A Matter of Trust (6 page)

“Yeah, it got pretty heated in there. I
suppose you didn’t like the fact that your dad spoke up.” Ben was
watching her reaction, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t
hide the hurt that came with the mention of her father.

She shrugged. “Never know what Dad’s going
to do, but I didn’t expect that. It was such a betrayal,” she said,
tasting sour grapes in her mouth at the mention of what he’d
done.

“To who, you?” Ben said. She thought he
sounded angry. “Sounded to me like a man trying to get folks to
listen and get all the information before they make a decision that
could greatly affect them for the rest of their lives.” He crossed
his arms and didn’t move any closer even though she could feel him,
as if he’d invaded her space.

“Yeah, of course you’d see it that way. My
dad’s also an oilman, so yes, he’s on your side,” Carrie snapped,
starting to stomp off.

“Hey.” Ben reached for her arm, and her eyes
went right there, to where he had touched her. She wheeled around,
angry, because his touch had stirred something in her that she had
no right to feel with him. He lifted his hand and held both up with
a carefully guarded expression. “Calm down,” he said. “If you take
a minute to think about it, you’d realize your dad wasn’t on my
side, he was on the town’s side.”

“How is he on the town’s side? That’s such
bullshit. Even the mention bringing your oil company and that
pipeline project to this community, my community—the community I’ve
stood side by side with, the community that’s been dead set against
this project from the beginning…it’s such a betrayal!”

“A betrayal to you, maybe, but I don’t think
you’re really just talking about this project,” he said, leaning
in. There was something in his eyes, a dark expression that she
didn’t like. It was as if he was calling her out on everything.
“Just be sure you’re not confusing whatever is happening between
you and your dad with your stance on this project. Your dad was the
only one at that meeting who was thinking clearly.”

She started to say something, but Ben
gestured sharply for her to stop. “Enough. Listen to me,” he said.
“You have a community that’s living below the poverty line. There
are families that can barely afford to put food on the table, a
roof over their head, clothes on their kids’ backs. Look at the
shadows all around you of the burden these people carry: the
rundown buildings, the fishing boats moored in the water, rotting.
The fishing industry is in the toilet because of all the cuts and
government restrictions, and your dad sees that. Smart man. With
poverty comes hopelessness, especially for the children. I hope
some of the people who were at the meeting will listen to him.”

“He wants to support a pipeline project
through here! There’ll be tankers and—”

“No, he doesn’t!” Ben shouted, cutting her
off. She had to step back, because she’d never seen a man get so
worked up with her. His whole energy was fired toward her in that
instant. “He told you, all of you, to renegotiate your share from
what was offered. You have all the risk, and he gave you an idea of
what we’ll gain. What he said was very clear. He was trying to get
you all to think in dollars and cents. You’re not being offered
your fair share, considering you’re assuming the greatest risk. He
just wants this town to negotiate a bigger piece of the pie so that
the town and the people in it can prosper. Then maybe there’ll be
something to talk about.”

She frowned. All she had seen was her dad
waltzing up there to try to undo all of her hard work. This, being
part of this protest, had defined who she was. It had given her
something to believe in, and the fact was that oil companies had a
history of creating catastrophic environmental damage and dumping
the cost entirely on the affected communities, crippling them for
years and years.

“What your dad is proposing certainly won’t
make my company happy, so know that this isn’t a win-win for us,
not by any means. Your dad wants to cut into our profit, but I just
happen to respect what he’s done. From where I’m standing, he
appears to be the only one looking at what’s best for every one of
you--and this town.” Ben let his arms fall to his sides and just
watched her.

He just didn’t get it. If he only knew
everything that her dad had done, he wouldn’t be on his side. She
began to open her mouth, but Ben angled his head, frowning. She
wondered if he could read her thoughts.

“You have issues with your father, so maybe
you’re not able to be objective,” he said. “Let’s just hope the
rest of the town can be.”

“I don’t have issues with my father. He’s…”
She stopped. How could she explain how complicated their
relationship was?

