A Matter of Trust (13 page)

“So you’re not running. When you leave here,
which I can only assume will happen any day now, what then?”

Ben actually admired Jack, because if their
positions were reversed and Carrie was his daughter, he might not
have been so friendly. “I don’t know yet, Jack, but I’m not
prepared at this point to walk out of her life. Is that fair
enough? Carrie and I need to talk. We need time to get to know each
other. I don’t know where this is going to go, but I give you my
word that unless Carrie tells me to get lost and leave her alone, I
won’t.”

Jack seemed to consider what he was saying,
and then he stood up and offered his hand. “I hoped you would say
that.” He had a solid hold, and he didn’t let go. “But if you hurt
her, you will soon find out how unfriendly I can become.”

Ben inclined his head. “Understood,” he
said.

Jack slapped his shoulder. “Let’s go have
breakfast.”

Just like that, the conversation had changed
to the weather, then baseball and Jack’s predilection for the
sport. Carrie, for the first time ever, had sat quietly, poking at
her food, with nervous glances between her father and Ben.

Ben closed up his computer. He needed to
have a word with Carrie to set the record straight on a lot of
fronts. He had only kissed her goodbye after walking her back to
her car, parked in front of his cabin. She’d driven away to go into
the headquarters of her environmental group and update their
website. It was her job, which he was well aware paid very little,
and he wondered if that was her only reason for being so
confrontational about the environmental protest.

“Well, now or never,” he muttered. He pulled
his coat on, because what he needed to do, before he could
concentrate on getting community support for this project, was have
a heart to heart with Carrie. He dialed his phone, and Jack
answered on the first ring.

“Could I borrow your truck again? I have to
run into town.”

“Was wondering when you’d ask. Hope the
reason is my daughter.” Jack didn’t give anything away in his
tone.

Ben had to smile. He wondered if Carrie
understood the sacrifices Jack had made for her. Maybe not, but he
hoped that one day that Carrie and her dad could sit down face to
face and have the talk they both needed. “Yes, I need to see
Carrie.”

“Then absolutely. Keys are in the truck.
Help yourself.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

The man had already hung up, and Ben sensed
that his next conversation with Carrie might be their hardest yet.
As he pulled the door closed and started walking, he anticipated
her fire—as well as the enjoyment he would take in calming her
down.

“Carrie, how many days are you working this
week?” Rex started across the small office, which was situated at
the back of the community hall. Carrie was on the old laptop at one
of the long wooden tables. Rex had thick, dark, shaggy hair and
wore faded blue jeans that hung low from his large midsection.

“I’m putting in three this week, if that’s
all right. I won’t go over twenty hours.”

“We’d pay you for more if we could, but we
don’t have that much funding,” he said, stopping in front of the
table and just watching her. She stopped typing and saved the
changes she’d made to the organization’s website, which was meant
to keep all members of the environmental group up to date on the
details of the project they were trying to put a stop to.

“I appreciate what you pay me,” she said. “I
know there isn’t much. Besides, I believe in the cause.” She smiled
up at Rex, but he wasn’t smiling back. He obviously had something
on his mind.

“Heard you've been seeing the oil guy,” he
said. It wasn’t a question, more of an accusation—or that was how
it sounded to her. She felt the hairs lift up on the back of her
neck.

“Yeah, we went out for dinner, but I’m not
sure how that’s anyone’s business.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you? Come on,
Carrie. You leap from one thing to the other. First you were
furious he was here, and the next thing you’re cozying up to him
and he’s staying at your dad’s place. The elders and members of the
board are concerned your judgment may be clouded.”

This wasn’t a direction she wanted this to
go. The last thing she wanted was people questioning her reasoning.
She’d been harder on Ben than anyone else. “Are you questioning my
loyalty?” she asked. It stung, of course, because as she stared up
into the dark brown eyes staring back at her, he didn’t have to
confirm her worst fear. She couldn’t believe it. How could he say
that after all of the unpaid hours she’d put in to help this group
get the justice they sought, to keep the oil company from
desecrating any part of this land? Worse, he wasn’t even
embarrassed to voice his accusations.

