Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel (14 page)

Jane’s stomach pitched. “Like not having a father.”

Lauren’s eyes were warm and sympathetic. “Or having a father in prison.”

“I read that book you gave me. We talked about it. But Travis left us right after Aidan was born. It’s not like his dad was part of his life before.”

“I know it doesn’t seem logical. Or fair. But kids don’t always react logically. Have you seen any change in Aidan’s behavior at home? Acting out, difficulty sleeping, or issues with eating? New fears? Bed-wetting?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Well, that’s good,” Lauren said, her tone encouraging. “Kids are pretty resilient. It might do him some good to talk with someone, though.”

Which was the nicest possible way to say,
Your kid needs a shrink.

“Would you talk with him?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“Will the other kids tease him? If you pull him out of class?”

Lauren patted her arm. “I’ll find a way.”

“Thanks.” Jane rubbed at a nonexistent spot on the counter. “My dad thinks I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I think Aidan keeps things bottled up inside. I think he needs to find a way to talk about what happened last summer.”

“When Travis tried to kidnap him.”

Jane winced. “Yes.” It wasn’t only Aidan who bottled things up inside.

“Maybe you need to talk about it, too,” Lauren said gently.

“I’m fine,” Jane said. Times like this, she missed Mom more than ever. She hadn’t had a mother’s care, a mother’s love, a mother’s guidance for such a long time. How could she know if she was doing the right thing for Aidan? “I just wish I knew how to help him.”

“You care. That’s the important part. Just listen. It would help if you could model good communication at home,” Lauren said. “Set an example. Talk about your feelings.”

Jane thought of her dad in his recliner watching ESPN. “I’ll try.”

“Aidan needs to know he can come to you to talk about anything. Even if it’s scary or hard to say.”

“Okay.”

“Good communication doesn’t just happen. It takes timing and practice. Sometimes you have to start by sharing the small stuff and work your way up.”

“Small stuff.” Jane nodded. “You bet.”

“Want to give it a try?”

“Now?”

“No time like the present.” Lauren leaned against the back of the counter, helping herself to a cookie sample. “Why don’t you tell me about you and Gabe?”

Jane smiled. “Nice try.”

“Come on, this is practice,” Lauren reminded her.

Jane felt her color rise. She glanced around the nearly empty bakery. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“You’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately.”

“I see all the crew.”

“Jack says you and Gabe were alone together last Friday night.”

Which meant Dad had been complaining to the chief of police. Jane winced. “He was just being nice. He installed that patio door.”

“Was that all he did? Because when he came in a minute ago, you could cut the tension with a knife.”

Dear Lauren. Jane was willing to share her failings as a parent. Anything to help Aidan. But her crappy love life? Not so much.

On the other hand, Lauren had every reason to be suspicious, every right to be concerned about the consequences of Jane’s poor choices, man-wise. When Travis came around the bakery last summer, demanding money and threatening to take Aidan away, Lauren had been hurt trying to stop him. Jane
owed
Lauren.

She owed Gabe, too. Whatever he’d done—or not done—he didn’t deserve Lauren’s suspicions.

“It’s nothing.” Jane lowered her voice. “He just . . . He kissed me, okay?”

A pause, while she pretended to count the twenties in the cash register. Her heart measured the time in beats.
Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Did you want him to kiss you?” Lauren asked at last.

Her blood got hot even thinking about it. “I don’t know. Maybe.” No, that wasn’t fair to Gabe, either. “Yes.”

Lauren made an interested hum. “And . . . ?”

“And nothing.” Jane slapped the cash drawer shut.
Ping.
“It was a mistake.”

“Why do you say that?” Lauren asked gently.

Because that’s what he called it. The memory stung heat to Jane’s face. “Because I’m no good at it. I don’t have any experience. I send out the wrong signals or something.”

Lauren’s dark eyes were concerned. “Jane . . . did he pressure you? Because you need to feel comfortable setting boundaries with a new partner. It’s important for you to feel satisfied and safe.”

Jane wiped her hands on her apron. “Are you talking about sex?”

Lauren smiled. Shrugged. “Occupational hazard. I’m a therapist. We’re always talking about sex.”

