Honeysuckle Summer (12 page)

“Is anyone buying that?”

“No, but they’re humoring her because Ty’s not here to wait on her himself. At last count, she had two glasses of lemonade and three of sweet tea on the table beside her, along with an entire bowl of her mother’s guacamole. Frankly, I think spicy food like that is a really bad idea when she’s still nursing the baby, but there’s no stopping her from eating it. Meg will probably wind up with terrible heartburn.”

Carter hesitated, struck by something that hadn’t occurred to him before. “With Ty on the road so much with the team, was he able to get back when Meg was born?”

“The team flew him home the second Annie went into labor. He made it with just minutes to spare.”

“That’s good,” Carter said. “I know I’d want to be there for the birth of my child.”

She regarded him with surprise. “Really? A lot of
men would prefer to sit in the waiting room with a box of cigars.”

“Well, I’m not one of them. I had to deliver a baby once when the mom wasn’t going to make it to the hospital. I don’t recommend giving birth in the backseat of a car, but it was still pretty amazing. I definitely want to be there when my own kids arrive in the world.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “So raising Carrie and Mandy hasn’t scared you away from wanting to be a parent?”

“Not so far,” he said. “Now let me get this potato salad outside and I’ll be back to see what else needs to go out.”

“I think that’s it,” Raylene told him. “I’m just going to fill a couple more pitchers with ice and sweet tea.”

“Then I’ll get those and let Erik know it’s time to put those burgers on the grill.”

He spotted Carrie and Mandy in the backyard when he set the potato salad on the table, spoke to Erik and offered to help with the grilling, only to be told once more that his help wasn’t needed. He went back to get the tea from Raylene.

“Tell me what you want to eat and I’ll fill a plate for you,” he said.

“You’d better take Annie’s order first,” she told him. “Travis is heading this way. I’ll send the tea out with him.”

He walked into the living room and found Annie seated in a comfortable oversize chair. She did have her daughter cuddled in her arms, so he supposed there was a case to be made that she had her priorities in order and wasn’t totally slacking off.

“Hey, little mama, what can I get you to eat?” he asked.

She grinned at him. “I just sent my mother out for
fried chicken and potato salad, but now I’m thinking about ribs.”

“I’ll bring some in,” he promised. “Anything else? I saw what looked like some excellent corn on the cob out there.”

“Perfect.”

“You sure that’s it?”

“I have to pace myself. I know there’s peach pie, ice cream and Mom’s bread pudding for dessert.”

Carter’s mouth immediately watered. “I may have to start with those.”

Outside, he put together a plate for Annie, delivered that, then filled two more for himself and Raylene. He glanced over and saw his sisters were deep in conversation with Travis and Sarah at one of the tables that had been set up under a tent on the lawn. At least Mandy was talking. Carrie seemed to be gazing at Travis with the rapt expression of a love-struck fan.

He went back inside and handed a plate to Raylene.

“Where are the girls?” she asked.

“With Travis and Sarah. I don’t think we’re going to tear them away.”

Raylene looked oddly disappointed.

“Did you want to spend some time with them for some reason?” he asked.

“No, it’s fine. I just wanted to be sure they didn’t feel like outsiders.”

“As long as Travis is in the vicinity, I think they’re very happily occupied,” Carter told her.

He and Raylene took their meals into the living room and joined Annie. People came and went for the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening.

“Is everybody going to see the fireworks?” Ronnie asked, standing in the doorway just before dusk.

“Not me,” Annie said. “I need to take Meg home and get her to bed. Even though she sleeps like a rock, I’m afraid the noise of the fireworks will be too much for her. Where’s Trevor? Can you take him with you, Dad?”

“Will do,” Ronnie said. “Carter, you coming?”

“No, I’m going to hang out here and help with cleanup.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Raylene told him. “Don’t you want to see your first Fourth of July fireworks in Serenity?”

