elly stood off to the side, his hands stuffed in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to jump in and help. The bullet that had hit Nick had punched clean through the muscle over his ribs, right above another bullet graze he’d received recently, and along with the massive Y-shaped incision from his recent surgery, Nick’s torso was going to be more scar than skin after this. Knowing Nick, he’d turn those scars into some sort of tattoo eventually.
The wound probably wasn’t too serious, but the loss of blood meant they were loading him onto a stretcher and preparing to put him into one of the ambulances standing by.
JD hadn’t fared quite as well. The kidnapper with the Boston accent had shot him as they’d struggled, and while the bullet had gone all the way through, it had clipped some vital pieces on its way out. They’d loaded him into an ambulance and taken him off with a police escort before Kelly and Nick had even gotten out of the building.
Alex Kincade, who really was who she’d said she was this time, was cooperating with all the questioning she’d been submitted to so far. She’d been legally contracted to find the whereabouts of the treasure. Kelly felt sort of sorry for the fact that she was out of a job now. Her colleague, Colin, had showed up five minutes after it’d all gone down with a tray of coffees. They obviously hadn’t been expecting trouble.
Hagan was grilling the Irish kidnapper in the back of his unmarked car. Kelly thought Hagan was telling the man he’d only send someone into the house to find the fingers Nick had shot off if he talked, but Kelly was trying hard not to listen since he was pretty sure that wasn’t legal.
Julian Cross and Cameron Jacobs were in the wind. Kelly had a feeling they wouldn’t be seeing either man again.
Soon enough, Nick was being wheeled over to the ambulance, and Kelly jogged over to take his hand as they negotiated the curb.
Nick shook his head, obviously knowing Kelly was trying to come up with something nice and cheerful to distract him with.
“When we were in New Orleans and I took that bullet,” Kelly said, like he was starting a bedtime story. “All I remember is you leaning over me and asking me what to do.”
Nick snorted and squeezed his eyes tight. The stretcher jostled him and he winced. “That was Digger, Kels.”
“Was it?” Kelly laughed. “All I remember is you. And the only thing I could think to tell you was don’t let go. Don’t let go of me. That’s all I could say.”
Nick opened his eyes, meeting Kelly’s as his grip on Kelly’s fingers turned almost painful. “You never said that, Doc.”
Kelly blinked. “I didn’t?”
“You couldn’t say anything. You tried.”
Kelly waited a beat, brow furrowed. “I always thought I got it out because… you held on to me the whole time.” He glanced up as they neared the ambulance. When he looked back down, Nick’s eyes were on him, that same smitten, indulgent gaze Kelly had grown accustomed to over the past year. His hand tightened in Nick’s. “I thought I said it. You never let go of me.”
“I couldn’t,” Nick gasped. Kelly didn’t know if he was in pain or if the memory of Kelly’s near-death experience in New Orleans was overwhelming him. “I couldn’t let go of you, Kels.”
Kelly struggled to swallow, nodding and holding back the urge to cry. He squeezed Nick’s hand harder. “Neither will I.”
He had to, though, to let the EMTs load Nick into the ambulance. Kelly followed them to the hospital in the Range Rover, his mind tossing and turning over the events of the day.
Had they really just tracked down a centuries old treasure? Was it possible the Continental payroll was more than merely gold bars, that it was really a missing Masonic treasure trove? His mind was reeling with the possibilities, but all he really wanted was to get to Nick. He’d go over the implications of the past few days later, when he knew Nick was okay.
When he finally found Nick in the hospital, he was already sitting up and bitching because they’d cut his shirt off him.
“It had a bullet hole in it,” the nurse argued.
“It was a graze!” Nick shouted.
She rolled her eyes as she left the room, nodding to Kelly when she passed.
“You’re running out of spare clothes, babe,” Kelly said with a relieved grin. If Nick could bitch about his clothes, he was doing just fine, despite his so-called “graze” actually being a through-and-through. They had an IV in him, probably with pain medication in there, and they were giving him a transfusion for the blood he’d lost.
“I want to go home,” Nick grunted.
Kelly strolled into the room, nodding to placate him. “Soon. Get a little more blood in you first, huh?”
Nick didn’t say anything. He reached out when Kelly got close, grabbed a handful of his hair, and pulled him into a ruthless kiss. He left Kelly panting when their lips parted, and Nick closed his eyes, sighing as if he’d been holding his breath until he could get Kelly into his hands.
Kelly took him by both shoulders and forced him to recline. “Faster you get this over with, faster we’ll go home. Promise.”
Nick nodded, his eyes staying closed.
Kelly sat on the edge of his bed, reading the medications labels, trying to just be a worried lover rather than a worried SARC for once. He leaned over Nick and pressed his forehead to Nick’s, closing his eyes. He didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but when a PA came in to check Nick’s stitches and vitals, it was dark outside.
