“I wouldn’t have married him eight years ago,” Lincoln said. “He was the worst student I’ve ever had.”
“Hey!”
“Loud, always interrupting, always had to be the center of attention.” None of that was a lie. “Hard to handle in a full class.”
“Which was why I had to be so loud. So you’d see me.”
“Oh, I saw you.” Lincoln cut his eyes to Carter and snagged on the earnest expression that had wiped away the agent’s usual smirk. Wait. Did he actually mean that, or was this part of the performance? It sure as fuck didn’t look like a lie, and Lincoln hadn’t been lying before either. Was this Carter’s honest response? And what did it mean? Heat flared in Lincoln’s chest and warmth crept up his neck again, on the way to searing his cheeks. As acutely as he felt it, everyone else must have seen it too. The swoony collective sigh from across the table confirmed as much. Cover sold, intentionally or not.
“How’d you reconnect?” Jennifer asked, a dreamy quality to her voice.
“Carter called me with a particular research question. Asked for a meet.”
“I’m glad you accepted.” Carter tore his gaze away, aiming it back across the table, and Lincoln’s mortification at having been caught staring, still, made him blush harder. “I heard him play his guitar about two months after that meet. Proposed on the spot.”
And the sighs got louder. But it was the bucket of ice water Lincoln needed to snap out of the land of impossibilities. Just in time too as Barry was back on the case.
“You gonna be doing some research here?” he asked. “I assume they’re not paying you to just stack books.”
“Yes, it’s a bit more than that,” Lincoln said with a chuckle. “I’m studying population migration in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Apex has some of the best-kept archives in the region.”
Barry’s stern face broke into a wide smile. “That’d be my brother Harry’s doing.” But then the grin dimmed. “He worked at the library before you. Passed last year.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Lincoln said, meaning it. Clearly, Barry had been proud of his brother and felt his loss.
“Thank you.” Apparently satisfied—or sufficiently mollified—for the time being, Barry extended his big paw to Lincoln. “You got any questions, just ask. I’ve got a list of Harry’s passwords somewhere, and I’ve been around these parts longer than most.”
“Thanks, Barry,” Carter said, returning the shake Barry offered him next.
Beneath the table, Carter’s knee knocked against Lincoln’s, and when Barry turned back toward the kitchen, Carter flashed him a victorious smile. They’d survived that speed bump, even managed to connect with a potentially valuable resource. But the victory was short-lived.
“You know,” Susanne said, “the church accompanist has taken ill.”
ABORT.
“So, Jennifer,” Lincoln said, “tell us how you and Susanne met?”
She grinned and looked fondly at her thankfully stymied wife. “It’s not as swoony as yours, but it’s still a pretty good story.”
Carter bumped his knee again, then lowered his face to Lincoln’s shoulder, pretending to drop a kiss there, but Lincoln felt the tremors of his laughter. Green eyes twinkled up at him and the mischief in them worried Lincoln. More than a little.
Five
Carter waited until they were halfway across the snow-dusted quad, far enough away from the car that Lincoln wouldn’t bolt, before he brought up the thing his partner least wanted to hear. “You need to play at the church service.”
Lincoln rounded on him mid-step, teetering only slightly on the slick walkway. “Absolutely not.”
“Back there at the café, you changed the subject awfully fast.”
“Your point?” Lincoln snapped.
“I said it already. You need to play that service. From what I can tell, there are three main gathering places in Apex and other small towns like it. School, which we’ve got covered, the local watering hole, which we visited this morning, and . . .”
“Church,” Lincoln grumbled.
“Exactly. So, what’s the problem?”
“I’m an atheist,” Lincoln answered. “And extremely opposed politically and philosophically to organized religion.”
