Variable Onset

by Layla Reyne

  “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.

  Chapter 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?”

  “No, I just brought this ugly hardware home for shits and giggles.” She set the trophy on the end of the buffet table that had been collecting ugly hardware all season long.

  He straightened, tossed his glasses on the table, and opened his arms. “Welcome home, my spawn.”

  Elena ditched her bag and ran across the room into his arms. “State champs. Next stop, Regionals.”

  “State champs, congrats.” He dropped a kiss on her head. “And I promise I won’t miss Regionals next weekend.”

  “Just tell me you got the missing piece.”

  He pointed at the small laminated card in the middle of the table. “I got it.”

  “This about the hot guy you keep looking at on your phone?” Trina asked, entering from the mudroom, two large coffee cups in hand. She handed him the one that did not smell like a diabetic coma. “The agent you worked that case with?”

  Lincoln nodded. “His name is Carter, and yes, it’s something I told him I’d work on for him. With him.” And they had, though mostly over texts these past three months, owing to Carter’s undercover assignment. Lincoln loved being home with Elena and back at the Academy teaching, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss Carter more than a little.

  His heart and mind hadn’t changed from where they’d landed in Apex. He’d faced his fears there—fire, stage fright, love. He’d conquered the first two, and knew he’d also conquer the last, with Carter. He wanted a shot at a future with him. He’d spent the past three months gathering everything he needed to make that happen. He’d left Apex the same day as Carter, had arrived back in town in time for Elena’s tournament, but at Elena’s next school break, he’d packed them up and traveled back to Apex. They’d recruited Jeremiah to the cause, and the three of them had spent a week digging through the library and police archives. He’d followed up with interviews at the hospital, with everyone still alive who’d been on the APD force thirty-two years ago, with Larry who was in a nearby state correctional unit, and with Barry. He was convinced it was the same accident Larry had spoken of, that Barry also remembered, and he was likewise convinced Carter’s parents had just been passing through, not Apex locals, but what had happened to baby Carter? The forensic evidence didn’t add up. Despite evidence of a car seat in the charred remains of the car, there was no body or bones to indicate an infant perished along with the two unidentifiable adults in the car.

  He’d shifted their search from the accident to people in Apex and surrounding areas who had newborns within a six-month window after the accident. And found a Martha Richmond in the hospital records. No prenatal care, but then suddenly one newborn-care appointment. But that was the only mention of her. They’d rifled back through photos and found a single picture of Martha, in Apex, from the winter before the accident. Definitely not pregnant. A deeper background check revealed she’d moved to Dallas, Texas, the fall after the accident. He’d texted Carter, who’d made a call to the DSS officer he’d found in Texas, the person who’d put him onto the Apex lead in the first place. She didn’t recall a Martha, but she thought maybe the girl in the Apex U sweatshirt said her name was Marla Richards. She knew it was when Carter had shown her the picture Lincoln had found in the archives.

  And from Martha’s surviving sister, they’d gotten the entire story. How Martha had been fishing near the ravine that summer when there’d been a terrible crash of metal from the interstate and a car had hurtled over the rail. How she’d gotten the wailing baby out of the car seat before the car had exploded into flames. How she thought a baby might get her abusive boyfriend back, the one who’d moved to Texas. And how when that plan had failed, when the boyfriend beat her up and threatened the baby she’d named Carter, she’d surrendered Carter to DSS and committed suicide a month later. But in the middle of that terrible, heartbreaking story, there’d been a clue that had been the break they’d needed. The baby Martha had brought home that day was in an Arizona State jumper.

  That fact obtained, the rest of the pieces had come together. By narrowing the scope of his search to cars registered in Arizona that matched the size and likely models of the charred vehicle in Apex, and cross-referencing the owners of those cars against hospital records, he’d found the couple in Tempe who’d given birth to a son in January, the same year as the accident. Carter—before h
e was Carter—the last piece of evidence secured this past weekend in Tempe.

  But what to do now—the path forward—wasn’t only Lincoln’s decision. He sipped his coffee and rested against the edge of the table, eyeing two of the most important people in his life.

  His spawn was already a step ahead of him, phone in hand. “Do we need Mom for this?”

