“He’s a criminal.”
“Like Dad?”
Eva took an unsteady step backward. Her face held an expression of complete shock, but her glistening eyes told Kat it was checkmate. Kat pushed the crumpled envelope against her mother’s chest.
“I wonder,” Kat mused. “Did Grandpa’s hatred make you want to walk away from the man you loved, or did it push you further into his arms?”
Eva stared at the envelope in her hands.
“You should have told me, Mom. It wasn’t Nana’s job to tell me about Dad’s past,” Kat said angrily. “Instead of judging me, instead of judging Carter; you should have been honest with me first.” She willed her tears back. “How could you lie? How could you make me feel so alone?”
“I never wanted that,” Eva answered. “I just … I want you protected, Katherine. You’re all I—I didn’t tell you because I want what’s best for you.”
“Carter is what’s best for me. He may have made bad choices, but he’s a good man and I love him.”
Eva closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t lose my daughter, too. I won’t. You’re risking too much!”
“Carter isn’t dangerous!” Kat exploded. “Jesus, Mom. He protects me. He’s protected me since I was nine years old!”
Eva’s face changed to one of perplexity. “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you. You don’t trust a thing I do or say.”
“That’s not true,” Eva argued. “I just—”
“What, Mom?” Kat huffed in exasperation. “Worry? Get scared? Guess what? So do I.”
Eva moved closer. “Listen to me, Katherine. Come home with me. Let’s talk. I can’t keep fighting with you like this. I want us to go back to how we were before all this.” She wrung her hands together. “Don’t you see? This is all because of that damned job, because of him.”
Kat bit her tongue, halting the vitriol that threatened to spill. “I need to be with Carter.” She turned on her heel and made for the door.
“Katherine, wait!”
Kat stopped, took a breath, and turned slowly.
“Talk to me,” her mother urged, pain lacing her features. “I … I want to make this better. I want to make us better.” Frustration and hurt were clear in the sharpness of her shoulders. “I hate that we’re like this. I want … I want my daughter back. Please. I love you.”
Kat fought back the urge to go to her mother and find comfort in her arms. God, she was tired. They’d never fought this way before, never been so far removed from each other. Even after Kat’s father had died and Eva had fallen into herself, there were still moments of affection and hope. A part of Kat’s heart wanted there to be a resolution to the bullshit separating them now, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Too much had been said. There was no bridge big enough to cross the divide gaping between them.
“Until you accept that Carter is going to be in my life, I can’t do that, Mom.”
Without waiting for Eva to respond, Kat hurried back up the stairway, needing to get back to Carter, to have him tell her everything would be all right. She needed him around her, needed his scent in her nose and his skin under her hands. She needed his lips on her mouth and his voice in her ear.
The hallway to reach him suddenly seemed a mile long. She rubbed at a dead ache settling above her heart and pushed the bedroom door open, pausing in the doorway, holding her breath.
Empty.
She called his name.
“Katherine, please,” her mother continued from the hallway, having followed her up the stairs.
But Kat didn’t respond. Hastily, she stormed into the en suite.
Empty.
With her heart slamming into her ribs, she dashed back into the bedroom, calling his name.
His bag was gone.
She pushed past her mother, who was still muttering words such as “amends” and “love,” and threw herself down the steps, running in a full sprint to the back door.
Cigarette. He’s having a cigarette. He promised.
“Carter?” The back door flew open, showing only a thick layer of snow across the vast gardens.
Empty.
“Kat?”
Kat spun around, almost collapsing in on herself when she saw her grandmother’s soft, concerned face. “Nana, where is he?”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I thought he was in your room.”
“No. He isn’t there.” Kat gasped. “He promised me, Nana.”
Kat grappled for her cell phone from her pocket and burst out of the kitchen toward the front door.
“Please pick up,” she whimpered before the voice mail kicked in.
Her panic reached epic proportions when she threw open the front door to find only more cold stillness. Her breath erupted from her mouth in large gray plumes against the frigid air, while her gaze desperately sought Carter’s tall, broad form against the white.
Yet, looking through eyes releasing frightened, angry tears, all Kat could see was a single set of large footprints leading down the driveway, away from the house.
Away from her.
* * *
The screen of Kat’s cell phone lit the entire room as she pressed redial once again.
Voice mail.
She blinked heavy lids over weary, wet eyes.
She’d heard nothing from Carter for twelve hours. Not a text message and no phone call. Silence.
Her head throbbed, her heart was shattered, and her body was exhausted with worry. Every part of her body ached. The hollowness was paradoxically overwhelming.
Still, after many tears cried and hundreds of steps paced, she knew she didn’t blame Carter for any of it. How could she? She couldn’t blame him for finding a way out, an escape route. It had taken six hours, repeated hysterical calls, and numerous texts to him for her to recognize that. But she had.
Carter may have come across as impenetrable, unemotional, and indifferent, but Kat knew he was anything but. He was hopelessly open and fragile.
If anything, Kat was at fault for placing him in a situation in which he was clearly uncomfortable. She should have listened to her instincts and read the anxiety in Carter’s eyes. She’d wanted to show him he was enough, prove to herself that she could help him, that she was strong enough to support him.
She had been so selfish.
Yes, he had promised, Nana Boo said when Kat had laid her head in her lap. Yes, she had trusted him to mean it, but the truth was he hadn’t. He’d said it because she’d made him. He knew she’d needed it, and he’d given it to her. She wouldn’t have spoken to her mother if he hadn’t, and, in many ways, Kat was glad she had.
Not that it achieved much.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. Their conversations after Carter had left were uncomfortably stilted and curt, but they were conversations nonetheless. Kat had seen it, clear as day, on her mother’s face: she knew it was her presence that had forced Carter to leave. And, whether she admitted it or not, a part of her had to feel responsible.
Kat rolled onto her back, clasping her phone tightly to her stomach. Glancing out of the window, she saw the snow was still coming down. She couldn’t help but agonize about where Carter was and whether or not he was safe. She’d called the airport, but their flight booking hadn’t been altered. She’d no idea whether he had taken another flight home, but something within Kat told her he hadn’t. She’d decided after packing her bag she would leave Nana Boo’s and catch her scheduled flight the following afternoon. Nana Boo, of course, had urged her to stay, telling her that Thanksgiving should be with her family, but truthfully, being in the house with her mother, after everything that’d happened, simply didn’t sit right with Kat. She’d texted Carter telling him where she would be, should he return to her, and left.
Family or not, she needed peace, quiet, time to think.
Just like Carter had.
Jesus, what he must have felt, hearing Kat’s mother say the things she had. Eva’s words had bulldozed every single piece of confidence and self-assurance Kat and Nana Boo had helped construct around Carter the previous day and night. She closed her eyes. God, she just wanted to tell him she loved him.