But that dream had been marred with the death of one half of the business.
Brianne looked at Alex then—really stared at him. And noted that his attractive face was marred with a scowl. Again, it struck her that he had probably been carrying around an enormous amount of guilt. She wondered if he had smiled in the last three years.
“We can chat in here,” Brianne said, gesturing to the sitting room near the front door. She led the way into the
room, turning on the lights as she did, then took a seat on one of the sofas. Alex folded his tall frame into the lounge chair opposite her.
Just looking at him, Brianne felt regret. How had they lost not only Carter but their friendship? In fact, when Brianne had walked into their sporting goods store, she had noticed Alex first. Noticed his extreme good looks and warm smile. Then out of nowhere, Carter had appeared and offered to help her. She’d been shopping for a bike, and Carter had helped her try a number of them in order to find the one best suited to her. It had been clear to her that Carter was spending more time with her than necessary. He had been flirting, and Brianne—unused to that kind of attention—had been flattered. The rest, as they say, was history. She’d fallen for Carter, but she’d also become friends with Alex. Now she regretted that the death of Carter had also led to the death of their bond.
“I’m glad you came to see me,” she said before he could speak. “I guess it’s about time we…talk again.” Her emotions were all over the place—from anger to regret and now to empathy—but she supposed that was to be expected. Empathy was now morphing into a dull ache of pain. Pain over Carter’s loss, but also pain over the fact that she’d lost Alex’s friendship.
Alex nodded. His expression was still grim, making Brianne wonder if the pain for him was as intense as when Carter had disappeared into that storm.
“I never should have said those things I said to you,” she continued. “I know it wasn’t your fault. It was the grief talking.”
“We both lost someone we cared about, but we shouldn’t have lost our friendship,” Brianne went on when Alex said nothing. “Thank you for being the one with the courage to make the first move.”
When Alex still didn’t speak, it struck Brianne that for a man who’d shown up on her door claiming that they needed to talk, he was being strangely silent.
Instead he sighed, the heavy sound filling the quiet room.
And that’s when she understood that something was seriously wrong. That Alex hadn’t shown up to talk about mending their friendship.
“Oh, dear God in heaven.” Brianne leaned forward, clutching her stomach as it roiled. Though she’d known the news would come one day, she suddenly wasn’t prepared for it. Carter’s remains must have been found. After all this time, his bones had been discovered and tested for DNA and—
“Brianne.” Alex paused. Sighed. Then he forged ahead. “There’s no real way to say this—”
“They found him,” she said, the finality of the words too hard to wrap her mind around. Three years of not knowing, and now—
“He’s not dead.”
Brianne looked up at Alex, the tears that had formed in her eyes blurring his image. Certainly she hadn’t heard him correctly. “Wh—what did you say?”
“All this time, you didn’t believe it. You didn’t believe he was dead.”
Another pause. Brianne continued to stare at Alex, not understanding.
And then he said the words she never thought he would ever utter. “Brianne, I think you were right all along. I think Carter’s alive.”
Chapter 2
I
f Alex had just up and slapped her, Brianne would have been less surprised.
She gaped at Alex, certain she had not heard him correctly. “What did you say?”
“Unbelievable, right? But I think it’s possible Carter didn’t die three years ago.”
“You think…you think Carter is…” Brianne couldn’t even say it. So long she had wanted to believe it. But she didn’t want to get her hopes up, only to be wrong.
“I know,” Alex said. “After all this time, it sounds crazy. Impossible. But I think…I really think Carter’s alive.”
Seconds of silence passed. Alex stared at her, and she stared back at him in utter bewilderment. “But…but why have you changed your mind?” she finally asked. “I don’t understand. You were certain he was dead. That’s what you told me two years ago.” Brianne was confused and felt like she was in a turbulent sea, being rocked around by waves with nothing to cling to for support.
Alex didn’t speak, and Brianne got the sense that even he wasn’t sure of the answer. But there had to be a reason for the about-face.
“You can’t just come here and tell me that you think Carter is alive.”
Only for this to be some misplaced speculation.
“Not after three years.”
