Carolina Girl (23 page)

He steered her toward the door. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

“Make it up to me?” she sputtered as he bundled her out to the truck. “I may not let you touch me after this. Hell, I may not even be speaking to you.”

His grin flashed. “Don’t sulk.”

He drove fast, one hand on the wheel and the other on her knee. It wasn’t enough. She wanted him naked. She wanted his hands, his mouth, all over her. She was on edge, vibrating with impatience.

The truck slowed as he turned onto the unfinished road of the Dare Plantation development. The track went down, then up, then down, farther than they’d gone before. He parked amid the dunes and blowing grass near a stand of ancient live oaks. A frame house on stilts rose half finished in the sun.

Grabbing a tarp from the back of the truck, Sam opened her door. “Here we go.”

“Where?”

“Up there.” He guided her up a flight of unfinished stairs, with daylight showing through the treads, boosting her with a hand on her bottom when the handrail disappeared.

Meg poked her head cautiously through an opening in the floor. Light poured over the platform. The open walls, the oaks all around, gave the unfinished structure the feel of a tree house. “Sam, it’s beautiful. But . . .”

“We couldn’t make love at your house,” he said. His gaze met hers, warm as the sun that flooded the boards around them. She melted inside. “So I brought you to mine.”

She turned in a cautious circle, taking in the views from the sound to the sea. “This is your house?”

“It will be. This is the master bedroom. And this”—he spread the tarp—“is the bed.”

She laughed and sat, patting the canvas invitingly. “Maybe we should test it out.”

“That’s my plan.” But instead of joining her, he walked to one corner of the platform and reached up behind one of the joists.

She frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Turning off the security camera.”

“Oh.” Her breath went in a puff of laughter. “Good idea.”

Her laughter faded as he stripped off his shirt. She loved looking at him, his smooth, muscled chest, the shadow of coarse hair that ran like an arrow down his abdomen. She shivered in anticipation as he stalked toward her, his skin prickling in the cool air.

Was she actually going to make love outside? In broad daylight? In November?

Yes.

“We’re going to freeze,” she predicted.

Sam lowered himself beside her. “I’ll keep you warm,” he said and proceeded to make good on his promise.

His hands were fluid as they flowed over her, lingering in the places that gave her the most pleasure. His mouth was warm and coaxing, taking, giving, taking a little more. He set her blood on fire, set her skin aglow. She closed her eyes, sinking into a molten, golden sea, flooded with sunshine and well-being. He dealt with the condom before he covered her, whispering love words—
like that, sugar, take it, yes
—moving into her, pushing into the heat and the laughter, slowly and deliberately taking her, making her gasp and shudder, making her arch and moan. Making her his. She twined her legs around him, holding him to her and in her with everything she had, making him hers, over and over. Until their pace quickened and raced, until their rhythm crested and broke, until he shuddered and spent inside her and she dissolved in waves of bone-melting heat.

Afterward they drifted.

He kissed her nose.

She touched his jaw. “I like your house,” she murmured.

He stretched on top of her, wakening her nerve endings, working the kinks from his back. “It could use a mattress.”

She smiled and rubbed the back of her head. “I was thinking some pillows.”

“And you,” he said. Their eyes caught. Locked. “It needs you.”

Her heart rolled over in delight. Her stomach sank in dismay. They had agreed to take things one day at a time, to enjoy the journey. But they were traveling too far, too fast, and she could see the end of the road too clearly.

“Why don’t you show me the rest?” she suggested, fighting to keep her voice steady.

She felt the tension in his long body, the masculine resistance before he levered himself off her. But he was too smart to push. Instead, being Sam, he set himself to impress. To charm. After they were dressed, he showed her the job site from their vantage point on the platform, where the channel allowed the best access for boats, where the fish house and the housing and the greenway would be. His enthusiasm fired her imagination. She could see, so clearly, all his hopes, all his plans taking shape in the island’s soil.

She didn’t understand all his talk about strategic flows and runoff storage measures, but she felt his passion.

“This isn’t a competition with your father anymore,” she said. “It’s your dream.”

