Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 1-16

by Force, Marie

  “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but in that boat with you and Kyle and Jackson. We’re going to get them through this, Seamus. It won’t happen overnight, but one day they’ll find a way to accept what’s happened, and when they do, they’ll go back to being the happy little guys they once were.”

  “You promise, love?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I sure hope so, because I already love them an awful lot, and I find myself wishing for a magic wand that could make everything right in their world again.”

  “Since we don’t have a magic wand handy, we’ll just have to love them through it.”

  “We did the right thing taking them in, didn’t we?”

  “Are you having second thoughts?”

  “Not about wanting them or anything like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I guess I worry that I’m not up to the job of being their dad. We know you’ve got this mother gig mastered. You’ve already raised one fantastic son, so you’re an expert. But they’re getting a rookie with me, and I’m feeling out of my league already.”

  Her shoulder shook under his hand.

  “Are you laughing at me, Carolina O’Grady?”

  “I might be.” She cupped his face in her hand and kissed him. “Seamus, my love, every new parent feels the way you do. Outmatched, overwhelmed, certain that disaster is looming around the next corner. Those boys have suffered a terrible tragedy. There’s no way around that. But you’re their silver lining.”

  “We are.”

  “You are. I’ll give them everything I have to give, but you… You’ll teach them how to be men, and if they’re even half the man you are, you will have done an amazing job.”

  “Awww, Caro, that’s a sweet thing for you to say.”

  “It’s the truth. What happened to their mom is a terrible stroke of bad luck, but they got lucky the day you decided we needed to be there for them. They may not know it yet, but someday they will.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “When have you ever known me not to be right?”

  “Um, how about the months you spent pushing me away when you knew we were meant to be?”

  “Other than that.”

  “That’s a pretty big other than.”

  “Shut up and kiss your wife.”

  “My sassy wife, you mean.” Since there was truly nothing else he’d rather do than kiss his wife, he did as he was told like the good husband he was. And as he did every day, he gave thanks to whatever higher power had brought her and her good sense into his life.

  They were in for one hell of a challenging ride with their boys, but Seamus was confident that with her by his side to make sure he didn’t screw it up, they’d do right by Kyle and Jackson.

  Lizzie James was up before the sun on Sunday morning. She’d been awake for hours thinking about the idea that had taken root the night before and how they might make it happen. It was such a brilliant idea—a place on the island for seniors and others in need of health care so they could remain close to their loved ones. She and Jared certainly had the resources to make it happen, and it might turn out to be an ideal situation for her brother-in-law Quinn, who’d returned from his service as a medic in Afghanistan badly injured and in need of a new direction.

  The more she thought about the idea, the more brilliant it became. She made it until seven o’clock before she brought a mug of coffee into the bedroom with her, hoping to butter up Jared.

  She kissed him awake.

  “Hey,” he said when his eyes finally opened. “What time is it?”

  “Seven.”

  “It’s Sunday, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What the heck are you doing up so early on the one day we get to sleep in?” He made himself get up and be productive the other days of the week, lest he become a slovenly “retiree.” Sunday was his day “off.”

  “I couldn’t sleep anymore. And I’ve been thinking.”

  “Ugh,” he said with a dramatic groan. “Any time you get to thinking, it costs me money.”

  Lizzie responded with a big giddy smile.

  Grinning, he shook his head. “It’s a good thing you’re so damned cute, or I might be tempted to be annoyed with you for waking me up at the butt crack of dawn.”

  “You love me too much to be annoyed with me, and you have to admit I have good ideas.”

  He sat up and took the mug from her. “They’re not all bad.”

  Lizzie waited until he’d had three big sips of coffee. “So about this home for the aged that everyone was talking about last night…”

  “What about it?”

  “I want to go see the old school that Paul mentioned. He said the town is about to list it for sale.”

  “When do you want to do this?”

  “Um, now?”

  “Lizzie! It’s seven o’clock in the morning on the one day we take to chill out and do nothing. Does it have to be right now?”

  She smiled again, knowing that was all it took to get him to see things her way. He loved to see her smiling and happy, so she played her best card.

  “I never knew you were so devious when I married you.”

  “You did, too. Now get your lazy butt out of bed and drive me to see this school.” She started to get up, but he took hold of her hand, stopping her from getting away.

  “On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “When we get back, we spend the rest of the morning in bed.”

  She raised a saucy brow. “Sleeping?”

  “You’ve got me wide awake after a good night’s sleep. I doubt I’ll need more sleep for many, many hours.”

  He was so damned sexy, especially first thing in the morning with his blond hair standing on end and his jaw covered in whiskers.

  Lizzie pretended to think about his very tempting offer for a moment or two. “Okay, we have a deal. Now get up.” She’d showered an hour ago and was already dressed. She tugged on his hand to “help” him up.

  He groaned as he let her pull him out of bed.

  Lizzie took a good long look at her gorgeous husband, who stood before her fully nude and fully erect. She licked her lips.