“Carrie and Mandy can tell me all about it,” he said. “I’m staying. I don’t want Sarah and Travis to come back to a major cleanup job.”

“Actually, pretty much everything’s inside,” Ronnie told him. “The leftovers have been wrapped up and put away in the fridge.”

Raylene gave Carter an amused look. “Frankly I think those leftovers are the real attraction. Since no one at his house cooks, I think he’s hoping he can steal them for home.”

“Maybe the leftover pie,” he agreed unrepentantly.

“As if,” Ronnie said. “That apple pie was the first thing to go.”

Carter sighed dramatically. “Just my luck. I’ll have to settle for some fried chicken.”

Annie’s expression brightened. “There’s more fried chicken?”

“If you eat it, you’ll explode,” Raylene told her. “I’ve watched what you packed away this afternoon. It’s little wonder you can barely move. You’re stuffed.”

“Hey, I’m enjoying food while I can. Once I stop nursing, I’ll be back to eating miniportions again.”

Though she sounded as if she was joking, Carter thought Ronnie looked alarmed.

“Annie,” Ronnie began, but she looked at him and he fell silent. Carter couldn’t imagine what the aborted exchange was about.

Annie struggled awkwardly to her feet with the baby. “If I don’t walk home now, I’ll never do it.”

“I could drop you by the house,” Ronnie offered at once.

“No, the walk will do me good.” She kissed his cheek. “Stop fretting, Dad. I’m fine. Just look out for Trevor.”

After everyone had gone, Carter checked to make sure the kitchen was in good shape, then came back to settle beside Raylene.

“Did I sense some tension between Annie and Ronnie?” he asked.

Raylene nodded. “Any time the subject of food comes up, there’s tension between them. Annie was anorexic in her teens. Ronnie and Dana Sue were divorced then, and he wasn’t living in town. When Annie collapsed and nearly died, he came back. I don’t think he’s ever really gotten over the shock of finding her in such bad shape. The one good thing that came out of it was that he and Dana Sue got back together.”

Carter frowned. “Annie really came that close to dying? I didn’t realize anorexia could be so serious.”

“Oh, it’s serious, all right. I was there the night Annie collapsed. Sarah and I both were. I’ve never been so scared in my life. It was a huge wake-up call to both of us about just how dangerous an eating disorder could be.”

Carter stood up and began to pace. He thought about how many times he’d seen Carrie eating like a bird, mostly just shoving food around on her plate. Surely, though, it hadn’t gone that far. She was a little on the thin side, but he’d chalked that up to fashion. Most girls her age seemed too darn skinny to him.

“Carter, are you okay?”

“I was thinking about Carrie.” He met her gaze. “She worries me.”

“Me, too,” Raylene said, startling him.

He hesitated, then asked, “You think she has a problem with food, too?”

“It’s crossed my mind. Frankly, that’s one reason I wanted everyone to come here today. I wanted Annie and Dana Sue, in particular, to keep an eye on Carrie and see if they thought my suspicions were correct before I said anything to you.”

“And then Carrie stayed outside,” he guessed, realizing now why she’d looked so disappointed.

“Yes, I hadn’t counted on that. I certainly didn’t want to spoil things and make a big deal about getting her to come in here. It won’t help if she thinks she’s under a microscope.”

“I know. She overreacts every time I say anything at all to her about eating,” he said. “What the hell am I supposed to do to be sure if there’s a problem?”

“We’ll try my plan again. You all can come to dinner one night this week. I’ll just have Annie over. Believe me, if there’s a problem, she’ll recognize the signs.”

He stopped pacing and sat back down beside her. “Let’s not think about Carrie right now,” he suggested. “If we turn on the TV, we can watch the Boston Pops or the celebration on the National Mall
in Washington and have our own Fourth of July celebration right here.”

And if the evening progressed the way he wanted it to, they might even have their own fireworks!

