Carolina Home Read online

  “I have no idea.”

  “You remember Walter and Claudia’s son, John?”

  Allison sighed and swiped at the sweat, leaving a tickle of dirt on her face. “Is he the investment banker or the lawyer?”

  “Johnny is an anesthesiologist. At Temple. And,” Marilyn added triumphantly, brandishing the reason for her call like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, “he’s left his wife.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “What?”

  “Are there children?”

  “A little girl, I think. The point is, Allison, this would be a perfect time for you to come home for a visit.”

  The throbbing became a twitch. Every time her mother called, it was the same. Some acquaintance at the club had a daughter who had just gotten married, a son who’d recently been divorced. Marilyn wouldn’t be happy until Allison’s wedding announcement—two columns with accompanying photo above the fold—appeared in the Sunday Inquirer.

  “Mom, you know I can’t do that.” Allison climbed to her feet, her back aching, her shoulders tight. “I’m teaching five classes. I have papers to grade and a unit test to prepare.”

  “It’s the weekend.”

  “You want me to drive to Philadelphia for the weekend?”

  “You keep telling me how close you are.”

  “Nine hours.”

  “You could be here by lunchtime tomorrow.”

  “If I started at three in the morning.”

  “Your room’s all ready. You can take a nap before you meet Johnny for cocktails. The Pearsons are free for brunch on Sunday. Or we can go shopping. Make a real weekend of it. You deserve a little treat. And I need some time with my daughter.”

  Allison rubbed her forehead, massaging away her guilt and frustration. Marilyn, the social butterfly, loved the idea of a daughter—dressing her up, taking her out, showing her off—much more than she enjoyed the socially conscious bookworm she’d produced. But saying so would only prompt tears and accusations.

  “Mom, I have to be back on Monday.”

  “I’m sure you could arrange one day off to be with your family.”

  “Sure I could.” Probably she could. “If somebody died.”

  Her mother’s breath hissed, followed by a deep, offended silence.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Allison said.

  “I suppose you think that’s funny.”

  “No, I—”

  “How could you…After Miles…”

  “I’m sorry.” Her brother wasn’t dead. He was just gone, leaving Allison as the sole target of their father’s hopes and their mother’s disappointment.

  The pansies listed, limp in the heat.

  “There’s no need to take that tone with me,” Marilyn said. “I’m only thinking of you. Your happiness. Your future.”

  “Mom, I am happy. I wish you could be happy for me.”

  But as usual, Marilyn could not hear her. “How can I be happy with my little girl so far away?”

  The pulsing was a full-fledged headache now, pounding in Allison’s temples.

  “A minute ago you said I was close enough to drive up for the weekend,” she pointed out unwisely.

  “And you begrudge me even that much. We haven’t had any girl time in ages. But apparently I’m not a priority for you.”

  Guilt hammered at Allison. She knew her parents’ marriage lacked any real emotional intimacy. Marilyn would not dream of unloading on her husband, could no longer dump on their son. She would never tarnish the Christmas card perfection of her image by venting to her friends. But with Allison, all her pent up grievances escaped like an evil genie from a bottle.

  “Mom, I love you. But I have to work.”

  “Oh, please. Your father has to work. He has a career,” Marilyn said. “You’re just going through a phase. Like that time you stopped eating meat. Or when you went to Wyoming.”

  “South Dakota.”

  “Whatever. Just because you think you’ve found some new way to save the world doesn’t entitle you to neglect your real responsibilities. When I volunteered at the Junior League, I never neglected you.”

  Allison swallowed the ache and anger of a hundred remembered brush-offs, don’t mess my hair, don’t bore my friends, can’t we talk about this later? It was useless to remonstrate. It always had been.

  “I’m not neglecting anything, Mom.”

  “You’re neglecting yourself. When was the last time you had a manicure? Or a date?”

  Allison glanced at the black crescents of dirt beneath her nails before shoving her left hand in a pocket. “I have a date,” she heard herself say.

  She bit her tongue. Too late.