  “Don’t do that and then tell me we’ve got to go somewhere.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You looked and you licked.”

  Lizzie laughed at the foul expression that marred his handsome face. “You’re so grumpy in the morning.”

  He hooked an arm around her waist. “I’m only grumpy when I get blasted out of bed far too early by my beautiful but exasperating wife who’s like a little kid at Christmas every time she gets one of her big ideas.”

  “But you love me, right?”

  “Yeah, baby, I love you so much that I let you drag me out of bed when all I want to do is drag you into bed.” He kissed her neck and nearly had her forgetting why she wanted him up so early.

  “No way, buster,” she said, wise to him as she pushed him back. “No nookie until we take a lookie.”

  He walked into the bathroom laughing, giving her a great view of his most excellent ass as he went. A few minutes later, he reemerged wearing shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops. His hair had been combed into submission, and he looked nothing at all like the ex-Wall Street billionaire that he was. She loved him this way—casual, relaxed, removed from the rat race that had once been his life.

  Jared grabbed his wallet and keys from the dresser. “You’re so cute when you’re excited about something, Lizzie.”

  “I must be really cute right now, then.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose and then her lips. “You’re positively adorable. Let’s go see what’s got you all wound up.”

  They drove to the north end of the island in Jared’s Porsche. Lizzie opened the window and took deep breaths of the cool, crisp September air. “This might be my favorite month here.”

  “You say that every month.”

  “I haven’t seen a month yet that I
haven’t liked.”

  “Wait until December.”

  “When I’m marooned with you and a cozy fireplace while it snows outside? I’m not seeing the downside.”

  He took hold of her hand and used their joined hands to shift the car. “I’m so glad you’re happy here.”

  “I love everything about it, especially the part where I get to be married to you.”

  “Sometimes, when I think about how close we came to missing out on what we have now…”

  “Don’t think about that.”

  “Hard not to when it was such a close call.”

  “We got lucky, and the planets aligned in our favor.”

  “I’ll never, ever take this for granted, Lizzie, even on days when you blast me out of bed way too early to tend to one of your big ideas.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said, smiling over at him. “I worry about the day when I push you one step too far and you tell me, ‘That’s it, Elisabeth with an S. No more big ideas for you.’”

  “I’m not seeing that day ever coming, as you well know, which is why you play me like a well-used fiddle to get what you want.”

  “You are kind of easy,” she said with a giggle.

  “Easy,” he said with an indignant huff. “I’ll show you easy when I get you back home.”

  “Oh boy. I can’t wait.”

  They pulled up to the building that had served as Gansett Island’s K-12 school since the seventies, and Lizzie saw right away that the abandoned school looked tired, worn and dated. But that was nothing a little TLC couldn’t fix. The second Jared brought the car to a stop, she got out to go peek into dirty windows.

  “Be careful,” Jared said. “There might be broken glass in those weeds.”

  Lizzie didn’t see the dirt or the weeds or the broken glass. She only saw the big rooms that had once housed students and might one day be rooms for elderly patients. “This is perfect,” she declared.

  “You can’t tell that just by looking in a few windows.”

  “It’s got good bones, and check out the size of the rooms. Come over here and look.”

  Jared joined her at the window, peering inside with his hands around his eyes blocking the sunlight. “The rooms are big.”

  “They’re perfect. Who can we talk to about seeing the inside?”

  “You can ask your buddy Paul about that, but before you do, are you really sure you want to take this on, babe? This would be a really, really big deal, and we’ve already got a pretty big deal going on at the Chesterfield. I thought the goal when we moved out here was to simplify our lives. This is not going to be simple.”

  “No, it isn’t,” she said, her heart racing with excitement as plans came together in her mind. “It’s going to be a huge pain in the ass, but think of the good we could do here. Look at what Alex and Paul are going through with their mother, and David said he knows of ten other families on the island in similar straits. We’d have the place sold out before we begin construction. And then there’s Quinn. This could be ideal for him.”

  “That’s a whole other kettle of fish—smelly, complicated fish.”

  She glanced at him. “Did you just refer to your brother as smelly fish?”

  “His situation is dicey, Lizzie, as you well know.”

  “This might be the sort of thing that’ll give him a new purpose in life. It wouldn’t hurt anything to ask him, would it?”

  “You’re so far down the road on this, and you only had the idea last night.”

  “What’s wrong with trying to make things happen?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing is wrong with it as long as you know what you’re getting into from the outset.”

  “I’m well aware that this won’t be easy, but I want to do it anyway.” She withdrew her cell phone from her pocket and scrolled through her contacts.

  “Who’re you calling, babe? It’s seven thirty on a Sunday.”

  “Paul will be up,” she said as she placed the call, smiling at her husband, who just shook his head once again.

  The ringing phone pulled Paul out of a deep, satisfying sleep. For a second, he couldn’t figure out who was in bed with him, but then the memories of the night before came back to remind him that Hope had stayed with him. He moved carefully so he wouldn’t disturb her and reached for his phone on the bedside table to see that Lizzie was calling him awfully early.

