by Marie Force
Hands on hips, Jim said, “So what do you want?”
“I want to know what kind of man leaves his wife and child without a stick of furniture.”
Jim’s face flushed with anger. “That’s none of your damned business.”
“You made it my business when you left her high and dry.”
“She’s neither high nor dry. She’s been socking away money on the side for years that she thinks I don’t know about. Don’t let her play you. She’s a master manipulator. I ought to know.”
“I promised my wife I wouldn’t punch you, but you’d be wise to watch how you talk about my sister-in-law.”
Jim snorted out a laugh. “Your bitch of a sister-in-law doesn’t even like you, so you’re wasting your breath defending her.”
Mac decided he’d heard enough. He grabbed a fistful of Jim’s starched shirt and jacked him against the wall. “Listen here, asshole. I don’t care if she likes me or not, she’s in my family and under my protection. If you want your new practice to go to shit overnight, keep talking trash about my wife’s sister. I’ll ruin you before you even get started, and you’ll never know what hit you. Am I clear?”
“Get your hands off me. Right now.”
Mac tightened his fist until the shirt was nearly strangling Jim. “I said… Am I clear?”
“Yeah,” Jim muttered.
He released Jim so abruptly the other man nearly lost his balance. “Take care of your wife and daughter, Sturgil, or I swear to God you’ll regret it.”
“You fucking McCarthys think you own this island,” Jim muttered as he attempted to smooth out the mess Mac had made of his shirt.
“No, we don’t. But if you think I can’t cause you a shitload of trouble around here, try me. Keep your goddamned mouth shut about Tiffany or else. She has friends here—a lot of friends. I can’t say the same for you.”
Mac decided he’d made his point and got out of there before he broke his promise to Maddie along with Jim’s nose.
He arrived home a few minutes later to find his wife waiting for him. She wore a long, silky robe that accented her generous curves. Her curly hair was loose around her shoulders, and Mac wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her straight to bed.
“Where’re your mom and Ned?”
“They went home after they got Thomas to bed.”
“Sorry I missed saying good night to my buddy.” That was just another thing to be mad with Jim about.
“I told him you’d be here in the morning when he got up. So, did you punch him?”
Mac held out his hands for her inspection.
She gave each hand a careful inspection. “Thank you for caring about my sister.”
“Of course I care about your sister. And your niece.”
When she was satisfied there were no bruises, Maddie kissed the back of each hand. The brush of her lips against his skin was all it took to make him hard. Despite his best efforts to hold it back, a small groan escaped from his clenched jaw.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching up to frame his face with her soft hands.
The caress of her fingers on his face only made his problem worse. “Nothing,” he said, attempting to step back from her.
Holding him in place, she looked up at him with the caramel-colored eyes that slayed him. He wanted to beg for mercy. “Mac… Is it Jim? Did something happen that you’re not telling me?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s nothing that three weeks and six days won’t cure.”
He watched her brows furrow with confusion and then smiled at the way her lips formed the adorable O he loved so much when his meaning dawned on her.
She smoothed her hands over his chest and down his belly.
He sucked in a sharp deep breath when she cupped his painfully hard erection. “Maddie, don’t…”
“Why not?” She looked up at him with a coy smile as she squeezed and caressed him through his shorts. “You didn’t just have a baby. Why should you have to suffer?”
Before he could summon the brain cells to respond, she had unbuttoned and unzipped his shorts, pushed them down over his hips and had him seated on the sofa. When she dropped to her knees in front of him, he nearly stopped breathing. “What’re you doing?” He looked around to see if they were truly alone. They were never alone these days. “Kids…”
“Are asleep.” She wrapped her hand around him and lowered her head to take him into her mouth.
It’d been so long that he nearly exploded at the first tentative touch of her tongue on the sensitive tip. “Maddie,” he gasped. “Baby, you don’t have to… Oh Christ…” His head fell back against the sofa, and while he knew he should be taking care of her rather than the other way around, he was powerless. She owned him, and she knew it.
“Mmm,” she said, letting her lips vibrate against his shaft.
The fingers he’d combed through her hair tightened into fists. “That’s enough.”
Rather than stop, she took him deeper, and when she added lashing strokes of her tongue, he went off like a rocket, surging into her mouth as wave after wave of powerful release left him drained. “Wow,” he said when he could speak again.
Pushing his shirt up as she went, she peppered his belly and chest with soft kisses that fired him up all over again. “I can’t wait,” she said between kisses, “to be able to…” With her lips brushing against his ear, she whispered a blunt description of what she couldn’t wait to do.
“Madeline! I’m shocked by your language!”
Chuckling, she said, “No, you’re not.”
She amused and aroused him like no other woman ever could. “I don’t know what’s happened to my sweet, innocent wife,” he said as he put his arms around her and nuzzled her hair.
“She’s become a sex fiend, thanks to you.”
“I can’t even hear you say the word ‘sex’ right now,” he said as her soft breasts against his chest reawakened his cock.
