Carolina Home (3 page)

He stared out the truck window at scrub oak and salt pine. His own parents had never questioned his decision to raise Joshua. In their eyes, in their lives, a man did what a man had to do.

Matt figured he was lucky to have Josh. Luckier to have had his parents’ support.

But now Tom said, “You can’t live for the boy forever. Or through him. He’ll be off to school in another year.”

“Not if he flunks English,” Matt said, only half joking.

Another faded blue glance. “Maybe you should set up a, what do you call it, parent-teacher conference.”

There was an idea.
Hello, Miss Carter, I’m here to discuss my son’s classroom performance. Why don’t you take off your clothes while we talk?

Matt shook his head. He didn’t mess with women on the island. There was too much talk that could get back to Josh. Too much awkwardness when Saturday night’s date turned into Monday’s encounter at the checkout line in the grocery store.

Reluctantly, he let go of the image of a naked Allison Carter lying back against her desk. “I was thinking more along the lines of knocking Josh’s head in.”

Tom chuckled. “Worked for you. Not so much for your brother.”

Matt rubbed his stubble with one hand, remembering the battles that had raged at home before his brother’s abrupt departure for the Marines. Josh wasn’t a hothead like Luke. He was kind and even-tempered, easy to get along with. He kept up with his chores, at least with his grandmother’s eye on him. But the boy had developed a tendency to let things slide, a plate on the floor, the lock on the door, the volume on the TV. His homework.

His curfew.

Generally Matt let it go, trusting Josh would learn responsibility in time. He was a good kid. A smart boy.

Allison Carter’s accusing brown eyes stabbed him.
A bright boy who’s not living up to his potential.

Matt set his jaw, a headache still throbbing at the back of his neck. So, fine. This time they’d talk.
Dammit.

The low-hipped roof of the Pirates’ Rest rose from the shelter of the surrounding trees, the generous eaves accented by white and green trim. As a teenager, Matt and his buddy Sam Grady had scraped and repainted every one of those windows. Matt’s parents had restored and added to the two-and-a-half story Craftsman, transforming it into a successful bed-and-breakfast. But to Matt the century-old house, with its views of the sound and the sea, had always felt like home.

Oyster shells crunched under their tires. Tom parked the truck in back. At this hour, most of the inn’s guests were out to dinner, but there were still a few vehicles pulled up to the white picket fence.

Fezzik sniffed the tires of a late model Toyota that hadn’t been there this morning.

“New guests?” Matt asked.

Tom hefted the cooler from the back of the pickup. “Must be.”

“That’s good midweek this late in the season.”

Tom shrugged. “You want some of this fish?”

Matt appreciated the implicit invitation, the promise of dinner, the offer of support. He was almost tempted into asking his dad’s advice about Josh. But that had never been their way. Tess was the one they all confided in, the one who prodded and pried and talked things out.

He shook his head. “We’re good. Josh and I will grab a pizza or something.” Nothing to be gained by yelling on an empty stomach. And maybe the pizza would help the conversation go down easier.

Tom nodded, accepting the limits Matt set. “Right. We’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Matt could never repay his parents for everything they’d done. It couldn’t be easy, having your twenty-year-old son and his baby show up on your doorstep. He was determined not to burden them anymore, financially or otherwise. Which was why, as soon as Josh could be trusted not to set
himself or the house on fire, Matt had insisted on renting one of the guest cottages behind the inn.

He opened the door to the bachelor quarters he shared with his son. “Josh, I’m home.”

Fezzik’s toenails clicked across the hardwood floors.

No answer.

Tess must have put Josh to work at the inn, turning rooms for the new guests. Which meant the kid was safe from Matt and out of trouble for at least another half hour.

Matt snagged a cold beer on his way to the shower.

By the time he strode up the path to the inn’s back entrance, his mood had improved considerably.

Chocolate chip.

The smell—and the memories—reached out to envelop him at the kitchen door. Some things didn’t change. Like his mother baking cookies to set out for the inn’s guests at bedtime.

As Matt swung open the screen door, she turned from the oven, baking sheet in hand, a slim woman with short, gray-streaked dark hair, her eyes creased by smiles and the sun.

Matt grinned, reaching. “Those for me?”

She swatted at him with a spatula. “Wash your hands first.”

