by Marie Force
He acknowledged the compliment with a small smile, and when he looked up, he found his grandmother watching him with interest.
* * *
Like the main house, every bedroom in the guesthouse overlooked either the pond or Crescent Beach. Ted insisted Smitty and Caroline take the master bedroom on the first floor so she wouldn't have to contend with the stairs. He showed Chip and Elise to the second-floor room they had used in the past and he took the room next door. Parker dropped his bags in the third bedroom upstairs.
"What do you guys want to do?" Ted asked when they gathered in the living room. The house was decorated in bright colors, comfortable furniture, and beach- and boat-themed artwork. Big pots of petunias, impatiens, and geraniums sat on the back deck and filled the house with their fragrance. "Beach? Pool? Boat? What's your pleasure?" His father had a small sailboat anchored in the pond that Ted often used when he visited the island.
"It would probably be easier for Caroline to hang by the pool," Elise said.
The others nodded in agreement.
"Don't worry about me," Caroline protested. "Do whatever you want this weekend, and I'll do what I can. Besides, I'd hardly feel trapped if I had to stay here alone. This place is beautiful, Ted."
"Thanks. We've always enjoyed it. Anyway, the pool works for me. I don't have much gas today."
"Sounds good to me," Parker agreed.
"My mother said there's stuff in the fridge for lunch, so everyone help yourself."
They took lunch out to the pool deck, where they whiled away the afternoon watching the boats in the pond, listening to music, reading, sleeping, and relaxing. Smitty rolled out the cooler full of beer he had brought, but he paced himself so he wouldn't be asleep before dinner.
Ted slept for an hour on one of the lounge chairs and awoke to find Caroline curled up asleep on one of the other chairs across the pool deck. Someone had tossed a beach towel over her to protect her fair skin from the hot sun. The others had wandered to the back porch of the main house where Mitzi and Lillian were serving frozen margaritas.
He noticed his father and grandfather had returned from fishing and Tish and her husband had joined the party. But rather than get up to see them, Ted took advantage of the opportunity to watch Caroline sleep. Her questions from earlier echoed through his mind: What if this is it? What if you're the one for me?
He wanted to weep for what could never be because, unlike her, he had no doubt at all that she was the one. He knew it with every fiber of his being. She was the woman he wanted, and there would never, ever be anyone else for him. Knowing how she felt about him, Ted hoped she would end her relationship with Smitty before he got any more involved with her. He'd had enough heartache in his life, and Ted hated the idea of him having any more.
Maybe if she broke up with Smitty soon, Ted could "run into her" somewhere in a year or two and see her without harming his friendship with Smitty. I can't believe I'm sitting here wanting my best friend's girlfriend to dump him, Ted thought with disgust. This whole situation was turning him into someone he didn't like very much.
Caroline woke up and caught him watching her. For a long time neither of them moved as they took advantage of the opportunity to feast their eyes on what they both wanted but couldn't have.
Chapter 11
Dinner was a boisterous affair full of laughter, old stories, and tasty seafood prepared by Adeline, the cook who had worked for Ted's parents for twenty-five years. After dessert, they lingered over after-dinner drinks. Ted sat next to his sister Tish and her husband Steven at dinner, but he kept one eye on Caroline across the table between Smitty and Parker.
Realizing he might never see her again after this weekend, Ted committed everything he observed to memory. Earlier he had noticed the little hiccup she got in the back of her throat when she yawned. Before she'd gotten up from her nap on the lounge, he'd also discovered that stretching was a full-body affair for her, like a lion awaking from a long slumber.
Now, as she talked with Smitty and Parker, he saw that she ran her tongue over her bottom lip when she was listening, and that laughter could explode from her chest or roll softly from her as if she was surprised to be amused. Smitty kept an attentive arm around her and whispered in her ear to bring her into the loop whenever a person or event from the past was mentioned.
When Ted couldn't stand to watch their intimate back and forth any longer, he got busy fiddling with his spoon while the lively conversation continued all around him. As the night without sleep caught up to him, he was suddenly tired down to his bones. He was thinking about excusing himself to go to bed when he heard his name and looked up to find all eyes on him.
"Are we boring you, son?" his father asked with laughter dancing in his hazel eyes.
"What?" Ted asked, flustered. "No, of course not."
"You were a million miles away," Mitzi said.
"I was just thinking about going to bed, actually."
"So early?" his sister said with a pout.
"I was up all night with a patient. I'm cooked."
"Good outcome?" his grandfather asked.
Ted shook his head and hurt when he thought of Pilar, who had wanted nothing more than to be a typical teenager.
"I'm sorry to hear that, son," Theo Duffy said solemnly.
"We were going to hit Nick's and the Kittens," Smitty said, referring to two of the island's more popular bars. Ted could tell that his friend was trying to cajole him out of his funk the way he always did.
"Count me out," Ted said. Ten years ago he could've gone two nights without sleep but not anymore.
As everyone began to get up from the table, Adeline came in to clear the last of the dishes. Ted kissed her cheek. "Thanks for a great meal, Addie."
"My pleasure, honey. You look like you need some sleep."
