"Sounds good." He managed a teasing smile. "I suspect you're going to need to get a good job to support me in the style to which I've become accustomed."

"Okay, but the fifteen-hundred-dollar suits have got to go."

"Deal." Growing serious again, he sighed and said, "Enough. Let's just get to the end. Tell me what I'm going to find when I go back in to face the music."

She raised one pretty brow. "Well, I think you're going to find you're on suspension, without pay, as is Brandon. The others got official reprimands."

"Suspension?" he asked, surprised. He'd already assumed he would be fired, and had been thinking more along the lines of prosecution.

"Crandall wanted you fired, but he didn't get his way. He's still trying to get you stripped of your title, downgraded, and the hearing isn't going to be pretty. I don't know whether the Black CATs will even exist anymore once you get back."

He nodded once, disappointed. But also already thinking, forming his arguments, mentally listing all the reasons his team should be kept intact. Starting with the fact that every one of them was damn good at his job, and together, they were utterly brilliant.

"I can deal with Crandall," he muttered.

"I'm sure you can. Besides, I hear you have a friend or two in high places." Her tone pleased, she added, "They very loudly reminded the director of all that you've done, not just with the crime-lab mess, but in being instrumental in the capture of several notorious serial killers in the past year."

Damn. He hadn't wanted that. "I didn't call in favors for myself," he said. "I just wanted the others to get out of this mess with their jobs and their pensions intact."

"Well, first off, I don't think anybody did you any favors, Wyatt, since you're eventually going to have to go back to work under Deputy Director Crandall."

Good point.

"Besides, they weren't doing it out of friendship." She gently ran the tips of her soft fingers over his palm, every stroke reminding him of how much he needed her hand to be wrapped in his. "It was about nothing more than the fact that you do an excellent job. Eventually everyone had to acknowledge that you saved my life." She shrugged modestly. "I made a very good witness, if I do say so myself"

He laughed deeply. "I'm sure you did. You're very good at arguing your case. I can't imagine anybody refusing you anything."

She shifted a little so she could look up at him; that beautiful face, made even more so by trauma and grief, now shone with warmth and happiness.

"Does that mean if I ask you nicely, we can get another beach house, maybe on the Maryland shore this time?"

Knowing what she was saying, what she was offering, he tenderly brushed his fingers through her hair. "We don't have to get rid of the Maine house. I know you love it."

Serious, intent, she said, "Yes, we do. It was my crutch, and it was your cross. Neither of us needs it anymore."

"No, I suppose we don't," he admitted. "Absolutely the only thing we need is each other."