21. Carter
CHAPTER 21
CARTER
I woke early the next morning and immediately wondered why, as neither my alarm, pager, nor phone were going off. Nor could the disturbance have been caused by some source outside the house; when I listened, I heard only the soft whisper of wind sliding past the bedroom window, the faint roar of the rowdy ocean.
Maybe a dream?
If it had been one, I couldn’t recall.
I gave a mental shrug and let myself start to drift off again. The heavy warm blankets and Megyn’s body pressed against my back were too irresistible. Just another hour of sleep. Or two. However long until my alarm went off. Or had I turned it off the day before, anticipating—hoping?—that I would have my lovely guest in bed with me? I couldn’t recall right then and as the seconds dragged on and sleep settled around me, the details began to seem less and less important.
Then it came again, the sound which had awoken me. I recognized it for what it was this time, in my more aware state. It was a sigh, breathy, drawn-out, almost melancholy in a way that tugged at my heartstrings.
Unless Antonio had snuck in the room, or I had a ghost, that sigh could only come from one person.
“Megyn?” I murmured, my voice thick from sleep. I rolled over and looked at her.
She had clearly been wide awake for some time. Nothing in particular declared that, but rather it was a series of small hints that added up to the obvious. Her breathing, her rigid posture as she lay on her back with her hands clutching the blanket to her chest like a small child, and, most of all, her wide-open eyes regarding the blue ceiling with blank awareness.
She didn’t respond.
I nudged her. “Megyn?”
Please tell me she doesn’t have sleep paralysis or something like that.
Megyn stirred and glanced over at me. Her mouth made a little O-shape of surprise. “You’re awake?”
She was just a little out of it, then.
I held back my sigh of relief. Letting on that she had worried me would make her feel bad. “Well, baby, I could ask you the same question. Been awake for long?”
Megyn nodded.
“Bad dream?”
“Not really, no.” She gave a shrug. “I just don’t always sleep well.”
I hugged my arm around her middle. “You could have woken me. We could have gotten some tea or had an early breakfast. We still can.”
“You’re so nice,” she murmured. “I was just thinking, is all.”
“Share them? Your thoughts, that is. I’ll give a quarter for them.”
“Isn’t it usually a penny?”
“Inflation,” I said.
Megyn giggled a little. “Okay. I was just wondering how you figured out who I was.”
I propped myself up on my elbow. “It was your laugh, at first,” I told her. “After the party, I felt like I’d know your laugh anywhere. And I did. And your shoes really convinced me.”
Megyn giggled a little more. “I kind of played against myself with that one, huh? But how did you get up the courage to actually make a move? It could all have been a coincidence. And you hardly knew me.”
“Well, it seemed like there were too many coincidences for it to just be a coincidence.” I laughed. “And I did talk to Maggie about you.”
“Wait. Maggie?”
“I had lunch with her and Brian.”
I flashed back to that lunch date, what Maggie had said. “Okay. But you absolutely can’t tell her I said anything to you.”
My heart started to sink.
Megyn sat up. “Maggie told you who I was?”
I sat up too and touched her shoulder. She jerked away, her chest heaving. She pulled the covers up over her breasts, hiding from me in a way that hurt my heart. All it had taken was a single moment, a single mistake, and I seemed to have ruined all her trust in me.
“No,” I said, trying to soothe her. “No, she didn’t tell me who you were. She just told me more about you.”
“Told you what?” Megyn cried. “Did you already know I was poor? Do you know about my messed-up family?”
“No!” I said, more emphatically than before. I spread my hands, pleading with her, trying to get her to see reason past the pain I had inflicted upon her. “No, no. Megyn, please. She didn’t tell me anything like that. I specifically asked her not to reveal anything too personal. She just talked about your personality and how you two met in high school, your hobbies and talents…”
Megyn blinked rapidly, her face crumpling as tears rose. I reached for her, wanting to hold her and soothe her pain away. She jerked away a second time and got to her feet.