“Have dinner with me,” Ben said.

“What?” She couldn’t have been more shocked
if he’d asked her to stand on her head.

“Tonight. Just two people having dinner, and
we leave our issues with each other at home.”

His entire expression was intense. She
really needed to say no—hell, no! But her body, her heart, every
part of her felt something come alive, just being around him. It
didn’t make her happy, of course, because she felt as if she was
betraying a part of herself that she needed to stay true to.

“I shouldn’t,” she replied.

He smiled brightly. “Come on, don’t think
about it. Besides, you need to eat, and so do I. Just say yes.
Let’s just do it.”

This time, when he put his hand on her arm
and squeezed softly, she probably would have agreed to anything.
“Okay,” she said.

Ben led Carrie into the only restaurant in
Kit Cove. He had managed to chat briefly with Jack and borrow his
truck, since getting a rental vehicle in this small community would
be impossible. He hadn’t planned for this, either, but right now,
the way this project was twisting and turning and taking on a mind
of its own, nothing was as simple and straightforward as he’d
hoped. Maybe having Verna send a car in would be a smart idea, but
that would take time, and tonight he needed wheels. Jack hadn’t
hesitated to toss his keys to Ben, though, who was grateful that
Carrie’s father hadn’t asked what he needed the truck for. Ben
wasn’t sure how Jack would react to the idea of him taking Carrie
to dinner. Even though there was a powerful disconnect between
Carrie and her father, which carried over to Alice, family was
still family.

As an outsider, watching the entire
situation without knowing any of the history that had brought that
family to this point in time, it appeared to Ben as if Carrie was
holding her father and Alice accountable for something. Considering
Jack and Alice seemed to be kind and generous folks, Carrie was
coming off as a spoiled brat, but Ben had seen her hurt when she
mentioned the loss of her mother. He couldn’t imagine what that
would do to a person, considering both of his parents were alive
and well in Boise. His brother Joe had lost his first wife to
cancer at a young age, and it had nearly destroyed him.

As Ben stood in the doorway of the
restaurant, watching Carrie fidget with her purse, a plump,
middle-aged woman with dark hair grabbed two menus and started
their way. “Carrie…” She hesitated when she glanced up at Ben. Her
eyes widened, and he could see the moment that she recognized him.
She stopped in front of them and didn’t say another word.

Ben cleared his throat. “Two for dinner,” he
said with a smile, but the woman wasn’t smiling back. What she did
was incline her head, and Carrie gave him a withering look as if to
say,
See? This wasn’t a good idea.

“Slow night. I’ll put you by the window,”
the woman said in a rather brusque and chilly tone as she led them
to one of ten tables in the small, older diner.

“So how’s the food here?” Ben whispered to
Carrie when they reached the fifties-style table by the window. He
pulled out an old vinyl chair for Carrie, and she sat down.

“It’s good,” she said, and she smiled up at
the woman, who set the menus down. “Thank you, Barb.”

The look Barb leveled on Carrie had her face
heating. Even Ben was smart enough to realize Carrie could take
some heat by being with him. He felt bad, of course.

“I’ll get you some water and be back to take
your orders,” the woman said before hurrying away without so much
as a glance in Ben’s direction.

“There’s going to be talk, me being out with
you,” Carrie whispered as she leaned forward.

Ben didn’t know how to ease her worry, so he
smiled at her, knowing she really was taking a leap just by being
seen with him. “So how long have you lived in town?” he asked. What
he really wanted to ask was how long she’d lived in the dump he’d
picked her up at. It was a two-story building with ten apartment,
at least forty or fifty years old, creaky and run down. Jack had
that nice place where he lived outside of town. Had she grown up
there? He had a hundred questions he wanted to ask.

“About a year,” she said just as the
waitress returned and set two glasses of water in front of
them.

“The dinner special tonight is Steve’s
meatloaf,” Barb said while tapping her pen on the order pad she was
holding.

“Do you have a wine list?” Ben asked. He
flipped the menu over, looking for anything other than soda pop,
milk, coffee, and tea. He had a sinking feeling as he watched her
shake her head.

