Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 1-16

by Force, Marie

  “Not until later.” She covered the hand he had on her belly with hers, linking their fingers. “I should text my mom at some point and tell her I left to do some errands or something.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?” he asked on a low chuckle. “Errands?”

  “That can be our code word.”

  He could hear the amusement in the words that gave him hope there might be a future for them, because suddenly that was the one thing he wanted the most—more of her.

  “Slim…”

  “Hmm?”

  “What you said before…”

  “I said that because I wanted you to know, not because I’m trying to pressure you.”

  “I want you to know… I feel so much for you, and I’m trying to process it all and to figure out what to do about it.”

  “That’s more than enough for me. Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Except Florida.”

  “And you’re welcome to visit any time you want, or better yet, move there to live with me for the rest of the winter.” He nudged her ass with his erection. “Then we could do this any time we wanted.” Cupping her breast, he punctuated his point by lightly pinching her nipple.

  She pushed back against him, which he took as a green light for more.

  Slim released her hand and began kissing his way down her back, intending to kiss every soft inch of her. He’d do whatever it took to make her see that they were meant to be.

  * * *

  Erin was completely sex drunk by the time they walked hand in hand back to the hospital later that afternoon. She’d done what she could with the small amount of makeup she carried in her purse to hide the razor burn on her chin and on her neck. The swollen lips, however, were impossible to hide.

  “I bet I look like a well-used floozy,” she muttered under her breath as they waited for the elevator.

  He tugged her in closer to him with his arm tight around her shoulder. “You look beautiful.”

  “Said the man who had sex four times in three hours.”

  “Shhh, don’t tell everyone.”

  Since there was no one around to hear them, she elbowed his ribs, making him grunt with laughter.

  “And PS, that was all because of you. I’ve never done anything like what we just did with anyone else.”

  “Neither have I,” she said, looking up at him and noticing his lips were rather swollen, too. “I’ve never once, in my entire life, checked into a hotel without luggage.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “I think it’s something everyone should do at least once.”

  “Or at least four times.”

  Erin was still laughing when the elevator deposited them on her dad’s floor.

  Slim gave her a light tap on the ass. “Get yourself together before we have to face your parents.”

  She managed to find some composure but was still wearing a happy, dopey grin when they walked into the room where her dad was napping and her mom was knitting. Mary Beth’s eyes lit up with pleasure at the sight of Slim. She put down her knitting needles and got up to hug him.

  “What a nice surprise! I didn’t think we’d see you again for a while.”

  “I didn’t think so either, but a very accommodating client changed his plans and made it possible for me to stop by on my way to Florida.”

  “I’m sure Erin was happy to see you.”

  He looked down at her, a stupid grin on his handsome face. “I think she was.”

  “Did you get all your errands done, honey?”

  Erin began to choke, coughing as Slim patted her back and her mother poured water from the pitcher on her dad’s bedside table.

  The racket woke Tom, who also brightened when he saw Slim there. Apparently, Erin wasn’t the only one falling in love with him. “You’re back,” Tom said.

  “Just for the night,” Slim said.

  “Good to see you.”

  “You, too. I hear you’re doing great.”

  “That’s right and ready to get out of here.”

  “Couple more days, Dad,” Erin said when she’d recovered from the coughing fit.

  They stayed until the end of visiting hours, when Tom encouraged them all to go get a good night’s sleep. “I’m fine, and you’ll be no good to me if you get sick from exhaustion,” he said to Mary Beth, who wanted to stay.

  He talked her into going home, and Erin and Slim walked her to the car.

  “I’m going to stay in town tonight,” Erin said, feeling her face and ears go hot as she basically confessed to her mother that she’d be spending the night with Slim.

  “I figured as much. Can I grab you a change of clothes?”

  “That’d be great, thanks.”

  Mary Beth hugged both of them before getting into the car.

  “Okay, that was mortifying,” Erin said after her mother had driven off.

  “What was?” Slim put his arm around her as they walked to the hotel.

  “Telling my mom that I was staying with you tonight.”

  “You’re thirty-eight, Erin.”

  “So what? To her, I’m still sixteen and about to sleep with my boyfriend.”

  “Did you sleep with your boyfriend at sixteen?”

  She elbowed his ribs and realized he gave her cause to do that about once an hour. “You know what I mean. She’s still my mom.”

  “I bet she knows we slept together at her house, too.” Since they’d traded off shifts at the hospital, Mary Beth hadn’t been home at the same time they were. “As only one bed was used.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Every minute. Every single second of it.”

  Erin had been referring to her discomfort over her mom knowing they were sleeping together. She suspected he meant something else altogether, and his comment brought back the giddy, breathless feeling she had experienced so often with him.

  “I need to buy a toothbrush,” she said when they reached the hotel lobby. They went into the store, where she got a toothbrush, a hairbrush and a couple of bottles of water.

