Carolina Home

“VIRGINIA KANTRA DELIVERS.”

—Jayne Ann Krentz,
New York Times
bestselling author

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF
VIRGINIA KANTRA

“Virginia Kantra is one of my favorite authors.”

—Teresa Medeiros,
New York Times
bestselling author

“A really good read.”

—Karen Robards,
New York Times
bestselling author

“A sensitive writer with a warm sense of humor, a fine sense of sexual tension, and an unerring sense of place.”

—
BookPage

“You are going to LOVE this book! I highly, highly recommend it.”

—Suzanne Brockmann,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Rich and sensual.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Entertainment at its finest.”

—
RT Book Reviews
(4 ½ stars)

“Virginia Kantra has given us another gem.”

—
Fresh Fiction

“Epic and wonderfully intimate.”

—
Dear Author

“Fiction that is smart, engaging, and original.”

—
Bitch Media

“Smart, sexy, and sophisticated—another winner from Virginia Kantra.”

—Lori Foster,
New York Times
bestselling author

“With lush writing, vivid descriptions, and smoldering sensuality, Kantra skillfully invites the reader…into the hearts and minds of her characters.”

—
Romance Novel TV
(5 stars)

“You will hate to put it down until you have read the last page.”

—
Night Owl Reviews
(Top Pick)

“Moving, heartbreaking, and beautiful.”

—
Errant Dreams Reviews
(5 stars)

Berkley Sensation titles by Virginia Kantra

HOME BEFORE MIDNIGHT

CLOSE UP

CAROLINA HOME

The Children of the Sea Novels

SEA WITCH

SEA FEVER

SEA LORD

IMMORTAL SEA

FORGOTTEN SEA

Anthologies

SHIFTER

(with Angela Knight, Lora Leigh, and Alyssa Day)

OVER THE MOON

(with Angela Knight, MaryJanice Davidson, and Sunny)

BURNING UP

(with Angela Knight, Nalini Singh, and Meljean Brook)

To Michael.
You are my home.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Dare Island exists nowhere and everywhere along the North Carolina coast. You can find pieces of it, as I did, from Manteo to Hatteras, Ocracoke to Swan Quarter, in Emerald Isle, Topsail Beach, Fort Fisher, and Southport. To the many residents who shared their love of the Outer Banks and inner islands with me, thank you.

Like an island, a book requires a community to bring it to life. Special thanks to Francis Castiller, M.D., and Angela R. Narron for their expertise and patience with my questions; to Robin Rue and Beth Miller of Writers House for their wonderful suggestions; to Cindy Hwang (Best Editor Ever) and Leis Pederson at Berkley for their hard work and constant support; to Rita Frangie and Tony Mauro for another fabulous cover; and to Carolyn Martin and Mike Ritchey, who read every word and critiqued every scene. Sometimes twice.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Carolina Girl

One

M
ATT
F
LETCHER DIDN’T
go looking for trouble. Most times, it just found him.

His life was changing around him, slipping away like the sand of the Carolina coastline, and there wasn’t a damn thing he or God or the Army Corps of Engineers could do about it. But a day working on the water gave him something to hold on to. Sweat and salt cured everything in time.

The smell of fish and fuel, mud and marsh grass thickened the air as he turned the
Sea Lady II
toward home. The September heat pressed down, flattening the inlet like glass. The twin engines chugged. Water churned, attracting a flock of greedy gulls that cried and hovered in his wake.

He navigated the fifty-three-foot
Lady
past bobbing boats and narrow slips, heading for the wharf and weathered shack that served as office for his tiny charter fleet. With Joshua back in school and unable to crew, Matt had been forced to leave the original
Sea Lady
in dock and bring his father,
Tom, along as mate. It hurt leaving a boat behind, losing business this late in the season.

But his passengers, doctors from Raleigh, wanted the kind of amenities the
Lady II
could provide. They hadn’t balked at the full-day offshore rate, and they’d pay to have their catch cleaned, too, three big yellowfin, two dozen dorado, a cooler full of steely-faced wahoo.

A good day all around.

Satisfied, Matt revved the diesels, swinging the
Lady II
around in a tight arc. Fishermen learned to accept what the sea gave and the sea took away. A captain pitted his boat and equipment, his experience and skill, against the whims of the ocean, the season, the weather. Sometimes you did everything you could do and still came home empty-handed.

Which was why Matt was grateful for good days. Like today.

He backed into the slip. Fezzik, his rough-coated shepherd-Lab mix, lurched from the shadow of the cabin and barked. A pelican launched from the wharf, settling expectantly in the water.

Matt’s father secured the lines. At six-two and sixty-four, Tom Fletcher resembled one of the pilings that lined the wharf, gray, tall, and spare. He wore a United States Marine Corps baseball cap, the red bill faded with sun and age.

“I was a Navy corpsman,” one of the doctors offered as he jumped onto the dock.

“Nothing against the Navy.” Tom grinned as he handed up the man’s backpack, jacket, cooler. “The Marines need bus drivers.”

A brief pause before the offended doctor decided to laugh.

Matt rubbed his jaw, feeling the scrape of a day’s stubble, hiding his own smile. It was customary to tip the mate on a charter fishing boat. But twenty-five years as a career sergeant
major hadn’t taught the old man the value of keeping his mouth shut. Dad wouldn’t get a tip from
that
ex-Navy man.

Along the waterfront, gawkers had gathered to compare the day’s take from the different boats, couples strolling hand in hand, excited family groups with sunburns and ice cream. Tourists. Matt didn’t mind them. Okay, they crowded the roads and the stores until it seemed a man couldn’t talk with his neighbors until after Labor Day. But the tourist tide in summer kept the island economy afloat the rest of the year.

He scanned the small crowd, trying to pick the potential customers from the merely curious.

His gaze snagged. Caught.

A young woman stood at the end of his dock, her long blond hair bundled into some kind of ponytail, a
V
of pink skin at her throat, a flutter of skirt at her knee. Nice legs. Too young. And as tall, cool, and appealing as an ice-cold longneck.

For a moment his mouth went dry.

Matt shook his head, amused by his reaction. He wasn’t about to break his long dry spell with a pretty young thing dressed like a model in a J. Crew catalogue.

No harm in looking, though. He studied her from the bridge. She wasn’t a native. He’d have recognized her. Or the average tourist on vacation. She looked more put together somehow, like a real estate agent or his ex-wife’s lawyer or somebody attached to one of the doctors. A daughter, maybe, or a trophy wife, although Matt didn’t spot any big chunks of jewelry on her. No ring.

His father opened the fish box in the stern and began tossing up the catch. Fish flew in a rainbow arc, blue, gold, glittering silver, all their angry energy transformed by death to pale, stiff beauty.

But the girl wasn’t watching the show. Her deep brown
eyes fixed on his father. Her chin lifted. Her soft mouth firmed.

Matt recognized the determination in her gaze and felt a tightening in his gut, tension gathering at the back of his neck like a storm blowing in.

Trouble.

A
LLISON
C
ARTER DIDN’T
believe in hanging around waiting for her ship to come in. She was more likely to rush out and book passage to…well, anywhere. She had a trust fund. More importantly, and recently, she had a job. But here she was, standing under the weathered
FLETCHER’S QUAY
sign, watching as a big white boat slid through a thicket of masts and fishing rods to tie up at the dock.