Something in the Water, page 39
“Oh my god,” Kate muttered into the silence that surrounded her. She blinked her eyes open slowly as she came back to herself, and blushed at the awed, absolutely love-struck look on Carter’s face. “What?”
“What?” Carter teased, rolling her eyes. “You are incredible. That was…” She blew out a rough breath. “Fuck, I wish I wasn’t here right now.” She tugged at her hair, making her curls stand up in the devastatingly enticing way that it did whenever Kate pulled at it when she went down on her, and a sweet, charmingly sincere smile spread across her lips as she whispered, “I love you so fucking much. Thank you.”
Kate’s blush deepened as she murmured, “Pretty sure I’m the one who should be thanking you.”
Carter’s charming smile widened playfully. “Oh?”
Kate hummed as she drank in Carter’s dark eyes and the delicate flush that crept from her hairline all the way down beneath the scooped neck of her tank top. “I can return the favor, if you’d like,” she offered.
“Oh, I’d definitely… Goddamn it—” Carter swore as she was interrupted by a knock.
Kate bit the inside of her cheek as Carter looked down at her wrist, and she knew from the way Carter’s smile fell and her shoulders slumped that this call was about to be over. “Go,” she said gently. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t want to,” Carter pouted. “Do you have any idea how turned-on I am right now after watching you touch yourself like that?”
Kate groaned softly under her breath. “Darling…”
Carter sighed. “I hate my job.”
“No you don’t.”.
“I kinda do right now,” Carter insisted, a ghost of her earlier smile quirking her lips.
“Well, we always have tomorrow,” Kate offered.
Carter brightened immediately. “Promise?”
“Yes, darling,” Kate chuckled. “I promise.” She cleared her throat and added softly, “And, maybe, when you get home, we can try this again. You know, so you can get the full effect.”
Carter’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she processed the idea. “I, um…”
God, it was such a rush to know that she affected Carter so completely. “Words, love,” Kate teased lightly.
Carter groaned. “Yes, oh my god, please.”
Kate smiled at Carter’s enthusiasm. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Carter echoed a little lamely. She rolled her eyes at the way Kate’s smile widened in response, but before she could fashion a retort, the person at her door knocked again. “Fuck,” she hissed. She shook her head and yelled, “Yeah, yeah! I’ll be right there!!” Her eyes crinkled with a small, apologetic smile as she held Kate’s gaze. “I love you.”
“I love you. And I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Carter sighed. “I can’t wait,” she said softly before, with one last lingering glance, the screen went black.
“Fuck,” Carter groaned as she got a hand on the dock at Sarasota Rowing Club and guided the double she’d taken out with Ali Raby to a stop. “Untie,” she directed as she leaned forward to yank on the quick release strap on her shoes. Once free, she said, “Foot to stripe, and out,” and then promptly fell onto her back onto the dock with her feet resting on the shell to keep it from floating away.
“Now that’s what I call an adventure row,” Ali declared with a wide, devil-may-care grin as she flopped beside Carter.
“It was that,” Carter agreed weakly. She tugged at the hem of her soaking wet trou as their swamped double bobbed heavily beneath her feet. They were both absolutely drenched from the rollers that had swept over their gunwales when the wind unexpectedly picked up just as they’d reached their turnaround point. “Why is it that this happens to us, like, every freaking time we try this on a training trip?”
“The universe hates you?”
Carter pulled a face, but had to admit that wasn’t an unfair assessment between being interrupted the night before and now this. “Maybe.” She crunched into a sitting position and pulled a face at the water puddled in the footwells. “This is gonna be a heavy sonofabitch to get out.”
“Good thing we’re big strong girls, eh?” Ali quipped as she rolled to sitting as well.
“This big strong girl is tired,” Carter grumbled.
“After that little row?” Ali chuckled when Carter responded by flipping her off. “You have a late night on the phone with Kate or something?” she joked as she pushed to her feet.
Carter was grateful for the flush of exertion she could feel warming her skin because it meant her blush was hidden. She’d been tempted to call Kate back, but the skits had run long and she hadn’t wanted to risk waking her up. She’d just had a hell of a time falling asleep because her mind was fixated on how incredibly sexy Kate had looked touching herself. “No.” She gave Ali a playfully chastising look. “You actually interrupted my call with Kate before the skits.”
“Ah.” Ali grimaced. “Sorry.”
“You should be,” Carter told her as an image of Kate in the tub, one hand on her breast while the other worked between her legs, flashed across her mind. She’d honestly expected Kate to shy away from letting her watch her get herself off, but the way she’d surrendered control so completely and let her tell her what to do.
That was easily the hottest fucking thing she’d ever seen.
“Well, that explains why it took you so long to answer the blimmin’ door.”
You have no idea. Carter set her hands on her hips and pointedly looked at their waterlogged boat. “You ready for a shower?”
“As I’ll ever be, I reckon,” Ali agreed.
“Right.” Carter sighed and bent to place her hands on the gunwales. “Hands on.” When Ali was in place, she called, “Down and then up. And, go.”