He looked back at her steadily, confidence in every line of his body. “It’s my future.”

She looked away, aware of him waiting for a response she couldn’t give.

But during the next two weeks, she felt herself being dragged farther and farther down the road with Sam. She knew they were getting too close, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

She wanted him. She wanted to be with him.

He ate dinner with her family.

She came to dinner with his, talking with Angela about Chelsea’s upcoming wedding, arguing politics with Carl.

“He’s proud of you,” she said to Sam afterward. “He doesn’t like to show it, but he is.”

They went out with Matt and Allison to the Fish House one night, shooting pool and drinking beer.

And they made love every chance they got. They had sex in Sam’s truck, steaming up the windows like a couple of teenagers, and in the tree house bedroom of the unfinished house so often that Sam finally moved an air mattress and a sleeping bag up to the platform.

Meg’s appetite for Sam, for his body, for his conversation, was growing and insatiable.

And he knew it, she thought. He fed it, teasing her with possibilities, seducing her with glimpses of what her life could be.

If only she gave up everything she’d ever worked for.

Twenty

“A
LL GOOD AND
on schedule,” Sam confirmed over the phone. “We’ll use the existing elevation drawings, and I’ve got the surveyors coming back Monday. Yeah, I will. Thanks, Nate.”

He ended the call, using his phone to anchor one end of the drawing on his desk.
All good and on schedule
, he repeated to himself, feeling relieved and hopeful and thinking of Meg.

He’d been careful not to push her. Not to rush.
Why don’t we take this thing one day at a time and see where it goes.

But by now even a blind man could see where they were heading. And why not? It wasn’t like either of them had anything against marriage as an institution. Look at her parents, still going strong after forty years. Look at . . . Okay, his parents hadn’t made it work. But look at the old man and Angela. Meg’s brother, Sam’s sister were both taking the plunge this year. Given their backgrounds, given their families’ history and expectations, it only made sense for Sam to be thinking in terms of, well, the future.

And if
he
was thinking that way, you could bet that
she
was. Planning for the future was her thing.

“Hey.” Her voice broke into his thoughts.

He looked up and she was there, smiling at him in the open door of his office. His day, which had been good, got even better. “Hey, yourself.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting. Shelley said to come on back.”

“Not interrupting,” he assured her. “Want some coffee?”

“Thanks, but I can’t stay.” She dug in her purse. “I’m expecting a call, and . . .”

He took her by the shoulders and kissed her, a soft, glad-to-see-you kind of kiss, drawing it out until he felt her lips warm and yield and his blood begin to pound. And then he let her go.

“Well.” She licked her lips, her smile turning mischievous. “Now you’ve made me really glad I decided to bring the copy by instead of e-mailing it to you.”

“Copy?”

“Something I wrote for the watermen’s association website.” She reached into her bag again and pulled out a folder. “I used a lot of the same points that I put in the grant applications, but I also have some ideas here for spotlighting restaurants and fish markets that serve locally caught seafood.”

“You need to start billing for hours.”

“I will once they get the grant, believe me.”

“Not them. Me.”

“I’m not worried about the money. Wait until you hear my idea. The thing is . . .” Her blue eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “We don’t have to wait until the fishermen’s website is up to start implementing a marketing plan for local catch.”

He was amused. Impressed. She talked about marketing plans the way another woman might talk about shoes or diamonds. “We don’t?”

She shook her head. “The biggest market for fresh seafood on the island is vacationers. And the simplest way to reach vacationers is through their rental company. So if you want to encourage restaurants to buy local seafood, you start recommending restaurants that feature local seafood on the Grady Realty website. And in your rental packets.”

“Good job, Harvard.”

“I know. I’m brilliant.”

He moved in. “Have I mentioned that brilliant women really turn me on?”

Her lips curved. “I’m discovering everything really turns you . . .” Her cell phone chirped. “Damn. Sorry. Do you mind if I take this?”

“Go ahead.” He retreated to the coffee machine to give her an illusion of privacy.

