Danny and Lindsay were on the rode with-in a half an hour of picking up the cabin's keys from Danny's cousin. The pick-up they were taking on this little adventure was new, a red '06 Titan, and proclaimed Tony's Customizing and Auto Repair on the side of each door in large letters. In smaller font the words Foreign and Domestic, appeared below the picture of the garage.
They had been on the road for almost two and half hours, talking little and listening to an oldies station on the radio. Lindsay smirked. The radio station had been a compromise of sorts, because her tastes ran towards country and classical and Danny's, well, didn't. He favored rock and roll both classic and modern, the classic she could deal with, even she liked The Stones or The Beatles every once in a while. It was the modern that she couldn't seem to wrap her mind around.
The thought crossed her mind that she was a little country and he a little rock and roll and she couldn't help but laugh.
"What's funny, Monroe?" He asked. She jumped because it had been almost twenty minutes since he last spoke to her and she turned to find him smirking at her.
"Donny and Marie"
He cocked an eyebrow in her direction.
"Osmond?" She nodded and smiled widely at him. Her dimples flashed and her eyes sparkled and he felt his heart skip a beat.
"Okay, I'll bite. What about The Osmonds?"
She shook her head ruefully and turned to take a quick look out the window. Danny suddenly felt like he had been basking in the glow of the sun only to have it snatch unmercifully away from him. He wanted her to turn back towards him; wanted to see her smile, and he thanked whatever god happened to be smiling on him when she did.
"You know that old song? A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock and Roll? I had a mental flash of us."
Danny's smirked morphed into a smile as tried to keep his attention on her and the road at the same time.
"I hope you don't expect me to sing, Montana. 'Cause, not gonna happen."
She laughed and the sound went through him like a jolt of electricity. She had no idea how beautiful she was when she laughed.
"You sing Messer? Perish the thought."
His smirk became a frowned. He didn't really like that fact that she thought him singing was a joke. She was right; but he didn't like it.
"Oh and I suppose you can do better, Miz Monroe?" He taunted.
Her laughter died. She went silent and turned away from him to look out the window and Danny realized he had inadvertently hit a nerve. He cursed. Here she was smiling and laughing with him and he has to go and blow it.
"Aw hell, Montana I'm sorry. I didn't know that…" She cut him off.
"It's all right Danny, let's just drop it." She still wasn't looking at him and he cursed again. Him and his big stupid mouth.
"Linds…I…" He didn't really know what to say so he trailed off and turned his attention to the road. A few minutes passed and she sighed deeply.
"No Danny, I'm sorry." She took a deep breath and lifted her head from the window to face him.
"Do you want to know why I became a CSI?"
Danny didn't so much as twitch a facial muscle because he could tell by the tone of her voice that this was a loaded question. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and licked his lips. Did he really want to know? Yeah he did, but he had a feeling that the knowledge would change him. He would know something personal about Lindsay Monroe that the rest of the team didn't and she would creep into his heart just little bit further.
They had grown a great deal closer to each other in the last few days and if things kept going this way he could end up in love with her. He knew it as surely as he breathed and it scared the hell out of him, but he was also a CSI and curiosity was one of the pitfalls of the job. He already knew, even before he started his internal debate that he wanted to know. Unanswered questions were against his nature. Danny licked his lips once more and did the only thing he could do; he nodded for her to continue.
"I didn't always want to be a criminalist. When I was ten I actually decided I wanted to be a singer. My mom was really great about it, she encouraged me, even signed me up for voice lessons. I don't know if she really expected to me to stick with them. I mean, I was ten, so before I decided on being a singer I had a lot of other future career interests."
She was smiling softly and Danny couldn't help but ask.
"Whadidya wanna be?"
She waved her hand dismissively. "Oh the usual, you know fire fighter, super hero, bull rider."
He blinked and ginned. "You wanna'ed to be a bull rider? At ten?"
"Sure, I loved the rodeo. Why? What did you want to be?" He shook his head and thought back. What had he wanted to be?
A little uncomfortable he answered. "I wanna'ed to be a wise guy."
She looked at him like he had just grown an extra head and he focused on the road.
"As in Mafia?" He nodded. "How did you go from that to being a cop?"
He shifted uncomfortably again and turned the question back around on her.
"I thought we were talkin' bout you, Montana? How long did ya end up takin' them singin' lessons?"
Lindsay assessed him critically, realizing that he had no intention of answering her, and went back to her narrative. A wave of sadness washed over her.
"I took them until I turned sixteen."
"What changed?" He asked softly. He was both curious and fearful what her answer would be. She was staring straight ahead but he knew she wasn't seeing the road. She had turned inward and was re-living a memory that had caused her a great deal of pain.
"It happened when I was a sophomore at Bozeman High School. I had just turned sixteen. It was spring, about two weeks before Spring Break and I had the lead in the musical the drama club was putting on. We were doing Chicago and I was Roxie Hart."
"I would'a liked to see that," he interrupted and Lindsay smiled.
"Down perv boy," she teased and then sobered. "We were half way through opening night when the police showed up. You see my Mom had to work late, she worked at this legal firm as a secretary, and she couldn't make opening night. I remember being so angry with her for that and we had a fight about it before school that morning. That was the last time I saw her alive."
"Damn Montana, I'm sorry."
She couldn't look at him and he could tell she was blinking back tears. She seemed determine not to cry in front of him. He gave her a minute to compose herself and when she finally had herself back under control she continued.
"Someone had attacked her in the parking lot of the firm. She was raped and beaten and the local cops never found out who did it. That was the worst part, not knowing who or why. Some phantom bad guy takes my mother away from me and I couldn't…"
She was blinking back tears again and Danny couldn't stand it. He had to comfort her so he took her small hand in his and laced his fingers with hers. She graced him with a small, watery smile.
"I decided then that no one should have to go through that. I stopped singing and turned my attention towards school and I earned a scholarship for Montana State University. My first year there I wasn't sure what branch of law enforcement I wanted to be in until a old friend of my dad's came to stay at the ranch with us for a little while. He was a CSI out of Billings and when he told me about what he did, how he was the one that found the evidence to put criminals away, I knew that was what I wanted to do."
Danny squeezed her hand lightly and she was grateful for his support. She hadn't told anyone about her mother since college but she was suddenly glad that she had told him.
"You know, you're a helluva CSI, Montana." She blinked at him in surprise and he licked his lips. "I mean, I know I gave ya a hard time, still do sometimes, but you do good work."
His voice was a little gruff. Danny wasn't comfortable giving praise. Sure he'd tell Mac when he thought she had done good, but to tell her to her face?
Her hand twitched and he stilled. He hadn't realized that he was still holding her hand. He looked down at their entwined fingers and watched a slow blush creep up her neck. She let go at the same time he did.
"Whaddya say we stop for dinner?" He asked. She nodded quickly and he pulled off the highway.
They found a small mom and pop diner and pulled in. Neither mentioned the hand holding incident nor did they talk about it when the got back into the truck, but both felt another brick crack in the walls that they kept around their hearts