“Because I’m fine with sex,” Jane said. At least, she thought she would be, if she ever got the chance. “He didn’t push. It was the opposite of pushing. He kissed me”—the memory of his mouth, warm and sure and urgent, surged through her like a wave—“and then, for a week, nothing.”

“Ah.”

Jane flushed. “What does that mean?”

Lauren took another cookie. “That maybe you’re ready for more than kisses?”

“I don’t know what I’m ready for,” Jane muttered. And now she would never find out. Darn it.

“Mm. I call bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“When Gabe stopped, how did that make you feel?”

This was so humiliating. “I don’t know. I don’t go around analyzing my feelings. I just want to hit him with a sauté pan.”

“You’re angry.”

“Oh, no,” Jane said automatically. She didn’t get angry. She was too afraid of driving people away.

Anger was unproductive and volatile. Dangerous. Expressing anger only made other people mad at you. Made Dad
withdraw deeper into himself and his recliner, made Travis explode. It was better, safer, not to feel at all.

“You sound angry,” Lauren observed.

“Well, I’m not,” Jane snapped. “I’m . . .”
Hurt. Disappointed. Frustrated.
“Furious,” she blurted out.

Oopsy. Maybe she was a little mad after all.

She stared at Lauren, waiting for the sky to fall. Outside, the nail gun rattled against the sheathing of the house.

“Well, that sounds honest. And perfectly healthy to me,” Lauren said.

Jane blinked. “It does?”

“Absolutely. You’re both single, healthy adults, with adult needs. You have every right to be up-front with him and expect him to be up-front with you.”

“He was up-front,” Jane said. “He told me he wasn’t interested in a relationship.”

“After he kissed you.”

Jane nodded. She understood the brain chemistry of pleasure and reward, how to tempt a sweet tooth with sugar or tease an appetite with salt. But Gabe’s kiss was like chocolate, smooth, rich, dark, delicious. The cravings it provoked were almost unhealthy.

“So you’re not the only one sending mixed signals,” Lauren observed.

“He . . . I . . .” She swallowed. “He kissed me like . . .” Her hands, her capable, scarred hands, fluttered in the air, helpless to describe his kiss. “He’s a really good kisser,” she said lamely. “I thought, if he wants me . . . Well, why not? Let him do it. And instead . . .” She drew a sharp breath. “He backs off and tells me I have too much going on in my life already. Like I’m too stupid to decide for myself what I want.”

Lauren raised an eyebrow. “‘Let
him
do it’?”

“It. You know.” Jane flapped her hands again. “Let him sweep me off my feet.”

“Mm. Are you angry because you wanted him to take
control so that you wouldn’t have the responsibility of making the decision?” Lauren asked. “Or are you angry because he did take responsibility and you didn’t get what you want?”

Yes
. Darn it. “Both,” she admitted.

“You do understand that those are incompatible positions?”

Jane looked at her hands. Oh, look, another burn. She rubbed at it absently. “I guess.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“About what?”

“About your feelings.”

“I reckoned I’d do what I usually do,” Jane said, deadpan. “Ignore them until they go away.”

Lauren laughed. “Or you could ask yourself, what do I want? What’s the behavior that will get me what I want?”

“You sound like a therapist.”

“I am that.” Lauren held her gaze. “I’m also your friend.”

A rush of affection tightened Jane’s throat. “I know. And I’m grateful.”

“Hey, I get something out of this relationship, too.”

“Yeah. Cookies.”

“Your friendship.” Lauren grinned. “Not that the cookies aren’t a nice bonus. But you’re an amazing friend. And one of the kindest people I know.”

“Stop. I’m not so amazing.”

“I know it’s hard to feel amazing. Especially when someone who should have loved you unconditionally, all the time, makes you feel unlovable.”

Jane had read the books. She knew that one of the effects of living with abuse was lowered self-esteem. She swallowed the tightness in her throat. “I’m better off without him.”

“Without Travis? Absolutely. I was talking about your mom.”

Jane stared at her in shock.

“You know, my dad died when I was a teen,” Lauren said quietly. “After that, I was so afraid that somebody else would
leave me that I put up with a lot of shit. From guys, especially. It took a lot of work—and Jack—to teach me that I deserved more.”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Jane said.

“Thanks. But my point is, you don’t have to settle. Gabe Murphy could be a really nice guy. But maybe he’s not the right guy for you right now.”

