Carter

Carter sat in the garage and went over the designs for his next year's car models and felt a wave of frustration wash over him. He wished he could just go to the plant and start on them now. There was so much that needed to be done that he couldn't do from his mountain home. As much as he loved being out on the ranch, it certainly made doing business ridiculously hard. He wished he could go down to the city for at least a couple of hours just so that he could get a few things accomplished.

Without access to his office and his usual business interactions, he felt out of control. He had far too much freedom out here, and he missed the hustle of the office. The ranch was great, but he craved the thrill of the deal and the excitement of being around people who shared his dream. He wasn't good at just sitting back and letting things happen, so being out here in the middle of nowhere was hard on him.

He sighed and pushed his chair away from the drafting table. If he was feeling like this, it meant it was time to take a break. He got up and went to the paddocks to see to his horses. This was the part that made being out here tolerable. He loved the horses and doing manual labor. It was so different from what he was paid to do that it was pleasurable.

The walk was chilly, but the sun still shone through the clouds, and the snows hadn't come yet. The mountain tops were white now, and frost covered the grass each morning, so it wouldn't be long now, but today was beautiful. A crisp, cool fall day with nothing to worry about. For the moment, the world was as it should be.

A security guard nodded respectfully as he passed and Carter returned the motion, almost like a salute. He hoped that whoever was sending the threats would be caught soon. He needed them to be caught so that he could go back to work and his real life.

Hopeful Dreamer nickered softly at him as he approached the fence to the big open space. The foal raised his head and began dancing around his mother with joy that his friend had come to visit him. If that wasn't enough to make him feel better, then nothing was, Carter thought to himself as he opened the gate and went inside the paddock.

It was amazing how much the little foal had grown in two months. He was still all legs and odd angles, but the grace of his sire was starting to show. He was a deep black with white forelegs and a star on his forehead. Star Dreamer was an appropriate name for him.

The foal nipped at his sleeve as he came close, asking him to play in the yellow grass. His mother watched, munching on a mouthful of grass stems. She knew that Carter would keep her baby safe, so she almost seemed happy to have someone else keep the energetic young coal entertained for a while.

Carter checked the colt over with his hands, making sure that he didn't have any burrs or injuries. He knew that Laura did this every evening when the horses came in, but it felt good to do it himself. If he was going to be stuck here, he might as well feel like he was useful.

Hopeful Dreamer's head popped up and she froze for a moment before deciding there was no reason for alarm and went back to eating. Carter followed her gaze to see Brian coming up to the fence. The big man had a smile on his face which made Carter hopeful for good news. He gave Star Dreamer one last pat before walking back to the fence. The colt tried to follow him until his mother scolded him for going too far.

“What's going on?” Carter asked as he got close. Brian stood away from the fence with his hands behind his back and looking like the professional he was.

“I have good news,” Brian replied. “We have a lead. We got a hit on the fabric left on the porch bomb. The police are planning an arrest. We finally had enough information to put all the pieces together. This was the most frustrating puzzle I've ever worked on in my damn life.”

“An arrest?” Carter asked. “They're that close?”

Brian nodded. “All signs point to a family member of the airbag death lawsuit. A father of one of the girls that died. We'd been looking into them, but nothing connected them until now. We know who it is now. His name is Fred Hillstone.”

Carter stayed silent but nodded. He immediately recognized the name from the lists. His daughter was Beth and was nineteen when she died. He knew every name on the list of people that had died. He'd memorized them all. He could only imagine the amount of anger her father held toward him. He could understand it, but that didn't justify the death threats.

It made sense that it was someone from the airbag lawsuit. There were hundreds of people affected, many with deaths. The level of planning to get to him out here required true hate. Death could cause that. He had thought the fiasco with the airbags was behind him, but apparently, it wasn't. The settlement had been more than fair, but there wasn't a real way to put a price on a human life.

“The police are searching, but they haven't found him yet,” Brian continued. “They believe he's fled to Wyoming, judging from his credit card purchases.”

“It's almost over then, isn't it?” Carter asked, feeling his shoulders start to relax.

Brian nodded, and the smile came to his face. “Once he's in custody, you can go back to your regular life. You can go back to the city. You can go home to California.”

The words didn't excite Carter like he thought they would. California suddenly seemed very far away from here. From Mia. From the kids. He would miss them all terribly. He found himself not wanting to leave after all.

He hadn't expected to fall for them like he did. They were the highlight of his days, and the idea that he would leave them behind was actually rather sad. The thought of saying goodbye to Mia made his heart tremble. She meant too much. Their conversations late at night cuddled together meant too much for him to just leave.

He loved her. He loved those kids.

The realization hit him like a punch to the gut. It wasn't lust or friendship. It was love. He loved those kids like they were his own, and he loved Mia even more. She completed him in a way that he never expected to find.

As much as he wanted to go back to his old life, his heart wanted to stay here too. He wanted both lives. Was it possible that he could have his life here and in California?

“Thank you for telling me, Brian,” Carter said, putting a smile on his face. This was supposed to be good news. “Let me know when he's been apprehended.”

Brian nodded and turned to continue patrolling the ranch. Carter watched him for a moment before turning around and going back to Star Dreamer and his mother. The colt whinnied and danced like it had been weeks instead of minutes since Carter left him. He was going to have to leave Star Dreamer too, he realized.

The little horse tucked his head under Carter's hand, positioning his head so that Carter would scratch the spot behind his ears that always seemed to be itchy. Carter chuckled and began scratching as the colt sighed with pleasure.

Carter stood in the meadow with his horses and stared at the horizon. He was trying to come up with a way that he could still be here and at his plant in California. Or maybe Mia could move? But the kids were in the system here. They couldn't go to California, and there was no way that Mia would leave them.

He sighed and shifted his feet. There had to be a way that he could have his old life with the people that he loved in his current one.

There had to be.