Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel

by Virginia Kantra

  “I can spend the night?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Need me to bring you anything?” Hank asked when the doctor had gone. “A toothbrush?”

  “I’m fine.” Marta smiled at him, competent, calm, and in control. “If I need anything, I will check out this hospital gift shop you are so fond of.”

  “I can swing by the house,” he offered. “Check on Miguel.”

  “I called him already while you were parking the car. He is spending the night with his friend Ethan.”

  He admired her backbone. Made her a damn fine dispatcher. But it wouldn’t kill her to lean on somebody else once in a while. To lean on him. He was willing to help. He just needed her to tell him what to do.

  A nurse in blue scrubs came through the big doors. “Ready to take you up now, Mrs. Lopez.”

  “Well.” Marta’s gaze sought his.

  “He’ll be fine,” Hank said, answering her unspoken need for reassurance.

  “Of course. He has a hard head.” She smiled and patted his cheek. “Like some other people I know.” She glanced at Gabe. Lowered her voice. “Be nice.”

  “I’m always nice,” he growled, and was rewarded when she laughed.

  He watched her march after the nurse toward the elevator, indomitable in her straight black skirt and chunky heels. Nice legs.

  He turned to find Gabe watching him, smirking.

  Hank flushed. “I suppose you need a ride home now.”

  “Already called Luke. He’s coming after his shift.”

  Be nice.

  “Don’t be a jackass,” Hank said. “I’m here. You can ride with me.”

  Eighteen

  AFTER FORTY-FIVE MINUTES in the car with Hank, Gabe wanted a shower, a run on the beach, and a beer. Not necessarily in that order.

  Jane’s dad may have been shamed into offering him a ride from the hospital. That didn’t mean the two of them bonded during the drive home. They barely spoke.

  At least this time Gabe sat in the front seat instead of being transported in the back like a criminal.

  Gabe started his truck and followed Hank’s squad car out of the bakery parking lot, careful to use his turn signal. When Hank turned into his driveway, Gabe was tempted to keep right on going.

  Not that he would. Jane had volunteered to watch Lucky while Gabe delivered Marta’s car. He couldn’t leave the dog with her overnight.

  He pulled in front of the faded blue frame house. Aidan and the dog were tussling in the yard. The dog was barking, the boy was giggling. Something loosened in Gabe’s chest.

  Aidan sent up a shout of welcome as he got out of the truck. “Hey, Gabe!”

  “Hi, sport.”

  Lucky charged over, a ratty yellow tennis ball clutched firmly in his jaws, ears cocked, tail wagging.

  “What do you want?” Gabe asked.

  Lucky dropped the ball and danced back. Gabe stooped and winged the ball across the yard. The dog shot after it like a bullet, Aidan running in pursuit.

  Gabe grinned.

  Jane came out on the porch, and he felt the weight of the day slide from his shoulders like dropping his seabag after a long deployment.

  “They haven’t stopped since Aidan got home from school,” she said.

  “Good exercise.”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “Guess they’ll both sleep well tonight.”

  Their eyes met, and it hit him.

  This. This must be what coming home felt like, the moment perfect as a postcard: the bushes around the porch struggling into flower, and the kid racing over the grass, and Jane smiling in welcome, so pretty she took his breath away.

  Gabe cleared his throat. “Thanks for watching my dog.”

  “Anytime,” Jane said.

  The air trembled between them.

  Hank came around the corner of the house. “Supper ready yet?” Translation: don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

  “Just about,” Jane said.

  Gabe shifted his feet. “We’ll get out of your hair, then.”

  “But . . .” Jane glanced at her father.

  “I already told her to set another place,” Hank said gruffly. “You might as well stay for dinner.”

  So maybe they had bonded after all.

  Dinner was excellent, meat loaf and mashed potatoes that tasted nothing like the MRE he remembered swimming in gelatinous brown onion gravy.

  After dinner, Gabe figured it was only fair he help with the dishes. Or maybe he was seizing any excuse to stick around.

