Carolina Home

by Virginia Kantra

  She patted his cheek. “Of course not. I just want you to know I’m happy you invited Allison…That is her name? Allison?”

  He looked at her warily. “Yeah.”

  “I’m very happy you invited her to dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  Tess smiled at her firstborn, her eyes misty. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Not that long,” he said. “I’ve only known her a week.”

  “Very funny.” Tess turned back to the counter, topping the last layer of noodles with sauce, spreading it with the back of a spoon. “Your father knew after an hour that I was the one.”

  Matt bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’m not as lucky as Dad.”

  His compliment made her feel warm and a little sad. “Maybe your luck is changing.”

  “Mom.” His blue eyes were steady, his voice kind. “Don’t make too big a deal out of this. It’s dinner, that’s all.”

  “So I’m happy my son is bringing a nice girl home to dinner.” She sprinkled a final handful of mozzarella on the lasagna, followed by some grated parmigiano-reggiano. “I’m not blind, you know. Or deaf. I hear what people say. I know there have been other women.”

  But nobody important enough to bring home, she thought, to introduce to family.

  “I can’t tell you how to live your life,” she said. “You’re too much like your father. You know what you know and you’ll do what you think is right. But isn’t it time you got over Kimberly?”

  “I am over her.”

  Tess slid her lasagna into the oven and turned to face him. Her son, so grown up, so confident, so sure.

  So wrong.

  Tess had always felt sorry for Kimberly, knocked up at nineteen, saddled with a baby she didn’t want, torn between parents who thought she’d thrown her life away and a husband who wasn’t the rebel she’d imagined him to be.

  Tess would always be grateful to the girl for giving them Josh. But she hated what their brief marriage had done to easy, openhearted Matt. Her older son was more sensitive than he let on.

  And more wounded.

  “If you were really over her, you’d stop blaming yourself that things didn’t work out.”

  A muscle worked in Matt’s jaw. “I don’t blame anybody. That doesn’t mean I’m eager to repeat my mistakes.”

  “It’s okay to need somebody in your life, Matt,” Tess said gently.

  “Sure.” He smiled without humor. “Until they’re not there anymore.”

  SUNDAY DINNER AT the home of a man she had gone out with exactly once. Okay, maybe twice.

  It wasn’t a date, Allison thought as she parked behind the inn. Or a parent-teacher conference.

  Which left her unsure what to wear and how to behave.

  Her bedroom now looked as if a tornado had ripped through her closet, jumbling shoes and sweaters together, tangling belts and blouses, depositing jeans and purses on the bed. After wasting an hour in front of her mirror, she’d finally decided on a white denim skirt paired with a coral top and an attitude of polite friendliness.

  She was grateful to Matt for trying to protect her from doing the walk of shame into her classroom on Monday. She had to be careful not to read too much into his invitation.

  Play it cool, she ordered herself, reaching for the flowers in the backseat. Take it slow. Parents liked her. Especially guys’ parents. It’s not like she was meeting her future in-laws or anything.

  Her heart hammered in her chest.

  She was stalling, she realized.

  Taking a deep breath, she got out of the car.

  Pink blooming crepe myrtle screened her view of the yard, but she could hear water splashing and a child’s high, excited laughter.

  “Oh, crap. My shoes got wet.”

  “Watch it.” Josh’s voice, deeper, amused. “He’s slippery.”

  Allison tightened her grip on her cellophane-wrapped bouquet, a flush creeping up her face. What did you say to a student who had seen you…

  They didn’t see anything, Matt had said. We were walking. We had our clothes on, for Christ’s sake.

  She had to face Josh sometime. Face them all.

  Pasting a smile on her face, she swung open the gate and started up the walk.

  A dog woofed.

  “Look out!”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Alarmed, Allison looked up as the big black Hound of the Baskervilles galloped across the sunlit yard, tongue lolling, teeth gleaming, water streaming from its sides.

  Allison froze.

  “Fezz! Fezzik!” Josh yelled. “Come!”

