Carolina Man (7 page)

“Her cat,” Luke said. “Have you seen it?”

“Sure. A couple of times. After . . . you know. Dawn died.” The baby grabbed a fistful of his mother’s shirt and tugged, exposing a lot of smooth, young skin and another tattoo. A fairy.

“Recently?” Kate asked.

“Four months ago.”

“No, I meant, when was the last time you saw the cat?”

“You’re not animal control.” The girl’s gaze slid back over Luke, taking in his olive T-shirt and fatigue pants. “Marines?”

He smiled reassuringly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thought so.” She fixed him with wide brown eyes that reminded him of the dog in Afghanistan. Hopeful. Needy. “How did you say you knew Dawn again?”

I didn’t know her. We dated in high school and I knocked her up.
“I’m Taylor’s father.”

“Really? What’s your name?”

“Luke. Do you remember the last time—”

“I’m Sierra. I’ve never seen you around here before.”

His jaw tightened.
No excuses
. “No.”

“He’s been overseas a lot,” Kate said.

“Funny, Dawn never mentioned you,” the girl said.

Luke exhaled hard. Dawn had never mentioned Taylor, either, not to him, which was something else he couldn’t understand and was finding hard to forgive her for. Forgive himself for.

Not that he spent a lot of time thinking about his
feelings
, for fuck’s sake.

“How well did you know them?” he asked.

She shrugged, making her top slide farther. “Oh, you know. Pretty well. Us single moms have to stick together. Taylor used to come over sometimes and watch the baby. Not that I ever go anywhere. But she’d play with her, read to her, while I did stuff around the house.” She shifted the baby on her hip. “How’s she doing? Taylor?”

“She’s fine,” Luke said. Wasn’t she? He had a hard time picturing the silent, suspicious daughter he knew playing and reading with a baby.

“Must have been awful for her, losing her mom like that.”

Luke’s jaw tightened. “Yeah.”

Kate took a business card out of her purse and handed it to Sierra. “This is my number. If you see the cat again, will you call me?”

Sierra took the card, still looking at Luke.
Help me. Save me. Love me.
“You got a card, too?”

He shook his head.

She sighed. “Well, let me have your phone. I’ll type in my number. In case you want to ask about Snowball. You can call anytime,” she said, handing the phone back. “I’m all alone here. Just me and the baby.”

“Uh, thanks.” He threw Kate a desperate look. No way was he calling. The girl looked fresh out of high school, for Christ’s sake. With a kid.

Just like Dawn at that age. He winced.

Kate coughed. Or maybe she was covering a laugh. “I’m sure the staff sergeant appreciates your offer,” she said smoothly. “We’ll be in touch.”

He walked Kate back to her car and opened her door.

He was glad Meg wasn’t with him. His sister would never let him hear the end of it, her tough-guy brother fleeing in terror from a barely-legal teenager. But Kate didn’t bust his balls. She didn’t take offense, either.

“Thanks for having my six.”

Kate slid behind the wheel, smiling up at him. “All in a day’s work.”

“Right.” He frowned. After listening to Kate on the phone, he could tell she cared about her clients. He appreciated the way she went above and beyond in the line of duty. But he didn’t want to be just another part of her job.

He watched her pull out ahead of him, signaling her turns carefully, giving him a little wave once in her rearview mirror, two fingers and a smile.

It was enough to make him think . . . Hell, he didn’t know what to think.

He was used to sizing things up, acting swiftly to secure a situation or an advantage. Kate Dolan was too guarded to be read. Too careful to be rushed. Too complicated to resist. A challenge, in fact.

He’d never been any damn good at all at backing away from a challenge.

K
ATE UNLOCKED THE
numbered storage unit door, acutely aware of Luke behind her. Not crowding, but she felt him anyway, a subtle pressure, a prickling awareness on the back of her neck.

She shivered and yanked on the locking bar, sliding it out of the way.

All in a day’s work
, she’d said, her voice cheery, but this errand felt deeply personal.

There weren’t enough pieces of her own past left to fill a cardboard box, let alone a storage unit. Her kindergarten artwork, a dollhouse from her aunt, a blue candy dish, a stuffed monkey she’d clung to in the hospital when she got her tonsils out at six . . . Gone, all gone.
Useless junk
, her father had barked when it came time to move again.
Get rid of it.
And her mother had always acquiesced.

Some memories weren’t worth holding on to.

But Kate had done her best to preserve Taylor’s. To save the bits and pieces of her childhood, her legacy from Dawn.

Everybody should have a picture somewhere, even if the happy family it depicted was a lie.

It was hard for Kate to imagine her mother smiling. But she would love to believe there was a photo of her somewhere, of the two of them together, tucked in the attic or the bottom of a drawer, something that had escaped her father’s notice and control.

