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Matt shook his head to clear it. Allison Carter didn’t do one-night stands.

And he didn’t do anything else.

He’d always had a ban on dating island women. On dating any woman who would expect more than he had left to give. Promises. A ring. A life.

The trees in the garden, all fragrance and shadow, blocked the moon and the lights from the inn, leaving him alone in the dark.

On the other hand, Allison Carter didn’t really fit the island profile, Matt decided. She looked like a woman who came from money. She talked like a person who had places to go.
I kept changing majors,
trying new things, hoping to discover something I could be passionate about.

He could give her passion, he thought. But he didn’t expect her to stick around.

Lots of people moved here, drawn by the idea of island life, seduced by the summers, only to discover when the last tourist left and the first hurricane blew in that they couldn’t put down roots in sand. When the school year was over, maybe sooner, Allison would move on. He could show her around, show her a good time, without anyone thinking he was auditioning another mother for Josh.

Simple.

But first he had to square things with his son.

Matt crossed the strip of yard to his porch feeling almost cheerful.

Inside the cottage, Josh sprawled on the living room couch, eating cereal from the box, the dog at his feet and his gaze locked on ESPN.

Matt closed the door behind him, shutting out the incessant grind of the cicadas. “Done your homework?” he inquired.

Josh sank lower into the couch. “Pretty much.”

Another time that would have been enough.

Allison’s face rose in Matt’s mind. Her voice echoed in his head.
Perhaps you should talk to him anyway.

He walked into the open kitchen to pour a glass of water from the fridge. Fezzik’s tail thumped the carpet as he passed.

“Saw your new teacher today,” he remarked.

Josh snorted. “The DB.”

Dingbatter.
The island epithet for newcomers, uplanders, and Yankees.

“Miss Carter to you,” Matt said mildly.

Josh shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah, whatever.”

Matt took a long drink of cold water.
Keep it light.
“She mentioned something I was supposed to sign.”

“Permission slip. We’re watching some lame movie in class next week.”

Matt thought back to yesterday’s conversation on the dock. He didn’t remember a movie. “This was some kind of contract,” he said. “On the syllabus.”

“Oh, yeah.” Josh returned his gaze to the TV. “I took care of it.”

That figured.

Matt rubbed his face with his hand. The truth was, he was out on the water ten, sometimes twelve hours a day. God knew he tried to keep track of the important stuff, doctor’s appointments, basketball games. Tess, bless her,
filled in where she could. But over the years they’d all learned to make accommodations for him being a single parent.

He strolled back into the living room, blocking Josh’s view of the discussion of Carolina’s starting lineup. “You sign my name?”

Josh eyed him cautiously. “Maybe.”

Matt nodded. “You still have trouble forging the
h
?”

Josh relaxed. “No, I’m good.” A corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “Good enough to get away with it, anyway.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Matt said. “Pull it out and let’s have a look.”

“Can’t it wait until after
Sports Center
?”

Matt had a feeling he’d already waited long enough.
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.

Matt hit the
MUTE
button. “Syllabus,” he said. “Let’s see it.”

Josh heaved an exaggerated sigh before lurching from the couch. He retrieved his backpack from beside the door and dumped it on the couch, pawing through its contents like Fezzik digging for a bone. Eventually he unearthed a slim paperback and several crumpled sheets stapled together. He flipped over the top two pages before handing them to Matt.

Matt thumbed back to the beginning—course outline, homework policy, letter to parents, promises to students. Phrases leaped out at him until he could almost hear Allison’s earnest voice.
“Excited about working with your child…welcome your concerns…”

“You don’t have to read it,” Josh said.

Matt raised his brows. “That signature says I did. Let’s not make a liar out of us both.”

Josh flushed and fell silent.

Matt read. “
Scarlet Letter
. They still make you read that, huh?”

Josh shifted. “Well…”

A rap sounded on the front door. Josh wriggled like a fish on the line, preparing to slip away.

“Stay put,” Matt said and went to open the door.

Luke stood on the stoop, his face in shadow. “Got a minute?”

Matt glanced over his shoulder at Josh. “Now?”

