Page 30 of Just Can't Fall for the Enemy

Carmen sighed, letting her shoulders slump. “I should’ve figured seeing Nate would set her off. But the cemetery—that’s a double whammy.”

Idiot. I should have remembered. “Her parents died, didn’t they? Is that where they’re buried?”

“Should have been. There wasn’t much left of them to bury.” She cocked her head. “She didn’t tell you?”

Disappointment hung heavy in my heart. Why had she kept this from me? “No.”

Carmen placed the carton of ice cream into the basket over her arm and then opened the freezer to grab another. She shoved the second into my hands. “You’re going to need this.”

I didn’t have a freezer in my hotel room, but I accepted it anyway. “I need to know what happened to them.” For some reason, I suddenly needed to understand Sophie more than anything else in the world.

“I agree, but it isn’t my place to explain.”

“Carmen,” I said impatiently. “I’m leaving on Monday, and then it will be too late. Please. I’d like to understand.”

“Why?” she asked, suddenly defensive. “So you can make her fall for you and then leave forever?”

That stopped me. Why did talking to Sophie feel so important right now when the future of my career was at stake? Whythiswoman with a dozen others in the rearview mirror—short flings that meant nothing? Why her?

Because she was a steak dinner after a lifetime of canned tuna fish. Because I felt more alive with her than anyone else I’d ever spent time with. Because I liked who I was with her around.

“Because she understands me when nobody else does,” I confessed. “I’d like to understand her, too, for however long it lasts.”

Carmen examined me for a long time before nodding. I felt as if I’d passed some sort of test. “Fine. Then I’ll send it to you.”

“Send what?”

“You’ll see.” She asked for my number, and I gave it to her. She scrolled through the camera roll on her phone and tapped away. Seconds later, my phone buzzed.

“This is just for you,” she said pointedly. “Nobody else. You can’t even tell Sophie you saw this, and you’re going to delete it right afterward. Swear it.”

“I promise. Thank you. Will you bring her some flowers too?” She needed to know that I saw her pain, even if I didn’t completely understand it yet. That she wasn’t alone in this. I paused. “Actually, I’d rather bring her some myself.”

“That’s more like it.” Carmen winked and headed for the front of the store. My fingers felt frozen, and I realized I’d been holding a carton of ice cream for several minutes now. I slid it back onto the shelf and walked out without buying anything. I couldn’t remember what I’d come for in the first place, but whatever it was, I had something far better.

I slid into my seat and opened Carmen’s text to see a video. I hit play before even closing the car door.

There sat Sophie on a stool, her white button-down shirt fitted enough to suggest her curves without showing them. She fidgeted with her sleeves, which were obviously too long, and avoided looking at the camera. In the background, Carmen’s voice said, “Ready?”

“I guess,” Sophie said. Her hair was shorter, I noticed. This could have been a few months ago or a couple of years ago. Hard to tell.

Carmen counted down from three, then went silent as Sophie smiled tightly at the camera. “Hello and good morning. I’m Sophie Goodman, and I’m applying for the wildlife technician position. You asked me to tell you my story from the heart, so here it is.” She took a deep breath.

I found myself rooting for her inside. She looked so nervous.

“I grew up an only child,” she began. “My parents were both born and raised in New York City. They chose to get married in Four Seasons Park downtown, where they’d initially met at a party. Apparently the wedding was a huge event and a bunch of famous people came because my dad was an actor. Anyway, they lived in a tiny apartment for the first two years and had a baby boy. My mom couldn’t find a day care she felt was safe, so she asked a neighbor who worked as a nanny. She returned home one day to find her baby dead in his crib and the nanny passed out on the couch. The woman had been doing drugs, and while she was high, she injected him to keep him quiet and happy. He died of an overdose.”

She took in a long, deep breath and slowly blew it out. I detected the slightest shudder in her voice as she continued. “My mom was pregnant with me at the time. My parents decided the big city wasn’t a safe place to raise a family anymore, so they moved to the small town of Huckleberry Creek, Montana. I grew up knowing nothing different. I spent hours exploring the woods and talking to the birds. Moose, elk, bears—all the animals people fear? I talked to them just like the deer and the squirrels and everything else that lived around me. I just felt like one of them.”

She fell silent for a long moment.

“You’ve got this,” Carmen whispered in the background. It was then I noticed the tears filling Sophie’s eyes.

She wiped them back with her too-long sleeves and belted a laugh. “Sorry. You said you wanted it from the heart. Anyway, my parents would never let us go anywhere. At first I assumed it was because of money, but soon I realized they were scared. Leaving Huckleberry Creek even for a vacation felt like leaving our haven. As long as we stayed here, our little family would be safe. They felt that way until I was seventeen, when my mom persuaded my dad to return to Manhattan for their anniversary trip. It was the middle of my junior year, and they didn’t want to jeopardize my quest for a college scholarship, so my grandma flew out to stay with me and they hired a pilot with a small plane to take them to New York City. They never made it.”

My heart constricted.There wasn’t much left of them to bury,Carmen had said. No wonder Sophie didn’t like the cemetery.

“Grammy Marissa made plans to move here, and the town of Huckleberry Creek rallied around us. They became my new family. I also grew to love the wilderness that cradled them even more. I got an online degree in environmental management so I could respect my parents’ wishes for me to live here, where they’d felt safe, and work in the forest I loved. But it isn’t what I thought it would be, and I—I think it might be time to leave and . . . and . . .”

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