Luke bent and grabbed the metal handle, arms bunching, all those lovely muscles sliding under his shirt.

Kate looked away, a little out of breath. The overhead door rattled up, releasing a draft of stale air. She breathed in the smell of mothballs. She was out of her comfort zone here, uneasily aware of overstepping her own boundaries into uncharted territory.

“I have to get back,” she muttered.

He looked surprised. And then he shrugged. “Sure. Leave the key. I’ll lock up.”

“No, I meant . . .” Her face heated.
Get a grip, Dolan.
“Never mind.”

She fumbled for the light. Flipped it on. The contents of the storage unit jumped into stark relief, stacked cartons and shrouded furniture looming out of the shadows.

Luke inhaled sharply. She glanced over as he moved inside the unit, turning his back to the wall.

Oh.
She bit her lip in sudden comprehension. She’d seen cops stand like that at the courthouse, protecting their rear, watching the entrance, guarding against attack.

Luke was just back from a war zone. It would take him time to adjust to civilian life.

If he ever did.

Compassion squeezed her chest. She dug in her purse, giving them both a moment to recover. “I boxed all the framed photos and albums together,” she said, her tone deliberately matter-of-fact. “I have a list . . .”

“Of course you do.”

She narrowed her eyes, suspecting some kind of dig. But he was smiling, watching her with lazy blue eyes. A little rush of pleasure ran over her skin.

“My mom makes lists,” he explained. “Military family, remember?”

She hadn’t thought of it that way, as a habit she’d learned from her father’s frequent deployments. As something they could have in common.

She didn’t want anything to do with that life anymore.

Blindly, she looked down. “Here we go.” She smoothed the pages. “‘Living room—Pictures.’ It should be near the front.”

He nodded and turned away to scan the sides of the cartons.

Kate followed suit down the other side, trying to dismiss that inconvenient spark of attraction. Everything was jumbled together, the boxes sorted by size rather than content.
KITCHEN, CHRISTMAS, SUMMER CLOTHES
 . . . Even without opening the boxes, Kate could see Dawn’s pink sweaters, her big hair, her bright smile. She’d been so young. Three years younger than Kate.
Her whole life ahead of her
, the minister had droned at her funeral.

Her throat ached. What was she doing here? Luke was perfectly capable of searching the storage unit on his own. What was she hoping to accomplish?

Kate blinked fiercely, forcing the swimming letters on the boxes into focus:
TAYLOR—BOOKS, TAYLOR—BEDROOM
. Maybe . . . Had there been a picture of Dawn on Taylor’s dresser? She couldn’t remember. She tugged that box toward her. She could hear Luke shifting cartons on the other side of the unit, stacking them to get to the ones farther down in the pile. Tape ripped.

And then . . . It was awfully quiet all of a sudden.

She dropped the folds of comforter she’d used to pad the box and turned. Luke stood motionless by an open carton, staring down at the frame in his hands.

Kate couldn’t see the picture. She didn’t need to. His expression told her all she needed to know. He was doing that stone-faced Marine thing again, jaw bunched, thick blond lashes veiling his eyes.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, struggling for a brisk tone, trying to protect them both from an excess of emotion. “Did you find what you need?”

 • • • 

W
AR TAUGHT YOU
to shut up about your feelings. To shut off your memories. Which was a good thing, because at that moment Luke had more feelings and memories churning around than he wanted to deal with.

“Did you find what you need?” Kate chirped.

Dumb question. But he was grateful for her voice, pulling him back to the dim storage unit.

“Yeah.”

The Dawn in the photo was a year or two years older and maybe fifteen pounds heavier than the girl he remembered, her face rounder, fuller, more grown-up. But despite the changes and the baby on her lap, she still looked the same, like the girl he knew in high school. The girl he’d loved, or at least loved having sex with.

He could see a bit of birthday cake, a pink party hat perched like a crooked horn on Taylor’s smooth blond head. He wanted to build some fantasy where he belonged in that picture, his hand on Dawn’s shoulder or his arm around the baby. Or out of the frame, taking the shot. But he couldn’t. There was no room in that photo for anybody else. Mother and child looked like a unit. Happy. Complete.

Dawn sure never looked at him the way she looked at that baby.

Gently, he laid her picture back in the box.

He’d been pretty broken up when she dumped him.

I’m not waiting for you
, she’d cried when he told her he’d enlisted.
I want to get out of here. I want a real home. A real family.

Luke hadn’t cared so much about getting out. The island was home to him. But he had been determined to prove himself. Matt was the responsible one in their family, Meg was the smart one. He was the afterthought, the baby, their brother. Until he became a Marine, like their father.

Maybe nobody knew anymore if the war had been a good thing, but nobody had questioned his choice back then. Not in the wake of 9/11. Oh, his mother had cried a little before she did that mom thing with her face, smiling through her fear, telling him she was proud.

