Beach Reads Boxed Set

by Marie Force

  Strict rules governed these weekends at the house. Any of them could bring a girlfriend whenever he wanted to. If they were unable to make it to Newport for a weekend, they could give their room away to a short list of mutual friends. No one wanted to arrive after a long workweek to a house full of people they didn’t know.

  Ted never brought anyone with him, if for no other reason than he couldn’t be bothered entertaining a guest. Also, inviting a date on a weekend getaway usually gave her the impression he was interested in something serious, which he wasn’t. He was thirty-seven years old, and his mother was right—he was married to his work. For now, that was fine with him. The kids at the hospital were his family, and they required all his energy.

  He grabbed two beers from the fridge and headed upstairs to his room on the third floor. Ted laughed at the loud snoring coming from Smitty’s room on the second floor. No doubt Smitty had been drinking since noon and was down for the count until morning. Despite his strapping size, he had a well-earned reputation as a lightweight when it came to alcohol.

  Ted had won the best room in the house by default. His friends considered his job the most stressful and had given him the top-floor room so he could decompress in relative peace. Attached to his room was a sweeping deck overlooking Newport Harbor that everyone used, but they were mindful of Ted’s privacy.

  He left his bag in the corner of the big bedroom and took the beers onto the dark deck. The Newport Bridge was lit up in the distance, and the harbor sparkled with hundreds of lights from boats at anchor. As he drank the first beer and took in the tranquil scene, it sunk in that Joey was really gone. He hadn’t allowed it in until that moment when he was finally alone in the place where he felt the most at ease. Here it was possible to grieve, to mourn for what had been, for what would never be, and for his inability to save the boy.

  Dropping his head onto the arm he rested on the rail surrounding the deck, he gave into the tears that had threatened since he said goodbye to Joey earlier in the day. He let it all out and almost had a heart attack several minutes later when a hand landed on his shoulder.

  Chapter Two

  Startled, Ted straightened and fought to suppress a gasp at the first glimpse of her face. As if he had sustained a punch to the gut, all the air seemed to leave his lungs in one long exhale. Something new and unexpected twisted in his belly, making him feel like he had been asleep all his life and was now finally awake with each of his senses on full alert.

  Her.

  The one he hadn’t even known he was searching for, gazing up at him with concern in what might have been blue or maybe green eyes. In the dark he couldn’t tell. Pale, translucent skin, short blond hair and a mouth shaped like a bow. The one . . . And he didn’t even know her name.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her brows furrowing with concern. Her hair formed a halo around her face in the moonlight.

  As he realized he was staring at her, the cool breeze drifting against the wetness on his cheeks had him brushing at his face. “Um, yes. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “Bad day.”

  “You’re the other doctor, right? Duff?”

  “I also answer to Ted, but I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said with a weak grin as he fought to hide his overwhelming reaction to her.

  She extended her hand. “Caroline Stewart.”

  Oh no, no, no! Smitty’s new girlfriend . . . No! Life couldn’t be that unfair! He studied her outstretched hand for a long moment, knowing if he touched her he’d be lost.

  A quizzical expression on her face, she tipped her head and started to withdraw her hand.

  Ted quickly reached for it, and the hum of awareness that shot through him at the feel of her soft skin made him want to moan. This could not be happening. “Nice to finally meet you,” he forced himself to say, choking on the double meaning.

  “You, too.” She stared up at him with an odd expression on her face, as if she could read his every thought. He certainly hoped she couldn’t.

  Ted took back his hand and reached for his beer, desperate for a distraction—anything to slow his racing heart and surging hormones. “Want one?” he asked, gesturing to the other bottle.

  “Sure.”

  He opened it for her and made a point to not let his eyes meet hers as he handed it to her. “Were you, uh, here the whole time?”

  She nodded. “Want to talk about it?”

  Glancing out at the harbor, he shrugged. “I lost a patient today. A twelve-year-old boy.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, resting a comforting hand on his arm.

  “Thanks.” His eyes shifted down to her hand on his arm, dismayed when his eyes filled again. “I’m kind of a mess tonight.”

  “Do all of them get to you like this?”

  He wanted to talk to her forever. With a clarity he couldn’t begin to fathom just then, he knew he’d never run out of things to say to her. “A lot of them do, but this one was special. I’m not sure why some touch me at a deeper level than others, but it happens. Joey was extraordinary, so full of life and plans.” Ted wiped his eyes.

  “He was lucky to have a doctor so devoted to him.”

  “I couldn’t save him, though. I did everything I could think of, but nothing worked.”

  “Perhaps it was just his time to go.”

  “I think he was ready. He’d been through an awful lot, and he was tired. I just wish I’d been ready to let him go.”

  “How long have you been a doctor?”

  “Six years, plus five years of training in pediatric oncology after medical school.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.” She shook her head. “Seeing kids that sick every day must be so heartbreaking.”

  “It can be. On days like this, it is. But we save more than we lose, and that’s what keeps me going. I always start out thinking each patient is going to be one of the lucky ones. But as Joey said today, you win some, you lose some.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks for listening. I don’t usually unload on pretty girls I find sitting on my deck.” The comment slipped out before he could stop it, and Ted had to once again remind himself to be careful.

