Carolina Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

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,” Allisonsuggested. “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.
    Now she wondered if she’d been right to leave.
    She’d always felt like an outsider in the Mississippi community where she had lived and taught. But in the school, at least, she’d been needed and appreciated, part of a team.
    She liked her fellow teachers at Virginia Dare Island School. Gail Peele was already a friend. Before Allison signed her contract, she’d been assured that teacher