«Alec.» She mirrored his gesture, sliding her hand under the back of his neck. «Trusting someone, sharing yourself… It’s a risk, not one anyone has to take, but the alternative is a terribly lonely one.»
«I know.» With her lips so close to his, it was easy to kiss her. Slow, deep. He stopped fighting for words that would never come out right, that would never be articulate enough to give voice to things that weren’t very human. Instead he felt it all, and knew she’d understand.
Carmen made a soft noise and smiled against his lips. «Me too.»
There was a crazy sort of peace in a woman who knew his heart, even the dark places, and still wanted to kiss him.
Chapter Sixteen
Julio protested as he coasted to a stop in an empty parking spot along the curb. «We’re already late, Car.»
«This’ll just take a second,» she promised, already unbuckling her seat belt. «I promised Franklin I’d drop these papers off yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance.» She’d been too busy trying to figure out how to approach the situation when she confronted her father and her uncle.
«You know Cesar. Any excuse to say you’re disrespecting him.»
Carmen wished she could deny it outright, but part of her relished the opportunity to make him wait, wanted to seize it. «He deserves a little inconvenience, especially on the clinic’s behalf.»
Julio drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. «You want me to come in with you?» She flashed him a forbidding look, and he laughed. «Fine, I’ll stay here.»
«Thank you. I don’t need someone holding my hand every second of every day.»
«Is Franklin even still here?»
«His office light’s on.» It glowed through the frosted window at the back of the building. «His car’s still here too.»
«Lily must have stopped by after work to keep him company.» He nodded through the windshield to the dark-gray BMW parked around the corner.
«Don’t worry, I won’t get stuck talking.» Though it wouldn’t hurt to let Lily know that Alec had invited her over, so she didn’t plan on being home for the weekend.
«You’re blushing.» Her brother’s eyes narrowed. «Why are you—? Oh God, I don’t want to know, do I?»
«Shut up.» She climbed out of the car and bent inside for her bag. «I’ll be right back.»
The street was quiet even for the late hour, but there never was much traffic on the nights when the clinic closed early. Even Franklin should have been home already, but Cesar’s complaints and harassment had lengthened his already considerable workdays.
Carmen’s heels clicked on the sidewalk, and she smoothed her palm over the lightweight fabric of her pantsuit. She’d wanted to attend the meeting in her grungiest jeans, but she had to be reasonable. More than reasonable, because she and Julio had to pick up the slack left over from their uncle’s irrational behavior. It left no room for pettiness, justified or no.
She stumbled and barely caught her balance. At first, she thought she must have tripped over jagged concrete or broken a heel, but a wave of emotion crashed over her a second later, nothing short of mind-numbing, inescapable terror.
She stood there under the streetlight, trying to make sense of the fear holding her riveted to the spot, knees shaking. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth, though she couldn’t tell if she’d bitten her tongue or if something more sinister was happening, if her body was ripping apart from the inside.
A car horn blared, familiar. Her own. Then Julio’s voice, barely cutting through her petrified haze. «Carmen! Carmen, get dow—»
The glass doors of the clinic exploded with a roar that drowned out her own heartbeat. Time stopped, seconds stretching into a strangely frozen moment where everything was silence, the concussed hush of eardrums under so much pressure they can’t even conduct noise. Her mind catalogued it and marveled even as broken shards rained down, cutting through the stillness.
A weight jerked her to the ground. Julio. He grabbed at her, and she realized she was flailing, trying to crawl across the glass-strewn walk.
«You can’t go in,» he yelled. «There could be structural damage. We have to wait for the fire department—»
If he’d survived the explosion without life-threatening injury, Franklin might be fine. But Lily… «She won’t make it. I have to, Julio.»
«No.» He dug his phone out of his pocket and put it in her hand, folding her numb fingers around it. «Call 911. I’ll find them.»
«Julio—»
«I’m trained, Carmen.» His voice was steady, even. «I’ll find them, and I’ll come get you.»
She swallowed her protest and nodded. «Be careful.»
It took her two tries to dial the numbers, and she answered the dispatcher’s questions in a fog, her gaze fixed on the dark hole that used to be the clinic’s entrance.
An eternity passed before Julio reappeared, dusty and coughing. «I found Franklin.»
She was on her feet already, the phone forgotten in the grass. «Is he—?»
«He’s hurt, bad. Come on.» He led her through the clinic, a path already picked out among the glass and debris. «There’s no fire, but I’m not sure how stable the building is. I’d have brought him out, but shit.»
Franklin was on his back, eyes open and feverishly clear in spite of the bloody mess of his body. «Lily. Where is she?»
«I’m going to find her,» Julio promised, already moving down the hallway. «If you need me, yell.»
Carmen ripped at Franklin’s shirt. «What hurts? Your legs?»
«Eight-seven-zero—» He coughed, air rattling in his chest. «Write this…Sera’s number. No one else knows.»
You call her. The words wouldn’t come. There wasn’t always a chance, and insisting there was didn’t help. «I’ll remember it. Eight-seven-zero,» she prompted.
He delivered the rest of the phone number in a relieved whisper. «I’ve never called her. I was afraid — afraid he’d move them if he knew I’d found her.»
Franklin lay in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. His best chance — his only chance — was for her to stop it. Carmen repeated Sera’s phone number like a mantra as she shoved a filing cabinet out of the way and dragged open the supply closet. Pressure bandages and an IV, and the rest—
The rest would have to wait.
She dropped the supplies beside Franklin and began to cut open the legs of his jeans. «Tell me about Sera.»
«Her mother left when she five.» One of Franklin’s hands curled into a fist. «I was no good at raising a little girl.»
«You were there.» The superficial wounds on his legs had already begun to heal, but the bones beneath them were misshapen. They’d heal badly and have to be broken again, reset, but she couldn’t help that. «Where does Sera live?»
«Arkansas.» He hissed in a pained breath and started to lift his shoulders. «Lily — I need to find her.»
Altered mental status. Carmen pushed him back down, firm but easy. «My brother’s looking for her, remember? Julio. Did I tell you he’s a firefighter?»
Franklin’s brow furrowed, but he relented. «Sera’s in Arkansas,» he whispered. «The bastard she married took her there when she was seventeen. Getting the law involved was too dangerous.»
Too dangerous because they asked too many questions — and she’d just called 911. «Shit.» She hadn’t dealt with an emergency in New Orleans that hadn’t been funneled through Franklin first. As far as she knew, he was the one everyone called when they needed a doctor.
So what happens when the EMTs show up and load him up? What happens when they watch him heal under their hands like he is yours?