by Tory Baker
“Whoa, you be careful. That trail is not for the beginner,” the man says.
“It’s fine. Carly is an experienced hiker. She hiked the Grand Canyon regularly back in the States.”
I did what?
“Is that right? You sure must pack a punch to be such a little thing,” he responds and I force myself to smile at him, even though I’m sick to my stomach right now. I’m going to kill Tally—well, if I survive my honeymoon—then, I will kill Tally.
“I’m not that small. It’s just you men here in Alaska are giants,” I respond, trying to sound cheerful, but I’m pretty sure it’s fake. At least both men laugh. They talk a few more minutes and then Stone escorts me out and back to the truck.
“You okay, Carly? You seem awful quiet,” Stone says when he opens the truck door for me. He really is a perfect man. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that opens a door for a woman before.
“I can’t believe we’re married…” I tell him, giving him the biggest of my shocks.
“That ring on your hand says we are,” Stone says, and he puts his hand along the side of my neck, tilting my head up to look at him. “I couldn’t be happier,” he whispers right before he delivers the sweetest kiss I’ve ever had in my life. It’s full of emotion and it stuns me. He pulls away and closes the door, then walks around to the driver’s side.
I stare at the ring on my hand. It’s Stone’s mother’s ring. It’s simple. A gold band and a matching engagement ring with one large square diamond in the center and surrounded by smaller ones. I love it, even as it stares at me and calls me a fake. His mother, who apparently died in a car accident—a fact I apparently already knew—is probably rolling over in her grave. I really am going to kill Tally. She gave me some letters they exchanged, but none of it had all this information he shared. It sure didn’t have the ones where she told him I was on birth control, trimmed my va-jay-jay and was an avid hiker! The ones I got talked about Stone’s childhood and his love of Alaska.
“If you don’t like the ring, I can take you to the general store. They sell jewelry there,” he says, getting in the truck and frowning when he sees me staring at the ring.
“Of course not, Stone. I love the ring.”
“If you’re sure,” he says, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
“I am. Why would you even think I don’t?”
“That face you’re making isn’t exactly one of joy, Carly.”
He’s probably right, since I was thinking I want to kill Tally. I reach up and put my hand on his chest. He’s got his hair pulled back, and I wish he didn’t. I’d love to feel it wrapped around my fingers right now.
“I was actually thinking about our honeymoon. I’m not sure hiking is the way to go,” I tell him, which is only a partial lie.
“No? I thought you loved hiking,” he says, those dark eyes studying me.
“I was hoping for a different form of exercise for my wedding night,” I tell him, completely avoiding the part about hiking. There’s no point in lying to him further.
“You won’t be able to do that for a night or two, baby.”
“I won’t?” I cry, and I know I sound panicked. It’s just that I really want him. I want more of what we did together last night and I don’t know how Stone will react when he finds out the truth. If he sends me away, I need to spend all the time I can with him. It sounds ridiculous, but instinctively I know that I’ll never want another man but Stone. My time with him has just been that special.
I watch as his lips move into a smile, one that reaches his eyes, and my body feels warm all over. I let my finger swipe over his bottom lip and he surprises me by sucking it into his mouth—which makes me smile.
“No, it would hurt you and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Carly—even myself,” he vows and I feel it all the way to the soles of my feet.
“I don’t want to go that long without you, Stone.”
“We’ll go home and get our hiking gear, and then tonight I’ll show you other things we can do to find pleasure.”
“Other things?”
“I promise you’ll like them.”
“Can’t you show me without the hiking?” I ask hopefully.
“I could, but trust me, Carly. You haven’t lived until you’ve made love under the Alaskan stars with the northern lights above you.”
“Have you done that before?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“I’ve never made love to a woman before, never wanted to before you, baby,” he says and maybe that’s a line. If so, it’s a really good one and I like it.
“I don’t have any hiking gear, I didn’t bother packing any,” I respond, not adding I didn’t have any gear to pack.
“You have your hiking boots though, right?”
I think over what I brought. There’s a pair of comfortable boots. They look really good with my jeans and I suppose they are okay for hiking. They’re warm, so I shrug.
“Yeah.”
“Then I got the rest covered. You’re going to love it, Carly,” he says enthusiastically. I’m pretty sure I’m going to hate it, but in the face of his excitement, I’m not going to argue.
Chapter Sixteen
Stone
“You okay, Carly?” I ask her, for maybe the tenth time.
“I’m fine,” she says, but her voice is tight. She’s keeping up with me, but I don’t think it’s my imagination that something is off.
“Do you want me to carry your pack?” I ask her when I see her shifting it again on her shoulders.
“I’m fine,” she says tightly, which indicates she’s anything but.
I’m not that worried about her backpack. It’s not heavy. I’ve made sure that I have the majority of the items, but I did put the lighter ones in her pack. She’s an experienced hiker, so I didn’t think it would be a problem. Now I’m starting to wonder. I look at my watch. We have another hour to go before we make it to our destination, at best. I watch Carly closely for a few minutes. She’s walking, but I can see a limp that wasn’t there before. I frown.
