Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel (19 page)

“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.”

*   *   *

G
ABE
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’t
s,” 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.

L
UKE
F
LETCHER
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.

But he couldn’t help thinking that Jane didn’t need another man running interference in her life. Underneath the soft and
the sweet, she was strong and determined. Brave enough to go after what she wanted. Tough enough to call Gabe on his shit. He figured she was capable of making her own decisions, of protecting her own son.

Or maybe he just wanted to believe that.

“I don’t know where this is headed,” Gabe said. “But I’m not going back.”

Luke sighed. “You always did charge into things.”

The screen door opened and Kate came out. “While you, of course, are the most patient, the most reasonable, the most easygoing of men,” Luke’s wife said dryly. “Hi, Gabe.”

“Kate.”

Luke’s daughter slipped out behind her. She smiled at Gabe. “Hey, Mr. Murphy. Daddy, Grandma’s ready for the corn.”

“Here you go.” Luke handed her the bag. “I’m patient,” he said to his wife.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re relentless until you get what you want. There’s a difference.”

Luke caught her hand and kissed it. “Got me you, didn’t it?”

And Kate, the hardheaded, cool-eyed lawyer, blushed and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

Taylor made gagging noises.

This
, Gabe thought. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his breastbone to relieve the funny pressure on his heart.

Be sure
, Luke had said.

This was what he wanted. This laughter, this warmth, this love, this family. He wanted them all with Jane.

Now all he had to do was convince her that he could be what she wanted, too.

*   *   *

A
IDAN
SAT
WITH
his after-school snack of milk and cookies, surrounded by stacked tables and chairs covered in drop cloths.

“Like a fort,” Jane said, smiling, as she ruffled her fingers through her son’s straight brown hair. The gesture made Gabe shiver all over with longing, like a dog.

“I need to get these cakes in the oven so they’re ready to
decorate tomorrow. You copy your spelling words and don’t bother Mr. Murphy. You can play with your Legos.”

The boy pulled his head between his shoulders like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.

“He’s no bother,” Gabe said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I could use a hand on those shelves. After he finishes his homework.”

That earned him a glance, bright and wary, from the boy, and another smile from Jane. “Well, now that you’ve talked me into painting the entire dining room, I think we both should give you a hand,” she said. “Aidan?”

The boy jerked his shoulder in what might have been a gesture of assent.

“We’ll be fine,” Gabe said. “Go bake.”

He angled his brush along the trim, laying down an even line of paint against the bright white primer.

When he was a kid working with his uncle Chuck, he used to hate painting. He wanted to rip things up and nail things down, to get his hands on power tools. But he wasn’t an impatient sixteen-year-old any longer. There was a different satisfaction, he was discovering, in seeing a project through from start to finish, in being able to step back and think,
I made this. It’s good. It’s done.

Especially since he was doing it for Jane. He liked the new color she had chosen, a soft taupe that wasn’t blue or brown or gray but a combination of all three, like the Sound on a cloudy day. The neutral tone pulled the shades of the outdoors inside, providing a clean backdrop for her pretty cakes and bright pastries.

He finished the door and started cutting in around a window.

“Grandpa told me not to talk to you,” Aidan announced. “Because you were in jail.”

Gabe’s paintbrush bobbled. Well, shit.

He reached for a rag to wipe the smear of paint from the trim. Now what?

He’d never been any damn good at keeping his mouth shut. But even he knew that
Your grandpa can go to hell
was not an appropriate response to a seven-and-a-half-year-old.

“You don’t need to talk to pick up a paintbrush,” he said evenly.

Aidan drank his milk, sneakers swinging back and forth, back and forth. He wasn’t even tall enough for his feet to touch the ground.

“My dad’s in jail,” Aidan said.

“I heard.” Gabe dipped his brush. “That sucks.”

Could he say “sucks”?

“Yeah,” Aidan said gleefully. “It
really
sucks.”

Okay, probably he should watch the language.

“Mom says you go to jail when you break the rules,” Aidan said after another pause. “Did you break the rules?”

Gabe’s back stiffened, but he kept his tone easy, his grip on the paintbrush light. “Yeah, I did.”

Aidan wiped at his milk mustache. The bruise on his cheek had faded to a yellow smudge. His lip was all healed. “What did you do?”

I killed a man
. “Got in a fight.”

Aidan nodded wisely. “Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what Grandpa says.”

