Carolina Man

by Virginia Kantra

  “He can make Meg happy. You’re a married woman.”

  She smiled. “With three grown children. And two grandchildren. If only Luke—”

  “Don’t worry about Luke. He’s home, Tess. First Christmas in two years,” Tom said.

  “He is. I’m so glad. I just wish,” she said, and shut her mouth.

  I wish I knew what was going to happen with Taylor. I wish I could fix things.

  When their children were little, when Tess was younger and strong, they had believed she could make anything better. Maybe for a while, seeing herself in their eyes, she had believed it, too. It hurt, recognizing there were bruises she could not soothe, problems she could not solve, issues they had to work out for themselves.

  “I just want them all to be happy,” she said.

  “They’re fine.” If he was upset at all about tomorrow’s visit, about a stranger coming into their house to question their care of their granddaughter, he didn’t let on. His stoic acceptance was deeply reassuring.

  And the tiniest bit annoying, Tess admitted to herself.

  “You worry too much,” he said. “And you do too much.”

  “Not as much as I used to. When Matt came home with Josh—” He was only twenty, Tess remembered. Her first son, her firstborn, so determined to meet his responsibilities, reeling from his wife’s desertion and lack of sleep . . .

  “Sixteen years ago, babe. We’re not that young anymore.”

  Tess narrowed her eyes in amusement. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I’m sure as hell not trying to make you feel worse. You’ve been knocking yourself out taking care of everybody else as long as I can remember. I didn’t say anything back then because you wouldn’t have it any other way.” Tom linked his long arms around her waist to nudge her closer. “But you’ve got to take care of yourself now. Let the kids handle things for a while.”

  She let her head rest against his lean chest, breathing in the familiar scents of salt and shaving cream. She’d just graduated from her walker to a cane. His support felt good in more ways than one. “Matt did everything while I was in the hospital. Ran his charter business and the inn, took care of Josh and Taylor. And when I got out of rehab, Meg came home to help. But I’m better now.” Tess lifted her head to meet her husband’s eyes. “I should be able to do more.”

  “Doctor said you need to take things slow. You do too much, you’re going to wipe yourself out.”

  “I did close the inn for the holidays,” she reminded him. “We don’t have any guests until Sam’s sister’s wedding at New Year’s. We’ll just be family for Christmas.”

  “So you’ll only be stuck with running around for, what? Seven people?”

  “Nine,” Tess said. “With Allison and Sam.”

  She was delighted to welcome Matt’s new love into their home and their hearts. And Meg’s Sam, bless him, had been part of the family since before they were in high school.

  “Anyway, Meg is taking over the baking this year. Allison wants to help with decorating,” Tess said.

  Tom grunted, clearly unimpressed.

  Tess couldn’t help herself. Straight-faced, she added, “And I thought you could buy everybody’s gifts this Christmas.”

  His jaw slackened. “You want me to . . .”

  “I can write you a list,” she offered helpfully, tongue planted firmly in cheek.

  He braced like a man going into battle. “Sure. Whatever you . . .” He bent down to study her face. “You’re kidding,” he said in relief.

  She smiled and patted his cheek. “I finished all the shopping online two weeks ago.”

  Tom chuckled. “Good one, babe.”

  “Thanks.” Her grin spread. “Let me know if you want to help with the wrapping.”

  His hands slid to her butt and gave an affectionate squeeze. “Why don’t I take you out to dinner instead?”

  “Oh, Tom, I’d love to. But it’s Taylor and Luke’s first night in their new house.”

  “So they can get their own dinner.”

  “Or they could come with us,” Tess suggested.

  Tom met her gaze straight on. She was reminded suddenly of the first time she saw him, forty years ago, striding into her family’s restaurant in Little Italy, straight as a rifle and cocky as hell. Two weeks later, they were married.

  Maybe he didn’t want to go out with the kids.

  After months of her being in the hospital, in rehab, in pain, they had recently, carefully, begun to make love again. In some ways, her accident had brought them closer together than ever before. But the balance between them had shifted. Like old partners learning a new dance, they had yet to find their rhythm.

  “Whatever you want,” Tom said.

  Tess flushed. What did she want?

  I want everything to go back to normal. I want to be my old self again.

  • • •

  LUKE DUMPED A stack of folded T-shirts into an empty drawer. Compared to his sandbagged, mice-infested plywood hooch, this two-bedroom cottage was a palace. He had heat and hot water, a real toilet, and meals that didn’t come out of a box.

  He hoped the social worker was impressed.

  He tossed some socks in after the shirts, chafing as if he hadn’t changed his clothes or scrubbed under a hose in weeks.

  He didn’t mind a little boredom. He was used to long stretches of mind-numbing waiting punctuated by minutes of adrenaline-fueled terror.

  He could handle the busy work. That’s how he spent his downtime—repacking gear, recleaning weapons, linking machine gun rounds into his belt. You trained and prepared so that when the moment came, you were ready. You could react without thinking. And without mistakes.

  But in Afghanistan, Luke knew exactly what he had to accomplish at all times. Everything was a matter of survival, of life or death. His men trusted him. And when he gave an order, they obeyed.

