Zoey

He walked away and I looked around the room.

“Really? Power outages in both airports? Come on. Why the hell are you doing this to me?”

I took in a deep breath, grabbed my purse, and followed him outside to the SUV. The drive to the Grand Canyon was probably the longest drive of my life. Even though it was only supposed to be an hour and a half drive, the GPS took us a different way, which extended our time by forty-five minutes. Needless to say, Carter was not happy.

We drove along Desert View Drive and stopped at Grandview Point. It was terribly crowded.

“What the hell,” Carter spoke.

“Keep driving to Moran Point. It’s a few miles down the road.”

“And you think there will be any less people there?” he spoke with an irritated tone.

“It doesn’t matter about the people. It’s where we have to go.”

“Let me guess, Nora told you to go there?” he spoke with sarcasm.

I didn’t reply. I just rolled my eyes and stared out the window. When we reached Moran Point, Carter immediately found a spot to park the SUV. We both climbed out, grabbed one of the urns, and walked the trail up to the point where we were lucky enough to find a spot where nobody was. Once we reached the top, I stood there and looked out into the picturesque wonder that sat before me.

“Wow. This is like something out of a painting,” Carter spoke as he held the urn against his chest.

“It’s beautiful. No wonder Nora wanted this to be one of her resting places,” I said.

Carter removed the lid from the urn and held it over the edge for a moment before slowly tipping it forward and letting the ashes fall over the depth of the canyon.

“Rest in peace, Nora,” he spoke.

I looked over at Carter, and standing next to him was his sister, smiling as she watched her ashes scatter. She lightly placed her hand on his shoulder. He looked over and then at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he spoke with a bit of panic.

He placed the lid back on the urn and took a seat on the ground. We both sat there in silence for about thirty minutes, taking in the beauty that nature had formed.

“I think we should grab something to eat and head back to Sedona,” Carter spoke.

We drove for about an hour and pulled into a restaurant called The Steak House. After we were seated, Carter’s phone rang.

“Excuse me, I need to take this,” he spoke as he got up from his seat and walked away. A few moments later, he returned, sat down in his chair, and stared at me with a weird look on his face.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. It was just business,” he spoke as he placed his napkin on his lap.

I could tell something was wrong by his tone of voice.

“Was Nora there with us at the Grand Canyon?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“I swear I felt a hand on my shoulder while we were standing there. You said she was with us in Lake Tahoe. So, if you were telling the truth, then you would have seen her at the Grand Canyon. So, please, Zoey, tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know, Carter. I didn’t see anyone.”

There was no way I was going to tell him in the middle of the restaurant. This man was a ticking time bomb and I wasn’t about to set him off.

“Okay.” He took a sip of his water. “Is there anything you want to talk about?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I looked at him in disbelief. Just a few hours ago, he was believing I had a mental illness, called me a liar, and tried to send me home. So why the hell would I want to talk to him about anything? He had some nerve asking me that and going about as if he did nothing wrong. He’d said a lot of things to me since the first day we’d met and I had chosen to overlook ninety-nine percent of them, but what he said about me lying about my parents to make myself feel better for being abandoned crossed the line and that was something I couldn’t overlook or forgive him for.

“I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Grayson.”

He took in a sharp breath and sat back in his chair.

“This is because of earlier, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry, but it doesn’t change things. You can say you’re sorry a million times over, yet you continue to say things that hurt me over and over again. You don’t want me on this trip and I don’t want to be here. So, tomorrow morning, I’m calling the airlines and getting a flight back home to Connecticut. I’ll pick up the rest of my things in a couple of days.”

“Fine.” He nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Fine,” he spoke with an attitude.

We finished our dinner in silence and then climbed into the SUV and headed back to the Enchantment Resort.

“That call I took earlier at dinner. It was my private investigator, Charlie. I had him do some digging on that plane crash you told me about,” he spoke.

“Good for you.” I sighed.

“Everyone on that flight was killed, except for one survivor. A child. A five-year-old girl. But her name was kept out of the papers to protect her identity, and then shortly after the crash, she disappeared. That little girl was you, wasn’t it?”

I looked at him as tears filled my eyes, but I couldn’t speak. I turned away and looked out the passenger window.

“Zoey, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine.”

He reached his hand over and softly placed it on mine, which was resting on my lap. I pulled away.

“Please talk to me,” he spoke in a tender voice.

“Yes. I was the little girl who survived the crash of Flight 4211. The only survivor out of 525 passengers, including my parents.” A single tear fell from my eye.

“I don’t know what to say to you except how sorry I am.”

“Don’t be. That was twenty years ago.”

He pulled up to the valet at the Enchantment Resort and we climbed out and went to our suite. The moment he opened the door and I stepped inside, I started to go straight to my room, but felt his hand grab my arm and stop me. I looked at his hand and then at him. He pulled me into a tight embrace and I didn’t know what to do. He didn’t speak a word. He only held me in the middle of the living area.

After a few moments, he broke our embrace and our eyes locked on each other’s. He brought his hand up and lightly cupped my chin.

“I don’t want you to go home tomorrow. I want you to stay and finish this trip with me. To be honest, I don’t think I can do it alone. Please,” he spoke in a begging voice.

“You can do this alone, Carter. In fact, I think you need to.”

“That’s your decision, then?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” I looked away.

He swallowed hard and walked over to the sliding glass door. Placing his hands in his pockets as he stared out at the beautiful view of the canyon, he spoke, “I understand and there’s no need for you to be sorry.”

“Thank you,” I quietly spoke and went to my room.

Taking my phone from my purse, I called the airport and was able to get on a flight back to Connecticut at eight a.m., which meant I would have to leave the hotel around four thirty, since it was a two-hour drive to the airport.