Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 1-16

by Force, Marie

  “Mac!” Frank called from the kitchen door. “Get in here and check out these wings that Brett made. They’ll set your mouth on fire.”

  “And doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  Frank took a closer look at him. “What’s with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Leaving the kitchen and the wings behind, Frank took Mac by the arm and steered him back the way he’d come. They went through the front door to the porch. “I’ll ask again—what’s with you?”

  Mac hesitated, but only for a second, because this was Frankie, his big brother and best friend. If anyone would tell it to him straight, it was Frank. “Am I making a huge mistake buying the marina?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Am I pissing away the money Grandma left me on something stupid?”

  “Where’s this shit coming from?”

  “Something Dad said has me thinking. What if it’s a total disaster, and I lose my shirt?”

  “What if it’s a huge success and you make millions? Have you considered that possibility?”

  “Not really. I’d be perfectly satisfied to make a decent living from the place. I’m not looking for millions.”

  “Still, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. People are saying Gansett is the next Martha’s Vineyard. Sky’s the limit, bro, and you’re in on the ground floor.”

  “You still think it’s a good idea to buy the place?”

  “If I didn’t, I would’ve said so.” Frank was the one person from his life in Providence who’d been out to the island to see the marina, because Mac trusted his brother’s instincts and wanted his opinion. “You’ve got your work cut out for you to undo years of neglect, but that’s nothing you can’t handle.”

  Frank’s assurances helped to calm the wave of panic that had been growing since Mac left their parents’ home.

  “You’re going to sign those papers tomorrow and take the plunge, because if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what might’ve happened if you had.”

  “That’s very true.”

  “Sometimes you’ve just got to go for it, Mac, and let the chips fall where they will. Either it’ll be a success or it won’t, but the only failure here would be in not trying.”

  “Thanks, Frankie. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

  “Dad means well. You know he does, but sometimes he spouts off without thinking. Don’t let him fill your mind with doubts. This is what you want, Mac. Go for it.”

  “I’m going to.”

  “Good. You’ve already sacrificed a lot for that marina.” Frank reminded him of the brief but promising relationship with Diana Vaughn that had ended because she wasn’t interested in life on a remote island.

  Mac had missed her in the months since they broke up, but he knew it had been the right thing to end it now rather than later when it would be harder to reconcile their differing life goals. “Yeah, you’re right. Too late to turn back now.”

  “Yes, it is, and it’s going to be great. I know it.” Frank’s gaze shifted to the street, his smile lighting up his face. “Here comes my girl, and she’s brought friends. Cute friends.”

  Mac looked toward the street and saw Joann, Frank’s girlfriend since high school, coming down the sidewalk with three other girls in tow. Mac immediately zeroed in on one of them. Petite with long blond hair, she had an arresting face and eyes that danced with glee at something one of her friends had said.

  Watching her come closer, Mac felt like he’d been sucker-punched.

  “Earth to Mac,” Frank said, drawing his attention off the blond goddess.

  “W-who is that?”

  “Huh?”

  “The blond with Joann. Who is she?”

  “That’s her friend Linda from PC,” he said, referring to Providence College.

  “Introduce me.”

  “Um, okay…”

  Joann came up the stairs and launched herself at Frankie, laying a wet, sloppy kiss on him. “God, this week was endless.”

  “For me, too, baby.”

  The two of them had been mad about each other from the moment they met in high school, when Jo’s family moved to the city. Frank had come home from the first day of his sophomore year professing he’d met his future wife, and they’d been together ever since.

  Keeping an arm around Joann, Frank said, “Ladies, this is my brother, Mac. Mac, meet Josie, Linda and Kathy.”

  Linda. Her name is Linda. Mac shook hands with all three women and then gave his full attention to the one in the middle, who stood out in the group of gorgeous women like a shining star. He’d never been so bowled over by a girl—or a woman. She was all woman, but giggled like a girl with her friends as they made their way inside with Joann leading the way.

  “Easy, big fella,” Frank said, his hand on Mac’s arm.

  “How do you think Linda would feel about living on Gansett Island with an up-and-coming marina owner?

  Frank tossed his head back and laughed as hard as Mac had ever seen him laugh.

  Too bad Mac was serious.

  “You don’t do anything halfway, do you, Mac?”

  “What’s the point of doing something halfway?”

  “Go easy so you don’t scare her off. She’ll think you’re some sort of ax murderer if you ask her to come live on your remote island five minutes after you meet her.”

  “Laugh all you want, Frankie, but that girl is going to live with me on my island. Mark my words.”

  Shaking his head in amusement, Frank said, “Good thing you’re going to have a lawyer in the family. You’ll need me to defend you when she files charges against you.”

  Mac laughed at Frank’s joke, but he suspected he’d need his brother to be his best man before he’d ever need his legal services.

