Page 26 of Smoky Mountain K-9
Carter walked between the table and the couch and sat down. “Mara.”
She glanced up. “You don’t need to say anything.”
His brow wrinkled.
Her eyes went back to the game pieces. “I understand that some things are harder to talk about than others. It took me a year before I could say Blake’s name without tearing up. So, I get it. You don’t have to talk about whatever memories that box of pictures brought back.”
Carter twisted his hands together between his knees and glanced away, a giant lump in his throat. But not from the memories. Her easy acceptance that something haunted him touched him more than anything had in a long time.
He cleared his throat. “I appreciate that. I don’t—can’t—talk about that part of my life much.”
“Have you ever tried a counselor?”
“No. I didn’t have any PTSD. It didn’t seem worth the time to tie up a therapist who could be helping someone far worse off than me.”
Mara let out a soft snort. “You totally have PTSD. Not in the same sense as the men and women I see at the equestrian center, but you do in a way. Whatever happened over there scarred you. Enough that you avoid situations and conversations that would force you to talk about it. I’m guessing someone—or several someones—died.”
Carter knew surprise lit his eyes, but her insight stunned him.
Her gaze flicked to his. “Don’t look so shocked. Grief recognizes grief. You remind me of myself. Before I learned to deal with Blake’s loss.”
Damn. His brows dipped, and he glanced away again. “How did you deal with it?” He turned weary eyes on her. “How did you get past the pain and heal?”
She held his gaze steadily. “I talked to someone. Moving here and away from the memories in Oklahoma helped, but I still cried myself to sleep every night for six months. I finally decided that was enough. That I couldn’t keep going like that, so I found a local therapist who specialized in grief and made an appointment. It took some time, but I eventually got to a point where the memory of his face didn’t make me want to burst into tears. And at times, it even made me smile. I’d forgotten all the good times we had together, focusing instead on the pain his death caused. The hole in my life. My therapist helped me get back to the good memories.”
He looked away again. The knowing look in her eyes called him out. Told him he knew she wasn’t saying anything he didn’t already know. And she was right. He did know that talking to someone would help him work through the pain and the guilt. He was just too chicken to do it. So long as everything stayed bottled up and buried, it didn’t hurt as much.
But it was like a cancer, slowly taking over parts of his life that shouldn’t be touched by memories of his past.
Like his relationship with her. His thoughts from the morning echoed through his mind. If he didn’t talk about this stuff, he was going to lose her.
It was that thought that galvanized him to take a deep breath and utter words he hadn’t even thought in almost seven years. “I killed my squadmates.”
Fourteen
Mara fought to keep her face expressionless. She knew her eyes were round, but hoped no other signs of shock were present. “I’m sorry. Could you explain that?”
Carter ran a hand over his face and stood, pacing to the front windows to look out at the street. Mara didn’t move, afraid to even breathe, lest she intrude on whatever war he waged with himself and made him close himself off again. She wouldn’t pry, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want to know what happened to scar him so.
“I was at the end of a six-month tour.” His voice rumbled, low, throughout the room. “And so very ready to go home. It had been nothing but days on end of bright sunshine and sand.” He stopped and shook his head. “So much damn sand.” He swallowed, then took a deep breath and continued. “I was a minesweeper. I’d go out alone with just my dog, Bob, and clear roads for traveling generals and dignitaries, supply convoys—anything important. I got dumped out on a stretch of desert where intelligence indicated enemy forces had planted some mines.”
“They just left you there by yourself?”
Carter looked at her and nodded. “It was a common occurrence. What I did was dangerous. No one could help me do it. The dog searched, and I controlled the dog. Once I found the devices, I either disarmed them myself or marked them for another team to come in and detonate or disarm them. It depended on the size of the field and what was going on in the area.” He glanced away, focusing out the window once more. “Bob and I were out searching one night, doing our typical grid search pattern. In this instance, I was supposed to flag them for the EOD team.” He shook his head. “Somewhere along the way, I messed up the grid. We found several mines, and I flagged them all.” He lifted a shoulder, still staring out the window. “But we missed one. When the EOD team came to disarm them, one of the guys stepped on a mine.”
Mara gasped and covered her mouth.
“The worst part was, it was near their vehicles, and they hadn’t dispersed, so it killed three of them.”
“Are you sure you missed it? Maybe the people who planted them came back and planted more.” She doubted he’d left cameras surveilling the site after he left. Anyone could have come along and buried more mines later.
His brows knit together. “That’s what the base commander said. It had happened before. But the thing was, when I went out that night, I knew Bob wasn’t feeling the best. I wasn’t the only one the desert heat and our schedule was getting to. We’d been on a stretch of nightly excursions because some of the top Marine brass were coming in. And just because we were working at night didn’t mean we could skip training during the day. In between, we tried to sleep, but it’s nearly impossible on a forward operating base. There’s so much activity during the day.” His shoulder rose again. “Anyway, they cleared me of any wrongdoing. I left the service six months later when my enlistment was up.”
“But you still blame yourself.”
He nodded, eyes trained out the window again. “They showed me pictures of the area during the investigation. I couldn’t remember if we searched there or not.”
Mara let out an inelegant snort. “Of course you couldn’t. It was dark when you searched. And I bet the pictures were taken in the daylight.”