Chapter Eleven
Sierra was all mixed up. She’d decided to let him, to have this again just this once—she was pregnant after all. Then she’d leave. She would. She had to.
But who was this man kissing down her body like she was something not just precious or important but actually necessary, elemental to his survival?
Who was the man with these words? These promises? What had gone so warped in his head that he thought he should give them to her?
Still he hooked his fingers in the band of her panties and slowly slid them off her, and she didn’t stop him. Didn’t want to. As much as those words had reached inside of her and clawed at what little strength she had left, his touch was a balm. His gentle kiss against her knee, her thigh was warmth and pleasure.
She hadn’t felt good since the last time they’d done this. That had been fleeting too, but it had been a hope dashed. This wouldn’t be hope. It would just be goodbye.
Then his mouth was on her and there was no thought, no goodbye considerations, just sensation and pleasure as he licked into her. She let it sweep over her, hot and greedy. She opened for him, gasped for him, reveled in something so simple.
Love was supposed to be this simple. Not hard and fighting and mistakes. It was supposed to sweep over you like pleasure. Make your skin warm and your body hum. What was the point if it didn’t work just like this?
But that was thinking and she didn’t want to think. She wanted to feel. Carter’s mouth against the most intimate part of her, the rising tension of pleasure, and then that glorious break and uncoiling of perfect, untethered bliss.
She let out a dreamy sigh as he moved off of her. He pulled off his shirt, his eyes on hers, blue and blazing. She simply watched as he undressed himself the rest of the way.
Tears and sadness threatened because he was so beautiful and he’d been hers for such a short period of time. She thought she’d have forever to memorize the muscles of his shoulders, that square jaw and the way it clenched when he was desperate for her.
She thought she’d watch this man grow old and—
And she couldn’t think about it. She simply couldn’t. So she moved into a sitting position and took off her bra so she was completely naked for him like he was for her. He crawled over her as she lay back down, intense and so determined.
She held her breath, waiting for that moment when he’d enter her, when he’d make the whole world fall away and this horrible clutching pain in her chest would disappear.
His eyes were so blue and they took up the whole world. How she wanted him to be her world. If only she were enough.
“I love you, Sierra,” he murmured, sliding into her in a smooth, gentle stroke.
If only they could exist here. Perfectly joined. Her brain emptied and quiet as sensation took over.
Moving together, holding on to each other, breath and souls mingling. Where the outside world and real life didn’t matter.
It should be this easy, shouldn’t it? Wasn’t that the point? Things that were simple and easy and only brought joy.
But even as they moved together she knew that didn’t make any sense. Oh, she wanted it to, desperately, but his words from earlier were stronger and better somehow.
No. No. That was her insecurity talking and she had to be strong enough to protect herself. She had to be a good mother to this child inside of her and that meant not letting someone else guide her life or make her miserable.
“Sierra,” Carter murmured into her neck, sliding his hand down her hip, holding her there as he moved. “I love you.”
And he kept saying it, against her neck, against her lips, moving with her as she tried to shut it all out and focus on the building sensations inside of her instead of her heart swelling too big, too soft.
“Sierra.”
She met his gaze, so serious, so determined, and while he’d always been a goal-oriented man, a man who worked hard and went after what he wanted, she’d never seen this ferocity, this fire.
“Say it back,” he said, on a growl. “Mean it.”
She blinked, trying to keep the tears at bay, trying to find this horrible instead of wonderful. Trying to ignore the way pleasure spread through her at that intensity, that demand. All the while moving, holding her and ratcheting her closer to that beautiful edge all over again.
“Sierra.”
She wanted to fight him, but how did you fight the ocean? Blue and ceaseless. Big and vast and swallowing her whole.
“I love you, Carter,” she said on a choked whisper, the orgasm ripping through her in a hot, tight rush, his following on a moan.
They lay there, her under the heavy, warm weight of him, holding on to each other as if they’d drift away without that link.
She must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up—tangled up in Carter, warm and happy and both of them still naked—a very dim light crept through the slight gap in the curtains he’d drawn afterward. It was just barely dawn, if she had to guess.
She moved her head and simply stared at Carter. He’d said so many things last night, done so many things. She couldn’t wrap her head around why he didn’t seem different. Still handsome as an angel, still her strong, awe-inspiring husband.
