Summer Street Secrets (The Hills of Burlington Book 3) Page 16

  She nodded before turning back in search of her father. She found him standing outside with Court. The two of them in an intense but quiet and serious conversation that stopped when they realized she was approaching.

  "Everything okay?" Jake asked, studying his daughter thoughtfully.

  "For the moment," she deferred silently to the man behind her with a look.

  "She lost the leg," Wes started off with the worse. He didn't believe in leading up to it. "But she's doing steady right now. We're just going to have to wait and see at this point."

  

  "She's young," Court offered quietly as they watched the car carrying Jake and Beth back to Burlington as it drove down the bumpy dirt road, not certain it mattered one way or another considering the look he saw on his cousin's face.

  "Yes," Wes agreed to the obvious. "And fragile."

  Court tilted his head toward the young man beside him. Not surprised at his insight. You couldn't work with all he did and not develop some level of being able to read situations quickly. He knew too that Wes took every single animal that came through his doors personally. Didn't matter if it was an aging horse or a newborn kitten. They became his. He'd seen that look before but never before had he seen it aimed at a woman. "Yeah. She's fragile," he agreed slowly. "But not nearly so as she was a few months ago when she first arrived."

  "She close to her Dad?" he knew pieces of the story. Everyone knew about the senseless murders of her parents after seeing the video that had caught fire on the web recently. Only now with the release of her part in the effort to fight the numerous forms of internet harassment did everyone know Jake Kyle was her father. And from the video it wasn't hard to conclude the man was a protective father at that.

  "They're working on it." Court looked again at his cousin, saw the wheels turning. "If you're going down the path I think you are her Dad is the least of your worries."

  "How so?"

  "She's tight with all the women of that family." He thought about it. "There's actually a few of them who aren't related but might as well be considering how protective each is of the others." He thought of his own slowly moving but progressing relationship with one of those women.

  "That's not a problem."

  "No," Court agreed slowly, wondering at his cousin's complete confidence. "Unless you do something to hurt her, intentionally or otherwise."

  "Not a problem," Wes repeated. "That's not going to happen." Before Court could further the conversation and find out more of what was going through his cousin's mind Wes walked back into the clinic leaving him standing there on his own with nothing but speculation.

  

  CHAPTER NINE

  Later on that evening Court sat on the small front porch of his home with Carrie. They had originally planned to have dinner at her house with Addie and whoever else was around but at her request had moved the agenda to his house. It didn't matter to him one way or another being that the only real plan was to spend time with her. The where and such didn't matter. What did matter was his strong sense that there was something she wanted to talk about. Since all the worst case scenarios were the only possibilities he seemed to be able to focus on he wanted whatever it was out and on the table. Just as he was about to make the effort to make that happen the woman beside him on the old wooden porch swing reached over and took his hand. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried. They clicked in a way he never had with any other woman before. He could picture numerous things in their future he hadn't with any other woman. Nights like this on the front porch with the neighborhood sounds all around them as the night gently settled in. He didn't know what he would say....or do...if she was on the verge of ending all those possibilities.

  "Court."

  "Umm."

  "Do you believe in the whole psychic thing?" At the silence that seemed to go on beyond the time it would take to respond one way or another Carrie forced herself to turn towards him fully expecting to see ridicule or worse. The last thing she expected was what she saw. His eyes were closed and if she didn't know better she would think he was praying. "Court?" She squeezed his hands slightly as she said his name softly, worried now that she'd touched a nerve of some sort or that he wasn't feeling well to start with and she'd been so caught up in her own thoughts she hadn't noticed.

  Court finished his short litany of thanks and a longer lecture to himself about becoming paranoid before he could come up with anything resembling a thoughtful response to her question. Even then the best he could do was, "Why?"

  "Because I need to talk with you about something and I'd like to know your thoughts on it at least in the general sense beforehand."

  "You want to know if I'm going to make fun of you."

  "There's that too," she said primly and hated herself for it immediately. She didn't want there to be distance between them. Wanted so much for this to be all her marriage hadn't. And more than anything didn't want to fall back into all the old habits that had come along with a relationship that had been more business than personal. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out that way, I just..."

  He turned the hand she held over to grasp hers even more secure in his own. "It's not a big deal, Carrie. I'd probably feel the same way. You just caught me a little off guard." It was the truth just not in the way she would think. He'd been gratefully caught off guard realizing his worries were transparent smoke he was letting cloud his judgment. "And to answer your question," he shifted slightly so he could turn towards her as he spoke. "It would be hard not to believe that there is something to the concept of the existence and ability of extra sensory perception, or whatever you want to refer to it as, it really comes down to that. Anything that stays with us over the course of centuries has to, I believe, have some truth to it. I'm not certain exactly what that truth is, but I believe it is there."

  "That sounds a lot like some of the round-about answers I used to hear from my college professors when they really didn't know the answer to the question."