Jane’s chest hollowed. As if she’d lost her breath or something equally precious. Vital. Which was stupid. How could she lose something she’d never had?

Only a kiss.

Only a moment when she’d felt charged, shiny, electric from the inside out. She’d felt
hot
.

Jane bit her lip. “You’re probably right.”

Of course she was right. Lauren was her friend. She only wanted Jane to be happy.

Sex would make you happy
, whispered the devil inside her.

Jane hushed it. Making a play for Gabe now, especially when he’d told her he wasn’t interested in a relationship, would be every bit of the mistake he’d called it. She felt sad—
You’re angry
, the devil said—about that, but she couldn’t ignore the reality of her life.

She was Hank’s daughter. Aidan’s mom. She couldn’t go throwing herself at a man just because he had muscled arms and a glint in his eyes, because he was a good kisser and kind to dogs, because he made her feel reckless and rebellious and alive again.

She boxed the lemon ricotta tarts for Lauren to take with her. Slowed work to look out the window.

Gabe was braced on the ladder outside, his long body extended, saying something that made Tomás grin.

Jane’s pulse kicked up.

What do you want?
Lauren had asked.

She wanted to be a good mother, Jane reckoned.

She wanted to be a good baker, for her bread to feed her
neighbors, for her cookies to comfort them, for her cakes to be a part of every island celebration.

She wanted . . .

Gabe reached overhead, his T-shirt pulling loose from his jeans, revealing the hard, furred ridges of his abdomen.

Her mouth went dry. Oh, she wanted.

T
HE
RAIN
FELL
, flattening the grass and flooding the ruts in the parking lot, turning the blues to gray and the grays to black.

The gloomy weather suited Hank’s mood.

“You won’t make the rain go away by glaring at it,” Marta said.

He turned from the window to scowl at her. With her bright lips and nails and honey-toned skin, she looked like a tropical sunset, warm and vivid. Her blouse was pink. Her bold gold earrings glinted against the reddish tint in her dark hair.

Something stirred inside him. Annoyance, maybe, or relief at having a target for his frustration.

“Shouldn’t you be typing something? Or filing?”

She raised her elegant brows. “It’s Monday. Nothing happens on a Monday.”

“Where’s Jack?”

“At the high school, showing his drunk-driving-accident slides to all the seniors before prom. And before you ask, Luke ran over to the mainland with his friend Gabe.
Something about an animal license,” she added with a pointed look.

Hank grunted. At least the son of a bitch wasn’t at Jane’s.

Jane was a good girl. Never a moment’s trouble until she took up with that no-account ex, Tillett. She’d proved herself to be a fine mother, a hard worker. But there was something in her—a bit of her own mother, maybe—that made Hank uneasy. A restlessness, a recklessness, that made her a target for the wrong kind of man. Assholes like Travis Tillett. Troublemakers like Gabe Murphy. She deserved better. More.

But had she listened to him? No.

Maybe she would have listened to her mom.

He prowled to his desk and back again. Shoved his hands in his pockets. It chafed a man when he couldn’t do better by his daughter.

“If you can’t sit down, go home,” Marta said.

“I’m on call.”

“So, if something happens, I will call you. You don’t have to stay here.”

His jaw set mulishly. “Maybe I like being here.”

“I can tell. If you like it so much, why didn’t you take the chief’s job when the town council offered it to you?”

He used to be surprised by her knowledge of the island and everybody on it. Not anymore. Made her a damn fine dispatcher, to tell the truth.

“I’m too old,” he said.
Too tired
.

“What are you, sixty-four? Sixty-five?”

“Fifty-nine,” he snapped, and then realized he’d been had when her eyes laughed at him.

“Not so old, then. You could live another forty years.”

Coming home every night to the same damn recliner, the same damn sportscasts with the announcers getting younger every year. Or fighting off age with hair dye and capped teeth. “I’d rather be dead.”

“Be careful what you wish for. My husband died when he was only forty-one.”

That shocked him into contrition. “I’m sorry.” He really was. “I didn’t know.”

“You never asked.”

“I always figured . . .” He saw boggy ground ahead and stopped.

She swiveled in her chair, crossing her legs. Nice legs. “That my husband left me?”