“There’s lots of other stuff we can do, you know.”
Of course he knew. She’d done most of the “other stuff” for the first time with him. He brushed the soft hair back off her face and buried his fingers in the silky strands. “You’re so tired, honey. I don’t want you to feel you have to—”
Her lips landed on his, soft but insistent. “Shut up, Mac.”
Since he had no desire to argue with his gorgeous wife, he tightened his arms around her and let her have her wicked way with him all over again.
Chapter 12
Evan held her hand as they walked through town to the restaurant. It was such a small thing, but Grace was thrilled by the feel of his fingers linked with hers. Every woman they passed took a good long look at him as he went by. That he’d chosen to spend this evening with her made Grace want to do a happy little jig right there on the sidewalk, but she managed to restrain herself.
How could he know that walking through Gansett’s main thoroughfare with his hand wrapped snugly around hers was one of the single most exciting things to ever happen to her? Second only to what had happened earlier in her hotel room.
After a lifetime of self-doubt and yearning to look and feel like other young women, Grace had finally arrived and wanted to enjoy every second of her new life. Almost as if the gods were smiling down on her, the night air was soft and fragrant and exactly the right temperature. Not too warm, not too chilly, but absolutely perfect.
The horn of the last ferry of the day leaving the island echoed through downtown. A few last-minute stragglers rushed past them, sprinting for the ferry landing.
Evan laughed at the melee of people scrambling to make the last boat. “Some things never change around here.”
“I can’t imagine growing up on an island. It must’ve been fun.”
“Sometimes it was, but it was also horribly confining. Of course, you always want what you don’t have. After living away for most of the last decade, I appreciate it more than I used to.”
“It’s such a beautiful place. I think it would be cool to live here.” She sure hoped so.
“You say that now. Wait until the island is buried under two feet of snow or the boats don’t run for a week because of rough seas and you have somewhere else you need to be. That’s when it starts to lose its charm.”
His words struck a note of fear in her as she pondered an isolated winter sealed off from the mainland. She immediately dismissed the thought, refusing to ruin this magical evening with worries or fears.
“Tropical Storm Hailey had us marooned for days,” Evan continued. “No ferries, no planes, no nothing. My sister and her new husband couldn’t leave on their honeymoon when they were supposed to. We started to run out of gas and food and cash and all sorts of stuff we rely on the ferries to bring over from the mainland.”
“That sounds like an adventure to me. I love the idea that once that boat leaves,” she said, nodding to the departing ferry, “we’re all in it together until tomorrow morning. Anything can happen.”
He crooked a rakish eyebrow her way, causing Grace’s breath to catch. “And that sounds like fun to you? I knew you had a twisted sense of humor…”
She elbowed him playfully. “You have to admit there’s a bit of adventure to island life.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“We’ve seen a lot of people come and go around here. They come during the summer thinking it’ll be so fabulous to live on an island. After one winter, they go screaming for their lives back to the mainland.”
Grace swallowed hard. That wouldn’t happen to her. No way. She was committed to the pharmacy and her new life plan.
At the Lobster House restaurant, Evan held the door and ushered her inside with a proprietary hand on the small of her back, which set off a flutter of tingles along her spine. Once again, Evan turned every female head in the place as they followed the maître d’ to their table. Evan held the chair for her and made sure she was settled before he sat across from her.
The dining room had large windows that looked out over Gansett Sound. With the pinks and purples of sunset lighting the sky, the view was breathtaking.
“What’re you in the mood for?” he asked as he perused the menu.
Speaking of breathtaking… Grace forced her gaze off him to focus on the menu. “I’m not sure.” Since this was the first time she’d been out to a fancy dinner with a man (Trey’s pizza dates hardly counted), her stomach was in knots as she tried to figure out what to have. Restaurant portions were notoriously huge, and Grace hated to waste food. But since her surgery, she could consume only small portions.
“They have great scallops, and the fish is really good, too. Most likely caught today in Gansett Sound.”
“I’m not that hungry,” she said truthfully. “I might just do chowder and a salad.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “You’re not one of those women who feels she has to eat like a bird in front of men, are you?”
Grace nearly laughed out loud at the irony of that statement. “Hardly. I just have a very small appetite.” That was the line she’d learned from a support group she’d attended after her surgery. There she’d learned how to navigate her new reality without feeling like she had to tell everyone she met about why she ate such small portions. If she overdid it, food would get stuck halfway down, which was a most uncomfortable situation she went out of her way to avoid.
That was the last thing she wanted to contend with during her perfect night with the perfect man.
The waiter appeared at their table and asked if they’d like to hear the specials.
“Sure,” Evan said, winking at Grace.
As the waiter launched into a startlingly detailed description of the specials, complete with balsamic reductions and pretentious French terms that he positively murdered, Grace felt the telltale signs of laughter gurgling in her chest.
When the waiter finally finished his spiel, Grace released a sigh of relief that she had made it through without laughing in his face.
“Grace, did you hear anything that interests you?”
