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When he finally released her, her lips felt swollen, and she flushed with heat from the fire he kindled inside her. But Darcy’s hope was shattered. This kiss was only a last grasp at tasting what could never be between them.
“I’ll always love you, Darcy,” he said.
He pulled his keys from his pocket and removed her house key from the wooden keychain she had bought him at the festival in Flowering Grove. He pressed it into her palm.
She closed her hand around it, frozen in place while he moved toward his truck.
Darcy had no choice but to watch Carter drive out of her life, taking her heart with him.
Chapter30
Carter felt as if his soul had been ripped into shreds as he made the short drive from the country club to his home. His mind kept replaying the pain he’d witnessed in Darcy’s beautiful green eyes when she realized what he’d been trying to tell her. She had taken the news just as hard as he’d imagined, and he hated himself for causing her so much agony.
He knew someday she’d meet someone better than him—someone who wouldn’t be a daily reminder of everything she’d lost. She would fall in love, get married, and have a family with him, the family she’d always wanted, and her relationship with Carter would be a distant memory—something she’d never even think about.
But Carter, on the other hand, would never recover. Darcy was the love of his life, and no other woman would ever make him feel the way she had.
He’d lost her.
When he reached his house, he steered down the rock driveway to the detached garage where he kept his tools and his grandfather’s Road Runner. The Suburban’s tires crunched along until he parked in front of the bay door.
Carter dragged himself from the driver’s seat and entered the garage. He hopped up on a stool, and his truck keys fell out of his pocket, jingling as they landed on the floor in a heap. He picked them up and ran his fingers over the wooden keychain. He recalled the day Darcy had given it to him and what she’d said:
It’s kind of silly, but this way you won’t forget where we hung out the first time—in Flowering Grove at a car show.
A knot of grief clogged his throat. No, he would never forget that day. In fact, he would never forget Darcy. She was imprinted on his heart, mind, and soul.
And every time he took his medication or thought about his transplant, he’d remember Jace and the woman who had loved them both.
He closed his eyes as his emotions threatened to boil over.
“Carter?”
He swiveled on his seat toward the door and spotted his father standing there, looking hesitant. Carter blinked—and as if someone released a valve, the fury drained out of him before numbness seeped in.
Then Gage’s words from yesterday echoed in his mind:
Just listen, okay?
“Can I come in?” his father asked.
Carter shrugged and tried to clear his throat past the ball of grief that blocked his ability to talk.
His dad took two steps inside the garage and then stopped. “Is it all right if I talk to you?”
“Why not?” Carter snorted. “My life has already imploded today, so I have nothing left to lose.”
“What happened?”
They stared at each other in silence for a moment, the only sound coming from a car driving by in the distance.
His father pointed to the Road Runner. “I remember when your grandfather used to drive that car around town. It was gorgeous. Anthony would enter it into car shows and win every single one. He was a legend.”
Carter ran a hand over his chin. “He told me.”
“Are you going to fix it up?”
“No. I’m selling it.”