  “Really?” Marilyn’s voice wavered between pleasure and suspicion. Allison closed her eyes. Her mother wanted her only daughter to attract and keep a man. The Right Man, which in the world according to Marilyn meant a potential son-in-law with the genes and job description to give her bragging rights at the club. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  Because he’s a fisherman with a teenage son.

  Because he rides a motorcycle.

  Because you’d hate him.

  She opened her eyes. “I have to go now. He’ll be here any minute. Have a nice dinner.”

  “Wait! What does he do? He’s not another teacher, is he? Is his family…”

  “Bye, Mom. Love you!” She punched the END CALL button, breathless with rebellion.

  Her phone rang again almost immediately.

  Her heart pounded. Don’t answer, don’t…

  She glanced at the display. Not her mother. No name at all, just an unfamiliar North Carolina number.

  “Hello?” she answered cautiously.

  “Allison, it’s Matt.”

  It was karma. She was going to hell for lying to her mother.

  “I’d like to take you out to dinner tomorrow night,” he said in his low drawl.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “If you’re free. How about seven?”

  “How about tonight?”

  A pause while her brain scrambled to catch up with her mouth. Oh, God. Maybe she’d shocked him. She’d certainly shocked herself.

  “It doesn’t have to be dinner,” she added hurriedly. “I mean, if you’ve already eaten…”

  “I can do dinner.”

  “Someplace quiet.” Somewhere they wouldn’t be seen. Not the Fish House. Not anywhere on the island. If she was going to revert to her reckless ways, she could do without an audience. “Jacksonville, maybe. Or the moon.”

  “I wouldn’t call a military town on a Friday night quiet,” Matt said, his voice deep and amused. “Are you all right?”

  She was out of her mind.

  “I’m fine.” She was twenty-five years old, too old to let her mother make her crazy. “Look, maybe this is a bad idea. Joshua mentioned you have an early morning tomorrow. I shouldn’t have suggested…You caught me at a bad time, that’s all. Let’s just…”

  “I’ll pick you up in an hour,” Matt interrupted. “We’ll go someplace quiet and talk.”

  WHEN MATT CAME out of his bedroom, Josh was on the couch, one eye on the Food Network and both thumbs on his phone, texting.

  The teen glanced up, taking in Matt’s freshly shaved face and clean jeans, and smirked. “Hot date?”

  Matt set the small cooler on the counter that divided living room and kitchen. “Maybe.”

  Josh grinned. “You know we have an early start tomorrow, right?”

  Matt opened the fridge. Not much there. Beer, ketchup, mayonnaise, eggs, a half-empty gallon of milk, and a carton of orange juice. “There’s more to life than work, son.”

  There hadn’t been lately.

  Maybe that was the reason an evening with pretty Allison Carter held so much appeal. She made him feel things, reminded him he was a man with a man’s needs.

  “So you don’t care if I go out tonight,” Josh said, testing.

  A man’s needs and a sixteen-year-old son, Matt thought wryly.r />
  “Not as long as you stay out of trouble and get home at a reasonable hour.”

  “Cool.”

  A quick survey of the refrigerator drawers yielded a packet of lunch meat, two withered apples, and a bunch of grapes. Matt left the lunch meat, tested the grapes by popping one in his mouth. Not bad.

  Josh wandered in, hands in his pockets, drawn by curiosity or the open refrigerator. “So who is she?”

  Matt tossed the apples into the garbage and rinsed the grapes under the faucet. “Do I ask you about your love life?”

  “No.” Josh grabbed the orange juice and drank. Lowering the carton, he grinned before assuming a mock serious expression. “I don’t need to warn you about the dangers of premarital sex, do I, Dad?”

  “Wise ass.” Matt tossed the grapes into the cooler and headed for the door.

  Josh called after him. “Don’t forget condoms!”

  Eight

  TALKING WITH HER mother didn’t usually drive Allison to drink. But she reasoned a single glass of wine would settle her nerves and bolster her courage.

  Setting down her empty glass, she tugged open the door.