She shook her head and cleared the laughter from her throat. “I’m going to stick with a cup of chowder and a house salad with balsamic,” she said, trying not to sputter as the word crossed her lips.
The waiter frowned at her choice. There went his tip. “And for you, sir?”
“I’ll do the baked scrod,” Evan said.
“And how would you like the fish presented on the plate?”
Stunned by the question, Evan glanced at Grace with wide eyes and then up at the waiter, whose pen was poised on the pad, breathlessly awaiting Evan’s decision. “Um, dead would be good.”
That did it. Grace erupted into laughter that infuriated their waiter. He grabbed the menus and stalked off.
Amused by her laughter, Evan smiled broadly at her. “What the hell kind of question was that?”
Grace was laughing too hard to respond. As usual during one of her fits of inappropriate laughter, people around her began to take notice. That was the point at which whatever had made her laugh usually ceased to be funny, but this time, she couldn’t seem to stop.
She reached for her glass of ice water, forced a sip down her throat and took two deep, cleansing breaths.
“Are you done?” he asked, still smiling.
His smile was a relief and another point in his favor—as if he needed more points. He didn’t seem at all embarrassed by her outburst.
“I might be. Just don’t use the words fish, balsamic reduction or dead on the plate in any combination.”
“I promise to try not to.” This was said in an impression of the waiter’s murderous French accent that set Grace off again.
“Stop it, please,” she begged. “I hurt from laughing.”
“Don’t hold back. You have a lovely and infectious laugh.”
Ridiculously pleased by the unexpected compliment, Grace tried to hide her surprise. “That’s nice of you to say. Most people are embarrassed by my propensity to cut loose without warning.”
“It’s part of your charm. You shouldn’t apologize for it.”
As Grace was processing yet another stupendous compliment, the waiter returned with the wine Evan had ordered and made a big show out of uncorking it and presenting a taste to Evan. His eyes met hers over the rim of the glass, daring her to let go again.
Grace bit her lip in an effort to hold it back as Evan nodded his approval of the wine.
By the time the waiter stormed off yet again, she was in silent hysterics.
This time Evan joined in. “He is just a tad over the top, huh?”
With the napkin pressed to her face to muffle the laughter, Grace nodded. “I can’t take it.” Hoping she hadn’t totally ruined the makeup Stephanie had carefully applied, Grace dabbed gently at her eyes. “Do I have mascara all over my face?”
“Not at all. You look beautiful.”
Speechless, Grace stared at him.
“Too much?” he asked with that dimpled grin that made her want to swoon.
“It’s all thanks to Stephanie and Laura. They worked their magic.”
“You didn’t need makeup or magic to be beautiful, Grace.” He reached for her hand across the table.
As she took his hand, she felt like she was in a movie watching someone else be charmed and romanced by the incredibly handsome man sitting across from her. This couldn’t possibly be happening to her, could it?
He caressed the back of her hand with his thumb, sending sensation to erogenous zones she didn’t even know she had. Her nipples hardened, and heat pooled between her legs. Unused to such reactions, Grace struggled to process each new discovery as it occurred. How could the touch of one man’s hand accomplish so much? That thought led to another, more disturbing, question. What if he was the only man in the whole world who could set her body on fire with a mere touch? Wouldn’t it be just her luck to find that one guy and have him be a commitment-phobe?
Fixated on their joined hands and the riot of emotions storming around inside her, Grace didn’t realize he’d spoken until he squeezed her hand.
“Earth to Grace.”
Startled, she looked up to find him studying her with arresting blue eyes that made her want to sigh every time he looked her way.
“Where did you take off to?”
“Nowhere. I’m right here.”
“I asked where you went to college.”
How did she totally miss that? “I went to URI’s school of pharmacy.”
“I looked at URI. Beautiful campus.”
Nodding, she said, “Where did you go?”
“It would be easier to tell you where I didn’t go. I started out at Rhode Island College, moved to UMass for a year, took a year off that turned into six when I decided college wasn’t for me. I finally got a business degree from the University of Tennessee a couple of years ago.”
“That’s quite a résumé.”
“Well, just so you don’t think I’m a total dolt, I never would’ve gone to college at all if it hadn’t been so important to my parents. I didn’t want to be the one to spoil their perfect record where college was concerned. They were four for five, and I was the lone holdout. I always knew exactly what I wanted to do—play music, write songs, record, tour. I can’t ever see myself doing anything else.”
“So you write, too? I thought Grant was the writer in the family.”
“He’s the more successful writer, but I’ve sold a few of my songs.”
“Any I might’ve heard?”
“Well, you heard one of them that night at the Tiki Bar.”
“You wrote that? It was amazing. I had no idea.”
Seeming pleased by her praise, he said, “Do you listen to country music at all?”
“Not so much.”
“Then you probably haven’t heard the others, but I could play them for you sometime.”
The thought of getting a private show from Evan McCarthy sent a new shower of tingles down her spine. “I’d love to hear them. How did you get into country?”