Despite the doctor’s advice, Nick demanded that he be allowed to go home, claiming Kelly was perfectly capable of keeping an eye on him overnight. They had no choice but to let him check himself out, and Kelly knew Nick too well to argue against it.
Kelly helped him to his feet, and Nick hugged him close, pressing his face against Kelly’s cheek. “Take me home,” he whispered.
Kelly nodded jerkily. He wrapped his arm around Nick’s waist, letting him rest some weight on him as he helped him over to the wheelchair.
Once Nick was in the passenger seat of the Range Rover, Kelly hopped behind the wheel. Nick was silent on the drive home, keeping his eyes shut as Kelly struggled with the GPS. He finally got it to work and headed for the route home, glancing at Nick worriedly.
“Hey,” he said. He reached over the console and touched Nick’s thigh. “You should be proud of yourself. You found a two-hundred-year-old missing treasure today.”
Nick chuckled softly, the sound sending a chill up Kelly’s spine. He opened his eyes and sighed. “No, I didn’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Kelly took his eyes off the road long enough to look at Nick. “You were faking it?”
“Yep.” Nick closed his eyes and sighed again. “No idea where that treasure is. I know where it’s not, though.”
“Where?”
“It’s not under that monument. Redcoats didn’t dig that grave; they never stopped to bury the rebel dead. It’s not there.”
Kelly stared at him for so long he almost ran off the road. “Huh.”
“What?”
“You had me going. I didn’t know you could still fake something and fool me.” Nick was staring at him again. “What?”
“I love you.”
Kelly grinned lopsidedly, biting his lip and nodding. “Yeah, you do.”
They were silent for most of the ride home. Nick actually dozed for a little while, until they got into the older part of the city where the streets were smaller and confusing and Kelly almost killed them by not realizing that a Boston turn signal was just a blaring horn rather than a blinking light.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he got them to the marina in one piece. “From now on, you do the driving.”
Nick nodded. He was gripping the handle above his head so tight his knuckles were white. “Deal.”
Kelly helped him ease out of the car. It was a long walk down the docks to the Fiddler’s Green, and Kelly could have kissed the boat when he finally saw it. Nick was shucking his hospital gown and jeans before they’d even closed the doors to the salon behind them.
“Shower. Bed,” Nick grunted.
He disappeared down the steps, and Kelly trailed along in his path, picking up the things he’d discarded. A badge here, a gun there. He was on his way to the steps when he noticed a card on the galley counter that certainly hadn’t been there when he and JD had left the boat the day before.
He picked it up, frowning at the precise handwriting. “Detective O’Flaherty and Doc Abbott.”
“What the fuck?” Kelly glanced around the yacht out of habit. He didn’t feel anything out of place, didn’t have that sense that someone was with him or that he was being watched. The envelope wasn’t sealed, so Kelly pulled the card out and cocked his head at it. It was a simple sheet of creamy white stationery, and the only things written on it were an international phone number and the letter J.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked. He had poked his head above the railing and was scowling at Kelly.
Kelly held the letter up. “He wasn’t kidding. He left us a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”
Nick stared at the card with Julian’s number on it, then nodded. “Save that shit for the next time Grady calls us,” he drawled. “Come help me shower.”
Kelly left the card on the table, along with Nick’s badge and sidearm, and followed after him, stripping as he went.
Two hours later, they were curled together in bed, Nick’s head resting on Kelly’s chest and his arm wrapped around him as he snored. Kelly stared at the ceiling, frowning. They’d showered and Kelly had checked Nick’s stitches. Nick had even taken a few of the painkillers the hospital had given him, which meant he thought everything was over.
Nothing felt over.
Nick’s phone rang from beneath the pillow, where he apparently stuffed it all the time. It made the pillow vibrate. How that didn’t set him straight off into a flashback every time it rang, Kelly didn’t know.
Nick woke with a gasp and dug the phone out, answering it before he even had his eyes open. “O’Flaherty.”
Kelly was so close to Nick’s face that he could hear the voice on the other end. “JD’s out of surgery, he’s awake and he’s remembering more and more,” Hagan was saying. “He’ll only talk to you, though.”
“Okay,” Nick said on a sigh. “Be right there.”
He hung up, and they stared at each other for a few seconds, both of them silent, both of them frowning.
“I have to go,” Nick finally mumbled. “Take his statement, wrap this up.”
Kelly nodded, unsure of why this simple phone call, out of everything that had happened in the last few days, was the first thing to truly upset him. He tried not to let it show, but Nick could read him like book. He had been able to from the day they’d met.
Nick swallowed hard. “It’s always going to be like this,” he said slowly. “There’s always going to be another case. Another call.”
“I know. But you love everything about your job.”
