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It backed without a bump into the slip. A large black dog of indeterminate breed—she really didn’t know much about dogs—stood in the stern.
Sea Lady II
, Allison read. At least she was in the right place.

In more ways than one, she hoped.

She’d fallen in love with the island at first sight, rising like a whale’s back from the sea as she approached on the ferry. She loved its jumbled mix of old and new, weathered cottages side by side with bright tourist shops, gnarled oaks adjoining sunny summer gardens. She liked the mix of people, too, sturdy native islanders and enthusiastic transplants.

She wanted to be one of them, to put down roots here.

Of course her parents had other ideas.

This wasn’t the first time, as her mother frequently pointed out, that she’d changed direction or location in hope of finding herself. Surely she could do her soul-searching closer to home? Especially as she was all they had left.

“I’ve lost one child already,” Marilyn Carter had said
with practiced pathos after Allison had been there a week. “I can’t bear to lose you, too.”

“You haven’t lost me, Mom.” Allison had kept her tone determinedly cheerful. “You know where I am. You have my phone number on speed dial.”

“Not that you ever answer.”

Familiar guilt pounded in Allison’s temples. “I told you I can’t take calls during class.”

“You can’t take time to talk to your mother? I didn’t complain when you spent all summer away from me building houses for the poor. Or when you turned down spring break in Paris to teach English on some reservation. But I thought when you finished that Peace Corps nonsense—”

“Teach for America,” Allison corrected for the hundredth time.

Marilyn was too well-bred to sniff, but her tiny pause spoke volumes. “Whatever. You’re not in college anymore, Allison. You had two years to get all that out of your system. I thought when you left Mississippi you’d come home where you belong. To Philadelphia. It’s not like you need to work.”

“I like to teach.” She’d learned that much about herself. “I need to keep busy.”

“You could keep busy here.”

Running her mother’s errands, serving on her mother’s committees, a dull satellite in her mother’s glittering social orbit.

No more.

“I’m lucky to have been offered a job at all,” Allison had said. “With the recent budget cuts—”

“But you’re so far away!”

Allison didn’t tell her mother that the distance had been part of the offer’s appeal. “Actually, Dare Island is ten hours closer,” she had pointed out patiently. “Half the distance. In a better school district. Higher pay. Smaller class sizes.”

Same damn heat.

Water slapped the pier. A bead of sweat ran between Allison’s breasts to soak into her bra.

She shifted her weight in her ballet flats, wishing she could peel off her tissue-thin sweater and shove it into her purse. But she didn’t. It was too easy for her to be mistaken for one of her students, dismissed because of her age. If she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to present a professional appearance.

Especially when she was meeting with a parent.

Not, she thought, one of the four men standing on the dock arguing over who took home the tuna. Men like her father, with gym-toned waists and salon-cut hair and a subtle air of entitlement.

She squinted into the sun sinking toward Pamlico Sound. Maybe the one on the bridge?

Her gaze skated over him. From a purely female, personal perspective, he was certainly worth looking at. Hard muscle packed into a faded T-shirt and jeans. Sweat-dampened hair jammed under a baseball cap. A lean, watchful face with a hint of pirate stubble.

Her breath escaped. Instant melt. Instant tingle. This one definitely didn’t look like any high school father she’d ever seen.

She dragged her gaze away. She would not let a momentary appreciation for the, ah, scenery get in the way of doing her job. She had other fish—
ha ha
—to fry.

An older man was tossing fish into a large plastic garbage can. Now
he
looked the way she imagined a boat captain should look. Like Ahab in
Moby Dick
, all “compacted aged robustness.” Minus the scar and the peg leg, of course.

She lifted her chin. “Mr. Fletcher?”

He spared her a quick glance from faded blue eyes before hauling the garbage can over to a long metal table under the shade of a wooden roof. “Yep.”

She followed him. So did a dozen gulls, hopping, hovering, swooping, lighting on the roof and in the water.

“I’m Miss Carter.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the squawking birds. “Joshua’s Language Arts teacher. I have to tell you how much I’m looking forward to working with your son.”

