Carolina Girl (14 page)

“They made it work on Ocracoke. Why not here?”

“I’m impressed.”

He shrugged, embarrassed by her praise, uncomfortable with his own enthusiasm. “Don’t be. It’s all talk at this point. I can provide the slips and the facilities, but the watermen need to organize to make it work. Cut out the middleman, form a nonprofit to run the fish market. There’s a lot of PR involved, not just to get a project like this off the ground, but to sustain the funding.”

“It’s very promising. And exciting. You have a lot riding on this,” she observed softly.

More than she knew. More than he wanted to admit, even to himself. “A house.”

“Excuse me?”

It was too soon to tell her. Until he had backers, until he had the fishermen and the town behind him, he didn’t have anything to offer her or anybody else. Just a growing, gut-clenching recognition that if he failed in this, he failed everybody.

“The old man is giving me a house if I pull this off.” He slanted a look at her. As far as he knew, Meg had never accepted a dime from her parents, never asked for anything from anybody. She’d earned her own way through school and on Wall Street. “Still impressed?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not a gift. It’s compensation. Like a bonus.”

“It’s a bet,” Sam said flatly. “He’s counting on me failing. He figures he can’t lose.”

“He’s not going to lose,” Meg said.

His shoulder blades tightened. “You think I can’t do it.”

She gave him this incredibly patient you-are-such-an-idiot look. “No, I believe you can. And that means everybody wins. Your father gets a great development with the Grady name on it. The watermen get a working fish house. The island preserves a piece of its heritage and stops shedding jobs. And you get . . .”

A chance to prove myself, Sam thought. Or fuck up on a large and public scale.

“Real estate,” he said.

“A chance to prove your ideas.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm, turning to face him in the moonlight. “Your vision.”

Her eyes shone like the night sky. When she talked like that, with passion and conviction, he could almost believe her. Almost believe in himself.

Smiling, he shook his head. “Sugar, I don’t have visions. I’m just a builder.”

“Liar,” she said. “You called me a planner before like that was a bad thing. But you’re planning for the future of the whole island, Sam. You’re building people’s dreams.”

He stared at her, shaken by her faith in him. “Meggie.”

He didn’t waste time contemplating the future. But with no effort at all, he could picture the next fifty years or so with her. Not at the edges of his life, but part of it. His.

Now he just had to figure out how to make her see things the same way.

“If you stay,” she continued, “it won’t be because of anything your father does. Not because of his health or the house, not because you’re rebelling or conforming to his expectations. It’s because of who you are. Because of what you want.”

He wanted her. His heart pounded. “What about you?”

She blinked in genuine bewilderment. “What about me?”

All in, he thought. “Will you stay?”

She gave a half laugh, like he’d surprised her. “I’m leaving for New York.”

His throat felt tight and dry. Deliberately, he swallowed. “You don’t have to.”

Her brows drew together, forming a little double crease above her nose. “I do, actually. I have a thing, a sort of interview, on Friday with a PR firm I used to work with. That’s what I wanted to tell you earlier. Ask you.” She smiled at him a bit uncertainly, Meggie, who was certain about everything. “I was hoping you could give me a ride to the airport.”

* * *

“Y
OU WANT ME
to drive you to the airport on Friday,” Sam repeated slowly.

“If you have time.” He didn’t look very enthusiastic about the prospect of chauffeuring her around, Meg thought. Well, he had better things to do with his time. “Look, if you’re tied up with this project, don’t worry about it. It’s not that big a deal.”

“It sounds like a big deal to me. When are you leaving?”

She drew back, confused and a little offended by his tone. “I haven’t made my airline reservations yet. I figured I’d fly into LaGuardia early Friday morning. Bruce wants me to meet with the management team and then have lunch with the client.” Her earlier excitement returned, overriding her disappointment at Sam’s attitude. “It’s not financial services, and it’s contract work, not an actual position within the firm, not yet, but . . .”

“What time are you coming back?”

“I thought I’d stay the weekend.”

“Where?”

“At my place.” Where else?

“With him. That Derek guy.”

Meg narrowed her eyes. Okay, the tone, the attitude were beginning to piss her off. “Of course with Derek. It’s his condo, too. Our condo.”

“How many bedrooms?”

Her lungs emptied. Was Sam
jealous
? The notion was oddly, darkly thrilling. And ridiculous. “That’s none of your business.”

“Are you going to sleep with him?”

Her stomach jumped. She ignored for the moment the fact that she wasn’t eagerly anticipating having sex with Derek. She still needed to see him. To talk to him. What they did—or didn’t do—after that was between the two of them. “I live with him.”

