Carolina Girl by Virginia Kantra

Italian Guy and I watched Love Actually last night to get in the holiday spirit. You know the opening scene in the airport, all the people coming and going, families and friends connecting and reconnecting? I love that. So it’s no surprise that some of my favorite scenes in Carolina Girl take place in an airport, starting with the first, when sexy builder Sam Grady picks up New Yorker Meg Fletcher to bring her home to Dare Island.

I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Frosty, Sam thought, taking in Meg’s cool tone, the dismissive lift of her shoulders.

That was okay. He could work with frosty. Indifferent was harder to get around.

And he definitely wanted to get around Meggie.

He hadn’t seen her except in passing since his freshman year of college. Eighteen years ago. He had plenty of reasons for avoiding the island, and Meg . . . Well, she had her own reasons for avoiding him. He’d pretty much been a dick back then. He’d always hoped he’d have a chance one day to make it up to her.

Seeing her again, he wanted to make it up to her.

She looked good, all black and white like some movie actress from the fifties, short dark hair, smooth pale skin, black wrap jersey dress that slid over the curves and angles of her. Her toes in skinny-heeled sandals were painted fire-engine red. To match her suitcase?

He looked up and encountered her eyes, icy blue in contrast to her hot nails and warm, pink cheeks.

Okay, so he was checking her out. Not the best way to convince her that he was a reformed character.

He grinned””busted“”and hefted the suitcase. It weighed a ton. “This it?”

“I’m waiting for another bag.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “How long are you planning on staying this time?”

Her flush deepened, but her voice remained cool. “That depends.”

He was perversely amused by that icy tone. “On . . .”

“Things.”

Unlike most women, she didn’t jump at the chance to talk about herself. Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk to him.

Not a problem. He was good at getting people to loosen up, to lighten up, to like him, a survival skill he’d picked up sometime around stepmother number two.

“I’m surprised they can spare you at work,” Sam remarked. “You were just down here, what, a week ago.”

Meg stiffened. Not much, but enough so he noticed. “Work isn’t everything.”

Another suitcase, hard and shiny as a candy apple, bumped onto the carousel. Hers, he bet. He reached for it.

“Not for me,” he agreed easily. “But you . . . I thought you lived for your job.”

“Family comes first.”

He slid her a look as he snagged her bag off the conveyor belt. He’d expected their first real conversation in eighteen years to be awkward. He hadn’t expected her to start spouting clichés. The Meggie he remembered spoke her mind and damned the consequences. “I always admired that about you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Your family. Your priorities. The way you’re there for each other.”

Meg reached for her suitcase. He resisted her attempt to reclaim her bags and headed for the exit. Frosty or not, he figured she’d follow her luggage.

She did, striding with surprising speed in those skinny-heeled shoes. “It’s because Dad was in the Marines. You move around so much, changing bases, changing schools, you learn to stick together.”

He’d never thought of it that way. He’d always accepted her family’s enviable closeness as something permanent, solid, and straightforward.

Not like his family at all.
The Fletchers had lived on Dare Island for four generations. Tom Fletcher had served twenty years in the Marines, but Sam remembered the summer Meg’s father had moved his family back into the old house falling down above the bay. Sam’s home life that year had sucked. Stepmom number two””pretty blond Julie, with her magazines and manicures””had moved out at Christmas, and before the school year was even over, Angela, broody, moody, and already pregnant, had been installed in her place. Once Sam might have been excited over the idea of a half sibling, but not then. He was fifteen, for Christ’s sake. It was embarrassing, having a father who couldn’t keep it in his pants sticking it to a woman twenty years younger.

The old man, of course, had swollen up like a bullfrog over this evidence of his mojo. “You better watch yourself, boy,” he said to Sam. “Got yourself a little brother or sister now coming up behind you. That’s half your inheritance.”

It made Sam sick.

That afternoon he’d escaped on his bicycle, taking his time going home after killing a couple of hours on the beach. It wasn’t like anybody would miss him. It was lame, not having a car. The old man had promised Sam a new Jeep Wrangler when he turned sixteen, but with all the fuss over the baby coming, who knew what would happen? So Sam straddled his bike at the bottom of the drive near the rental truck, watching the new family move in: a quiet boy about his own age, with big hands and shoulders; a skinny girl maybe a couple years younger; and a happy little kid who barreled in everybody’s way.

The front screen slammed. The girl came out of the house and down the walk. Sam was making a study of breasts that summer, as many as he could see up close or get his hands on. This girl was too young and too thin to have much of his new favorite thing, but he liked the way she moved, quick and determined. Her hair was dark and short and shiny.

She caught him watching and looked straight at him instead of down and away like most girls. Her head cocked at a challenging angle. “What are you looking at?”

You.

He flushed. “Nothing.”

Her brother came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Sam jerked his chin in a silent what’s-up.

The boy gave him a cool look and a nod in reply. “Come on, Meggie. We’ve got stuff to do.”

The mother approached from the house. “Matt? Who’s this?”

She looked the way a mother was supposed to look, Sam thought, her dark hair slightly frizzy with humidity, smile lines at the corners of her eyes.

“Sam Grady, ma’am.”

The smile lines deepened, just like he knew they would. Moms””other moms, not his own””liked being called ma’am. “Nice to meet you, Sam Grady. I’m Tess Fletcher. There are sodas in the cooler if you’re thirsty.”

“When you’re done standing around jawing,” barked a voice from inside the orange-and-white truck, “I could use a hand with this couch.”

Sam and the boy, Matt, jumped forward at the same time.

And when the rental truck was empty and the boxes piled in every room, Tess Fletcher had invited Sam to dinner.

For the next four years, until he and Matt went away to college, Sam had hung out at the Fletchers’ every chance he got, shooting hoops with Matt in the driveway, scraping paint off the old windowsills, making himself agreeable, making himself useful, doing anything so they would let him stay, so he could pretend to be one of them.

Until he fucked everything up.

Nobody knew. Meg never told. But his guilt and her silence had created a wall, an invisible barrier between them.

He had a chance to fix things now. He wasn’t going to blow it.

“Matt said the island was the only place that felt like home,” he said.

“Don’t confuse me with my brother,” Meg said. “I like change. I liked being a Marine brat.”

“No ties,” Sam said.

“No baggage. Every school year was a fresh start.”

It wasn’t much of an opening, but he would take what he could get. She wasn’t likely to give him many chances to talk to her alone. Not until they got this out of the way.

He stopped and turned, caging her between the suitcases, trapping her between his body and the side of his truck. Her blue eyes widened.

“You like fresh starts?” Sam said. “Fine. How about one with me?”
* * *

Will you travel this holiday season? Share! I’m giving away a signed copy of Carolina Girl to one poster.