  With Taylor . . . He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. How something as simple as checking his daughter’s homework or packing her lunch for school could blow up in his face. Or why he was fighting with a ten-year-old over which television shows she could watch or whether or not she ate her leafy vegetables. He could lead men into battle, but he couldn’t get his daughter to eat a fucking salad.

  And this home visit with the social worker threatened to expose all his weaknesses.

  God only knows what she suspected him of already, what kind of talk was going around the island. Kate said the complaint was anonymous, the report confidential. But that wouldn’t stop their neighbors from talking when Child Protective Services showed up at the door. Most of the talk would be kind. The Fletchers were well liked. But Luke felt terrible for bringing this trouble down on his family. His parents. Matt. Josh.

  As long as you cooperate, Kate had said, you have nothing to worry about.

  Which was the sort of thing the brass told you before they sent you without backup into a situation that was already FUBAR—Fucked-Up Beyond All Recognition.

  Luke slid the drawer shut. His reflection glowered back at him from the mirror, frustration tightening his eyes and mouth.

  You can do this, Kate had said.

  He wanted to believe her.

  He wanted to see her. Naked would be good.

  He liked her, her humor and compassion and hot, sweet mouth, liked the laughter that lurked beneath her lawyer’s mask and that little sound she made in her throat. He respected the way she battled for her clients, the way she’d had his six, her fierce focus on doing the right thing.

  Taylor has to be your top priority, she’d said, and the hell of it was, she was right.

  He was Taylor’s father. He had to act like one for as long as he was around. His family expected it of him. He expected it of himself.

  He didn’t know what Taylor expected. She barely spoke to him.

  Give her time, Matt had advised.

  Easy for Matt to say. She talked to Matt. Matt had been there for her when the real shit went
down, when Luke went back to Afghanistan, when some asshole drunk in an SUV plowed into their mother’s car. Matt had handled the nightmares, the homework, the visits to the vice principal’s office and to family court. Providing that stuff Kate talked about, things like routine, security, honesty, love.

  Thank God for Matt.

  Luke only heard about his daughter’s life, his mother’s accident, secondhand and after the fact, with all the gory details edited out. They all followed the unwritten contract of a deployed military family, dating from Tom’s years in the Corps: I won’t tell you what it’s really like here if you don’t tell me what you’re going through there. There were things he’d seen and done he had no intention of talking about ever. Not even to his dad, who had done two tours in Nam.

  Maybe especially not to Dad.

  You need to answer everything she asks, even questions you think are none of her business, Kate had said about the visit from the social worker.

  The thought made Luke break into a sweat.

  He wished Taylor would talk more, though. Enough to let him know how she was doing. Or give him a clue to what he was doing wrong.

  He looked up and there she was in the door of his room, silent as a ghost in her new athletic shoes, watching him from under the brim of his utility cap. Her face was blank, her eyes guarded.

  He recognized the look and sighed. At least she wasn’t throwing rocks. “How’s your room?”

  “It’s fine.”

  In the Fletcher family, “fine” could mean anything from It’s all good to It’s just a flesh wound.

  He tried again. “All unpacked?”

  She nodded.

  “You got your old stuff?” There hadn’t been as much in that single carton as he’d hoped. A blue comforter and some pillows, Mardi Gras beads and a couple of stuffed animals. That picture of her mom from the box of photos.

  Taylor gave another nod.

  Luke’s jaw clenched. He had hoped she’d show a little . . . He wasn’t looking for gratitude. But some acknowledgment that he was here, that he was trying, that they were a unit now, would be good. He wanted his daughter to feel like they were a family. Like this was home. They had their own house now. She had her own room. She needed . . .

  “One more thing,” he said. He waited until her gaze met his. “It came in yesterday. A buddy of mine was holding it until this weekend, but I was thinking we could pick it up today. If you want to ride along.”

  It was a safe bet she’d say no. She had yet to show any real desire for his company.

  “Okay.” Taylor tilted her head. “Where are we going?”

  With her head cocked, she looked like Bibi, the dog his squad had adopted back in Afghanistan. Hopeful. Doubtful.

  The knot in his jaw eased. “It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “You’ll like this one,” he said.

  He hoped.

  They stopped by the main house. At almost thirty years old, he didn’t need to tell his parents every time he went out. But he didn’t want them to worry about the kid.

  “I’ve got Taylor,” he called. “We’ll be gone for a while.”

  “Good,” Tom said.

  Luke raised his brows. His parents were standing close together—very close together—by the kitchen counter. His mother’s face was pink. Her eyes were bright.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” Taylor piped up.

  “Heading to the base,” Luke said. “Pick up that package I told you about.”

  “Is that a good idea? With, well, everything else going on?”

  Because of everything else going on. “We’ll be fine,” Luke said.

  “I thought you were going Saturday.”

  Luke met his dad’s eyes. “Change of plans.”

  “Semper Gumby,” Tom said.

  “What?” Taylor asked.

  Luke glanced down. “It’s a saying. Like . . . be flexible. Like Gumby.”

  “Oh.”

  Maybe she was too young to remember the cartoon.

  His mother smoothed her hair. “Will you be home for dinner?”

