Gansett Island Boxed Set Books 1-16 (Gansett Island Series)

by Marie Force

“You’re not powerless, babe. You’ve got all the power here. You’ve ruined me for all other women, so if you don’t marry me, you’re dooming me to living like a monk for the rest of my life, a lonely, worthless shell of the guy I might’ve been with you as my wife.”

  She laughed despite the tears that continued to flow freely. “See what I mean? What am I supposed to say to that?”

  “You could say, ‘Why, yes, Grant, as usual, you’re right about everything. And it’s all going to be okay. As long as the two of us are together, we can get through anything, including parenthood.’ You could say, ‘I love you and only you, and I want to marry you as much as you want to marry me.’ You could also say—”

  She reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on to him for dear life. “What you said,” she whispered against his lips. “All of it.”

  “Really? You mean it?”

  Nodding, she kissed him again. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about this sooner. I should’ve known you’d know just what to say to talk me down off the ledge.”

  “I never want you out on that ledge by yourself. You’re not alone anymore, Steph. There’s no need to do this to yourself.”

  “I’m still getting used to that. I was alone for so long that sometimes I forget everything is different now, and I don’t have to keep it all inside anymore.”

  He held her for a long time, giving her exactly what she needed the way he always did. “You know what the best thing about growing up here was?”

  Surprised by the change in topic, she said, “No, what?”

  “I know every path and where it leads. That one there,” he said, nodding to a spot on her right, “leads around the neighbor’s house and back to the road where we parked.”

  Stephanie smiled up at him as his plan filled her with joy and excitement and relief to have finally shared her deepest fears with him. When he held out his hand to her, she happily gave him hers and let him lead her down the path that would take them home.

  Standing with her dad and Betsy, Laura kept an eye on Stephanie and Grant, who seemed to be working things out if the hugging and kissing were any indication. That was a relief. She loved the two of them and loved them together. Her cousin had never been as mellow and happy as he’d been since he met and fell for Stephanie. Laura admired Steph tremendously for the battle she’d waged to free Charlie from jail while working multiple jobs to support herself and pay for lawyers.

  Until Grant introduced her to his friend Dan Torrington, none of those lawyers had succeeded in doing what Dan had accomplished with a couple of well-placed phone calls. Speaking of Dan, he walked over to them with his fiancée, Kara Ballard.

  “I think you’re the last ones we need to invite,” Dan said.

  “To what?” Laura asked.

  “My parents are coming to the island tonight,” Kara said, “and they’re hosting a dinner for us tomorrow night at the Summer House. I know it’s short notice, but they wanted to do an engagement party. Personally, I think engagement parties are stupid, but you can’t tell my mother that.”

  “I have to check with Owen to make sure he doesn’t have plans or a gig, but we should be able to come,” Laura said.

  “Please feel free to bring the baby,” Kara said.

  “Your Honor,” Dan said, “hope you can make it, too.”

  “I’m Frank, Dan, and yes, we’d love to,” he said with a glance at Betsy, who nodded in agreement.

  “You’ll have to give me some time to get used to calling you by your first name,” Dan said. “I’m not conditioned to be so casual with judges.”

  “I’m retired now.”

  “Once a judge, always a judge.”

  Laura could tell that Dan’s comments pleased her dad, who was making a smooth transition to retirement. She loved having him living close enough to see him every day. He’d been a huge help to her with Holden, too.

  Evan came over and asked to speak to her.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the others. “What’s up?” she asked her cousin, who was Owen’s closest friend.

  “Is he okay?” Evan asked.

  She didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “He says he’s fine, but the closer we get to leaving, the more withdrawn he gets. I think he’s terrified of seeing his father again after all this time and of having to testify. But more than that, he’s terrified that no matter what he says or does, it won’t be enough to put the guy away for a good long time.”

  “I really wish he and Sarah didn’t have to go through this. Especially now, right before your wedding.”

  “Believe me, I wish the same thing.”

  “I was worried because we got asked to play a couple of gigs in the last week or so, and he declined, which is unusual.”

  “Especially when he gets to play with you. Those are his favorite gigs.”

  Evan smiled at that. “I’m going to Virginia with you.”

  “Evan… You don’t have to. I’ll be there, and so will Blaine, David, Slim, my dad, Sarah. He’ll be well protected.”

  “He’s my best friend, Laura. I can’t let him go through this without me there with him.”

  She curled her hands around his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “I feel the same way, so I can’t blame you for wanting to come. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

  “I’m worried about him,” Evan said, his gaze fixed on Owen across the yard. He was with his mom and Charlie as well as Shane, who was holding Holden, although anyone who knew Owen well could see he was smiling and nodding, but the smile wasn’t his real smile. It wasn’t the one that lit up his face and made his eyes crinkle at the corners.

  “I am, too,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  “My mom told me she’s staying at Charlie’s tonight,” Owen said after they were home and had gotten Holden into bed.

  “Really? Wow. Good for her—and him. Do you think they’ll, you know…”

  “I’m trying very hard not to think about that.”

