Carolina Home (11 page)

“Maybe you know the wrong people,” Allison said.

Matt grinned in acknowledgment. He’d used almost the same words to her two days ago. “Maybe. Anyway, thanks. I owe you.”

“You stopped to help me.” A brief smile. “I stopped to help you. I’d say we’re even.”

With another woman he would have shrugged and let it go. But something about Allison Carter got under his skin, tugged at his gut.

“I didn’t know we were keeping score,” he drawled.

He watched her quick color with satisfaction. Why should he be the only one getting hot and bothered?

But her voice was cool as she said, “Now isn’t the time for this discussion. You need to get Taylor home.”

The kid was waiting up ahead by the heavy wooden double doors.

He nodded. “Fine. What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Saturday. Come out with me.”

“I barely know you.”

He held her gaze. “We can change that.”

The echo of her words reverberated in the space between them.
I don’t jump into things with someone I don’t know.

“Take a chance,” he said, his voice husky. “Take a leap.”

“I’ll think about it.”

A tall black girl, one of the Jackson kids, bustled out of the high school wing. Running an errand to the office, Matt guessed. She slowed as she passed, throwing a greeting at Allison and a curious glance at Matt.

“Hi, Miss Carter.”

Allison smiled. “Nia.” She turned back to Matt, drawing a deep breath that did nice things for her blouse. “I’m going back to my classroom now. Before the entire school starts speculating what we’re doing together.”

He could think of all kinds of things he’d like to do with her, to her, on her, but not with people watching. Not in front of Taylor and whatever students happened to wander by.

“I’ll call you,” he said, like he was Josh’s age again, trying to make it with some pretty girl after school.

He’d never had to try this hard, he remembered as he
strode to the exit. There had always been girls dropping by the Pirates’ Rest to watch him mow the grass or tinker on his bike or play one-on-one with Sam.

You think they’d have more sense. Or pride
, his sister Meg used to snap on her way out the door to the library or to one of her jobs, waiting tables, scrubbing bathrooms, handing out towels at the club. Always moving, Meggie, always working, always going somewhere.
Sam Grady is the biggest hound in school.

But not all of the girls had gone for Sam.

He turned his head to watch Allison walk away, the swing of her hair, her long, honey-colored legs under the little blue skirt she wore, and felt that buzz, that healthy jolt of lust and anticipation that belonged to his past, to memories of summer nights around a bonfire and double dates in the backseat of Sam’s daddy’s car.

“Is she your girlfriend?” a voice piped up.

Startled, Matt looked down into Taylor’s face. He pushed the door, holding it open for her. “No.”

The minute they were outside in the sunlight, she jammed the hat back on her head, tugging the brim down low. “Why not?”

Because despite his recent crush on Teacher, he wasn’t in high school anymore. He was too old for girlfriends. He had sex, relationships that began without commitment and ended without drama.

None of which he could explain to Luke’s ten-year-old daughter.

“I don’t need a girlfriend,” he said carefully. “I have Josh and Grandma Tess and Grandpa Tom. And you.”

That was enough commitment for anybody.

Taylor sighed, a forlorn sound that rippled through him like wind over water. “That’s what my mom used to say. As long as we had each other, we didn’t need anybody else.”

Is that why she never bothered to get in touch with your
dad?
Matt wanted to ask, but it didn’t feel right to lay that question on the kid after the crappy day she’d had.

“Well, you’ve got me now,” he said. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

Taylor tensed.

“What?” Matt asked.

“He said I could stay.” Her voice was pitched too high, her face pinched and white.

“Who?”

“Luke. My…my dad. He said I was staying with Grandma Tess now.”

“Yeah, that’s where we’re going. Home.”

And then it occurred to Matt that “home” probably meant something else to her. The kid had been shuttled around too damn often in the past couple of months to take anything for granted.

He squatted down so he could look her square in the eyes and asked, “Okay?”

He watched her think about it—
Nobody’s fool, this kid
—before she nodded.

But when they got to his bike, she balked.

“Are we riding on that?”

He lifted his helmet from the back. “Yep.”

“Where do I sit?”

He patted the custom seat. “Here. Behind me.”

