Carolina Home Read online

  You think they’d have more sense. Or pride, his sister Meg used to snap on her way out the door to the library or to one of her jobs, waiting tables, scrubbing bathrooms, handing out towels at the club. Always moving, Meggie, always working, always going somewhere. Sam Grady is the biggest hound in school.

  But not all of the girls had gone for Sam.

  He turned his head to watch Allison walk away, the swing of her hair, her long, honey-colored legs under the little blue skirt she wore, and felt that buzz, that healthy jolt of lust and anticipation that belonged to his past, to memories of summer nights around a bonfire and double dates in the backseat of Sam’s daddy’s car.

  “Is she your girlfriend?” a voice piped up.

  Startled, Matt looked down into Taylor’s face. He pushed the door, holding it open for her. “No.”

  The minute they were outside in the sunlight, she jammed the hat back on her head, tugging the brim down low. “Why not?”

  Because despite his recent crush on Teacher, he wasn’t in high school anymore. He was too old for girlfriends. He had sex, relationships that began without commitment and ended without drama.

  None of which he could explain to Luke’s ten-year-old daughter.

  “I don’t need a girlfriend,” he said carefully. “I have Josh and Grandma Tess and Grandpa Tom. And you.”

  That was enough commitment for anybody.

  Taylor sighed, a forlorn sound that rippled through him like wind over water. “That’s what my mom used to say. As long as we had each other, we didn’t need anybody else.”

  Is that why she never bothered to get in touch with your dad? Matt wanted to ask, but it didn’t feel right to lay that question on the kid after the crappy day she’d had.

  “Well, you’ve got me now,” he said. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  Taylor tensed.

  “What?” Matt asked.

  “He said I could stay.” Her voice was pitched too high, her face pinched and white.

  “Who?”

  “Luke. My…my dad. He said I was staying with Grandma Tess now.”

  “Yeah, that’s where we’re going. Home.”

  And then it occurred to Matt that “home” probably meant something else to her. The kid had been shuttled around too damn often in the past couple of months to take anything for granted.

  He squatted down so he could look her square in the eyes and asked, “Okay?”

  He watched her think about it—Nobody’s fool, this kid—before she nodded.

  But when they got to his bike, she balked.

  “Are we riding on that?”

  He lifted his helmet from the back. “Yep.”

  “Where do I sit?”

  He patted the custom seat. “Here. Behind me.”

  “I’ll fall off.”

  “Not if you hold on,” he said patiently.

  He waited with the helmet on his hip while she looked from the bike to him and back again, suspicious as a fish testing artificial bait.

  “Fine,” she growled at last.

  He grinned at her, tapping a finger on the bill of her cap. “You have to stow this. No riding without a helmet.”

  “Yeah? What about you?”

  “I’m the grown-up,” he told her. “I get to do what I want.”

  Which was a lie. North Carolina law required helmets, and being an adult meant taking on all kind of responsibilities you didn’t necessarily want. But at ten, she didn’t need to know that yet.

  She snorted and dragged off Luke’s Marine cap, stuffing it in her book bag, standing at attention while Matt fit the helmet over her blond head and adjusted the chin strap. Her bones were sharp and light as a bird’s, the skin under her jaw baby fine and smooth. His gut clenched. She was so much younger than Josh, smaller, female, vulnerable. He gave the helmet an extra tug at the back, making sure it was secure, making sure she was safe.

  His brother’s child.

  He hadn’t expected this sense of responsibility to grip his chest so suddenly, so tight, another claim, another complication he hadn’t been looking for in his life. But there was no way he would wish her away now.

  TAYLOR FLINCHED AS he jumped on some kind of kickstand thing and the motor choked and roared to life.

  She stood, her feet superglued to the ground, her heart banging as loud as the engine, while he twisted the handlebars and swung one long leg over the rattling frame.

  Turning his head, he smiled at her. “You step up on the footrest there. Don’t touch the exhaust pipes. They’re hot.”

