Free Carolina Dreaming: A Dare Island Novel by Virginia Kantra Page A

eloping.”
    “Seen your name on a lot of signs since I got here,” Gabe said to Sam. “Grady Real Estate. That you?”
    “My dad. I’m on the construction side.”
    “What is it you do, Gabe?” Meg asked.
    “He’s a Marine,” Mr. Fletcher said.
    Gabe threw him a quick look.
Once a Marine, always a Marine
, was the saying. But he hadn’t expected the old man’s support. “Discharged,” he said. “Three years ago.”
    “Before the drawdown, Gabe was the combat lifesaver on my squad,” Luke said.
    “Is that like a corpsman?” Sam asked.
    Gabe cleared his throat. “Not exactly. Navy corpsmen are the real medics. I mostly just tied guys up so they didn’t bleed out.”
    He had fastened tourniquets on dozens of shredded limbs during his months in the sandbox.
    “Don’t let him fool you,” Luke said. “In a firefight, the corpsman can’t get to everybody. I saw Gabe slice open a buddy’s throat once to keep him breathing.”
    “Gross,” said Taylor.
    “Cool,” Josh said.
    “It wasn’t a big deal,” Gabe said. “There wasn’t any other option.”
    “You saved his life,” Luke said.
    That’s what he did. What they all did. Gabe shrugged.
    “I’m going to enlist,” Josh said.
    Meg frowned. “Not this again.”
    His stepmother, Allison, looked over from her conversation with Mrs. Fletcher. “After college,” she said.
    “I’m tired of school,” Josh said. “I want to travel.”
    “Joining the Foreign Legion,” Mrs. Fletcher muttered. Or something like that.
    “Sorry?” Gabe said.
    “Because his heart is broken,” Taylor said in a singsong voice. “His girlfriend moved to France.”
    Color tinged Josh’s cheekbones. “That doesn’t . . . She doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’m almost eighteen. I want to see the world.”
    “You need an education first,” Meg said.
    Josh’s face turned stubborn. “I can get the training I need in the Marines.”
    “It’s not the training that counts when you get out. It’s the certification,” Gabe said.
    They all looked at him. Shit. Hadn’t he learned the hard way to keep his mouth shut?
    But he wasn’t in jail any longer. He had the freedom now to speak his mind, to offer an opinion.
    He cleared his throat. “You can have all the skills and experience you need. Like, to be an EMT. But if it’s not documented, if you don’t have that piece of paper, you can’t get a job.”
    “The GI Bill will pay your tuition, though, won’t it?” Meg asked. “So you could get certified.”
    “Yeah.” He’d thought about enrolling when he got out three years ago. Before he figured out that EMTs didn’t make nearly as much money as oil workers.
    They were all still staring at him. It should have felt awkward. Intrusive. Hell, it did feel awkward.
    But that was just the way the Fletchers were.
Everybody in everybody’s business.
Piling on. Weighing in. They were treating him like one of the family, almost.
    “What are you doing now, Gabe?” Tess asked.
    Their interest made him want to live up to their expectations. To be worthy of the way they saw him.
    He looked at Luke’s wife, Kate.
    And maybe to change the judgment in her eyes.
    He held his beer tighter. “Actually, I’m looking for work,” he said to Sam. “You got anything?”
    Sam raised his eyebrows. “I might. Why don’t you stop by the office tomorrow morning and we’ll talk.”
    *   *   *
     
    “I SHOULD SAY goodnight to Taylor,” Luke said a few hours later after they had returned to his cottage. “Sure you won’t stick around?”
    Gabe shook his head. “Got to rest up. I’ve got a job interview in the morning.”
    Luke grinned. “Let me know if you need a reference.”
    He disappeared down the short hallway, the fluffy white cat trotting at his heels like a dog.
    Kate stood. She was wearing her lawyer face again, distant and polite. “Thank you for coming,” she said to Gabe. “I’ll see you out.”
    He let her escort him as far as the