  Being in the elevator with him at her side took her right back to the urgency of their earlier encounter, making her tingle with anticipation for an entire night with him. She was trying not to think about him leaving again in the morning. That was hours from now, and she’d deal with that when she had to.

  As they walked, she was careful to step properly around the art-deco design on the hotel rug that made it difficult to keep to her rituals.

  “I was thinking about something on the way here earlier that I wanted to run by you,” he said when they were in their room.

  “What’s that?”

  “You were saying how your OCD and fear of flying are about feeling anxious when you don’t have control of a situation. What if I taught you how to fly? Then maybe you wouldn’t feel out of control when you’re on a plane.”

  Erin removed her coat, hung it over the back of the desk chair and turned to him. “You want to teach me how to fly?”

  “If you’d like to learn. I was joking about being an instructor last night, but I really am a qualified flight instructor, and I’d love to teach you, if you think it would help.”

  “I’ve never considered that possibility.”

  “Well, think about it, and let me know.” He slid his arms around her waist and looked down at her, a sexy grin making his eyes glow with mischief. “I’ve got some more errands to do. You want to help me out with that?”

  She smiled up at him. “I’d love to.”

  Chapter 26

  Erin cried the next morning when it came time for him to leave. She wasn’t proud of the waterworks, but she couldn’t seem to help it.

  “You’re killing me,” he whispered as he held her close to him. He was fully dressed and smelled delicious after a shower and a shave. She was still naked in bed, disheveled and distressed after a night she wouldn’t ever forget.

  “I’m worried about you flyi
ng. You didn’t get much sleep.”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “That’s like asking me not to breathe.”

  Cupping her face, he kissed her. “I’ll see you soon.”

  He said what she needed to hear, but they both knew it would be a while before they saw each other again. His schedule would be hectic when he went back to work, and there’d be no more sweet, sexy stolen nights for quite some time.

  “Let me know when you get home?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.” He wrapped her up in his strong arms and held her for a long moment.

  Erin clung to him, breathing in the subtle scent of his cologne, committing it to memory.

  “We’re going to figure this out. I promise you that.”

  “I’m not usually such a crybaby.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, kissing away a tear. “It makes me feel hopeful that you might like me as much as I like you.”

  “I do.”

  Smiling, he kissed her again before he released her, leaving her bereft without the heat of his body pressed up against hers. He was headed for the door when he turned back to kiss her one more time, lingering long enough to draw more tears. “This time, I’ve really got to go.”

  “This time, I’ve really got to let you.”

  “Something this great? It has to work out. Don’t worry, okay?”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  When the door clicked shut behind him, Erin fell back against the pillows and gave in to a good cry. This was crazy! She was a mature woman crying over a man! But he wasn’t just any man, and he’d swung into town unexpectedly and rocked her world in more ways than one.

  “I seem to have fallen completely and absolutely in love with you at some point in the last four months.”

  Why didn’t I tell him that I’ve fallen, too? I should’ve told him. Erin covered her face with her hands, desperately trying to regain her equilibrium. After a long pity party, she got up, showered and left the room where they’d created so many precious memories.

  Her heart ached that day and every day that followed as she went through the motions of supporting her parents and writing her column whenever she could steal a quiet moment.

  Despite frequent texts, calls and FaceTime chats with Slim, she couldn’t seem to shake the malaise that began that morning in the hotel room and stayed with her over the next week, prompting her mom to ask more than once what was wrong.

  She couldn’t say, exactly. But for some reason, she felt like she was fighting against a rip current, trying to figure out where she belonged now that her life had been irreparably altered by a handsome, sexy, wonderful man who wanted everything from her.

  Could she do it? Could she hand over her heart to him and hope that nothing would ever happen to crush her again the way she’d been crushed once before? In a middle-of-the-night moment of clarity more than a week after she’d last seen him, Erin finally understood why she couldn’t shake the disquiet.

  It was because she was on the verge of possibly taking the biggest risk she’d taken since losing her brother, and the fear of the many ways it could go wrong had her paralyzed with indecision. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that Slim was sincere in his feelings and his intentions. He was a good and honorable man who would treat her like a queen. He wasn’t the problem. She was.

  Could she turn over control of her heart, her life, her love to someone who had the power to devastate her? What if something happened to him, too? How would she ever endure that kind of loss a second time? Wouldn’t it be easier—and safer—to stay single and unencumbered, to never risk more than she could afford to lose?

  These were the questions that kept her awake at night as she tried to find the courage she would need to take the enormous step he was asking her to make. The woman she’d once been, before life and tragedy changed her, would’ve been all in. She would’ve run to Slim with her arms and heart wide open to the possibilities. She would’ve embraced the joy and given no thought whatsoever to the fear of what might happen.

  Post-9/11 Erin had learned to be wary, cautious and obsessive about the safety of those she loved. Would her obsessiveness smother a man like Slim, who was used to doing his own thing without anyone to answer to?