He scowled. His wife had left him. Though a man would have to be useless or stupid or both to leave a woman like Marta. “It happens.”

Her face softened. “Yes, it does.”

Hank didn’t want her pity. “I guess I figured you must have kicked his sorry ass out.”

She smiled, but sadly. “No.”

“How old were your boys?” She had four sons. He knew that much.

“Alex and Mateo were in high school. Tomás and Miguel were little boys—eight and two.”

He didn’t know the older ones. But he’d seen the younger two around. “Good boys. You’ve done a good job with them.”

She shrugged round shoulders. Maybe she didn’t want pity, either. “We got by. They are good sons. Hard workers, like their father. The older two got scholarships to college. My point is, you are hardly too old to start something new. I was fifty-two when I accepted this job.”

Because she wanted a challenge, Hank remembered Jack saying. Before that, she’d worked at Grady Real Estate. Started as a cleaning woman, ended up as office manager. She’d been Jack’s first hire as chief of police.

“See, that’s why Rossi should be Chief,” Hank said. “I wouldn’t have hired you.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Because I am a woman? Or because I am Mexican American?”

Heat crawled in Hank’s face. He guessed he deserved that. “Because I’m an old dog. Too set in my ways. I would have gone on the way things were before, using the county
dispatcher. Jack was the one who went to the town council and got the funding for the job. I couldn’t have done that.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. People listen to you.”

“My daughter doesn’t,” he was surprised to hear himself say.

Outside the windows, the rain continued to fall, wrapping them in a gray curtain of sound.

“You are worried about her.”

He opened his mouth to deny it. Nodded instead.

“Tomás says they are working at the new coffee shop today. Is Jane concerned it will take away from her business?”

It was so far from what Hank had been thinking that he goggled. “What are you talking about?”

“Ashley Ingram’s place. Down on the harbor. It could be competition for Jane.”

He rejected the idea instantly. “Jane doesn’t have anything to worry about. She’s a great little baker.”

“She is. But I assumed that was why she was expanding her dining space.”

Hank frowned. “She didn’t say anything to me about that.”

“Do you two talk at all?”

“We don’t need to talk,” Hank said defensively. “Jane knows if she needs anything, she can come to me. The problem is, she’s too damn proud. Stubborn.”

“Your daughter, proud and stubborn?” Marta widened her eyes. “Imagine.”

A grin tugged at his mouth. He turned it hastily into a scowl. “Like this drywall thing today,” he said. He didn’t know shit about installing drywall, but he could’ve done something. “I offered to go over there to help, but she told me no. She’d rather have that Murphy fellow hanging around.”

“Maybe because he knows what he is doing,” Marta said.

“He better not be doing it with my daughter.”

“Isn’t that up to her to decide? She is an adult woman, yes?”

Hank couldn’t argue about that. Didn’t like to think about it. So he grumbled, “She wants him to work around her place, I can’t stop her. But she’s not coming home for dinner.”

“Poor Hank.” There was a gleam in Marta’s eyes he wasn’t entirely sure he liked. “You will have to feed yourself tonight.”

“I can feed myself. I feed me and the boy all the time.” Best not to mention that on the nights Jane wasn’t home in time to start dinner, she’d usually prepared something ready for him to heat in the oven.

“Do you mind watching your grandson?”

“No, Aidan’s a good boy. Good company.” At least one good thing had come out of his daughter’s lousy marriage. “Besides, I’m not watching him tonight. He’s going over to a friend’s house.”

Those big, dark eyes regarded him thoughtfully. “You are lonely.”

Hell, yeah. “No.”

“It’s all right. I get lonely, too.” She smiled. “Mostly for the company of someone my own age.”

His heart thundered. “You get that here,” he pointed out. “Company, I mean. People coming in and . . . People.”
Me.

“Maybe you should come over tonight,” she said. “Since you don’t have anything better to do.”

“To your house,” he said, just to be sure. His blood rushed in his head. She was widowed. She was lonely. He liked her, despite the sparks that flew between them in the office. Or maybe because of them. He wondered if she brought all that attitude to bed.

“For dinner.” Another curve of those bright lips, warm and amused. “And for the companionship.”

*   *   *

“D
ON
’
T
LOOK
AT
me like that,” Gabe said.

