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 f**k?” 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 cal , 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.