Page 14 of Taken from Her (Phoenix Ridge Police Department #4)

T he alarm never came.

Diana woke to gentle movement beneath her—the houseboat's rhythm she'd never experienced from bed, water lapping against the hull like a lullaby. Morning light filtered through portholes, casting moving patterns across a ceiling that wasn't hers, salt air drifting through cracked windows.

Saffron stretched across both women's ankles while Basil claimed the space between Diana's shoulder and the wall, his purr vibrating through her ribs. Everything felt foreign yet deeply right, even though she hadn't woken up with someone in nearly five years.

Lavender lay beside her, silvery hair spilled across the pillow, face relaxed in sleep. Diana found herself studying details she'd missed during their passion's urgency: the small scar above Lavender's left eyebrow, how her fingers curled against the mattress as if trying to hold on to her dreams.

Her analytical mind tried to categorize what had happened. Stress relief? Crisis attraction? But her body's contentment argued with rationalization, and she realized she didn't want to reduce last night to simple physical need.

This felt like something that mattered.

Her phone buzzed—two texts from dispatch and Detective Rivers. The real world intruding on her sanctuary.

Diana extracted herself from bed quietly, moving to the galley kitchen where everything was compact but thoughtful: herbs in window boxes and handmade mugs reflecting the morning light. She made coffee with careful attention, the domestic act feeling surprisingly natural.

"You're up early," Lavender's voice came from the doorway, soft and sleep-roughened.

Diana turned, noting the oversized sweater that fell past Lavender's thighs, her hair tousled. "Force of habit."

"Sleep okay?" Lavender moved into the galley with easy grace.

"Better than I have in years." The honesty surprised Diana.

They prepared breakfast together in the compact space, movements gradually synchronizing. Lavender added vanilla to Diana's coffee while Diana buttered toast, marveling at how natural it felt.

"This is nice," Diana admitted, gesturing at the easy domesticity around them. "I don't usually linger. Morning is usually coffee and case files, then get to the station before anyone else."

"And today?"

"Today I'm wondering why I've spent so many mornings alone."

Diana's phone buzzed—Detective Julia Scott calling. Reality reasserted itself as Diana answered, her posture straightening automatically.

"Chief, sorry to call early. Morgan's found patterns in the analysis, and we've got three new tipline calls about coastal trail activity."

Through the phone, Diana heard the station coming to life. Her other world, pulling her back.

"I'll be there in thirty minutes."

"Actually, Chief? Last night's meeting worked. We're getting real cooperation now. People are calling us instead of just talking amongst themselves."

Diana glanced at Lavender, who quietly cleaned dishes while pretending not to listen. "Good. That's progress."

When she hung up, the spell of morning peace had broken.

"You need to go," Lavender said.

"I do." Diana stood, immediately missing the warmth. "Last night?—"

"Was wonderful. And complicated." Lavender moved closer. "But that doesn't make it wrong."

"I don't know how to balance this with everything else."

"Then we figure it out as we go. Just...possibility."

Diana felt something tight in her chest loosen. "Possibility."

Another text buzzed. Time was running out.

"Tonight?" Diana asked.

"Yes. Text me when you can."

Diana kissed her, brief but thorough.

"Go," Lavender whispered against her lips. "Before I convince you to stay."

Diana gathered her uniform, and after she got dressed, Lavender handed her a travel mug. "Complicated coffee for a complicated morning."

"Thank you. For reminding me that mornings can be more than preparation for battle."

On the deck, Diana paused and watched as the mist lifted off the water while fishing boats headed out for early runs. Phoenix Ridge looked different through the lens of personal happiness.

"Diana?" Lavender's voice followed her. "Be careful today. Come back to me tonight, okay?"

When was the last time someone had asked her to come back to them?

"I will," Diana promised, meaning it.

Walking to her patrol car, Diana caught herself checking the rearview mirror for one last glimpse of the houseboat. For the first time in her career, she had something, and someone, worth coming home to.

The coffee warmed her hands, and despite everything waiting at the station, Diana found herself smiling.

