Page 6 of Summer Ride

She was addicted to Carter.

Plain and simple.

Which meant that, sooner or later, things would come to a fiery end.

Soon, she would be left broken and all alone to pick up the pieces of her life. To try and fill the places she’d expected someone to care for her.

Lies. She knew it was all lies.

Not because she thought everyone else was broken, but because she thought that she was. She wasn’t meant to find anything real. Anything that would last beyond a moment.

She still didn’t deserve it. Even as Kara Regan.

Something echoed in her head, a saying her father used to tell her when he’d hit her with his belt.

The inside core was rotted, even if the outside of the apple was red and pretty.

When Carter discovered what she was, he would leave. He would turn her away.

When he did, she would break like before.

Only this time, she doubted that there would be any coming back.

Which was why she had to call it off before he could hurt her. And soon.

Chapter Two

Carter was on a high. In the last two months, he’d had more life-changing sex than he’d had in his entire life.

Kara was… well… fucking amazing.

He’d never had a girlfriend quite like her before. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been looking or trying to find someone amazing. Because he had.

But every time he’d gotten close to someone, they’d either back out or, in two cases, move out of state.

The only area where he was concerned about his and Kara’s relationship was the lack of personal connection they had outside of the bedroom.

Whenever he tried to get closer to her or to find out more about her, she would shut down or quickly leave with some excuse that she had to go. It was obvious to him what she was doing.

He’d learned early on in the relationship what her tells were when she lied to him. Most people avoid eye connection when they fibbed. Kara was the opposite. Her eyes locked with his as if she’d been trained at an early age how to convince someone that she was telling the truth.

He’d figured it out when she told him she couldn’t meet him for lunch because she’d agreed to help Andrea clean out a storage room. If he hadn’t run into Andrea a few moments before spotting Kara, he would have believed her. But Andrea had been on her way to run a few errands in town during her lunch break, so he knew the truth.

After that moment, he realized that she only lied when she talked about her past or when he asked her to do something personal with him, outside of sex.

He’d tried to bring up their relationship several times, to discuss what she expected to happen between them, but he never found out what she wanted.

She was very good at dodging.

As much as he enjoyed the sex, he was hoping for something a little deeper. Especially as more time passed.

Since he’d been in high school, he’d volunteered at Alaqua Animal Sanctuary, where his mother worked. Back then, he’d walked dogs or cleaned out stalls. Now he was one of three vets that helped the massive sanctuary out.

Working at the animal clinic in his small hometown of Pelican Point paid his bills, as did the few hours a week he worked for the camp.

When Elle, a girl he’d gone to school with, had approached him about looking at a few horses she was thinking of purchasing for the camp, he’d jumped at the chance to help out an old friend.

Especially because he used to have a secret crush on her. Sometime after high school, it became apparent that they would only ever be friends. Still, he liked her enough to lend a hand, so he’d helped her pick out every horse she’d gotten for the camp’s grand opening.