Sam’s eyes were dark beneath that cowlick lock of hair on his forehead. “What about us?”

She wanted to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. But of course she did. Guilt sharpened her voice. “There is no ‘us,’ Sam. Not the way you mean. We’re friends. We have a . . . a history, I guess you’d call it. But that’s all.”

“Bullshit. You want me.”

Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

The laughter leaped back into his eyes. “And I want you,” he said. “The labels don’t matter.”

She felt the situation slipping away from her, the conversation spinning out of control. “Of course they matter,” she snapped. “Derek is my boyfriend.”

“Then why the hell doesn’t he act like he is? Why don’t you?”

She was furious with him. And with herself, for letting things get this far. “You have no right to talk to me like that.” Her voice shook shamefully. “You have no reason—”

“You want reasons?” Sam rapped. “Fine.” He grabbed her upper arms and hauled her against him. “Here’s your reason,” he muttered and crushed his mouth to hers.

Her brain shut down. His kiss was bruising, shattering. He pressed her mouth open, delving inside, blanketing her in sensation, hot, heavy, smothering. Her skin prickled with lust. He tasted of coffee, bitter, strong, and sweet. She sagged against him, responding helplessly to the blatantly suggestive thrust of his tongue, the rough possession of his mouth and hands. His arms banded around her. Her toes curled in the sand. There was something almost desperate in his demand, something almost indecent about her surrender, yielding, liquid, holding nothing back.

Out of control.
She fisted her hands against his chest.

He jerked back. Their eyes clashed.

Her heart hammered against her ribs. She’d never imagined she could be this upset. This aroused.

Screw it.
She dragged his head back down to hers, meeting his demand with her own.
No surrender.
He used his tongue. She used her teeth, nipping lightly at his lower lip, taking his mouth as he devoured hers. Her fingers twisted in his shirt, pulling him closer before she shoved him away.

He released her instantly. They stared at each other, their breath rasping against the quiet night. This time, her gaze fell first.

“Meggie . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She was burning up, her face on fire, her body aflame.

He swore. “You can’t kiss me like that and then go back to him.”

Her mouth felt bruised. A vicious tic of arousal pulsed low and thick inside her. “I need to go home.”

A long pause before he nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll drive you back. Taylor should be there by now.”

“No, I mean
home.
” She straightened her spine. “To New York.”

Twelve

H
E’D FUCKED UP.

Sam drove Meg home in quivering silence. The night air streaming outside was cool, but inside the cab the atmosphere was a lot warmer, a slow burn of lust and frustration on his side, anger and embarrassment on hers.

She was pressed against the passenger door, her full lips a tight line, resolutely ignoring him. Like if she gave him the slightest sign of encouragement, he would fall on her like a dog with a bone. Which he had. Dumb move.

But then she’d kissed him back.

The streets were almost empty. The truck’s headlights caught a couple teenagers drifting home from the party at the gym, flashed off a cop car cruising under the streetlights.

You have no right to talk to me like that
.

So yeah, maybe he should have tried to persuade her, reassure her, share his
feelings
like a girl instead of acting like a possessive asshole.

But he could fix this. He could make her listen to him.

He shot a considering look at her sharp, white profile. If she gave him a chance.

He pulled in front of the Pirates’ Rest, all tricked out for Halloween with creaking shrouds and floodlights and a pirate mannequin glowering from the porch. Meg was out of the truck before Sam could come around to open her door.

He caught up with her on the walk. “You still need a ride to the airport?”

She climbed two steps to the porch, so that their heads were on a level—she wouldn’t give him the advantage of height, she wasn’t giving him anything—and whipped around. “Go to hell,” she said, low and clear, and stalked off.

He grinned. “Meg.” He strode up the steps after her, yanked at the door before she could slam it in his face. “
Meggie.
”

Everybody turned. The hall was full of light and Fletchers, Tom, Tess, Matt, Allison.

Sam checked on the threshold.
Shit.

“Hi, honey, did you have a nice . . .” Balanced on her walker, Tess looked from Meg’s stormy face to Sam, stopped dead in the doorway. Her eyebrows rose very slightly. “Well.”

Allison blushed as if she were the one they were all staring at. Matt cleared his throat.

Tom’s eyes narrowed on his daughter’s mouth, her full lips rubbed free of lipstick and swollen from kissing. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Walking,” Meg said. “Did Taylor get home all right?”

Matt nodded slowly. “Counted her candy bars and went to bed about ten minutes ago.”