"That's where I'm heading." Ted kissed his grandmother goodnight.
"You're working too hard and not taking care of yourself," Addie said.
"I said the same thing, Addie," Mitzi chimed in as she linked her arm through her son's. "Come on, darling, I'll walk you over."
"Hey, Duff," Chip called from the back porch where everyone else had gathered. "Maybe Mommy will read you a bedtime story if you ask real nice."
Mitzi turned to him. "You're not too big to be spanked, Charles."
"Oh, Mitzi, I love it when you talk dirty to me."
Elise smacked him as everyone else howled with laughter.
Mitzi chuckled as she walked with Ted down the stairs to the gravel path that led to the guesthouse. After they had strolled in silence for several minutes, she said, "I'm worried about you, Ted. You're not yourself today."
"It's been a hideous month at work. The worst ever."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
"I was hoping you might bring someone with you this weekend."
"I brought five people with me," Ted said in a teasing tone.
"You know what I mean."
"There's no one to bring, Mom."
"Your grandmother wants to see you settled down and married before she goes," Mitzi said, using a line Ted had heard a hundred times before.
Ted raised an amused eyebrow. "My grandmother does, does she?"
"Ted," she said with an exasperated sigh. "We worry about you."
"You don't need to. I'm fine. I just need some sleep."
She kissed him goodnight at the steps to the guesthouse. "Sleep late in the morning."
"I'll try."
"Love you, honey."
"Love you, too, Mom."
* * *
Caroline encouraged the others to go out without her. She used her ankle as an excuse, but more than anything she wanted some time to herself to absorb the storm of feelings swirling around in her. Overwhelmed would be putting it mildly, she thought, as she lay in bed in the large master bedroom. How had she ever ended up in such a situation? A love triangle, of all things! It was right out of a bad soap opera, for heaven's sakes. Unfortunately,
it was all too real, and she was smack in the middle of two decent guys whose friendship meant more to them than almost anything in their lives.
She adored Smitty. He had been exactly what she needed as she waded back into the dating pool after her disastrous engagement. Brad had broken her heart when he called off their wedding a month before the big day—and after she had quit her job at The Times to focus on their relationship! She'd been left with no marriage, no job, and no hope. Fortunately, she had invested her money wisely and had the time to weigh her career options while she recovered from the horrible disappointment and embarrassment. Her career had rebounded as one freelance job led to another. Her love life, on the other hand, had remained on hold.
After a year had passed, her friends began pressuring her to get out and meet new people, which is how she had ended up in a Greenwich Village restaurant with Chip, Elise, Elise's sister, her boyfriend, and Smitty. They were part of a large crowd of educated, accomplished young New Yorkers, and while Caroline usually hated fix-ups, she trusted their judgment and agreed to meet Smitty. Besides, by then she was getting tired of her own company and was ready to rejoin the land of the living.
Caroline had liked him right away. He was fun, and he made her laugh harder than she had in ages. When he called the next day to ask her out, she hadn't hesitated to say yes. From the very beginning, she had enjoyed the contrasts she found in him. He knew the wine list at "21" inside out but could tell the raunchiest jokes she'd ever heard. As comfortable in a three-thousand-dollar suit as he was in fifteen-year-old Levis, he cared for his friends like they were family but had no family of his own. And he too had been hurt by a past relationship and was wary of commitment. In that way, he was the ideal man for her just then.
He often called to tell her he had tickets to a Knicks game, a Stones concert, or a gallery opening in SoHo. She teased him that she never knew what adventure she would be on before the day ended. Life with Smitty was all about the pursuit of fun, which was fine with her since she was in no rush to embark on another serious relationship.
They'd had three dates before he kissed her—a chaste peck on the lips at her front door after they'd been to dinner with Chip and Elise. The next night had ended in a more heated make-out session on her sofa. He had finally coaxed her into bed the week before he took her to Newport for the first time—the week before she met Ted and found the man of her dreams in her boyfriend's best friend. How she wished now that she had waited a little longer to go to bed with Smitty. But how could she have known then that her whole life would change just a few days later?
You're not thinking about Ted right now. Focus on Smitty. You have to figure out what you're going to do about him.
Sex with Smitty, like everything else, was fun and uncomplicated, and with neither of them looking for anything lasting, it was hard for Caroline to be disappointed by the lack of a real connection between them. Because that connection was missing, she had assumed their relationship would end when one of them either met someone else or wanted something more substantial.
Then she began to suspect he had fallen for her. He hadn't said the words, but the signs were hard to miss: a look, a touch, a word uttered in an intimate moment, the way he gazed at her when he thought she wasn't aware, the tender way he had cared for her after she broke her ankle. In a way she felt betrayed by his feelings for her. They had gone into this to have fun, not to fall in love. But she couldn't be mad at Smitty. How could she be mad at him? Especially when he had rearranged his life around her after her accident.
And then there was Ted with whom she'd had the kind of immediate, spontaneous, overwhelming connection people search for their whole lives and often never find. Now that she knew he was out there somewhere, how was she supposed to just go on like she had never met him? Was she to pretend her whole world hadn't been permanently altered during one momentous weekend? With a deep, pained sigh, she realized that was exactly what she had to do unless she wanted to be responsible for the end of a long and important friendship between two exceptional men, neither of whom would ever be happy if being with her caused their friend pain.