“Carrie, I’m not playing any games with you.
You want to work here, you decide who’s side you’re on. This
community cannot have someone in such a delicate position in bed
with the enemy—so to speak. There’s confidentiality to consider,
and we don’t want to worry about what information you might share
with the oilman that could hurt us.”

“I would never—” She slammed her palms on
the table, and then her cell phone rang. She pulled it out and
looked at the caller ID. “I have to take this,” she said. She
didn’t look up at Rex as she answered the call, but she could feel
him staring down at her. “Hi, what’s up?”

“Carrie, got some information for you.”

It was her contact. She’d eagerly awaited
his calls before today, the man who had tipped her off about Ben’s
arrival and had encouraged her to arrange a welcome he wouldn’t
soon forget. Right now, she wished she could hang up and never hear
from him again.

“Shoot. What do you have?” She covered the
mouthpiece with her hand and whispered to Rex, “It’s our oil
company snitch.”

Rex nodded and seemed pleased.

“I’m sending you an email with documents
detailing that the manufacturer’s reports are fraudulent. Ben Wilde
falsified those reports, and the information he passed along to the
oil commission is false. He’s using second-grade piping, and
instead of ordering from the manufacturer outlined in his original
report to Congress, he subcontracted out to China at half the cost
and pocketed the difference. As well, the x-ray equipment is
defective and does not perform as stated.”

Carrie had to shut her eyes. The pit of her
stomach bottomed out, and she was fighting a despair she hadn’t
felt since her dad and Alice had gotten married. She wanted to
close her phone and find a corner to crawl into and weep. Her
throat was so thick that it started to throb while she fought back
the sting of tears. She blinked rapidly and cleared her throat
again. “Anything else?” she asked. She hated the prick she was
talking to and wished right now that she’d never heard from him or
had this job. And Ben…she hated him most of all. He’d done such a
convincing job of lying to her, and she’d slept with him.

“Check your inbox. All the information you
need to put an end to the pipeline project is there. KKO will lose
their support. This is the ammunition you’ve been looking for.”

She could hear tapping on the other end of
the phone, and right now was the first time she wondered who this
guy really was and what was in it for him. “So, Rick, tell me, what
do you get out of killing this deal?”

There was silence on the other end for what
felt like an eternity. “Does it matter, really?” he replied.

Maybe not, but she needed some answers to
help understand why she’d just had the rug pulled out from under
her again. Why was life persistently flipping her the middle
finger? “Just call it curiosity,” she said, feeling every ounce of
fight go out of her.

“Have a good day, Carrie,” came the reply.
Then the line went dead.

Carrie pressed her eyelids closed over the
burning. When she opened them, she didn’t miss the intense
expression on Rex’s face. Had he heard?

“Carrie?” Rex asked. Even though she could
see his concern, she didn’t care. Right now, she felt nothing but
numbness, hate, and betrayal.

She clicked open her inbox and easily found
the email addressed to her, as well as all of the attached
documents. The sender was the same anonymous email account. She
clicked the attachments and then scraped back her wooden chair with
the steel legs. “Here’s everything you need: documents, evidence
that Ben Wilde lied, enough to shut down this project.” She stepped
away from the computer, holding her arms around her middle as if
somehow that would diminish the hurt that was thumping in her
stomach and her chest. She felt as if she’d been kicked over and
over.

“Carrie, we need to talk,” came a voice from
the doorway. She couldn’t believe Ben had the nerve to just walk in
here as if he’d done nothing wrong, as if he hadn’t just ripped her
entire world apart! He stopped and frowned. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t think. She slapped him hard
across the face and then screamed, launching herself at his chest,
pounding her fists at him over and over. She wanted to hurt him,
make him feel the same pain she did. “You son of a bitch, I hate
you!”

He grabbed her, holding her with his arms,
trapping her hands so she couldn’t hit him again.