  He looked really big, straddling the big, noisy bike, and the seat was so small.

  She didn’t—couldn’t—move.

  “It’s okay,” Uncle Matt said gently. “I’m holding her steady. You won’t fall.”

  He thought she was afraid of the motorcycle.

  Pride and scorn and desperation propelled her forward. Jerkily, she climbed up on the narrow seat behind him, clutching his arm and then his shirt. His arm was warm and steady. His back was hard and wide, a living wall.

  Taylor swallowed.

  “You’ve got to really hold on,” he shouted over the rumble of the bike. “Around my waist.”

  She tensed, greasy panic balling in her stomach. She didn’t want to get that close to him. She didn’t want to get that close to anybody.

  At least he took her side. In Nelson’s office. He’d showed up in the middle of the day, mad and solid, and stood up for her.

  Taylor relaxed a little, remembering how he yelled at the vice principal. Even when the pretty blond teacher had fixed things, he hadn’t expected Taylor to shut up and go along the way everybody else did, just because she was a kid. Like what she thought, how she felt, didn’t matter. He asked her what she wanted.

  You’ve got me now, he’d said.

  Slowly, slowly, her arms crept around him and clung.

  Seven

  TAKE A CHANCE, Matt had invited in his deep, husky voice. Take a leap.

  And just for a moment, Allison’s heart had wanted to tumble right off a cliff. Except she no longer jumped from one thing, one man, one enthusiasm, to another.

  She was an English teacher now. Literature was full of cautionary tales about women who took foolish chances and crashed. Look at sweet, suicidal Juliet. Or poor, crazy Miss Havisham. Or…

  “Hester Prynne,” Allison said to her fourth period class, “is publicly shamed and socially ostracized because she sleeps with the wrong guy and gets pregnant. Could that happen in today’s society?”

  She sat back, delighted, as her sixteen-year-olds waded in on both sides of the argument, jumbling together references to Puritan Massachusetts and 16 and Pregnant. What was the difference, really, between a slut and a reality star? What were Dimmesdale’s responsibilities as a Baby Daddy? Did having children out of wedlock still pose a threat to the social order? Occasionally Allison interjected a question to encourage an insight or lead them back gently to the text. This was her favorite part of teaching, when the stories she loved and the students she cared about came alive.

  Most of the students, anyway.

  Her gaze flickered to the back of the classroom where Joshua Fletcher sprawled at his desk, arms across his chest, legs in the aisle. If he cared at all about the discussion crackling around the room, he certainly didn’t show it.

  Allison suppressed a sigh. She had to remain impartial in the classroom. But she was disappointed by her failure to reach Josh. She would have been disappointed by her failure to reach any student.

  The period bell shattered the discussion. Even a debate about sex couldn’t compete with lunch. The room erupted with scraping chairs and slamming books.

  Allison raised her voice over the noise. “Don’t forget! Five hundred words on one character’s social and sexual identities. Due Monday,” she called to a chorus of groans.

  “Bye, Miss Carter.”

  “See ya, Miss Carter.”

  “Have a nice weekend.”

  “Miss
Carter.” Thalia Hamilton stopped by her desk, eyes sharp behind her thick black frames. “Are you going to be in the computer lab after school? I want to show you the banner for the blog. I think I can finish the layout tonight.”

  “Tonight? It’s Friday. I’m happy to look at it, Thalia, but it can wait until the next newspaper meeting.”

  “It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Thalia said.

  Allison smiled. “I guess there aren’t a lot of places to hang out on the island.” Not for Thalia’s age group. No mall, Allison thought. And only one movie screen.

  “Not unless I want to hang out under the pier drinking Gatorade and Everclear,” Thalia said.

  Allison winced slightly.

  Joshua sauntered between the rows of desks, one arm around Lindsey Gordon, the other holding his binder on his hip.

  “Joshua.” Allison was not singling him out for attention. She was offering a friendly reminder, that was all. “You still need to turn in your permission form.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He shifted his grip, exposing the battered paperback wedged on top of the notebook. The Scarlet Letter.