They shoved the boat down to let the water help them lift it up, and Carter gritted her teeth as they muscled the boat up over their heads. She held her breath as the water that had puddled in the footwells crashed over her head, and once the barrage finished, shook her head to clear the water from her eyes.
“Well, that was refreshing,” Ali grumbled.
Carter grinned at the annoyance in Ali’s voice as she wiped at her face, and, knowing that Ali preferred to carry on her left side, stepped to her left to put her right shoulder under the gunwale as she called, “To shoulders.” Once the boat was lowered, she said, “And walk her up. Let’s get her cleaned off so we can get out of here.” She checked her watch. “We’ve got about an hour and a half before we need to meet with Sue before the final practice tonight.”
“Gonna be tight with the drive back and needing to shower,” Ali noted as they picked up their pace.
Washing and drying the boat took up a decent chunk of what time they had, and it was only Ali’s treatment of the speed limit as a suggestion more than a hard and fast rule on the drive to the hotel that got them to their meeting with two minutes to spare. Carter grinned and held a fist out to her as she held the door to the conference room the team had commandeered for the week to serve as their base of operations. “Looking good, Rabs.”
Ali smirked and blew Carter a kiss. “You too, handsome.”
Carter was about to respond when her phone buzzed in the pocket of her shorts. Her heart fluttered at the sight of Kate’s picture on the screen, and her stomach followed suit a split-second later as she recalled Kate’s promise from the day before. Which she was all for—god, was she for it, she’d been on edge ever since yesterday because she restrained from touching herself so that she’d be good and ready for Kate—except it was the middle of the afternoon and at least three hours before what had become their usual window of time to call and check-in with each other.
Surely Kate wasn’t expecting for them to do that now?
She turned away from Ali as she lifted her phone to her ear, a hint of confusion creeping into her voice as she answered, “Kate?”
“Carter…”
Carter’s heart stopped at the way Kate’s voice cracked around her name. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
Kate sniffed and, in a trembling voice, shared, “Maddie’s hurt.”
Carter’s stomach sank, and she just managed to drop into a chair at one of the banquet tables before her knees gave out. “What? How? Is she going to be okay?” Carter asked, fear driving the volume of her voice up with every question.
“Grant called and said he was in an ambulance with her to the hospital,” Kate said, sounding so small and broken that Carter’s eyes welled with tears. “She wiped out snowboarding.” She sniffed. “It’s her clavicle. He said it’s bad. Like, can-tell-from-looking-at-it-that-it’s-broken, bad.”
Carter startled when Ali appeared at her side, and shook her head at the questioning look on her friend’s face. She didn’t have time right now to reiterate what’d happened. “Are you on your way there now?”
“I’m throwing some clothes in a bag and then I’ll be heading out.”
Carter dove forward to grab a scrap of paper and a pen that were left over from when they’d scored the teams’ skits last night. “What’s the name of the hospital they’re taking her to?”
“Hospital?” Ali echoed, her eyes widening with concern.
“County General in Littleton. I guess it’s the closest with a trauma unit.” Carter’s stomach clenched painfully. “I dunno. Maps says I can get there in two and a half hours.” Kate blew out a shaky breath. “I just gotta beat rush hour traffic.”
Carter finished writing down the name of the hospital and threw the pen down onto the note in frustration. She would give anything to be able to take care of Kate right now, but she was twelve-hundred miles away. She scrubbed a hand over her face and took a deep, steadying breath as she watched Ali jog across the room to where the rest of the coaching staff were huddled around a table. “Please drive carefully. And keep me updated.”
“I will.”
“I’m supposed to land tomorrow at, like, noon. I’ll rent a car at the airport and meet you there.”
“That’s not—”
“Kate. Maddie’s in the hospital. I’d be there right now if I could, but I’m in fucking Florida and I can’t—” Carter’s voice broke with emotion, and she shook her head at herself. Kate was dealing with enough already. She didn’t need to add to it. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m scared too.”
Carter wiped at her cheeks. “God, baby. I’m so sorry I can’t be there for you guys.”
“Me too,” Kate whispered. “But we’ll be okay. I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as I find out more.”
“Thank you. Give her my love when you see her?”
“I will.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, darling.” Kate sniffed. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Okay,” Carter murmured. When the line went dead, she dropped the phone on the counter and buried her face in her hands. How am I supposed to focus on practice knowing that Maddie’s hurt? She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and took a long, deep breath in. Maddie is going to be okay. She exhaled slowly. She’s with her dad, and Kate will be there soon.
“Carter?”
Carter quickly wiped at her face as she looked up to see Susan Carroll, the head coach of the MU women’s rowing team, standing beside her. Even though Carter didn’t detect a hint of anger in Susan’s dark brown eyes, she still found herself apologizing as she jumped to her feet. Susan demanded excellence from the entire team—staff and students alike—and she did not tolerate tardiness. “Sorry. I, um—”
Susan stopped her with a hand on her arm, and her expression was kind as she asked gently, “Ali said something about a hospital?”
