Falling For The Single Dad. Lisa Carter

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       Chapter Two

      When she’d looked up from the pages of the book and found his smoldering blue eyes fixed upon her, Caroline’s heart leaped in spite of herself.

      Midthirties, she guessed. From his sweatshirt and his dark brown military buzz—close cut on the sides—probably an active duty or one-time Guardsman. A ’come here, not native-born to the Shore.

      Through the library window, she watched the ruggedly handsome man tuck Izzie into the green Chevy Colorado parked beside the diner across the square. His broad shoulders under the gray Coast Guard Academy sweatshirt bunched as he leaned to fasten Izzie’s seat belt.

      Notwithstanding Caroline’s fifteen-year absence from Accomack County, she didn’t recognize him. She heaved a sigh. She didn’t think she would’ve forgotten him had they previously met. Her gaze flicked toward the now-empty chair.

      She’d enjoyed cuddling with Izzie. Who would’ve foreseen that? Not Caroline or anyone who knew her, she guessed.

      Definitely not mother material. But no more stalling.

      Caroline glanced at the mounted wall clock behind the librarian’s desk. Guests typically left the Duer Lodge midmorning in pursuit of their day’s activities.

      She’d scheduled a lunch meeting with her longtime colleague at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science to finalize their grant-funded summer pilot program. If things went as well as she expected at the family homestead—which was to say, not well—she had someplace else to be.

      Caroline turned her head toward the babble of voices at the top of the ornate staircase. Kiptohanock’s real librarian emerged on the landing with a sixty-something matron Caroline—unfortunately—did recognize.

      “Caroline Victoria Duer.”

      She squeezed her eyes shut. Escape so close and yet so far.

      “Is that you? After all this time?”

      A lot of water under that proverbial bridge, but some things—like some people—didn’t change. Including Mrs. Davenport, otherwise known as the Kiptohanock Grapevine.

      Mrs. Davenport, plumper after fifteen years, descended the staircase like a bygone movie queen. “As I live and breathe, Seth Duer’s second oldest come home at last.”

      Other Kiptohanock bookworms popped out from between the stacks across the hall to get a look. The twenty-something librarian’s eyes blinked behind her fashionable horn-rimmed glasses.

      Time, like sand in an hourglass, had run out for Caroline.

      If she didn’t beat the village blabbermouth to the punch, her father and sisters would learn of her arrival before she could get to the house. She couldn’t hide any longer.

      “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Davenport.” She wrenched open the oak-paneled door. “The black sheep has come home at last.”

      * * *

      Caroline drove around the square. Past the Sandpiper Café. The post office. The Coast Guard station. Recreational and commercial fishing vessels bobbed in the harbor. Fair-weather flags fluttered in the breeze. Beyond the inlet, barrier islands emptied into the vastness of the Atlantic.

      The white clapboard church hugged the shoreline. Its steeple pierced the azure sky. Leafed-out trees canopied the side lanes, where the gingerbread-trimmed Victorian homes fanned out from the center of the town square like spokes on a wheel.

      Driving out of town, she averted her gaze from the cemetery on a high slope overlooking the marina. She’d finally found the courage to face her father and sisters. She didn’t know if she had the courage to face the graves. Maybe she’d never have enough courage to face them.

      Leaving the coastal village behind, she headed down Seaside Road, which connected the oceanside villages. Her heart pounding in her ears, she pulled off the secondary road into the Duer driveway. A simple sign at the turnoff read Duer Fisherman’s Lodge.

      Caroline stopped at the top of the driveway. Her hands white-knuckled the wheel. She paused to reorient herself with her childhood home. To prepare for the changes the devastating hurricane eight months ago had wrought. But on the surface, everything appeared the same.

      She scanned the white, two-story Victorian with the wraparound porch. The picket fence still rimmed the shade-studded perimeter of the yard. The silvery surface of the tidal creek glimmered behind the house. She released her death grip on the wheel.

      Home to seven generations of proud Duer watermen, including her father, Seth Duer, possibly the proudest of all. In the last century during the days of gilded grandeur, Northern steel magnates had “roughed” it at the Duer fishing lodge. Her ancestors had served as hunting guides in winter, oystered, crabbed and run charters in summer. But those days, like the steamers traveling the waters between New York City and Wachapreague, had long since passed.

      She took a deep breath and released the brake. The car coasted toward the circle drive. The grand old lady, freshly painted and restored from the ravages of the storm, appeared better than ever under her youngest sister’s watchful restoration. Caroline parked and switched off the engine.

      Restoration... СКАЧАТЬ