“Carrie, stop it!” Rex called out in a
strong voice, one he didn’t have to raise to get his point across.
“Mr. Wilde, let her go.”

“No, not until I get some answers!” Ben
said. “Are you going to calm down?”

She couldn’t look at him. She stared at the
dark leather of his coat, the scent still turning her legs to jelly
because of what he’d done, what they’d shared so intimately. She
didn’t think she could trust her own common sense.

“I’ll let you go on one condition: You’re
not going to hit me again,” Ben said.

She couldn’t speak, so she forced herself to
nod. She needed to get away from him, to get out of here. He let
her go, and she stepped back, one step then another. She felt Rex
reach out and touch her arm, but she shrugged him off. She didn’t
want anyone to touch her right now, not when she was so numb that
she felt raw.

“It appears, Mr. Wilde, that you’ve been
lying to us,” Rex said. He actually slid the laptop around until
the screen faced Ben.

Carrie took in the confusion in Ben’s
expression. Even his eyes were screaming that he didn’t know what
the hell they were talking about, and he had the nerve to look at
her as if she was the wrongdoer here. He stepped up to the
computer, and she could see him stiffen. He cursed under his
breath.

She didn’t want to look at him, but her damn
body just couldn’t help itself. She turned toward him, and what she
saw when he stood up was a man who had paled, a bright red
handprint across his cheek. He was shaking his head as he took one
step toward her.

“I want to know where you got this from,” he
said.

“So you’re not even going to deny that you
lied to us? You used my father—you used me!”

He stepped closer and stared at her with a
hardness she’d never seen before. “After everything between us,
Carrie, you honestly believe that?” He jabbed his hand over to her
computer.

“There is no us,” she said. “Whatever
happened was meaningless. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

The moment she said it, she wished she
hadn’t, even though she wanted to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt
her. She wanted to see the same raw pain in him that was now
clawing at her insides. Instead, he seemed to shut down, hiding
everything as he stared at her with an expression so cold she
couldn’t make it out.

“I see,” he said, and he shoved his hands in
his pockets and walked out the door.

That was when her first tear fell.

Ben didn’t know what to make of what he’d
read on that computer. Everything had his signature, his name, as
if he’d masterminded a multimillion-dollar scam and funneled the
profits to himself. His head was spinning with anger, confusion,
and hurt. How could Carrie automatically believe he could do
something like this? He needed to talk to her, but now wasn’t the
time. Once he got a hold of those documents and showed her the
truth, he could set everything straight—but then what?

The fact was that she hadn’t even given him
a chance to explain, to talk to him. That didn’t bode well for any
kind of relationship. There had to be trust. It always came down to
a matter of trust. She had reacted, jumping to conclusions without
seeing all the sides, all the evidence. She’d done the same thing
to her dad and Alice. First things first, he needed to get a hold
of those damn documents and go through them. There had to be an
easy explanation to show that they were false, and he intended to
get to the bottom of it.

Ben parked the truck in front of Jack and
Alice’s. He’d just turned off the engine and climbed out when Jack
came out of the house. Alice was behind him, and Ben could tell by
the way she touched Jack’s arm and looked to him that she was
worried about something. He didn’t need to ask to understand: News
had traveled.

Ben stopped at the foot of the stairs,
taking in the hard expression on Jack’s face. The man hid
everything and kept every emotion locked inside himself, as well.
He was the first man Ben had ever met that he couldn’t read.

“You better come on in here,” Jack said.
“You’re on the news.”

He could feel a stinging in his face as he
tried to register what Jack was saying. “What?”

Alice was shaking her head, leaning around
Jack. “Ben, I don’t know what’s going on, but—”

“Alice,” Jack said. He waved Ben up the
stairs.

Ben wasn’t a coward, but he didn’t like
walking into anything he didn’t have a good understanding of. Right
now, he felt absolutely blindsided. Jack held the door, and Alice’s
expression was nothing but uncertainty. She was wringing her hands
together.