Dare Island [2] Carolina Girl

by Virginia Kantra

  Seven

  THE AUGER CHUGGED outside the kitchen windows, the grind of the drill bit punctuated by occasional pounding and the rumble of male voices. Through the glass, Meg could see the three men shirtless in the heat: her brother Matt, broad and deep-chested; Josh, still growing into his height and his hands; and Sam, long and lean-muscled, lowering a four-by-four into a post hole. His bare shoulders glistened in the sunlight. His dark hair curled damply on the back of his neck.

  She could almost feel those strands, like wet silk between her fingers. Her hand clenched. Her body clenched low inside.

  Meg blew out her breath. Drooling out the window at a shirtless Sam Grady was not getting her work done. She dumped the bag of chocolate chips into the bowl and turned on the mixer.

  Matt and Taylor squatted beside the hole with the garden hose. Meg watched as Matt handed the nozzle to the little girl. “Four or five inches,” she heard him say. “Right there.”

  Taylor aimed the water into the hole, her little face screwed in concentration.

  “He’s so good with her,” Allison murmured from behind Meg. “He must get that from your father.”

  “Probably. Though I can’t remember Dad ever encouraging me to pick up a hammer.” Meg flipped off the mixer. “That was for the boys.”

  Allison regarded her with warm, brown, earnest eyes. “Did you mind?”

  “Not really. Dad always made me feel like I could do anything I wanted.” Meg grinned. “He told the boys they had to do what he said.”

  Allison smiled wistfully. “Your family is so close. You must have had a wonderful childhood.”

  Meg hadn’t met Allison’s parents, a socially prominent couple from Philadelphia, during their brief stay at the inn. But from what Matt had said—and based on what he carefully didn’t say—Meg suspected the Carters had stringent expectations for their only daughter. Expectations that did not include her teaching on tiny Dare Island or falling for the fisherman father of one of her students.

  “Yeah, I guess we did.” She pulled a face. “Although when I was fourteen, I never pictured myself twenty years later, still hanging around my parents’ kitchen.”

  Still sneaking peeks out the window at Sam, sweating in the sun.

  Josh had ripped open a bag of quick-set concrete and was shaking it into the hole under Matt’s direction. Sam braced the post, holding a level against one side.

  “At least you have a nice view,” Allison said.

  Meg started. “I was just admiring their . . .”

  “Progress?” Allison suggested.

  Meg met her gaze and smiled ruefully. “Something like that.”

  “That looks delicious,” Allison said, changing the subject with the easy tact that was as much a part of her as her brown eyes or her diamond-faced watch. “Can I help?”

  “I thought you had students coming over.”

  “Student newspaper meeting. I thought so, too. But Nia bailed, and Thalia might not want to come over by herself.”

  Meg set out the cookie trays. “Why not? You don’t strike me as particularly intimidating.”

  “Thanks. I think.” Allison accepted a spoon. “She’s not avoiding me. It’s . . .” She broke off, digging into the cookie dough, apparently unwilling to betray her student’s confidence.

  “Josh?” Meg guessed. She glanced out the window at her tall, handsome nephew, his mop of tawny hair and lazy smile, and her heart gave a little bounce of pride and anxiety. “They were dating?”

  He was old enough to date, she supposed. Old enough to do all kinds of things that, as his aunt, Meg didn’t particularly want to think about. She felt a sudden burst of sympathy for Matt.

  “Not dating, exactly.” Allison dropped a lump of dough onto the baking sheet. “It was more like a friends thing. At least on Josh’s side. They were working together on a sports and nutrition piece for the paper, and Thalia . . . Well, I guess she hoped it would turn into something more.”

  Some of Meg’s sympathy went out to this girl, whoever she was. Unrequited high school crushes were hell. Meg’s gaze went back to Sam, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped in the sunlight. She pressed her lips together. Some things never changed.

  Twelve minutes later, the timer pinged and the cookies came out of the oven. With the last ramp post setting in concrete, the men and Taylor trooped inside.

  “Something smells good,” Sam said.