Possibility. Maybe that was enough to start with.

The patrol car felt like a tomb. Diana closed the door and immediately missed everything she’d just left: the gentle rocking beneath her feet, Lavender’s voice still rough with sleep, the way the morning light had made everything softer around the edges.

Here, surrounded by radio equipment and endless paperwork, the world snapped back into hard angles and institutional efficiency.

She started the engine, noting how her hands moved through familiar motions while her mind remained anchored to the houseboat’s galley kitchen.

Twenty minutes ago, she’d been buttering toast in someone else’s space, marveling at how natural it felt.

Now, she sat encased in steel and authority, the distance between those two realities feeling impossible to bridge.

Diana pulled away from the harbor, and Phoenix Ridge stretched before her, but something fundamental had shifted in how she saw it.

The Victorian houses climbing the hillsides weren’t just addresses on incident reports anymore; they were homes where people built lives together and created sanctuaries like the one she’d just experienced.

The coffee shops weren’t just businesses to patrol, but gathering places where community happened over shared meals and conversations.

When had she stopped seeing the humanity in the city she’d sworn to protect?

Diana drove her usual route to the station, but everything looked slightly different.

A couple walked their dog along the sidewalk, the woman’s hand resting on her partner’s arm with a casual intimacy that Diana had rarely ever noticed before.

An elderly woman tended her garden while her neighbor called a greeting over the fence, their easy familiarity speaking to years of shared mornings and mutual care.

She’d been moving through this community for years without truly seeing it. Professional distance had made her effective, yes, but it had also made her blind to the very people she was meant to protect.

The radio crackled with routine dispatch traffic: a domestic disturbance on Maple Street, a traffic violation near the elementary school, and a wellness check requested on Harbor View Drive.

The same calls that had structured her days for over fifteen years, but today they held a deeper meaning.

Today, she could imagine the people behind the addresses, the lives unfolding in spaces that looked like Lavender’s houseboat—intimate, carefully built, and worth protecting, not just as duty but as something precious.

Diana’s chest tightened as the weight of unsolved cases pressed against her newfound contentment.

Three women were still missing. Tara, Isabel, Joanna—faces that haunted her dreams, lives interrupted by someone who understood this community well enough to hunt within it.

While she’d been discovering what it felt like to wake up next to someone who cared whether she came home safely, three families were waking up to empty beds and unanswered questions.

The guilt should have been crushing. Instead, Diana found herself thinking about what Lavender had said: “Don’t lose yourself in the case. Come back to me tonight.”

When was the last time someone had remembered she existed outside her badge and responsibilities?

Her ex-girlfriend Claire had tried near the end.

“You disappear into those cases,” she’d said during their final argument.

“You care more about protecting strangers than building something with me.” Diana had defended her dedication and insisted that her work required complete focus.

That emotional distance kept her objective.

But sitting in her patrol car with the taste of coffee still lingering, Diana wondered if Claire had been right. Not about caring more for strangers, but about disappearing and using professional duty as a shield against the vulnerability that came with letting someone matter.

The station’s parking lot appeared ahead, its gray concrete and marked spaces that looked sterile after the organic curves of the harbor docks. Diana pulled into her designated spot, the painted letters “Chief of Police” announcing her authority to everyone.

She sat for a moment, engine idling, staring at the building where she’d build her reputation on competence and emotional control. Three weeks of investigation by the book had yielded nothing. Three weeks of professional distance had left the community terrified and her team frustrated.

But one night of letting Lavender past her walls had already changed how she saw everything.

Diana’s phone buzzed with another text from Detective Rivers: Preliminary analysis ready for review. The patterns are interesting.

Real progress, finally. The community cooperation Julia had mentioned was already bearing fruit. And that change had started when Diana herself stopped being just Chief Marten and allowed herself to be human in front of people who needed to trust her.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. Years of professional training had taught her that emotional investment compromised judgment and personal connections made her less effective.

But the evidence suggested the opposite: caring more deeply about the people she protected was making her better at actually protecting them.