Lucky sighed and dropped his head on his paws. The mutt had spent the morning being poked, prodded, and vaccinated like a Marine facing deployment, enduring the vet visit with
abused dignity. The treats and attention afterward had helped. So had the ride home in Luke’s truck. But as soon as the dog grasped that Gabe was abandoning him alone in the motel room, the sulks started.

“Sorry, pal. You’ll just be in the way.”

Usually Gabe took Lucky with him to the job site, but he was working inside today. Not that Jane would throw the beast out into the rain, but Gabe wasn’t taking advantage of her soft heart. In any way.

Lucky’s gaze, dark and mournful, tracked Gabe to the door.

“I’m leaving you for your own good.”

The dog turned its head away.

Fine. Try to do the right thing and everybody hates you.

He locked the door behind him.

“Any mail for me today?” he asked at the front desk.

Bob didn’t look up from his magazine. “Nope.”

Not today, not yesterday. Not ever. Gabe didn’t know why he bothered. His mom never replied to his postcards. Never made that call, the one that said
I’m sorry
or
I forgive you
or
I’m leaving that bastard
or
Come home
.

He went out into the rain. Luke’s truck was still parked in front of the building.

Gabe stopped. “Hey.”

“Thought I’d give you a lift to work.”

They’d marched through worse than rain. But Gabe didn’t see any point in getting soaked and tromping muddy work boots all over Jane’s clean floors.

“Thanks.” He got in.

Luke slid him a look. “You’re spending a lot of time at the bakery these days.”

“I’m finishing up a job.”

“Heard the rest of the crew moved on. Taking your own sweet time because you like the scenery?”

Gabe’s jaw tightened.

Another quick, assessing glance. “Whatever you’re up to, you’ve got Hank’s shorts in a bunch.”

“Nothing happened,” Gabe said. One kiss. One kiss that rocked his world and lit up his system like tracer fire in the desert sky at night. “And you can tell Daddy nothing’s going to happen.”

“She turned you down,” Luke said, his voice almost sympathetic.

“No.”

It would be easier if she had.

Gabe had lost his head over a woman twice before. Rushed into a situation thinking he could make a difference, believing he could save them.

It hadn’t gone well for him. Either time.

Kissing Jane had been a bonehead move. A mistake.

Though she hadn’t felt like a mistake in his arms, he remembered reluctantly. She felt soft and firm, smooth and silky. He touched her and he instantly went hard. Hell, he didn’t even have to touch her. All he had to do was catch her scent, sweet and hot as something from the oven, and he wanted to lick her, suck her, eat her up. The generous way she kissed him back, that little noise she made—
so help me, God
—tore at his control.

He almost hadn’t stopped, and that scared him. His response to her was too intense. Too much. She was too much for him.

Being around her this past week made him feel like a kid at the grocery store, peering in the bakery case, leaving dirty handprints smudged on the glass. Or like a horny adolescent staring out the detention room window at the pretty cheerleader, who had smiled at him the day before, flirting with the quarterback at the edge of the practice field.

He was sick of looking and not buying, tired of needing and not having.

Luke’s fingers drummed the steering wheel. “Let your Sergeant break this down for you. You’re attracted. She’s attracted. Her father hates your guts. So you’ve got a choice to make, Marine: Do you try to satisfy Jane? Or do you satisfy Hank? Because you can’t make both of them happy.”

“No choice,” Gabe said. “They’re both ticked at me now.”

“You still have to pick your battles,” Luke said. “I can already tell you you’re not going to win any ground with Hank. So I wouldn’t waste my ammunition there.”

“I’m not taking a shot at Jane, either.”

“I won’t argue with that, but . . . why not?”

“I got my first paycheck Friday. Put down a week’s deposit at the motel.”

Luke frowned. “Yeah, so?”

He didn’t get it, Gabe realized. Their shared service made them brothers. But even the bonds of blood and battle couldn’t change their lives before the Corps.

He didn’t expect Luke—with his solid family and their century-old inn and his reputation as Hometown Hero—to understand. But he tried to explain anyway. “If you don’t count jail, that motel room is the closest I’ve had to a fixed address in years. I’m trying to turn my life around here. This thing with Jane . . . I’m not looking for that kind of complication. I’m not ready.”