“Hi, Bruce, can I call you ba—you did?”

Sam stopped, caught by her sudden change of pitch.

Meg cupped her phone, turning her back. “Well, of course I . . . They did?”

A trickle of unease went down Sam’s spine. It was probably nothing. It was probably . . .

“I am,” Meg said. “Very interested. Yes, I will. I’ll have to call you back. Say, in half an hour? Thank you so much, Bruce. Me, too.”

His back tensed. He made an effort to speak calmly. “That sounded important.”

She turned her glowing face to his. “It was. It is. It’s wonderful. That was Bruce Adler from the PR firm. They’ve had an unexpected opening in Crisis Communications and they want to hire me.”

Don’t overreact. Play it cool.
“I thought you had a job with them already.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Contract work.”

Something inside him twisted. “You were pretty excited about it a couple of weeks ago,” he said carefully.

“I still am. I love working with Lauren, and it was fun to try something new.”

Was
fun, he noted dully. Past tense.

“But this is much more in line with my experience,” she continued. “And my pay scale.”

“You just said you weren’t worried about money.”

“Sam. This is a salaried position. With benefits. In New York.”

Each short sentence plunged into him like a knife. “So, that’s it? Just like that, you’re taking it?”

She frowned. “Well, no, obviously, I need to review a copy of the offer and the benefits package. And I need to negotiate the start date.”

He felt like an idiot. While he had been thinking about the long road, Meg had been taking a little detour in her well-planned life. Taking him for a ride. “But you’re going.”

“Not until after the holidays.”

Anger spurted. He welcomed it. Anger was preferable to pain. “One phone call, and you’re running back to Derek.”

Red flags flew in her cheeks. “That’s a despicable thing to say. This isn’t about Derek. It’s about me, about what I’ve worked for all these years.”

That what he was afraid of. Terrified by. He stood a chance against Derek. He had no defense against her dreams.

He stared at her dumbly, bereft of words and charm. Like a harpooned animal, bleeding.

As if from a great distance, he heard himself say, “What about us?”

Her face changed, indignation sliding into distress. “This isn’t about us, either. Sam, you know I care about you. You’ve done so much. Given me so much. But this is something you can’t do for me. You can’t give me everything I want.”

She might as well have hit him with a hammer.

Rejection roared in his ears. He wasn’t good enough to keep her. Nothing he did would be enough to hold her.

“I guess I hoped that part of what you wanted was me.”

Her breath jerked. “You could come to New York.”

“My future’s here. You’re the one who showed me that.”

“For God’s sake, Sam, this isn’t the end. We can still see each other.”

He wasn’t playing that game. “I have one long-distance relationship in my life already. With my mother. Once-a-year visits and a nice present at Christmas.” He shook his head. “Sorry, sugar, not interested.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say.” Her voice shook between temper and tears. “We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks.”

“We’ve known each other for
twenty years
.”

“Then you shouldn’t be so quick to throw us away.”

“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m trying to hold on, damn it. To my life, to my work, to you. I thought you saw that. That I’d have a chance to convince you. How the hell can we have any kind of future together if you’re in New York?”

Temper won. “How the hell can you ask me to give up my life? My work?”

“Fine. Take the job if that’s what you really want, if that’s what’s important to you. But you’re out of my life.”

“I don’t have to be. Sam . . .”

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.” He met her eyes, ignoring the sickness in his gut, the howling of his heart. “If you go, you’re out of my life.”

* * *

H
E WAS A JERK.

Meg drove, dashing tears from her eyes, tissues littering her lap. Thank God, she thought with the portion of her brain that was not numb, that the season was over, the vacationers gone. The last thing she needed was to lose control of her car and kill a tourist on a bicycle.

Who did Sam think he was, raining on her parade? Telling her what she could and could not have? Giving her ultimatums.

Breaking her heart.

She went, as she’d always gone, to her mother for comfort.

“Mom?”

She wasn’t in the kitchen or lying down in her room.

“In here.” Tess stood before the mirror in the master bathroom, wearing plastic gloves and a ratty T-shirt, a disposable squeeze bottle in one hand.