“Sorry, this is a dry town,” she
replied.

Carrie set her menu down. “The meatloaf is
fine with me.” She nodded up at Barb, who was still frowning.

“Make it two specials,” Ben added, and the
waitress slipped away, taking the menus with her. “Where were you
before a year ago?” he asked, turning back to Carrie. There was a
flash of something—regret, hurt, another secret—in her expression.
She wasn’t all that good at hiding her feelings.

“I lived in Sacramento, going to school. I
always wanted to be a journalist, but I didn’t finish, as Dad had a
heart attack.” She said it matter of factly and then took a sip of
water, her hands clutching the glass.

“I’m sorry. That must have been terrifying,”
he said.

She shrugged. “We hadn’t spoken in years.”
She tried to offer a polite smile. “You know how it is in
families.”

Ben roughly wiped his chin. “No, actually, I
don’t. My family isn’t perfect, and we have issues, but I can’t
imagine not speaking to them.”

“Well, Dad made his choice. He married
Alice.” She flushed, and he didn’t miss the sharpness in her tone,
as if she needed to dig in on that point.

“So how did your dad meet Alice?” he
asked.

Her blue eyes connected with his, and he
imagined she was thinking of another time. “Alice was Mom’s friend.
Dad moved us here when I was twelve. We’d been overseas since I'd
started walking, but Mom was tired all the time, so Dad decided to
move us back to the US. That was when he bought the place here. He
figured it was close to the ocean, and a small Oregon resort
community would be a nice retirement spot and could generate some
income. They wanted it to be a B&B, but they never got it off
the ground, because Mom was diagnosed with cancer. Alice had an old
farmhouse just over the hill from where the cabins are, the ones
you’re staying in. She was the first person to meet us when we
moved here, and she and Mom became good friends…but Alice had set
her sights on my dad. If Mom had only known, she’d have asked Alice
never to set foot in our house again.”

“Are you sure Alice and your dad weren’t
just two people who came together because they were caring for the
same woman, a woman they both loved?”

For a minute, he thought Carrie was going to
get up and leave. She opened her mouth to say something but then
leaned forward, putting her hands on the table. “No, she set her
sights on my dad, and he didn’t give my mom a second thought,” she
hissed. “As soon as the dirt was tossed on her casket, he turned
around and married Alice. She was still warm in the ground!”

“And you left?” Ben said.

“No, I couldn’t, then. I was only sixteen.”
She was shaking her head, but he could tell there was way more to
the story.

“So you waited until you were old enough?”
he prompted. What was it she was holding on to? Whatever it was, he
realized her entire fight with his oil company had a lot to do with
what was going on between her and her dad.

“No. Dad made a deal with me to stick it
out, finish high school, and try to get along with Alice. He said
he would pay my way through college if I did.”

So this was about money? Carrie wasn’t
painting a very flattering picture, but then, she’d been just a
kid. However, holding a grudge like that and then taking her dad’s
money, letting him pay for everything…he wasn’t sure he liked that.
He didn’t often misread people, but he’d obviously gotten his wires
crossed with Carrie somehow. He leaned back, but she was shaking
her head again.

“I didn’t take his money, by the way. I
worked my butt off to get a scholarship and then made my own way,”
she snapped. When she looked up at him, that hard, steely coldness
in her eyes, the same expression he’d seen when he first stepped
onto that tarmac, was back.

There were very few women who surprised him,
and even less who left him speechless. Carrie Richardson had done
both.

She fisted her hands, twisting her sweater
between her fingers as the silence lingered like a dead weight. Ben
Wilde, a man who had turned her world and emotions upside down in
less than twenty-four hours, was behind the wheel of her father’s
truck. She was in the passenger side, and she struggled not to
stare. His energy filled the space between them, and the power
seeping from him was unnerving. The attraction that simmered every
time they were together had softened her toward him—not that she
believed in him or wanted to rally to his side for this oil
project, because she didn’t.