The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters) by Sheehan-Miles, Charles (reading well .txt) 📕

minutes later, I wrapped up, logged out of my computer, then stood up and stretched. I hadn’t moved from that seat in nearly four hours. This would take some getting used to: I was used to being on my feet, moving back and forth from classrooms to labs, being out in the field. Sitting in an office every day wasn’t something I was used to at all. Of course, later in the spring I’d be spending some time traveling in the field.

For the first time I wondered how that would impact things with Ray. We didn’t know what was going on with the investigation, although he’d told me it might be months before they even held a preliminary hearing.

As I locked my office I grinned. I hadn’t seen Ray since that awful morning when Major Smalls took him away from our hotel room. But we were meeting that night for dinner and drinks.

I walked down the hall, which was now crowded with people getting out of there for the weekend. Doctor Moore’s office was one of the few that actually had a wall and door, so I knocked. A moment later I heard him call, “Come in!”

I pushed the door open. Moore had a corner office, with windows overlooking the ground outside. He was leaning back in his chair, jacket unbuttoned, tie pulled down. Something about Moore made me wary. Every time I was around him, I felt like his eyes were scanning me from head to toe, like a couple of radar dishes, jerking up and down, back and forth. I didn’t like it at all.

“Thanks for stopping by, Carrie. I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re getting settled in all right.”

“Thanks, Doctor Moore ... I’m doing fine. Working on the budget right now, I think I’ll likely be finished with the revised plan on Monday.”

“Very good,” he said. “And you’re happy here?”

“Yes, very much.”

“If you need anything at all ... please let me know.”

As this short conversation proceeded, I just got more and more uncomfortable. His eyes never stopped roving, and as he said the last statement, he met mine. I looked away.

“Well, then,” he said. “You have plans for the weekend? Getting all settled in?”

I nodded. “My boyfriend and I are meeting for dinner. He’s in the Army and managed to get free for the weekend.”

Moore frowned at the mention of Ray. Which just creeped me out a little bit more, because he was married and a father.

“Speaking of which, I should get going,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied. “See you Monday.”

I smiled, uncomfortably, and took my purse and fled.

Two hours later, I got off the train at DuPont Circle. I’d gone home, showered and changed, then walked back to the Metro. Earlier in the day the auto shop had called to let me know my car was ready, but I could wait until Saturday to pick it up.

Outside the train station, it was crowded, people walking in all directions. I hadn’t been to DuPont Circle in years. It hadn’t changed much. Crowds of people, ranging from teenagers to college students to slow moving grandmothers, crowded the shops and restaurants. We were meeting at Kramer Books, a bookstore combined with a bar, which had been one of my favorite spots during my freshman and sophomore years in high school.

Ray was already at the table when I got there, with a beer and an open book sitting in front of him. I watched him for a second, my eyes slipping over his broad shoulders and lean waist, the stubble which was considerably more than 5 o’clock shadow, the casual way he reached out and drank his beer without looking up from the book. I slipped up behind him and leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled and turned his head to meet my lips.

“You look relaxed,” I said.

“You look beautiful.”

I felt myself flush as he said the words. I loved the way he looked at me. I slipped into the seat across from him as he closed his book.

“So…” I said. “Has the Army found anything for you to do yet?”

He shook his head. “No, but ... I had an idea. I think I may ask them to put me at Walter Reed instead. Then I’d be right next to you.”

I felt a rush of pleasure at that idea. “Do you think they’d go for it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “No idea. Really, I don’t see any reason why not. But I didn’t seriously think they’d pull me back on active duty in the first place.”

“True,” I said. Then I leaned forward, and because I don’t have any filters, and because I’d pretty much dropped every wall I had with Ray anyway, I said, “Why don’t you see if you can transfer, and then you can live with me at the condo? I’m only one train stop from Walter Reed. You’d be working right across the street from me.”

Ray’s eyes widened, and his mouth quirked into a grin. “Did you just ask me to move in with you, Carrie?”

I winked at him. “So what if I did?”

“If you did, then I’d have to say, hell yes.”

I reached out at the same time he did, and we took each other’s hands. At that moment, looking in Ray’s eyes, I was as happy as I’ve ever been in my life.

Falling (Ray)

Two weeks later, my transfer to Walter Reed was approved. The Army being the Army, I had to spend all day on Friday getting clearances signed and stamped before I could clear the post, but I got it all done by three in the afternoon. I hadn’t gotten to know anyone on post really, so there was no one to say goodbye to. I simply packed my duffle bag and called a cab.

Thirty minutes later, the cab dropped me off on the corner of Montgomery and Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. The weather was freakishly warm for January, close