  Laura laughed at the face he made. “My dad and Betsy were holding hands today.”

  “I saw that.”

  “Seems like things are moving forward for everyone.”

  “Mom said Charlie is coming to Virginia with us. Slim will need to lease a bigger plane.” Because so many of them were going, Laura’s dad had worked with Slim to arrange for a private plane out of Greene Airport in Warwick.

  “I’m glad your mom finally told Charlie what’s going on so he can support her through all of this.”

  “I’m glad she told him, too.”

  “Evan is planning to come with us.”

  The news seemed to catch Owen off guard. “Why? He’s got too much going on with the studio to be away.”

  “He wants to be there for you.”

  Owen shook his head. “That’s not necessary.”

  “It is to him.” Laura approached him cautiously. For the first time, she wasn’t sure she’d be welcome. “You don’t understand how hard it is for the people who love you to watch you suffer.”

  He let her put her arms around him, but he seemed to be merely tolerating her, which was also a first. “And you all don’t understand how embarrassing and humiliating this entire thing is for me.”

  “Why, Owen?”

  Staring down at her, mouth agape, he said, “Because! He’s my father! How would you or Evan begin to understand where I come from with Frank and Mac McCarthy as your fathers?”

  The pain that echoed through his every word sliced her like a knife, making her bleed for him. She’d heard it was possible to feel the pain of others almost as acutely as they were feeling it themselves, but she’d never experienced it so profoundly until now. “Your father is no reflection on you, Owen. You had no control over who you were born to, just like Evan and I had no control over who we were born to. We got lucky. You didn’t. That doesn’t make us look at you any differently because something you couldn’t control
happened to you. If anything, it makes us admire you more than we already do, because you survived it when it might’ve broken a lesser person.”

  “How can you be so sure it didn’t break me?”

  “Look at you. You’re strong and capable and trustworthy and loyal and loving and gentle—so gentle with me and Holden and your mother and all the other people you love. You’re nothing like him, Owen. No one thinks you are, except for maybe you.”

  His cheek twitched with tension as he fixated on a spot over her shoulder. “I feel like he’s in there, lying dormant, waiting to lash out when he has the right provocation.”

  “So if I piss you off someday, you’re going to hit me?” With her hands flat against his chest, she gave him a little push.

  Since he wasn’t expecting it, he stumbled slightly. “What’re you doing?”

  “Proving a point.” She raised her hand and laid it gently against his cheek. “If I slap your face, will you slap me back?”

  He turned away from her hand. “No. Stop it. Why are you doing this?”

  She rolled her other hand into a fist that she pressed to his abdomen. “If I punch you in the stomach, will you punch me back?”

  “Laura…”

  “You’d never lay a hand on me, no matter what I did to you. Never. I haven’t the slightest doubt about that. I could say anything, do anything, and you’d never touch me with anything other than love.”

  “Stop this.”

  “Not until I hear you say you’re nothing like him.” With her hands once again on his chest, she raised a challenging brow. “Do I need to push you around a little more to make you understand what I already know?” The notion that she could physically make him do anything he didn’t want to do was ridiculous, and they both knew it. “Do I?”

  “No,” he said with a sigh as he curled his hands around her wrists and lifted them from his chest. He kissed one of her palms and then the other. “I’d rather die than do anything to hurt you.”

  “And that, right there, is why you’ll never be your father’s son. Don’t you see, Owen? That’s not how he feels. He’d rather die than admit how weak and inadequate he is or how little control he has over his rage. You would rather die than hurt me or anyone else you love. Can’t you see the difference?”

  “I’m beginning to, but I still worry that he’ll rear his ugly head in me someday.”

  “So when Holden is five and sitting at the table playing with his food rather than eating it, will you suddenly hit him so hard across his little face that he can’t go to school for a week out of fear that someone might see the bruises?” She’d purposely used the first time his father had hit him as an example.

  “No,” he said, blinking furiously.

  Laura framed his face with both her hands. “You would never, could never. You love Holden more than you love yourself. You love me more than you love yourself. That’s why you’ll never behave the way your father did. He loves no one more than he loves himself.”

  He slid his arms around her, letting his head drop to her shoulder.

  “I want you to say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “I’m nothing like my father. Say it.”

  “Laura…”

  She curled her hand around his nape, cradling him against her. “Say it.”

  “I’m nothing like my father.”

  “Say it again.”

  He released a deep, rattling breath. “I’m nothing like my father.”

  “One more time.”

  “I’m nothing like my father.”

  “We’ll keep working on this until it gets easier to say and believe.”

  “I still don’t want you guys to come to Virginia.”

  “Too bad.” Pressing her lips to his temple, she said, “Oh damn. Does it piss you off when I talk to you that way? Do you feel compelled to show me the back of your hand to keep me in line?”

  He pulled her in closer. “Actually, it kind of turns me on when you talk back to me.”

