On the Rocks (A Turtle Island Novel) (10 page)

As usual, Carter scowled. Then he climbed in and slammed the door.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

T
he never-ending blink of the cursor annoyed Carter the next morning as he sat at the desk he’d rigged up by his bedroom window, trying to will himself to write. He’d written one sentence.

I will not meet Ginger at sunrise.

Which had nothing whatsoever to do with the book he’d sold, and everything to do with what he’d been battling with the last three mornings.

Ever since watching the sun come up with her by his side, he’d wanted to do it again. So much that he’d been awake, showered, and dressed before sunrise each morning. He’d told himself he’d gotten up to write, but today was the first day he’d actually opened his laptop.

Instead, he’d sat by the window, watching for movement from next door. Monday he’d caught sight of her heading down the back deck steps, but yesterday there had been nothing.

This morning . . . the verdict was still out.

He squinted as a light came on in her bedroom. She was up.

Pressing his face nearer to the window so he could see between the curtains and the window frame, he silently watched. As he did, adrenaline began to pump. He let his fingers slide to his keyboard.

She wore rubber boots and shorts that barely covered her ass.

It wasn’t the story he was supposed to be writing, but it was words. He kept going.

And she watched him as if she knew the make and model number of every torture device stashed away in his closet . . .

It stunk as far as good horror writing was concerned, but again, he didn’t care. Carter continued letting his fingers work. He turned off his brain—not thinking—and typed. And he kept his gaze glued to Ginger’s window.

As expected, the light soon went out, and seconds later the back door opened. He caught his breath. He wanted to go with her. The urge to follow came with a desperation he hadn’t felt in a long time. Only, along with the desperation, something else teased at the corners of his mind. Something that frightened him. And kept him where he sat.

It also kept him typing.

The idea of meeting up with Ginger for sunrises gave him
hope
. Hope for what, he wasn’t sure. But it was there. Tempting him to reach for it.

And there was a part of him that
wanted
to reach for it. To grab it and hold tight.

Yet, there was so much anger still inside him. Anger that didn’t feel finished. And no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t see those two emotions sharing the same space.

The moment Ginger’s foot hit the dirt path behind her house, she turned back and looked up at his window. Lifting his fingers from the keyboard, he eased the lid to the laptop closed. The screen had been the only illumination in the room, so he was certain she couldn’t see him. Yet it felt as if she were staring directly into his eyes. As if she were repeating yesterday’s words.

What happened to you, Carter? You used to be happy. You used to smile.

You need to talk to somebody.

Lisa was what had happened to him.

And though he’d stormed away from Ginger the day before when she’d hammered at him about not smiling, and poked for the details about his marriage, he’d realized as he stood there that he
wanted
to talk to someone. To her, specifically. He’d wanted to open the pain he’d kept closed for so many months, and to tell her—to warn her—of all the miserable ways that life could turn on you.

He’d wanted
her
to be as angry at the crap path his life had taken as he was.

But at the same time, he didn’t want to do that to her. She believed life could be good. That finding the “perfect man” would make everything all right. Why should he be the one to burst her bubble?

Hopes and dreams were for the birds. Relationships? The very idea was laughable.

But her house could make her happy. The way he saw it, it was the
only
thing that could. So he was willing to do that for her. To help her with her dream home. And he’d keep the rest of his thoughts to himself.

He continued watching until she turned away and eventually disappeared out of sight. His own house would have made him happy if he hadn’t built it with Lisa in mind. For
their
hopes.
Their
dreams.

Or, at least for his.

Who the hell knew what Lisa’s hopes and dreams were. He certainly had no idea anymore. Had she ever wanted their marriage to work? Had she ever wanted
him
?

How the fuck could he have been so completely wrong about everything they’d ever had?

A soft knock sounded at his door, and he looked over to find his sister standing there in a pale-blue gown down to her knees, backlit by light spilling out from the open bathroom door. Her belly seemed to be expanding every day. On her small frame, it looked painful.

“What?” The word came out more harshly than he’d intended. He straightened, shifting away from the curtain.

“I’ll be late getting in tonight.” Her gaze flickered to the window, but she wisely didn’t point out that he’d been peeking out like a crazed stalker. “There’s a benefit dinner for the gallery after we close,” she explained. “It’ll go until at least ten.”

When he didn’t immediately answer, she added softly, “You could come if you want to.”

“I don’t want to.” He flinched at the rude tone, and tried again. “No thanks.”

After their talk last week, his and Julie’s relationship had eased into a simple—but easy—routine, and he was trying not to bite her head off every time they spoke. He often failed.

Their days consisted of him scowling quietly in the early morning darkness until she got up and opened the blinds all over the damned house, then he’d fix her breakfast—he’d insisted the stove remain in the kitchen until the last possible moment—and then she’d get ready and depart for work.

During the days he helped out with the remodel before making sure Julie ate a decent dinner at night, and he finished each evening with a six-pack. A fact Julie must be passing along to their mother, because she
still
checked in on him every day. And more often than not she asked if he’d been drinking.

But even with the lessened stress in the house, he and Julie still bickered. Often about how she worked too hard or should put her feet up. And he wasn’t so obtuse that he didn’t realize he was the cause of most of the stress. She
had
tried to nudge him out of his mood, though. He’d give her that. She’d brought up interesting topics of conversation in the evenings. She’d dragged out photo albums, and they’d relived past vacations. They’d even worked together to design the new open-concept floor plan the remodel had grown into.