Dad . . . Well, Dad never said much. But Luke thought he was proud.

What if Dawn had come to him then and told him she was pregnant?

What would he have done?

“Taylor’s first birthday,” Kate observed softly beside him.

He twitched, but he didn’t react the way he would to, say, a Taliban insurgent popping up at his elbow. So that was good. He looked down again at the picture in the box, a funny pressure in his chest.

“Were you there?” he asked Kate.

For some reason, she flushed. “No, I . . . She wasn’t working for me then. Not that we saw a lot of each other outside the office. But—”

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize.” He managed a smile. “I wasn’t there, either.”

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t an apology,” she added hurriedly. “I just meant . . . It can’t be easy for you, missing out on so much of your daughter’s life.”

So many milestones, he thought. First birthday. First step. First day of school.

But he didn’t want Kate’s pity. Anyway, she was wrong.

“That’s not the hard part,” Luke said.

She was close enough that her curls brushed his shoulder. Despite all the makeup she wore, she smelled fresh and clean, like shampoo.

His chest felt tight. He exhaled. “The hard part is what she’s going to miss going forward, what they’ll both miss. All the other birthdays for the rest of Taylor’s life. Her high school prom. Her graduation. Christ, her wedding day. Her mom should be there. She needs her mom.”

Kate’s hand squeezed his arm. He turned his head. Her gaze met his, soft and compassionate. “She has you.”

“That’s not enough.”

“It’s quite a lot. Daughters need their fathers to develop a positive self-image and healthy relationships with the opposite sex.”

He raised his brows. “Are you speaking from experience?”

“No, I’m speaking from years of therapy.”

Her frankness made him laugh. He admired her honesty. “So where does that leave me and Taylor? I wasn’t around for the first ten years of her life.”

“You’re making her feel wanted. You’re making her feel secure. Children, particularly children like Taylor who are recovering from a loss, need four things: routine, security, honesty, and love. As long as you can give her those, she’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“I see a lot of parents and children in my office. Most of them are recovering from some sort of trauma. A lot of them are in counseling. And from what I see of you and Taylor, I believe you can do this.”

She sounded so sure, when everything around him was uncertain. So determined, like she would
make
him be up to the job through sheer force of will. Without really thinking about it, he leaned forward, and she was there, her eyes wide and startled, her lips pink and parted, he was glad she was there, he was grateful she was with him, and then he was kissing her, which was better than thinking and a hell of a lot better than talking.

The taste of her was a surprise, the heat under the sweet, like cinnamon candy. He went abruptly hard, the blood rushing in his head, pounding in his veins, as she kissed him back, as her fingers brushed his shoulders, touched the back of his neck. He licked deeper, eating into the sweetness and softness of her. She tasted good, better than good, and she made this little sound in her throat that shot straight to his groin. His mind blanked. His hands slid down, found her hips and pulled her close. Oh, God, yes, like that.

She jolted as their bodies came into hot, tight contact.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. He moved his hands back to her waist. Safe territory.
Just let me kiss you. Let me hold you. Let me
 . . .

She pushed at his shoulders. He raised his head. Her eyes, more brown than green, were dark and dazed. “What’s this about?”

He wasn’t sure. But he wanted it again. “How about ‘thank you’?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Thanks for being here. For everything you’re doing for me and Taylor.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.” She swallowed, easing away from him. His body protested the loss of her softness. “Maybe next time, you can write me a note.”

He grinned, going with his gut. “How about I take you to dinner instead?”

Her fugitive smile flickered before she shook her head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He cocked his head. “Why not? Unless you’re seeing somebody.”

She licked her lips, which made him want to kiss her again. “That’s really none of your business.”

“So, no,” he said with satisfaction.

Her breath escaped in a huff of laughter before she caught it back. “You can’t know that.”

“Calculated guess,” he informed her. “I figure you’d come straight out and tell me to get lost if there was somebody else. Plus, you kissed me back.”

“All right, fine. I won’t deny that I’m attracted. And flattered. But—” She held him off with one hand. “You just got home. You’re understandably feeling unsettled. This is hardly the right time for you to be . . . for us to be doing . . .” She waggled her fingers in the air between them.
“
This
.”

His grin broadened. “I’m not sure I recognize your hand sign. You mean dinner?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Any sort of personal contact—relationship—between us would be terribly complicated.”

“Only because you’re thinking like a lawyer.”

“I
am
a lawyer.”

“Right. You’re used to complicating things. Marines keep it simple. Identify your long-term objective, execute the steps to achieve your objective.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you honestly expect me to believe your objective is to have dinner with me?”

“No,” he admitted. “Dinner would be more like the short-term strategy.”

“I thought so.”

“Getting to know you would be the objective,” he explained.