“I’ll fall off.”

“Not if you hold on,” he said patiently.

He waited with the helmet on his hip while she looked from the bike to him and back again, suspicious as a fish testing artificial bait.

“Fine,” she growled at last.

He grinned at her, tapping a finger on the bill of her cap. “You have to stow this. No riding without a helmet.”

“Yeah? What about you?”

“I’m the grown-up,” he told her. “I get to do what I want.”

Which was a lie. North Carolina law required helmets, and being an adult meant taking on all kind of responsibilities you didn’t necessarily want. But at ten, she didn’t need to know that yet.

She snorted and dragged off Luke’s Marine cap, stuffing it in her book bag, standing at attention while Matt fit the helmet over her blond head and adjusted the chin strap. Her bones were sharp and light as a bird’s, the skin under her jaw baby fine and smooth. His gut clenched. She was so much younger than Josh, smaller, female, vulnerable. He gave the helmet an extra tug at the back, making sure it was secure, making sure she was safe.

His brother’s child.

He hadn’t expected this sense of responsibility to grip his chest so suddenly, so tight, another claim, another complication he hadn’t been looking for in his life. But there was no way he would wish her away now.

T
AYLOR FLINCHED AS
he jumped on some kind of kickstand thing and the motor choked and roared to life.

She stood, her feet superglued to the ground, her heart banging as loud as the engine, while he twisted the handlebars and swung one long leg over the rattling frame.

Turning his head, he smiled at her. “You step up on the footrest there. Don’t touch the exhaust pipes. They’re hot.”

He looked really big, straddling the big, noisy bike, and the seat was so small.

She didn’t—couldn’t—move.

“It’s okay,” Uncle Matt said gently. “I’m holding her steady. You won’t fall.”

He thought she was afraid of the motorcycle.

Pride and scorn and desperation propelled her forward. Jerkily, she climbed up on the narrow seat behind him,
clutching his arm and then his shirt. His arm was warm and steady. His back was hard and wide, a living wall.

Taylor swallowed.

“You’ve got to really hold on,” he shouted over the rumble of the bike. “Around my waist.”

She tensed, greasy panic balling in her stomach. She didn’t want to get that close to him. She didn’t want to get that close to anybody.

At least he took her side. In Nelson’s office. He’d showed up in the middle of the day, mad and solid, and stood up for her.

Taylor relaxed a little, remembering how he yelled at the vice principal. Even when the pretty blond teacher had fixed things, he hadn’t expected Taylor to shut up and go along the way everybody else did, just because she was a kid. Like what she thought, how she felt, didn’t matter. He
asked
her what she wanted.

You’ve got me now
, he’d said.

Slowly, slowly, her arms crept around him and clung.

Seven

T
AKE A CHANCE
, Matt had invited in his deep, husky voice.
Take a leap
.

And just for a moment, Allison’s heart had wanted to tumble right off a cliff. Except she no longer jumped from one thing, one man, one enthusiasm, to another.

She was an English teacher now. Literature was full of cautionary tales about women who took foolish chances and crashed. Look at sweet, suicidal Juliet. Or poor, crazy Miss Havisham. Or…

“Hester Prynne,” Allison said to her fourth period class, “is publicly shamed and socially ostracized because she sleeps with the wrong guy and gets pregnant. Could that happen in today’s society?”

She sat back, delighted, as her sixteen-year-olds waded in on both sides of the argument, jumbling together references to Puritan Massachusetts and
16 and Pregnant
. What was the difference, really, between a slut and a reality star? What were Dimmesdale’s responsibilities as a Baby Daddy?
Did having children out of wedlock still pose a threat to the social order? Occasionally Allison interjected a question to encourage an insight or lead them back gently to the text. This was her favorite part of teaching, when the stories she loved and the students she cared about came alive.

Most of the students, anyway.

Her gaze flickered to the back of the classroom where Joshua Fletcher sprawled at his desk, arms across his chest, legs in the aisle. If he cared at all about the discussion crackling around the room, he certainly didn’t show it.

