He grunted.
“She met this rich CEO from New York—Todd. Married him. Now, she has the perfect family. Two lawyer sons, or doctors, or engineers, or something. Dad moved to Texas and sank himself back into his work.” She shrugged. “And that was the end of my family.”
Carter came over and sat beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. His warmth traveled to my bones and I wanted to cry.
What would it feel like to belong to him?
“You still have your sister though, right?” he asked. “If she’s as good of a person as you’re making her out to be, I think she’ll step up and help you out.”
Grabbing my ponytail, I ran my fingers through the curls, over and over—but they wouldn’t tame at all.
“Kel has her own family too, now,” I said. “Two little boys and an amazing husband. She’s super involved at her church. I’m so afraid I’ll be this huge embarrassment to her now, you know? I mean, can she still love me after I tell her about the marshmallow?”
“Of course she will.” He gave me a squeeze. “Your mom’s . . . abnormal.”
I snorted, wiping away a tear. “Seriously though, Carter, I don’t think I can handle seeing the look in Kel’s eyes when I tell her.”
“Tell you what. I’ll come with you if you want.”
“I can't ask you to do that.”
He jerked his head back, motioning to the ropes course—but he didn’t look at it. “After everything you’ve done for me? I’m there, cowgirl. Just say when.”
I hated the thought of dragging him through my mess, but being around him definitely made things so much easier, and the thought of having him by my side when I told Kellie meant I wouldn’t be alone. I hated being alone.
“Really?” I asked.
“A hundred percent.”
“Okay. Then, yeah. I’ll call her and see when I should come.”
He stood, dusting his hands on his cargo shorts.
“Thanks for helping me. I think I’m ready for the ropes now.”
He offered his hand, and I took it, warming at the feel of his touch again.
I had to stop doing that.
We came to the first obstacle of the course, a low-hanging web suspended between two giant sequoias. Carter stopped dead in his tracks, eyes going blank.
“This was stupid.”
I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do, or say, to help him. “This is where you met her?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Tug-of-war. My youth group against hers. She was in the front of their line, and I was in front of mine with Tucker and Cory behind me. Megs was basically standing toe-to-toe with me.” His voice was a trace of the rumble I’d gotten used to.
“Did you win?”
He grinned. “All their guys were in the back, and they thought it’d be funny to let go all at once. Our team was going for it so hard, and those girls had no chance against us. She basically landed on me, laughing. She had the best laugh ever.” The grin faded, leaving deep lines of grief behind. “A day without hearing it’s like straight torture.”
He sank to a crouch, picking a fallen sprig off the ground, breaking the needles off, one by one.
“I haven’t figured out how to deal with the fact that I’ll never hear it again. Just. It’s crazy to try and grasp. She was everything to me.” He cleared his throat. Sighed. “Megan used to say that God’s available to all of us the same. But some of us lean on Him more than others.” He took a deep breath, shrugging. “I think there’s hope for people like us, Lauren. Maybe it’s time for me, for both of us, to lean on Him more.”
So, Megan was one of them. I should’ve guessed it yesterday, when he was telling me about her guitar. I should’ve known he’d be into girls like that. Sweet and innocent. The complete opposite of me.
My vision blurred, my nose burning as I knelt beside him.
What was it like to be loved by someone like that? Seriously. I wanted to know. I wished I could be Megan—even for just a nanosecond and find out. Did she even appreciate Carter? Like I would?
Twelve
-CARTER-
The boathouse was packed all Saturday morning, but by noon, the majority of campers were gone.
“You still down for the south bank later?” Tucker asked as we rolled the window cover down and locked up at two.
“Affirmative,” I said, tucking my swimming prosthetic under my arm and throwing my towel over my shoulder. “Just have to switch my leg out first.”
Tucker repositioned his Bridgeport hat and furrowed his brows. “I never really thought about that. What’s the difference?”
“It’s actually a new model. The shin on this one’s more like a fin, the holes are for drainage.” I ran my finger along the outer edge of the prosthetic so he could see. “Talked to a couple wounded warriors during my recovery and they love this one.”
“Huh. Can you walk on it?”
“Yeah. I don’t though. Trying to preserve it for water. I’ve only used it once before, but it’s the most natural I felt swimming since the injury. I’ll change it here and meet you down there.”
“Sounds good.”
I waited until Tucker was a few yards away before I sat on a bench, detached my standard leg, readjusted the sleeve covering on my residual limb, and slid on the new one.
Down at the shore, a crowd of staffers piled into several row boats and headed out on the pristine lake, sans campers. I grinned. Having the place to ourselves gave a certain amount of liberty I could use a healthy taste of right about now.
“He’s going for it!” Someone shouted behind me as footsteps pounded down the dock and Cory jumped off the end, still in his jeans and a Bridgeport T-shirt.
A falcon swooped across the sky, hovering a hundred yards above the embankment, before it dove and came back up with a snake in its talons. The reeds beside the lake flickered with the promise of some