Captain Ahab Fletcher flipped the dead fish out on the table, smooth as a blackjack dealer in Vegas. Out came a knife.
Cut, cut, cut,
down the row of heads.
Cut, cut, cut
, along the spines and bellies. “No, you don’t.”

Allison straightened to her full five feet, ten inches. She’d shoveled mud from flood-ravaged homes in Louisiana, provided child care in a domestic violence shelter in South Dakota. She had motivated, coaxed, and bullied 127 underachieving students in the Mississippi Delta into scoring at a Basic or Proficient level on the English II graduation exit exam. She could not be deterred by a little thing like dead fish or a bad attitude.

“Actually, I make it a point to talk to all my students’ parents at the beginning of the school year.”

“Then you want his dad.” He winked at her before calling over her shoulder. “Matt! Josh’s teacher is here to see you.”

Her stomach sank at her mistake. She fixed a smile on her face and turned, determined to remain pleasant. Professional.

And came face-to-face with the solid chest and melt-inducing shoulders of the man from the boat. Of course. Because nothing beat getting off on the wrong foot with a parent like embarrassing yourself in front of a really hot guy.

She cleared her throat. “Mr. Fletcher?”

“Call him ‘Captain,’” the older man suggested.

“Dad.” The quiet tone held warning. Blue eyes, dark and level, met hers from under the brim of his cap. “I’m Matt Fletcher. What can I do for you?”

“I…
Oh
.”

Another jolt, right between her thighs. She looked down. The dog.

Her face flamed as she pushed its head from her crotch.

“Fezz. Quit.” The same warning tone, laced with amusement.

The dog panted amiably and dropped its weight on her foot, its thick tail sweeping the dock.

“Allison Carter. Joshua is in my Language Arts class.” She edged her foot from under the dog, aware of the crowded wharf around them. “Is there someplace we can talk privately?”

The senior Mr. Fletcher snorted.

She felt her flush deepen. As if she were her students’ age and had invited him into the closet for Seven Minutes in Heaven.

“We’re kind of busy right now,” Matt Fletcher said politely enough. “Is Josh all right?”

She got a grip on herself and her teacher persona. At least the man cared about his son. That put them on the same side as far as she was concerned. “He’s fine,” she said. “Have you spoken with him today?”

Matt tugged off his cap, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. His hair was the color of oiled oak, streaks of brown and gold darkened by sweat. He smelled, rather pleasantly, of salt and the sea. “We’ve been out on the water since five this morning. What did he do?”

“Nothing.” And that, of course, was the problem. “I was actually hoping to talk to you about Joshua’s progress. We’ve been in class now for almost three weeks and he has yet to open his mouth. Or, as far as I can tell, a book.”

He regarded her without expression. “He’s not giving you any trouble, is he?”

“He’s very respectful,” she assured him. If a total lack of interest in her subject matter could be called respect. “But
I am
troubled
because he’s a bright boy who’s obviously not living up to his potential.”

The older Fletcher chuckled. “We’ve heard that one before.”

Matt sighed. “Look, I appreciate you coming by, but I can’t do this now. I’ve got customers to deal with and a boat to hose down. I need a shower and I want a beer.”

“Of course,” she said stiffly. She tried really hard not to get personally involved. If you cared too much for your students, you could burn out. You could break your heart. But Matt Fletcher was Joshua’s
father
. It was his job to care. “I’m sorry to have bothered you at work. But when I called the number on file, your wife said I should come down to the harbor to talk to you.”

“I’m not married.”

Oh.
Good.

She pulled herself together.
Not good.

Things were awkward enough already. She had no business prying. And no interest in Joshua Fletcher’s hunky dad, married or not.

“Josh’s mother is out of the picture,” Fletcher Senior said. “That was my Tess you talked to. Josh’s grandmother. You want that boy straightened out, you should let her know.”

“Josh is my son,” Matt said. “I’ll talk to him.”

Allison had met parents struggling simply to survive, so overwhelmed by the effort of feeding their families they couldn’t focus on their children’s education. And parents like her own, who wanted perfect trophy children on display in the background of their own well-ordered lives, parents for whom a child’s degree from Harvard or Princeton or MIT was simply another way of keeping score.

Too soon to tell which category Matt Fletcher fell into.

