Page 100 of River Wild

Carrie

I hum along to the lyrics of “I Found” by Amber Run, which is playing from my phone, while I fit the mobile onto the baby’s crib.

It’s adorable. I ordered it from a store online. It has clouds and stars hanging from it. And hanging in the middle is a crescent moon, and an elephant is sleeping on it.

The delivery box was waiting on my doorstep for me when I got home, so of course, I had to fit the mobile to the crib straightaway.

The nursery is almost done. The walls are fresh with the color I picked out. On the wall directly above the crib, there is a black-and-gold decal sticker that says, Dream Big, Little One, with stars and a crescent moon surrounding them. Olive’s crib is a brown wooden sleigh crib. The cream bedding with little gold stars is on the mattress. The crib bumper fitted to the crib. Matching chest of drawers and the changing table sit nicely around the room. Baby clothes hang in the closet and are folded up in the drawers. I have a rocking chair over by the window, so I can feed Olive during the night.

River pulled up the old carpet and sanded and varnished down the floorboards. It looks amazing. I got a fluffy white rug for the floor, which Buddy has taken a liking to sleeping on.

River’s been such a big help in getting the room ready these past few weeks. I don’t think I could’ve done it without him. But, of course, I won’t admit that.

I’m an independent woman nowadays.

River has become incredibly important to me.

He’s my friend. Probably my best friend.

But it also feels like things have shifted between us. There’s a slow, shimmering attraction there. I feel it. I think he does, too. Or maybe I’m just imagining it, and it’s all on my part.

Either way, I have no intention of acting upon it.

I would never do anything to risk our friendship.

I’d say we have a unique friendship though.

It’s like we know everything about each other and absolutely nothing at all.

We know the basic facts. The likes and dislikes.

But we don’t know the big stuff.

He doesn’t know about Neil. Or my life before Carrie. When I was still Annie Coombs.

I don’t really know anything of his past.

I know about his mom. And that he lived with his gran in the house that he still lives in now.

But I also know there’s more from his past that I don’t know.

His eyes are that of a survivor.

He has seen things and knows things he never should’ve.

And I don’t just mean the murder of his stepfather.

I mean the reason his stepfather was murdered.

There was a reason River’s mom shot her husband that day. And something tells me that reason was River.

Or I could be way off.

But I’m not going to ask him. And he won’t ask me about my past.

It’s an unspoken agreement between us. Because neither of us wants to discuss our pasts by bringing up the other’s.

We want to leave them just there. In the past.