  Matt Fletcher stood on her front porch in a black T-shirt and jeans, thumbs hooked into his front pockets, a hint of a smile on his lips, totally at ease.

  Without even trying, he made every gym-toned banker and golf-playing engineer her parents had ever pushed at her seem overdressed, insecure, and uninteresting. He was so entirely male, so completely comfortable in his own skin.

  Her insides danced with a mix of lust, rebellion, and Chardonnay.

  “You look pretty.” His gaze brushed her bare shoulders before settling firmly, warmly, on her face. The tiny hairs on her upper arms tingled in awareness. “Might want to bring a sweater, though.”

  Allison flushed with heat and wine. She’d spent twenty minutes digging in her closet for an outfit that didn’t make her feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder, finally unearthing a halter top from spring break five years ago and a pair of skinny jeans. She had good arms. And decent legs.

  But despite what Gail had said about Matt’s reputation, he was obviously in no hurry to talk her out of her clothes. Maybe she should suggest that he keep her warm? But she needed more daring for that.

  Or another glass of wine.

  Wordlessly, she fetched a cardigan from her bedroom.

  “Thank you for going out with me,” she said when they got to the truck.

  “My pleasure.” He shifted gears with one hand, steering with the other. He had great hands, she noticed. Working hands, tanned and strong, with a thin line of white scar across his knuckles. “Thank you for saying yes.”

  “I asked you.”

  He glanced over in surprise.

  “Tonight,” she explained as he backed smoothly out of the driveway. “You asked me for tomorrow. I asked you tonight.”

  “Yeah, you did.” Another sideways glance. “Why did you?”

  To spite my mother didn’t seem like a tactful reply.

  Or even a very good reason.

  She cleared her throat. “My mother called. I told her I had a date to get off the phone.”

  A corner of his mouth kicked up. “And you don’t like to lie to your mother.”

  “Yes. No.” Allison took a deep breath to still her jittery stomach.

  If she wanted honesty from Matt, she owed him honesty in return. This wasn’t about her mother. Allison was a grown-up, old enough to make up her own mind about what she wanted, what she needed.

  And woman enough to change it.

  “I wanted to go out. With you,” she said, so there could be no doubt. “I’d like to get to know you better.”

  The echo of her previous words charged the air of the cabin. I don’t jump into things with someone I don’t know. She wiped damp palms on the thighs of her jeans. Did he remember?

  “Most women from off island don’t care about getting to know me. They’re just looking for a good time.”

  “Which you no doubt provide.” She meant to sound teasing, not wistful.

  He slanted a smile at her. “I can.”

  The two words thumped softly in the pit of her stomach. The buzz was back, collecting on her skin like static before a storm. She had asked Matt out as a gesture of independence, a show of control over her life, her destiny. But she didn’t feel in control of herself or the situation.

  He sounded so sure of himself.

  Of her.

  But then, she thought crossly, she was practically throwing herself at him. He had every right to sound confident.

  “So is this how you entertain your dates? By bringing them…” She leaned forward to peer out the windshield at empty road and shadowed, silent dunes. “Where are we, anyway?”

  “I told you I’d show you my island. This is it.”

  Gnarled live oaks on one side; an uneven line of erosion fence on the other; marsh grass and sea oats everywhere.

  “There’s nothing here.”

  His teeth showed in a smile. “Give it a chance.”

  Their headlights jumped across the road. He turned left toward a gap in the line of pickets. She felt a bump as the pavement ended and their tires dropped onto sand. Shells crunched. The engine rumbled.

  She gripped the door handle as the truck lurched, aware of leaving something behind, of venturing off the road she knew into the unknown.

  And then the dunes fell away and the beach opened below, stretching away into the dusk on either side, gray sand and silver sea under a twilight sky.

  Allison drew her breath in wonder.

  Matt circled the truck to face the dunes, parking perpendicular to the water.

  He cut the engine. Silence rushed in, cool and laced with the scent of the sea.

  Allison craned her neck to look out the windows. “Wow. Just…Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  The horizon ran with paint box colors, purple, red, and gold. Low breakers rolled toward shore, dissolving in a flurry of foam against the flat sand.