Allison suppressed a sigh. She had to remain impartial in the classroom. But she was disappointed by her failure to reach Josh. She would have been disappointed by her failure to reach any student.

The period bell shattered the discussion. Even a debate about sex couldn’t compete with lunch. The room erupted with scraping chairs and slamming books.

Allison raised her voice over the noise. “Don’t forget! Five hundred words on one character’s social and sexual identities. Due Monday,” she called to a chorus of groans.

“Bye, Miss Carter.”

“See ya, Miss Carter.”

“Have a nice weekend.”

“Miss Carter.” Thalia Hamilton stopped by her desk, eyes sharp behind her thick black frames. “Are you going to be in the computer lab after school? I want to show you the banner for the blog. I think I can finish the layout tonight.”

“Tonight? It’s Friday. I’m happy to look at it, Thalia, but it can wait until the next newspaper meeting.”

“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” Thalia said.

Allison smiled. “I guess there aren’t a lot of places to hang out on the island.” Not for Thalia’s age group. No mall, Allison thought. And only one movie screen.

“Not unless I want to hang out under the pier drinking Gatorade and Everclear,” Thalia said.

Allison winced slightly.

Joshua sauntered between the rows of desks, one arm around Lindsey Gordon, the other holding his binder on his hip.

“Joshua.” Allison was
not
singling him out for attention. She was offering a friendly reminder, that was all. “You still need to turn in your permission form.”

“Oh, yeah.” He shifted his grip, exposing the battered paperback wedged on top of the notebook.
The Scarlet Letter
.

Well.
A sliver of hope opened inside her. At least he’d brought the book to class.

He fished a wrinkled slip of paper from between the pages. “Here.”

She glanced at the signature—Matt Fletcher, large, upright, dark, the
T
a stab, the
R
a scrawl—as she smoothed the note. “Thank you.” Ripping a strip from the page, she handed it back to Josh.

“What’s that for?”

“To keep your place.”

He shook his head. “Naw, I’m good. Thanks.”

She wondered if he was actually doing the reading or if he’d stuck the form in the book at random. “Which character are you writing about this weekend?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, who do you like?”

He shrugged. “They’re all kind of lame.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “You know, the way the girl and the preacher guy let Chillingsworth pull the strings. I don’t get why they don’t just leave.”

“They
want
to leave,” Thalia said. “I mean, when Hester
and Dimmesdale meet in the forest, they plan to go to Europe.”

His gaze switched to her. “I guess I didn’t get to that part yet.”

Lindsey tugged her hair. “Speaking of leaving…”

“Yeah, okay.” Josh nodded at Thalia and Allison. “See you around.”

“Are you going to the pier tonight?” Thalia asked.

His eyes rested on her briefly. “Maybe. I’ve got to be up early in the morning to crew for my dad.”

Lindsey leaned against his side, her breast pressing his arm as they left.

Thalia watched them go.

Allison raised her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t like hanging out at the pier.”

The girl turned red. “I don’t. I just thought…that was probably the most he’s talked to me since seventh grade.”

Allison felt a twinge of sympathy. It was certainly the most he’d said in class. “And you want him to say more.”

“I want him to notice me,” Thalia said frankly. “He’s the hottest guy in school, and he doesn’t even see me.”

Allison looked at Thalia, pretty, round, and animated with a flag of dark red hair and smart girl glasses. Different. Her heart ached for her.

“I’m sure he sees you. You’re in most of the same classes.”

“Since kindergarten. And as far as he’s concerned, I’ll always be the brainy girl with the crunchy granola parents and the weird first name.”

Another example of how we’re still shaped by social roles and expectations, Allison thought, but the girl needed reassurance from her, not another lesson derived from
The Scarlet Letter
.

“You have a beautiful name,” she said instead. “Thalia was one of the Greek muses.”

“Yeah, the muse of comedy.” Thalia rolled her eyes. “Like that will get me dates.”

Allison smiled. “It could be worse. Your parents could have named you Terpsichore.”

Thalia laughed and then sobered. “It’s not just my name, Miss Carter. It’s this school. This island. It’s hard to get romantic about somebody who watched you eat paste. I think that’s why Josh doesn’t have a girlfriend.”