She had replayed that first weekend with Ted over and over again until she thought she would go crazy. Everything about him appealed to her on the deepest possible level. His compassion toward the kids he cared for, the grief he experienced when he lost one of them, and the close bond he shared with his friends and family were just a few of the things she admired about him. Of course she was also attracted to the more basic things like his muscular physique, his thick blond hair, those amazing blue eyes…
He was upstairs asleep right now, and knowing he was so close but out of reach was excruciating. No one would ever know if I went up there just to watch him sleep, would they?
She moaned. God help me, but I want him so much—more than I've ever wanted anyone. I have to talk to Smitty as soon as this weekend is over. No matter what, I can't go on with him any longer—not feeling the way I do about his friend. The hopelessness of the situation left her feeling despondent. For a long time, she lay there imagining Ted sleeping until she could no longer resist the temptation.
Almost as if she were watching someone else, she got out of bed and hobbled through the dark house wearing only a white cotton nightgown that fell to mid-thigh. At the bottom of the stairs, she looked up. Even though what she was doing went against everything she believed in, she was still unable to stop herself from taking the first step and then the second. In the upstairs hallway, she paused, hoping to slow her pounding heart before she ventured to the one door that was closed. Laying her hand on the doorknob, she rested her forehead against the wood door and tried to summon the courage to take the next step.
She turned the doorknob slowly and quietly. The last thing she wanted was disturb him when it had been so obvious to everyone how tired he was earlier. All she wanted was a glimpse of him, and the light from the hallway was just enough for her to make out his shape in the bed. He lay sprawled out on his stomach, and the sheet had shifted down over his hips. Her mouth went dry when she realized he slept nude.
Her heart pounded with desire and adrenaline as she crept closer to the bed. The half of his handsome face that she could see was slack with sleep, his breathing a soft whisper in the quiet. She wanted so badly to run her hand over the smooth plane of his back, but instead she used her index finger to brush a lock of blond hair off his forehead.
His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
Caroline yelped with shock.
"Did I mention I'm a light sleeper?" he mumbled without opening his eyes. "What are you doing?"
"I just, I, um…" She sighed. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
He released her arm. "You shouldn't be up here, Caroline."
"Believe me, I know. I feel like I'm going to be sick." She rested her hand on her stomach. "I've never been in a situation like this. I have no idea what to do."
"You have to go back downstairs before someone comes home and catches you up here. That's the last thing we need."
"I'm sorry I disturbed you."
He stared at her, his eyes hot and intense. "I'm not."
"Ted—"
They froze when they heard a thump downstairs.
"Shit," Ted whispered. "Say you heard a noise and came up to check. Go. Hurry."
With one last desperate look back at him, she moved as fast as she could on her broken ankle to get out of his room before whoever was downstairs found her. If her heart had been pounding earlier, it was about to come out of her chest now. She got to the stairs and hobbled her way down to find Parker drinking a beer in the living room.
"Caroline?" he said with a quizzical expression. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, Parker." Realizing the thin white gown revealed more than she wished to show Parker, she crossed her arms over her breasts. "You scared me. I thought you were out."
"Those bars are too crazy for me, so I walked home. What were you doing up there?"
"I heard somet
hing banging and went up to fix it before it woke up Ted."
"Did you figure out what it was?"
"The blinds in Chip and Elise's room were flapping in the breeze." She cursed herself for not thinking of something better and wouldn't blame him if he didn't believe her.
"And you could hear that from down here?"
"Uh huh. Well, I'll see you in the morning."
"Are you sure everything's all right? Your face is all red like you've been crying or something."
"I was sound asleep and woke up to the banging."
"Yes, the blinds." He took a long sip of his beer as he studied her.
"Good night, Parker." She escaped to the master bedroom before she could dig a deeper hole for herself. Closing the door, she leaned back against it. I should've never gone up there. Ugh. When she got in bed, the cool pillow soothed her heated cheek. She couldn't stop thinking about the hungry way Ted had stared at her.
Tears of despair pooled in her eyes when she realized she had found him. The one she had waited for forever. Her last thought before she finally drifted into a restless sleep was how would she ever live without him now that she had found him?
* * *
Ted stood at the doorway to listen to Caroline and Parker talking at the bottom of the stairs. Shit, that was close! His heart galloped in his chest as he quietly closed the door and got back in bed. Running his hand through his hair, he took a deep breath in an attempt to get his heart and his emotions under control.
He held his breath when he heard Parker coming up the stairs. Grabbing the sheet to cover himself, Ted turned over and closed his eyes as Parker came to a stop outside his room. The door opened.
* * *
"Duff?" Parker whispered.
When Ted didn't stir, Parker closed the door and leaned against it. Caroline was acting so strange, almost like she had been caught doing something wrong. But what? Parker didn't know her very well, but she had never struck him as the flighty type before. Ted was apparently out cold, so Parker couldn't ask him if he knew what was going on.