“Local lockup, pending the federal prosecutor’s decision on charges. They may kick them to state courts.”
“I’ll have the rest of my reports filed before the end of the weekend. I’ll be back to testify as needed.” He moved to turn over, but Lincoln’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“Damn it, Carter, talk to me.” He lowered himself onto the bed, next to Carter’s hip. “What’s going on here?”
Words escaped. “You have a whole other life to get back to.”
“Yes, but I like our life here too.”
Carter’s chest tightened, and his eyes burned. “Jesus, you’re breaking my heart, Professor.”
“And mine’s not?” Lincoln half shouted, half croaked.
Red streaked across his cheeks and Carter immediately knew how much that admission had cost him. He pushed off the headboard, narrowing the distance between them, and took Lincoln’s hands in his, rubbing his thumb over the ring on Lincoln’s finger. “This isn’t our life here, as much as we might want it to be.”
Lincoln gave a watery chuckle. “Is this a common UC problem? Did I totally fail?” He lifted a hand and swiped at his eyes. “You were not a variable I planned for.”
Carter laughed too, then leaned his forehead against Lincoln’s. “If you failed, so did I.” How could he not? He’d gotten the chance he’d wanted for eight years, and it had been better than he imagined. And more complicated than he’d imagined. “You’ve got a family back in DC that you’re rightfully protective of, and I’m still trying to find mine.”
“What if I want to be that, for you?”
Warmth burst from the hard knot in Carter’s chest, flowing out through his veins. He wanted to roll around in it, savor it, belong in it, but he wasn’t sure he could trust it as much as he wanted to. “We can’t decide that right now, L. Not after everything we’ve been through. Let’s get some distance. See if we still feel the same when I come back to town for the trial.”
“I don’t—” Lincoln cut himself off, then took a deep breath and drew Professor Monroe up to the surface. The same confident man who’d strutted past him into the house a week ago. “I can help you find them. Your family. This is what I do. What I’m good at. Will you let me help you?”
“Why?”
“Totally selfish reasons. You need to find your family before you can become part of mine. And Carter, what I said before holds. No matter what we find, it won’t change how I feel about you. I want a shot at this for real.”
Carter trusted that, believed it down to his bones, and it was a powerful antidote to the fear that had driven him his whole life. A shift in his frame of reference. It still mattered, he still needed to know who he was, but this man, the future he offered, made the prospect of the truth he might find so much less frightening. There was no one else he’d rather have help him.
“Okay,” he said, then captured Lincoln’s lips. Indulged in the kiss they’d been avoiding for days, the one that had them falling back on the bed and diving deeper with tongues and touches. Rolling around in that warmth that was so damn tempting and addictive. Except Carter was working at a double disadvantage, one arm down and fighting a battle against medicated exhaustion that even lust couldn’t overcome.
Lincoln knew it too, drawing back with a wicked yet resigned smile. “You’re fading fast, aren’t you?”
Carter hung his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Lincoln gently pushed him back onto the pillows. “I read your chart. That nurse gave you some good shit. It’s amazing you’re still awake at all. Get some rest. We’ll game plan before we leave tomorrow.” He started to rise, and Carter caught his wrist.
“Stay with me.” He rubbed his thumb over Lincoln’s hammering pulse. “I’d like to spend a night with my husband in my one good arm, in our house.”
Lincoln blushed furiously, and Carter knew without a doubt he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his favorite professor. Once they figured out what that life was.
“I’d like that.” Lincoln leaned forward and dropped a soft kiss on his lips. “Let me go change, check in with Elena, then I’ll be back up.”
Carter nodded, already half asleep, drifting further that direction as Lincoln helped him under the covers. He was almost the rest of the way there when Lincoln slid in beside him several minutes later.
Nestling against his side, Lincoln slung a leg over Carter’s and laid a hand over his where it rested on his chest. “You bought these rings, didn’t you?”
Carter wrapped his good arm around his back, holding him tighter and burying his nose in gold and silver, and spoke the truth. “I did. In Roanoke. Less than an hour after I’d convinced Beverley to assign you to the case.”
Lincoln chuckled, and Carter fell asleep happier than he’d ever been, feeling, for the first time in his life, like he was exactly where he belonged.
Twenty-Two
“Did you get it?”
Lincoln looked up from the photos and records scattered across his kitchen table to his daughter standing in the mudroom doorway, trophy in one hand, sports bag in the other. “You won?”