T
hough Raylene was relieved to have Carter acknowledge an awareness of Carrie’s disturbing attitude toward food, she was now anxious for an entirely different reason. She’d seen the glint of desire in his eyes right before he’d settled next to her on the sofa. She knew what that look meant. And though she was as attracted as he was, all the reasons not to move forward and complicate their relationship even more kept spinning around in her head, leaving her a little dizzy.

When he put his arm behind her on the sofa, she froze. But when he didn’t actually drape it across her shoulders, she allowed herself to relax. Every once in a while, his fingers brushed idly across her bare shoulder, sending shivers dancing across her flesh. Good shivers…at least so far.

She turned toward him, and found his gaze on her.

“I really want to kiss you,” he said quietly. “But I don’t want to freak you out.”

She closed her eyes against the tide of longing that washed over her. “I want that, too,” she admitted eventually, daring to meet his gaze. “But I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“Because of what happened the last time I touched you?”

“No, actually because I think this is leading toward a complication that neither of us really need.”

“It’s just a kiss,” he said.

Her lips twitched at the sweet innocence behind those words. Surely he had to know better.

“Not if you do it right,” she said. “Carter, there have been sparks between us since we met, some good, some not so good. If you kiss me, we’re both going to want more. I’m not sure I’m ready for that, and I don’t think you are either.”

“Oh, I’m ready.”

He said it so fervently, she laughed. “Well, when you put it that way, so am I, but come on. Are either of us in any position to take this to the next level?” She ticked off all the strikes against them. “You have two young girls who’re counting on you. One of them might have an eating disorder. I’m agoraphobic, most likely because I can’t cope with the way my ex-husband abused me. I’m just now starting to make a little progress toward getting better and now that same man is about to get out of prison. That scares me to death. For all I know, it could make me regress, and then I’ll be worse off than before. None of that is exactly conducive to starting a normal, carefree relationship, which is the way a good relationship should start.”

“Carefree’s great, but it’s not terribly realistic, is it?” he asked. “Everyone has problems, Raylene.”

“But ours are huge,” she insisted.

He sat back with a sigh. “You’re being very rational about this.”

“Somebody needs to be.”

“Usually I’m the one who starts thinking with my head,” he admitted. “Especially since Carrie and Mandy became my responsibility. I haven’t let myself get carried away by what I wanted in a long time. Heck, I haven’t even let myself want anything—or anyone—in a long time.”

Despite her words of caution, Raylene was pleased by the admission. “I really get to you?”

He smiled. “Yes, you really get to me.” His gaze narrowed. “You’re not ruling this out forever, right?”

“
This
being a relationship?”

He nodded.

She hesitated. She wanted to think a time would come when both of their lives would be less complicated, but she couldn’t guarantee it. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “None of these problems—especially mine—have quick fixes. That much is clear.”

“I’ll take that as a maybe.” He looked into her eyes. “I know the timing sucks for a lot of reasons, but I think we could have something pretty amazing going on here. I like spending time with you.”

Raylene wanted to believe that, too, but those reasons she’d enumerated were all stacked against them. With her ex-husband possibly poised to come back into her life with a vengeance, with Carter’s sister facing a possible eating disorder, to say nothing of a boatload of unhappiness, how could either of them even begin to think about the future?

“You don’t look very happy,” Sarah said when she arrived home from the fireworks later that night and found Raylene sitting in the dark all alone. While Travis took the kids in to put them to bed, Sarah switched on
a couple of lamps and took a closer look. “You’ve been crying! What did Carter do?”

“He wanted to kiss me, and I blew him off.”

Sarah looked bewildered. “Why?”

“I’m wondering about that myself right now. He’s a decent, wonderful, caring guy, and he really seems to like me.”

“Isn’t that all good?”

“Right up until I add in all the things that make both of us a bad bet for a relationship.”

“You’re talking about Paul getting out of prison,” Sarah concluded.

“And my awful marriage. I didn’t walk away from that without scars, Sarah. The ones I have run pretty deep. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to have a normal relationship with a man again. Every time Carter touches me, I get jumpy, and not always in a good way.”