But all of it had been superficial. He still knew nothing about how she’d gotten into the state she was in, and she knew nothing about what had gone wrong between him and Lisa. And though he didn’t seem to be willing to put any personal effort into changing that, it bothered him. He wanted to be closer to his sister. But he didn’t know how to do that without opening
himself
up.

Julie rubbed a hand over her stomach and yawned. “If you change your mind . . .”

“When are you going to quit working?”

“What?” She lowered her hand.

“You work too hard,” he said. “You’re exhausted. When are you planning on quitting?”

“I’m not planning on
quitting
. And I don’t work too hard.” She shot a look at his closed laptop. “Maybe the problem is that you don’t work hard enough. Mom mentioned you haven’t been writing. Don’t you have a book due soon?”

“Mom needs to keep her mouth shut. And we’re talking about you, not me. You’re seven months pregnant with a baby who has no father. You can’t do everything alone. And clearly you can’t work after the baby is born. What are you going to do?”

Yes. He was picking a fight. But honestly, it was all he knew how to do these days.

And he
did
succeed in picking it.

Julie flipped on the overhead light as she rushed into his room, her finger raised and pointing at his face. “Worry about your own life, you jerk. My lack of a man has nothing to do with how long I work before delivering. And I’ll most definitely return afterward. I don’t need a man to make me happy. I can do this on my own.”

Good thing she realized that so young. “So you’re just going to deliver alone? Raise my niece alone?”

“Unless you want to be there for me,” she taunted. “Want to stick around, big brother?”

He jerked back as if slapped.

“I didn’t think so.” She smirked. “So leave me alone.”

She stomped back out of the room, and for some reason, each step that grew between them seemed like a distance he’d never get back. “I’m just worried about you.” He raised his voice to stop her. “I disappeared from your life for too many years. I wasn’t there to worry. To keep you from . . .”

He waved a hand toward her protruding stomach when she turned back.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” he finished, and with the words, recognition seemed to fill Julie’s face.

“You blame yourself for me being pregnant?” she asked indignantly.

He didn’t
blame
himself, exactly.

“You do know . . . whether you’d been around or not, that wouldn’t have changed things? I’m a big girl. I do what I want.”

“But I could have been a good influence on you. Kept you from—”

“Having sex?”

He cringed. Whether she was twenty-two or not, he hated the idea of his little sister being old enough to do
that
.

“You know,” she mused. “I lost my virginity when I was—”

“Stop!” He held a hand up. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m trying to apologize here, and you’re fucking it all up.”

She stepped back into the room. “This is an apology? For what? And my god, Carter. What kind of an apology is it? You’re berating me.”

“I’m out of practice,” he grumbled.

His words seemed to soften her, and her shoulders slumped. Her face took on a sad, poor-Carter look.

“This isn’t about me,” he warned, but that didn’t stop her. She came closer.

“Isn’t it?” she asked. “What happened with you and Lisa? Talk to me, Carter. Clearly that’s why you’re so angry. Let me help.”

“Maybe I’m angry because I’m
here
. I have a life to get back to, you know?”

She swished a hand in the air. “Then go. Feel free. I told you, I’m fine. Don’t stay on my account.”

“You’re not fine. I caught you crying
again
last night.” It was a nightly occurrence that ripped him apart each time he heard it. “What’s going on with you? You say you and the baby are fine.”

“We are fine.”

“Then it’s about the father? Why isn’t he around? Why doesn’t he call?”

“What makes you think he doesn’t call?” The question was spoken so softly it took a second for the words to register. When they did, they pulled him from his seat.

“He calls?” He crossed the room to her. “When? Who is he?”

“It’s not important.” She shook her head. “None of that is important. He
has
called, but it doesn’t matter. He’s out of my life.”

“Why?”

She gave him the kind of disinterested look he knew he’d patented over the years. “That’s none of your business. How about you tell me what happened with you and Lisa? What split you two up?”

“That’s none of your—”

“Okay.” She held up both hands. “Tit for tat, I get it. Don’t tell me what happened. We all do things we don’t want to share with the world. But I do have another question. One I hope you’ll actually listen to. Your marriage didn’t last, and that sucks. Big-time. I get that. But how long are you going to blame the world and everyone in it?”

The words stopped him. He didn’t blame the world, he blamed Lisa.

Ten seconds passed before he spoke again. He counted off each moment of time in his head as he forced himself to pull in a deep breath and let it out again. It was a stress-reducing technique he’d read about a couple of months ago, but so far he hadn’t noticed it actually reducing any stress.

It did help him to admit to a truth today, though. He was a jerk.

“I’ll try to quit being an ass to you,” he grunted out. She was right. He was taking it out on everyone, and that was undeserved.

The corners of her mouth twitched. “That would be nice.”

“And maybe you could try . . .” he prompted, thinking if he gave a little, then she could, too. She could try taking it easy since she
was
due to give birth soon.

“Not telling Mom that you’re still not writing?” she teased.

Damn.
He smiled.

Just like that, his lips curled. And the strangest thing happened with that small lift of his lips. It was as if a chunk of his hurt got lopped off, and he sucked in air all the way to the base of his lungs.

“You’re a twerp,” he told Julie as she grinned smugly up at him. He reached out and tugged on the ends of her hair. “But yes. Please.
Don’t
tell Mom that I’m still not writing.”