  She went through her days and nights exhausted and overwhelmed by the debate that raged within her as she supported her parents, talked to Slim and texted with her Gansett friends, who checked in regularly as she tried to figure out her next move.

  Her dad had been released from the hospital three days after Slim’s visit and was receiving at-home physical and occupational therapy as he continued to recover quickly.

  “There’s really no need for you to stick around here if you’ve got better things to do,” Tom said to her over breakfast on a Friday morning, ten days after Slim went home to Florida.

  “I don’t mind staying awhile longer to keep you guys company.”

  “Or you could get on a plane tonight and go see the guy you’re thinking about constantly.”

  Erin stared at her dad, her mouth agape from his unusually blunt statement.

  “Are you denying that you’re thinking constantly about him?”

  She tried not to squirm under his intense stare. “No.”

  Tom struggled to butter his own toast, but Erin knew he wanted to do it himself, so she refrained from helping him. “You ought to do something about that.”

  “I agree, honey,” Mary Beth said. “You haven’t been yourself since he left, and we just want you to be happy. He makes you happy.”

  Yes, he certainly did. He made her happier than she’d ever dreamed of being, and she wanted nothing more than to grab on to that feeling with both hands and never let it go. But what if… No. No. No. She simply couldn’t bear the merry-go-round of thoughts her brain was torturing her with any longer. She was about to snap from the unending debate.

  The doorbell rang, giving her a temporary reprieve. “I’ll get it.” She opened the front door to a FedEx delivery guy who handed over a letter-size package and asked her to sign for it.

  “Have a good day,” he said.

  “Thanks, you, too.” Her heart took a happy leap when she saw Slim’s name on the return address portion of the label and his address in West Palm Beach. It was the first time she’d seen his masculine handwriting. She tore into the envelope that had a big lump in the middle of it that turned out to be a CD case. The envelope also contained a white sheet of paper and a second sealed envelope.

  The note said: Dear Erin, listen to the song on the CD and then open the other envelope. Love, Slim.

  “Who was at the door, honey?” Mary Beth called from the kitchen.

  “FedEx for me. I’ll be right back.” She ran into her dad’s study and fumbled her way through putting the CD into the drive on his computer. Erin recognized the song immediately—it was the hit single “Please” by the young winner of The Voice, Sawyer Fredericks. She’d loved watching him perform on the show and adored the song that had all new meaning to her in light of the man who’d asked her to listen to it, especially because he knew she loved it.

  She wept as she listened to the song that perfectly summed up their current situation and her yearning for him. And then she opened the second envelope.

  You did it once; you can do it again; and no one is ever afraid to fly in first class; it’s a rule. There's nothing I'd love more; than to have you in Anguilla with me; for my buddy’s wedding; PLEASE come; and make me the happiest guy; who ever lived.

  Erin laughed and cried as she read his sweet note and found a first-class ticket from Philadelphia to Anguilla for next Thursday in the envelope. The words, the song, the semicolons, the ticket, the plea… All of it added up to make the decision she’d been wrestling with seem rather foolish in light of what she felt for him.

  When her phone chimed with a text, she pulled it from her pocket, not surprised to see it was from him. Of course he’d been tracking the package and knew exact
ly when it had been delivered.

  Well...

  You ruined it with the semicolons. ;-)

  The semicolon is for unfinished thoughts; we are unfinished; I thought it fitting in this one instance; I promise to never insult you with a ; again if you come finish what we started…

  You’re amazing. Thank you for this.

  You know the part where Sawyer says he’s down on his knees? That’s me right now. Oh, and where he says he was born to kiss your mouth? That’s me, too.

  You’ve got me in tears. Was that your goal?

  Is that a yes?!?!!!! Note enthusiastic use of exclamation marks!!!

  Laughing, she held her phone in her hand, staring down at the screen, hovering on the verge of putting her fears behind her and grabbing on to what she wanted more than she’d wanted anything in fifteen long, torturous years.

  She texted one word: Yes. And just that simply, the cloud of disquiet lifted, and the giddy, breathless anticipation came rushing back. How would she survive until Thursday?

  * * *

  Owen invited his mom, Charlie, Katie and Shane to their place for a dinner he and Laura prepared together. He’d taken a couple of days to process what his father had told him, and was ready now to share it with his mom and Katie to begin with and then his other siblings.

  While Laura changed Holden into pajamas, he stirred the marinara they’d made from scratch. The activity had helped to keep him busy and focused on the meal rather than what he had to tell his guests.

  Laura held Holden’s hand as he toddled from his bedroom to the kitchen.

  “Look at my big boy walking like a grown man,” Owen said, scooping him up to place kisses on his neck that resulted in the belly laugh they loved so much.

  “Dadadada.”

  Owen closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet baby scent of the boy he adored, determined to take this last step to put the past behind him so he could focus entirely on the family he and Laura were creating together.