by Force, Marie
“Those poor boys have no idea what they’re in for living with us.”
“We’ll show them how much we love each other.”
“I’m fine with that, but I don’t think they should hear how much we love each other.”
Seamus chuckled softly. “You may be right about that, love.”
“I thought we’d already established that I’m always right.”
“Aye, I walked right into that trap.” He withdrew from her and moved to lie next to her, reaching for her.
She curled up to him, her hand on his belly, her leg intertwined with his. “Try to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long couple of days, and we need to be ready.”
Seamus knew she was right about that, too, but he had no idea how to get ready to see the boys through this difficult time in their lives. He could only hope for the best.
Chapter 12
Slim left Seamus’s house and took the long way around the island on the way to his home on the west side. He’d flown four round trips to the mainland that day, and on the last run had borrowed a car from a buddy at the airport in Westerly to do an errand for Seamus.
All day he’d thought of those poor little boys and the difficult road they had ahead of them as they came to terms with their unbearable loss. Seamus and Carolina had done an amazing thing by offering to take them, and Slim had no doubt that the boys were in good hands with them. But it wasn’t going to be easy for any of them to make this transition to being a family.
A year ago, Seamus had been a happy single guy. In fact, they’d bonded over beers at the Beachcomber, toasting to their freedom. And now he was married and an instant father to two boys. Life was funny that way. Better him than me, Slim thought as he took a hairpin curve and slammed on his brakes when he saw a woman in the road.
What the hell? He shifted the truck into park, turned on his hazard lights, released his seat belt and got out to investigate.
“Who’s there?” she asked warily, standing outside the glow of his headlights.
“Slim Jackson.”
“Oh, Slim, thank goodness it’s you. It’s me, Erin, from the lighthouse.”
They’d met over the summer at a gathering at the Tiki Bar. Her shoulder-length light brown hair framed her pretty face as she looked at him with sparkling brown eyes. “What the devil are you doing out here in the dark of night?”
“I was riding my bike home from town when I got a flat tire. I was walking the bike home when I stepped into a hole and sprained my ankle. At least I hope it’s only sprained. I can’t tell.”
“How long have you been out here?”
“More than an hour now, and you’re the first one to come along.”
“You could’ve called for help.”
“My phone died about five minutes after my tire went flat. It’s been a series of unfortunate events.”
“I guess so. How can I help?”
“Would you mind giving me and my bike a ride to the lighthouse?”
“Of course. No problem. Are you okay to stand without the bike to lean on?”
“I can hop.”
“Stay right there. I’ll grab the bike and then come back for you.” He waited for her to get her balance and then stashed the bike in the back of his truck before returning quickly to her side. “Hang on to me.”
She put an arm around his waist, and he put one around her shoulders. Working together, they shuffled over to his truck. Placing his hands on her hips, he easily lifted her into the passenger side of his truck.
“This is way above and beyond the call of duty,” she said with a wry smile when he had her settled. “You’re going to throw your back out hauling me around.”
“Nah, you’re light as air.”
She snorted with laughter. “Sure, I am.”
He took a closer look at her ankle, which was hugely swollen and beginning to bruise. “How’s the pain?”
“It doesn’t feel great, but I’m very thankful that I don’t have to hobble home.”
The lighthouse was only a mile away, but that would’ve been a long mile on a badly sprained ankle. It took a few minutes to drive there, and when they arrived, he noticed the gate was locked. “Do you have the key?”
“It’s a combination,” she said, giving him the numbers.
“Got it. Be right back.” Slim opened the gate, returned to the truck to drive through and then went to close it again, leaving the lock propped open so he could get out. “It’s awful dark out here at night.”
“The floodlights by the door will come on when we get closer.”
“You ever get scared out here all by yourself?”
“The first week, I slept with the lights on,” she confessed. “But you get used to it.”
“I don’t know if I would.”
“Are you scared of the dark, Slim?”
“You’ll never get me to admit that.” Opening the door to get out, he discovered he quite enjoyed the sound of her laughter. With her hair up in a ponytail and her face devoid of makeup, she was refreshingly pretty. Slim appreciated women who didn’t feel the need to fall into a vat of makeup. He’d always preferred the natural look, which he’d liked about Erin the first time he met her. At the time, he’d meant to ask Alex about her, but he’d never gotten around to it. He was glad to have been given a second chance to get to know her.
Slim opened the passenger door. “How about a lift inside?”
“I think I can walk.”
“You probably shouldn’t put any weight on it until you’re sure it’s not broken. You don’t want to make a bad situation worse.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“It’s certainly no hardship for me to give you a lift,” he said with a smile and a wink that brought a flush of color to her cheeks. Oh, he liked that. He liked it a lot. “Shall we?”
“Sure, thanks.”
He slid his arms under her legs and behind her shoulders, lifting her effortlessly from the cab.
Her arms came around his shoulders. “This is mortifying.”