Even after admitting his mistakes and telling her he’d been wrong. Even calling the past few months a mess. Admitting his mistakes and pointing out hers and it didn’t feel as though it had diminished either of them.
He’d asked her why she ran away when things got hard, and in the moment she hadn’t known, but right here, she knew without a doubt.
Failure was so much more bearable when you could say you hadn’t tried all that hard.
Was she going to try now?
She looked at his golden lashes against his cheeks, the way his hair had a little curl to it since it was getting too long. The golden glint of a five-o’clock shadow and the peaceful smile of a man who’d had thoroughly enjoyable sex last night.
If she tried now and still lost, how would she ever endure it? If she fell deeper, harder, entwined her life with his even tighter…
She couldn’t do it. She had to be a mother to her child, and she’d never be able to if she started that journey with Carter as a partner.
Panic beat through her, not just in her chest but also in her neck, in her head, in her wrists. Everywhere she throbbed with panic, struggling to breathe as she detangled herself from Carter.
He didn’t budge, instead kept sleeping happily on.
She grabbed her clothes with shaky hands and managed to get them back on her body before slipping out the bedroom door.
She padded into the kitchen, feeling like a criminal. Her heart beat too hard and she jumped at every noise. She was shaking, couldn’t breathe right, and every cell in her being was telling her to go back to bed and believe.
But her brain reminded her of all the reasons why she shouldn’t. It might not have control over her body’s reactions to leaving, but it knew what was right.
She shoved her feet into her shoes and shrugged on her coat. She closed her hand over Carter’s keys and paused, looking at the sparkling rings on her finger.
This had to be it. Much more and he’d win and she’d…
What? Be happy and whole?
She shook away that traitorous thought. Because the truth didn’t exist in hope, the truth existed in experience. Her experience was she and Carter couldn’t do this.
Or maybe it was just her. She couldn’t do it. She would never belong in a place like this. She would never survive years of cleaning up messes and making things work. She wasn’t strong enough.
So, she snuck out the front door, got in his car, and started driving.
*
Carter rolled over in bed, perfectly warm and satisfied for the first time in months. Months. Sierra wasn’t in bed. But he heard someone out in the kitchen so he didn’t have to panic.
He felt whole again, all those fractures after Dad had dropped his bomb healed.
Objectively, he knew they probably weren’t healed precisely. But he’d had all his priorities skewed. Thinking everything in life was McArthurs and putting forth a good image and being a respected doctor.
But he should have been worried about being a husband and a partner. It should be more important to be a good doctor rather than a respected one. Once upon a time those had been his tenets, but he’d morphed into his father’s way of thinking about things. They weren’t necessarily wrong ways of thinking, but they were too rigid and harsh. It didn’t leave room for him.
So he’d put in the hard work, he’d try, over and over again until it all worked. Which was life, really. As a doctor, if he stepped back and looked at the whole of life, the body was a thing of balance. You never knew when things would throw it out of whack, when things would threaten survival, when time and toil changed the way a body did things.
Life was just like that. Never perfect, though sometimes good enough you barely noticed the time passing. But problems always cropped up, and ignoring those issues rarely made them better.
He should tell that analogy to Sierra. She might not appreciate it as much as his doctor brain did, but maybe it’d clarify where he was coming from.
On a yawn he rolled out of bed and pulled on his boxers and headed for the kitchen to see what she was up to. Except there was no lively blonde in the cabin’s kitchen.
“Lina.” His sister’s presence made…zero sense.
She turned from where she’d been looking out one of the kitchen windows that offered a view of the slew of evergreens dashed with snow. She wrinkled her nose. “Ew, put some clothes on.”
But that didn’t penetrate at all. “What are you doing here? Where’s Sierra?”
Her face changed, going soft, which was not a Lina trait at all. She looked away. “Go get dressed, Carter.”
But he simply stood there absorbing…this. Lina was here. Sierra was not.
His sister was here.
His wife was not.
It reminded Carter of the moment after his father had announced he wasn’t actually Carter’s father. There was a kind of numbness that spread from that deep flash of pain. Denial and impossible disappointment twined together to make the entire world feel frozen.