  Big Mac chuckled at the memory of that long-ago day. It had been ages since he’d thought about how his father had nearly talked him out of buying the marina—and what a mistake that would’ve been. He’d paid off the loan within five years and had gone on to make millions on the place, just as Frankie had predicted. It hadn’t happened overnight, but after the island was featured on a TV show on East Coast destinations two years after he bought the marina, nothing was ever the same.

  And speaking of never the same…he was never the same after that day at Frank’s house. That was the day his life really began, the day he met Linda.

  Chapter 2

  She laughed—a lot. He knew that because he watched her obsessively, waiting for an opportunity to get her alone so he could talk to her. But she was surrounded by people—male and female—and he got tired of waiting. So he went over to her, prepared to ask her to take a walk with him, to talk to him, to give him even one minute of her attention as well as the rest of her life if she wasn’t doing anything.

  Then he was standing right in front of her, and every thought in his head abandoned him.

  “Help you with something?” she asked, looking way up at him. He towered over her. “It’s Mac, right?”

  He nodded like the mute he’d become in her presence. “Take a walk,” he managed to say. “With me.”

  “Umm…” She glanced nervously at her friends, who waited expectantly to see what she’d say. “Okay.”

  With that one word, she gave him hope. He offered her his arm, and when she curled her hand into the crook of his elbow, his heart gave a happy little leap. It was imperative, or so he thought, to get her out of there, away from the admiring eyes of every other guy at the party so she wouldn’t meet someone she liked better before he had a chance to convince her that she needed him in her life.

  What if she already had someone? That thought struck him like an arrow to the chest, sucking the air from his lungs as he walked with her through the gate that led to the sidewalk. So many young women these days were waiting for boyfriends and husbands to come home now that the dreadful war in Vietnam was finally over. He’d been too young and Frankie had been in college, so neither of them
had gone, but lots of other guys they knew were counting down the days until they could come home to girls like Linda.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked out of nowhere, cringing the instant the words left his mouth.

  Her ringing laugh followed the awkward question. “Who wants to know?”

  “Malcolm John McCarthy, known as Mac, wants to know. Do you?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Are you waiting for someone to come home from Vietnam?”

  “Only my brother.”

  Mac had never known relief so profound or so pervasive. “How’s it possible a girl like you doesn’t have twenty boyfriends vying for her attention?”

  She smiled up at him, and he lost what was left of his heart. “You’re a charmer, Malcolm John McCarthy, known as Mac.”

  “Never been before. Must be you.”

  “Must be.”

  Walking backward in front of her, he said, “What’s your last name?”

  “Rudolph.”

  “Tell me the truth, Linda Rudolph—have you ever harbored a secret burning desire to live on an island?”

  “An island? Can’t say I’ve ever entertained that particular burning desire.”

  The implication that she’d entertained others had his full attention, and he had to remind himself they were in public, and he wasn’t allowed to let his mind go there—at least not yet.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, so, it’s kind of like this… Tomorrow, I’m signing papers that will make me the proud owner of a ramshackle marina on Gansett Island that I plan to turn into a gold mine. I was wondering if you might like to help me do that.”

  “Didn’t I just meet you an hour ago?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you’re asking me to come live with you on your island and help you turn your ramshackle marina into a gold mine. Is that right?”

  “That’s about it, yep.”

  “Are you always this forward when you meet someone new?”

  “Nope. I’ve never asked a girl to come live with me anywhere, let alone on my island.”

  “I’m flattered to be the first, but you’ll understand my reluctance, being as I’m in school and all that.”

  “What year?”

  “Going into my junior year.”

  “I won’t be able to wait two years to marry you. There’s just no way that’ll work for me.”

  “Mac! Are you out of your mind? Do you have some sort of condition that makes you delusional?”

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

  “No! That only happens in the movies.”

  “And on front porches in Providence.”

  “You… I…” She pursed her lips, seeming to choose her words carefully. “Are you being serious right now?”

  “Dead serious. You ever feel something right here?” He pushed his fist into his gut. “And you know? You just know?”

  “That hasn’t happened to me before.”

  “It’s happened to me only one other time.”

  “Were you in love with her?”

  He smiled at the catty tone to her voice. “As much as you can be in love with a dilapidated group of buildings, a sagging dock and a parking lot full of potholes. I took one look at that mess and felt like I’d come home. And I took one look at you, the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on, and felt like I’d found the other half of me.”

  Her hand came up to her chest, as if she were trying to remember how to breathe. Maybe he had that thought because he was feeling sort of breathless himself.

  “How old are you, Mac?”

  “Just turned twenty.”

  “And you expect me to believe you can take one look at me—at age twenty—and think you’re going to want me forever?”

  “Yes, I expect you to believe that. How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “In Massachusetts, outside of Boston.”

  “Ahh, a city girl.”

  “You’re from here, right? Doesn’t that make you a city boy?”

  “Providence is small potatoes next to Boston.” It occurred to him that a girl from Boston might find Gansett Island incredibly boring. “You’re on summer vacation, right?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you working?”

