Carolina Home (25 page)

“I like chocolate.”

“These aren’t for you. These are for the guests. Maybe some of them don’t like chocolate.”

“Is it that man you’re seeing?” her father asked.

“Excuse me?”

“That’ll be forty-two dollars and sixteen cents,” said the woman behind the counter.

“Your mother mentioned you were dating someone,” Richard said. “Bring him along. I’d like to meet the man who’s taking up all of my little girl’s time.”

“Hey, Al—Miss Carter, you got any money?” Josh said.

“Is that him?” Richard asked.

“No, that’s Josh. Matt’s son.” She thrust her wallet at Josh. “Take this.”

“He has children?”

Oh, hell.
“Listen, Dad, I really have to go.”

“Allison…”

“I’ll call you,” she promised. “I love you. Bye.”

“Who was that?” Josh asked as she shoved her phone and wallet into her bag.

“That,” Allison said grimly, “was my father.”

“Are you in trouble?” Taylor asked. Above her cinnamon-streaked cheeks, her eyes were blue and worried.

Allison pulled herself together and smiled down into Taylor’s wary little face. “I’m good,” she said. “Everything’s fine. How’s that bear claw?”

M
ATT RESISTED THE
urge to knock before opening the door to his parents’ bedroom off the kitchen. “I put you in Mom and Dad’s room.”

His sister Meg stopped in the sunshine streaming through the kitchen windows. “I’m not in Mary Read?”

Her old room upstairs.

“Booked for the weekend,” Matt said. “We’re full up except for the family rooms. Big anniversary party.”

Meg nodded her understanding. “So you couldn’t cancel. Well, at least business is good.”

She adjusted her purse strap and marched past him into their parents’ room.

Only to stop dead, staring at their mother’s robe tossed over a chair. Matt winced. Everything was the way Tess must have left it on Tuesday morning, her robe on the chair, her book by the bed, her towel on a bar by the open bathroom door.

Matt set his sister’s suitcase carefully on the bed. “Sorry. I didn’t have time to clean in here.”

“It’s okay.” Meg’s lips quirked. “That’s what I’m here for.”

He returned her smile. He knew damn well that when Meg left Dare Island she’d been determined never to clean another toilet, to fold another towel, again. But here she was.
Back to back to back.
Gratitude made him say, “I can give you a hand for the rest of the day. Josh, too, when he gets home.”

“Good. If we’re full up, we’re going to need all the help we can get.” Meg crossed to her bag and unzipped it. “What about tomorrow?”

Matt rubbed his jaw. “Both boats are booked. Jimmy Peele’s captaining the old
Sea Lady
for me, but with Dad at the hospital I’ll need Josh to come along as mate.”

Meg pulled a pair of sneakers from her bag and turned to look at him. “So I’m on my own?”

“The Kellers are staying two nights. You won’t have to change their sheets,” Matt said, feeling guilty. “Just make the beds and, you know, straighten up a little.”

“I know what to do,” she said, tying her shoes. “God knows I did it often enough growing up.”

She moved into the kitchen at New York speed, muttering and opening cupboards. Matt followed in her wake.

“Okay, somebody has to go shopping,” she said, surveying the inside of the fridge. “I don’t have time to bake cookies before check-in, and we’ve got nothing in the house for breakfast.”

“Give me a list,” Matt said.

“Great. Thanks.” She grabbed the pad and pencil by the phone and started writing. “You know, Matt, we need to start thinking about the long term. Mom’s car was totaled. I rented something for Dad so he could get to and from the hospital, but…”

How could she write a list and talk to him at the same time?

“Randy Scott is looking to sell his Nissan Altima. I told him I was interested.”

Meg raised her head. “Will Mom’s insurance pay for that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Dad can drive it for now, and if he decides he wants something else for Mom, it will be a good car for Josh.”

It wasn’t a Mercedes. Or the Jeep that Josh had been talking about. But the sedan was safe and reliable, without too many miles on it. Josh could deal.