But he forced his feet to move, retrace his steps, go into the bedroom to find his clothes. He stopped in the doorway, looking at the rumpled bed, and he didn’t…
She’d left. After all they’d shared, after all he’d laid bare. She still left. Without the courtesy of an explanation or a goodbye.
As though he didn’t matter, as though nothing they’d ever had mattered. He walked over to the bed with the intention of grabbing his jeans where they lay in a heap on the floor.
Instead he found himself sinking onto the mattress, lowering his head to his hands. He’d tried, put his all, his heart and soul into repairing things. Into her. And he still hadn’t gotten the result he’d wanted.
She’d left. It was all a failure. A new kind of failure because any time he’d considered failure in the past it wasn’t like this. It was worrying his father would find out and be disappointed. It was worrying about reputation and what others thought, not the actual failure result.
This… He couldn’t bring himself to worry about his family’s opinion or what the town or hospital would whisper behind his back. All he cared about was the fact Sierra wasn’t here, after all the inroads he’d thought he’d made and she’d still run away.
He lifted his head, frowning. She ran away from things that mattered. He thought he’d gotten through to her, but apparently he hadn’t. At least not enough. He could give up, let that feel like a failure. Or…
She ran away when things mattered. Who was he to think one night would fix that pattern? Giving up now would only put them back to where they’d been, and he wouldn’t go back there. No amount of failures could allow him to forget he had to keep trying, because as long as she was running, this was something worth fighting for.
Yes. No matter how many failures or setbacks. He pulled on his pants and shirt and then went back to the kitchen where Lina was sitting at the table, sipping tea.
“So, what exactly are you doing here?” he demanded.
She frowned, presumably at the tone, but she shifted uncomfortably, her eyes darting anywhere but to him. “Well, Sierra asked me to come get you since she, you know, took your car.”
“Right. Did she say anything else?”
“Uh.” Lina winced. “No. Just to get you home.”
“Of course.” It might hurt, but he would take it as a good sign. He wasn’t sure what had happened in his life to make hurt a good sign, but she’d disappeared early in the morning. She’d left no note, no words not to follow. It meant she’d been driven by panic, not rational thinking.
He had to believe that.
“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Lina said, studying him uncertainly.
“Why?”
“You’re calm, but kind of like…murdery underneath that.”
“I’m not murdery,” he replied darkly, moving for his shoes and coat. “I’m determined.”
“Determined to commit murder?”
“No. Now, stop sitting around chatting and relaxing—I have things to do.”
“What kind of things?”
“Find my wife things. What else would there be?”
“She sounded… Maybe you should give her some space. She was upset when she called me. Afraid, almost. I’m not saying she’s afraid of you, just… She’s struggling. You should give her space.”
“Why?” Carter demanded, shrugging on his coat once his shoes were tied.
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why should I give her space when she’s upset and struggling?”
“Because people want to be alone when they feel like crap,” Lina said stubbornly, her scowl awfully deep for someone who, as far as he knew, had never even dated.
“No. I mean, maybe sometimes. We’re talking about people, and people are different and complex and flawed. There’s no one solution fits all, but Sierra… Look, she needs—”
Lina snorted. “I’m sorry, I find it really hard to believe you know what she needs.”
He looked at his sister then, really looked. In some ways, they were nothing alike. Lina had a sharp tongue and the older she got the less afraid she was to use it. But she could be hard and judgmental, and in that way he saw himself.
It softened him in some ways, because he knew that the hardness stemmed from trying to protect themselves. A shell they’d all grown in the face of their parents’ demanding expectations.
“Maybe I don’t know what she needs, but I know she’s scared. I know she’s running because she’s afraid that I can’t be what she needs. Why would I let her keep thinking that? Even if it’s not what she needs, though I have my doubts on that, I’ll never give someone I love the space to think the worst again. Not after dealing with the aftermath of that. I have to keep showing up even if it’s just to stand there.”
Lina frowned deeper, but she didn’t continue her argument.
“So, where is she?”
“I don’t know. She just told me she took your car and you needed a ride home.”
“Then I don’t need a ride home. I need a ride to her.”
Lina’s expression went a little soft. “Carter…”
“Help me find her, Lina. Please.”
“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said please to me and actually meant it.”
“Well, that’s going to change.” A lot of things were.