“Bouncing from the sugar rush,” Allison added with a smile. “She’s probably still awake if you want to say good night.”

“I’ll do that,” Meg said. She swooped on her parents like a bird skimming the water, dart and peck, two kisses good night, and went upstairs without a backward glance.

Sam stood on the faded Morris carpet, listening to her boots clack up the stairs.

“Have a popcorn ball,” Tess said.

So they weren’t going to talk about it. The knot between Sam’s shoulders loosened.
Good.
He didn’t know what he would say to them. He respected their concern. Envied their bond. But this thing was between him and Meg. Until they figured it out, until she admitted they had something going on, what could he say?

“Thanks.” He stepped forward to accept the wrapped treat.

“Talked with your future brother-in-law today,” Tom said.

Sam withdrew his hand cautiously from the candy bowl. Not the opening he was expecting. “Ryan?”

“He called to reserve rooms for the wedding party,” Tess said.

“Nice kid,” Tom said. “Sounds like his dad on the phone.”

The two men had served together, Sam remembered. He nodded, still wary. Meg got her directness from her father. Despite the personal connection, he figured Tom wasn’t making small talk.

Tom Fletcher had been a career sergeant major in the Marines. At sixty-four, Tom was leaner and grayer than he’d been twenty years ago when he’d first accepted Sam into his household, taught him to set a screw and bait a hook. But if the old man decided he had reason, he could still kick Sam’s ass.

“He might be an officer and a squid, but the boy knows what he wants. And he wants your little Chelsea,” Tom continued. He fixed Sam with shrewd, faded blue eyes. “Guess that makes you the holdout in your family, marriage-wise.”

Marriage?

A popcorn ball–sized lump scraped Sam’s throat.

He swallowed. “I’m not holding out against anything,” he said, meeting Tom’s gaze steadily. “But marriage isn’t something you can rush into.”

Especially not when one of you was running away to New York.
His mouth compressed.

Tom snorted. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. From that fellow Meg’s living with.”

“Tom.” Tess laid a hand on her husband’s arm.

“Look at us,” he said to her. “I talked you into marrying me two weeks after I met you.”

“You can help me to bed now.”

“Sam and me are having a conversation here,” Tom said.

Tess’s eyes lit with humor. “It’s only a conversation when more than one person is talking, darling. Good night, Sam. Matt, Allison.”

Italian-American Tess would never be mistaken for a Southern Steel Magnolia, but her Chicago-bred toughness was every bit as formidable. Slowly, she and Tom made their way down the hall. He held open the kitchen door as she clumped through with her walker, letting it swing shut behind them.

Allison looked from Sam to Matt’s impassive face. “I think I’ll head back to the cottage.”

Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. “Don’t rush off on my account. How was movie night?”

Both Matt and Allison were still in costume—if Matt’s jeans and black leather jacket could be counted as “costume.” Allison wore a little blue dress with a white apron and a black headband. Alice in Wonderland, Sam supposed.

“From the amount of shrieking and squealing going on, I’d say it was a success,” Allison said.

“And that was only during the intermission,” Matt said dryly.

Allison laughed. “Anyway, Josh seemed to have a good time. He invited some friends back with him to see Tom’s Halloween display.”

“A Dare Island tradition,” Sam informed her.

“So I hear. Anyway, I should go check on them. You never know what teenagers will get up to when your back is turned.”

“Sam knows,” Matt said.

Their eyes met.

Yeah, he knew. The muscles tightened at the back of Sam’s neck, in the pit of his stomach. And Matt . . . guessed.

He waited until the front door had closed behind Allison before he said, “Most of the trouble I got into in high school, you were right in there with me, buddy.”

“Most.” Matt paused. “Not all.”

Sam rocked back on his heels, trying to gauge Matt’s mood. “You got something you want to say?”

“Nope. You?”

A vision swam in Sam’s memory. Meg’s face, a pale oval in the dark. Meg’s voice, pleading,
Don’t tell Matt.

“Not really.” He took his hands out of his pockets. “You going to take a swing at me?”

“Should I?”

For what I did eighteen years ago, maybe. Not over what happened tonight
. “You want to know if I’m putting the moves on your sister, the answer is yes. You want details, you ask her.”

Matt nodded once. “You hurt her, you let her down, I’ll come after you.”

“Right. Anything else?”

“Yeah.” A corner of Matt’s mouth kicked up. “She hurts you, she lets you down, I’ll buy the beer.”

Sam’s muscles relaxed. “That’s big of you.”

Matt shrugged. “Meg’s old enough take care of herself. Besides . . .”