  “You’ve done enough already today,” Jane said, taking his plate from him. “You deserve to relax.”

  “You, too.”

  She smiled and shook her head, as if there was something funny in the idea that she could have a night off.

  He intended to change that.

  “I like doing things for you,” he said.

  “I don’t need you to. I don’t expect them.”

  He backed her against the sink. “Maybe you should.” The scent of soap rose from the bubbles behind her, making him remember the last time they had done dishes together. “You smell so good.”

  Her lips curved. “Like meat loaf?”

  “Dish soap.” He nuzzled her throat. “Very sexy.”

  They were surrounded by counters. With no effort at all, he could boost her up, make a place for himself between her thighs and . . .

  Aidan clomped down the stairs. Great kid, lousy timing. Although with her father in the next room, it was just as well the kid interrupted them before Gabe made a total fool of himself.

  Lucky lurched from under the table, tail swaying hopefully.

  “Down, boy,” Gabe said, as much to himself as to the dog.

  Just because they had been petted and played with before didn’t mean anything more was happening tonight.

  “Hey, boy. Hey, Lucky.” Aidan fussed over the dog, then turned shyly to Gabe. “I brought you a book.” He held it out.

  Gabe turned the volume over in his hand to read the title. “‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’?”

  “It’s a chapter book,” Aidan said. “You might have to help me with some of the words.”

  “Sure,” Gabe said before he remembered. Jane didn’t want this. She was afraid of Aidan getting attached, afraid of being hurt.

  You can trust me, he thought at her. Let me prove it to you.

  She glanced from him to Aidan and then threw up her hands, clearly recognizing when she was outnumbered. “Go ahead. Fifteen minutes.”

  Maybe it was fifteen, maybe it was twenty, by the time Gabe finished the chapter and said good night.

  Across the hall, the door opposite Aidan’s stood open. Jane’s room, Gabe guessed, from the lacy white curtains. The tulips he had given her stood on the dresser table, dropping yellow petals onto the wood.

  He needed to bring her more flowers.

  That’s what it meant to be in a relationship, didn’t it? More dinners, more stories, more evenings like this one. For both of them.

  Hank looked up from his recliner as Gabe passed the living room. “You’re leaving now.” Not quite a question.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “’Preciate what you did for Marta’s boy today.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You starting something up with my daughter?”

  Gabe put his hands in his pockets, starting to sweat. Pulled them out again. “That’s between her and me.”

  “I’m her father.”

  There wasn’t anything to say to that, so Gabe didn’t try.

  “That son of a bitch she married . . .” Hank paused, a frown gathering on his face. “He hurt her.”

  “I won’t,” Gabe said.

  Hank’s dark gaze speared him. “I’ll come after you if you do. Doesn’t matter how old she is, she’s my little girl.”

  “I won’t argue with you there. But she’s tougher than you give her credit for.”

  Hank scowled and gripped the remote, flipping channels. “I do
n’t recall asking for your opinion.”

  “Well, you’re getting it. To go through what she’s gone through and turn out the way she is . . .” Gabe shook his head. “Most people, they get beat up or pushed around, it breaks them. Or it makes them hard. Mean.” Like his mother. Like Gabe himself, that first year he joined the Corps, an angry, resentful kid desperate to prove himself, to do anything he could to survive. “But not Jane. She’s an amazing woman. She does more than just feed people. She nurtures them. You should be proud of her.”

  “I am proud. But she took it hard when her mama left. And then to get mixed up with a no-account piece of shit like Tillett . . . Bound to leave scars.”

  Gabe had told himself the same thing. Jane had been through a lot. She deserved better.

  But it was beginning to annoy him, the way people talked about her, the way they defined her as an abandoned eight-year-old or a deluded nineteen-year-old and seemed to ignore everything she had accomplished since.

  “If you’re telling me she’s got a lot on her shoulders, I can see that for myself. If you’re asking me if I plan on being a burden on your daughter, the answer is no. But I would like to lighten her load some.”