  "It usually works," Court responded with a smile. She was quick. How could he not appreciate that aspect of her?

  "Do you miss it?"

  He didn't bother pretending he didn't know what she was talking about. They both knew he did. "Sometimes. But mostly I miss the kids and their fresh outlook on life and all its possibilities."

  "Like nothing can ever stop them," Carrie said quietly thinking of Addie. Her niece had once been very much the same. But no more.

  "She'll get back there," Court said easily reading her thoughts. "It's just going to take some time. I've already seen a shift in the short time she's been here."

  "How so?" Carrie asked, needing to know what he saw that maybe because she was so close she didn't.

  "She smiles. She might not realize it half the time but I've seen several little smirks at some idiotic thing Brian or Mallie have said." He took the opening to slide his arm around her along the back of the swing. "When she first arrived she could barely look at you, anyone for that matter. She was probably afraid of what she'd see...always worrying...do they know? Now she does and you don't see the fear in her eyes that broke my heart."

  Carrie wondered if Nick had ever turned her emotions to mush with so few simple words as Court just had.

  Realizing something important had just happened but not certain how to best handle it with this particular woman Court went back to where they had started out. "So why the interest in what I think of psychic abilities?"

  She had already thought this out, argued with herself, and in the end knew from experience a relationship couldn't survive if truth was the first victim. And she didn't just want honesty between them she wanted the comfort of knowing she could discuss anything in her life with him. He didn't have to agree with her. She could go down to the local animal shelter and get a cute little puppy if that was all she wanted. She did want...needed acceptance. Throwing all caution aside she began telling him about the conversation earlier that day with Mary and Casey at the house tha
t had long ago been the home of her great-grandparents. The home her grandmother had grown up in and her own mother had been a frequent visitor to. As she spoke, slowly at first, she watched his expression. There was no disdain which would have come quickly to Nick's. She'd promised herself she wouldn't compare. But how could she not completely discount all that she’d learned and lived in almost twenty years of her life. When she was done she looked down to her hands surprised to find they were clenched into fists. Even as she realized it she saw another hand reach over and ever so gently cover hers and weave her tightly gripping fingers through his.

  "How do you feel about all of it?" Court rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

  "I don't completely know," Carrie admitted. She was also working out in her mind that there hadn't been a hint of sarcasm or mockery in his tone. Just simple interest. "In all honesty I hadn't really ever thought about it all that much. Sure, there have been times when I wondered if I was just really good at guessing or my intuition was better than most but I mostly always chalked it up to dumb luck." She sighed, and decided honesty had to come from both sides for it to work. "I didn't always pay attention when I should have though. I've been my own worst enemy at times though I preferred to blame it on my mother."

  "Such as?"

  "The most notable would be my marriage." She saw the questions and struggled with her own pride in answering truthfully what he wouldn't ask. "For days, probably weeks," she corrected wryly, "before my wedding I had what I guess you could call a sense of ... I don't know, almost like dread. If you want to be Victorian about it you could call it a sense of foreboding. I even considered calling it off but my pride told me otherwise. If I'd been smart I would have ditched the pride and listened to the intuition or whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't have wasted half my life." The last was said with all the regret that lay buried within her for years spent miserably with a man she barely saw and now wondered if she ever really knew.

  "I think," Court spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "That however we spend our lives we learn from that time. Good or bad, it makes us who we are. You may not have chosen the same course all those years ago with what you know now, but would you be the person you are today, know all that you know now, if it hadn't been for those years?"

  How like him to get to the point while everyone else circled around it, Carrie thought, watching him out of the corner of her eye. And who else, she wondered, could make a person reevaluate years of regrets with pieces of good old common sense.

  Misinterpreting her silence as disagreement Court continued. "And who," he tilted her chin in his direction. "Who would have been there for Addie when she desperately needed someone, and not just any someone," he added. "Someone who cared and loved her enough to give her more than shelter and a place to heal. But more importantly someone who gave her a sense of purpose again."

  "I didn't..."

  "Yes you did. You took her shopping and not just on girly jaunts. You included her in your business shopping trips. You didn't just bring her into your home you included her in your life, made her part of it. All that gave her purpose. Then in addition to all that you've taken on a large part of the effort, at what I imagine at great expense and certainly no little amount of time, to get that website off the ground. That gives Addie the ability to stand up and against what she couldn't before. They knocked her down in such a way she had no ability to fight back, literally or figuratively. You gave her back that ability."

  "Grace," she started and was interrupted once again. She was seeing a side of the man she hadn't before. The man who quietly and effectively made his point heard. Because of what she was learning she was willing to ignore his girly comment.

