Chapter Six – Carter

Whatever movie-star magic Caroline saw in him was gone by the time they had sorted through his cabin, made sure no perishable food was left to go moldy, and packed up everything he needed to take with him. There wasn’t much, but it still filled three packs, which Caroline insisted they spread between them.

“I feel bad,” he told her as she shouldered the second pack.

“I’m a strong girl,” she replied.

“I can see. So the army?” he asked as they hit the trail heading down toward Bear Creek. He was going to have to do something to keep his mind off leaving the mountain.

He rubbed his beard. Maybe no one would recognize him in Bear Creek with so much hair on his face. He might even get arrested for breaking and entering into his own house.

“The army?” he repeated his question, realizing Caroline hadn’t answered. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”

“No. I loved the army. It taught me so much.”

“Did you join when you left school?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“What makes a young woman want to join the army?” he asked.

“What makes a young woman want to join the army,” she mused.

“Yes. It’s not the most natural career for a woman. Or is it?”

“No. Not really. It’s still very much a man’s world.” She walked on a few more paces. “My brother joined. And for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea.”

“And it was?”

“It was. I made a difference.”

“I envy that,” Carter admitted.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Caroline said. “I bet you made a difference to someone’s life.”

“Not in a good way.” It was an honest reply. Caroline wasn’t the only one hiding a secret.

“We need to work on your self-image.” She looked him up and down. “I didn’t realize the scowling was all an act to cover up the real you.”

“The real me likes to scowl.”

“So what happened? What made Carter Eden, movie star, come up here?”

“I got cocky and someone nearly died.” There his secret was out.

“Wow, I did not see that coming,” Caroline admitted. “I mean, I knew there must be a reason, a big reason. But that was not it.”

“And?” he asked.

“And what?”

“Does that make you want to tell me to run back to my cabin in the mountains, and never darken your doorstep again?” Carter asked.

“You haven’t darkened it yet.” Caroline stopped and put her pack down, retrieving her water bottle and taking a drink, before passing it to Carter. “I’ve seen some bad shit. Things no person should see. Things no person should do to another person.”

He took a drink and returned it to Caroline. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “It went with the job. And I don’t regret any of it. At least I got the job satisfaction of blowing some of that crap up.”

“My bear is impressed, you did in real life what I pretended to do in movies.”

“It’s not that impressive,” she replied modestly. “And that isn’t my point.”

“So what is your point?” he asked.

“That no matter how you see yourself, I can guarantee it’s not that bad.” She put the water bottle away and lifted the packs. “We’re always harder on ourselves. It’s why people don’t like to look inside themselves. You have.”

“Seemed really bad at the time,” Carter admitted. They were on the move again; the sun directly overhead was warm on their faces.

“It always does. But being up here must have given you perspective.”

“I thought it had.”

“Don’t be scared of ghosts from your past,” Caroline said. “Believe me, I know how powerful those can be.”

“Says the woman who blows things up with a tank.”

“That’s what I used to do. Not who I am. Everything is easy when you have a few tons of metal between you and your enemy. But ghosts, they are something else.”

“So tell me about your ghosts,” Carter ventured.

“My ghosts? My ghosts are real.”

“And mine aren’t?” he asked.

“You said someone nearly died, which implies they are still alive.”

“They might be. I don’t know, I’ve been stuck on a mountain for years, remember?”

“Does that make you feel guilty? That you have no idea if the person you feel responsible for is alive or dead.”

“And this is why I went up a mountain,” Carter said.

“And now you are coming back down. You get to find out whether they are alive or dead, whether your running away made things better or worse.”

“I did what I thought was best, but maybe I was just a coward.”

“Then you make up for it,” Caroline told him bluntly.

“Make up for it how?”

“However you can.”

“Is this going to circle back around to that piece of land your boss wants?” Carter asked.

“No. That is totally separate.” Caroline stopped, her hands on her hips as she faced him. “You have to figure out what it is you feel you need to atone for. If anything. Then you have to figure out what you need to do to make that atonement. No one, not me, not your parents, not anyone, can tell you what that is. Only you know.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a shrink?” Carter asked.

“Most definitely not. But I’ve been around enough people to know what works.”

“And what about you?” Carter asked.

“What about me?” Caroline let her arms drop to her side and then walked on in front of him.

“What do you need to atone for?”

“Who says I do?” Caroline asked, keeping her voice light.

“I may not have known you for long, but I can tell there is something in your life that you regret. Something that stops us from being close.”

“I’m sorry for not being the kind of woman who jumps into bed with a man just because he’s her mate,” Caroline answered hotly.

“Now you are being defensive.”

“Because you are pushing my buttons,” Caroline replied defensively.

“Maybe they need pushing.” He held his hands up. “I want to help.”

“Well, you can’t,” Caroline said, rounding on him. “And you want to know why?”

“Yes.”

