Page 9 of Keeping Caroline
“Have a good day,” the delivery driver said, glancing over his shoulder to follow my line of sight before walking back to his vehicle.
Coming from the opposite direction, Scarlett’s SUV appeared from around the curve, headlights cutting through the darkening street between us. I set the box down just inside the front door, but remained outside, wrapping my arms around my chest as I watched them pull into the driveway. The moment I saw my brother’s smile, a matching one spread across my lips, the unease dissipating, at least for the moment.
With my belly pleasantly full of Scarlett’s jambalaya, Ethan and I moved to sit on the back porch while Scarlett took Evie for her bath. There was no doubt she would be an amazing mother. Scarlett had a naturally kind demeanor, and my daughter fell in love with her from the moment she’d met her. We all did.
A million stars sparkled in the sky as I gazed up, holding my mug of tea with both hands. Ethan sat beside me, staring up at the same sky.
“Beautiful up here,” he said, the tone of his voice pensive.
After a lifetime together, I always knew when he had something on his mind, but I also knew not to push for more. When he was ready to spill whatever was on his mind, he would.
I nodded, taking a sip, and closing my eyes as the hot liquid slid down my throat. “It is. It’s a different life here...slower.”
In the corner of my eye, I saw him nod. “But you like it here? You don’t regret moving?”
Suddenly, I had a better idea of what was on his mind. Guilt maybe? But there was no reason for him to feel guilty.
The side of my mouth tipped up in a grin as I shook my head. “Not at all. I didn’t leave anything more behind than you did… nothing but broken dreams and bad memories.”
Turning my eyes away from the sky, my smile fell slightly. “Why do you ask? Do you regret leaving?”
The side-eye he sent my way made me huff a laugh, but I didn’t respond, waiting for him to answer my question.
Blowing out a breath, he leaned back in his chair. “No. Leaving New Orleans was necessary for us to start over—for me to give Scarlett the life she deserved. I’ll never regret that.”
I nodded, looking back up at the sky. With the light pollution in New Orleans, it was impossible to see the stars. Evie deserved to see the stars.
“Is that because of her ex?” Even in the dark, I didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched. Ethan had always kept what he told me on a ‘need-to-know’ basis, so I made it a habit of not asking questions. I knew all he ever wanted to do was keep us safe, but we were both adults, so I also knew I could handle more than what he chose to divulge. “You never did tell me what all happened there, and I normally don’t ask, but...”
For a long moment, there was silence between us, the only sounds coming from critters somewhere in the trees.
The air seemed to become thinner as anxiety squeezed my lungs with every second I waited for him to respond.
Finally, when I’d nearly given up on getting a response at all, he shifted in his seat, and I knew he was going to talk.
“Her husband was only part of the equation.” Ethan’s gaze cut through the moonlit darkness, sharp and penetrating. “I was sent to kill her, Cara, by her own husband.”
The revelation struck like a physical blow, twisting my stomach into knots. There was so much I wanted to know, like how close he had come to actually fulfilling the task, but I was afraid to ask, because I was afraid of the answer. My mouth, on the other hand, seemed to have other plans. “You were... What?” I managed to choke out, my vocal cords like sandpaper.
He blew out a breath, the turmoil in his eyes mirroring what tightened my own chest. “Joshua Prejean hired me to end her. But when I saw her...” As though shame prevented him from saying anymore, Ethan’s eyes flicked away, his head moving in a nearly unperceivable shake. “But when I saw her, something shifted inside me. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. He was already killing her. He was a monster. I had to save her from him—to take her away from that life.” Looking up at the sky, his voice softened. “Even though he did everything he could to snuff her light out, she burned so bright—just like the stars. She deserved so much more. She still does.”
“Does she know?” The question clawed its way up my throat, although I hoped I already knew the answer. I hoped Scarlett hadn’t been left in the dark.
Ethan nodded, a silent affirmation that held a thousand confessions he would never speak aloud. “She knows everything. I don’t keep things about her life from her.”
A whirlwind of emotions tore through me: relief, horror, admiration. Through it all, one truth remained: Ethan had risked everything, defying the nature of the person he’d been for so long, to pull Scarlett from the abyss. No matter how much darkness lived in him, he was a good man.
For the next hour, Ethan told me the heartbreaking story of Scarlett’s past in more detail, and more about what had brought them into each other’s lives—the twist of fate that could have made life so different from how it turned out.
Even though my brother never explained where the money came from over the years, I always knew it was blood money. After our parents died when I was only eighteen, I petitioned the state to take on the custody of my younger brother, and they obliged. We had no other family, and at sixteen, he was too old to be adopted. I was a better choice than a halfway house. And although I’d given it my all to take care of him and keep him out of trouble, I knew I could never be a mother figure to him. We were siblings, and barely two years apart, so I wasn’t any more capable of taking care of him than he was of taking care of himself. I knew when he’d started hanging out with questionable people that his life was heading in a direction that would tarnish his soul, but I’d been merely a kid myself, and Ethan had a mind of his own. The more I’d tried to rein him in, the more he’d pulled away. We had grown closer over the years, through shared grief and trauma, but my brother unquestionably had literal skeletons in his closet, and that sent my stomach into a tumble.
“Are you worried about retaliation?” I asked after several long heartbeats as I tried to process everything he’d told me.
A muscle in his jaw flexed as he nodded, the one way to know when he was feeling the pressure. “That was why I had Tristan come here. I don’t trust just anyone with the safety of my family, especially when we’re trying to keep Scarlett off the radar. If they find out where she is, I don’t know what they’ll do, and I can’t take that chance.”
The admission chilled my blood. Knowing how good of a person Scarlett was, I couldn’t imagine her going through the hell she’d already been through. It wasn’t fair that, after everything, she would be targeted by those who wanted to get back at her father. “And Tristan, he knows everything? Are you sure you can trust him?”
Although I felt in my core that I already knew the answer, I still asked. I hadn’t spent much time with Tristan, but it had been enough to know he was genuine.