Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel

by Virginia Kantra

  He nodded, his gaze still on Jane. “Meg.”

  Heat rolled through Jane. Shoot.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” she said.

  He looked at her, his beautiful hazel eyes unreadable.

  “Because, you know, you’re . . .” She flapped her hand. “Busy.”

  His gaze dropped to the open binder on the table. “Looks like you’re busy, too.”

  “We’re going over my cake order,” Meg said.

  He angled his head to see the page. “This it?”

  “Yes,” Jane said. The cake was one of her most sophisticated designs, a welcome change from the gum-paste shells and starfish that most beach brides requested—four off-set square layers with different textures of silver and white fondant and edible pearls.

  “Pretty,” he said.

  So pretty, he had whispered against her mouth.

  A warm glow suffused her chest, pride and embarrassment mingled. “Thank you.”

  A corner of his mouth quirked up. “Almost as pretty as dessert Monday night.”

  Hot color scalded Jane’s face.

  “What dessert?” Meg asked.

  “Just something I was trying out,” Jane said.

  “Really.” Meg widened her eyes. “How was it?”

  “Good. I’ll let you get back to work,” Gabe said, looking at Jane. “I just came to tell you I’ll be by later to put the last layer of mud on the drywall.”

  She was pretty sure that wasn’t a euphemism.

  Her stupid heart beat faster anyway. “I’m training Rudy this afternoon.” Meaning, We won’t be alone.

  Another long, unreadable look. “I’ll stay out of your way.”

  “Mom’s hoping to see you for Sunday dinner,” Meg said.

  “You tell her I appreciate that very much,” Gabe said.

  “Unless you have other plans,” she added brightly.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know. You just take care of yourself.” That smile tugged at Gabe’s mouth again. “All of yourselves.”

  “Wait,” Jane said. “You knew she was pregnant?”

  As if she needed another reminder of how quickly gossip traveled on the island.

  Gabe winked at Meg. “Second hottest mother on the island. I’ll see you,” he said to Jane and walked out.

  “Whew.” Meg mimed fanning herself with one perfectly manicured hand. “If I wasn’t hot before, I certainly am now.”

  Jane was ready to burst into flames herself. Her cheeks, her face, her whole body burned. Thank goodness she’d already sent Lindsey home.

  “So.” Meg eyed her speculatively. “You and Gabe.”

  Jane busied herself with the binder. Meg was one of the smartest people Jane knew. She could probably share all kinds of good, hard, practical advice about love.

  If Jane wanted to hear it.

  Which she kind of . . . didn’t.

  Monday night had been special. A moment out of time, a secret, selfish indulgence. Sex and chocolate. Fantasy stuff, like one of her romance novels—a harmless escape from her careful, safe, predictable existence. As long as she hugged the memories to herself, she could almost pretend she had made the whole thing up.

  But if she talked to Meg, if she dragged her hopes and desires into the light of day, she would be acknowledging they were . . . real.

  And then where would she be?

  “Come on,” Meg coaxed. “You know all my secrets now. Nobody’s judging you.”

  “Maybe not in New York City,” Jane said. “Probably nobody cares how you behave in New York. But this is Dare Island.”

  “Where everybody loves you.”

  Jane blinked. She’d never really thought of it that way before. She’d always been so concerned with what the neighbors thought. The idea that they weren’t judging her, that they were taking a concerned interest—like, say, a mother would, if her mother had stuck around—well, it was nice. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Start with Monday night.”

  “Well.” She drew a breath. “I made dinner. Here at the bakery.”

  “Dinner is good,” Meg said. “Now get to the dessert.”

  “Chocolate mousse cake. With whipped cream and ganache.”

  “You dirty girl,” Meg said admiringly. “And then?”

  “Then . . . we did it,” Jane said.

  “In the bakery.”

  Jane nodded, unable to suppress a small surge of pride. “In the kitchen. On the prep table. And the counter.” A quiet little tingle at the memory. “And, um, on a chair.”

