Heart of Gold

by J. R. Ward

  They started walking again. Nick’s heart ached as he remembered Carter’s eyes looking at him with such warmth.

  “When she got older and went off to boarding school, I would come home, open the door, and be looking forward to seeing her. It took years for me to remember she didn’t live with us anymore. I tell you, that front hall never looked emptier than in the moments when I would realize she wasn’t waiting for me.”

  The man fell silent for a while, breathing so hard he couldn’t speak.

  This time when they stopped, Nick settled on a rock so Wessex wouldn’t be embarrassed by his lack of breath. Sinking gratefully against a boulder, Carter’s father leaned down and braced his hands on his knees.

  “I filled it up with art, you know. The lobby. It’s hung with old-world masters. Changed the rug, too. It used to be pale to match the white marble. Now it’s red.” He looked up at Nick. “It still feels cold, though.”

  They resumed the hike and Nick took him to within a hundred yards of the clearing that faced the lake.

  “Keep heading this way,” he said. “You’ll get to an open stretch with a long view and the trail keeps going behind it. The campsite is to the left. You’ll see it clearly.”

  “Thank you,” Wessex murmured and started off by himself.

  Nick watched him disappear into the trees, wondering what had really happened the night Carter’s mother died. He had no idea whether the man who had just limped up the mountain was cruel or simply fallible. His emotions, however, had been obvious. He missed his daughter and would do anything for a second chance.

  Nick knew exactly how that felt.

  16

  CARTER WAS rummaging around Papercut Central when her father emerged from the trees. She stopped moving as she looked into his face. She told herself she shouldn’t be surprised that he’d come up. But she was.

  He looked older than she remembered, less vital. The dirt smudged on the legs of his pants and the twig hanging off one shoulder added to the perception.

  “Hello, Carter.”

  As soon as she heard his voice, she became angry again. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  She realized numbly that his inflection was as she remembered, carrying just the hint of an English accent. The tone was off, though. It was more hesitant than she was used to.

  Carter resumed searching for the storage bin. “Then you’ve wasted the trip up and ruined an expensive suit.”

  He didn’t leave, just stood on the fringes of camp.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said softly. “It has been very hard…to be away from you.”

  “Good.” She stood up, having found the container. “I hope it hurts like hell. Now go away.”

  She started toward the site.

  “Do you want to know why I send you the watches?”

  She wheeled around, her tone combative. “Because your secretary doesn’t remember what she sent me the year before?”

  “I buy them myself. I keep meaning to get you something else but the watches seem so appropriate. The time passing…It’s been so long.”

  His sad expression as his words trailed off made her pity him for a brief moment. It was an unexpected emotion. But then images of her mother’s funeral surged forward, cutting through any compassion she felt.

  “Then you should keep the damn things. I’m not marking time. I left you behind for a damn good reason and I haven’t looked back.”

  The words were a low blow and Carter knew it. She watched as he winced.

  “I know you haven’t,” he said slowly. “But the watches, they’re…my waiting, my hoping.”

  There was a long pause as their eyes, identical blue, met across the distance between them.

  “Carter, I have a lot to apologize for. I never really thought about what or who I’d left behind for all those years. I never knew how hard it must have been until I was left behind by you.” Her father took out a handkerchief and blotted his brow. “Do you know what I miss the most? The way we could speak without talking. You and I, we were so alike.”

  “I am nothing like you.” Every syllable was enunciated, her distaste for him coming out clearly. She found it confusing, however, that she had to force the animosity a bit.

  Her father nodded gravely. “Yes, I think you’re stronger. You were always stronger than both your mother and me. Certainly, you were able to handle her far better than I could.”

  Carter’s first instinct was to scream that he had no right to bring up the unspeakable. Furious, she opened her mouth but then hesitated as her father recoiled. The show of fragility halted the tumble of words in her throat.

  She thought back to her childhood. How, in that mansion full of grown-ups, she’d always felt like the only one who knew what was really going on. Her father was either gone or in the process of leaving and her mother was…in her own world. Other memories started to bubble to the surface, scenes in which her mother flew into fits over trivial things. Carter saw her younger self hiding until it was safe to come out again.

  Why had she forgotten these things?

  Then she stopped herself.

  “Don’t you dare blame Mummy for the fact that you were never home. That was your choice, not her fault.”

  “She was sick, Carter.” His eyes reached out to her, looking for understanding.

  Her laugh had a sharp edge. “Because you left her alone in that house while you danced your way into the bedrooms of God knows how many other women.”

  “I never,” he emphasized softly, “never was unfaithful to her.”

  Carter opened her mouth to fight him but he cut her off.

  “No matter what she told you, no matter what she believed of me, I was never with another woman.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Carter shook her head vehemently. “She said you—”

  “Your mother was mentally ill.”

  Carter threw down the storage bin, balling up her fists. “How dare you! How stable would you be if you were left alone all the time?”

  “She wanted it that way.”

  “She wanted it? She was miserable!”

  “Carter, she wouldn’t go out of the house.”

  “I never saw you ask her to,” she ground out bitterly.

  “That’s because I gave up hope before you were born.”