Nick bit his lip and dropped his eyes. His finger traced the pink scar on Kelly’s chest, where a bullet meant for Nick’s head had stopped just below Kelly’s heart instead.
“It’s not going to work,” Nick finally said with a sigh.
The air left Kelly’s lung so fast he had to gasp to reclaim it. His body tingled, and a shiver ran through him before he could manage a sad smile. He ran his fingers through Nick’s hair. “Are you breaking up with me, babe? ’Cause that’s what this feels like.”
Nick quickly met his eyes. “I’m quitting,” he declared. “I’ll wrap up this case, then give them my resignation.”
Kelly held his breath, his heart pounding out his relief like Morse code. He was uncertain of whether he wanted to encourage Nick to do it this time, or talk him out of it again. Then the melancholy feeling of that phone call settled into his chest, the same feeling he’d always suffered back in the day when he’d said good-bye to Nick on leave, the same hollow sense of something missing when he’d watched Nick escort a woman out of a bar, the same ache he woke up with when he was in bed alone in Colorado and knew Nick was so many miles away in Boston. The same feeling that had rushed through his body when he’d thought Nick might be choosing his badge over Kelly.
He didn’t want to feel that every time Nick got a call and had to leave him behind.
He nodded, his entire body heavy with the decision. He’d talked Nick out of quitting before because he knew Nick loved his job, and he’d been curious to see if it would work, if they would work, with their lives continuing on the way they had been. They’d tried it, and it didn’t work. It was the right decision this time, and Kelly could rest easy knowing Nick had chosen him over his former life and would have no regrets.
Nick kissed him. “Come with me.”
Kelly grinned. “I’m going to be hearing that a lot in the next fifty years, aren’t I?”
“I can guarantee it.”
Nick took the wheel for their trip to the hospital. He trusted Kelly with his life in most situations, but driving in Boston was apparently not one of those situations because he would sooner fuck a rhinoceros than do that again. Even drugged up, he would get them to the hospital safer than Kelly would.
“So, I have an idea,” Kelly announced on the way there. “Are you in an Abbott Idea kind of mood?”
“Well, I am drugged, so yeah, shoot.”
Kelly chuckled. “Emma.”
“Emma… Grady? Ty’s cousin, Emma?”
“Yeah.” Kelly was nodding. “She offered us both a job with her team, and as far as I know the offer still stands.”
“You’re talking about Emma Grady,” Nick said again. “And the adventuring, treasure-hunting, monster-seeking, myth-believing crew of crazy people?”
“Yes.”
“Okay?”
“They need a medic, a historian, and team leader. And if I’m not mistaken, we are a medic and a team leader. Plus, you’re quite the fucking historian if I do say so myself. And I do.”
“Kels, I’m not so sure about that shit,” Nick said. “I mean…” He glanced at Kelly, who was sitting in the passenger seat watching him. Smiling. He was always smiling. Nick came to a stop at a red light and stared at Kelly, thinking about that smile.
“We said before that we didn’t know what to do. Colorado or Boston? Cabin or boat?” Kelly said. He shrugged. “Why choose, though? If you’re quitting, I can too.”
“Kels, you love that camp. Those kids,” Nick argued. Kelly had been orphaned at twelve, and while his experience in the foster system had been a good one, he had still devoted his post-military life to helping troubled kids—often orphaned or abandoned street kids who’d chosen the camp over juvenile hall—adjust and learn life skills. It had given Kelly purpose at a time when every member of Sidewinder had been drifting and listless.
“I could still volunteer here and there. We’ll have down time, time to… Nicko, we can settle down when we’re dead, babe,” Kelly finally said. “I had fun this week. For the first time in years, this was really fucking fun. I want to do things like this with you, I want—”
“Okay,” Nick whispered.
“What?”
“Okay,” Nick said, his voice stronger. “We’ll call her when we get home.”
“Really?”
Nick smirked.
Kelly’s smile burgeoned into a full-force beaming grin. He reached across the console and grabbed Nick’s hand, kissing his palm. “Thank you.”
Nick tried to repress an indulgent sigh, but he couldn’t. He was so screwed. He’d give Kelly anything and everything.
They were both still grinning like idiots when they reached the hospital. Nick had to school his features into a more professional mask as they inquired into JD’s room number and rode the elevator up.
When they found the room, Hagan was there, and so was Alex. She was sitting beside JD’s bed, filling him in on the details he was still missing. They both looked up when Nick and Kelly entered.
“Hey,” JD said with a tentative smile.
“How you feeling?” Nick asked him. He moved closer, giving Alex a nod in greeting.
“I’m okay,” JD scooted up a little in the bed, wincing and holding to his side. “Alex says this isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, so… hey, no big deal, right?”
