Christopher pushed the twins around in their double stroller while Sissy walked around the resort with Carrie. She probably should have stopped working while they were there, but that would put her behind, and she just needed to make deliveries to various cabins, so they could talk while they walked.

Carrie asked about Ben, as she always did. Where he was? How he was doing? She didn't have the guts to ask if he ever mentioned her. But that question was answered when Sissy gave her a package before she left. It had military post marks on it, and looked like it had come from the other side of the world.

That night, after the babies went to sleep and the house was quiet, Carrie opened a beer and sat down on her bed with the package. It was addressed to her care of Sissy in Ben's precise handwriting. She ran her fingers across the address, remembering watching him write out his homework when they used to study in his room. He had a certain way of holding his pen in his long fingers. She could see him doing the same thing, in his room, at some base in Afghanistan.

The packing tape was too hard to pry open. She found a knife in the kitchen and brought it back to her room to cut through the heavy wrapping. A CD fell out onto her lap, followed by a letter. She took another swig of beer before opening the letter. It was dated two weeks earlier.

Carrie, I got the news about Nick from my mom today, and I am so sorry for your loss. I obviously never met him, but I am assuming he was a great guy if he was able to talk you into marrying him.

I know it's been a long time since you heard from me, and I never replied when you wrote to tell me you were pregnant and getting married. You asked me to be your friend then, to be there for you, but I was so pissed off about losing you that I wasn't able to do that. I'm sorry for that.

I'm asking you to give me another chance, to be your friend, to be there for you, even if I can't be there in person. I hope you still have the bear I left for you. Believe me when I tell you he carries a piece of my heart that I left there with you. Hold on to him 'til I can get there in person.

Even if I haven't written, you have been on my mind every day. I have a picture of you that I keep in the humvee my unit uses when we leave base. It's the one MG took of you in her bikini. The one I put on the outside of my locker at camp. You are my good luck charm, my guardian angel. I touch your picture before I go out on a mission. Most of my unit does too. They call you 'Sweet Carrie', and they want me to thank you for keeping us all safe.

I guess your life is pretty busy right now. Your babies must be more than a year old. Are they boys? Girls? What are their names? If you aren't too busy, please write me and tell me about your life. I want to hear it all, anything and everything, even the sad parts. I want to know it all.

I don't know when I will get back to the states. My best guess right now would be maybe sometime next summer. Until then, know that I still love you. I always will.

Ben Ben Bear! Carrie had forgotten about Ben Bear. Although she was sobbing, she starting digging through the last few boxes she had never unpacked when she moved in with Nick. It was at the bottom of the stack, but she knew it was the right box immediately.

Sure enough, Ben Bear was in there, along with all those memories she had stored up from her year with Ben. She didn't sleep that night. She drank beer, and cried, and went through her memento box, piece by piece. Every item reminded her of how special he made her feel, and how cared for, cherished, and protected she had felt. It was like being there, with Ben, in their own private world, again. Her locket from Dorothy was in there. She put it on. It felt warm and heavy against her chest. There was no way she was taking it off again.

The next morning she remembered the CD. She wanted privacy to listen to it, but the only CD player she had was the one on the office computer. While Gracie and Ben were napping in their pack and play she put the disc in and waited ... "My Pretty Adriana" by Vince Gill started to play. It was the song from their first date, when she made fun of his country music. She laid her head on her arms, on the desk, and let his beautiful voice and the words float over her 'til she fell asleep.

Chapter 32.

Writing to Ben was a slow process. Composing the first note took her over a week and a half. After everyone else was asleep, she would sit on her bed and try to figure out what she wanted to tell him. She started by telling him about the twins. That was easy. She included a picture of them, and wrote about the cute things they were starting to say, and how they got into everything, now that they are walking.

Talking about herself or the resort wasn't as easy. First, her days were really boring; busy, but boring. Did he really want to know about trying to find someone to fix the sump pump on the fish cleaning station? The most exciting thing in her week was getting a shower, and unfortunately, that often happened once a week. Ben could count himself lucky he wasn't there with her.

The resort was also in big financial trouble. Maureen and Jack were the heart of the place, and without them it was like a dying patient on life support. Bookings were way down. Carrie had to lay off all but one of the maids, and reduce other employees to part-time. She really didn't want to tell him her troubles when he was in Afghanistan. It felt like she was whining about small things to someone who had much bigger fish to fry.

So she wrote about going through her memento box, and all the great times they had together. She told him that she had Ben Bear on her bed, and slept with him every night. And she told him that she was wearing Dorothy's locket, and that it made her feel more like he was with her.

Mail going back and forth between the States and active duty soldiers was slow too. Sissy said her letters took anywhere from two weeks to a month to reach him, so not to expect a reply right away.

His reply letter came two months later. It was sweet, but a little reserved, like hers. There was a lot he couldn't tell her about his days because it was classified, and there wasn't much to do in his time off that was worth writing about. He loved the picture of the kids and told her he was honored that she named her son after him. And he asked her if she now feared both twins would both grow up to be like their namesakes. Carrie laughed, that wasn't her fear, it was her hope. He pressed for more information about the resort and her in-laws. It was almost like he could still read between her lines and tell when she was keeping things from him.

It was frustratingly slow, but they were getting to know each other all over again. They had both experienced a lot since the morning he left for basic training four years earlier.

Writing the second letter to him was even harder. Things were spinning out of control at the resort, and now Maureen and Jack were gone too. They had both stopped doing resort work after Nick died, but they watched Ben and Gracie so Carrie could work. Now she was juggling motherhood with a full-time job for at least two people.

In an effort to ease her depression, Jack finally convinced Maureen to go on a long vacation with him in the RV. Everyone, including Carrie, thought it would be a good idea if she got away from the place that was a constant reminder of Nick.