“I saw something on television,” Alex began slowly.
“Something on television?” Brianne repeated, already doubting that what he was about to say could change her mind about what she had come to accept. “What, a documentary about people going missing the way Carter did? I saw those, too, and at the end of the day—”
“Hear me out,” Alex said. “You’ll understand.”
“Okay.” Obviously the fact that Alex was here meant he thought he had good reason to believe Carter was alive.
“You know Carter and I were into extreme sports.”
Did she ever. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t been able to forgive Alex, figuring that had he not been Carter’s partner in crime, her fiancé might still be alive. “What did you see?”
“A few weeks ago, there was an event called the Fall Cycle Scene—four days of intense motorcycle racing at the Daytona Speedway. It’s exactly the kind of thing Carter would have enjoyed. I was watching on a Sunday afternoon, and I thought…” He glanced away momentarily before meeting her gaze once more. “I’m pretty sure I saw Carter in the crowd.”
Even though she hadn’t wanted to, Brianne had begun to hope. But Alex’s explanation deflated that hope. “A face in the crowd?”
“Not just in the crowd. It was more than a quick clip of some face in the distance. The guy I’m sure was Carter was with one of the racers, a guy named Dean Knight, who is based out of Daytona. When Dean won his race, the
cameras were all over him. And that’s when I saw Carter, congratulating Dean on the track. High-fiving him, patting him on the back. The whole nine yards. In fact, it looked to me like Carter was a part of Dean’s team.”
“Which would be easy enough to check out,” Brianne said. “A call to this Dean Knight—”
“That’s the problem. I got in touch with Dean’s people, left a message for him and he called me back. He said he doesn’t know a Carter Smith.”
Brianne frowned. “So you’re wrong.” Why had he bothered to get her hopes up?
“Yeah, I accepted that. For about a week. But I kept thinking about the image I saw. The smile on the guy’s face, the way he moved. Carter and I were best friends for fifteen years. I’d know him
anywhere.
His hair was different, but I’m ninety percent positive that that was him.”
Carter. Alive. The words Brianne had wanted to hear for so long. But this wasn’t proof. This was…it was hope on Alex’s part. A best friend trying—as she had—to cling to a thread of possibility.
“Alex, this all sounds crazy. It—it can’t be true. A face in the crowd, someone who looked liked Carter…” She shrugged helplessly.
“It’s more than that,” Alex said. “Yes, it sounds crazy, but my gut says it was him.” He paused, stared at Brianne for a long moment. “And I was thinking—hoping—that maybe we can work together to find him.”
Alex saw the way the expression on Brianne’s face changed from stunned to hopeful. It was subtle. She was still confused and overwhelmed—that was also evident in her expression—but there was definitely a glint of hope in her eyes.
And for that he felt a little bad.
Make that a whole lot of bad.
He didn’t want to get her hopes up only to shatter them, but he knew no other way to handle this delicate situation. He had contemplated coming here and telling her everything he suspected, but each time he considered it, he knew he couldn’t. Brianne would probably come to the same conclusion he had and react angrily—which would be understandable—but then she would have wanted nothing more to do with Carter. Having lived without him for three years, she would no doubt close the book on him and move on.
She certainly wouldn’t want to help look for him.
No, Alex certainly couldn’t tell her the truth—at least not the whole truth—and expect her cooperation.
And right now, to get the answers he needed—no, the answers he
deserved
—he needed her cooperation.
There were times when the ends justified the means, especially when the ends were noble. This was one of those times. Because Carter Smith had stolen something from Alex, something that meant the world to him. Plain and simple, he needed it back.
Alex would be there for Brianne in the aftermath of what would undoubtedly happen, would deal with her wrath and help her through the resulting pain. Because there was no other way to handle this. And it was imperative that Alex keep his eye on the end goal.
If there were another way to do this, he would.
Once Alex had spotted Carter on television, he figured tracking him down would be easy. He had contacted Dean Knight and expected that it would be as simple as that—that Dean would say, yeah, he knew Carter Smith, and then
Alex would head to Florida to confront his former friend. Instead, Dean had claimed not to know Carter, leaving Alex at square one.