  Laura laughed. “That’s good to know.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her eyes filled, and she closed them, determined to stay strong for him when she wanted to weep. “Please don’t thank me for helping you to see that you’re a good man, Owen. One of the best men I’ve ever known. And I don’t expect my opinion of you to ever change.”

  “It would kill me if I did something to lose your respect.”

  “There again you prove my point. Do you think your father ever said anything like that to your mother?”

  “I doubt he did.”

  “I’m going to keep reminding you of all the differences between you and him.”

  “Okay.”

  “Come to bed with me, Owen. I need you.”

  “You need me… Seems like the other way around tonight.”

  “We need each other, like we have from the very beginning.”

  He bent his head to kiss her, lingering for a long moment. “I don’t know how I ever lived without you.”

  “I feel exactly the same way.” She went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “We’re going to get you through the trial, and then we’ll have the rest of our lives together.”

  Running his hands down her back, he cupped her bottom and lifted her.

  Laura clung to him as he walked them across the room to their bed. He undressed her and then himself, all the while gazing down at her with love in his eyes. Leaning over her, he left a circle of kisses on the slight bump on her abdomen.

  “I can’t wait to meet these guys.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “I can’t wait until they stop making you sick every day.”

  She slid her fingers through his always unruly blond hair. “Neither can I.”

  Chuckling, he kissed his way up the front of her. “Let’s cover you up so you don’t get cold.” He lifted her effortlessly, arranged her on the pillows and covered her before he slid in next to her.

  Laura turned on her side and reached for him. “This is the best part of the day. The very end, when I get to be alone with you.”

  He worked his leg between hers and put his arms around her. “It’s my favorite time of day, too.”

  Despite the desire she always felt for him, especially when they were naked in bed together, her eyes refused to stay open any longer. “I can’t stay awake.”

  “You don’t have to, honey.”

  “Don’t you want to…”

  “Always, but you need to sleep.”

  “I’ll make it up to you in the morning.”

  “You don’t have to. You give me everything I could ever want and then some. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I owe you everything,” she whispered. “I was wrecked, and you put me back together.”

  “Best project I ever worked on.”

  With her face tucked against his chest, she smiled, content and happy. No matter what went on around them, they’d always have this. She took that thought with her as she drifted off to sleep.

  For a long time after Laura fell asleep, Owen was awake, listening to the South Harbor foghorn and the crash of the waves hitting the breakwater. The sounds were among his favorite from a childhood short on happy memories. He and his six siblings had spent their summers here with their grandparents, which, other than their father’s deployments, was the only break they ever got from their violent upbringing.

  Thinking about those long-ago summers also brought back memories of the warnings their father had given them about sharing their family’s business with anyone, even the grandparents who’d doted on them. Mark Lawry’s children had lived in fear of him all the time, even when they were hundreds of miles away.

  Owen had spent a lot of time as an adult wondering why his twelve- or thirteen-year-old self had never confided in the grandparents who would’ve moved heaven and earth to rescue them from the hell they lived in. With the perspective of age and maturity, he knew he’d been governed by fear, but he wished so fervently that he’d had the c
ourage to speak up, to say something, even if the consequences had been dire.

  He’d never forget the way his strong, formidable grandmother had wept upon hearing the full truth of what her beloved grandchildren had endured at the hands of their father. It had taken a suicide attempt by his youngest brother, Jeff, to blow the lid off the entire mess. Jeff had gone to live with their grandparents in Florida and was now in college and thriving.

  What might’ve been different for Jeff, for all of them, if Owen had only said something during one of those idyllic summers with their grandparents? Intellectually, he knew he was minimizing the overwhelming fear his twelve-year-old self had lived with when his thirty-four-year-old self still quaked at the thought of having to see his father in a few days.

  He hated himself for that. Why should he feel fearful when he was bigger and stronger than the bully who’d raised him had ever been? How was it possible that his father still had the power to make him quake when he hadn’t even seen him in more than ten years?

  Owen would give anything for a magic wand that he could wave to fast-forward their lives to after the trial, when his father was safely convicted and headed for prison, where he would finally pay for the vicious way he’d treated his wife and children for decades.

  In the absence of magic, he had no choice but to summon the resolve to power through the ordeal and get to the other side of it, where he could move forward with Laura and the life they had planned. There was no place for his father in that life, and after the trial, he would never have to see him again. That day couldn’t come soon enough for Owen.

  He smoothed his hand over the silky length of Laura’s hair, taking comfort from her presence even when she was asleep. What she’d said about him not being anything like his father had struck a chord with him. He wanted so badly to believe she was right about that, but he’d always been aware of a simmering core of rage that lived within him. While he couldn’t imagine ever striking out at the people closest to him, the rage was part of him nonetheless.

  Perhaps he would never find a need to tap that hidden resource, and he could only hope it would remain dormant and not rear its ugly head to cause him trouble. Staring up at the ceiling in the dark of night with the love of his life asleep in his arms, Owen made a silent vow never to allow rage to dictate his reactions to Laura or his children. He loved them too much to ever let that happen.