  “I may faint.”

  “And then . . .” Jane paused, building to her climax. “He washed the dishes.”

  “That’s it. I’d like a chocolate mousse cake, please. To go.”

  Jane grinned, foolishly pleased.

  “So, was this a onetime trip to Horny Town or are you two, like, together now?” Meg asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jane confessed. “It’s one thing to buy condoms, you know? To tell yourself you’re allowed this one night of no-strings adventure. No labels. No commitments.”

  “No regrets,” Meg said.

  Jane nodded again. “But the truth is, I never had casual sex before.”

  “You’re twenty-nine years old.”

  “I got married at nineteen. Travis was my first real boyfriend,” Jane said. The only man she’d ever slept with. When everyone else her age was experimenting with sex, hanging out and hooking up, Jane had been coming home exhausted after the dinner shift only to wake up with her husband’s weight pinning her to the mattress. Or startling out of sleep to tend to Aidan before his crying woke his father.

  “But you’ve been divorced for years,” Meg said.

  “And raising a baby alone and living with my father,” Jane reminded her. “I don’t know how to take the next step. I don’t even know what the next step’s supposed to be.”

  “Sweetie, you’re not baking a cake,” Meg said. “There’s no recipe to follow here.”

  “It’s just that everything’s so complicated right now with Aidan. And my dad. I’m not looking for anything else at this point in my life.”

  “Surprise,” Meg said. “I wasn’t looking for twins, and yet here we are.”

  “You’ll be a great mom,” Jane said.

  “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you. But what I’m saying is, good things come along in their own time. Sometimes you just have to accept and enjoy.”

  “Sometimes things aren’t that simple,” Jane said.

  “No reason to make them complicated. He’s coming by later, isn’t he?”

  “To plaster the drywall.”

  “There you go, then,” Meg said with satisfaction. “When a man shows up with power tools and paint it’s a sign that he’s marking his territory. Like pissing on trees.”

  “But he hasn’t said anything.”

  Meg sipped her tea, regarding Jane over the rim of her cup. “I didn’t really know Gabe from before. But he hasn’t had the easiest time of it since he got out. From what Mom says, he didn’t have the best home life, either. Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? But you have this sort of . . . air, you know? Very princess-in-a-tower. Kind of calm. Guarded.”

  “You mean cold,” Jane said, stricken.

  “No, no, you’re very caring. I was going to say, self-sufficient. Maybe Gabe doesn’t think he has anything to offer you. Have you considered that maybe he could use a little encouragement?”

  “I showed up naked and carrying a cake,” Jane said. “How much more encouragement does he need?”

  Meg laughed. “That, I can’t tell you. But I do know you’ll figure it out.”

  * * *

  GABE FEATHERED THE compound away from the joint with broad horizontal strokes, blending the plaster into the wall on either side. This was the third and final application. Slow going, but if he did it right, he wouldn’t need to sand the wall and get plaster dust all over Jane’s tidy dining room.

 
He needed to get this right.

  And in the meantime, she could just get used to him hanging around.

  He knocked the excess mud into the tub and reloaded the trowel. Ninety percent of life is showing up, Uncle Chuck used to say.

  Right now Gabe didn’t have much to offer Jane. But he could do showing up.

  Fifteen minutes later, she came out of the kitchen carrying something on a plate. The smell conjured memories of Monday night, sending a jolt straight to his groin. Chocolate. He wanted to strip her naked and search out the scent on her skin.

  Yeah, with her assistant working on the other side of the door. Big idea, dickhead.

  “Smells good,” he said. “Is that for me?”

  She nodded. “It’s my Death by Chocolate Brownie.”

  “Thanks. Great name.” She was killing him. “Put it on the table, would you? I want to finish this seam.”

  She set down the plate, but she didn’t go away. It was damn distracting.

  She folded her small, scarred hands neatly over her apron. “Gabe, what are you doing here?”