There were two explanations for that. Either Dean was lying, or Carter had lied to Dean about his identity.
Alex figured it was the latter. Because if Carter was alive, then it meant he had faked his death to begin with. Alex would bet his life on that.
“How, exactly, do you think we can find him?” Brianne asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
“By going to Daytona, for one thing. That’s where Dean Knight lives. It’s where I saw Carter on television. It could be where he’s living right now.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not.”
“It’s the only place I can think of to start the search,” Alex said. “We can show Dean his picture, see if he remembers him. Then go from there.”
“And you want me along for this?” Brianne asked.
“I figured…I figured you’d want to be there.”
Brianne nodded. Of course he would expect that. She had hoped for nothing but a reunion with Carter for the past three years. And yet…
The idea that Carter was alive was oddly scary. What kind of state was he in mentally? And how would he and Brianne pick up where they’d left off?
“Are you sure, Alex?”
“That I want you to come with me? Yeah.”
“No. Are you sure that Carter is alive?”
“One hundred per cent?” Alex shrugged. “I can’t say I’m totally certain. All I know is that the guy looked a heck of a lot like Carter. If we all knew Carter to be alive and well, I wouldn’t doubt it was him on TV. Absolutely not. But because he’s been gone for three years, I can’t be totally sure. But my gut…I’ve got to go with it.”
“So what I thought all along is possibly true,” Brianne said, her voice filling with hope. “He got lost on that mountain. Disoriented. Maybe he fell and hit his head and that caused him to lose his memory. Or he experienced some other trauma.”
Brianne slowly rose as she spoke, and the look on her face…it was like a stab in Alex’s heart. Because he knew that what she was imagining—a happy reunion, the continuation of the future she thought had come to an end—wasn’t going to happen.
But until he found Carter, Brianne would have to be in the dark. It was the only way.
“That’s a possibility,” Carter said, noncommittally. Truthfully, he couldn’t rule it out. But in his heart, he didn’t believe it. Seeing Carter’s face that day, that happy, carefree smile—and seeing him at an event both he and Carter had always enjoyed—well, Alex didn’t believe for a second that Carter didn’t know who he was. And if he hadn’t at first but now did, why not return home? But that was not something he was going to share with Brianne. At least not yet.
“It wouldn’t explain how he got across the Canadian border,” Brianne said, talking to herself mostly, “but maybe he hiked the Rockies back into America. Anything’s possible.”
“You’ve got that right,” Alex agreed, a tinge of bitterness in his voice.
But Brianne missed the tone. Facing him, she clasped her hands tightly together. “Alex, I’m shaking.”
Alex swallowed, trying not to show any particular emotion. He wanted nothing more than to get up, pull Brianne into his arms and hold her tight.
His eyes roamed over her, from her trembling hands to her trim physique to her widened eyes. Lord, she was a vision. She was thinner. That had changed. She’d obviously
spent a good amount of time working out since he’d last seen her. What hadn’t changed was that she was still as cute as a button.
It was what he’d thought the first moment he’d seen her. She had walked into the store wearing black pants and a tank top that hugged her beautiful curves. Alex had stepped in her direction, instantly intrigued. But then Carter had made a beeline for her, and that had been that. Alex had lost his chance to pursue anything with Brianne.
“Alex?”
“Hmm?” He looked up at her. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
“I asked if you really want to do this. Head to Florida?”
He cleared his throat before speaking. “I think it warrants investigation, yes.”
Brianne nodded, then bit down on her bottom lip. She looked vulnerable as she stared at some point ahead of her, probably not really seeing anything, just lost in her thoughts.
She suddenly shifted her gaze to his, as though she had caught him staring. Alex moved his eyes.
“What if you’re wrong?” she asked softly.
Alex looked at her and shrugged. “Don’t you want to know? One way or another?”
“To tell the truth…I’m not sure. I…I don’t know if I could handle getting my hopes up, only to learn that you saw someone who looked like him.”
“I know what you mean,” Alex said. “But the way things are now, we don’t know—”