Chapter Three – Caroline

He fetched a knife from inside the cabin, and began to gut the fish while Caroline built a fire. Her hand still tingled where their skin had touched, while a residue of warmth filled her body, and his face filled her mind.

Carter needed a shave, that was for sure. But he didn’t smell too bad. On her climb here through the mountains, she had half expected to find a dirty man, with a bird’s nest for hair, who was half crazy after spending so long on his own.

She glanced across to where he was intent on his work preparing their food. His hair did kind of resemble a bird’s nest, or a mad professor. Caroline smiled. At least he wasn’t the pretentious ass she had expected him to be. Nor was he so wrapped up in himself and his ego, that he was afraid to laugh at himself. Or her. The memory of his laughter echoed around her head. Had he laughed at her question about him being in the bed because he thought she was only putting off the inevitable?

Well, if that was what he thought, Carter Eden was in for a shock. She was certainly not sharing his bed. Not tonight, not any night, until she got to know him better. Which was not going to happen in one night, and she was leaving tomorrow, unless she saw a chance he might change his mind about the land. She owed it to Will to update him as soon as possible on Carter’s decision, not hang around on a social visit.

Pushing thoughts of Carter Eden and bed out of her mind, she set her mind to lighting the fire. However, she soon found herself mulling over the mystery behind the movie star’s sudden desire to come and live on a mountain on his own. Unable to fathom the reason, Caroline tried to figure out if there anything she could do to change his mind about the land—without using the bond that was between them.

The bond between them. Her bear stirred in her mind, anxious to take the bond further, for them to claim their mate. Caroline pushed her back down. She wasn’t ready. This wasn’t what she had climbed a mountain for. She had come here for Will.

You have always done things for other people. To help other people. When does it become our turn? her bear asked.

We’re not ready to be his mate, Caroline insisted.

We are ready. But we are scared.

Her bear was right, Caroline was scared, scared of allowing her feelings to control her, of being obsessed with a man in the same way she had been obsessed with Rich when she was a teenager. Of course she had learned that was all part of growing up. However, Caroline had not grown out of her crush as teenagers usually did. And the hurt she experienced when he found his mate, and the incredible loss when he died, had become an oppressive weight on her chest whenever she lay down to sleep.

“Are you going to start that fire, or just look at the sticks?” Carter asked, breaking through her thoughts. “You need to light it.”

“By rubbing two sticks together?” she asked, brushing her worries aside and making her voice light.

“I understand you want to keep your army skills from getting rusty, so I’m not going to stop you,” he said. “But the fish is ready to cook.”

Caroline pulled her pack toward her and rummaged inside for her matches. “Just for you I’ll use these.” She set the kindling and struck a match, lighting the fire, and then blowing on it until the flames danced bright orange and red. Satisfied it wasn’t going to go out, she fed in smaller sticks, and nurtured the fire until it was crackling and snapping happily.

Carter left the fish and went inside the cabin, returning with a frying pan and some seasoning. “There’s cold potatoes and wild salad too,” he said, adding oil to the pan, tossing in the fish and seasoning.

“OK, well, I think we are ready.” Caroline looked proudly at the small fire, the flames had died down and the embers glowed red hot. She sat back while Carter crouched down on his haunches, and put the pan over the fire. “Is this how you live?”

“Cooking outdoors?” He turned to look at her. “Not always. But when the weather permits, I like to spend as much time as possible out here.”

“What do you do?” Caroline asked, her mouth watering as the aroma of the fish tickled her taste buds.

“Think,” he replied honestly.

“About?”

“Anything. Everything.” He smiled, suddenly shy, which Caroline had not expected from such a man. “I know I probably come off as boring as fuck.”

“I’m going to go for interesting,” Caroline said. “Because if I thought I was going to live with a man who was as boring as fuck for the rest of my life, I might run for cover right now.”

He looked at her again, his face serious as the fish spat and sizzled in the pan. “So you have accepted we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“I slipped into that one, didn’t I?” she asked evenly. “Listen, I know we are meant to live the rest of our lives together. I accept we are mates. But you also need to accept that there is going to have to be some compromise.”

“You mean about the land?” he asked with a sigh.

“No, I mean you live up here on the fringes of society, and I have a life in Bear Creek. A life I’m not willing to give up.”

“And what if I am not willing to give up my life here?” he asked.

“That is where the compromise comes into it,” Caroline said.

“OK, but for now, can we just eat our meal, drink beer, and not think of tomorrow, or the day after that? One thing I have learned living up here is the need to live in the present.”

“The present it is,” Caroline said, getting up. “What can I do?”

“Your choice, you can finish cooking the fish, or go into the cabin and get the plates, and salad. Potatoes are on the counter.”

“So you are giving me permission to go snoop around?” Caroline asked.

“Snoop as much as you want. Up here, I have nothing to hide.”

“That is a leading statement,” Caroline said. “If you have nothing to hide up here, does that mean you have something to hide down there?” She pointed toward Bear Creek.

Carter nodded. “Not so much stuff to hide, but certainly things I would rather forget.”

“We all have things we would rather forget,” Caroline said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t make us who we are.”

“A philosophical statement.” Carter didn’t look up as he spoke.

“Well, you know, being in the army does not mean I’m stupid, or don’t have a long stretches of time when I have nothing but my own company.”

“I never implied you were stupid. Did I?” Carter asked, not giving her his full attention.

“I’m not sure,” Caroline replied. “I guess I thought you were being sarcastic.”

“I wasn’t,” he assured her. “But I know where you are coming from. I was an actor, you know that, right?”

“I do,” she said.

“Do you know how many times people thought I was dumb because all I did was speak someone else’s words?”

“Really?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah. Not helped by the fact I left school with no qualifications,” he conceded. “People think I got lucky, that I was born with talent, and nothing else.”

“Is that why you came up here. To make a point?” Caroline asked.

He burst out laughing. “Coming up here reinforced the idea I was stupid, because who would turn their back on such a wonderful life?”

“Why wasn’t it wonderful?” she asked, her hands on her hips as she watched his expression change.

He sighed. “It was. When I started. I was truly blessed. But I worked hard. Really hard. People like to forget that.”

“And…?”

“One day I woke up and looked in the mirror and realized the world would be a better place without me in it.”

“That’s not true.”

“You don’t know that. I mean has the world really missed me?” he asked caustically.

“I don’t know.” She turned to walk toward the cabin. “But now there is someone in it that would miss you.”

“Does that mean you’re going to stay?” he called after her as she opened the door of the cabin.

Caroline hesitated and turned her head to look at him. “It means we have to find a way that works for both of us.”

He nodded. “Compromise.”

“Word of the day,” she said, and slipped inside, not sure what to make of the grumpy bear who was her mate.

Carter’s cabin was sparse, but cozy. It had a wood burning stove in the sitting room, with an old sofa, and a couple of hand-carved wooden chairs. Caroline wondered how he got the sofa up here, as she ran her hand over the back of it. She made her way through to the small kitchen, that had a small stove, and a handmade table and chairs in the center.

Had he carved everything himself? Was that how he kept himself occupied? The days must seem endless when you were on your own for so long. Caroline liked her own company, but hell, there was only so much she could take before she needed to talk to another human being. Everyone was different, she admitted. And Carter was different from most other people she knew. For a start, he was a movie star, or at least had been a movie star.

Now he was simply a man who lived on a mountain. Would that change if he came back down with her? Would the need for fame and fortune take over?

She pulled two plates down from a shelf, and grabbed the salad and potatoes, and took them outside. He had asked her to live in the present for today, and that was what she was going to do.