She loved her parents. How could they have sent her away like that? Choking tears that had lain dormant for years came to her now, and she buried her face in the pillow to muffle her sobs.
In the morning she searched her old purse and found the locket Aunt Doris had brought her, the one with the pictures of her mother and father. She looked at the pictures for a long time, then put the chain around her neck so that the locket hung over her heart.
Ross was angry. He was angry all the time lately.
It wasn't just that Charity had disappeared on him without an explanation. It was also that the immediate needs of his work with all the new international commitments kept getting in the way of being able to do anything about it. Work had been everything to him for years and it didn't seem possible to turn his back on it to take care of his personal life.
"Pure self indulgence."
That was what he'd always thought personal lives were all about. He'd prided himself on being adept at shedding unnecessary emotional entanglements. So why couldn't he shed this one?
"You've got to go find her," Marlena insisted to him periodically.
"Find who?" he'd said roughly, pretending he didn't know.
"You know darn well who. And if you don't--if you let her slip away, you're going to be sorry for the rest of your life."
He'd blocked her out and thrown himself back into his work. He didn't have time for any of this nonsense.
But when Mickey called and asked him to come meet her at the café saying she needed to talk to him about his cousin Grant, he dropped everything and went down to the embarcadero to see what was going on.
It was the lull between the lunch crowd and the late afternoon snackers and the place was almost empty. Mickey led him to a booth toward the back where he found Carrie sitting alone, looking as though she'd been crying.
"What is it, sweetheart?" he said, sliding in beside her and giving her a shoulder to lean on. "What's going on?"
"It's Grant. He…well, you know he seemed to be doing so well with the job you got him. I really thought it was going to be the answer. He was happy. I swear he seemed happy."
He gave her a hug. "And?"
"This morning I found out he'd been talking to some of his old racing buddies and they convinced him to come out to a track in Oklahoma and pretend he's still racing. They've offered him money to endorse their competition. And he's going."