“But
sometimes
in a good way, right?”

Raylene smiled. “Definitely sometimes.”

“You just need time to be sure you can trust him,” Sarah concluded. “Even I can see that, but talk it over with Dr. McDaniels when you see her. I’ll bet I’m right.”

“I’ll bet you are, too, but what if it never happens? What if I lead Carter on for a few weeks or months with the hope that things will get better, and they don’t?”

“He’s a grown man. I’m sure he understands the situation. He’ll deal.”

“But by then, it would more than likely break my heart to let him go.”

“Are you feeling all that great about sending him home tonight?” Sarah asked wryly.

“No, but you know what I mean. It will hurt a thousand times worse if I let myself fall in love with him and we can’t make it work. Plus, I haven’t even mentioned the complications in his life. What about Carrie? He needs to be able to focus on her problems right now.”

“All very valid points,” Sarah conceded. “But I’ll tell you what a very wise friend—that would be you—told me when I was questioning whether Travis and I could make it. Love flat out doesn’t come without risks and complications, but it’s worth it. Because when it works, there’s nothing more amazing. To not even try for that brass ring when it’s right within your grasp, that would be wrong. In a way, it will be letting Paul win.”

That, of course, was the most persuasive argument she possibly could have offered. No matter what happened down the road, Raylene vowed she would do absolutely nothing in any way that would let Paul have even the tiniest bit of control over the rest of her life. Whatever strength it required, she would find some way to keep that promise to herself.

Fortunately Carter was working the evening shift this week because that allowed him to hang around the house until Carrie and Mandy finally dragged themselves out of bed on the day after the holiday. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d allowed himself to linger in bed as late as those two did.

Of course, lately he hadn’t slept all that well either. Last night he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the conversation he’d had with Raylene about Carrie’s eating patterns. He didn’t want to think his sister was in trouble, but he couldn’t deny it was possible. The
upcoming dinner with Raylene and Annie would tell the story, but like any good cop, he wanted to start assembling his own evidence.

When Carrie eventually wandered into the kitchen, she paused when she saw him, her ever-ready scowl settling into place. “What are you doing here?”

“Hanging out,” he said, determinedly keeping his own tone light. “My shift doesn’t start until three today. What are your plans?”

She shrugged. “Mandy wants to go swimming. I don’t know, though. I don’t like going out in public in a bathing suit.”

“Why on earth not?” he asked, then realized that when they’d been in Columbia and her friends had been over to swim in the hotel pool, Carrie had stayed on the sidelines wearing a cover-up over her suit. Was this a symptom of the messed-up body image that often came along with eating disorders? He’d read about that in the middle of the night when he’d gone online, determined to get up to speed on anorexia.

“I need to lose a couple of pounds before I’ll look good enough to wear that bathing suit I bought,” she said, confirming his fear.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped without thinking. Obviously if there was a problem, it wouldn’t be solved by him yelling at her. He’d vowed to handle her with compassion and try his best to understand what was going on in her head.

“Carrie, you look great in anything you wear,” he said more gently.

“You’re just saying that because you think you’re supposed to,” she said, dismissing the comment as biased.

“No, I watched the way those boys were looking at
you when we were in Columbia. Made me want to strangle every one of them,” he said with feeling. That had been true.

She almost smiled at his words, but then shrugged off his observation. “They’re just boys. If a girl’s got boobs, they look.”

Now
he
had to smother a smile at the accuracy of her assessment. “Possibly,” he admitted. Then, struggling to keep his tone even, he asked, “What did you have to eat over at Raylene’s yesterday? Did you try the fried chicken? I’d love to get Dana Sue’s recipe.”

“And we’ll all die from clogged arteries,” she retorted.

“Then you didn’t even taste it?”

She shook her head.

“How about the ribs? If Erik would teach me how to make the sauce, I could probably master those. We’d have to buy a big grill, though, one of those fancy gas grills.”