  Matt came around to help her from the truck.

  “Easy.” He steadied her as her heels sank into sand.

  “I’m okay.” She was not drunk. “I wasn’t expecting a walk on the beach.”

  “We’re not going far.”

  She glanced down the shoreline at the glowing line of lights over the water. “Is that the pier?”

  “Yep.”

  “What is it, like a mile?” She could walk a mile if she took off her shoes.

  “We’re not walking. We’re parking.” He went to the back of the truck.

  The soft sea breeze was clearing her head. “I didn’t know you could park on the beach at night,” she said conversationally.

  “Now, yeah. Not during the season.”

  “Because of tourists?”

  He grinned and lowered the tailgate. “Because of turtles. Sea turtles lay their clutches in May. They hatch at night, follow the moon’s reflection to the sea. Headlights confuse them. And they can get trapped in tire tracks. But this time of year, it’s not a problem.”

  He grabbed a quilt from the back and spread it over the truck bed. “Up you go.”

  He boosted her onto the tailgate, his hands hard and strong. She caught her breath as he swung up beside her, the truck bouncing beneath his weight. His thigh brushed hers, his body warm and close. He stretched an arm behind her, making her heart beat faster.

  Making his move, she thought.

  He dragged a cooler forward from the back and began to unload it.

  A picnic.

  Her lips curved as he laid out grapes and cheese and wrapped sandwiches. She found the simple spread more appealing than her mother’s themed and catered menus, more romantic than an overpriced meal in some fancy restaurant.

  Matt lifted a bottle of wine from the cooler.

  And far more seductive.

  She watched as he lit a Coleman lantern, as he pulled a corkscrew from his pocket.

  “Very nice,” she said. �
�Do you come here often?”

  “I used to. With my grandda, fifteen, twenty years ago.” Expertly, he uncorked the wine. “It hasn’t changed much.”

  “You don’t like change?”

  “I didn’t say that. You can’t live on an island without accepting change. Storms come, beaches erode, families die out or move away. Old houses are bulldozed to make way for a parking lot or a septic tank.”

  He poured wine into two plastic tumblers, handed her one. “You live with loss, you learn to appreciate the things that endure. The sea. The moon. The lighthouse.”

  “The things that endure,” she repeated softly. “I like that.”

  Wasn’t that what she’d come to Dare Island to find?

  She wanted to build a life here, to make a permanent place for herself, something solid, something lasting.

  She didn’t want to be another in the long line of Women Who Had Dated Matt Fletcher, the summer girls who lasted a few days or weeks.

  It was both tempting and dangerous to believe she could be more.

  She sipped her wine. “Thank you. You’re very good at this.”

  He paused, unwrapping a sandwich. “This?”

  She flapped her hand, encompassing the scene. “The secluded beach, the private picnic, the bottle of wine. It’s really nice,” she said again. “You’re awfully…” Practiced. “Prepared.”

  “Not me. My mom.”

  Allison blinked. “Your mother?”

  “The inn keeps supplies on hand for the guests, wine and cheese, box lunches, that kind of thing. Those are my mother’s cookies.”

  “Oh.” She tried to imagine her mother’s reaction to anyone casually helping themselves to the contents of her kitchen. Favors in the Carter household always came with strings attached. “How does your mother feel about you raiding her pantry?”

  “She’s okay with it. I’ll replace the wine tomorrow, turn over part of my catch for dinner.”

  “That’s…really sweet,” Allison decided. “The way you all interact with each other.”

  “That’s what families do.”

  She drank more wine. “Not mine.”

  “You talk with your parents. You said your mother called,” he added when she looked at him, surprised.

  “My mother and I don’t talk. I say ‘hello’ and then I listen while she tells me how I’ve disappointed her again.” Allison shook her head, impatient with herself. “That isn’t fair. My mother wants a relationship with me. She wanted me to come for a visit. Drop everything, take a day off, meet her latest candidate for son-in-law.”