  Well. A sliver of hope opened inside her. At least he’d brought the book to class.

  He fished a wrinkled slip of paper from between the pages. “Here.”

  She glanced at the signature—Matt Fletcher, large, upright, dark, the T a stab, the R a scrawl—as she smoothed the note. “Thank you.” Ripping a strip from the page, she handed it back to Josh.

  “What’s that for?”

  “To keep your place.”

  He shook his head. “Naw, I’m good. Thanks.”

  She wondered if he was actually doing the reading or if he’d stuck the form in the book at random. “Which character are you writing about this weekend?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Well, who do you like?”

  He shrugged. “They’re all kind of lame.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “You know, the way the girl and the preacher guy let Chillingsworth pull the strings. I don’t get why they don’t just leave.”

  “They want to leave,” Thalia said. “I mean, when Hester and Dimmesdale meet in the forest, they plan to go to Europe.”

  His gaze switched to her. “I guess I didn’t get to that part yet.”

  Lindsey tugged her hair. “Speaking of leaving…”

  “Yeah, okay.” Josh nodded at Thalia and Allison. “See you around.”

  “Are you going to the pier tonight?” Thalia asked.

  His eyes rested on her briefly. “Maybe. I’ve got to be up early in the morning to crew for my dad.”

  Lindsey leaned against his side, her breast pressing his arm as they left.

  Thalia watched them go.

  Allison raised her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t like hanging out at the pier.”

  The girl turned red. “I don’t. I just thought…that was probably the most he’s talked to me since seventh grade.”

  Allison felt a twinge of sympathy. It was certainly the most he’d said in class. “And you want him to say more.”

  “I want him to notice me,” Thalia said frankly. “He’s the hottest guy in school, and he doesn’t even see me.”

  Allison looked at Thalia, pretty, round, and animated with a flag of dark red hair and smart girl glasses. Different. Her heart ached for her.

  “I’m sure he sees you. You’re in most of the same classes.”

  “Since kindergarten. And as far as he’s concerned, I’ll always be the brainy girl with the crunchy granola parents and the weird first name.”

  Another example of how we’re still shaped by social roles and expectations, Allison thought, but the girl needed reassurance from her, not another lesson derived from The Scarlet Letter.

  “You have a beautiful name,” she said instead. “Thalia was one of the Greek muses.”

  “Yeah, the muse of comedy.” Thalia rolled her eyes. “Like that will get me dates.”

  Allison smiled. “It could be worse. Your parents could have named you Terpsichore.”

  Thalia laughed and then sobered. “It’s not just my name, Miss Carter. It’s this school. This island. It’s hard to get romantic about somebody who watched you eat paste. I think that’s why Josh doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “I thought he and Lindsey…”

  Shut up, Allison. She was a teacher, for crying out loud. She had no business gossiping about her students’ love lives.

  “Lindsey wishes,” Thalia said. “But they’re not exclusive or anything. Josh dates summer girls. That way when he wants a change, he doesn’t have to go through the drama of breaking up with them.”

  Allison’s throat went dry. Our Matt doesn’t date locals, Gail had said, sympathy in her voice. In all these years, I’ve never known him to date a woman longer than a couple of weeks. A couple of months, if she’s here for the summer.

  Apparently this was a case of like father, like son.

  “Don’t you think you and Lindsey deserve better?” Allison asked.

  “In the long run? Sure.” Thalia grinned, sharp and quick. “But I’m not looking for commitment. I just want a date before I die. Preferably before I go to college.”

  “Do I sense a double standard here? Are you crushing on him just because he’s…” Allison hesitated, casting for an appropriate word to describe a student, to apply to Matt’s son.

  “Incredibly hot?” Thalia asked. “Heck yeah. I mean, that’s part of it. But he’s also a nice guy. Sometimes that’s enough.”