“Because you can’t ask forgiveness from a dead person.” Caroline pressed her lips together and turned away from him to continue down the trail. Her pace increased and she marched as if the enemy was at her back. But Carter did not want to be her enemy, he wanted to be her friend, her lover, and her mate.

He needed her to feel as if she could tell him anything, and so he jogged down the trail, stones slipping from under his feet as he caught up with her. “Hey.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Caroline threw at him.

“Caroline. Stop.” He reached for her, but she ducked and his hand slipped off her shoulder. “Caroline.” He reached for her again; this time he grabbed her arm and pulled her around.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Caroline repeated.

“I understand that. I do. But you are upset and shutting down is not going to help.”

“Says the person who ran away from his problems.”

“I didn’t run away. I removed myself.”

“There’s a difference?” she snapped.

“Yes. I removed myself because I didn’t want to hurt other people…” He let her go. “Or have them hurt themselves.” He raked his hand through his hair. It was time for a confession. “You should know the truth, before we get back to civilization.”

“What truth?” Caroline’s voice softened. “Carter, what happened?”

“There was this girl.” He heard her sharp intake of breath. “No. Nothing like that. I wouldn’t… Which was the problem.”

“Don’t talk in riddles.”

“Sorry. It’s a hard thing to talk about.” He took her hand and led her off the trail. “Let’s sit, and eat.” Although he had lost his appetite. What he did have was some of his beer. It was still cool and he opened two bottles, passing one to Caroline while she unwrapped the sandwiches he had prepared for the journey.

“Thanks.” Caroline took a swig of her beer and then sat nursing it, while waiting for him to talk. It seemed she had lost her appetite too.

Carter drank his beer down, wanting to feel the familiar buzz, and let it settle his frayed nerves. There was something about the taste of it in his mouth, the way it slid smoothly down his throat, and the knowledge that he had made the beer from scratch. It was all his. From the picking of the ingredients, to the final bottling. In movies he had always been a participant in someone else’s creation. But this beer, it was his, and it was good.

“Are you going to tell me, or sit looking at that bottle all day?” Caroline asked.

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

“Well, think out loud,” she urged him, her hand resting on his shoulder.

“I’m trying to figure out where to begin,” Carter said.

“The beginning is a good place. I know about your movie career. Was it a fan?” Caroline asked.

“Yes. A girl of fifteen. She wrote me poems.” He took another swig of beer. “I never even read them. All my fan mail went to an assistant at the studio.”

“I can understand that.”

“But people took the time to write to me, shouldn’t I have taken the time to read what they wrote?” he asked, angry with himself.

“You didn’t. That’s a fact. A fact you can’t change, but jeez, we can’t live by if-onlys,” Caroline said, and he knew she made sense.

“She wrote about us being together. About us getting married,” Carter went on. “And my assistant sent back some crummy reply thanking her for her letter.” He looked up at the sky, it was so clear. “She turned up at the studio. Somehow got in and snuck into my trailer.”

“Oh fuck,” Caroline said. “What happened?”

“I freaked. I mean there I was, twenty-five, with a girl ten years my junior, and underage, in my trailer. I yelled at her to get out. Called security. I was so concerned about how this would make me look, I never thought about her.”

“Damn, poor kid.” Caroline quickly added, “I don’t blame you. But it must have been devastating for her. You being her idol and everything.”

“She went home that night and slit her wrists.”

Silence. The forest seemed to hold its breath, too, as Caroline held her breath. When she let it out again, it was a gasp, as if she had come up for air from the deep ocean. “Oh, Carter, I am so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for me,” he answered.

“Did she…?”

“Die? No. Her mom found her and called emergency services.” He shook his head. “She was fifteen and I was some asshole who spoke words that weren’t his and pretended to be someone he wasn’t on a screen. And she thought that was worth taking her life for.”

“What happened after? How did you find out?”

“The police came to my house. They interviewed me. And people on the set. There were no charges, no blame. But how could I walk away when this girl tried to kill herself because of me?”

Caroline sighed. “Love makes people do strange things.”

“And fame makes you do lousy things. I should have stopped to think how it would affect her. She was thrown out of the studio in front of all those people.” He drained his beer. “She was just a kid, and I didn’t want to ruin my image.”

“And so you walked away.”

“I could not be that person. I could not bear to think of myself on a screen where she might see me, and relive it all over again.”

“Carter Eden, that is probably one of the most selfless things I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not, believe me. I didn’t do it for her. I did it for me.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Caroline said. “If it makes you feel better.”

“It’s the truth.”

“As you see it,” Caroline said.

“No.” His voice was gruff, seared with emotion. “Don’t make me out to be the hero.”

“Why?” Caroline asked. “Because it doesn’t sit with your I’m the worst person in the world attitude?”

“Because I’m not. I don’t want to be.” He looked back along the trail, wanting so desperately to put Caroline over his shoulder and take her back to his cabin where they could live all alone for the rest of their lives. He was completely torn, between the life he knew, and the woman before him who was a stranger.