“I’ll arm wrestle you for them,” another voice offered.

Stunned, Matt turned toward the kitchen table, where his father sat cradling a cup of coffee. And beyond him…

“Luke!”

His baby brother. The Marine.

Luke’s chair scraped back as he stood.

Matt grabbed him hard in a one-armed hug as they pounded on each other’s backs. They were almost the same height, eight years apart in age.

His brother had lost weight, Matt thought as he drew back to search his clear blue eyes. His frame was as tense as coiled steel.

“I thought you were in Afghanistan,” Matt said.

“I should be.” Luke’s usually cocky grin was strained.

Matt gripped his brother’s shoulder. “You all right?” he asked, as if he’d just hauled him out of another childhood scrape.

“Fine. I’m on leave.”

“He goes back day after tomorrow,” Tom said.

Matt’s brow knotted. Flying to Kandahar on military transport could take days. Why would his brother come home only to turn around again?

He glanced toward their father, seeking an explanation, and for the first time noticed the kid hunched in the chair beside him. A skinny boy—girl?—maybe nine or ten years old, wearing an oversized T-shirt and a Kinston Indians cap. A guest’s kid, maybe. Matt had never seen him—
her
— before in his life.

She raised her head. Familiar blue eyes stared at him from a sulky face.

Matt sucked in his breath. “Who’s that?”

But he knew. In his gut, in the back of his neck.

Trouble.

“This is Taylor,” their mother said brightly.

Matt switched his gaze back to his brother. “What’s she doing here?”

“She’s come to stay with us awhile,” Tess said.

“Why?”

“Luke was just telling us.” Tess set a plate of cookies in front of the girl, who ignored them. “Her mother died a month ago. She named Luke as Taylor’s guardian.”

“Her guardian,” Matt repeated slowly.
No shit. No way.
“You mean…her father.”

Luke’s gaze collided with his. A corner of his mouth lifted in a humorless smile. “Spare me the sermon, bro. I’m just following in your footsteps.”

Two

T
HEY WERE TALKING
about her like she wasn’t even there.

Fine.
Taylor stared at the plate of cookies until they blurred. Her throat ached. It’s not like she wanted to be here anyway. She wanted to be home in her little blue bedroom in the house she shared with Mom.

But she couldn’t think about her mother without crying. She swallowed hard.

“Taylor.” Luke—she wasn’t going to call him Dad, no matter what the letter said—touched her shoulder. “Say hi to your Uncle Matt.”

Uncle.

The word thumped into her like a fist. She already had an uncle. She didn’t want another one.

“Hi, Taylor.” He had a nice voice, deep and kind of quiet.

She shot him a look from under her cap brim. He was wider and older than her…than Luke, with darker hair and eyes and big hands. Taylor looked at the jagged white scar running across his knuckles and felt kind of sick and
out of breath, like she’d had the wind knocked out of her on the playground.

She didn’t say anything.

He regarded her silently a moment. “I can see a resemblance.”

Tess nodded. “She has Luke’s eyes.”

“I was thinking she had his attitude,” he drawled.

Stung, Taylor jerked her gaze up. Her Uncle Matt smiled at her crookedly. Her stomach cramped. She ducked her head.

She didn’t want him smiling at her.

She hunched her shoulders, slumping deeper in the chair. She didn’t want him noticing her at all.

T
HE KID WAS
scared, Matt realized.

Not just nervous at meeting her new family or grieving at losing her mother but as angry and anxious as one of the island’s feral cats and as determined not to show it. Poor kid.

Matt looked at Luke. “Where’s she been the last four weeks?”
The last ten years.
“Who takes care of her?”

White lines bracketed his brother’s mouth. “I do now. She’s been staying with her mother’s parents. Until the will was probated.”

“You remember the Simpsons, Matt,” Tess said. “Ernie and Jolene?”

Dare Island had a year-round population of fifteen hundred souls. Matt knew most of them. Ernie Simpson had worked at the fish house until it shut down, eight years back, and he moved off island with the rest of his family. The son, Kevin, was a few years younger than Matt and a real tool. The daughter…

“You dated Dawn Simpson,” he said to Luke. “Back in high school.”

Dated
being the nicest word Matt could think of for
screwed every chance you got
.

“Did you know about…” Matt’s gaze cut to the kid in the chair.