  “Hello,” he said, taking the phone with him as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Hey, Paul, it’s Lizzie. I hope I’m not waking you.”

  “It’s okay. What’s up?”

  “Jared and I are out at the old school, and I think it’ll be perfect for what we have in mind.”

  Paul was so groggy that he had to think about what they had in mind. “You’re out there already?”

  “Uh-huh. Jared and I got up early to come check it out.”

  “She dragged me out of bed early,” Jared said into the phone. “I told her not to call you at this hour.”

  Paul laughed even as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “How can we get inside?” Lizzie asked. “And I want first dibs on buying it.”

  “You’re serious,” Paul said. The sort of facility Lizzie envisioned on Gansett Island would be an answer to a prayer for him and Alex.

  “I’m dead serious.”

  “She’s dead serious,” Jared said.

  “Hush,” Lizzie said to her husband. “I’m conducting business here.”

  “I’ll make a few phone calls and see if I can get someone out there to let you inside. Can you wait for a bit?”

  “Sure, we’ve got nothing planned for today.”

  Jared’s groan in the background carried through the phone.

  “Something tells me you don’t speak for your husband,” Paul said, amused by her doggedness.

  “He can wait on the plans for later. It’ll keep.”

  “No, it won’t!” Jared said.

  “I’ll call you back,” Paul said, laughing at their banter. He ended that call and placed another to the police station. When the dispatcher answered, he asked for the officer in charge.

  “Taylor,” a gruff voice replied.

  “Hey, it’s Paul Martinez. They’ve got you working Sundays, huh?”

  “I’ve got two guys out sick, so I’m holding the short straw. What’s up?”

  “I have someone interested in buying the old school building and wondered if you have keys, since Town Hall is closed today.”

  “Yep, I’ve got keys.”

  “Any chance one of your guys could run them out there? Lizzie and Jared James are there now, and she’s eager to see the inside.”

  “What’s she got in mind for the place?”

  “An elderly-care facility, of all things.”

  “Wow, that’s a cool idea.”

  “My brother and I couldn’t agree more. We’re getting to the point with our mom that we’re going to need more involved care than we can provide at home. If this materializes, it would solve a huge problem for us.”

  “I imagine it would. I’ll take the keys out there myself.”

  “Are you sure? I could come get them if you’re busy.”

  “No problem. I’ve got to do my rounds anyway.”

  “Thanks a lot, Blaine. Appreciate it.”

  “You got it. So I’ll see you next weekend, huh?”

  “Yes, you will.” Paul was hosting Alex’s bachelor party next Saturday night. “Looking forward to it.”

  “Me, too. Talk to you then.”

  As Paul ended the call, Alex and Jenny came in through the front door.

  “Hey, you’re up early,” Jenny said with a cheerful smile.

  Paul was frozen in place as it dawned on him that he’d missed his opportunity to get Hope out of the house before they were caught together. Crap. “I, um…”

  “Everything okay?” Alex asked as he peeled a banana while Jenny made coffee.

  “Um, yeah. I’m going b
ack to bed for a while. I’ll just… I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay,” Jenny said.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Paul saw Alex shrug at Jenny’s inquiring look. Yes, he knew he was acting strangely, but he had a good reason. Lately, Jenny had been dragging Alex to church on Sunday mornings. He could only hope today would be a church day.

  He went back into his room, where Hope was still asleep. Paul got back in bed, moving carefully so he wouldn’t wake her. Listening intently to what Alex and Jenny were doing, he hoped to hear the shower go on or the car start or something to indicate the coast was clear. But all he heard was the low hum of conversation.

  Hope stirred, her legs moving before she turned, her eyes opening and widening at the sight of him. “Oh, um, wow. I didn’t mean to stay here all night.”

  When she started to get up, he stopped her with an arm around her waist. “Wait. Alex and Jenny are out there.”

  She fell back against the pillow, groaning. “I’m thinking of a four-letter word that I shouldn’t say, but it fits the situation.”

  “I’m thinking of the same word.”

  “And of course I really need to pee.”

  “She’s been dragging him to church lately, so we may get lucky.”

  “What time is church?”

  “They’ve been going to the eight-thirty mass.”

  She glanced at the clock and groaned again. “That’s in forty-five minutes, and what if they don’t go?”

  “Let’s pray that they do.”

  “Very funny. In the meantime, my bladder is going to explode, which is way more information than you need on our first morning together.”

  “What can we do to take your mind off of it?”

  “Find me a bathroom?”

  “Next best thing?” He held out his arm and brought her into his embrace.

  She rested her head on his chest. “Does this feel weird to you in the bright light of day?”

  “It actually feels really good. Does it feel weird to you?”

  “Just the part about being half-naked in a bed with my boss.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever think of me as anything other than your boss?”

  “I already do, Paul. That’s the scary part.”

  “It doesn’t have to be scary.”

  “Things like this never end well for me.”