Luke held up a six-pack. “I brought beer. I thought we could go out on the boat.”

“Cool,” said Josh.

“Not you,” Matt said. “Can we do this later?” he asked Luke.

Luke grinned. “If you don’t mind warm beer.”

Despite his brother’s cocky smile, his voice was strained. Luke never had been any damn good at asking for help. Tromping across the yard, six-pack in hand, was as close as he could come to a distress call.

Tension knotted Matt’s neck.

“I’ll get my keys.” He cocked a finger at Josh. “You stay here. TV stays off.”

“So what do I do while you’re gone?” Josh asked, aggrieved.

“Find that permission slip I’m supposed to sign.” Picking up the paperback, Matt tossed it to his son. “And catch up on your reading.”

T
HE NIGHT BREEZE
ruffled the silver bay as the old
Sea Lady
rocked at anchor. Water lapped the side of the boat.

Luke tipped his head back against the seat. The moonlight bleached his fair hair, emphasizing the bones of his skull and the shadows under his eyes. His face, pale and skeletal, motionless under the moon, dug at Matt’s chest like a hook biting hard.

Luke had lost a lot of weight in Afghanistan. He looked gaunt. Older.

Shit.

Matt popped open another beer and stared at the sky until the burning in his eyes went away.

That haze around the moon meant dust in the air. A high pressure system. That should keep the clouds away.

“Another clear day tomorrow,” Luke said.

Matt glanced at his brother, surprised by the echo of his own thoughts.

But despite their differences in age and temperament, they were brothers, bound by blood and memory, by a thousand inside jokes and shared experiences. You couldn’t escape family.

How many nights had they gone out together with their father, grandfather, and watched the moon?

Matt set down his beer, untasted. “You didn’t drag me out here your last night home to talk about the weather.”

“No.”

Matt waited. He wasn’t comfortable putting his emotions into words. But at least he had some experience dealing with feelings, some practice at being a parent. Luke didn’t.

The silence stretched.

“You get the kid settled down all right?” Matt asked at last.

“I said good night.” Luke’s tone was defensive. “She’s a little old for bedtime stories.”

Maybe so. Matt couldn’t remember at what age he’d stopped reading to Josh. But he remembered the wriggly warm weight against his arm, the tousled head against his shoulder.

Luke had missed all that with his daughter.

Why? Why hadn’t Dawn told him about the child they’d supposedly made together? Sure, they broke up in high school, but why hadn’t she come after Luke for child support? The Simpsons had never had any money.

“We had to move her,” Luke said abruptly. “Mom needed the room for some guests coming in late tonight. She made up a bed for Taylor in the old sewing room.” The small room at the top of the stairs off the kitchen. “The kid looked at me like I was making her sleep in the crawl space.”

“You could have given up your room,” Matt said.

Luke shook his head. “The sewing room is right above Mom and Dad. I didn’t want to leave her alone in a guest room next to a bunch of strangers.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing anyway?” Matt asked quietly. “In her eyes, we’re strangers, too.”

Luke’s jaw set in a mulish expression Matt recognized. “We’re her family.”

Matt held his brother’s gaze. “You sure about that?”

Luke expelled his breath. “I had a paternity test done first thing. There’s a place in Texas that’ll get the results back in twenty-four hours if you pay them enough.”

“What did you do?” Matt asked dryly. “Hold her down and draw blood?”

“I didn’t have to. Dawn’s lawyer made sure I was appointed Taylor’s interim guardian until the court determines final custody. That gives me the right to take her to a doctor on base.”

“Jesus. No wonder she’s hostile.”

“Hey, I didn’t tell her why,” Luke said. “I picked her up, told her she needed a physical before school started. Which she does. Anyway, while he was at it, the doctor did a…” Luke waggled his finger next to his cheek.

“Swab,” Matt guessed.

“Yeah. Then I checked us into a motel and waited for the DNA results. I wasn’t bringing her here until I knew.”

Matt tried to picture it, his brother holed up overnight with a scared, snotty ten-year-old, waiting to find out if he was a dad. What a nightmare. For both of them.

