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“No.” I refused to believe this could be true, not after everything she’d done. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yup. I was… I felt things I never wish to feel again for a little while after that. But I didn’t have long to sit and stew. There was a limited window in which we could act. I figured ten years was enough time to put myself well out of Meghan’s path and never look back. Besides, we couldn’t stay in town anymore, not really. The whole place knew every last one of our family’s secrets. If I stayed, Henry would grow up like Boo Radley — infamous and feared.”
“So we hit the road, looking for a fresh start and a fair shake. That’s how we ended up here, in Rough and Ready.”
He swept his hands across the desert plains that were whipping past our window, then corrected, “Though I suppose we’re far past town limits now.”
“Carter…”
He heard the sympathy in my voice, and ignored me, choosing to recount the events with methodical precision instead of being confronted by my pity.
“Rough and Ready is small, pretty much disconnected from the world. I mean, you know that. Ain’t nobody comin’ looking for us out here. When Meghan gets out, if she wants to find us… well, it’ll be pretty damn hard for her. But that’s in five years, anyhow. Maybe by then we’ll have moved out of the country. I’m thinking Canada. Because that woman’s never getting a passport.”
“So you’ll spend your life on the run?” I asked, despairing. “That’s no way to live.”
He shrugged, already resigned to his reality. “Maybe not for me, but it’s what’s best for Henry. If she comes back, there’s no telling what she’ll do to him. And it doesn’t matter. After all, there’s always work for a mechanic. It’s a simple life, and maybe not an easy one, but it’s the only thing I’ve got.”
“Oh Carter,” I murmured, my voice thick. “You’re not the man I thought you were.”
“Well, then, Dr. Psych, what am I?”
“You’re something much, much better.”
CHAPTER 16
Carter
JUST AS I was taking in Phoebe’s words, I noticed that we were finally coming up on the destination I’d had in mind.
“Perfect timing,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
As I pulled around a corner and to the canyon, I attempted to tamp down the sirens that were going off in my head. I’d done it, I’d actually told another human being — a stranger, no less — about my life, my experience with Meghan. It had been fucking painful, humiliating, all the above, but it’d also been… cathartic, I guess? Shit, was this why rich people went to therapy?
I was also relieved that she didn’t think any less of me, because I certainly thought less of myself. And, as I was coming to realize, Phoebe’s good opinion was extremely important to my self-worth.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice still soft.
“It’s a place I like to go when I need a little alone time.”
She snorted. “Then should I be here?”
I pulled the truck to a stop overlooking the canyon, sun on the horizon. “Of course you should.”
“Carter?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
At last, I took my hands off the wheel. The joints were sore from clenching. “What on earth have you got to be sorry for?”
She bit her lip and cast her eyes downward. “I shouldn’t have pried. You were right. It wasn’t my story to know. And I’m so grateful you told me, but — but I behaved badly. I was intrusive, and…”
“Don’t apologize,” I said fiercely. “You forced me to confront something I thought I’d never recover from. And I’m not healed, sure, but I gotta say, this feels like a start. That’s because of you, Phoebe.”
Her gaze wouldn’t meet mine, so I pushed further. “And I know I haven’t been altogether kind to you. That I’ve been a li’l abrupt.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, “but only because I was being invasive.”
“No, it’s because… well, can I tell you the truth?”
At that, she looked up. “There’s something you haven’t told me?” she said with a laugh.
“Yeah. I haven’t, and I should have, should’ve said it the first time I saw you, that very damn moment.”
A smile curled at her lips. “And what’s that?”
“I should’ve told you,” I said in a low voice, “that you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And I should tell you now that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the moment you walked into town. You are beautiful, Phoebe, but you’re also smart, caring, inquisitive. I know I’ve been pulling away, but it’s only because I was afraid of someone knowing the real me. Shit, that sounds like a line, it’s not supposed to be a line, I’m just trying to—”
“Shh.” She cut me off, laying a finger on my lips. “I know what you’re trying to say, because I’ve been trying to say it, too. How about we finally stop talking and thinking and debating, and just… give in?”
