On the Rocks (A Turtle Island Novel) by Kim Law Page B

wanted to be here.
    Bringing his gaze back inside the windows, he checked out the workmanship around them, and casually finished with “I think Julie might need me to be here for a while.”
    “And you might need to be here, too?” Ginger suggested quietly.
    He shot her a quick look. Had he given that away on his face? “Julie needs me,” he repeated. He wondered if Ginger would voice her suspicions again. It would be just like her. But instead she merely smiled.
    And he decided that he’d missed her smiles, too.
    “You should have been back before now,” she told him. Her smile disappeared.
    “I know.”
    She was right. He’d stayed away too long. He had little excuse.
    “And I don’t just mean to see your parents,” she continued. “This summer, too. For Julie. She’s been here all alone, Carter. And you’re her big brother. You should have been here for her.”
    “I do have my own life,” he pointed out.
    “I know. Somewhere up north. You’re a civil engineer, right?”
    “Rhode Island.” He ignored the question.
    “Which isn’t close, I get that. It’s not easy to swing by and check on her, and I’m sure you’ve been busy. Vacation days have to be worked out and all that. But your parents are on the other side of the world.”
    “They were here last month,” he told her. They’d stopped by before coming to see him.
    “For one day.”
    He stared at her, unwilling to show guilt in either words or expression. Maybe he should have visited Julie over the summer, but the truth was, he hadn’t given it that much thought. He’d assumed she was fine. And he hadn’t been.
    “You couldn’t be bothered to check on her at least once?” Ginger pushed.
    He let out a long sigh. “I’m here now, Red. Did you miss that? And I’ve talked to her on the phone plenty of times. She’s fine. She’s been fine.”
    Except she cries most nights.
    Ginger nodded. “Okay.”
    He took her single-word answer to mean that she meant a hell of a lot more than okay . “She is an adult,” he informed her. “And I’m not her keeper.”
    “I know that, too.”
    He growled. “And it’s not like I had anything to do with her pregnancy.”
    She shot him a dry look. “You think? And I know, it’s none of my business. Go ahead and say it. I shouldn’t have brought it up. But I’ve been worried about her, Carter. And now . . . with the way the kitchen looked. It’s just that she seems so young sometimes. So alone.”
    “She is young.” And alone. “But it’s not like I’ve been sitting in my shiny new house doing nothing.”
    Actually, it had been exactly like that. Heaviness pressed in on his chest, and with it came the urge to unload some of his burdens. Would doing so ease any of his pain? He couldn’t see where it would.
    “Can this conversation be over now?” he asked. “I’m here. I’m staying until Mom and Dad get home. And badgering me about the past few months is doing nothing but pissing me off.”
    “I suspect you’ve been pissed off for months,” she grunted under her breath. But she shut up and turned away, and her words had the surprising effect of making him want to smile.
    This was the Ginger he remembered. Not the one mooning over some man. His Ginger had always spoken her mind, had dressed for comfort, and hadn’t cared one whit what anyone else thought of her. She’d been romantic, yes. And she’d wanted “the perfect boyfriend.” He remembered conversations where she’d glaze over with talk of some imagined future man of her dreams. But he’d never thought she’d change herself to get him.
    She’d been the type to laugh and enjoy every minute of every day, knowing that instead of forcing her plans, life would happen as it was supposed to.
    He’d known that once, himself. So why had it turned out the way it had?
    He’d never forced anything. He’d met Lisa in college, they’d fallen in love, and their lives had set up the way they were supposed to.
    Only he was now