  With a joyful—menacing?—bark, the dog launched itself at Allison. She thrust out both hands to save herself, dropping her flowers to the ground.

  Impact.

  She staggered, grabbing the dog’s front legs. They tottered together like dancers as it panted hotly, happily, in her face.

  God, she hoped it was happy and not hungry.

  “Sorry.” Josh hauled the dog off by its collar. It dropped to all fours and shook vigorously, sending fur and water flying in all directions. “He’s usually better behaved with strangers.”

  “That’s all right,” Allison said weakly. Her skirt was ruined, two big muddy paw prints smearing the white denim. Her blouse was wet and covered with hair and reeked of dog.

  The dog collapsed on her foot, pressing against her leg. Its tail swept the grass. A few yards away, Matt’s niece Taylor watched them, her eyes huge in her thin face.

  Allison patted the dog’s big head. “Good dog,” she said uncertainly.

  A corner of Josh’s mouth crooked up, making him look like Matt. “I guess he likes you.”

  “Lucky me.” She brushed at the smears, making them worse.

  Josh grinned. “I don’t get it. You’re not his usual type.”

  Allison smiled back uncertainly. Were they still talking about the dog?

  The back door banged open.

  Allison looked up at Matt—clean, muscled, tanned hotness—and down at herself and sighed. So much for the hour she’d spent dithering over her clothes.

  Josh took one look at his father’s dark face and blurted, “Fezz got away from me.”

  “It wasn’t his fault.” Allison jumped to the boy’s defense. “I surprised them.”

  Matt surveyed Allison, a smile lurking in his eyes. “I’d say it was the other way around. Let me get you a towel.”

  “She doesn’t need a towel. She needs a change of clothes.” A slim woman in jeans, her salt-and-pepper hair styled in an attractive short cut, followed Matt outside. When she smiled, the corners of her warm brown eyes crinkled. “Tess Fletcher.”

  Allison wiped her palm on the back of her skirt before shaking hands. “Allison Carter.”

  “And you know my dad,” Matt said as the older man came out onto the porch.

  Captain Ahab.

  “Hi, Mr. Fletcher.”

  “Tom.” His faded blue eyes twinkled. “I see you’ve been baptized into the family already.”

  Allison smiled back ruefully. “I’ve at least been accepted into the Church of Dog.”

  “Here are your flowers.” The little girl, Taylor, held up the battered bouquet.

  Her heart warmed helplessly. “Thanks. Um…These are for you,” she said to Tess.

  “How thoughtful.” Tess accepted the bruised and decapitated flowers without batting an eye. “Matt, why don’t you take Allison upstairs while I put these in water? I’ll bring up something she can change into.”

  “It’s not necessary,” Allison said, determined to be a good sport. “If I could just…” Take a shower. “Use your washroom, I’ll be fine.”

  “Don’t argue with Mom,” Matt said. “It’s easier that way.”

  Josh nodded. “Resistance is futile.”

  Tess gave them a slitty-eyed look that promised retribution later. “The Mary Read room, I think,” she said to Matt. “I’ll be right up with the clothes.”

  Allison was carried into the house on a
wave of kindness, sucked into a tide of Fletchers. Five of them. She was outnumbered and overwhelmed.

  The kitchen smelled amazing, like an Italian restaurant. It had the same mix of old and new that charmed her on the rest of the island, wide plank floors and modern granite countertops, a scarred oak table and a yellow bowl full of ripening tomatoes and mail.

  “Through here,” Matt said.

  The hallway was the same, not soulless, not perfect, a little frayed around the edges, with homey touches everywhere. A leaded glass transom cast bars of light on the faded floral rug in front of the door. Bright pillows softened a built-in bench tucked into a corner of the stairs. A sea grass basket cradled a haphazard collection of shells.

  She knew it was an inn, a temporary resting stop on your way to someplace else. But it looked like a home, like the home she’d always dreamed of, enduring, lived in. Solid, with strong bones and just enough polish to promise something more.

  Her gaze slid sideways. Kind of like Matt.

  Yearning tightened her chest.