  She smiled. “Do you unload on anyone?”

  “Not really. I used to try to talk to my dad and my grandfather about it. I followed them into the family business, but they don’t have a lot of empathy for me. They say I have so many more tools in my arsenal than they had in their day. They tell me I need to stay focused on the ones I’m saving and chalk up the ones I lose to fate. I wish I could be so detached.”

  “I’ll bet they weren’t as detached when they were doing it.”

  “You’re right,” he said impressed by her insight and wanting her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. It took all the willpower he could muster not to lean in and kiss those bow-shaped lips. “They weren’t. I remember my father coming home from the hospital and knowing from the look on his face when he had lost a patient.”

  Ted took a long swig from his beer and forced it past the huge lump that formed in his throat as the dazzling array of implications began to set in. Smitty’s new girlfriend. His best friend’s girlfriend. Could he really be that much of a cliché? Clearing his throat, he said, “Anyway, enough about me. Smitty’s been telling us about you for weeks. How did he finally convince you to come to Newport?”

  “I’ve been working on a big project and just finished it, so I’m free and clear for a while.”

  “What do you do?” He wanted to know everything about her.

  “I’m a freelance writer in New York City. I just did a promotional piece for the convention and visitor’s bureau. The money was great, but by the time it was done, I was ready to tear my hair out.” She paused, looking almost stricken. “I’m sorry.”

  Confused, Ted asked, “About what?”

  “I can’t believe I’m complaining about my work to you. It sounds so trivial next to
yours.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s not trivial.”

  “Still . . . what you do is so important.”

  “I’m envious of your writing talent. I always wished I was better at it.”

  “Obviously you were better at other things. Where’d you go to school?”

  “Princeton undergrad with all of these guys,” he said, gesturing to the house, “and medical school at Duke. The other Drs. Duffy were not at all happy that I refused to even apply to Harvard Medical School, the family alma mater.”

  “A little show of independence?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

  “Exactly. Where did you go?”

  “NYU undergrad, Columbia School of Journalism for graduate school.”

  “Did you ever work as a reporter?”

  She nodded. “Six years at the Times.”

  “Wow. Not just any paper, but the paper.”

  “It was fun and exciting and utterly exhausting.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I was getting married and knew the all-consuming life of a reporter wasn’t conducive to the direction my personal life was taking, so I quit. Then my fiancé got cold feet, the wedding was canceled, and I’ve been freelancing ever since.”

  Ted winced, wishing harm on a man he’d never met for the pain he’d caused her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Wasn’t meant to be, I guess,” she said with a shrug.

  “Smitty said he met you through Elise.” Why couldn’t I have met her first? Why?

  “That’s right. Her sister is my former roommate, and we all still run around together. I usually hate fix-ups, but this time I was glad I went. He makes me laugh harder than anyone ever has.”

  Ted chuckled when he wanted to cry. “That’s Smitty. He hasn’t changed one bit in the twenty years I’ve known him. He still conks out early when he drinks during the day.”

  She laughed. “Yes, he does. Well, I should get to bed. It was good talking to you. I’m sorry again about your patient.”

  Don’t go! Not yet! Don’t get into bed with another man. Please . . . “Thanks for letting me vent.”

  “It was my pleasure,” she said on her way into his room to go downstairs. With a glance back over her shoulder, she said, “Good night, Ted.”

  “Night.”

  He watched her go and then moaned as he let his head drop to his chest. “Oh my God.”

  Ted tossed and turned for most of the night before slipping into restless sleep around dawn. Groggy and disoriented when he awoke at ten, he dragged himself out of bed. All at once, he remembered meeting Caroline on the deck the night before. His stomach fluttered with nerves and anticipation. And fear.

  Knowing she was downstairs, no doubt having breakfast with Smitty and the rest of their friends, Ted was filled with the kind of fear he had seldom experienced. How would he ever hide his immediate and overwhelming reaction to her from the people who knew him best?

  But maybe what happened the night before was nothing more than the emotion of the day catching up to him. Losing Joey had been a tough blow. Perhaps he’d mistaken his attraction to Caroline for something it wasn’t. He had probably experienced a delayed reaction to the grief. She’d been nice to him. Nothing more to it than that. If he’d been in his usual state of mind, he wouldn’t have felt the way he had.

  Determined to test his theory, he dressed in running clothes, checked his cell phone for messages, and gave his pager a quick look to make sure the hospital wasn’t trying to reach him before he forced himself down the stairs.

  “Morning,” he said.

  He was greeted by grumbles from the table where Chip, Elise, Parker, and Caroline nursed mugs of coffee and apparently a few hangovers.

  Chip’s brown eyes were bloodshot, and his curly brown hair stood on end. Parker looked only slightly better—at least his dark hair had been combed and his blue eyes weren’t quite as bloody as Chip’s. Elise, as always, could have just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine.

  And Caroline . . . Oh, Caroline. She was even more gorgeous than she’d been in the moonlight. Her pale blond hair, which had seemed short in the dark, was actually long, and her eyes were a startling shade of green with flecks of gold.