“Maddie got hurt snowboarding,” Carter reported, not needing to explain who Maddie was because the two had met just a couple of weeks prior, when Susan had found her and Maddie doing an erg workout at the boathouse the day before the team had left for Florida. She raked a hand through her hair and blew out a rough breath. “Most likely a broken collarbone. She’s on the trip with her dad, and Kate didn’t have a lot of information. Just that she was hurt and the name of the hospital she’s being taken to.”
Susan tucked her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair behind her ears and nodded. “Go pack your stuff.”
Carter blinked at her. “I’m sorry?”
“I said go pack. Ali says she’ll look into changing your flight.”
There was nothing Carter wanted to do more than what Susan said, but… “But we still have one more practice, and then the team dinner tonight.”
“Carter, no.” Susan held up a hand. “Between me, Ali, and Leslie, we’ll manage it all just fine. You need to go home.”
“I…” Carter blinked at her, and half-turned toward the door as she asked, “You’re sure?”
“Positive. Family is more important than rowing.” Susan’s lips quirked with a small, understanding smile as she inclined her head toward the door. “You need to go take care of yours.”
“Okay.” Carter nodded. “Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary, Carter.” Susan insisted gently. “Just keep me posted on how she’s doing, okay? If you need more time, we’ll figure out a way to make sure your practices are covered. And let her know that, when she’s up to it, I still owe her that interview for her historical research project.”
Carter smiled at the reminder. Maddie’s history class was doing a civil rights unit and, after meeting Susan, Maddie had asked Carter to see if the soon-to-be-retiring coach—who was a member of the infamous group of women who had stormed the Yale Athletic Director’s office in 1976 to protest the unequal treatment the women’s rowing program was receiving from the university in the wake of Title IX—would let Maddie interview her for her essay. “I will. Thanks again, Sue. Really.”
Ali was waiting for her in the lobby when she returned from packing with an anxious expression that made her instantly nervous. “Come on,” she said without preamble as she turned sharply on her heel and started for the exit. “Flight leaves in ninety. I forwarded the info to your email. I’ll drive.”
Carter gripped her bag tighter as she jogged to catch up to Ali. “You sure?”
“Boss’ orders,” Ali reported with a nod. “Besides, we both know I’ll get you there faster than a cab or the blimmin’ shuttle.”
True to her word, Ali made the twenty minute drive in a little less than fifteen. And because the gods’ desire to fuck with her had apparently been satisfied during her and Ali’s row, there was an open porter at the curb who got her bag checked quickly, and there were only a dozen people in front of her in the security line. She was at her gate ten minutes before the flight had even begun boarding.
Too anxious to sit, she double-checked the boarding time, then adjusted the straps of her backpack as she took off to walk the concourse. If she didn’t burn off at least some nervous energy, odds were good the people sitting next to her just might kill her during the three and a quarter hour flight back to Boston.
For as easy as it’d been for her to get to her gate, the concourse was bustling with travelers. The sight of a young mother following a toddler who was careening wildly through the wide central walkway reminded her that she hadn’t called Kate yet to let her know she was coming home early—and she tracked the little girl’s progress, grateful for the small distraction, as she pulled her phone from her pocket.
Kate answered on the first ring, her voice at once surprised and equally concerned. “Carter?”
“Hey. I just wanted to let you know that I’m on my way,” Carter said, trying to imbue as much reassurance into her tone as she could as she checked her watch. “I should land in Boston in about four hours or so, and then I’ll rent a car and meet you at the hospital. It’ll probably be after visiting hours, though, so I’ll call you when I get close, okay?”
“You’re…what?” Carter winced at the sound of a horn honking in the background, but Kate didn’t seem bothered by it as she asked, “How?”
“Susan and the other coaches are going to handle the rest of the trip while Ali helped get my flight changed so I can come be with you and Mads.”
“Really?” Kate asked, sounding like she was close to tears. “You’ll really be here tonight?”
“As soon as I can,” Carter promised. “How are you doing?”
“I’ll be better when I see her. Grant’s last text said she’s been seen by an ER doc and is waiting to be taken for x-rays to see how bad the break is.”
Carter sighed and nodded. “At least she’s been seen.” She looked toward her gate as a robotic voice announced her flight was beginning to board. “Okay. My flight’s boarding now, so I’m gonna let you focus on driving. I’ll text when I land, and will give you a call when I’m on the road, okay?”
“Okay,” Kate echoed. “Thank you.”
Carter swallowed thickly. “Always, my love,” she promised. “Please drive safely. And if you see her, tell Maddie to hang in there. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Kate clenched her jaw against the yawn that wanted to break free as she watched Maddie’s gurney surrounded by her operating team disappear through the swinging doors that led to the operating rooms. While her broken collarbone had been broken badly enough to require surgery, her procedure had kept getting pushed back as higher-priority cases were seen first. On the one hand, she was grateful that Maddie’s injury, while serious, wasn’t so bad that she was the one being rushed into the operating room. On the other, she simply wanted her daughter taken care of.
“Don’t worry, she’s in great hands,” a kind-looking nurse whose name Kate had forgotten said as she smiled at Kate, Grant, and Brian. “If you want, I can show you all to the surgical waiting room. Her doctor will find you there once they’ve finished to give you an update.”
