Freefall to Desire

After the third ring, Brianne thought no one was going to answer. Not that she expected them to. Either Shayna and Donovan were out enjoying an evening show at the resort, or they were doing what honeymooners did best. But just before the fourth ring, someone picked up the receiver.

Brianne heard some shuffling, and then, “Hello?”

“Shayna!” Brianne exclaimed, happy to hear her sister’s voice. She didn’t realize until that exact moment how much she needed her sister right now.

“Brianne?”

“I’m sorry to call you on your honeymoon. I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t very, very important.” Brianne heard Donovan ask something along the lines of if she was okay. “Yes, tell Donovan I’m okay. Well, actually I’m not too sure that I am.”

“What’s going on, Bree?” Shayna asked, her voice laced with concern. “Oh, of course. How could I have forgotten? It’s today. The three-year anniversary.”

“Oh, Shay.” A little sob escaped Brianne. “I just talked to Alex, and he said something. Something that’s hard to believe.”

“Alex? As in Carter’s best friend?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he’d left Buffalo.”

“So did I. But apparently he’s back.”

“He just called out of the blue?”

“He came to the house.”

“Oh, God.” Shayna’s voice was barely a whisper, and Brianne knew her sister was coming to the same conclusion she had. “They found Carter’s remains.”

“That’s what I thought, too, when I saw him. But Shay, he said something that has me reeling. He thinks…” Brianne paused, inhaled deeply. “He thinks that Carter’s alive.”

“What? How?”

Brianne took the next few minutes to fill her sister in, tell her everything Alex had said. “He wants me to go to Florida to help find Carter. But I don’t think I can. I mean, what if it was just a look-alike Alex saw? It’s been so hard for me already, trying to deal with the unrealistic likelihood that Carter might come back one day. In so many ways, it might have been easier if I’d just accepted that he had died. So what if we get to Florida and find this person and it’s not Carter after all? I don’t know if I can deal with that.”

“I don’t even know what to say, sis. I’m totally in shock.”

Again, Brianne heard Donovan speaking, and then she heard Shayna’s muffled voice as she filled her husband in on what was happening.

“A part of me is too scared to hope,” Brianne said. “But what if Carter is alive and he needs me? Or what if he’s alive and he’s got this whole new life that I won’t fit into?”

“I’d want to know,” Shayna said. “If you go and learn that it was simply a Carter look-alike, that’ll probably help you with closure. You can probably put to bed the idea of Carter ever coming back. But if you go and discover that against all odds Carter is alive… Yes, it would be hard to find out that he was involved with someone else, but will it be any easier wondering?”

Shayna had a good point. “Not really. No. It’s the wondering that has been so hard these past years.”

“Then again, Alex could deal with this on his own and report back to you what he finds. Especially if he learns that Carter has a wife and kids.”

A wife and kids. The words made a lump form in Brianne’s throat. She always thought that she would be Carter’s wife and the mother of his children.

“I’m sorry,” Shayna said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, don’t apologize. Nothing about this situation is sweet and rosy. I have to accept that.”

A beat passed, then Shayna asked, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you. To get your input.”

“Truthfully, I think that Alex probably saw a guy who looked a lot like Carter, but I doubt it was him. If Carter were alive, then he would have needed medical attention at some point. The authorities would certainly have been called. Then there’s the issue of him coming back to America without his identification. Brianne, I can’t see this person truly being him.”

“But there was no body.” Brianne spoke the words more to herself, thinking about the amount of times she had refused to believe Carter dead simply because his jacket and backpack had been found.

“I know,” Shayna agreed. “But you know what the authorities think. And there was enough blood on the jacket that they believed there had to have been some sort of attack.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Brianne sighed. “Sorry, Shay. I’m not trying to be testy. It’s just…I still can’t think about what might have happened to Carter. It’s too hard.”

“Brianne, you have to decide what’s best for you to do. If you think going to Florida will help, then go. But if it’s going to be more painful than anything, then I think you shouldn’t do it.”

“I thought you said you’d want to know.”

“I did, yes. But when I really think about it, the likelihood of it—and how your emotions will get dragged through the ringer again—I don’t think it’s worth it. That said, I’ll support whatever decision you make.”

“I know you will,” Brianne said softly. “Thanks for listening. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“Are you kidding? I’m glad you called. I’m just sorry that you’re there by yourself dealing with this.”

“Tell Donovan hi. I’m gonna let you go.”

“All right. But, Bree, if you need to talk again, don’t hesitate to call back.”

Brianne heard the note of concern in Shayna’s voice and loved her sister for it. If not for Shayna, Brianne might not have come out of the dark days of depression after Carter’s disappearance.

“Go back to whatever it is you two lovebirds were doing,” Brianne said, injecting humor into her voice. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Take care, sis. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Brianne said.

Brianne ended the call and sat in the dark room, her thoughts once again going back to Carter. More specifically, to the day she had learned from Alex that Carter hadn’t come off of the mountain.

Never in her life had she gone through a more emotionally wrenching time. For a twenty-four-year-old, deeply in love and losing the man she adored—it had been too much to bear.

Of course, she’d been devastated. But she’d been most upset with the searchers and the authorities and everyone who had been willing to write Carter off as dead. Determined to prove them all wrong, she had booked a ticket to head to British Columbia and search the mountain herself if necessary. Her sister had gone with her for support. But while in Canada, Brianne had realized how utterly helpless she was to effect any change. The amount of snow was unbelievable, and she—a woman who couldn’t stand a day of camping in decent weather—was never going to be able to find Carter when the search team couldn’t.

Once the search had been called off and she’d returned home, Brianne had gone into a depression. She had stayed in bed, not eating, not drinking. But her family had been there for her, bringing her plates of food and hot tea. Brianne refused it all until she could no longer starve herself. Then she’d fed her turbulent emotions with food. Within six months, she’d put on the thirty pounds she had spent the year and a half with Carter working off.

She knew how she got when it came to her emotions—unable to truly control them and helpless to assuage herself. It was the reason that going to Florida was such a daunting idea for her. If her hopes were once again deflated…

“Sleep on it,” Brianne said softly to herself. “And pray on it. When you wake up, you’ll know what to do.”

She settled in her bed with the rough draft of the novel her sister had just finished. Brianne always read Shayna’s books to give her input before she submitted them to her editor. But despite her sister’s compelling writing, Brianne simply couldn’t lose herself in the fictional historical world.