  He nodded, and Elena dialed Gabby. “What’s up, babes?” she answered, sounding wide awake despite it being the middle of the night where she was.

  “Dad’s getting cold feet,” Elena replied before he could get in a greeting.

  “Ooh, the guy from Apex?”

  He cut his eyes to his daughter. “You are such a fucking gossip.”

  She gave him an insolent shrug. “I’m gonna be gone in five years. You can’t wander around this place all by yourself. You’ll go crazy.”

  He set down his cup and covered his face with his hands, groaning behind his fingers. “Don’t remind me of my impending empty nest.”

  “And don’t expect me to entertain you,” Trina said, leaning a hip next to his. Her eyes, the same honey color as his and Elena’s, drifted over his shoulder. “This guy clearly means something to you, L.”

  “He does, and I’m not getting cold feet.” He looped an arm around Trina’s shoulders and opened the other for Elena to nestle against his side. “But I’m not jumping into this fire without all of you onboard. I don’t want to bring someone into this family who is going to hurt us again.”

  Elena stared up at him. “Nothing you’ve told me about Carter sounds at all like Adam.”

  She was right. Carter and Adam were nothing alike, but it didn’t mean the worry didn’t linger. He was ready to face that fear, but was the rest of his family? “I’m willing to take that chance. Are all of you?”

  “I’m game,” Elena said. “Especially if you’ll stop playing that depressing Green Day song.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You do,” Trina said. “That one and ‘The Freshman,’ after every breakup in college.”

  “Until you met me,” Gabby preened over the phone. “And you don’t have to marry him.”

  Elena and Trina snickered.

  “What am I missing?” Gabby asked.

  “He kind of already did,” Elena answered.

  Lincoln dragged the chain out from under his collar, the braided silver rings heavy on the end. Before leaving Apex, Carter had insisted Lincoln hold them for safekeeping, until he returned from his assignment. “We pretended to be married, for our cover.”

  “Liked it, did you?”

  “I really did.” More than liked arguing with Carter every morning, flirting with him, kissing him, working with him. And Lincoln thought Carter would work well with the rest of his family too. “I think you’d like him. All of you. That’s the scary part.”

  “You just put away a serial killer known as Dr. Fear,” Gabby said. “How scary can this be?”

  Elena wrapped her arms around his middle, squeezing. “I want you to be happy, Dad.”

  Trina hugged him from the other side, her smile soft and warm, encouraging. “We all do. When’s he back in town?”

  “Soon. He was wrapping up last we texted.”

  “Hold a second,” Gabby said, fingers flying over keys in the background. “He lands at DCA at ten tonight.”

  Tonight. Carter would be home, tonight.

  “Do you need his home address?”

  “No, he gave me a key before we left Ap—Wait, how did you—”

  “Don’t ask, babe.”

  “We’re onboard,” Trina said. “The question is, are you?”

  He didn’t have to think about his answer. “Yes.”

  Elena squeezed him tighter, Trina clapped, and Gabby’s full, warm laugh echoed over the phone. “Good,” she said, “Now, go get your man.”

  Lincoln celebrated with them, so lucky to have these three incredible women in his life. Now, if he could just be lucky in love tonight, his life and the celebration would be complete.

  * * *

  Carter unlocked the metal screen door of his Logan Circle townhome and winced as it creaked opened. Flight delayed out of SFO, it was past one in the morning here. The neighbors were no doubt cursing him for making a late-night racket. Probably were before tonight for his failure to keep up the place, but he’d been gone so much this winter, his arm had been broken, and now spring was just around the corner. At least he was out of the cast and sling; he could assess the state of things in the daylight tomorrow.

  He inserted his key into the main door and pushed it open, thankfully without further sound effects. He shut it behind him, tossed his duffel down the stairs toward the lower-level bedroom, and reached for the light switch.

  The lights came on...before his fingers touched the switch.

  His hand shot to his side, and he cursed, reminded his weapon was still in its flight case in his bag. He opened his mouth to shout, neighbors be damned, and inhaled the aromas of fresh-baked biscuits and burning wood. He willed down the blood rushing in his ears and listened, detecting the crackle of a fire, and then music notes.

