The owner looked at the security guard, who was nodding sagely in agreement. “I’d say you’re one hundred percent right about that.”
Caroline’s jaw dropped. “You have got to be kidding me. You’re going to try to claim that I have no morals because I’m friends with one guy from Bear Mountain?”
“More than friends, from the looks of it,” the security guard piped up. Caroline glared at him, but he only sneered back at her with a look that said he knew he was causing a lot of trouble for her, and he was happy about that.
Caroline took a few steadying breaths, then turned back to the owner. She spoke slowly and calmly, trying to sound like she was in control of the situation. “Who I am friends with is none of your business. Scott hasn’t done anything wrong, and neither have I. Trying to say that I have questionable morals just because I’ve been spending time with him is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You have no legal standing to terminate my contract.”
The owner burst out laughing again. “What are you going to do? Sue me? I know you don’t have any money, and you’ll have even less money now that I’m not going to let you sell jewelry here anymore. Good luck finding a lawyer willing to work for you for free.”
Caroline felt her heart drop. The owner was right. It didn’t matter how ridiculous he was being. What mattered was that Caroline had no recourse against him without taking him to court. And how was she going to take him to court when she couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer? She was stuck.
“There’s nothing wrong with Scott, or any of the others on Bear Mountain. You’re all just cowards who are afraid of people who live a little bit differently than you.”
Caroline tried to sound brave as she spoke, but she couldn’t keep her voice from trembling a little. She realized that she was giving up the rest of her summer sales by sticking up for Scott. That meant that finding the money to survive the coming winter was going to be even harder than she’d thought. But no matter what, there was one thing she would not do: she would not agree with these men that Scott was an awful person just because he was from Bear Mountain.
True, she still had never been to Bear Mountain, so she wasn’t an expert on the place. But she didn’t have to be an expert to know that these men were labeling Scott unfairly. Scott had proven himself to Caroline over and over in the course of the last few days. He’d saved her from harm multiple times, and he’d forgiven her for judging him just like these men were judging him now.
Caroline might never be able to have any sort of real, long-term relationship with Scott. Her own life was proving to be too much of a mess to do that. But what she could do, at least, was stand up for him to these jerks. If it cost her the chance to sell more jewelry, then so be it. She’d figure out a way to survive, and at least her conscience would be clear.
Caroline folded her arms defiantly and waited for the owner or security guard to say something else. The owner was shaking his head in amusement, as though Caroline was the funniest thing he’d seen all week.
“You really don’t know what’s good for you, do you?” he asked.
Caroline didn’t flinch. “I know that I’m being true to my heart and that I do have good morals, no matter what you say. You can never take that away from me.”
The owner laughed again, then pointed his finger at Caroline. “I want you out of here within the hour. Pack up your stuff and leave. If I come back in an hour and you’re still here, I’m going to make Scott’s life miserable. Don’t think I don’t know how. I’m friends with plenty of police officers in this town, and it would be easy enough to convince them to pin a charge or two on your little friend from the mountain.”
Caroline started to retort that Scott wasn’t little. In fact, Scott’s muscles were at least twice the size of the owner’s. Even the security guard would be no match for Scott, if Scott really wanted to fight him.
But then, Caroline bit her tongue. She knew the owner wasn’t bluffing. He would take great pleasure in making Scott’s life miserable, and he surely had the connections to do so. She knew that he was one of the wealthiest, most well-known citizens of Pine Springs.
For Scott’s sake, Caroline didn’t say anything else. She stood there with her arms folded, trying to look menacing when she felt like a defeated pile of sludge inside.
The owner laughed, seeming to enjoy the fact that he was making her so angry. “Tell you what,” he said. “If you want to promise me that you won’t talk to anyone from Bear Mountain again, I’ll take pity on you and let you keep your booth here for the last two weeks of sales.”
Caroline didn’t even consider the offer. “No. I’m not going to stoop to your level and treat the people of Bear Mountain like there’s something wrong with them. Nothing I’ve seen has given me a reason to think that they’re anything other than amazing people.”
The owner laughed again, then turned to leave.
“Come on, John,” he said to the security guard. “Let’s give her an hour to decide whether she wants to come to her senses or not.”
The security guard gave Caroline a triumphant look, then turned to follow the owner. Caroline watched them leave in stunned silence. Just like that, she’d lost her contract for her sales booth. There would be no more income this summer, which meant that the winter ahead was going to be difficult.
But it didn’t matter how difficult things got. She’d made her decision. She was going to do the right thing.
And right now, she was pretty sure that the right thing to do was to get away from Pine Springs and Bear Mountain as quickly as possible. For one thing, the sooner she could get a job at the factory, the sooner she’d start making money. It wouldn’t be as much money as she would have made from two more weeks of selling jewelry to tourists, but it would be something. The more she could keep her finances from hemorrhaging, the better.
But for another, more important thing, she had a feeling that things were going to be difficult for Scott as long as she was here. Just because Caroline left the shopping center, that didn’t mean that the owner actually would leave him alone. It seemed that as long as Caroline was here, Scott would be a target.
