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“But…”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Matt said.

They had lots to talk about. Like the dangers of high school sex and the consequences of not using protection.

Spare me the sermon, bro. I’m just following in your footsteps.

Not an easy road, Matt thought. For any of them.

He’d been barely twenty when he’d stumbled home after pulling double shifts at the Food Lion to find Kimberly waiting at the door of their rat-hole apartment, Joshua crying in his crib and a suitcase packed at her feet.

But at least he’d had a couple of months to get used to the idea of being a father. He’d had the advantage of knowing and loving his child from birth, the help and support of his parents.

They’d taken in him and Josh without question. The family had stood by him then.
Back to back to back.

The family would take care of Luke’s child, too.

T
ESS LIVED BY
The List.

Planning had served her through countless moves in her married life, had saved her through deployments and redeployments with three children in tow. Organization ensured the running of the inn and the functioning of her family.

With her arms full of dirty linens, she descended the front staircase, every tread and spindle painstakingly restored when she and Tom had purchased the inn more than twenty years ago. The flowers in the front hall needed replacing. She put that on The List for tomorrow. New guests were coming in, the Martins from New Jersey, she had to figure out someplace else to put them now.
Tomorrow.

She bumped through the double doors into the silent kitchen, stopping to stuff the sheets and towels into the laundry room. A tiny light glowed over the stove. Mentally, she reviewed The List, dishwasher running, rolls rising, service laid out for tomorrow’s breakfast,
check
,
check
,
check
, everything under control.

Almost.

She tested the back door—
locked
—and set the coffee to brew for the morning. Should she go with Luke to enroll Taylor in school tomorrow?

Better not, she judged. Her son had to forge his own relationship with his daughter in the little time they had.

Luke, leaving.
Don’t think about that now.
Dawn, gone. That poor little girl upstairs…

Tess wiped down the counter by the sink, focusing on the familiar routines to distract herself from grief. The child needed new clothes. Shoes. Supplies. Too soon to take her shopping, perhaps. The girl wasn’t comfortable with her yet. With any of them. Maybe by next weekend…

Tess opened the door to the master suite, part of the addition Tom and Matt had built with young Sam Grady, and heard water running in the bathroom. Tom was shaving, as he had every night before bed all the years they were married.

The sight of him standing before the sink, long and lean and shirtless, steadied her. His chest hair was gray now, his boxers drooping on his narrow hips, but his shoulders were still broad, his face still handsome and infinitely dear.

She waited until he lifted the razor from his chin before she slipped behind him and slid her arms around his waist.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

The smell of his skin, the scent of his shaving cream, spicy and familiar, enveloped her. She pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades.

“Helping Luke make up his bed.”

Tom frowned at his reflection. “You think after ten years in the Marines, the boy can make his own bed?”

She smiled at his grumpy tone. “I don’t mind. It’s nice to have some time with him alone.”

“You work too hard,” Tom said. “He takes advantage of you.”

Tess knew her man. She’d loved him for almost forty years, since he was a cocky Leatherneck on leave in Chicago, sauntering into her family’s restaurant in Little Italy, trying to pick her up before she could write down his order.

“You’re not upset about the bed,” she said.

Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t talk about his feelings. He never had.

She twisted around him, keeping her arms loosely linked around his waist, until they were front to front. “It’ll be all right,” she said softly. “Luke needs us. Taylor needs us. She’s our granddaughter.”

Tom grunted. “What happened to her mother? You get that out of Luke while you were making his bed?”

“Dawn’s lawyer told Luke it was some kind of brain bleed from a congenital condition. No prior symptoms, no warning.” Tess shivered. “It was all very sudden and horrible.”

Tom stroked her back, instinctively giving comfort. “Christ. Was Taylor with her?”

“No, Dawn was at work when it happened. Apparently she was a receptionist at the law office. The lawyer said they got her to the hospital right away, but it was already too late.”

