Carolina Man (27 page)

S
HE WAS WAITING
for her man to come home.

Another first
, Kate figured. She looked out the cottage window, where the sun was going down in a great orange ball, and felt an answering warmth radiate in her chest.

She’d never been willing to wait before. Growing up, she’d never known whether to anticipate her father’s homecomings with relief or dread. As an adult, she spent enough time at the mercy of the court. She didn’t need to sacrifice her personal time to someone else’s schedule or convenience.

It made a difference, she found, when you weren’t waiting alone.

Her lips curved into a smile. And when the man you were waiting for was Luke.

“Go faster, go faster!” Taylor yelled from in front of the Wii, now hooked up to the cottage TV.

The screen beeped, bleeped, revved and sparkled.

Josh groaned. “What’s with the banana?”

The two of them were playing Mario Kart. Kate had been playing Mario Kart, too, until she crashed off track for the billionth time. She was better at the dance game, where she understood the rules, where she wasn’t racing blindly into the unknown. But none of that mattered. She was part of the action. Not detached. Not merely an observer. She would rather be here than answering email, checking voice mail, writing court briefs in her empty apartment.

“What? Wait! No, no, no!”

“Shells to you, buddy!”

Kate’s smile broadened as she listened to the kids’ trash talk. Evidence, she thought, that Taylor would be all right. A survivor. She would need counseling, of course. But supported by the Fletchers’ unconditional acceptance, she was already moving beyond her trauma, eager to embrace happiness, to accept love.

Could Kate do any less?

“Kindred spirits,” she murmured.

I’ll be home before dinner
, Luke had said.

Maybe tonight they’d go to the Fish House. Or better still, she could have dinner waiting. She would cook. At least, she thought ruefully, she cooked better than she played Mario Kart. Maybe steak and a salad?

She opened the refrigerator.
Eggs, milk, bread
. No meat. No lettuce. She closed the door. “How do you guys feel about pizza?”

“Pizza? Yay!”

“Cool.”

Kate sighed in relief.
See? She could do this
.

Headlights arced across the glass.

Taylor scrambled from the floor. JD leaped up with a joyous bark. “Dad’s home!”

Kate’s heart beat faster. The door opened.

“Luke?” she whispered.

He looked . . . My God, he looked awful. Was he actually wearing
scrubs
? Baggy green pants and a too-tight top that exposed a V of dark blond hair. His beautiful blue eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.

Her pleased anticipation vanished in concern. “What happened to you?”

“Hey, babe.” He strode forward swiftly to give her a hard, brief kiss. “Sorry I’m late. I had to drop off Jack.”

She wanted to grab him and hold him, to reassure herself he was here, he was really all right. To inhale him, to breathe in the secret scent of his skin and hair. He smelled different, antiseptic and unfamiliar. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Her eyes narrowed. “‘They haven’t amputated yet’?”

His swift grin acknowledged her gibe.

“What happened to your clothes?” she asked.

“There was an accident. They gave me these at the hospital. But everything’s fine. Everything’s great.” He opened his arms to Taylor. She ran to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, and he lifted her off the ground.

Hospital
. Kate’s stomach hollowed. She swallowed. “What kind of accident?”

Luke hesitated.

Josh had muted the sound on the TV and stood, his eyes tracking their interaction as if they were on screen.

Right,
Kate thought.
Children present.
She smiled at the teenager brightly. “Do you want to go get that pizza now?”

“Hell, no,” Josh said. “I want to hear this.”

“Was anybody hurt?” Taylor asked.

“No. Well.” Luke looked at Kate, a help-me-out-here look.

What did he want her to say? She had no clue what was going on.

Because he hadn’t told her, damn it
.

“You know I went to see Chief Rossi,” Luke said to Taylor.

Taylor nodded, her blue eyes fixed gravely on his face.

“We went together to talk to your uncle Kevin.”

Shock swam in her eyes as tears. “Oh, no.”

“It’s okay,” Luke said.

Taylor buried her face in his neck.

“Honey, no, really, it’s really okay,” Luke repeated firmly. He raised Taylor’s head from his shoulder. Their gazes locked, blue on blue. “Your uncle is never going to hurt you, he is never going to bother you again.”

Kate sucked in her breath.

“Is he dead?” Taylor whispered.

“No, he’s in the hospital. In the burn unit. He was cooking drugs in his trailer and there was an accident. An explosion. He was burned—real bad. He’s not going to be a threat to anybody ever again.”

Burned
. “I don’t think the children need to hear the details,” Kate said. They had enough material for nightmares already.

“‘To the pain,’” Josh murmured.

Taylor looked at him.

“What?” Kate asked.

“Like Humperdinck,” Taylor said.

“It’s from
The Princess Bride
,” Josh explained. “The fate worse than death.”

Taylor smiled a small smile against her father’s shoulder.

My God
, thought Kate, a little shaken by the children’s bloodthirsty acceptance. But maybe there was healing there, too. In fairy tales, the ogre was always slain, the monster vanquished.
He is never going to hurt you again.

To the pain.

Yes
.

 • • • 

“I
WISH YOU
had called,” Kate said to Luke much later, when the pizza had been eaten, and Josh had gone home, and Taylor was in bed.

They were seated together on the couch, one of his arms extended across the sofa back, her head against his shoulder. She let herself relax against his warmth as if she belonged there, settled against his side.

