I tried to figure out what he meant by that. “But you don’t think you’d like someone like Dunn? A Thicket-living corncob-proposing farmer-type?” I was teasing, but I kind of wanted to know what it was about those two that had put the envy in his eyes.
“God, no. Jesus. Dunn is a little too much Tennessee for me. Not that I don’t like Tennesseans. He’s just… he’s…”
“A country boy,” I suggested.
“No. He’s like an eager puppy. He’ll do anything for Tucker.”
His hands were still shaking, and he spilled a little alcohol from the bottle he’d opened. I reached for the paper towels to clean it up.
“You don’t want someone who’d do anything for you,” I said.
“Stop trying to interpret what I’m saying,” Carter said, clearly frustrated. “Of course I want someone like that. I just don’t want to be with someone I could walk all over. Tucker could walk all over Dunn, and Dunn would thank him for it.”
“I think that’s kind of sweet,” I admitted. “Sounds like they’re really in love.”
He sighed and closed the alcohol bottle before stashing it back in the backpack. “Yeah. Crazy in love, in a way that works perfectly for them. Dunn gives Tucker what Tucker needs. I want someone who gives me what I need. Someone who’ll put me first. Someone who’d save me from a rampaging capybara—”
I didn’t think he’d intended to admit something like that out loud to me, but once it was out there, the air between us thickened. Carter’s shoulders stiffened.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean you.”
Of course he hadn’t meant me, but hearing it spoken was a kick in the gut anyway. “’Course not,” I mumbled, busying myself packing other supplies back in the pack.
Carter glanced at me. The anxiety was clear in his expression. “Not that you wouldn’t be a great boyfriend. I’m sure you would. I didn’t mean it like—”
I held up a hand. “I’m fine. I promise.”
“Besides, Tucker once told me I’m not the settling-down type.” Carter shrugged. “Maybe he was right.”
“Same. A long-term relationship in my line of work would be nearly impossible. Can you imagine someone being fine with the fact that I’m gone on assignment nearly as much as I’m around?” I shook my head. A boyfriend would expect me to make sacrifices. Especially if it were someone like him.
He kept eying me while he continued to pretend to do a blood test. A glance at the guard revealed him to be too engaged in a rousing game of Horn of Glory to pay much attention to us.
“Riggs…” Carter began.
“Let’s just focus on this,” I said, hoping like hell to put an end to this excruciating conversation.
Carter went back to his work. After a few more minutes, he couldn’t leave it alone. “So… you don’t want to fall in love? It’s not the same thing as settling down, you know. You could always…”
I didn’t want to talk about love with Carter Rogers. This entire conversation made me feel itchy and raw. “Love is fine. If it happens, it happens.”
“They should put that on a greeting card,” Carter teased.
The guard’s voice made Carter jump. “El equipo está en el gabinete.”
Carter glanced at me with a frown. I told him, “The equipment is in the cabinet.” I began opening cabinet doors until I found a microscope and some other items. Shit. They’d actually gotten what he’d asked for.
Carter spotted the equipment and plastered on a fake smile. “Ah, gracias.”
I pulled out the microscope and the item he’d called an autoclave. He busied himself looking at his slide and making notes on a piece of paper. It looked like calculus problems to me. When he finished fake-microscoping, he began fake-autoclaving. He prepared several tiny vials for the machine and then set them to run before glancing back at the guard.
“Tell him we’re done for several hours,” he said to me. “These need time to… cure. Or whatever.”
I bit my lip against a grin and turned to the guard. “Hemos terminado por ahora. Las pruebas toman tiempo.”
He grunted and stood up, slipping his game into a cargo pocket in his pants. “Come,” he barked.
The guard joined one who’d been stationed outside the break room before the two of them escorted us back to our rooms and closed the door behind us.
“Okay, now that we’re alone, spill. What weren’t you telling me?” Carter hissed as soon as the guards were gone.
“About what?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant. We’d heard the American on the way to the “lab,” but since the guard had been with us the entire time, we hadn’t been able to talk about it.
“The ‘holy shit’ you blurted earlier, like you’d discovered something when we passed the computer room. Was it a way in? And what were you saying about Mexico?”