Read Online Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel by Virginia Kantra - Free Book Online

remember, you asked for this.”
    Catching the dog under the elbows, he dragged it under the water with him.
    *   *   *
     
    “Y OU ’ RE ASKI NG FOR trouble,” Hank said to Jane when she got home that night. “Letting that no-account jailbird hang around your shop.”
    Jane looked around automatically for Aidan, who was doing his homework at the kitchen table. “Dad, can we not use that word, please?” she asked in a lowered voice.
    Hank’s bushy eyebrows shot down. “Are you defending him now, too?”
    Too
? Who was defending Gabe to her father? Not that it mattered to Jane.
    “No, I’m trying to protect . . .” Her gaze went to her son.
Aidan
.
    She had talked to him, tried to talk to him, about his father in prison.
    It’s a place where grownups go when they break the rules
, she had explained to his down-bent head.
    Lauren and all the books had advised her to be honest, to talk to him about his feelings.
    You know you’re safe now, don’t you, Boo?
His baby name, shortened from Pooh Bear.
I talked to a lawyer to make sure he can never try to see you, never try to take you away, again.
    Aidan had looked up at that, his eyes gleaming through his lashes.
He
never tried to see me before.
    It was true. Travis had left them before Aidan’s first birthday. Until eight months ago, Aidan had had no contact with his father.
    Now Aidan slid out of his seat, his straight brown bangs hiding his expression. “I’m done with my homework. Can I go to Christopher’s house to play Legos?”
    She rubbed his arm gently, as if she could smooth away some invisible hurt. “Why don’t you invite Christopher to come here?”
    “But, Mom, he has the new Avengers set.”
    Jane regarded her son’s split lip. His mouth was still swollen from yesterday’s fight, but his aggrieved tone sounded reassuringly normal. She didn’t want to let Aidan out of her sight. But he needed friends, and the Pooles lived right down the street. Gail Poole was a math teacher at the high school. Nothing bad would happen under her supervision.
    “Okay,” Jane said as cheerfully as she could. “We’re having dinner in an hour. Be home by six thirty.”
    Aidan ran for the door.
    “And watch out for cars!” she called after him.
    The screen door banged shut.
    “You want to protect him, you’ll keep away from that Murphy fellow.” Hank’s craggy face was fierce, his tone gruff.
    In his own way, he worried about her as much as she worried about Aidan.
    She smiled at him affectionately. “I wasn’t planning on bringing him home for supper, Daddy.”
    Although I did make him breakfast
. Okay, not a thought she could share with her father.
    Hank grunted. “Gary Wilson saw him raking your yard.”
    Jane resisted rolling her eyes. She should have known the island gossips would pass along that little detail. “I gave him a sandwich. He wanted to pay me back. I thought it was actually pretty nice of him. Helpful.”
Responsible
.
    “That’s what he wants you to think. Back when I was with the sheriff’s department, there was a guy in this neighborhood went around knocking on doors asking for yard work. Some fool woman says yes and convinces all her neighbors he’s really a good guy down on his luck, just needs a chance.” Hank stuck his thumbs into his belt loops. “Course it was alla scam so he could case out the neighborhood. Six weeks later, all their houses are broken into and Mr. Helpful is gone. Along with their TVs, laptops, power tools, and anything else he could get his hands on.”
    Jane knew her dad was only trying to look out for her. But his almost forty years in law enforcement had given him a pretty cynical view of human nature.
    Jane had fed Gabe as a kindness. Paying it forward, because she had needed kindness in the past, too, and because he had been kind to that dog.
    Not because she was softhearted or softheaded or because she was letting herself be taken advantage of by some hot drifter with hard muscles. Nope.