Luke shook his head, still looking grim around the mouth. “Not until the lawyer contacted me in Kandahar a month ago.”

Well, that was something. The situation still sucked, but at least his brother was taking responsibility. The way Matt remembered, Luke had been pretty broken up when Dawn dumped him their senior year and started banging Bo Meekins.

Matt wondered if his brother had demanded a paternity test.

Not a question he could ask in front of the kid. Anyway, she looked like him, same clear blue eyes, same kiss-my-ass chin.

Luke, a father.

Matt could hardly believe it.

“Where’s Josh?” he asked.

Tess set another plate of cookies on the counter. “I sent him to turn the rooms. I’m putting you in Calico Jack’s room,” she said to Luke. “And Taylor in Anne Bonney.” The rooms at the inn were all named after pirates of the North Carolina coast.

“Has Josh met…” Matt indicated Taylor with a jerk of his head.

“Not yet,” Tess said.

“Right.” Matt rubbed his face with his hand. So it was up to him to explain to Josh that he’d somehow acquired a cousin. And maybe deliver another lecture on the importance of always, always using a condom.

“I’ll help him finish up, and then we’ll get out of your hair.”

“I thought we’d have dinner as a family tonight.” Tess’s eyes dared him to object. “To welcome Luke and Taylor home.”

Luke looked like he’d rather go unarmed into a known terrorist hideout than face a family dinner. Matt felt a twinge of sympathy.

“I don’t want to butt in,” he said. “You all have a lot to talk about.”

“After dinner,” Tess said.

“Nothing to talk about.” Tom locked his gaze on Luke. “You get her an ID card yet?”

A muscle twitched in Luke’s jaw. “Yeah. I drove her down to the base yesterday, set her up for benefits. Tomorrow I’ll go to the bank, open an account you can draw on for expenses.”

“We don’t need your pay,” Tom said.

Tess squeezed his shoulder. He patted her hand, volumes of communication in a simple touch. Seeing his parents like that—united, rock steady—brought a lump to Matt’s throat.

“You’ll take it anyway,” Luke said. “And Taylor’s got some money from her mother.”

Matt raised his brows. The Simpsons hadn’t exactly been rolling in dough back when they lived on the island. Not that it mattered. What mattered was what the girl needed now.

“You should enroll her in school,” he said. He had a vision of Allison Carter standing on the dock, tall and cool and complicated, and shook it away. “As long as she’s staying.”

“Who’s staying?” Josh asked.

The teen sauntered into the kitchen, drawn, as Matt had been, by the smell of baking. He scored a cookie from the counter.

“Hands off,” Tess said. “Those are for the guests.”

Josh flashed her a grin, shoving the cookie in his mouth. “What about poor, starving hotel workers?” he asked around the crumbs.

“On the table.” Tess smiled. “Don’t spoil your appetite.”

Josh turned obediently toward the table. His blue eyes widened. “Unc Luke!”

Matt watched them hug, their two heads close together, his brother’s short bleached cut against his son’s sandy mop, and something in his chest expanded and contracted painfully.

“You’re taller,” Luke observed, holding Josh at arm’s length.

Josh straightened proudly. “Some.”

“Still ugly, though.”

Josh’s eyes gleamed. “Dad says I take after you.”

Luke snorted. “Maybe. If you lost the Justin Bieber hair and weren’t so scrawny.”

“They don’t feed me enough,” Josh said, reaching over Taylor’s head for the cookie plate.

The girl scrunched lower in the chair, glaring as his hand brushed the top of her head.

Josh smiled down at her cheerfully as he grabbed a handful. “Dibs.”

She shot him a look of disdain from under the brim of the baseball cap. Very deliberately, she extended her arm and selected one cookie. With her gaze fixed on Josh, she took a small, precise bite. Her first. Matt could almost hear her thinking,
Bite this
.

He swallowed a grin. “Josh, meet your cousin Taylor.”

Josh’s jaw dropped. “My…?”

“Cousin.” Blandly, Matt met his stunned look. “Taylor.”

“She’s going to live with us when your Uncle Luke goes back to Afghanistan,” Tess said.

“Are you shitting me?”

Matt cuffed him lightly, aware the girl had stopped nibbling on her cookie and was watching them with wide, blue eyes. “Watch your mouth.”