“Why didn’t you just tell me it was there? Why the sneaking around?”

“You’re stubborn, and it was pretty obvious that Caldwell had decided to come for you and Rosita at some point. I gave Rosie the necklace and told her to keep it on at all times.”

“Why didn’t you do that for me?”

“I didn’t trust you. You’re kind of bent on taking care of yourself.”

“When did you put it on me?”

“That morning.” Paul rubbed both hands over his face. “I thought I had time. I knew you were at risk, but I was being a coward. I was hiding. I had the tracker, but I hadn’t even given it to you yet. I almost left it too late.”

“Just that morning?” Keren’s eyes narrowed. “When you kissed me? You kissed me as an excuse to get close enough to—”

“No, I didn’t kiss you for any other reason than because I wanted to. But I’d intended to get it to you somehow that day. I’d have just flat out told you if I couldn’t figure out a way to sneak it into your barrette. I had it made so it matched one of the pins that held the barrette in.”

“Why didn’t you have one on?”

“I did.”

She fell silent at that and stared and thought how much she’d missed his faith and support, and even his strange split personality.

“What?” he asked.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You smiled.”

“Oh, did I?” Keren said in a sleep-roughened voice. “I was just thinking of Pastor Jekyll and Detective Hyde.”

Paul furrowed his brow. “Who?”

“You. How are you doing with your split personality? Did you get yourself back? Did you ever figure out who ‘yourself’ is?”

Paul sprawled back in his chair. “It took some doing. I spent days in prayer, trying to rediscover the calm, unselfish Pastor P.”

“Any luck?” Keren knew she couldn’t be with the calm, unselfish Pastor P. Her life would destroy him. And she didn’t want to be with Paul the cop. He was a jerk.

Paul leaned forward to brace his forearms on his knees and turned his head sideways to look at her. “I never exactly found him. I don’t know for sure if I really wanted to.”

“Why not?” Keren crossed her arms and relaxed back into her chair with her legs stretched out in front of her.

Paul quit looking at her and stared at the floor between his splayed knees. “I refuse to believe that Pastor P wasn’t real. He was. I needed to serve with my whole heart for a while after I left the police force. But all this taught me there is strength in my anger. You remember when I came charging into that room with you and Caldwell?”

“Yes, my knight in shining armor, racing to my rescue.” Keren grinned.

Paul turned to look at her with a squinty-eyed glare. “Except Higgins got there first. Higgins saved you—what a grandstander.”

“I kind of like him. I mean, he did save my life.”

Paul shook his head. “I had your gun.”

“I noticed.”

“I picked it up in that room where you dropped it.”

“Excuse me,” Keren said with a stern frown. “It was knocked out of my hands. I would never drop my gun.”

Paul nodded and tried to look serious. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t forget it,” she growled.

“I wanted to use it. I was frantic, furious, completely insane worrying about you.”

“Poor baby.”

“And on the way to rescue you, O’Shea gave me a little talking to about how terrific you were and how deeply you embraced your faith.”

“O’Shea said all that?” She thought of her taciturn partner.

“Well, yeah. He said it in about five words, with a lot of grunting, but I got the message.”

“That sounds like him,” Keren said fondly.

“Anyway he said enough. And I knew the truth of those words I’d said so many times, ‘To live is Christ and to die is gain.’ I gave you up to God. I quit worrying. We still drove at top speed, don’t get me wrong. But the point is, I still felt all the strength of my anger, but it wasn’t out of control. I need to respect it, even use it once in a while. I had finally healed enough that I could quit fearing that part of myself.”

“I’m glad.” Keren leaned forward until she rested her forearms on her knees in a replica of Paul’s pose. She turned her head to look at him. They were inches apart.

He erased those inches when he kissed her.

A very sweet minute later, Paul said, “You did lean close like that so I could kiss you, right?”

“Right,” Keren whispered.

“The thing is, I’m always going to run the Lighthouse. It’s a calling, and I can’t turn my back on it.”

Keren nodded. “And I’m always going to be a cop. It’s a calling,

and I can’t turn my back on it.”

“But I wouldn’t necessarily have to live above the shelter. There’s a really beautiful little Christian school about three miles from the mission. I’d like our kids to go there. And if we lived close to the school, that’d be more convenient.”

Keren’s smile widened until she laughed just a little. She never took her eyes off him. She was afraid if she blinked, her dreams might disappear.

He laughed back, just a little, and he kept his eyes on her, too.

“If that is a marriage proposal, it’s the worst one I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh yeah? Well, how many of them have you heard?”

She waited and watched and loved. “A couple. One was really romantic.”

“The guy who dumped you when he found out you had a spiritual gift he didn’t like?”

“Yeah.”

Paul arched one eyebrow. “A lot of good all his romance did you. You want poetry? Marry Robert Frost.”

“I don’t want him, I want you.”

Paul reached across the inches between them and clasped her hand in his. He looked at her until she felt like he had taken her inside of himself. He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I love you, Keren. I’ve been waiting until I got myself centered in my faith before I came to talk to you.”