“How come?”
“You barely know me and you’re carrying me around.”
“I’m helping a damsel in distress and hoping that maybe she’ll reward me for my troubles by letting me take her to dinner when she’s feeling better.”
“Is ‘she’ in this damsel-in-distress scenario of yours supposed to be me?”
“Pretty and smart. That’s a very attractive combination. So what do you say? Will you thank me for carrying you around by having dinner with me sometime soon?”
“I’ll have to see how you manage the spiral staircase before I decide anything. I mean, if my head is bouncing off the wall or my injured ankle smacks against the railing, you won’t seem quite so heroic to me.”
“Oh wow, you have so little faith. I’ll have you know that I’m an expert at carrying damsels in distress.”
“Where did you get all this expertise?”
Slim started up the winding staircase and discovered it was rather narrow. He was careful to navigate the twisting turns so no part of her smacked anything. “I come from a long line of circus performers. We’re known for our agility and ability to transport damsels of all kinds, whether they’re in distress or not.”
She shook with laughter. “Circus performers, huh?”
“Uh-huh. Wow, this is so cool,” he said when they arrived in a combined kitchen and living room, which was circular and had a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the island. He set her carefully on the sofa. “Where do you keep your first aid kit?”
“Under the sink.”
He went to retrieve it and grabbed a bag of frozen corn from the freezer.
“What’s that for?” she asked about the corn.
“It makes for an excellent ice pack.” Slim untied her running shoe and removed it and then the ankle-high sock, revealing her injured ankle, which was even more swollen and purple than it had been a few minutes ago. “Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.”
�
��It does. I feel so stupid. I went to the movies and figured I’d have plenty of time to get home before it got dark, but the projector was acting up, so the movie started half an hour late and then the movie ran long. It was dumb to be out there by myself in the dark.”
He opened the first aid kit, found an Ace bandage and began wrapping it around her ankle.
“I can do that,” she said. “You were on your way somewhere.”
“I was on my way home. It’s no problem.”
“You seem to know what you’re doing. Did you learn that in the circus, too?”
“Nope,” he said with a laugh. “That’s EMT training from a previous lifetime.”
“You’ve had a lot of lifetimes.”
“Indeed I have.” He finished wrapping her ankle and then placed the bag of corn on top of it. “Painkillers?”
“In the cabinet by the sink.”
He went to get them and returned with a glass of water and two pills. “Now, what’re we going to do about the bathroom?”
Her brown eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t see one on this level, so what’re you going to do when you gotta go?”
“Um, I suppose I’ll hobble to the stairs and get myself up there.”
“I’ll stay.” He plopped into the chair next to the sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table.
“Wait a minute…”
“What’s the problem? You need help. I’ve got nowhere to be. Seems like a perfect solution to me.”
“Are you always so…” She rolled her hand, giving him the opportunity to fill in the blank.
Raising an eyebrow, he said, “Pushy?”
“Yes. That’s a good word for it.”
“I can be when the situation warrants it. It’s rather simple, in my opinion. You’re injured and in pain and can’t do anything about it until the clinic opens in the morning. You’ve got a wicked set of winding stairs between you and the bathroom. We hardly know each other, so naturally you’re going to want to be rid of me as soon as possible. You’re a nice girl, so you’d never ask me to stay even though you know you need my help.” He shrugged. “By being pushy, I save us both a lot of time that we could spend on more important topics, such as whether or not you’re going to have dinner with me.”
She stared at him, seemingly flabbergasted.
“It’s a rather simple question that requires a rather simple answer. Dinner. Yes or no?”
“What suddenly made you decide you want to have dinner with me? Were you bored on the way home and I was the first woman you encountered along the way?”
“A, it’s not ‘suddenly.’ And B, I haven’t been bored in longer than I can remember. Too busy to be bored.”
She eyed him shrewdly, which was a major turn-on. He loved a woman who was not only gorgeous but intelligent and funny and challenging, too. “Going back to answer A, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“After Alex introduced us, I wanted to get to know you better, but things have been crazy, and I haven’t had a chance to pursue it further. So imagine my surprise—and pleasure—when I encounter you on a dark road and you’re in need of my assistance.”
“So you’re pleased I sprained my ankle?”
“Not at all. That’s a huge bummer. But I’m glad it was me who found you out there and that I was able to kill two birds with one stone. And before you can give me that look again, I’ll say that bird one was getting you home safely and bird two is having the chance to ask you out.”
“You’re smooth. I’ll give you that.”
He sent her his most rakish smile. “Why, thank you, honey.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll take you up in my plane.”
“Does that line work for you?”
“Almost all the time.”
“You’re probably long overdue for someone to make you work for it.”
“I’m your faithful servant. Work me over.”
“Oh my God, you’re too much.” She sounded annoyed, but her eyes sparkled with delight that told him she was enjoying this conversation every bit as much as he was.