Ben knew he had the right place. His mom had given him very specific directions, and he used his new GPS to find Callahan's Fish Camp. He parked his jeep in front of the office. The hand-written sticky note on the locked door said, 'Use this to call for assistance.' Next to it was a baby monitor handset. He peaked though the window and the blinds into the office. The twins were sleeping, crammed together on the floor of a portable crib. He studied their faces, looking for signs of Carrie.

The place wasn't very big, so he decided to walk around and see if he could find her. As he walked down a steep driveway to the pool he thought he might have hit pay dirt. There was a pair of long, very slim legs with cutoff denim shorts at the top laying on the side of the pool. Whoever they belonged to was bent forward, hanging over the edge of the empty pool, working on something. When he saw the baby monitor next to her, he knew. He blew a loud wolf-whistle through the fence.

Carrie heard the whistle, but figured some guests must be flirting with each other. Or, god forbid, one of the maintenance guys was whistling at a guest. Shit. Well, she couldn't be bothered with it right now. The slime and mold was growing as fast as she could clean the tiles on this stupid pool. Who the hell puts a pool right next to a lake anyway? She wondered for the thousandth time.

She was still scrubbing away, trying to finish before the babies woke up, when she heard the crunch of boots approaching. Tony. It had to be Tony, the new maintenance kid. He spent more time asking her questions than working. She thought about ignoring him, but that wouldn't do much good. She rolled over and sat up then glared at the owner of the boots.

Her heart stopped.

Ben smiled at her. "Ben! Oh, my god, Ben!" She jumped up and jumped onto him for a hug before she even thought about the fact that she was wearing moldy rubber gloves doused in cleaning solution, that were now around his neck.

He hugged her tight and breathed in, expecting to smell Carrie, but all he got was strong cleaning solution. And the girl in his arms was thin, really thin. She had always been curvy and soft, this girl had thin arms and legs and hips that were showing above the too-big shorts that were barely hanging on. He felt like an asshole for thinking it, but he was shocked by how thin she was.

He wanted to squeeze tighter, but he was seriously afraid he might break her. There was no way she weighed more than 110 lbs. He set her down and stepped back to look at her face. Carrie was there. He could see her in spite of her tired eyes and thin face. He smiled at her because he was happy to see her and finally be here with her, but inside he was cringing, not out of disgust, but because her life was clearly much harder than he knew.

She pulled away, "Oh, sorry."

He was afraid for a minute that she had read his thoughts; then she looked at the gloves before pulling them off. He shook his head, letting her know it didn't bother him, then he took a step back and opened his hands, "Surprise."

Carrie laughed, but she was distracted by the man before her. He was clearly still in great shape, like when he left for basic, but this man, well, he was a man, not a 17-year old boy. His face was a bit rougher, he had a phenomenallysexy five o'clock shadow, and blue eyes that had seen war. It showed in their depth.

"Oh, my god!" she squealed. "I can't believe you're here! When did you get here? When did you get home?"

"I got home a few days ago. I spent some time with my mom and grandparents ... and now, I wanted to see you." It didn't dawn on her 'til that second that he was seeing her, as in seeing what she looked like. Crap! Literally. She was smelly, dirty and tired. She had actually brushed her hair this morning, that was a bonus, but Gracie had pulled most of it out of the ponytail holder. And she was wearing clothes she didn't mind getting bleach cleanser on while she cleaned the pool tiles.

Crying from the baby monitor distracted them both. "That's Gracie," she smiled at the monitor, "She's not usually such a crabby riser, but she's just getting over an ear infection. Come and meet them."

Carrie threw all her supplies in a bucket, picked it up and started to walk past Ben with it. He reached down and grabbed it from her hand. She gave him a quick questioning look, then remembered what a gentleman he had always been. She let him carry it for her.

Gracie was crying hard, as she clung to Carrie. Her little face was red, and she kept rubbing her right ear. Carrie kissed her ear gently and tried to sooth her. Little Ben was standing in the play pen patiently waiting his turn to be picked up. Amazingly, Carrie scooped him into her left arm while still holding Grace in her right.

"You can just leave that here," she motioned to the bucket in his hand with her chin.

"Can I ... take one of them?" She shrugged, then tried to lean the side with little Ben toward him. Ben reached for his namesake, but the boy pulled away from him and clung tighter to Carrie's neck. "He just woke up, maybe later." She motioned with her chin toward the door. "This way."

Chapter 33.

Her place was on the second floor above the restaurant. The main room was big and open and had a huge deck that overlooked the lake.

Carrie set little Ben down in a high chair, then tried to do the same with Gracie, who was still crying and rubbing her ear. "Your ear still hurting, baby?" Carrie cooed to her. Grace nodded. "Well, we will have a snack, then see if it's time for another dose of pain meds, OK?"

Ben wished he could help, but they clearly had their routine and he had no idea what it was. Carrie reached into a big box of cereal and placed a pile on the table in front of her son. She got another handful and held them out so Grace could eat them one by one, then she sat down in a kitchen chair with Grace on her lap.

"Can I get you something to drink? A soda? Beer?"

Ben shook his head.

"Did you have lunch? I've got some Spaghetti O's."

"No, I'm fine ... " he didn't finish before the baby monitor she had stuffed in her pocket squawked.

"Carrie?"

She rolled her eyes and spoke into it. "What do you need, Tony?"

"Um, yeah, um, I went to fix the ceiling fan in number 12, and one of the blades fell off."

"Can you put it back on?"

"No, I guess I broke it off. It was an accident." Carrie shook her head. "OK, throw the broken piece out and make a note in the red book that the ceiling fan in 12 is missing a blade."

"OK, sorry."