  WHEN ALLISON ARRIVED home at the end of the day, she found her repaired bicycle propped against the front steps of the cottage. She loved living in a community where bike theft wasn’t an issue. She was touched by the neighborliness of the gesture, encouraged by this sign of acceptance. As soon as she unloaded her car—she’d stopped by the garden center on her way home—she called Bill at the bike rental place to thank him.

  “Really nice of you,” she said. “I wanted to pick up the bike after school, but there was no way I could fit it in my car. I didn’t expect you to make a special delivery to my house.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Bill said. “That was Matt. He didn’t want you to have to walk out here.”

  “Oh.” Allison regrouped. “Well, that was very thoughtful of him. I’ll drop by tomorrow with the check.”

  “All taken care of.”

  “You have to let me pay,” Allison protested.

  “Matt already did. Guess you can settle up with him when you see him.” Bill chuckled, making it clear what kind of payment he thought Matt could expect.

  Heat washed Allison’s face. Wonderful. That would certainly give the faculty break room something to talk about on Monday.

  “I’ll do that,” she promised and thanked Bill again before disconnecting.

  Slowly, she lowered her cell phone.

  Maybe she shouldn’t read too much into what was basically a friendly gesture, she thought as she changed into jeans. Maybe this was simply Matt’s way of saying thank you because she’d intervened on behalf of his niece this afternoon.

  You stopped to help me. I stopped to help you. I’d say we’re even, she’d said to him mere hours ago.

  The look in his eyes made her pulse pound. I didn’t know we were keeping score.

  Allison took a deep breath as she went back out to her car. She was not playing games with Matt Fletcher. She was pretty sure she’d lose.

  Yes, he was nice. And thoughtful. And, to use Thalia’s criteria, incredibly hot.

  But Allison wasn’t sixteen anymore. Once upon a time, she’d believed sex was an okay trade-off to feel close, to feel warm, to feel accepted. No longer.

  She wasn’t her mother, either. She didn’t see every relationship as “marriage track” or weigh the worth of a man in carats. She truly believed that in love, as in life, the journey mattered as much as the destination.

  That didn’t mean she had to hop every bus that
came along.

  She dragged her garden supplies up onto the deck, two large, square planters and a load of potting soil.

  She admired Matt. But no matter how nice he was, how interested he seemed to be, he was as reluctant to volunteer things as his son. He hadn’t confided in her about anything that really mattered. No insights about Joshua that could help her in the classroom. Not a word about Matt’s brother or his niece. Nothing Allison couldn’t and hadn’t heard from a casual acquaintance.

  She required more these days than zings and tingles, than sexual buzz. She wanted a guy who was the opposite of her father, someone who would share himself with her, who was emotionally available.

  She climbed the steps again with a flat of mixed pansies and some two-inch pots of herbs, plants the woman at The Secret Garden had promised would winter well.

  Allison wasn’t foolish enough to expect intimacy after only one date. Not even a date, she reminded herself. She knew from teaching how hard it was to be a single parent. Maybe Matt gave so much to his family he didn’t have anything left to invest in a relationship.

  But she needed more. She deserved better. And since “better” hadn’t presented itself, she was better off alone.

  When her phone rang, she was prepared to tell him so.

  She brushed the dirt from her hands and hit TALK. “Hello?”

  “It’s after seven.”

  Oh, God. Allison shifted the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mom.”

  That would teach her to not check caller ID.

  “You should have called hours ago,” Marilyn continued, ignoring her daughter’s greeting. She was adept at hearing only what she wanted to hear.

  A pulse throbbed in Allison’s temples. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and between her breasts. “Sorry. It’s Friday. I thought you’d be at…” She racked her brain, staring at the bright, blank faces of the pansies. What was Friday? Book club? Symphony? “Going to dinner with the Pearsons.”

  “We’re meeting them at Bec Fin in an hour. That’s why I called.”

  Allison tried and failed to find a connection. “You want directions?” she hazarded, only half joking.

  “Guess who’s joining us,” Marilyn said.