  “Beautiful woodwork,” she said, gliding her hand along the banister.

  The stairs were dark with age, the handrail burnished to a soft gleam.

  “Should be.” Matt smiled his crooked smile, making her stomach squeeze. “I spent four months of my life stripping paint off those spindles.”

  “Your family did the restoration yourselves?”

  “Most of it, yeah. In pieces, during the off-seasons, me and Dad and Sam. Sam Grady.”

  The handsome builder from the bar, with the cocky grin and TAG Heuer watch.

  “He worked for you?” she asked, surprised.

  Matt shook his head. “Sam was just around. His home life wasn’t…great. His dad remarried right before we moved to the island. Sam and his stepmother weren’t getting along so well, so…” Matt shrugged. “My parents kind of adopted him.”

  They reached the second floor landing, with a pretty cushioned window seat and an old cupboard fitted out as a coffee bar.

  Matt stopped at the end of the hall. “This was my sister’s room.”

  Allison looked at the neat brass plaque on the door and raised her brows. “‘Mary Read’?”

  “Eighteenth-century female pirate. All the rooms have pirate names.” He pushed open the door. “That’s Mary on the wall. Right next to the photo of Meg.”

  Allison crossed the bedroom to study the engraving of the woman with the cutlass. But it was the other picture that drew her, the photo of Matt’s sister in a black cap and gown, her blue eyes leveled at the camera, a grin splitting her face. Behind her was a classic brick portico hung with crimson banners.

  Allison blinked. “Your sister went to Harvard.”

  He came up behind her. “For undergrad. She got her MBA from Columbia.”

  Allison turned to face him. “When I made those comments about Josh going to college…Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because…I just assumed…”

  “That because Josh’s father charters boats for a living his family is a bunch of ignorant rednecks?”

  Yes. No. Heat swept her face. He was standing too close. She couldn’t think. Matt had warned her about making assumptions. But she’d been so determined to help she hadn’t listened.

  “It doesn’t make any difference that Josh’s aunt got an advanced degree from a fancy school,” Matt continued evenly. “Or that his daddy had to drop out of State. Or that his mother’s on the faculty at Chapel Hill, though if you asked me that has something to do with Josh not wanting so much to do with college. What matters is what’s right for Josh.”

  She moistened her lips. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

  His gaze arrowed to her mouth, his quiet blue eyes dark and turbulent as the sea. Her blood rushed in her ears.

  And then his mouth came down hard on hers as he backed her against the wall and kissed her. His mouth was hot and hungry, darkly flavored with need and frustration. Her heart pounded. Her knees went limp as string. He kissed like a starving man, imprinting her with his heat, pressing her up against the cool plaster wall. It was stunning to be kissed like this, a little crazy, a little rough. She’d never been wanted like this, desperately.

  She quivered and held on, her hands reaching into his hair.

  “I brought your…Oh.”

  Matt’s mother.

  Oh, God.

  Allison jerked. Matt raised his head, but he didn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her get away. It was a blatant display of possession, inappropriate and oddly thrilling. She squirmed.

  “I’ll just put these on the bed,” Tess said, her tone dry. “Unless they’ll be in the way.”

  Matt held Allison’s gaze a moment, his eyes dark and hot, before he eased his body away. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Five minutes before the lasagna comes out of the oven,” she said.

  Her footsteps faded down the hall.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Allison hissed.

  Matt glanced back down at her, his lids heavy. A corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “Kissing you. I’ve wanted to since you got here.”

  Another dark thrill chased through her. “Your whole family is downstairs.”

  “Well, that’s why I waited,” Matt said reasonably.

  She bit back a smile. “What will they think? Your mother. Josh.”

  “My mother will think we’re involved. Which is why you came, remember? And Josh already knows.”

  It was hard to remember anything with her blood still pumping, her head still spinning from his kiss.

  She pressed her lips together. She could still taste him on her mouth. “If you invited me to save my reputation, you’d better get downstairs.”

  “I didn’t…” Matt stopped.