  It was the second time today she’d said something like that. Like she really didn’t know. Or was too polite, maybe, to tell him to move along. He tried not to find that discouraging.

  He aimed a smile her way. “If you have to ask, I’m not doing a very good job.”

  Her eyes widened as she recognized her words from Monday night.

  “It’s an awful lot of work. When you offered to put in the doors, I didn’t realize you’d get stuck replacing the whole wall.”

  He loaded the trowel again. “Construction’s like that sometimes. One thing leads to another. You don’t know what you’re getting into until you start.”

  She smiled. “‘If you give a mouse a cookie . . . ’” He must have looked blank, because she explained. “It’s from a children’s book. About a boy who feeds a mouse and then the mouse keeps wanting more, and the boy can’t get rid of him.”

  He wanted to smile. Or snarl. He’d never had a woman brush him off with a line from a kids’ story before. “You looking to get rid of me, cupcake?”

  “No, I just . . . I wondered how long you’re going to be here, that’s all.”

  Was she still talking about the drywall?

  “As long as it takes,” he said. “I want to finish what I started.” What we started.

  He spread compound over the joint as she stood quietly, watching. The memory of her touch ghosted over his skin. His muscles bunched and stretched, angling for her attention. He smoothed the ten-inch trowel knife over the seam, careful not to press too hard. Easy, easy.

  “Is this a booty call?” she blurted.

  He jerked, dragging the trowel through the wet mud, scoring a deep dent. Damn it. He was being so disciplined, so deliberate, so restrained. He was sort of insulted that she hadn’t noticed.

  He looked over. She was so damn cute, her blond hair slipping its braid, her brow pleated, her fingers twisted together.

  He grinned. “I’d have to be getting sex for that.”

  She flushed a little, but her gaze remained steady on his. “You’d also have to call.”

  Man, she didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t have a phone,” he explained.

  Her flush deepened. “Oh.”

  “I’ll get one.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I need one for work anyway.” He was saving up for a car, but he could afford one of those prepaid deals. “Something to add to the list.”

  She smiled ruefully. “I know all about lists.”

  “Mine’s pretty basic. Food, transportation, shelter.”

  “I thought you had a room at the Fishermen’s Motel.”

  “For now.” His first permanent address since getting out of jail. He thought of the postcard that had arrived this morning with RETURN TO SENDER written in an unfamiliar hand. That never happened before. An uneasy feeling stirred his gut. He swallowed it down, applying compound with long downstrokes of the putty knife.

  “Be nice to find a place with a little more privacy,” he said. “Maybe a yard for the dog.”

  Chances were good she wasn’t inviting him home. He sure as hell didn’t see himself hanging out watching TV on the couch with her daddy. But maybe she’d come visit him if she didn’t have to worry about sneaking past Blabby Bobby at the front desk.

  For the first time, Gabe understood why other men got tattooed with the names of their girlfriends, why a guy would drop three months’ salary on some flashy ring. Hell, if he had his way, Jane would wear a sign. Taken. Off-limits.

  But he didn’t have the right to make that claim. She might feel differently about having her name linked with his.

  “So you’re . . . staying,” she said. Not quite a question.

  He slanted a look at her. “Is that a problem?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, though he couldn’t figure out what she had to apologize for. “I’ve never done this before. It’s really none of my business.”

  Flustered, he thought. Was that a good sign or a bad sign?

  “‘This,’” he repeated without inflection.

  “You know. Whatever this”—she waggled her hand in the air between them—“is. This thing we’re doing. I don’t have any expectations. We both have full, busy lives without adding a lot of complications. I don’t want you to think that I’m needy. Or naggy. Or oversensitive. Or insecure.”

  Gabe knocked the excess mud from the trowel into the tub. “That’s a lot of don’ts,” he observed. “What do you want, then?”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “You first.”

  A smile tugged his mouth. He figured if he told her half the things he wanted she’d run like hell.

