Or had he? "I should be relieved I'm not suffering some mental break from trauma, right? Instead I'm just…"
"Pissed off. Of course you are." He glanced over at her, gray eyes steely with a repressed anger glinting through. "You have every reason to be upset."
Damn it, he'd given up the right to be her friend a long time ago. "Please quit being so nice."
"You want me to be an ass?"
She cranked the heater higher even though she knew the chill went bone deep from things that had nothing to do with dreary January weather. "I'd like an excuse to holler."
"I could take you out on my boat to the middle of Charleston harbor and let you yell if you think it would help."
"It won't."
"Are you sure you don't want me to call your mother?"
"No. I'll tell her. Later though—" She stopped short as an awful possibility pushed through her muzzy mind. "Do you think what happened will hit the news soon?"
"The basics, but the names are being withheld until Owens's family is notified."
She squeezed her eyes shut, guilt pressing hard against her chest over the crushing pain Gary's parents would suffer. Because of her?
"The investigator is withholding your name for your own safety."
What? She shifted in her seat to face him. "I thought they believed I'm guilty."
"They saw the wisdom of at least considering other options."
"Thank you."
"I didn't do anything."
"Thank you anyway for staying with me today."
"Your father would have my ass if I didn't look out for you. Sharing an enemy prison cell forges a bond I can't explain."
Those days when her father's crew had been missing, then reported taken by enemy warlords, had been hellish. She'd feared for her father's safety as well as for the man she'd thought she loved—even if at that time Carson had not noticed her beyond a kid sister kind of way.
Until later.
She so didn't need to think of later right now with him sitting so close and her in need of comfort in a big way. Who wouldn't be rocked by what had happened? But she was strong. She could hold on until she got in her apartment where she would have a long soggy cry in her bathtub. A man was dead, a man she'd cared about enough to date. A man she'd kissed and apparently nothing more, thank heavens, but he deserved to be mourned. Even if he'd done something so horrible she'd struck out and killed him.
Bashed in his skull.
Bile burned high in her throat. "Pull over."
"What?"
"Pull over or you're gonna need your carpet cleaned."
He whipped the truck across two lanes and onto the shoulder. She jerked her seat belt free and lurched from the cab to the swaying reeds and tall marsh grass.
Thank God he didn't join her while she heaved up her empty guts. If only she could pitch the horror of the day into the marsh grass, as well.
Finally, she straightened again, weaving as she sucked in chilly winter air until the double vision of afternoon traffic meshed into a single world again. Turning back, she found Carson leaning against the passenger-side door, waiting in case she needed him, but not intruding.
Emerging sunlight glinted off his blond hair and sunglasses now shielding his eyes, his body every bit as tall and strong and appealing as the first time she'd seen him strutting across a tarmac when she'd been waiting to welcome her dad home from an overseas tour. She was too tired and heartsore to feel attraction, but God, how she yearned to rest her head on that broad chest.
Instead, she planted her feet into the grassy incline and made her way back up slower than she'd descended.