“Did you hurt your leg?”
“Stone, I told you I was—”
“Yeah, you’re fine. I heard that. I just don’t believe it.”
“Then you can… Stone! What are you doing?” she screeches as I wrap my arms around her. I twist so her back is to my front and then I put a hand behind me to help catch myself and bring us both to the ground, my body cushioning her.
“I’m sitting your ass down and checking your foot out before you truly hurt yourself,” I grumble, upset that she’s trying to hide something so important from me.
“I told you I’m—”
“Fine. Yeah, I got that one, baby, but I’m not buying it. So save it for someone who will listen.”
I pull her from my lap and set her on the ground.
“I don’t think I like the way you pack me around and—Ow! Stone, that hurts!”
“I’m sorry, baby,” I tell her, and for some reason I do it smiling. Even when she growls at me, I find her adorable. I finish untying her boot. These aren’t the best hiking boots to wear. They’re at least waterproof, but she needs something a little more rugged for the Alaskan terrain. I’ll have to find her a pair. The soles are good though. Once I get it undone, I carefully take it off her foot. If she’s sprained her ankle I don’t want to take a chance that I’m making it worse. Her soft hiss makes me feel like shit, but nothing could make me feel worse than what I see once I get the boot removed.
Son of a bitch!
She wore little thin nylon socks. Holes have been worn through them while we walked and she’s bloody on the backs of her heel and her toes. Hell, her whole foot is a damn mess.
“You lied to me, didn’t you, Carly?” I growl. The anger in my voice is thick and I feel her jump beneath my touch, but I can’t stifle it.
“Stone,” she murmurs and her voice sounds so lost I look at her. She’s scared and I hate that I’m the one scaring her, but I’m so fucking ma
d. She’s put herself in danger. I silently take her other boot off and, just as I feared, this foot is as bad as the other one.
“Why in the hell did you lie to me?” I growl, hating that I hurt her as I do my best to tear away the blood-soaked sock from her poor foot.
“I wanted to,” she answers. “I was scared.”
I curse under my breath. If she never uses that word again, I’ll be happy. Scared? What have I ever done to make her afraid of me?
“So you lied?”
“Kind of, I guess. Listen, Stone—”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that you lied about hiking?”
“I wanted you to like me… and I was scared that…”
“You lied about something so fucking stupid as telling me you hiked? Jesus, Carly. You could have been seriously injured on that last mountain we climbed. Lying like that was just plain stupid,” I growl.
The minute I say the words, I regret them. Especially when she jerks away from me. Fuck, I’ve been on my own so long I’ve forgotten how to be soft with a woman. I’m just so damn upset. What would have happened if she had fallen on that mountain? I made her go in front of me, but she could have fallen and I might not have reached her in time. She would have rolled to the bottom and broken her damn neck. Just the thought of it scares the hell out of me.
“Let me put my shoes back on. I want out of here,” she says, her voice clearly upset.
“You can’t wear those damn shoes. You won’t be able to wear any shoes for days.”
“I have to wear shoes, Stone. Just put them on and I’ll walk to the bottom and go home—go to your place.” The way she clarified home to just my place doesn’t escape my notice. I let it slide—for now.
“Have you lied to me about other things, Carly?” I ask her as I shuffle through her backpack and find a pair of my thick socks. I don’t have anything to clean her feet with, which they desperately need, but for now this will keep her from getting cold.
“Not intentionally,” she mumbles as I stuff her ruined socks and boots in the backpack.
“What does that mean?” I ask as I throw both backpacks on my shoulder. I reach over and slip my hand under her knees and the other at her back and lift her up, as I stand.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her hands biting into my shoulder.
“I’m packing you up the hill.”
“What? Why? We need to go back down the hill.”
“I can’t hike down the hill carrying you. It’s too damn dangerous. If I’m carrying you, it will take over four hours to get to the bottom.”
“Then let me walk!”
“How about you tell me what else you’ve been lying about instead?” I counter and start walking up the hill.
This honeymoon hasn’t exactly started out like I planned.
Chapter Seventeen
Carly
“Here, you need to eat,” Stone says, handing me what looks like a piece of jerky.
“I don’t like jerky,” I tell him. Which technically isn’t a lie. I haven’t tasted it before, but just on looks alone, I’m pretty sure I hate it.
“I’m too tired to fish or do any of the things I planned this evening, so you’ll eat this.”
“No. I won’t,” I insist. I’ve really reached my limit. I might care for Stone and I realize most of this problem is because of me, but I refuse to eat something that looks like it was chewed up and spit out by a cow and then dried in the hot sun.
That’s just not happening.
“Fine. I’ll go see if I can catch some fish for your majesty,” Stone grumbles, getting up.
“I wouldn’t bother. Even if you do, I wouldn’t eat it,” I mumble, lying back on the sleeping bag and wishing I could get back to Stone’s house and pack.
“Let me guess. You don’t eat fish either?”
“I eat fish just fine. When it’s at a restaurant with indoor plumbing and a waiter!”