  On the other hand, he didn’t have a lot to offer her right now. She deserved his honesty, at least. So he gave it to her. “I want to be with you. Everything in my life is temporary right now. But I want to be with you.”

  She looked in his eyes, her cheeks pretty pink. “You mean have sex again.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Sex would be good.” He laughed, disgusted with himself. “Who am I kidding? Sex would be great. But I was thinking . . . hoping . . . Look, plaster needs a day to dry, especially in this rain. I’ll be back on Monday to paint. I thought maybe we could go out after, get something to eat.”

  He wiped his hands on a rag, his heart banging against his ribs.

  “I’d have to get a sitter for Aidan.”

  Holy shit. She was going to say yes? “He could come with us,” Gabe said, before she had second thoughts. “Like, for pizza or something.”

  She hesitated.

  Ouch. Even though her reaction was pretty much what he was expecting, it still stung. But she was a good mom. Protective. It figured she didn’t want him spending too much time with the kid.

  “Or we could go next Saturday,” Gabe said. After he got paid again. “After you have a chance to line something up.”

  “I’d like that,” she said softly.

  He grinned, fast and sharp. So she was willing to be seen with him. Spend time with him. Score.

  “It’s a date,” he said. Quickly, before she could change her mind. “What time?”

  “I, um . . . Seven thirty?”

  “I’ll pick you up,” he said.

  Pick her up? Shit, what was he thinking? He didn’t have wheels yet.

  She smiled and nodded, and he knew. Jane. He was thinking about Jane, with her soft gray eyes and slow, secret smiles, her warm generosity and no-quit attitude.

  For the first time in a long time, he was thinking about a future.

  He really needed to buy that car.

  Fifteen

  LUKE FLETCHER SAT on the back steps of the Pirates’ Rest, shucking corn into a plastic bag between his knees. “Nice truck,” he said as Gabe came up the walk for Sunday dinner.

  “Thanks,” Gabe said.

  The sea breeze caught the bag, making it swell and rattle against the ground. Lucky barked.
On the porch, the Fletchers’ big black shepherd lifted its head, ears swiveling upright.

  “Easy,” Gabe said, keeping a light hold on the leash. “Is your dog going to eat my dog?”

  “Nope. Fezzik’s got manners. And we locked the puppy inside until they have a chance to get used to each other.”

  Fezzik padded over to investigate, tail stirring politely.

  Gabe gave Lucky a reassuring pat. “Good dog.”

  “That’s Willy Holling’s old pickup,” Luke observed as the two dogs sniffed each other.

  “His wife wanted it out of the front yard,” Gabe said.

  “So it’s yours now.”

  “Paid for,” Gabe said. “Still have to transfer the title.”

  “Make sure you do,” Luke advised. “Before Hank pulls you over and asks to see your registration.”

  “I need to get my North Carolina driver’s license first. Figured I’d go this week.”

  Luke looked up from stripping corn. “Sounds like you’re staying.”

  The prodigal son, Gabe thought again. Would his brother welcome him home for good? “Thinking about it.”

  Luke rose from the steps, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Your thinking have anything to do with Jane Clark?”

  “It might,” Gabe acknowledged cautiously.

  “Good luck, then. I got to say, your taste in women has improved.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’ve got yourself a package deal there. You prepared for that?”

  “I can handle her father.”

  “I’m talking about her son.”

  Gabe’s throat dried. “I don’t know, do I? I don’t know a damn thing about being . . .” A father. Even the word made his insides jump. “Except what not to do.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “At least you get that. Just be sure this is what you want. Because until you know where things are going, you might want to slow down some. For the kid’s sake. No point in him getting attached.”

  Gabe set his jaw, clamping down on an unaccustomed feeling of annoyance. He couldn’t be pissed at Luke. His old buddy had done the single-dad thing. He knew what he was talking about. Plus, he and Jane were about the same age. They must have grown up together. Gabe was the newcomer, the outsider, here.