They stood a moment in silence. What if it had been her daughter, her baby, struck down like that in the prime of life? Tess wondered. She couldn’t stand it.

“How’s Luke?” Tom asked.

He had always counted on her to keep up with the details of their children’s lives, to tell him as much—or as little—as he needed to know.

“He doesn’t say.” And in that, Tess thought, their younger son was very like his father. “But you can see he’s affected by her dying like that. He’s not heartbroken, he was over Dawn a long time ago, but he still feels it. And now this business with Taylor…It’s just so much for him to deal with right now, in the middle of a deployment. Did you see how thin he is?”

“He’ll be all right as soon as he gets back to his squadron.”

She bit her lip. “It’s still a distraction.”

“Not as much as you think.” He rubbed her neck, his strong hand reaching under her hair. “Men compartmentalize better than women.”

They were still pressed together, front to front.

Tess grinned suddenly, realizing her husband’s focus had shifted. “Is that what you call this? Compartmentalizing?”

His fingers found the knot at the base of her skull. “That’s one word for it.”

She sighed in pleasure, letting her head drop forward as he kneaded the ache away. “I just worry about them, Tom, no matter how old they are. Matt’s not happy, and Meg’s living with that man who’s never going to marry her, and now Luke—”

“You can’t live their lives for them, babe.”

“I’d do a better job,” she mumbled.

His laugh rumbled in his chest. “You did a good job already. It’s their turn now.”

“But I want them to have what we have.”

“I’d be happy if they’d just stop dumping what they have on you.”

She raised her head. “Tom!”

“We’re not getting any younger, Tess. It would be nice to have the house to ourselves before we’re too old to enjoy it.”

“
Mm.
You, me, and an inn full of guests. Very romantic.”
She settled her weight more firmly against him, enjoying the feel of him hot and potent against her stomach.

He patted her butt affectionately. “You don’t want me going soft in my old age, now, do you?”

She laughed at him. “I can feel just how soft you are.”

He smiled down at her, the old gleam in his eyes, the one that still made her breath come faster after all these years. “Why don’t you come to bed and I’ll show you?”

Three

T
HE PERIOD BELL
buzzed. Released from their seats, Allison’s students rose like a flock of gulls, more interested in flight than the consequences of Hester Prynne’s doomed passion for that weed, Dimmesdale.

At sixteen, they were still blind to the connections between their own struggles with conformity and identity and poor Hester’s fate.

It was Allison’s job to help them see.

“Make sure you get those permission slips signed by Friday,” she called as they jostled past her desk. “Anyone who doesn’t have a signed form for
Easy A
will spend both periods next week in the library.”

Her students grunted and shuffled by. Most of them had turned in their slips days ago. There were only a few holdouts.

She spotted one of them making his way through the rows of desks to the front of the classroom. “Joshua, can you stay after class a few minutes?”

He regarded her without expression, a tall boy with broad shoulders and steady blue eyes. His father’s son. “It’s my lunch period.”

“After class or after school,” Allison said firmly.

He shifted the three-ring notebook on his hip—the only book she’d ever seen him carry—and glanced toward the hall. “I guess I have a minute.”

Lindsey Gordon stood in the doorway, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

“Save me a seat,” Joshua said to her. “I’ll be right there.”

Allison waited until the girl left for the cafeteria before she spoke. “You were awfully quiet in class today.”

Joshua shrugged, giving her non-news the non-response it deserved. He was quiet every day, and they both knew it. What she didn’t know was why. She’d seen his transcript. His test scores. She’d talked with his other teachers. Everyone agreed he was a bright boy. All of them acknowledged he was falling behind.

And not one of them appeared particularly concerned about it.

“You have to understand it’s still the beginning of the school year,” Gail Peele, who taught geometry and trig, had said this morning in the faculty lounge. “And the end of tourist season. Most families around here depend on the season to get by. These kids won’t have their heads back in their books until October.”

Allison wasn’t convinced. Her other students were at least turning in their work. October could be too late for Joshua.