And so, as much as it pained Caroline, she started planning her escape from Pine Springs in that very moment. She packed up her jewelry as quickly as she could, hoping to be gone from the shopping center before the owner came back. She definitely did not want to see his gloating face again.
As she packed, she heard her phone chiming softly to let her know that she had a new text message. Then it dinged again, and again. For several minutes, Caroline didn’t even look at her phone. She knew the texts were most likely from Scott, and she could hardly bear to think of leaving him. But she knew that she had to. She’d already caused enough trouble for him, and for his sake, she had to get out of here.
Answering the texts would be counterproductive. It would give him hope that she was staying when she definitely wasn’t. Scott had saved her from harm several times already. It was her turn to save him, and she wasn’t going to let him down.
Even if keeping him from harm meant letting her own heart break at the knowledge that she had to leave behind the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Chapter Nine
Scott stared down at his phone, willing it to ding to let him know he had a reply text, or, even better, willing it to ring with an incoming call from Caroline. But his phone remained silent, just as it had for the last several hours. He had been debating at what point he should be truly worried, and he was starting to feel like that point was now. He felt a slow rage starting to burn within him as he thought of the possibilities of how the security guard might have caused trouble for Caroline even though Scott had left.
Scott was starting to feel stupid. Why had he thought it was a good idea to leave her? He’d only wanted to help. In his eagerness to do whatever he could to help Caroline’s business, he’d thought that leaving would be the best way to do that. He’d assumed that the security guard would leave Caroline a
lone once he was gone.
But what if Scott had assumed wrong? Why hadn’t he considered the possibility that the security guard might continue to harass Caroline after he left?
Scott tried to tell himself that he was overreacting. As far as he knew, no one from Pine Springs had ever gone as far as harassing someone for merely hanging out with a person from Bear Mountain. But this security guard seemed bent on doing so. Scott shouldn’t have been that surprised, since it was a rare occurrence for someone from Pine Springs to hang out with someone from Bear Mountain. In fact, the more Scott thought about it, the more he realized that no one from Pine Springs ever had actually wanted to hang out with someone from Bear Mountain. Joel’s lifemate Anna was the closest case, he assumed. But she hadn’t really spent time in Pine Springs with Joel. They’d always been on Bear Mountain, away from the judgmental eyes of people in Pine Springs. Caroline was smack dab in the middle of Pine Springs and all its judgment. And now, Scott couldn’t bear the thought that she was suffering because of him.
Unable to hold back his worries any longer, Scott got into his truck and started racing toward Pine Springs. He couldn’t drive fast enough. All he could do was kick himself over and over for leaving Caroline behind. In trying to do the right thing for her, he had put her in harm’s way.
He sped toward the shopping center, ignoring the honking of the other drivers on the road who were angered by his crazy driving. He didn’t care if he made the whole town angry. He wasn’t slowing down, not now. Not when he’d realized that his lifemate might be in danger. Scott pulled into a parking spot way too fast, hitting the curb but not caring. Right now, all he could care about was making sure that Caroline was okay—and tearing to pieces anyone who might have harmed her.
He sprinted away from his truck and into the building, laser focused on finding Caroline and protecting her. As he rounded the corner of the shopping center to where her booth was located, he raised his fists, ready for a fight.
But there was no one there to fight.
Not only that, but Caroline wasn’t there. Neither was her jewelry. Where earlier in the day there had been a colorful display of beads and baubles on her booth, now there were only bare shelves looking sad and forlorn in the mall’s bright overhead lights.
Scott looked around in bewilderment, thinking for a moment that in his haste he had come to the wrong spot. But no, as he looked around, he saw that he was definitely in the same spot as before. Everything else was the same—the same stores, the same neighboring booths to Caroline’s, and the same assortment of decorative indoor plants scattered around the hallway. The only thing different was Caroline’s booth, which no longer looked like Caroline’s booth.
Scott fought the swell of angry panic that was starting to rise deep within him. Whatever had happened here wasn’t good. He knew that Caroline was desperate to make money in these last few weeks of the summer tourist season. There was no way she would have simply left and given up any sales. Something or someone had forced her to leave, and Scott had a pretty good idea of who that someone might be. With anger burning inside him, he told himself to remain calm and to see whether anyone else could tell him something.
He made his way to the booth closest to where Caroline’s booth had been. That booth was decorated in hues of yellow, and offered jars of “the best local honey.” Scott wanted to roll his eyes at the advertising. The best local honey came from Bear Mountain, hands down, and he had a feeling that the owner of this booth wasn’t making the trek out to the mountain to get honey. But Scott wasn’t about to argue with the woman at the booth right now. He needed her help.
He approached her, staring for a moment at her bright apron that was striped black and yellow like a bumblebee. The colors reminded him a bit of a traffic sign, but he would never have been rude enough to say so. Instead, he put on what he hoped was his most charming smile and spoke to the woman.