Nick smiled and patted JD’s arm, unable to quell the urge to continue trying to comfort the man. He noticed a stack of books on the table beside JD’s bed. They were all his adventures, told by him.
“His story all checks out, O,” Hagan offered. “He was taken from his hotel room in New York by a group that had been contracted by a company called Sanco Pharmaceuticals. Apparently it’s not uncommon for these big companies to take unusual routes for miracle cures. First time one of them’s ended in kidnapping and murder, though.”
“Pharmaceutical companies after medieval scrolls,” Kelly mused. “Sure, why not.”
“I’m sorry I kicked you in your transplant scar,” JD offered, looking at Nick with what could only be described as hope.
Nick cocked his head, frowning. “How’d you know it was there?”
“Saw it the night I was talking to your friend on the phone.”
“Great. Thanks,” Nick grunted. But he couldn’t help but smile. JD—or Casey Hunt, he supposed he was going to have to start thinking of him as—was an interesting man. He was smart, quick-witted, capable, and observant. He’d handled the trauma he’d been subjected to better than most. Despite everything that had happened, Nick liked the guy.
“So, are you out of a job now?” Kelly asked.
“No, apparently I work out of a museum as a wandering acquisitions specialist,” JD said with a laugh. “Alex was telling me about some of my seedier adventures. It seems I’m kind of a big deal. You should read my books. I know I’m going to have to.”
Nick and Kelly both chuckled. Kelly waved a hand at Alex. “What about you? Are you a seedy adventurer too?”
“No,” she said with a melancholy smile. “Not anymore, at least. I am out of a job. I worked full-time for Alco, hunting down new avenues of research. After all this, they don’t want the scrutiny for why they have an archaeologist on staff.”
“I’m sorry,” Kelly offered.
Nick was scowling at Alex, though. She’d shown her true colors during the standoff at the Jason Russell house, shielding the museum guide with her body as she got the woman to safety. She’d shown Nick something, something he liked. He patted Kelly on the arm, and when Kelly turned, Nick jerked his head at Alex. It seemed to dawn on Kelly as well. His oddly colored eyes sparkled, and he grinned at Alex.
“Would you like to get a cup of coffee?” he asked her. “I have a proposition for you.”
Alex gave him a wary sideways glance, but after examining the smiles on both their faces, she agreed and followed Kelly out of the room.
“What’s that about?” JD asked.
“Kels has a thing for redheads,” Nick quipped. “We’re going to file these reports in the morning, work to start getting your name nice and clear, okay? You’re going to have to answer for some things, including assaulting an officer of the law and discharging a firearm in a public area.”
“I figured.”
“Since I was the officer you assaulted, we can handle that one. National parks are federal territory, though.”
JD blanched, but he nodded. “I’ll… I’ll take the punishment. I did it, I deserve it.”
“I got a buddy with some favors owed him in the Bureau,” Nick said. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Nick.”
Hagan cleared his throat loudly, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
JD chuckled. “And you, Alan. Thank you.”
Nick gave Hagan a melancholy once-over. He would have to tell his partner that he was quitting for good this time. It wasn’t going to be a mental health break like last time. There wasn’t going to be any coming back once he tendered his resignation, once he gave up his badge. His stomach turned at the thought. God, was he really ready to do that? He pushed it aside to worry about later, to talk to Kelly about it further, and turned back to JD.
“I know what you did,” JD said with a smile.
“Oh yeah?” Nick asked. “What’s that?”
“There’s no treasure under that monument. Not in a grave dug by minutemen.”
Nick laughed. “I guess you still have some work to do then if you want to find yourself a Golden and Rosy Cross. Huh?”
“I guess I do. You could have just put me in a cell, let me rot there,” JD said quickly. “You didn’t have to believe me. But you did. You took me in. You trusted me. You saved my life. I can’t thank all of you enough.”
“Well, you can try,” Hagan commented. They all laughed. “Next book you write.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” JD tapped his temple and smirked.
“And hey, when you get out of here you can take us to dinner,” Nick offered. “Drinks on you.”
“That’s the least I can do,” JD agreed. He was smiling, though there was a hint of sadness to it. “And… Nick. You and the Doc don’t work out…” He smiled almost shyly, pointing to himself. “My books claim I’m amazing in bed.”
Nick laughed. He patted JD’s arm again. “I wouldn’t hold my breath for that if I was you. I’m going to go before Kelly does something I’ll regret.”
Nick said good-bye to JD, told Hagan he’d see him in the morning, and then left to find his wayward boyfriend. Kelly had probably already recruited Alex, called Emma, signed them up for a trip to Siberia, and gotten on his phone to buy subzero gear.
Nick smiled at the thought, but the smile rapidly turned into a worried scowl, and he quickened his pace. The probability that Kelly was already through half those steps was extremely high.
Well, either way, Nick knew he’d be going along for the ride.