  The opening bars of Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe,” followed by the beautiful lyrics in a much-missed voice floated down the stairs.

  Stairs that were covered in pictures.

  Carter toed off his boots, left them in the foyer with his laptop bag, and approached the first step. And the first picture. Of a middle-aged couple, the woman with dark curly hair stuck to her sweaty face, the man with green eyes and brown hair sprinkled with gray, in a hospital gown beside her, both of them smiling huge. Between them, a baby slept, wrapped in blue blankets, a patch of dark curls matted on his head. Carter patted down his curls and moved to the next step.

  The same woman in a dress, the man in a suit, wearing a yarmulke, and the same baby in their arms with a light blue yarmulke to match, the Star of David stitched in dark blue, the tiny cap nestled in a thicker patch of dark curls.

  The next step up. The couple standing beside a packed full car, Good Luck, Sun Devils, in shaving cream on the back window. They were dressed casually, jeans and Arizona State T-shirts, smiling, the baby in their arms in a Sun Devils jumper, his eyes open, green, like his father.

  My father. And mother. Me and my family.

  As the stairs continued up, there were more pictures. Yearbook photos, class rosters, work applications, ASU staff photos. Other candids from the school and local newspapers.

  And on the top step, a small laminated card. A replica of a birth certificate.

  Jacob Farb, born January 2, 1988, in Tempe, Arizona, to Arial and Hannah Farb. Carter picked up the card as Lincoln finished the song. “This is me,” he said.

  “It is,” Lincoln answered quietly.

  Carter crested the stairs and through a sheen of tears, glimpsed Lincoln in his desk chair, rolled over next to the fire, guitar resting on his crossed legs. He was beautiful, gold-and-silver hair glowing in the firelight, dressed down in jeans, a dark T-shirt, and red-and-gold argyle socks. Socks that matched ASU’s colors, the place where Carter had been born, where his parents had worked. “You found them.”

  Lincoln nodded and moved the guitar off his lap to the floor. “I did.”

  Carter slowly crossed the room, still half dazed at the revelations, and lowered himself onto the floor on Lincoln’s opposite side. His eyes had drifted back to the birth certificate, unable to tear his gaze away from it for long, but he wanted to be close to the heat and to Lincoln. He laid a hand on Lincoln’s thigh, needing the connection after going without it for too long.

  Lincoln tangled their fingers together. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  “I played, sang, and built you a fire.”

  Facing his fears again, for him. Carter tugged their linked hands tow
ard him and kissed the backs of Lincoln’s knuckles. “Thank you.”

  “What do you want to know?” Lincoln asked.

  Everything, came to mind first, but there was really only one question that mattered. Only one answer Carter feared. “Just tell me, did they leave me? Did their families not want me?”

  Lincoln loosened his hand and tangled his fingers in Carter’s hair. Carter’s stomach fell, anticipating the worst. “No, baby. They didn’t abandon you. They died in that accident, like we suspected. They were older when they had you, same as their parents when they’d had them. When your parents died, they had no family left to look for you.”

  It wasn’t the worst, as Carter had feared, but it still left him feeling hollowed out, a grief he hadn’t expected. He was an orphan, not by anyone’s choice but by circumstance. He was alone.

  The fingers in his hair tensed, then smoothed, reminding him that no, he wasn’t alone. “I’m not abandoning you either,” Lincoln said, as if reading his mind. Or maybe that was just the logical conclusion of the tears on Carter’s face. They came faster as Lincoln continued to speak softly. “You are a good man, a good agent, even a good pretend husband, most of the time.”

  Carter chuckled, waterlogged, but the huff of air expelled some of the grief, making room for relief, for the warmth that started to creep back in, from the fingers still tangled in his curls down to the center of his chest. He set aside the birth certificate and turned his attention to Lincoln. Rising up onto his knees, he angled Lincoln’s chair and lifted Lincoln’s one leg off the other, spreading them so he could scoot between them, bringing them face-to-face. “Thank you.”

  “I still like you.” Red streaked across his cheek, but he didn’t look away. “I might even love you.”

  Carter rubbed a hand over his chest. “Is that what this achy thing is?”