“Why the hell didn’t you just take her back to Dawn’s parents?”

Luke dug in his front shirt pocket. “The lawyer said it might not be so easy to pick her up the second time. The Simpsons want to keep her.”

O-kay.

Matt sympathized with Luke’s situation. To find out you were a father after ten years, to be given a chance to reconnect with a child you never knew you had…

But the child’s interests trumped a father’s feelings. Not to mention what
she
must feel.

“Maybe you should think about that,” Matt said. “The kid just lost her mother.”

Luke tapped a cigarette from the pack. “And I’m her father.”

“You’re also deployed, for Christ’s sake. At least she knows Dawn’s folks.”

Luke flipped his lighter without speaking. A flame jumped against the dark.

“I thought you quit,” Matt said as Luke cupped his hand around the cigarette.

“I did.” Luke inhaled slowly, closing his eyes.

Their dad had smoked, too, Matt remembered, every time he went on active duty, in Lebanon and Libya and the Gulf, no matter how much Tess nagged him about it. Cigarettes were a way to cope with boredom, sleep deprivation, and the stress of combat.

Not to mention the shock of coming home.
Congratulations, it’s a girl.

Luke blew a long stream of smoke out over the water, light against the dark. “Dawn left a letter,” he said at last. “With the will.”

“A letter,” Matt repeated carefully.

“She wanted me to raise the kid. Not her parents.”

Matt raised his brows. “But our parents raising the girl is okay?”

“Don’t bust my chops. You never minded accepting their help with Josh.”

He’d minded, Matt thought. But he hadn’t seen a choice.

“They were sixteen years younger then. And so was I. Anyway, I didn’t dump a baby on their doorstep and run.”

Instead, he’d come home from college, where his future had once stretched as bright and unbounded as the ocean.

“Taylor’s not a baby,” Luke said. “She’s ten. Hell, she’ll be in school half the time.”

“The bigger they get, the bigger their problems. You should be here.”

“Not an option,” Luke said.

“Bullshit,” Matt said. “You could get hardship leave.”

“I have a responsibility to my men.”

“I hate to break it to you, bro, but you’re replaceable to the Marines. Your men can find another squad leader. Your daughter can’t find another dad.”

“I know what I’m doing over there. I don’t have the first clue how to be a parent.”

Matt shrugged. “So you learn on the job like everybody else. You can’t do that in Afghanistan.”

Luke ground out his cigarette on top of his can. “The kid will be fine without me. She doesn’t know me. Doesn’t need me. Hell, she doesn’t even like me.”

“Maybe you should work on changing that.”

“If something happens over there, she’s better off not knowing. This way she won’t miss me.”

“If you believe that, you’re an idiot.”

Luke reached for another beer. “I can take better care of her by doing my job. At least she’ll be provided for.” He smiled crookedly. “Hell, I’ll be home in another three months. Plenty of downtime between deployments for us to get to know each other.”

“Provided you live that long,” Matt said quietly.

“Yeah.” Luke tipped back his beer, his throat muscles working in the moonlight. He lowered the can. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. If anything happens, I need to know you’ll be here.”

“We all will. You know that.”

“Yeah. But you said yourself Mom and Dad aren’t getting any younger. You done good with Josh. This kid…If the shit hits the fan, I’m counting on you, bro.”

Matt’s chest hurt. He cleared his throat. “I’ll be here.”

Luke met his gaze and smiled. “Back to back?”

“To back,” Matt promised solemnly.

It was the rallying cry of their childhood. Growing up in a military family, moving from base to base, the three Fletcher siblings had always stood by each other.
Back to back to back.

There was no question Matt’s life was about to get more complicated.

And no help for it.

“Does Meg know yet?” Matt asked. “About Taylor?”

“I called her.” Luke rolled his eyes. “She asked if I updated my will.”

“And?”

“Well…She told me to buy more life insurance.”

Matt swallowed a laugh.

“I
HEAR YOU’RE
seeing Matt Fletcher,” Gail Peele remarked the next morning as she rinsed her coffee mug in the teacher’s lounge.

Allison froze, her tea bag suspended over hot water. “Who told you that?”