  Hank’s face was as grooved and unreadable as a tractor tire. “Is that a fact.”

  “Actually, sir, it’s a promise.”

  The grooves deepened suddenly. “Might be she’ll have something to say about that.”

  He was grinning, the ornery old bastard.

  Gabe rejoined Jane in the kitchen. She was bending over the contents of Aidan’s backpack, which were strewed on the kitchen table. Her butt, in wash-worn denim, was firm and smooth, with a crease down the center like a ripe peach.

  Gabe’s mouth went dry. He ran his tongue over his teeth.

  At his entrance, she glanced over her shoulder. “That took you a while.”

  “Yeah.” The faint sounds of the television drifted from the living room. Hell. Had she heard him discussing her with her father behind her back? “It was a good book,” he said, trying to distract her.

  She straightened, putting one hand on the small of her back, the way she did when she was tired. The position did nice things for her breasts, which for once weren’t shielded by her apron. “You never read it before?”

  What? He shook his head, trying to focus. “I wasn’t much into reading as a kid.”

  And he’d never seen a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the library of the Williams County Jail.

  “Mm.” She tilted her head, studying him with those too-aware, too-amused eyes, all shining silver on the surface with depths a man could drown in. Like the sea at dawn.

  He sighed, resigned. “How much did you hear?”

  “Between you and my dad?” She smiled. “Enough.”

  He eyed her warily. “Enough to . . .” Be embarrassed? Mad? What?

  “Enough to do this,” she said, stepping in close.

  Surprise rendered him motionless as she twined her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against him. “And this.”

  She kissed him.

  Her lips were soft and warm, all of her soft and warm and sweet, everything he craved, everything he cherished, right here in his arms. Lust surged through him, heavy and hard, and his brain shut down, his body taking over as he kissed her back, and she was with him all the way, opening her mouth, tightening her arms, her body straining against his.

  “Don’t mind me,” Hank growled, and Gabe jolted as if he’d been tased.

  He raised his head as Jane’s father strolled in and opened the refrigerator door.

  “I wanted some tea,” Hank said, pulling out a plastic jug.

  Jane folded her arms over the mighty rack. “Daddy, you never drink sweet tea.”

  Hank eyed her acerbically. “I do all kinds of things I don’t tell you about. Same as you, I reckon. But there’s a time and a place for everything.”

  Jane’s face turned pink.

  “No secrets here,” Gabe said, coming to her rescue.

  Hank shot him a shrewd look from under bushy brows.

  Gabe grinned. “You’ve already done a background check on me.”

  Hank barked with laughter, which he covered with a cough.

  Gabe kissed Jane briefly and firmly on the mouth—a gesture of support, a stamp of possession. “See you tomorrow,” he said, and left, his dog at his heels.

  * * *

  TRUE TO HIS word, Gabe showed up at Jane’s Sweet Tea House the next day to finish work on the roof.

  Jane seized a break between customers to carry breakfast to the work crew—Gabe, Jay, and one other man.

  Gabe met her gaze, a smile in his eyes. “Right on schedule.”

  Seeing him filled her with a dangerous heat, her insides rising light as a soufflé. She felt ridiculously happy just being near him. “The coffee?” she teased. “Or the project?”

  “Can’t be the project,” he said wryly. “Between the rain and the accident, we’re a week behind.”

  She had never known another man who pushed himself so hard or who downplayed his own efforts so much.

  “You’re not responsible for the weather,” she said. “Or the accident. How’s Tomás?”

  He took the coffee she held out to him with a murmur of thanks. “His head looks fine, but he won’t be back at work until his cast is off. Marta’s springing him from the hospital as soon as the doctor signs off on the paperwork. I figured Hank would have told you.”

  “I haven’t talked to Dad yet today. I left the house at four this morning.”

  “You don’t get enough sleep.”

  She shrugged. “Baker’s hours,” she said lightly.

  “Not just that.” He tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, his thumb lingering on her jaw. A tingle shivered down her spine. “You work too hard.”