“Now we’re getting to see the real Carly.”
“So sorry to disappoint you!”
“You lied about being an outdoor lover too, I guess? That’s kind of stupid since you were considering moving here full time,” he growls. He’s sitting across the spacious tent, but it’s still not big enough. I don’t want him here. Not now—not like this.
“I didn’t lie!”
“Really? So you love camping, hiking and trail riding?”
“I might like those things. I don’t know! I’ve never done them!”
“Then why did you tell me you had?” he asks, and if I wasn’t so mad, I would have noticed that Stone is being very thoughtful with his questions, his anger no longer present. I don’t really pay attention to that, however—because my mouth is being ruled by my own anger.
“I didn’t! Tally did!”
“Who in the hell is Tally?”
“The lady I work with at the diner.”
“I think you better explain this shit, Carly.”
I look at Stone. I really look at him. He’s beautiful in a wild, untouchable kind of way. He’s also way out of my league. Maybe it’s because there are truly not a lot of women here in this part of Alaska. I don’t know. What I do know is that in the normal, everyday world that I live in, Stone would never go for a woman like me—not in a million years.
I also know that I’m tired. I don’t want to lie to Stone. I care about him. I think in time I could even love him. Maybe I already do… at least I’m more than half-way there. I owe him the truth.
The complete truth—no matter how much it hurts.
“I never wrote you from that website, Stone. I never exchanged emails with you.”
“You never…”
“It wasn’t me. It was Tally. She did it for me, because I was drowning at home. I needed an escape, a way out, and Tally wanted to give that to me. She found you as my ticket out of Cranville.”
“Why did you need a ticket out of Cranville?” he asks, his face completely closed.
“A very long and sordid story involving my stepfather, but it’s not important in the end. I broke down on her and that’s when she confessed she had been writing you. She showed me a few of your letters, she showed me your picture, and she helped me pack and leave.”
“You only came to Alaska to leave your stepfather behind?” he asks, his tone harsh as he rakes his hand through his hair.
“I did,” I confess guiltily. and I can see my words hit him and I know the exact moment they wound. I want to close my eyes against the pain I’m causing him, but I force myself to witness it.
I deserve this.
“So you’ve been playing me this entire time? I was just a pawn in some game? You whored yourself out to stay away from your stepfather? He must really be a bastard,” Stone growls, standing up.
His head grazes the top of the tent, but the anger and hurt coming off of him is nearly crippling. His words wound me, but even as they deliver their blow, I know I deserve them. I swallow hard, trying to wade through the pain, to get my thoughts together.
“Nothing about being with you here in Alaska has been a lie, Stone. I care about you. If I didn’t, I never would have given myself to you,” I tell him quietly.
“I’d really like to believe that, but since you’ve been lying from day one, I find I can’t,” he growls, turning to leave.
“Where are you going?” I ask, feeling panicked. I know it was stupid, but I was hoping that he would somehow magically forgive me and we’d kiss and everything would be okay… better than okay. I had hoped he cared about me as much as I cared about him…
I was wrong.
“I’m leaving. I need to clear my head,” he growls. “Stay inside the tent. You’ll be fine.”
With that, he disappears. I watch the tent door flap behind him and I stare at it feeling like my world is ending.
Chapter Eighteen
Stone
I’ve been out here by the creek for hours. Hell, I’m not even sure how long. It’s dark now. I’m a fucking asshole, because
I don’t even know if Carly knows how to light the lantern. I shouldn’t have left her alone for so long, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I spent so much time getting to know someone, time starting to care about a woman… who wasn’t even real.
I still can’t sort out exactly how I feel about everything. I do know that it was her in my bed. It was her that I’ve been living with, and it was definitely her virginity I claimed. If I erase the letters, and all the other bullshit, that’s what I’m left with. I was intrigued by Carly before she came here, but I was completely prepared to send her back home if things hadn’t worked out. It was her picture that called to me, and not because she was beautiful—though she was. It was the look in her eyes.
I pull out my wallet and look at the faded picture I’ve been keeping there since I got a response to my email. The camera had caught Carly unaware. She’s bent down, laughing at something an old man at the diner is saying. She’s wearing a faded pink waitress uniform with a white apron. Her beautiful dark hair is pulled up on top of her head. She’s beautiful, but what captures me in the picture is that even though she’s smiling, even though she is caught mid laugh, her eyes look as if they hold answers.
Answers to questions I’ve had my whole life.
Carly might not have been the woman I corresponded with, but she is the woman I’ve had in my bed. She’s the woman I married and ultimately, she’s the woman I want to keep. There’s a lot to work out between us, but that’s the bottom line.
Too bad it took me all evening and for the sun to go down for me to realize it.
I slowly make my way back to the camp, still a little lost, but at least I have my mind made up. There’s no lantern glow inside the tent and I feel like a fucking loser. The only bright spot is that there’s no sound either. Hopefully Carly fell asleep; that way she won’t even know how long it took me to get my head out of my ass. I should have my ass kicked, actually. It’s too dangerous to leave her out here alone, because odds are she’s never been camping before.