Nantucket Read Online Free

Carlton outside to look at the sailboat Clay Mattheson was selling, but Acadia lingered, leaning against the door and taking in every inch of Liam’s tall, slender frame.
    Liam rubbed out the handprint and pretended not to notice she’d stayed—if there was one thing he’d learned growing up on Nantucket, it was to steer clear of the wealthy families who summered there, and there was no doubt in his mind—from Carlton Knox’s appearance and demeanor—his daughter was out of his league.
    â€œIs she really yours?” Acadia asked. Liam looked up—impressed that she knew the language of boats—and nodded.
    â€œWhat’s her name?”
    â€œTuckernuck II.”
    â€œThat’s a funny name.”
    â€œShe’s named after an island.”
    â€œHave you been there?”
    He nodded.
    â€œIs it far?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œAre you always so talkative?”
    Liam shrugged—he’d never really thought about how much he talked . . . or didn’t. They were both quiet then, and in an effort to prove he was capable of carrying on a conversation, he asked, “Do you have a house out here?”
    â€œNo, we’re just renting.” She walked over to the bow. “My parents want to buy a house, but they haven’t found anything expensive enough.”
    â€œ Expensive enough?!”
    Acadia laughed. “My father’s the type who has to have the best of everything. It’s as if he has to prove something, and if he buys a house with a big enough price tag, he’ll be able to brag about it at all of his precious cocktail parties.”
    Liam looked up. Now that Acadia wasn’t silhouetted by the sun, he realized how pretty she was—she had long blond hair, Caribbean Sea blue eyes, perfectly straight white teeth, and smooth, tan skin. She must look like her mother, he thought, because she doesn’t look anything like her father. “Where do you live the rest of the time?”
    â€œIn the city.”
    â€œBoston?”
    â€œNo, New York. Actually, we’ve never lived any one place for very long, but home base has always been our townhouse in New York.”
    â€œWhere else have you lived?”
    â€œGermany, China, France—my father’s job takes him around the world, but now that I’m a senior, my mother wants me to be home to look at colleges. She really wants me to go to Barnard, her alma mater, but my father wants me to look at the Ivy League.”
    Liam nodded as if he knew all about traveling. In truth, he’d barely been off the island, never mind out of the country. In fact, the only other states he’d been to were New Hampshire and Maine. He and Coop had gone to a stock car race in New Hampshire, and after the race, Liam had had to help Coop, who’d had too much to drink, all the way back to the truck—which they’d parked across the road at a sugarhouse called Sunnyside Maples. Liam, who’d only been fifteen at the time, had then helped him into the passenger’s seat and stood there, wondering what to do next. “Jus’ drive,” Coop had slurred. “Issame’s drivin’ a boat.”
    Liam climbed into the driver’s seat and looked out at the long line of cars and trucks leaving the race. He pushed in the clutch, jammed the truck into gear, and then tried to slowly let the clutch out while stepping on the gas, but try as he might, he kept stalling, lurching to a stop every time. Finally, after enduring a stream of swears and rude gestures from other race-goers, Coop had had him turn onto a dirt road that didn’t look much like a road at all, and they’d ended up coming home through Maine.
    As for cities, he’d been to a couple of Red Sox games and he’d gone on a field trip to the aquarium and Faneuil Hall, so he’d been to Boston, but that was the only city he’d visited.
    â€œWhat colleges are you looking at?”