Meg stopped in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

Tess waved the squeeze bottle. “Coloring my hair.”

“Why?”

Tess smiled. “Too much time on my hands?”

“But . . .” Her mother had always rocked the salt-and-pepper look. “You looked fine.”

You looked like my mother.

“I wanted a change. I want to be in control. I may not be able to run up and down stairs like I used to, but by golly, I can color my hair.” Tess’s eyes sharpened in the mirror. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

Meg’s throat closed. Her eyes welled. “It doesn’t matter. It can wait.”

“Don’t be silly.” Tess stripped off her gloves, glancing at the clock. “I have thirty-five minutes before I have to rinse. Talk to me.”

The invitation loosed a flood of words and grievances, tumbling in a rush to get out.
Sam said . . . I told him . . . He didn’t understand . . .

She raged and wept, pacing the tiles that Sam had helped install nearly twenty years ago, while Tess listened and watched with concerned, not entirely sympathetic eyes.

“I can’t be you,” Meg said. “I can’t give up my dreams to follow some man around.”

Tess dropped the empty hair color box into the trash. “Who says I’m not following my dreams?”

Ouch.
Meg flushed as she met Tess’s eyes in the mirror. Venting was one thing. Disregard for her mother’s feelings, her mother’s choices, was something else. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But you can’t tell me you enjoyed moving from base to base, living in military housing for twenty years.”

“Now you sound like
my
mother,” Tess remarked. “If you’re asking if I dreamed of becoming a military spouse when I grew up, the answer is no. It’s a hard life. You get used to people asking you, ‘How do you do it?’ But the truth is when you love someone, you don’t have a choice other than to do it.”

“I respect that, Mom. I do. But Sam’s not in the military.”

“He’s committed to something bigger than himself. Something you have a chance to be a part of.”

Meg rubbed her temples. Her head was pounding. Her throat was raw. “I thought you’d sympathize with me. I thought you’d understand.”

Tess smiled. “Maybe I understand better than you think. Do you love him?”

Panic jittered in Meg’s stomach. “He didn’t say he loved me.” A fresh pain, another insult.

“I’m not interested in Sam’s feelings at the moment.” Tess tipped her head, considering. “Okay, that’s not true. Let’s say I’m more interested in yours. Do you?”

Yes.

“That’s not the point,” Meg said.

“It’s the only point that matters. Sometimes love means taking turns. Finding compromises.”

“Except you never got your turn. You were always the one who compromised.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even after Dad retired, you did what he wanted. Lived where he wanted. Moved back here.”

“Meg . . .” Tess frowned, her familiar features transformed by the darkening cap of hair goo. “I thought you knew. That was my choice. Your father would have gone anywhere. Back to Chicago, if that’s what I wanted. My brother Nick would have taken me back into the restaurant. But I fell in love with North Carolina when your dad was stationed at Lejeune. You kids always liked it here. Running a bed-and-breakfast was my idea. The Pirates’ Rest is my dream.”

“But I always thought . . . I just assumed . . .”

“That I followed your dad around with no ideas or ambitions of my own?” Tess’s smile was sharp. “You better start examining some of your assumptions, honey.”

She was confused. Hurting. Her mother was supposed to be on
her
side. “Sam said I had to choose between him and my job.”

Tess’s brows flicked up. “And you’re going to let him define your choices for you?” She paused a moment to let that sink in. “I’m disappointed in you, Meg,” she added, and the quiet words stung more than a slap. “You can’t always be in control of your life. But you can control your choices. Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve fought for what you wanted. If you want Sam and the job in New York, you need to find a way to make it happen. Figure it out. Fight for them. Don’t quit now.”

* * *

F
EZZIK WAS WAITING
on the porch with Aunt Meg when Taylor got home from school. He woofed when he saw her, jumping off the steps to greet her on the walk.

Taylor dropped to her heels, throwing her arms around his solid, hairy body, almost knocked on her butt by his doggy happiness. “Hey, Fezzik. Hey, boy. Did you miss me, fella?”