“You love me like a brother?” Sam suggested.

Matt’s rare smile spread. “I like you better than that asshole in New York, that’s for sure.”

* * *

T
ESS LAY FLAT
on her back in their king-size bed, determined to finish her final set of exercises before Tom returned from the bathroom. She could hear water running into the sink and the sound of his razor against the basin,
tap tap tap
.

She pushed out her breath, sliding her right leg as far to the side as she could, feeling the stretch in her thigh, the pull in her groin.
Out
. She tightened her muscles, easing the leg back.
And in.
Another breath.
Out
 . . . A twinge in her hip made her catch her breath.
And in
.

For almost forty years, she had lived by The List, breaking down seemingly overwhelming tasks into small, manageable steps. Through moves, deployments, hurricanes, the start of the tourist season, and the beginning of the school year, it all went on The List, moving boxes, boarding windows, fresh paint, new shoes, immunizations, and permission slips, everything cataloged, crossed off, under control.

She slid her leg out again over the wrinkled sheet, stretching, stretching, exhaling through the pain.
Out.
The orthopedic surgeon had explained that healing would be slow. The stem cell flakes they had sprinkled like fairy dust over the pins in her pelvis would take time to set.
And in.

She had a new list now, of attainable, adjustable goals assigned by her physical therapist. Roll over in bed. Sit up in a chair for thirty minutes, for forty. Walk to the end of the ramp, to the end of the drive, to the end of the street.

And a private list, compiled in her heart. Shave her own legs. Walk on the sand. Make love with Tom.

Her eyes burned. Her hip burned. She pressed her lips together, breathing in through her nose.

Tom padded into the room in his boxers, the light from the bathroom emphasizing his wide, bony shoulders, his lean waist. “Did you take your pills?”

She exhaled. Nodded.

He flipped off the light and slid into bed. His weight created a shift in the mattress, another twinge in her hip. But it felt good to have him beside her. The scent of his aftershave wrapped around her in the dark, spicy and familiar. Once his shaving before bed had been a preliminary to lovemaking. Now . . .

He lifted the covers and wedged a pillow between her legs to protect her hips before he lay down.

Tess sighed.

“You okay, babe?”

He meant physically, of course. Her Tom had never initiated a discussion of feelings. He had always operated under the military’s need-to-know mode. Tess was the one who listened to the children while he was away, who reintegrated him into the family routines when he came home, who encouraged and mediated and explained.

“I’m fine,” she said.

They lay in the dark, in the silence.

“Don’t worry about the kids,” Tom rumbled, surprising her. “They’re all right.”

His reassurance freed her to speak. Matt
was
all right, at least since Allison had come into his life. Meg . . . Well, Tess intended to have her own discussion with Meg. Tess’s thoughts went to their younger son, serving in Afghanistan. “Have you spoken to Luke recently?”

“Sunday. Same as you.”

“I thought he might call Taylor for Halloween,” Tess said.

“Babe, he’s in country,” Tom said. “He might not be anywhere near a phone.”

“I know.”

“It was easier back when there wasn’t all this technology to keep in touch all the time,” Tom said. “At least when you didn’t hear from me, you didn’t worry.”

“Much,” Tess said.

Tom chuckled. “Easier on me, then. No distractions.”

Tess remembered when an information officer used to control the flow of news from home. Even Dear John letters were opened and vetted and accompanied by a visit from the IO or a chaplain. Now, except when a unit was in “River City”—their systems temporarily shut down to preserve security—communications between deployed Marines and their families were much easier. Better, she thought. Except all that Skyping, SAT phones, and MotoMail meant that Marines could be hit with every problem from home, every leaking toilet and grade school crisis.

“Do you think Luke’s worried about the family court hearing next week?” Tess asked.

“No, he’s thinking about his men and his mission. He’s counting on us to take care of Taylor.” Tom turned his head on the pillow. “Like I always counted on you.”

Her heart melted. “Oh, Tom.”

He rolled to his side and kissed her forehead.

His breath was warm against her eyelids. She closed her eyes and confessed, “That’s what I hate the most. I feel like I’m letting everyone down. If I wasn’t in that stupid accident . . .”

“Not your fault, babe.”

She ignored his logic. “If I hadn’t gotten hurt, the Simpsons wouldn’t be able to claim ‘changed circumstances’ to get custody of Taylor.”

“They can claim whatever they want. Luke left Taylor with us.”

“She called again tonight. While the girls were out.”

“Who called?”

“Jolene Simpson.”

“What did she want?”