He played with her hair, pulling and releasing the tiny springs. “It happened kind of fast. I told you I’d be home for dinner.”

“And the fact that you were blown up and hospitalized in the meantime wasn’t something you felt you needed to share.” She forced herself to speak lightly. “What really happened, Luke?”

“It went down pretty much like I told you. Kevin was mixing up a batch of meth when the sheriff’s deputies arrived. He ran out the back door.” Luke shrugged. “The bottle just slipped.”

She was a lawyer. She could recognize an evasive witness. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “How do you know the bottle slipped?”

“I was there. Jack was watching the front, I staked out the back. To make sure he didn’t get away.”

“Oh. Oh,
Luke
.” The realization of his danger made her shiver. “What if he’d had a gun?”

“He didn’t. Not on him.”

“Meaning, there were guns in the house.”

Luke didn’t answer.

Fear and frustration raked her like claws. Did he really imagine that by keeping silent, he was protecting her? “Even if he wasn’t armed, you exposed yourself to terrible contamination.” Too often in her work, she saw the corrosive, destructive effects of meth. “You could have inhaled poison. You could have burned your lungs. You could have . . .”

Died
. Her voice failed her. The thought of never seeing him again, never holding him again, opened a hole in her chest. She could not bear it.

“I wasn’t really thinking about me. I was more worried about Taylor.” His free hand covered both of hers. He held them, linked together on his thigh, his clasp warm and sure. “The whole time I was at the hospital getting checked out, I kept thinking, what if things had gone the other way? It meant a lot, Kate, knowing Taylor was safe with you. Knowing you were here for her. It meant everything.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m so glad.” He had his whole wonderful, functional family to count on for support. She was beyond moved and humbled that he’d chosen
her
. That he trusted
her
with his daughter. “I’m happy to be here for you.”

“We’re a great team.”

“Yes.”

“The three of us.” His face was set, his tone determined.

Kate had been thinking the same thing. So why did she feel a quiver of unease? “Ye-es,” she said again, more slowly.

“Right.” He nodded once, decisively, like a soldier accepting his duty. Or a prisoner, she thought, resigned to his fate. “So I’ve decided to leave the Corps.”

She sat up. Pulled away. “What? When?”

“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Yes, but
 . . . “When did I ever say that?”

“From the beginning. You said Taylor should be my top priority. And I agree.”

He sounded tense. Shouldn’t he be happier, if this was his decision?

She studied his face, his deep blue eyes sunken with exhaustion, his cheeks stubbled and drawn. The trauma of the past two days had obviously taken its toll. Not to mention that he’d nearly gotten himself blown up in a meth lab explosion. Concern twisted her insides. No matter how much she selfishly wanted him to stay, Luke was in no condition to be making important life-changing decisions.

“We should talk about it later,” Kate said. “When you’re rested.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

Now he was just being stubborn. “So you’ve made up your mind. Just like that.”

“I talked to Jack Rossi.”

The police chief?
“What does he have to do with it?”

“He told me the community college is offering the Basic Law Enforcement Training program in January. Six weeks if you go full-time, six months if you attend night school. By the time I get out, I could be certified.” He looked at her expectantly.

She didn’t know what to say. Her brain felt like she was on a Mario kart, rushing along, crashing into barriers. After the chaos of her childhood, it was important to her to dot every i, to cross every t, to think through every decision. And Luke had already made up his mind.

After talking to Jack Rossi. Whom he barely knew.

He’d never mentioned anything to her.

“The Dare Island PD would sponsor me for the program,” Jack added. “Tuition would be free.”

“That’s great,” she said heartily. Even to her own ears, her enthusiasm sounded forced. “If that’s what you really want. But why . . .”
Would you leave the Marines? And if you can leave something you love, just like that . . .

But she couldn’t complete the thought. He’d never said he loved her.

Luke’s smile twisted. “Would Jack make me the offer?”

She knew why. He was wonderful. With his compassion and quick thinking, his sense of service and ability to connect with people, he would make a terrific cop.

“He thinks I’d make a good law officer,” Luke said. “When that meth bottle exploded . . . Jack said he watched me run toward it, not away. Kevin was burning, right? Screaming. And I was next to this tarp. So I used it to smother the flames.”

She stared at him, stunned. “You mean, you saved his life.”

“The life of a pervert who molested and terrorized my daughter.” He met her gaze, his eyes dark. Almost bewildered. “Yeah.”

Her heart swelled like a balloon in her chest.
The solution to violence is not more violence
, she’d said to him, talking about her father’s abuse. She’d never expected this Marine, this warrior, to agree with her.

He hadn’t, not in words. He’d merely done everything in his power to protect Taylor, and then demonstrated his principles at the risk of his own life.

She curled her fingers around his broad hand. His knuckles were rough. Her hand looked small and pale against his. “What it makes you is a man who’s determined to help others,” she said firmly. “Whose training and whose honor run so deep, you will run into danger even for an enemy you despise. You got that training as a Marine. Is leaving the Corps what you really want?”

Say yes
, she thought.
Make me believe
.

Luke was stone-faced. “It’s what I’ve got to do. Taylor’s already lost her mother. She can’t lose her father, too.”

Kate loved him for his determination to do the right thing. She wanted him to stay. But she wanted him to
choose
. “Do you really think being a cop is that much safer than being a Marine? Especially after today.”