“Okay.” Meg nodded slowly. “That takes care of transportation. That still leaves us shorthanded at the inn. I need to go back to work as soon as Mom’s out of intensive care. We’ll have to hire somebody.”

Matt set his jaw. “We can’t take on somebody full-time at the end of the season. Mom and Dad can’t afford it.”

“News flash, big brother. Mom and Dad aren’t here. It’ll be weeks before Mom can come home. And Dad won’t leave her.”

He felt the conversation getting deeper, the levels of complication piling up, until he was in over his head.

Keep it simple, he thought.

“We’ll make it work,” he said.

“How?”

“We’ll figure it out. I can move some charters, maybe get part-time help. Lots of captains just sitting at the docks this time of year. Right now we just have to get through the weekend.”

“What about Taylor?”

His shoulders tightened. It had been three days since his conversation with Allison, three days in which Taylor had slept with the dog and played video games with Josh, eaten her vegetables under protest and done her homework without complaint. Three days in which Matt had barely found time to take a piss, let alone schedule a heart-to-heart with his ten-year-old niece. “What about her?”

“I’ve never met her. How is she going to react to having another stranger take care of her?”

The tension in Matt’s neck and shoulders ratcheted up a notch. “She’ll be fine. She’s a good kid. She won’t give you any trouble.”

“Matt.” Meg put her hands on her hips, looking so much like their mother it was creepy. “Her mother just died. Her father, who she barely knows, is getting shot at in fricking Afghanistan. She’s living with people she just met, and her grandmother is in intensive care. If she doesn’t give me any trouble, then something is seriously wrong with her.”

He didn’t want to hear it. But Meg was right.

It doesn’t help to ignore her wounds
, Allison had said the other night.
Taylor needs to know she doesn’t have to deal with whatever’s bothering her alone.

“I’ll talk to her,” he said.

Meg’s brows rose. “You?”

“Who else? Unless you’re volunteering.”

Meg laughed. “God, no.”

Allison would have said yes, he thought. She said yes to everything. He didn’t know how they would have made it through the past three days without her. But she wasn’t family. She had her own life, her own work, her own obligations to attend to. He couldn’t keep laying his shit on her, too.

No, this one was on him.

“Oh, crap,” Meg said, looking out the window. “They’re here already.”

Matt frowned. “The Kellers?” David and Sharon Keller had a six-hour drive from Lynchburg, Virginia. He was sure they’d asked for a late check-in.

“One of the daughters, I think. Or a granddaughter. Looks like Baylor Barbie traded in her pink convertible for a Mercedes.”

The back of Matt’s neck prickled.
Mercedes?
That was…

The kitchen door opened and Allison stood in a flood of sunshine, looking young and fresh and impossibly beautiful, her arms full of flowers and a wide grin on her face.

Matt’s heart lifted at the sight of her, the weight dropping from his shoulders, the tension easing in his neck. Whether he admitted it or not, whether he wanted it or not, she made things better simply by being there.

Her gaze sought his across the kitchen. “Sorry we’re late,” she said cheerfully. “I stopped by the grocery store on the way home. I figured you’d need a few things.”

Meg reacted like a cat hit by a bucket of water, with swift, stiff, disdainful suspicion. “Who are you?”

A
LLISON BLINKED AT
the short, chic, semihostile woman glaring at her from beside the kitchen counter.

Matt’s sister.
She recognized the blue eyes, cropped hair, strong jaw of the smiling Harvard grad in the picture upstairs.

She wasn’t smiling now.

Well, this was a stressful time for her, Allison thought fairly. For her whole family. No wonder Meg was feeling protective.
Circle the wagons.

Allison pasted on her most disarming parent-teacher smile and introduced herself. “Allison Carter. I’m…” She hesitated, searching for a nice, neutral label that wouldn’t threaten Matt’s sister.

Matt’s friend? Girlfriend?

“Josh’s teacher,” Matt said. “She’s been helping us out since the accident.”

Well, that was certainly neutral, Allison thought, swallowing hurt.