  Her heart drummed in her chest. She held her breath in anticipation. “You didn’t…what?”

  “Nothing.” He smiled again crookedly. He glanced down at his wet shirt front and then at the bed. “Need help changing?”

  She squelched an unreasonable feeling of disappointment. “No. Out.”

  MATT GRABBED A fresh shirt before he rejoined his family in the kitchen. No point in inviting comments from Josh or, God love him, his dad.

  Allison came downstairs a few minutes later wearing a pair of Josh’s jeans rolled twice at the bottom and a shirt of Tess’s just tight enough to make Matt wonder what she was wearing under it.

  Or not wearing.

  His mind flashed back to Friday night, to the memory of her breast in his hand, soft, warm, velvet.

  His mother kicked his ankle. “Matt, why don’t you carry the salad into the dining room?”

  Wincing, he accepted the bowl.

  “Everything smells delicious,” Allison said politely. “Can I do anything?”

  “Just grab your wineglass,” Tess said. “I think we’re ready to eat.”

  Matt stood back to let Allison through to the dining room, watching her walk, appreciating the way Josh’s old jeans hung on her waist, clung to her butt.

  Tom followed the direction of his gaze. “Nice catch. I wouldn’t throw her back.”

  Matt smiled and shook his head. “She’s not a fish, Dad.”

  “No, she’s not.” Tom winked. “Got you hooked, anyway.”

  He opened his mouth to deny it. Found the words stuck in his throat.

  Unease rippled through him.

  Inviting Allison to Sunday dinner had been his idea. But he didn’t want his family reading too much into her visit.

  The dog, aware of his disgrace, waited until they all were seated before attempting to slink under the table.

  “Fezzik, quit,” Matt said quietly.

  With a sigh, the dog retreated to the kitchen doorway, collapsing with his head on his paws.

  “It’s all right,” Allison said. “I don’t mind.”

  “No dogs in the dining room while we’re eating,” Tess said.

  “Except at
Christmas,” Josh put in. “And Thanksgiving and Easter. Which are the only times we eat in here anyway.”

  Tess turned a little pink. “No wet dogs in the dining room at any time,” she said.

  “It must be nice having a dog,” Allison said to Josh. “I always wanted a pet growing up.”

  “You didn’t have pets? Like, not even a hamster or something?”

  “My parents didn’t believe in keeping animals in the house. I brought a kitten home once. But…Well.” She stabbed at her salad with her fork.

  “I have a cat,” Taylor volunteered.

  This was the first Matt had heard about it.

  Allison smiled at her. “What’s your cat’s name?”

  “Snowball.”

  “And where is Snowball now?”

  Taylor lowered her gaze to her plate. “I don’t know.”

  Ouch.

  Allison met Matt’s eyes for one brief moment before she turned her attention smoothly back to Josh. “So, is your dog’s name really Fezzik?”

  “Yeah. It’s from a movie.”

  “The Princess Bride. I know. Did you ever read the book?”

  He shot her a grin. “Is it a kissing book?”

  She must have recognized the quote, because she laughed.

  “That was Josh’s favorite movie when he was little,” Tess said. “We used to watch it together when he stayed home sick from school.”

  “Isn’t there a movie of The Scarlet Letter?” Josh asked. “Maybe I should watch that. You know, instead of reading the book.”

  Allison raised her eyebrows. “Demi Moore rescued by Indians? Please.” She turned to Tess. “This is wonderful lasagna. I don’t think I’ve had it with sausage before.”

  And as easily as that, she turned the conversation.

  Maybe it was a teacher thing, Matt thought.

  Maybe it was something else. Call it class, manners, breeding. But there was more to her than mere politeness, a genuine warmth, an actual interest, that made people respond.

  “Lasagna al forno. It’s a family recipe,” Tess said. “My parents owned a restaurant in Chicago. My brother runs it now.”

  Allison glanced from Tess to Tom. “Then how did you two meet?”

  “I was at Great Lakes,” Tom said. “Naval Station. Walked into Saltoni’s for dinner, walked out with the waitress.”