“You got any booze around here?”
“There’s beer in the fridge and whisky over the stove.”
“Oh, two of my three favorites, along with vodka. How about a shot of whisky to take the edge off the pain?”
“That actually sounds good.”
“Coming right up.” He went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of whisky for her and a beer for himself. “Here’s to new friends and damsels in distress.”
She touched her glass to his bottle. “To new friends.”
Chapter 13
Paul dressed in khaki pants, a light-blue dress shirt, a striped tie and the navy-blue blazer he hadn’t worn since his dad’s funeral. Inside one of the pockets, he found a mass card from the funeral, with a photo of George Martinez’s smiling face and the Bible verse they’d chosen from St. Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
He stared at the photo for a long moment, seeing himself and Alex in his father’s face. It was no surprise to either of them that their mother mistook them for him so frequently. They both looked like he had as a young man.
“I hope you’d understand, Dad,” he said, speaking to the photo on the laminated card. “I really care about Hope and Ethan. I’d never want to do anything to disappoint you, but I can’t seem to help the way I feel about her.”
Sighing, he returned the photo to the pocket where he’d found it, taking comfort in knowing it was there. On a whim, he put on a little cologne while reminding himself that a funeral didn’t count as a date, even if he’d be going with Hope. As much as he dreaded what promised to be a terribly sad event, he was glad to lend his support to her.
He went out to the kitchen, where he found her supervising breakfast for Ethan and Marion. The sight of her in a formfitting black dress that wrapped at her waist with a small elegant bow on her hip made his mouth go dry. Her hair fell in soft waves around her pretty face, and all he could think about was kissing her last night. Before his body could react predictably, he forced those thoughts from his mind so he could focus on whatever she needed today.
“Morning, everyone,” Paul said, giving his mother a kiss on the cheek.
“Morning, honey,” Marion said. “You look very handsome.”
Paul took note of the unusually sharp look in his mother’s eyes and experienced a pang of longing for the loving mother she used to be.
“You look funny,” Ethan said with a goofy smile for Paul.
“He looks nice,” Hope told her son. “Go brush your teeth. Time to go.”
“I wanna go with you guys,” Ethan said.
“Nice try, but you’re going to school. Move it, mister.”
Ethan clomped off to the cabin to brush his teeth.
“Get your backpack, too,” Hope called after him. When she came around the counter into the kitchen, he got the full view of what three-inch heels did for her sexy legs.
“Wow,” he whispered.
“Same to you.”
They shared a small, intimate smile that let him know nothing had changed overnight. Relief flooded through him at that realization.
“How about I walk Ethan to the bus today?” he offered.
“I wouldn’t say no to that. These shoes are far more about style than they are about function.”
He took hold of her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m digging your style.”
As her face heated with an appealing blush, she gazed into his eyes.
Paul had to remind himself that he was not allowed to kiss her right there in the kitchen with his mother at the table and her son coming back any second. But, damn, he wanted to.
The moment was lost when Ethan came barreling through the door, the screen slamming behind him.
Paul released
her hand and turned his attention to Ethan. “Ready to go?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Paul is going to walk you to the bus today, E.”
“Okay.”
“Come give me a kiss.”
Ethan’s face wrinkled with displeasure.
“Give your mom a kiss,” Paul said.
He did as he was told while Paul picked up the backpack from where Ethan had dropped it on the floor.
Ethan went over to Marion and kissed her cheek. “Bye, Mrs. Marion.”
“Have a good day at school, honey,” Marion said.
Paul marveled at his mother’s lucidity whenever the little boy was around. He followed Ethan out the front door and down the driveway. They went past the retail store on their way up to the main road where the bus would pick him up.
“Can we check the pumpkins later?” Ethan asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you like my mom?”
Paul felt like he’d been hit in the gut by a full-grown pumpkin. “Um, well, yeah. I do. Is that okay?”
“It’s okay. She’s a nice mom.”
“Yes, she is. You’re very lucky to have her, and you shouldn’t make faces when she asks for a kiss.”
“I didn’t do that.”
“Yes, you did. You always do. I think it hurts her feelings when you do that.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do, so you can try harder.”
“I will.” After a brief pause, Ethan said, “She used to be sad a lot, but she’s better now. You won’t make her sad, will you?”
Once again, Paul felt sucker-punched by the earnest expression on the boy’s adorable little face. “I’ll try really hard not to.”
Ethan seemed to think about that for a minute before he nodded. “Do you like to watch football on TV?”
Paul’s head spun from the rapidly shifting conversation. “I do. I’m a big Patriots fan.”
“Me, too. Maybe we can watch football sometime.”
“Any time you want. Alex likes to watch, too.”
“Cool. Here comes the bus. See you later.” He took off like a shot, covering the last twenty feet of driveway.
Paul jogged after him to make sure he didn’t get too close to the road or the bus as it came to a stop.