  Carter began pacing as memories came to her, memories of her mother’s distress and sadness. “No, that’s not right. She said you didn’t want her around. Said you wouldn’t take her places because you were ashamed of her.”

  “Untrue. She was her own jailer. And I wasn’t going to become a prisoner of her illness. By the end, she hated me for that freedom.” He lifted his hands up, his voice gentle. “I begged her to go see doctors. She wouldn’t go, at least not until they started prescribing things for her. Then she went all the time. Then I couldn’t keep her away from them.”

  Carter thought back, remembering the bottles of pills that were always around her mother. By her bedside, next to her reading chair in the conservatory, in her knitting bag. Why hadn’t that seemed odd?

  “Mummy couldn’t sleep,” she protested. “It was nightmares of you that kept her up.”

  Her father went over to the picnic table and sat down. He put his head in his hands. “My biggest regret was that I left you there. That was no place to grow up. I should have…You shouldn’t have had to deal with her by yourself. I knew the staff were there but you were so alone. I tried to take you with me once but she threatened to…It seemed more dangerous to take you away from her. I was a coward.”

  The self-hatred in his voice resonated in Carter’s ears, and she couldn’t shut out his pain.

  “The night she died,” he said in a voice that cracked, “I should have known she’d overdosed. She was out of control but I couldn’t distinguish the effect of the drugs from what might have been just another of her episodes. It never occurred to me she would get into a car. I didn’t think she could even drive
. When I got the news, all I could think of was you. I raced back to see you.”

  Carter recalled him coming to the hospital and the scene that had followed.

  Her father looked up, eyes pleading. “I have plenty to apologize for. There’s so much I should have done differently. I’ve spent the past two years chronicling my failures as a parent and a husband and I still have a long way to go. If I’d been more courageous, if I had taken drastic steps like getting her hospitalized, maybe she’d have gotten the help she needed.” His voice dropped. “But I didn’t and she’s dead and you’re gone.”

  When Carter simply stared at him, his shoulders sagged. With a lurch, he got to his feet. “I exhausted most of my married life trying to get away from the loneliness and isolation she lived in. Courtesy of running from it, I’m exactly where I never wanted to be.”

  A stiff breeze blew through camp, ruffling the edges of the tarps and making the pines whistle. Her father looked at the sky, the wind lifting up the tails of his jacket.

  “That’s all I wanted to say.” He spoke softly. “Except that I love you and always will. And I’ll stop with the gifts, too. It was never my intention to antagonize you with them.”

  He lifted up his hand but then dropped it and turned to the trail.

  Carter stared at his back as he left, engulfed by memories.

  She was surprised to see him so emotional. She’d always known him as uniquely stoic and strong. Untouched by the chaos created by her mother. Above it all. To see him so frazzled, so human, was a shock.

  Carter felt her knees buckle and she let herself fall into a folding chair. She was still sitting like that when Buddy came back to the site a half hour later.

  “Hey, I was getting worried about you.”

  “Sorry. I got…distracted.”

  Buddy looked up at the trees, which were beginning to sway in the wind. “I think there’s a storm coming.”

  Carter glanced heavenward. The sky had darkened dramatically, the sun shut out by purple clouds.

  She took a deep breath. “We better tie everything down and get those bones out of the dirt. Why don’t you finish up at the site and I’ll get to work here.”

  After Buddy left with the container, Carter moved around in a daze. She checked all of the tent and tarp lines and gathered up anything that could blow away. By the time the Swifts returned, the wind had intensified further.

  “Site’s secure,” Buddy said, putting the skeleton under cover in Papercut Central. “Looks like this storm’s going to be a real humdinger.”

  Suddenly, from out of the trailhead, Cort came running toward them. He was wearing a yellow slicker and looked worried.

  “You need to come down. There’s a severe storm warning out and you really should stay at the house tonight. Even Ivan said so.”

  Carter and Buddy traded anxious looks.

  “But we can’t leave all this equipment unattended,” she said to her partner.

  “Then you and Ellie go. I’ll hold down the fort.”

  Ellie shook her head firmly. “Dad, if you stay, I stay.”

  “I don’t want you up here if it’s going to be dangerous.”

  “Ditto,” she challenged him.

  “I’ll stay,” Carter cut in. “I want to stay.”

  They all looked at her dubiously.

  Buddy frowned. “I don’t want you up here alone.”

  “Please, how bad could it get?” When their expressions didn’t change, Carter rolled her eyes. “Come on, people. I’m not a sissy. I can handle it.”

  No one moved.

  “Go on.” She nudged Buddy’s arm. “Worse comes to worst, I’ll tie myself to a tree so I don’t blow away. God, will you guys give me a break? I’ll be fine.”

  Bob Packert and Nick were standing in the leeway of the house, watching the lake grow gray and choppy. They were waiting for Wessex’s return.

  Packert’s eyes were calculating as he spoke. “Farrell, if I went to the papers and cleared your name, would I still have a job if I sell to you and Wessex?”

  Nick cocked an eyebrow. “You aren’t selling. We’re making an offer your shareholders are going to jump at. As for getting the truth out, it’s a little late for that and it wouldn’t make you a better businessman.”