  “I was supposed to be a nanny for a young family, but the dad’s job transferred him unexpectedly, so I’m still looking for something. I’m staying with Josie and Kathy for the summer.”

  “Come to Gansett with me for the day tomorrow. Take a look at what I’m doing there. I want to know what you think of it.” At this point, he was running on pure adrenaline fueled by the gut feeling that she was intended for him. How he knew that, he couldn’t say. He just knew.

  “You’re a very intense young man, Mac.”

  “I’ve been told that before, but I don’t see any point in doing things halfway,” he said, borrowing Frank’s words from earlier. “Tomorrow, I’m gambling my future on a marina that may or may not pay off. I want you with me when I go there for the first time as the rightful owner. Will you come?”

  Her lips moved to the side as she thought about his offer. After a long moment in which Mac died a thousand deaths waiting for her to reply, she said, “I won’t stay there overnight.”

  “I’ll bring you back on the last boat tomorrow night. You have my word.”

  “Okay. I’ll go, then.”

  Mac blew out a deep breath. Two round trips to the island weren’t in the budget, but he’d find the money if it meant he got to show her his dream. “Thank you. Will you do one other thing for me?”

  “Depends on what it is.”

  “Don’t go out with anyone else.”

  “You mean between now and tomorrow when I’m going to Gansett Island with you?”

  “I mean ever. Don’t go out with anyone but me ever again.”

  She started to laugh, but it died on her lips when she seemed to get that he meant it.

  Because he couldn’t wait another second to touch her, he raised his hand to her face and laid it flat against her cheek. Then he ran his thumb over her full bottom lip, loving the sound of her breath catching in her throat. “You’re so incredibly beautiful, Linda.”

  “You’re a rather handsome devil yourself, but of course you know that.”

  “As long as you think so, that’s all that matters.”’

  “Are you always so insistent when it comes to women?”

  “I’m never insistent, because I’ve never cared enough to be. You’re different.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked in a small voice that had his heart doing that leaping thing again.

  “Do you believe in fate? In things that are meant to be?”

  “I never have before.”

  He leaned in to replace his thumb with his lips, a soft fleeting caress that only confirmed what he already knew—she was his. “It might be time to start believing.”

  With the hindsight of four decades, Big Mac had to acknowledge that he was damned lucky she hadn’t run from him, screaming for the police.

  His low chuckle had her stirring next to him.

  “What’re you laughing about first thing in the morning?” she asked in the husky, sleepy morning voice he adored.

  “I’m thinking about the day we met and how lucky I was that you didn’t call the police on me with the way I came on so strong with you.”

  “You are lucky. The thought crossed my mind. You were awfully forward.”

  “It was the seventies, babe. Forward was in vogue.”

  “You took it to a whole other level.”

  Big Mac turned over, put his arm around her and drew her in snug against him, loving how she fit so perfectly in his arms. “Happy anniversary, my love. I’m so glad you didn’t call the cops.”

  “Me, too, and happy anniversary to you as well.”

  “Forty years,” he said with a sigh. “How’s that poss
ible?”

  “Went by in the blink of an eye.”

  “You ever wish you’d called the cops on me that day at Frankie’s?”

  “Not for one second, as you well know.”

  “Ever wish you’d finished college?”

  “Nope. I would’ve been so distracted thinking about you that I would’ve flunked out anyway.”

  “Sometimes I feel bad about talking you into dropping out to come live with me on my island. I thought your folks would never forgive me for that.”

  “They loved you as much as I did.”

  “Not at first. They thought you were shackling yourself to a lunatic.”

  “They never used that word,” she said, making him laugh. “They admired your ambition.”

  “But they wished I’d been ambitious on the mainland rather than out here.”

  “They understood why we wanted to be here. They loved coming out in the summers to spend a few weeks every year.”

  “I miss that.”

  “Me too.”

  “And now here we are, the grandparents all of a sudden,” he said.

  “It wasn’t all of a sudden, but it did happen fast when they started dropping like flies, one after the other. And Laura and Shane, too.”

  “They all found their ideal mates. I couldn’t be any happier with how it worked out for them.”

  “Not to mention, they all came home.”

  “Thank goodness for that.” Big Mac reached for the small wrapped package he’d stashed under his pillow before bed and plopped it down in front of her.

  “What’s that?”

  “The first of your anniversary gifts.”

  “Mac! We said we weren’t doing gifts!”

  “We say that every year, and every year we do gifts. And besides, this year is extra special.”

  “Every year is extra special.”

  “Open your present.”

  Looking over her shoulder, he noted the slight tremble in her hands as she pulled the ribbon and paper off the blue velvet box.

  “Mac,” she said with a gasp, recognizing the distinctive Tiffany blue. “What’ve you done?”

  “Open it.” He’d been anticipating this moment for months as he went back and forth with the folks at Tiffany to get it just right. And judging by her gasp of shock, he’d gotten it just right.