  “I’m fine. I had a restless night,” she confessed. Thinking about him, warm and safe, holding her close. Dreaming about him, hot and dangerous, his hands hard on her hips as he pumped deep inside her.

  “Me, too.” His voice, sandpaper rough, scraped over her sensitized nerves.

  The heat thickened. She swayed toward him, drew back, conscious of the sly grins and curious looks from the crew. The Lord only knew how many of her customers and neighbors were watching out the bakery windows. Speculating.

  “Darn,” she said, keeping her voice low so she couldn’t be overheard. The gossip was bad enough without her feeding it.

  “What?”

  She’d never thought of herself as a particularly sexual person before. But now . . .

  “I still want you,” she whispered.

  Gabe went very, very still. “You picked a hell of a time to mention it, cupcake.” He raised his voice, never taking his gaze from hers. “Jay, Frank, take your breakfasts out front. You can eat at one of the tables.”

  And that, she was pretty sure, would give the gossips something to chew on for weeks.

  Gabe watched them go and then turned back to her, his thumbs in his pockets. “So you want me,” he said. “Damned if I can see why that’s a bad thing.”

  “Not bad. Inconvenient, I guess. I reckoned that after we . . .” Not slept together. No sleeping involved. She blushed. “After we, you know, did it, that I wouldn’t feel so needy. Greedy. Isn’t having sex supposed to get it out of your system?”

  His mouth quirked. “Not if you do it right.”

  She smiled ruefully. “We must be doing something right, then. I feel like I’m set to burst out of my skin. I want you all the time. Is it you? Is it me?”

  He gave a short, strangled laugh. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the tool belt.”

  An answering laugh bubbled deep within her. “It’s not only the tool belt, trust me.”

  “Then it’s got to be you.” His gaze met hers. “I’ve never felt this way before.”

  Oh. She hugged his words to her heart the way she wanted to hug him.

  But she could not linger. No matter wha
t she dreamed or felt, she had work to do. Rudy came in at nine to help with the lunch prep, but Jane still needed to do the afternoon baking.

  She clasped her hands together, keeping them to herself. “I have to go.”

  Gabe nodded, accepting that, but said, “I want to see you tonight. You and Aidan.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to do paperwork tonight. Pay bills. Place orders. My vendors only deliver to the island once a week. If I don’t order my supplies on time, I’ll wind up having to make a dozen trips to the mainland.”

  A long look, a slower nod. “Right.”

  Guilt and regret joined forces against her. “Maybe you could come by later,” she suggested.

  “Nine o’clock?”

  She winced, thinking of the stack of things awaiting her attention.

  “Ten?”

  She bit her lip. “Maybe . . . ten thirty?”

  He frowned. “I thought you had to be up at four.”

  Her throat tightened. She liked it so much that he remembered. More, that he cared.

  I would like to lighten her load some, he had said to her father.

  But it was her load, she thought stubbornly. Her weight to carry, her job and hers alone.

  “I don’t mind losing a little sleep,” she said.

  “I do. I won’t come by tonight if it means you’re exhausted in the morning.”

  “But I want to see you.” Great. Pouting. So attractive.

  “You’ll see me tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you have another job to go to?”

  “We’ll find time. I’ll make time,” he said.

  She hoped so.

  The truth was, there weren’t enough hours in the day. She was already juggling as much as she could handle. She wasn’t sure how to throw a relationship into the mix without everything crashing to the ground.

  Nineteen

  THE DAMN LETTER from the lawyer in Detroit burned a hole in Gabe’s back pocket. The words were branded in his brain. Sorry to inform you . . . Sole beneficiary . . . Contact us at your earliest convenience.

  The phrases swirled, a red cloud in his head, like the suffocating dust of Afghanistan stirred by chopper blades. Memories rose and choked him. Anger, grief, regret. His throat ached. His eyes burned. He dragged down his safety goggles and turned on the drill, focusing on the task at hand, burying his thoughts in action.