“Sometimes it’s smarter to walk away,” Gabe said. “You ready to get started on those shelves?”

Aidan jumped up, his sneakers hitting the floor with a smack. “Okay.”

Gabe set him up on a corner of the drop cloth with a brush, a small roller, and the already-primed shelves. “Edges first,” he instructed. “You want to catch the drips with the brush, like this, see? Then we’ll go over it with the roller, get a nice smooth finish.”

Gabe pulled over the ladder to cut in around the big picture window, stopping his own work occasionally to praise, to adjust, to demonstrate. “Good job,” he said, shifting a finished shelf out of the way, and Aidan beamed.

The kid looked just like his mother when he smiled.

Gabe cleared his throat. “Watch those drips.”

They worked together for a while in silence.

“Can you write letters in jail?” Aidan asked. The boy’s head was bent, his straight hair flopping into his eyes.

“If you have somebody to write to,” Gabe said.

“I wrote to my dad once,” Aidan said.

Ah, crap.

Gabe glanced toward the kitchen door, hoping for rescue. Where was Jane? She would know what to say. According to Luke, she had raised her son on her own. Aidan’s dad wasn’t even in the picture.

But maybe that was the point. Gabe knew from bitter experience that it didn’t matter how much of a shit your father was, there was a part of you that still wanted his love. That craved his approval.

“What did your mom think about that?”

“She didn’t want me to at first. But he’s still, like, my dad, right? He came to get me. Last summer. He wanted to meet me, he said. But he never wrote back.”

Gabe lowered his brush, thinking of all the postcards he’d mailed over the past ten years that went unanswered, all the things he’d said and left unsaid, never finding the right combination of words that would turn his mom into a mother like other mothers, a mother who cared. Like Tess.

Like Jane.

But he could remember (couldn’t he?) good times, too. His mom bringing him ginger ale in bed once when he was sick. Uncle Chuck taking him to see the Pistons edge out the Bulls.

Aidan wouldn’t have those kind of memories with his dad.

“You writing to your dad like that . . . You gave it your best shot,” Gabe said. “You stepped up. That was a brave thing, that was a good thing, for you to do. You’re a good kid.”

“Then why didn’t he answer?”

Because he’s an asshole, Gabe wanted to say, but that wouldn’t help. Probably nothing he could say would help.

He wiped his hands on a rag, choosing his words with care.
“Sometimes dads don’t know how to be dads. Your dad, he didn’t step up. That’s on him. That’s not on you.”

Aidan dropped his head, his bangs shielding his eyes.

“Hey.” Gabe squatted down on his heels, waiting until the kid looked up. “The thing is, the thing you should know is, you’ve got people who are here for you. Your mom. Your grandfather.”

Me, he thought.

But it was too early to say that. Too early even to think it.

Too late to take the thought back.

“It’s not the same,” Aidan said.

“I know.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Yeah, I do. Which is why you can talk to me. And how I know that you will get through this. I’m not saying it will be easy. But you got people who love you who will help. Even one person who’s there for you can make all the difference.”

Those big brown eyes searched Gabe’s face. “Who do you have?”

He was some kid. Gabe rubbed his jaw to hide his smile. “Well, when I was your age, I had my uncle Chuck.”

“Where does he live?”

He’s dead
. “He’s in heaven, I guess.”

Aidan’s brow puckered. “But who do you have now? You need somebody now.”

Gabe opened his mouth to reply when something—an indrawn breath, a sudden stillness, a scent like vanilla in the air—dragged at his attention. He lifted his head.

Jane, standing at the entrance to the kitchen.

Their eyes met and held. Held, while the moment flowed and thickened between them.
You need somebody now.

“I’m working on it,” Gabe said.

*   *   *

G
ABE
ROSE
FROM
his crouch with a long-limbed, easy strength that made Jane’s knees wobble. His eyes were dark
as molasses, with just that hint of gold and green drizzled around the edges like honey. Sweet. Dazzling.

“How long have you been standing there?” he asked.

Jane swallowed. “Long enough.”

Long enough to hear his patience and honesty with Aidan, to lose her breath and a piece of her heart. An almost maternal tenderness moved through her, heavy and fierce.

She wanted him. And he needed her, or he thought he did.

All she had to do was go back to being the old Jane, the one who trusted her happiness and her son to somebody else.

She cleared her throat. Smiled. “How’s the painting coming?”