“It’s important to begin the school year on the right foot,” she said earnestly. “That’s why I have all my students and
their parents sign a contract. As I emphasized in the syllabus, communication is key to Joshua’s future success.”

Matt Fletcher looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language or maybe had sprouted an extra head. “I said I’ll talk to him. Tonight.”

“After your beer?”

She’d meant it—hadn’t she?—as a sort of a joke. An acknowledgment of his long day, an attempt to smooth things over.

He gave her a long, unreadable look. “That’s right,” he said. “Now, unless you’re buying, you’ll have to excuse me.”

“T
HAT WAS A
good-looking girl,” Tom remarked, turning the key in the ignition. Fezzik jumped into the back of the pickup as the engine rumbled to life.

Matt glanced warily at his dad. Something about riding shotgun made him feel fourteen again. Maybe because while he and his dad had always been close, they’d never been chatty. Every major conversation when Matt was growing up had taken place right here in this truck, where they’d been trapped side by side, unable to make eye contact.

Matt massaged the back of his neck with one hand. Maybe he should take Josh for a drive.

“That girl is Josh’s teacher,” he said.

Tom winked. “You used to have an eye for teachers.”

Matt grunted noncommittally.

Josh’s mother was a teacher. A psychology professor at Chapel Hill. Of course, back when Matt first met her, she was just another student. They’d both been students.

“Long time ago,” he said. “I’m older now.”

And wiser. He wasn’t like his poor dumb dog, sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted.

“You’re not dead yet,” Tom said. “You need to get out. Live a little. Christ, boy, when I was your age…”

“You were married with three kids. And don’t spin me some yarn about liberty in the Marines,” Matt added with a smile. “Because I won’t believe you. Mom would have killed you if you’d cheated.”

“Yeah, she would.” Tom grinned with pride. “Besides, I knew what I had waiting at home. Hell of a woman, your mother.”

Matt managed not to squirm. Bad enough his aging parents were getting more action than he was this summer. He could admire the rock solid nature of their thirty-eight-year marriage without needing to hear the details. Unless, of course, the change of subject got his dad off the topic of Matt’s own love life.

“So you gave up your time ashore for love,” Matt said dryly. “Touching, Dad.”

“Hell, no, I’d go on liberty with everybody else. Somebody had to keep their dumb asses out of trouble.”

“Then how did you…” Matt said and shut up. He didn’t want to know.

“I’d go into a bar,” his father said. “And pick out the homeliest-looking working woman there. And I’d buy her a drink.”

Okay, he really didn’t need to hear this. “Look, it’s none of my business.”

“Nice women, mostly,” Tom continued. “They were glad for the attention and the booze. And they kept the other women away.”

Matt grinned. “Sneaky.”

“There was never anybody for me after your mother,” Tom said. “That doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

“I’m not blind,” Matt said.

Or celibate.

There had been women after Kimberly. Nice women, passing through on their way to someplace else. Temporary women, looking for comfort or diversion, to scratch an itch
or enjoy a fling. Women who didn’t want more than Matt had left to give.

Nobody like Allison Carter, with her big, brown, earnest eyes and long, smooth legs the color of honey.

A prickle of sweat, a rush of heat, washed over Matt. He needed that beer.

But first he had to talk to Josh.

Josh was a good kid. No drama, no trauma, no simmering resentment at being abandoned by his mother or any crap like that. Thank God.

But Matt could see how his son’s it’s-all-good attitude might not work so well in school. He couldn’t force the boy to open his mouth in class, but he could make damn sure he was doing his homework.

“I just don’t need that kind of distraction,” Matt said. “Josh comes first.”

Always had, from the moment the nurse first handed him to Matt in the hospital. Young and panicked and punchy from lack of sleep, Matt had cradled the baby’s slight weight, dumbfounded by a sudden rush of love for the damp, squashy bundle in his arms.

His son.

His joy.

It had always saddened him that Kimberly never felt the same. Or maybe it was Matt she’d never loved.

She was gone from their lives before Joshua’s first birthday, a casualty of what Matt now figured was postpartum depression. He didn’t blame her anymore for listening to her parents and abandoning their hasty marriage. But he didn’t understand how she could abandon their son.