  "Grace has been phenomenal but you drove this. And Grace wouldn't have gone forward with it without you and your agreement. It would have died a gentle death. But you didn't let it. That says a lot, Carrie." He tightened his hold on her hand. "And all for the daughter of the sister of the man you just recently divorced. I would say those years meant something. Maybe not all you wanted them to but without them it's not just you who wouldn't be the person you are today." He paused, waited for her to look at him. "Addie wouldn't be the person she is today without you having been in her life...being there for her. When you get to regretting those years and maybe even the man you spent them with, think about that."

  Carrie was speechless for the moment. Something those who knew her best, her mother being at the front of the line, would have said was a rare event.

  "And," Court decided to answer her original question. "I think anything, including psychic ability in whatever form, that continues to pose a question mark for mankind even after thousands of years, must have some valid basis. Otherwise it would have been discussed and discarded." He looked at her, serious about the topic and so much more. "And it hasn't been. We still discuss it. We still question it...its existence ... its possibilities. I don't know much about it but I do believe it’s a very real part of some people's lives." He smiled carefully at her as he drove his point home. "Whether they like it or not." He waited for her reaction but wasn't surprised at her silence. Carrie tended to absorb things and let them swirl around a bit before making her opinion on it known. Even then she could just as easily keep it to herself rather than share it to the world at large, or even the room at large which was more often the case. "What do your cousins think of all this?" More interesting than that he thought to himself before voicing it. "What does your Mom think?"

  "I see that look on your face. You're imagining my mother's reaction." She was imagining her mother's reaction. "Mom wasn't there and Mary and Casey left it up to me to tell her." She looked at him sternly. "Or not."

  "You can't not tell her, Carrie." He had to really struggle not to laugh at the expression on her face. Poker would never be her game. "She'd love this. For Pete's sake, this would make her day, better, it would keep her going for weeks."

  "I'm very well aware of that." She hated the prim she knew infused her voice. "I'm also aware she'd share it with every living soul who would listen to her."

  Court took her shoulders firmly and turned her towards him. "Not if you asked her not to." He watched the panic literally slide away as she pulled herself back into control. And understood better her concerns. "You're worried about what people will say."

  "I don't think worried is the right word," she said tightly.

  "No, it isn't," he corrected himself. No one who stood up to a U.S. Senator, regardless of the familial connection, or who took on a controversial topic in support of a niece by marriage, no...he thought to himself as he studied her as she looked out over the neighborhood, that person wouldn't be worried about people talking. But he could definitely see where it would get old. "You're tired." He saw her eyes change, not soften, but loosen up from the tightness that only moments before seemed to keep them open like a toothpick. "You're tired of being the topic of conversation even though in Addie's case you literally opened yourself to it."

  "That's different."

  "True. But I'll repeat myself even at the risk of sounding redundant. Your Mom would love the intrigue of this. It will keep her glued to her computer surfing the net researching this for longer than you and I can begin to imagine. And if you ask her to keep it to herself she will. I can't think of anything she wouldn't do for you." He sighed at the shadow of guilt that began to edge into her expression. He hadn't wanted that. And he knew without a doubt Charlie wouldn't either. "Of course," he began hoping to thwart what he hadn't meant to bring about in the first place. "It will damned near kill her not to tell anyone, that in itself will be entertaining to watch, but she'll keep her mouth shut if you ask her to. The girls will too," he watched as she began to understand the whole of it. "Those three have you and your cousins on pedestals so high I'd hate to see any of you topple off."

  "Please."

  "They do. Addie looks at you like you're the answer to all her prayers. She's the same with Mary and Casey, and your Mom rates pre
tty high up there too, but none of them like you. Beth and Mallie look at all of you and try to figure how they can be like the three of you combined when they grow up." He laughed at her expression. He'd watched more than once and seen the admiration in all three teens towards the three cousins. But it didn't surprise him Carrie hadn't seen it. Wouldn't surprise him if the other two hadn't either. They weren't made that way. And they, just like Carrie, would be embarrassed by it just as she was now.

  "That's just silly," Carrie spurted out. She knew she was turning red and hated that he'd see her like this.

  "No, it's not. And since you don't like talking about it we'll go back to the original topic. How do you feel about what Mary shared with you and Casey today? Personally I would think it would be really cool."

  "You would." She grabbed on to the change of subject as closely as she would an air-filled life preserver. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I guess I'm still absorbing it."

  Court leaned back, thinking about what she'd been told today. Not just that the time of her birth was food for thought but the sheer coincidence that she and each of her siblings and cousins on her mother's side of the family were as well. In his mind that was stretching coincidence a bit far. Studying the woman beside him, he couldn't help but think she felt the same. She might be a tad more pragmatic than her mother but she wasn't stupid. Not by a long shot or any other cliché that came to mind.

  "So," he searched for the best way to ask without getting her back up. "Do you sense things like Mary does?"

  Because he sounded more earnest than patronizing she dug deep to keep from reacting defensively. But she couldn't help but cling to that which allowed her the additional minutes she needed to tread where she hadn't before. "How do you know Mary senses things?"