“What about your father?”
Carter clenched his jaw. “He lives in Connecticut with his new wife. I don’t speak to him. Can we— Can we talk about something else?” He shifted his head sharply to the side so his ear touched his shoulder, and groaned when it gave a loud click. “I need to move.”
He stood, shaking his arms out. He had a lot of pent-up energy that needed releasing. He pulled out his pack of smokes and lit one, taking a huge pull. He turned to see Peaches sitting, watching him, gripping her shins while leaning her chin on her knees. He needed to divert the attention somehow. He’d never been comfortable under a microscope and, even though he knew that she wasn’t asking him to be nosy, telling Peaches personal stuff was still difficult for him.
“So, are you gonna tell me what happened this past week while you were away?”
Tit for tat and all that.
Peaches twisted her hands together awkwardly and pursed her lips. Carter waited, vaguely aware it had started raining again.
“My mother is a difficult woman,” she whispered.
Carter could only imagine how her mother reacted to her job. He wondered fleetingly how she’d react to her daughter’s choice in men.
“She still sees me as a nine-year-old kid instead of a twenty-five-year-old woman. She thinks anybody with a criminal history is capable of evil just like the men who killed my father.”
Carter flopped back against a tree, smoking silently.
Well. That answered that.
“She doesn’t agree with my life choices. She thinks I can’t make my own decisions, and the ones I do make are never the right ones, even my teaching.”
“You’re an amazing teacher, Peaches.”
“Thank you.” She dipped her head. “Well, it’s what my dad wanted for me.”
Carter couldn’t look away from his girl, peaceful and stunning in the twilight. They’d shared so much together over the past few hours, but Carter knew there was still so much he needed to tell her. He just didn’t have a clue how to broach any of it.
They needed to reconnect somehow, find what they had left in her kitchen when they’d cooked the omelettes. Determined, Carter threw his smoke away, pushed off from the tree, and walked to her. He held out his hand.
“What?” She cocked her head.
“Come here.” He grinned.
Without hesitation, she placed her hand in his. Her touch tingled and buzzed and shot up Carter’s arm like a lightning bolt. He pulled her to her feet and led her until they were standing next to the Alice statue. He pulled her close and held her left hand up in his right, with his other on her waist. Slowly, he began moving from side to side, watching confusion creep across her face.
“What are you doing?”
He lifted his arm and twirled her slowly underneath it. “I’m dancing with you.”
He placed his hand tighter around her waist and leaned her so far back she squealed and clung to his shoulders. They both laughed when he brought her back up, and Carter did an internal happy dance when she pushed her cheek against him.
“Is that—is that Otis Redding you’re humming?”
Embarrassment teased his neck. “Um … yeah, I think so— ‘These Arms of Mine,’ I think. I don’t know. Why?”
She giggled. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as an Otis fan.” She eyed his Zeppelin T-shirt.
“Shut up,” he chided and pushed her face into his chest, smiling at her muffled laughter.
As he continued to hum, they moved together slowly, gracefully, from one foot to the other, in a complete circle, holding each other in the gentle rain.
“My dad loved Redding’s music,” she whispered. “He’d play ‘(Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay’ at full blast all the time. He drove me and my mom freaking crazy.”
“He had good taste.”
“He played it in the car on the way … the night that …”
Carter’s arms tightened around her instinctively.
She cleared her throat. “It’s weird the things you remember, huh?”
His stomach tensed. Was this the moment he asked? Was this the moment he told her who he was, what part he’d played? Was this the moment he put everything they had built together on the fucking cliff edge, and waited for the inevitable tumble?
If he truly wanted her to be his, he knew the answer was yes.
Closing his eyes, he let the words come.
“What do you remember of the night that he—ya know—when he passed away?”
She lifted her face to the evening sky. “I remember everything.”
Carter’s stomach hit his shoes. “You do?”
“Yeah, everything,” she murmured, placing her cheek back against his chest. “I remember the car ride from DC. The hotel, visiting his rehabilitation shelter, the walk to the sandwich shop, the moment they hit him with the baseball bat.”
His lips pressed against her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
He hated that she’d been hurt. He hated that he hadn’t been strong enough to stop the bastards from killing her father. And he hated that he knew, deep down in his soul, that Peaches would hate him for it, too.