  “Cookies.” Josh reached for one.

  “Hold on,” Meg said. “Wash your hands.”

  “I did.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “In the hose. Outside.” He smiled at her, holding up his almost-clean palms in the universal sign of peace, and Meg’s heart melted like butter on a stack of pancakes. That poor high school girl never stood a chance.

  She handed him a plateful of cookies. “Careful. They’re still hot.”

  Sam winked. “Hot is always good. Unless you’re talking about beer.”

  “There’s some in the fridge.”

  Josh opened the refrigerator door.

  “Milk for you,” Meg said.

  He turned and saluted her with a gallon jug of milk. Smiling, she pulled a glass down from the cupboard.

  “Must have been thirsty work,” Allison said to Matt. “You’re all sweaty.”

  “Sorry.” Matt reached for his T-shirt, hanging from his back pocket.

  She stopped him with a sly look and a touch on his wrist. “I like it.”

  Matt’s rare smile broke over his face. He looked different, Meg thought. More relaxed. “Good to know,” he said, and backed her up against the sink.

  Allison twined her arms around his neck and drew his head down for a kiss.

  Meg looked away, oddly uncomfortable, as if she’d witnessed something more intimate than a mostly clothed kitchen embrace. This was Matt? Her reserved, undemonstrative brother?

  “Ew,” Taylor said in a small pained voice.

  Josh grabbed another cookie. “Get used to it, shorty,” he said around a mouthful of crumbs. “It’ll be worse when they get married. They’ll be sucking face all the time.”

  When they get married . . .

  Meg whirled back to her brother. He proposed? “You proposed? Matt!”

  Matt raised his head, a faint flush staining his cheekbones. “Not in so many words.”

  “It was very romantic,” Allison said over his shoulder. “He recited poetry.”

  “Matt did?”

  Josh snickered. “You know, ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, Allison’s sweet, and—’”

  “That’s enough out of you,” Matt said, finishing the poem.

  “It was Edna Saint Vincent Millay,” Allison said, her face now redder than Matt’s.

  “That sounds very . . . nice,” Meg said, still trying to wrap her brain around the idea of her brother reciting poetry. Her brother . . . married again?

  “And he gave me a plant,” Allison said staunchly.

  “A plant, huh?” Sam raised his eyebrows. “Smooth, Matt. Very smooth.”

  “Why a plant?” Meg asked.

  Matt cleared his throat. “I thought . . . Put down roots.”

  Meg gaped at him, a funny catch in her chest. To put down roots.

  It was perfect.

  It was Matt.

  So why did she suddenly want to cry?

  She wasn’t interested in putting down roots. She wanted challenge. Change. She’d embraced the bustle and rush of New York, the demanding pace and anonymity of life in the big city. Even the condo was more an investment than a home, a place to sleep and collect the mail.

  But home had always been important to Matt.

  Meg simply had never imagined her quiet, workingman brother would express himself in a way so deeply felt, so inherently right.

  “It was a camellia,” Allison said, beaming.

  “Because nothing says commitment like a camellia,” Sam put in.

  “And you would know all about commitment,” Matt shot back. />
  “Hey, I believe in marriage. For other people.” Sam grinned and grabbed Matt in a one-armed hug. “Congratulations, you guys.” He kissed Allison on the cheek. “When’s the wedding?”

  “Yes, congratulations,” Meg echoed. She forced her lips into a smile, fighting the feeling of things moving too fast, of being somehow left behind. She was happy for her brother. She liked Allison. But they’d only known each other, what, a month? Six weeks? She and Derek had been together six years.

  She moved jerkily forward, gave Allison a friendly squeeze and Matt a hug. There was no reason for her brother not to get married again, she told herself. Eventually. But . . .

  “That’s up to Allison,” Matt said over her head to Sam. “I thought she should get done with the school year, make it through her first winter, before we set a date.”

  “I want Christmas,” Allison said. “But I’ll settle for Easter. Six months is plenty of time to find a dress and accustom my parents to the idea that we’re getting married on the island.” She glanced at Matt. “Of course, I’d like to have the ceremony here, in the garden, but it might be too . . .”