  “Thanks,” Luke said. “We’re good.”

  Time to get out of the old people’s hair and let them get back to . . . Well, Jesus, he didn’t want to think about what they were getting back to. They were his parents, for Christ’s sake. But it was pretty cool that they were still into each other after all these years. One of these days . . .

  Okay, no. He wasn’t looking for a house and a ring and the next forty years waking up next to the same woman. Any woman, he told himself as he went outside to the Jeep, and shook Kate Dolan from his mind. He would be gone in three months. He could be dead. He didn’t think about the future. He had responsibilities, he thought with a touch of desperation. To his men. To the Corps. He had commitments.

  Taylor climbed into the Jeep in front of him, wiggling around to reach for her seat belt, all bony angles and soft blond hair, and the solid ground beneath him shook and shifted like a road in the wake of an explosion.

  His hand clenched on the door of the Jeep as he struggled for balance.

  He had a responsibility here, too. A commitment. What was he going to do about that in three months? What was he going to do about Taylor?

  He took a deep breath and started the ignition. Nothing, he decided.

  They’d get through this home visit and then they’d figure something out. Taylor would be fine. The family would pull together, the way they always did. He would do his duty, the way he always had. Nobody could ask, nobody could expect, more of him than that.

  They never had.

  • • •

  TAYLOR ROLLED HER head against the back of her seat, sneaking a look at her dad . . . at Luke under her eyelashes as they drove along. He had a good face, thin and tan and strong, with little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes like he smiled or squinted a lot.

  He wasn’t smiling now. Maybe he was sorry he invited her along.

  My mom thinks your dad is hot, her best friend Madison Lodge had whispered in class this morning when they were supposed to be working on their group science project.

  Taylor had resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Madison’s mom thought Uncle Matt was hot, too.

  Wouldn’t it be cool if he asked her out? Madison had continued. What if they got married? Then we would be sisters.

  Taylor really liked Madison and her little sister, Hannah. It would be cool to have a sister. Or sisters. But she wasn’t ready for another mom. She wasn’t even used to having a dad yet.

  She snuck another look at his profile, feeling a little glow of pride at the way he looked in his uniform, all tall and serious. He had big boots that laced halfway up his legs and made a loud sound when he walked. Like his boots meant business.

  When he came to pick her up that first day at Grandma Jo’s, she’d never been so glad to see anybody in all her life.

  She’d felt safe. No more sleeping on the couch. No more creepy Uncle Kevin.

  Her dad was there to protect her.

  But then he’d gone away again.

  Maybe she shouldn’t get used to having a dad. Because what if she did and then something happened to him?

  Taylor swallowed and stared out the window, a funny feeling in her stomach.

  She tried to make up some story, where her dad got injured in the war and she nursed him back to health and he loved her and stayed home with her forever. But she couldn’t make the story work, even in her head. She was just a kid. She couldn’t take care of anybody. Anyway, she wasn’t even sure her dad liked her very much.

  I want to be with you, he’d said, like he meant it.

  Maybe.

  But he was still going away.

  Sometimes she wished her mom had told her about Luke when she was alive. Maybe, if Luke had known about her before, he would have wanted to see her sometimes.

  Maybe she would have grown up visiting with the Flet
chers, Uncle Matt and Aunt Meg, Grandma Tess and Grandpa Tom. And Josh. She loved Josh.

  And then she felt bad. It wasn’t like she had needed a dad back then. She had Mom. She missed her mom. We don’t need anybody, Mom would say as they snuggled together on the couch, staying up late, watching movies. Or going into Kinston to watch a baseball game, eating hotdogs under the lights.

  But then Mom died. What if her dad died, too?

  Taylor couldn’t stand it.

  A rush of air battered her ears. She looked over. Luke had rolled down his window and was reaching into his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

  She scowled. “You’re not supposed to smoke in front of me.”

  “Sorry.” He tapped the pack back into his pocket. Rolled the window back up.

  “You’re setting a bad example,” she said, taking a certain satisfaction in being a brat.

  Luke looked at her, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t sound like you’re about to light up just because you watched me smoke a cigarette.”

  Taylor sniffed, resisting the urge to smile back. “I might. Anyway, smoking’s bad for you. You could get cancer.” You could die. Her heart clutched. “You should quit.”

  “You’re right.” He nodded. “I will. I only smoke on deployment anyway.”

  She eyed him sideways, wanting to believe. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. The smoke’s not good for you, either. This way we’ll both stay healthy.”

  Okay. That sounded like he planned to be around a while. “Promise?” she said, not sure exactly what she was asking. Please quit? Don’t die? Don’t leave me?

  “Promise,” he said.

  Taylor sighed and let her head rest against the back of her seat, only partially reassured.

  • • •

  THE ENTRYWAY OF the small brown house smelled of diapers and dogs.

  “Sorry, Staff Sergeant.” Corporal Danny Hill led the way through the narrow hall to the kitchen. “It’s been crazy around here. Beer?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks.” Luke edged a stroller out of their path. Behind him, Taylor stepped over the bright plastic rings scattered on the floor. “Appreciate you doing this. How’s the new mama?”