“Where are you going?” I asked, alarmed.
Megyn grabbed her clothes from where they lay in a heap on the floor. Her breasts bounced as she yanked on her underwear, then her pants, hiding her natural beauty from me. “Maggie promised me she wouldn’t say anything.”
I got out of bed and came around to the side she was on. I ached to hold her, but she had shown me exactly what she thought of that. “If it makes you feel any better, you can blame me. I pressured her into it. I got Brian in on it. It’s all my fault.”
Megyn pulled on the rest of her clothes and grabbed the handle to the bedroom door. She lowered her head, clearly trying to hide her tears from me even though they choked her voice in a way I couldn’t have missed. “No. It doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel worse. You couldn’t just have asked me? Saved those questions for me? For last night? Or our restaurant date?”
“I wanted to know more about you! I couldn’t wait. I’m sorry. You’re so fascinating to me…”
Megyn’s shoulders jumped. She pulled the door open and darted out into the hall, moving swiftly. I grabbed the door and went after her, tailing her to the living room.
“Why am I so fascinating? Because of our differences?”
“Because you’re you!” I cried.
Megyn jammed her feet into her blue Converse. “I’m me because of the life I live. The awful, crummy life. I think you were trying to find out about me to see if I’d be a good public match for you.”
I shifted in front of her, trying to block her way to the front door. My mind whirled. I couldn’t believe how quickly the situation had descended out of control, spiraling into chaos. All I knew was I had to prevent her from leaving or I would regret it forever. I couldn’t let her leave here believing such things, allowing such doubts to fester in her. “I have never cared about the opinion of the public. I have always been my own man.”
“That’s not enough, is it?” Megyn murmured.
We aren’t talking about the Maggie thing anymore.
Her hair hung in her face, strands sticking to the tears on her cheeks. “All my life, I’ve had to worry and be embarrassed. Suzie is right. That’s not the kind of person you need. I can’t be the princess you need.”
“I can’t believe you think that,” I said. “After the night we shared?”
I felt the thrill of our passionate sex as strongly as if it had been mere minutes ago, not hours. The way we had connected so easily, coming together—in more ways than one—had only strengthened my belief in this. In us. I had thought it had done the same for her.
Maybe it had.
Maybe it had bolstered her faith, but faith was such a new thing to her. The foundation was only just begun, and here I had gone and knocked it all down.
Megyn sniffled a lot. “I need to go home and think.” She came closer to the door, holding out her hand like she meant to move me aside.
I stood my ground, legs trembling. “Megyn, please don’t let this be the end of us.”
“I just need to think, Carter. Let me have that.”
I couldn’t deny her. And I couldn’t keep her here against her will.
Everything in me hurt to do it. I would have to change all the day’s plans. I would have to talk to Antonio and cancel the two-person breakfast. I wouldn’t be able to sit with her at the dining room table, drinking fresh orange juice and eating waffles drenched in warm syrup. Nor would we look at the comic page of the newspaper, or puzzle over the sudoku panels. No learning how she took her coffee, no showering together, no drying off, no leisurely drive along the beach before taking her back to her apartment and kissing her by her front door.
Small things, but small things I had been so looking forward to which I would no longer have.
That hurt, and it hurt even more that she would also be denied those things.
But, again, I couldn’t keep her here and force her to do those things, souring them for her.
I stepped aside.
Megyn marched out the door, storming down the ramp.
At the bottom of the ramp, she pivoted on her heel and came back. I watched her progression, not daring to hope. She’d probably forgotten something.
Megyn looked up at me and said in as cold a voice as I had ever heard from her, “I need a ride home.”
Oh, right.
“Let me at least put some pants on,” I said. I turned away. Before I went back into the house, I couldn’t help saying one final thing. “If it wasn’t for everything that happened, from start to finish, we never would have had such an amazing night. I think it’s fate. Please, don’t be mad at Maggie. Don’t be mad at me, for wanting to know about the woman who’s stealing my heart.”