“Excuse me. I was wondering if you knew where the gal at the booth next to yours has gone. Caroline? The one who sold the jewelry?”
Scott was sure the woman knew exactly who he was talking about, but he didn’t want to give the woman a chance to hedge around the question. He could already tell that she wasn’t interested in talking to him. She wasn’t meeting his eyes, and her hands were twitching nervously. She looked around, as though nervous someone might see her talking to Scott. He used that nervousness to his advantage.
“Listen, I’m not leaving this booth until you tell me what you know. So the longer you act like you don’t know anything, the longer I’m going to stand here, and the longer people will stare and see that you’re talking to someone from Bear Mountain.”
“Okay, okay!” the woman said. “I’ll tell you what I know, but then you better get out of here. I’ll call security if you don’t.”
Scott nodded and waited for her to continue. She looked around nervously once more before speaking.
“The guard went away and came back with the man who owns the shopping center. The owner told Caroline that she was in breach of her contract for her booth because she was hanging out with someone from Bear Mountain.”
“What!” Scott exclaimed. “He actually put it in the contract that she couldn’t hang out with someone from Bear Mountain?”
That seemed extreme, even for someone from Pine Springs. Most of the time, the people from Pine Springs tried to act like they were noble and generous to the people of Bear Mountain, and that the Bear Mountain folks simply didn’t appreciate that. It surprised Scott that someone would actually put in a contract that hanging out with someone from Bear Mountain was off-limits.
But the owner of the honey booth was shaking her head. “No, it wasn’t actually in the contract. At least, not from what I heard. It sounds like the contract stated that use of the booth could be terminated for doing something morally questionable. The owner said that hanging out with someone from Bear Mountain qualified as morally questionable.”
Scott felt the rage within him growing even greater. “Is that so? And what about you? Do you think I’m compromising your morals right now?”
His voice was rising, and he could see the woman getting more nervous with every passing moment. She fidgeted uncomfortably before answering him.
“Look, I’m not saying that I think the way that the people of Pine Springs treat the people of Bear Mountain is right. But you have to understand that I could lose my booth for talking to you, and I need the income I get from this booth. I can’t afford to have my morals questioned as well.”
Scott snorted in disgust. “You’re a coward, just like the rest of them.”
The woman didn’t deny it. Instead, she looked around nervously, clearly still worried about who might be watching. “Look, I told you what you wanted to know. Now I think you should leave like you promised me you would.”
But Scott wasn’t quite done yet. “Before I go, I want to know one more thing. Did they hurt her?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t think so. They told her that she had to leave within an hour. As soon as they left, she packed up quickly and got out of here. When the security guard and owner came back by to check whether she was still here and found that she was gone, they laughed and gave each other high fives. But that was it. Nothing they did or said made me think they were going to go after her to try to hurt her. I think they were just glad she was gone, because that meant you wouldn’t come back. Or, at least that’s what they thought it meant. But here you are.”
“Here I am,” Scott agreed. “Seems that us folks from Bear Mountain aren’t so easy to get rid of, are we?”
“Please,” the woman pleaded. “I’m not trying to cause any trouble. I’ve told you what you wanted to know, now get out of here before you get me in trouble, too.”
Scott shrugged, and turned to leave. The woman was right. She’d told him what he needed to know. He shouldn’t have been surprised by what had happened, and he really wasn’t. But it still hurt his heart just the same. The anger within hi
m grew as he imagined Caroline packing up her things to leave.
Was that why she hadn’t been answering his texts and calls? Was she angry with him over the fact that she’d lost her jewelry booth? It wasn’t exactly his fault. Yes, he was the cause of it, but he hadn’t done anything wrong except existing. Apparently, just existing was reason enough for the people of Pine Springs to hate the people from Bear Mountain.
But even as Scott thought through all of this, he thought that it didn’t make sense. Caroline didn’t seem like the kind of person who would be angry with him because someone else had treated her poorly. Something was off here, and that was worrying Scott. Perhaps the woman at the honey booth was wrong, and the owner of the shopping center had gone to harm Caroline after all.
Scott tried to calm his anger and nerves and think. He had to find Caroline and make sure she was okay. He was worried that she wasn’t answering her phone because some harm had come to her, and he would never forgive himself if that was the case. She was his lifemate. His most important job in the world now was protecting her, and he would never forgive himself if he failed at that job within the first week of realizing who she was.
Without another word to the woman at the honey booth, Scott turned and ran out of the shopping center. He sprinted to his truck, and pulled out of his parking spot just as quickly as he’d pulled in. Then he revved his engine and drove as fast as he could toward Caroline’s apartment, which seemed as good a place as any to begin his search for her.
It only took a few minutes to get there, since the place was so close. He ran from the parking lot to her door at top speed, terrified of what he might find. Was she in there? More importantly, was she okay?
His heart raced in his chest, and he swore under his breath that if anyone had harmed her, then there would be no mercy this time. Scott would make sure they never harmed anyone else ever again. He pounded on the door and yelled out her name in an anguished, worried tone.
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