Page 105 of No More Secrets
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here this time.”
He frowned as the prickle of guilt caught him. “Me too.”
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Carter found Nikolai sitting on the ground playing fetch with the pigs and shooting close-ups.
“She fucking smiles like she knows how lucky she is,” he said, glancing up from his screen.
Dixie trotted over, ears flopping, and Carter ran a hand down her back.
“Summer left.”
Nikolai squinted at his screen as he flipped through shots. “I know. Beckett told me.”
“Any ideas on what happened?”
He stood, slinging his camera around his neck. “I have one.”
“But you can’t say,” Carter predicted.
Nikolai nodded. “She’s got stuff going on that she doesn’t talk about to anyone.”
“But she told you.”
He shook his head. “No. I found out and she couldn’t deny it. Swore me to secrecy. She’s very careful about who she lets in and there’s still times when I know she’s pissed that I’m in.”
“She doesn’t want to let me in.”
Nikolai stood and put his hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Look. I’ve known her for a few years and I’ve never seen her happier than she is here with you. In the city she’s a fucking machine marching toward her goals, working seven days a week. Here, she laughs. She doesn’t carry her phone everywhere. She sits on the porch and drinks iced tea instead of spending three hours a night reading emails and writing blogs. She looks at you like you invented puppies and manicures.”
“This stuff that she’s got going on, is there an end in sight?”
“I hope so. Or this summer was just a brief reprieve.”
“Do me a favor,” Carter said, frowning up at the sun. “Keep an eye on her for me. Keep her safe.”
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Nikolai talked Carter and his brothers into posing for a few outdoor portraits that afternoon before heading back to the city. And Carter couldn’t help but hope he was going straight to Summer to talk some sense into her.
He knew it was a setup when Joey asked him for help with the evening riding classes. He also knew it wasn’t a coincidence that his brothers decided to call for pizza and hang out to binge watch the first four episodes of the latest zombie apocalypse show.
Joey survived two episodes before calling it a night. She didn’t even snipe at Jax when he offered to drive her home. She did, however, insist that she get to drive his new car. “Look at that,” Beckett snickered when they left. “All Jax had to do to make time with Joey was scare her with the threat of zombies in the cornfield.”
“Maybe he’s not such an idiot after all,” Carter conceded.
“No, he’s still a fucking idiot. Why do you think he left?”
Carter shrugged. “Scared? I don’t know. I think the accident had something to do with it.”
“Think Joey will ever forgive him?”
“I think he has some work to do before that’s a remote possibility. He owes her that.” Carter stood up, a subtle buzz from the beer crept into his head. “Let’s adjourn this meeting to the porch.”
Beckett reached for the empties. “I second that motion. And move to switch to that bottle of scotch you have stashed in the pantry.”