  Packert snorted indignantly. “I don’t appreciate your attitude.”

  “The truth hurts.”

  There was a moment of silence. “At least you can tell me when you’re planning on making the offer.”

  “You’ll know as soon as your shareholders do.” Nick was bored by the conversation, bored by the man. What he was really thinking about was how Wessex had fared with Carter. The man had been gone for some time, which meant one of two things. Either she’d turned him away immediately and he’d gotten lost on the way back down, or they’d actually talked.

  “Look here, boy, my company’s one of the hottest properties on the street. I’ve got more of you raider types beating a path to my door than Gorton’s has fish sticks. You and Wessex aren’t the only ones interested.”

  When Nick didn’t reply, Packert burst out with strained laughter. “You’re a cold one, ain’t you? The word on the street about you is right.”

  “I’m so relieved to live up to my reputation.”

  The first raindrops began to fall.

  Packert cleared his throat, changing his approach. “Say, now, this rain’s making me thirsty. What say we have a drink? Maybe we can get to know each other a little better.”

  “I’ll show you to the bar but you’ll have to excuse me.” Nick turned away from the lake. “I’ve got work to do.”

  After dumping Packert off in the library, he went to his study, ostensibly to check his messages. Instead of picking up the phone, however, he walked out onto the side porch and looked at the lake again. The storm seemed to be preparing for a major onslaught, Wessex was nowhere to be found, Cort had disappeared up the mountain, and Carter and the Swifts could be in danger if things got bad at the summit.

  He heard the first thunder roll through the sky. The sound made up his mind.

  Nick was heading to the mudroom when he caught sight of Wessex, Cort, and the Swifts jogging through the rain to the house. He searched for Carter in the crowd of slickers. She wasn’t with them.

  As the motley group came through the back door, he met them with a steely eye.

  “Where is she?”

  Everyone looked at Buddy.

  “She’s staying at camp,” he answered grimly.

  “You left her up there alone? Are you out of your mind?”

  “I don’t like it any more than you do.” Buddy glanced over at his daughter. “I would have stayed but…”

  A streak of lightning flashed across the sky and flickered in through the windows. They fell silent, waiting for the storm’s answer. After a pause, thunder came bounding through the lake valley.

  Wessex paled beneath his tan. “Perhaps you could persuade her to come down?”

  Nick was already changing into hiking boots. As he got to his feet, Packert rounded the corner with glass in hand.

  “Hey, it’s finally a party!” The man sidled up to Wessex, yanking the man’s wet and dirty jacket. “What the hell happened? You look like crap.”

  When no one paid any attention to him, he spoke up.

  “So what do you all have planned tonight? A little charades? From the excitement I’ve seen around here, this place might as well be a nursing home.” He laughed. “Well, I’m sorry that m’pal Wessex and I’ll miss all the excitement but at least there’s a bar in the limo. It’s gonna be a long trip back to the city.”

  “Unfortunately, you aren’t going anywhere,” Nick said briskly. “If these storms live up to their advertising, they’re going to wash out the mountain roads. You’re stuck here until they pass.”

  Packert digested the information and then grinned. “Guess I’ll be drinking your scotch instead of Wessex’s.”

  With a cheeky salute, the Texan went b
ack to the bar.

  Nick pulled on rain gear. “We’ve got plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. Find Gertie and—”

  “I’m right here.” The woman put an arm around Ellie, who was looking distressed.

  “What’s going to happen to Carter?” the girl asked.

  “I’m either going to drag her down off that mountain or sit on her like an egg.” Nick wrenched open the door. “Either way, she’s not going to be out in this alone.”

  Carter was at the rock ledge overlooking the lake as the storm came in, and she welcomed its fury. The rushing wind and frantic waves down on the water fit her mood. She was tossing and turning in her own skin, shaken by memories of her past.

  Growing up, it had taken her a long time to realize that not everyone’s mother roamed around at night, checking and rechecking locks on doors and windows. The rhythmic click, click as latches and bolts were tested for safety again and again was a noise that she learned to associate with the night, like the cicadas in the summer or the rustling of dry leaves in the fall. Her bedroom had been off a corridor with many windows, and she would fall asleep hearing her mother go through the ritual, the clicking getting louder as she approached and fading as she went away.

  Once, Carter had slipped from bed and peeked out of her door. She’d watched as each window was put through an exercise, the bolts shifted four times fast, one time slow. The problem appeared to be that locked was never locked enough. Carter had gone back to bed confused and wondering what was wrong with her mother. Couldn’t she see that everything was okay?

  But relentless vigilance wasn’t her only oddity.

  Her mother’s eating habits had been equally peculiar and vaguely threatening. She regarded everything on her plate with suspicion, as if it might be spoiled or contaminated. If a lettuce leaf was wilted, or there was a spot on a boiled potato that caught her attention, her foot would start pumping the hidden bell under the table as she frantically summoned the staff. More times than not, she would send back what was served. Growing pale, furious that her fears had been triggered by a careless cook, she would reach into her pocket and out would come the pillbox.