She handed him a dog-eared paperback. “Here.”

Something flickered behind his eyes. “What’s this?”

“
The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I want you to read it by Monday.”

He made no move to take the book. “I mean, why are you giving it to me?”

“Last year’s students had the option of donating their
used books and supplies to the school. Since you apparently don’t own a copy, I’m giving you this one.”

A red flush crept under his tan. “I’ve got a book.”

“Then you should be doing the reading.”

He lowered his head, shuffling his feet like a bull tormented by a matador.

Like Miles.

The memory of her brother caught Allison in the chest, a sharp and unexpected pang. She couldn’t afford to hang her heart on the success of every student. But there was no way she was leaving this ring without a fight.

“I’ve been busy,” Joshua said. “Working.”

Well, Gail had warned her. He probably needed the money. Or his family did. How much did a fisherman make in a year?

“Do you think that’s the wisest investment of your time?” she asked.

“Not really. My grandmother pays me in cookies.” He offered her a smile, quick and crooked as lightning. “I’ll do a lot for chocolate chip, but I can make more money going out with my dad.”

The image of this lanky teenager toiling for cookies was unexpectedly charming, his humor even more so.

But his words confirmed Allison’s fears. “You work for your father.”

“When I can. Now that I’m stuck in school all day, I’m cleaning toilets at the Pirates’ Rest. That’s my grandparents’ place,” he explained.

The bed-and-breakfast overlooking the harbor. Allison had seen it on one of her exploratory bike rides. Not the kind of place she’d spent her vacations as a child. Richard and Marilyn Carter preferred luxury hotels with heated pools, well-stocked bars, and private balconies. But Allison had admired the Rest’s weathered charm, the neatly painted trim, the blooming garden.

The upkeep on an old place like that must be tremendous.

She drummed her fingers on her desk. “You work there every day?”

“Just about.” His grin transformed his sullen expression. Allison blinked. No wonder Lindsey was hanging around waiting to walk with him to the cafeteria. “My dad says it keeps me out of trouble.”

His dad.

Allison’s mind flashed back to the dock, to Matt Fletcher’s hard-packed abs and sweat-dampened hair. She flushed. Thank goodness she wasn’t like Lindsey, sixteen and susceptible. She couldn’t be dazzled anymore by a handsome face and a pair of broad shoulders. Okay, maybe dazzled, but not distracted.

“Did he talk to you last night?”

Joshua stared at her blankly.

Allison sighed. “Your father. About your schoolwork.”

The boy shook his head. “Like I said, we were busy.”

Ridiculous to feel disappointed. Parents didn’t always follow through on their promises. Why should Matt Fletcher be any different?

She folded her hands in front of her. “I don’t know what you’ve been getting away with in your other classes. But you’ve got to do the work to get a passing grade from me.”

“I don’t really care about grades.”

“Colleges will,” she pointed out.

“I’m not going to college.”

She’d heard that before. She worked damn hard to convince her students they didn’t have to be defined by their parents’ example. By their expectations.

Or the lack of them.

“A college degree can help you get a better job.”

Joshua shrugged. “I’m going to captain a fishing boat. Don’t need a degree for that.”

“You might feel differently in a couple of years,” Allison
suggested. “A college education could broaden your interests. Your horizons. You need to experience what’s out there before you can decide what’s right for you.”

“I don’t think so.” He looked at her from under his shock of hair. “Are we done? Can I go now?”

She expelled her breath. “Yes, you can go.”

He left.

But the problem of what to do about him stayed with her for the rest of the day, a niggling frustration, a hovering sense of failure. When she first went down to the Mississippi Delta, she’d still been floundering to find herself. During her brief internship in her father’s office, she’d barely been trusted to change the paper in the copy machine. What made her think she could change lives?

But Allison had discovered she loved to teach. Despite the struggles with discipline and lesson plans, the lack of hope and supplies, she’d watched her students learn, bloom, and grow. She truly believed she’d found her profession, if not her place.