  As their eyes met and held, he knew that nothing he’d felt on the deck the night before had been a fluke. He’d somehow managed to fall hard for his best friend’s girlfriend during a thirty-minute conversation. Hell, who was he kidding? He had fallen for her the very instant he first saw her. The discovery made him want to run, to flee the house full of friends who meant more to him than life itself.

  “Hungry, Duff?” Smitty asked from the stove where he fried eggs and something unidentifiable.

  Clearing his throat and taking a deep breath, Ted reached for the carton of orange juice and poured a glass. Then he leaned around the towering Smitty to peer into the frying pan. “What the hell is that?”

  “Chourico,” Smitty said with a big smile on his round face. He was six-foot-four with dark hair, dark eyes, a booming voice, and an even larger presence. “You’ve had it before. It’s a local specialty—Portuguese sausage.”

  Ted turned up his nose. “There’s no way you got me to eat that.”

  “He’s the health nut,” Smitty said to Caroline. “We only put up with him because he attracts girls like honey attracts bees.”

  Ted bopped his friend on the head. “Shut up.”

  “Did you meet my Caroline?” Smitty asked Ted.

  Ted’s heart hammered in his chest. “Last night.” He made a supreme effort to keep his tone light and teasing. “While you were snoring your ass off she agreed to run away and marry me.”

  Smitty lunged for Ted, who deftly dodged him, but in the fracas an empty metal bowl clanged to the tile floor.

  Chip groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Not so loud, you guys.”

  Elise got up to fill a bag with ice and put it on Chip’s aching head.

  He looked up at her with gratitude, and she leaned in to kiss him.

  “Who’s running today?” Ted asked.

  Chip groaned.

  “That’s one ‘no’,” Ted said with a smile.

  “Count me out,” Parker said. “And don’t let me go out with him again tonight.” He nodded his head toward Chip. “I can’t keep up with him.”

  “No one can,” Elise said. “I don’t know why we try.”

  “You should’ve followed my stellar example and gotten a good night’s sleep,” Smitty said to guffaws from the others.

  “So then you’re running?” Ted asked, raising an amused eyebrow at Smitty.

  “Fuck no. Who’ll feed these people if I leave?”

  “Hey, Duff,” Parker said. “How’s Joey doing?”

  Ted’s smile faded as he shook his head. “We lost him yesterday.”

  “Oh, God,” Parker said. “I’m sorry, man.”

  Elise got up to hug Ted. “Me, too.”

  “Thanks.”

  Smitty enveloped Ted in a one-armed bear hug, saying quietly, “You gave him years he wouldn’t have had otherwise.” In a gesture typical of Smitty, he kissed the top of Ted’s head.

  Their support overwhelmed him.

  “Are you okay?” Chip asked.

  With a glance at Caroline, Ted said, “Yeah, I will be. I keep telling myself I’m not going to get so involved, but then I always do.”

  “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” Parker said.

  Ted nodded to Parker with appreciation. “So,” he said, clearing the emotion from his throat, “am I running alone?”

  “How far do you go?” Caroline asked.

  Smitty laughed. “You don’t want to go with him, sweetheart. He’s a machine.”

  “Compared to you, my grandmother’s a machine,” Ted said, and the others howled with laughter, providing a welcome distraction as Ted tried to process the idea of taking a friendly run with Caroline. He didn’t know what he wanted more—for her to come with him or for her
not to.

  Smitty faked offense and returned his attention to the stove.

  “Three or four miles,” Ted said in answer to Caroline’s question.

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  “Traitor,” Smitty mumbled.

  “Elise? You gonna let me down?” Ted wanted to beg her to join them so he wouldn’t be alone with Caroline.

  “I’m afraid so, Duff. I don’t have the juice this week. Caroline can take my place.”

  “I guess it’s just us,” Ted said to Caroline, swallowing hard.

  “Give me ten minutes,” she said on her way upstairs.

  “What are we doing today?” Ted asked.

  “The vote was for the beach,” Parker said. “Do you want your surfboard? I’ll throw it in Chip’s truck for you.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “My dad’s leaving the boat for us if we want it tomorrow,” Parker said.

  “Nice,” Smitty said. “Sign me up.”

  “If we leave early, we can sail out to Block Island for lunch,” Parker added. “But I’ll let you New Yorkers decide if you have time for that. You’ve got the longer ride home.”

  Smitty raised a hand in protest. “I refuse to talk about Sunday night on Saturday morning.”

  Chip grunted in agreement.

  Since they were all accustomed to Smitty’s weekend rules, Parker just smiled. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  Ted was surprised to discover Caroline could more than keep up with him as they settled into a steady pace on Harrison Avenue. On the way into the state park at Fort Adams, Ted pointed out Hammersmith Farm, the summer White House during the Kennedy Administration. All the while, he tried to figure out why this woman—and not any of the hundreds, if not thousands, of others he had known in his life—had stolen his heart. Why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be someone his beloved friend, who had led a hard-luck life, was clearly taken with?