“And she brought you flowers,” Meg drawled. “How sweet.”

Allison stuck out her chin. “These are for the Kellers. Matt mentioned this weekend is their fiftieth wedding anniversary. I thought the bouquet would be a nice touch for their room.”

“Pretty,” Matt approved.

“She didn’t throw them at the dog this time, either,” Josh joked as he carried in the bag of groceries from the car. “Hey, Aunt Meg.”

“Josh!” Meg’s hostility melted into smiles as she hugged her nephew. “God, you’re so tall. Good-looking, too.”

Taylor followed Josh into the kitchen, carefully balancing a pink bakery box from Jane’s Sweet Tea House. “We bought cupcakes. Allison let me pick them out.”

Allison glanced from Matt to Meg. She’d only offered to drive the kids from school so Matt could be home when his sister arrived. Maybe she should have asked, she should have waited, instead of blundering blindly in with what she
thought was needed. “I thought…since there wasn’t time to bake cookies…”

“What a good idea,” Meg said coolly. Her smile warmed when she looked at Taylor. “I’m your Aunt Meg. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Good job,” Matt said quietly as his sister huddled with Taylor over the box.

Allison expelled her breath. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about Meg. She’s used to being the Queen Bee in the family.”

Family.

Every pinch Allison had felt, the hurt, the irritation, the injured pride, dissolved into gooey warmth.

“You’re her brother. This is your family business. I totally understand her feeling territorial.”

“That’s no excuse for taking it out on you. I’ll talk to her.”

“Don’t worry about it, Matt. I can take care of myself.”

He drew back slightly. “Sure.”

What had put that faint distance in his eyes, that reserve in his voice?

“I mean, you have enough people to take care of,” she said.

“Right.”

She watched Taylor with Meg, arranging cupcakes on a plate. Saw Josh, swigging milk in front of the open refrigerator as he put the groceries away. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to be here, with them, part of this.

She searched Matt’s face. “Do you want me to get out of your way?”

“No.” His slow, rare smile took her breath away. “I want you to stay for dinner. If you can stand to eat ham again.”

She laughed. The donated ham had provided them with two meals and three packed lunches already. “Maybe we can heat up a casserole this time.”

“Forget dinner. We need to get ready for check-in,” Meg said. “We have guests coming.”

“We still have to eat,” Matt said calmly. “Eventually.”

“I could put dinner together,” Allison offered. “While you do…whatever you have to do.”

“Do you cook?” Meg asked.

“No,” Allison admitted. “But I can warm a casserole and make a salad.”

Taylor made gagging noises.

Meg looked at her, alarmed. “What?”

“She doesn’t like salad,” Allison explained. “You can have carrot sticks,” she said to Taylor.

Meg nodded. “Fine. You can stay.”

H
E WAS GOING
to strangle his sister, Matt decided over dinner.

As long as Meg had guests to impress, she’d played the part of the perfect innkeeper, friendly, energetic, and efficient. She’d made beds and dinner reservations, answered questions and arranged for special meals. She’d provided videos, a crib, and a babysitter for the Kellers’ grandchildren.

Eventually, though, the Kellers trooped off happily to the restaurant of their choice. Meg sat down to eat with Matt, Allison, and the kids.

And promptly started the questioning.

“So why Dare Island?” she asked Allison over hamburger casserole. “Did you come here on vacation?”

“No, I just saw the job posting and liked the idea of an island school.”

“Where did you teach before?”

Allison set down her fork, responding pleasantly to his sister’s interrogation. “I didn’t start out as a teacher. I had to find my way into it. I did a lot of volunteer work, food
pantry, Habitat for Humanity, that kind of thing. Then I got this summer internship with a women’s shelter in South Dakota, working with the childhood development program. That convinced me to try teaching. So after graduation, I spent two years in Mississippi with Teach for America.”

“Not much in that, is there?”

“Actually, it was very rewarding.”

“I meant financially,” Meg said.

Allison raised her eyebrows. “I don’t consider money as the only, or even the most important, factor in making career decisions.”