She frowned at him. “What is this? Are you on food patrol all of a sudden?”

“I was just asking,” he said. “I hate to think you missed out on all the fabulous food that everyone worked so hard preparing. You must have at least tried the apple pie.”

“Desserts aren’t my thing,” she said, already backing out of the room. “I need to go up and get dressed.”

She practically ran out of the kitchen. A moment later, Mandy came in. She immediately filled a bowl with cereal, then doused it with milk. Carter was relieved to see that there was nothing wrong with
her
appetite.

He hesitated, then asked, “Did your sister eat anything yesterday?” He knew he was asking her to breach some kind of sisterly oath of silence, but this was too important.

Mandy shrugged. “I’m not her keeper.”

“But you are observant, Amanda. This is important. Did she eat?”

Mandy frowned at his sharp tone. “Not when I was around,” she admitted. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just concerned that her dieting is getting out of hand.”

Mandy obviously grasped immediately what he was suggesting. Her eyes widened. “You mean like anorexia or something? We learned about that in health class. It can be really dangerous.”

“Exactly.”

Mandy set down her spoon and met his gaze. “Are you really worried, Carter?”

He nodded.

“I thought maybe she was just going through a phase or something,” she said, her own expression now filled with alarm. “What should we do?”

He patted her hand. “You don’t have to do anything, except keep your eyes open and let me know if she’s eating or not. I’ll handle this. And don’t worry. We’re going to make sure she’s okay.”

A couple of hours later, though, he realized he might have made things worse. He came out of his room wearing his uniform to hear Mandy and Carrie in the middle of a shouting match in the kitchen.

“Hey, what’s going on in here?” he demanded, joining them.

“Squirt here is trying to tell me what to do,” Carrie said, her cheeks flushed with indignation.

“I just fixed her a sandwich and told her to eat it,” Mandy said.

“I don’t want a sandwich,” Carrie snapped.

“Well, if you don’t eat, you’re going to die,” Mandy snapped right back, then burst into tears and ran from the room.

Carrie stared after her, a shocked expression on her face. “Why would she think I’m going to die?”

Carter sighed. “Because I told her I was worried about you not eating.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said. “I’m watching my weight, that’s all. She might want to give some thought to the way she eats, because if she’s not careful she’ll be big as a house by the time she’s my age.”

Carter frowned at her. “Don’t you dare suggest to Mandy that she needs to go on a diet. She’s perfectly fine.”

“But I’m not?” Despite her indignant tone, she looked genuinely hurt.

“You’re beautiful,” he said honestly. “But if you lose any more weight, you’ll be gaunt, rather than fashionably thin. If you don’t see how beautiful you are when you look in the mirror, then maybe that’s something we need to deal with.”

“Now you’re saying I’m crazy?”

Carter was so far out of his league, he didn’t even begin to know the rules. “You’re not crazy. But you may need to talk to someone to figure all this out.”

“What? Does Raylene get a two-for-one special if she drags me along to her shrink?”

Carter merely stared at her until she flushed.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“I think we had this conversation before, but in case you’ve forgotten, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help,” Carter told her. “Raylene is very brave to be trying to face her problems. I admire her. I’d feel
the same way about anyone who does whatever it takes to get better.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with me!” Carrie all but shouted at him, than ran from the room, up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming doors in her wake.

Carter sighed. Well, he’d certainly made a mess of things so far. He could just imagine how well it would go over if he suddenly suggested having dinner at Raylene’s. That little experiment was going to have to remain on hold, at least until things calmed down. He just hoped by then, it wouldn’t be too late. Maybe he was the one who should see Dr. McDaniels to figure out how he’d managed to let things spin so far out of control.

Raylene called first thing in the morning and left a voice-mail message for Dr. McDaniels canceling her appointment. She was therefore stunned when she answered the door that afternoon and found the psychologist on the stoop.