Beach Reads Boxed Set

by Marie Force

“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 g
et 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 something 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.

  He went next door to Chip and Elise’s room, and the hair on the back of his neck tingled when he turned on the light to find the windows covered only by sheer curtains that billowed softly in the breeze.

  Chapter Twelve

  Smitty let himself into the dark house. In the bedroom he dropped his wallet and the car keys on the dresser. Leaning over the bed, he kissed Caroline’s forehead and smoothed his hand over her sleek blond hair, relieved as always to see her after being away from her.

  He’d had to acknowledge some time ago that he had broken his cardinal rule when he allowed her into his heart. Around the same time he had begun preparing himself to lose her. She would leave one day. They always did. But for now she was his, and he was holding on with everything he had.

  He left her to sleep and went into the kitchen for a beer. Twisting the top off on his way outside, he stepped onto the back deck where Parker sat in one of the rocking chairs.

  “How’s it going?”

  Startled, Parker looked up at him. “Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Smitty gazed out over the placid pond and then up at a sky littered with stars. “Peaceful out here, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is.”

  Smitty took a long swig of his beer and slid into one of the other rockers. “Something wrong, Parker?”

  After a long pause Parker said, “Nope. Did Chip and Elise come back, too?”

  “She ran into a college friend at Nick’s, so Chip’s stuck having girl talk with them.”

  Parker chuckled.

  “Was that place always such a meat market? It was unreal tonight. They were even trying to pick me up.”

  “Desperate times . . .”

  “Hey,” Smitty said with mock indignation. “What I lack in movie star looks, I more than make up for in portfolio power.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t have had that line put on a T-shirt when you were working the singles scene.”

  Smitty howled. “Can you imagine?”

  Parker shook his head with amusement.

  “Well, those days are over now that I’ve got Caroline.”

  “Yes, I suppose they are.”

  “You suppose?”

  “They are,” Parker clarified.

  “What about you? Any good prospects?”

  “I’ve got my eye on someone,” Parker said, seeming to surprise himself with the confession.

  Smitty pounced. “Really? Who? Do we know her?”

  Parker grinned as he put up his hand to deflect the onslaught. “No. No one you know.”

  “How’d you meet her?”

  “Through work.”

  “You’re not going to give me anything else, are you?”

  “Not now but soon I hope.”

  Smitty studied Parker for a quiet moment. “Then in the meantime, I’m going to hope that my very good friend gets whatever it is he wants from this woman he has his eye on.”

  “Thank you.” Parker saluted Smitty with his empty beer bottle.

  “I’m going to turn in,” Smitty said with a big yawn and a stretch.

  “Me, too.”

  They walked inside together to put the empty bottles in the kitchen trash.

  “Night,” Smitty said, turning toward the master bedroom.

  “Smitty.”

  Smitty turned back. “Yeah?”

  Parker chewed on the inside of his cheek as he glanced past Smitty to the closed door to the master bedroom. “Nothing. Never mind. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  Smitty went into the room thinking that something was up with Parker. First, he had come home early, and then he had acted so odd, almost from the moment Smitty had stepped onto the deck. Maybe it’s the woman he’s got on his mind, Smitty thought, as he shed his clothes into a pile on the floor. It wasn’t like Parker to be secretive or serious about women, so that was odd in and of itself. I’ll have to ask Duff what he knows about it.

  He got in bed next to Caroline, who was turned away from him. Smitty snuggled up to her and ran his hand down her back until he encountered smooth leg. Just the feel of her skin and the scent of her hair was enough to turn him on.

  “Caroline,” he whispered as he nibbled on her ear.

  “Hmm.”

  “I want you.” He reached under her nightgown to fondle her breast.

  She rolled onto her back and seemed to come awake all at once. “Smitty?” She pushed his hand away. “What are you doing?”

  He captured her hand and pressed it against his erection. “A good boner is a terrible thing to waste,” he joked, using a line that had made her laugh in the past. But not tonight.

  She tugged her hand free. “Don’t.”

  He took his tongue on a journey along her neck. “Why not?”

  She pushed him away and got out of bed.

  Smitty lifted himself up on one elbow. “Sweetheart, what’s the matter?”

  “I just don’t want to, okay?” Before he could answer she fled into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

  What the hell? Smitty wondered as he flopped onto his back.

  Ten minutes later she got back in bed but stayed as far away from him as she could get and still be in the same bed.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He rolled over to put his arm around her and found her rigid with
tension. “Are you crying?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Caroline?” A jolt of fear went through him. “What is it?”

  “I’m just really tired, okay?” she said softly.

  “Sure it is. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  She grasped the hand he had rested on her hip. “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” He raised himself up and kissed her cheek. “Go back to sleep.” She relaxed against him, and soon the cadence of her breathing told him she was asleep. Smitty lay awake next to her for a long time trying to figure out why everyone was acting so weird.

  Ted arose early the next morning to run before anyone else was up. He didn’t want to be around to watch Smitty and Caroline emerge from the room they were sharing. Imagining the two of them in bed together had been enough to keep him awake half the night as it was. Full of pent up energy and anxiety, he pushed himself harder than usual on the run during which all his thoughts were of Caroline.

  No matter how he looked at the situation, all he saw was the end of his friendship with Smitty, and most likely Parker and Chip, too. Am I seriously considering that kind of sacrifice? Does it really have to be such a terrible choice? He couldn’t imagine his life without the three of them, but since he met her, he couldn’t imagine life without her, either.

  More conflicted than ever after an hour’s run, Ted returned to the house where Parker sat on the front steps with a cup of coffee.

  Ted’s stomach dropped when he realized Parker was waiting for him.

  “Hey,” Ted panted as he bent in half to catch his breath and stretch out his aching muscles.

  “Good run?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ted stood upright, stretched some more, and wiped the sweat off his face with the bottom of his T-shirt. “Where is everyone?” He glanced into the house, hoping for a glimpse of Caroline.

  “On the back deck.” Parker put down his mug and got up. “Take a walk with me.”

  “What’s going on?” Ted hoped his friend hadn’t noticed that he had trouble getting the words out.