  “Soon?” Meg suggested.

  “Small,” Allison said. “My parents will insist on a big wedding.”

  Meg dragged her hand through her hair, trying to get a grip on the situation. “Do Mom and Dad know?”

  “Not yet,” Matt said quietly, his gaze on her face. “I thought we’d tell them when Mom comes home.”

  Right. Their parents weren’t here, Matt was besotted, and Allison lived in some Wonderland where anything was possible. Somebody had to inject a little reality here. “Listen, it’s none of my business, but . . .”

  “I want to ask you about those rosebushes,” Sam said to Meg.

  “In a minute. Have you considered how this could affect—”

  “Now.” Sam gripped her arm. “Out back. Excuse us, folks.”

  She let him drag her outside before she turned on him. “What is your problem?”

  “Nothing. What’s yours?”

  Hot blood stormed her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Your brother’s getting married. Do you have to analyze everything? Can’t you just be happy for him?”

  “I am,” she protested. “But it’s not like this is his first marriage.”

  Sam’s face was inscrutable. “Allison isn’t anything like Kimberly.”

  Kimberly, Matt’s first wife. The two had met in college, when Matt was pursuing his dream of an engineering degree and Kimberly was, well, the rich girl slumming with the blue-collar boy from rural North Carolina. Meg suspected her brother’s girlfriend had never wanted a serious relationship with Matt. Certainly she’d never expected him to knock her up. But nineteen-year-old Matt, determined as always to do the right thing, had persuaded Kimberly to marry him. Less than a year later, she’d walked out on him and their infant son. So Matt and Josh had come home to the island for good.

  One more example, if Meg had needed one, that sex could seriously screw up your life. Now that Josh was older, Matt could finally begin to think about his own needs. She couldn’t bear to see him throw that all away on a Kimberly clone.

  “She’s a trust fund blonde whose parents can’t stand him,” Meg said. “Are you saying you don’t see a pattern?”

  “I’m saying you shouldn’t judge her before you get to know her better.”

  Meg’s shoulders rose and fell. “Look, I like Allison. I do. I just don’t want to see Matt hurt again.”

  “Then don’t be such a snob.”

  “Me?” Her tone vibrated with genuine insult. Dare Island’s Golden Grady was calling her . . . “A snob?”

  “Yep. A reverse snob. What do you think, that because Allison comes from money, she’s going to look down on you all? That she doesn’t value what your brother has to offer?”

  That was exactly what Meg thought. What she feared. Sam had never had to work for anything. He didn’t know what it was like to grow up comparing yourself to others, to be ridiculed for not having the right stuff, the right clothes, the right accent. “You don’t understand.”

  “Understand what? That somebody with Allison’s background could look at your family and want what you have? That kind of loyalty. That kind of love.” Sam’s voice was quiet and intense. His eyes met hers. “Matt loves Allison. And she loves him.”

  She was shaken. Not only by his perspective of her family, but by this glimpse into Sam. The man she’d nicknamed Slick believed in love? She felt one more assumption turned on its head, one more yard of sand swept from under her feet.

  “They haven’t known each other very long,” she said weakly.

  “Not everybody takes six years to make up their minds about the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.”

  Ouch.

  She glared. “This isn’t about me.”

  Sam’s gaze was clear and uncomfortably kind. “Isn’t it?”

  “No,” she said firmly.

  Maybe. She felt her world tilting like a deck in a storm, threatening to pitch her into a cold, dark sea. She was supposed to be the one with the great career, the one in a stable relationship, the one going forward, who had everything going for her. And now she’d been fired, and her boyfriend wanted to buy her out of their condo, and her once-divorced brother had found love with the practically-perfect-in-every-way Allison.

  “It’s about Matt,” she said.

  The familiar devil of laughter danced in Sam’s eyes. “What? He isn’t allowed to like any girls but you?”

