“I could take a bus from the next town. Keep you out of danger.” She made herself hold his gaze. “You’ve already risked enough for me. You’re harboring a fugitive. If something happened because you were there?—”
“No.” Not angry. Just certain. The same tone he used when stating mathematical facts. “That’s not an option.”
“Why not?”
He was quiet for a moment. His eyes returned to the road, but she could see something working behind them. Processing. Trying to translate whatever he was feeling into words.
“Because if something happened to you and I wasn’t there,” he said finally, “I would never be able to calculate the variables I missed. I would replay every decision, every route not taken, every moment I could have been present and wasn’t.” A pause. “It would destroy me.”
Morgan stopped breathing.
Notit would be unfortunate. NotI would feel responsible. It would destroy me. Like it was simply true. Like there was no other possible outcome.
She had to turn away, staring out the window at the passing trees until her eyes burned and she blinked hard against the sensation.
Then his hand found hers.
He laced their fingers together without looking away from the road, his grip warm and certain. Not asking…just taking. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Morgan held on. Let that be enough.
They drove in silence for a while. Not uncomfortable—just full. She watched the landscape shift outside herwindow, Wyoming fading into something else. The mountains growing closer. The trees changing.
Montana emerging.
“I lived there for six months when I was twelve.” Morgan pointed at a small town as they passed the exit sign. “The Gregorys. They had a dog named Buttercup who used to sleep on my bed.”
Lincoln glanced at the sign. “Why only six months?”
“Mr. Gregory got transferred for work. They couldn’t take me with them. That’s how it usually worked. Something would change—a job, a new baby, a relative who needed the spare room—and I’d get transferred to the next family.”
A rest stop appeared on the right. Morgan’s hands curled into fists in her lap.
“The Martinellis bought me ice cream there once. I was nine.” She could still see Mrs. Martinelli’s face—the careful patience, the way her smile had started to falter even then. “They kept me for almost a year. That was one of the longer placements.”
“What happened?”
Morgan watched the rest stop disappear in the side mirror. “I corrected Mr. Martinelli at dinner. He was telling a story about something that happened at work, and he got a detail wrong. A date. I’d heard him tell the story on the phone earlier that week, so I knew the real date.” She paused. “I thought I was being helpful.”
The silence stretched. She could feel Lincoln waiting.
“Mrs. Martinelli pulled me aside afterward. She wasn’t angry. That was almost worse. She was just…tired. She said, ‘Morgan, honey, sometimes people don’t want to be corrected. Sometimes they just want to tell their story.’” She dug her nails into her palms. “I didn’t understand. The date was wrong. How could it not matter that the date was wrong?”
“It mattered,” Lincoln said quietly. “Just not the way you thought.”
“Two weeks later, they requested a transfer. The caseworker said they feltoverwhelmed by my needs.” Morgan released her fists, pressed her palms flat against her thighs. “That was the word that followed me. Overwhelming. Unsettling. Too much.”
She’d never told anyone that story. Not even Ms. Delacroix, who’d heard most of the others. It sat in her memory like a splinter—the moment she’d first understood that being right wasn’t the same as being wanted.
Except now, when she reached for the details, they came slower than they should have. The kitchen where the conversation happened—had the wallpaper been yellow or cream?
She’d known once.
“How many homes total?” Lincoln asked.
“Twelve. From age eight to eighteen.” She watched another mile marker pass. “It wasn’t tragic. I know that’s what people expect when they hearfoster care—horror stories, abuse, something dramatic. But it wasn’t like that. It was just…impermanent.”
“What happened when you were eight to put you into foster care in the first place?”