  Her lips twitched, but she replied stubbornly. “I’m not jealous.” Not exactly. How could she make Sam understand how she felt? She didn’t understand herself. “I’m concerned.”

  “I can see that,” Sam said, his deep drawl unexpectedly sympathetic. Soothing. “But you have to let this one go, Meggie. Matt’s going to do what Matt’s going to do. You can’t control his choices.”

  “Maybe that’s what worries me,” she muttered.

  She wasn’t in control. She hated that. She was the one who always had an answer, who always had a plan. And for the first time in her adult life, she didn’t know what to do.

  Sam laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. “You think too much.” He gave her a friendly squeeze, tucking her against him. Was it her imagination, or did he sniff her hair? “Things will all work out.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said truculently into his naked chest.

  “I know you. You’ll make things work out. You always do.” He drew back and smiled into her eyes. “Or you’ll beat them into submission.”

  A watery chuckle escaped her. She smiled back, comforted despite herself.

  * * *

  SAM WAS FEELING sweaty and cheerful when he parked his truck at the end of the day. Making progress, he thought. Not just with the ramp. With Meggie.

  What kind of progress—where this thing between them was headed, how far, how fast—he hadn’t figured out yet. Which was okay. He’d always been more a buy-a-ticket-and-enjoy-the-ride kind of guy.

  Not like Meggie. It was one of the things that attracted him to her, the way she was always so sure of where she stood, so confident of where she was going. But despite Sam’s dickhead behavior in college, despite her allegiance to the so-called boyfriend in New York, she was apparently willing to give them another shot. She was talking to him again. She’d even kissed him.

  Sam shook his head as he let himself into the house. Pathetic. He hadn’t attached this much importance to a simple lip-lock since Jenny Vaughn had followed him under the bleachers in fifth grade.

  The truth was, he liked women, all shapes, scents, textures, the infinite variety of them. He liked Meg, liked the feel of her mouth warming under his. Loved her body, taut and firm against him, vibrating with energy like a storm. That quick intake of her breath, the way those clear blue eyes darkened as he coaxed her to respond . . . Yeah, he liked that a lot.

  But it was
the kiss today, that brief, almost innocent peck at the abandoned job site, that had hit him upside the head like a two-by-four.

  They’d been talking about her family, he remembered. Meg had said something about coming home because her mother needed her. She’d turned those eyes on him, passionate as always, dependable as ever, nothing standing in her way, and he’d kissed her and said . . . He’d said . . .

  That’s my girl.

  Jesus, what a bonehead thing to say. They weren’t in high school anymore. She had moved on years ago, moved in with that asshole in New York. Even back when they were kids, Meg hadn’t been Sam’s girl. Only that one time, when he came home from college, when he was drunk and dumb enough to believe his luck that smart, confident, strong Meggie Fletcher would come to him. Would want him.

  She’d regretted it immediately, of course. Don’t tell Matt.

  He never had.

  But he’d never been able to forget that feeling, either. Lust? Definitely. Longing? Well, sure. And something else, something deeper, primitive. The feeling he’d had the first time he saw her naked: Mine.

  Sam headed for the stairs. He needed a hot shower and a cold beer. Or a cold shower, maybe.

  “What the fuck do you think you were doing today?”

  The old man’s voice struck Sam like a rock between the shoulder blades. His back muscles tightened before he turned. “Building a ramp for Tess Fletcher. I told you.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were going to pinch materials off my job site to do it.”

  “How the hell do you know about that?”

  Carl sneered. “I set up security cameras. You think I’m too stupid to protect myself and my investments?”

  Sam’s jaw clenched. No, I think you’re a stingy, selfish son of a bitch whose heart was in bad shape even before the surgery. “You know, if I were you, I’d be worried about more than the loss of a few building supplies out there. I was going to pay you.”

  Carl dismissed him with a wave. “Forget it. Take what you want. But it wouldn’t kill you to show a little gratitude for once.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said shortly. “But I pay my debts.” He took out his wallet and slapped a wad of cash on the table in the hall. “There. That should cover it.”