by Marie Force
“You won’t live here anymore if you don’t get the hell out of my party,” Maddie said.
Linda snorted and then quickly tried to cover the fact that she was trying not to laugh.
“This is awesome,” Deacon said. “And here I thought Gansett would be so boring.”
“Shut up and get out,” Blaine said to his brother. “We’re staying outside until they’re gone.”
“Knock yourselves out.” Tiffany flipped the switch on the wireless speaker the strippers had brought. “Now, where were we, ladies?”
Blaine took Mac by the arm and dragged him along as the guys retreated to the deck.
“She can’t kick me out of my own house,” Mac said.
“I think she just did,” Riley said.
“This is fucked up,” Blaine said, pacing the length of the deck as screams of laughter came from inside.
Someone called Finn’s name.
He spun around and was shocked to see Missy standing in Mac’s yard. What the hell was she doing there?
“You got Mac covered?” he asked Riley.
“Ah, yeah, but what’re you doing?”
“Seeing what she wants and getting rid of her—in that order.”
“You should let Blaine deal with it.” Blaine was so consumed by what was happening inside the house that he hadn’t noticed Missy in the yard.
Though Finn agreed with his brother, he decided to see if he could get rid of her without involving cops. After ten years of friendship, he figured he owed her that much, even if she had become unhinged lately. He went down the stairs, took her by the arm and directed her away from the house. “What’re you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you. People in town said you might be here.”
“There’s nothing left for us to talk about, Missy. When you came here and basically assaulted me and shoved my girlfriend—”
“I’m your girlfriend! I have been for years!”
“Not anymore. We’re over. I told you that two years ago when I moved out here.”
“And the whole time, you kept texting me and calling me—”
“Because we were friends! But we were not together! You knew that. Don’t even pretend like you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know! You said you were coming home, and I waited for you! All that time, I waited. You’re not going to just toss me aside like I meant nothing to you.”
“That’s not what I did, and you know it. You know it.”
“This is what I know—you’re going to tell that stupid bitch you’ve been hanging out with that you’re done, and you’re coming home with me because you said you would. You’re going to keep your promises to me, or else.”
Finn regretted not taking Riley’s advice to call Blaine. “Or else what?”
She shocked the ever-loving fuck out of him when she pulled out a switchblade and flipped it open. “Or someone’s going to get hurt.”
Chapter 31
The strippers were ridiculous and raunchy, and the women were loving every minute of it. Chloe had enjoyed watching Maddie and Tiffany dispose of their irate husbands. The Chester sisters were not messing around. While the others whooped it up with the strippers, Chloe edged closer to the slider, hoping for a word with Finn. But when she looked out, she didn’t see him. However, she noticed Riley looked worried.
She stepped outside in time to hear a woman screaming in the yard.
“Oh fuck.” Riley took off down the stairs.
Curious, Chloe followed him and was shocked to see Missy with a shiny blade pointed at Finn, who stood before her, his hands raised, trying to talk some sense into her.
Riley moved toward them, trying not to startle Missy, whose full attention was on Finn.
Chloe didn’t think. She reacted, racing down the stairs, prepared to throw herself between him and anything that could hurt him. The instinct to protect him was so overwhelming that a surge of adrenaline had her running like she had before the RA had made her joints hurt too badly to run. She didn’t feel anything other than the urgent need to get to him.
Riley was ahead of her, and in the second before he would’ve reached his brother, Missy pounced.
Finn let out an unholy cry of pain that made Chloe see red as she jumped onto Missy’s back, pulling her off Finn.
Everything shifted into silent slow motion as Missy reared back, trying to dislodge Chloe and causing them both to fall backward.
Chloe landed hard, and Missy came down on top of her.
Chloe’s side burned, and her vision swam as Riley pulled Missy off her. She could tell that Riley was screaming, but Chloe couldn’t seem to hear what he was saying.
And then Blaine was there, cuffing Missy.
Riley’s words finally permeated the fog. “She fucking stabbed my brother!”
Finn!
Oh God, Finn had been stabbed.
Chloe tried to get up, to get to him, but her legs wouldn’t hold her, and she collapsed onto the grass.
Riley’s screams grew more frantic. “She got Chloe, too! Somebody call the rescue. Hurry!”
Chloe caught a glimpse of a huge red stain on the front of Finn’s shirt before everything faded to black.
* * *
Finn came to slowly, trying to figure out where he was and why the lights were so bright. What the hell was going on? He tried to sit up.
A hand on his shoulder stopped him.
David Lawrence? What was he doing there? Oh right, he’d come to the bachelor party. The party. The strippers. Missy. Oh fuck.
“What’s wrong?” Finn asked David. Why did his voice feel so weird?
“Your ex-girlfriend stabbed you.”
“She what?”
“She stabbed you in the chest. Fortunately, she didn’t hit anything important. You lost some blood and had forty-two sutures. You’ll be sore for a few days, but otherwise, you’re going to be okay.”
Wait. Missy had stabbed him?
He tried to remember what had happened, but it was all a blur.
“She also cut Chloe.”
David’s words cleared the fog in his brain and filled Finn with rage like he’d never felt before. “Where is she?”
“In the other exam room—”
Finn got up quickly, so quickly that his head swam, and his legs buckled.
Riley materialized, grabbing him before he could fall.
Finn fought back against his brother’s tight hold. “Let me go! I need to get to her!”
Riley held firm. “You need to sit the fuck down before you bust open your stitches and bleed to death.”
“Take me to her right now, Riley, or I swear to God, you’re going to need a doctor.”
“Is it okay, Doc?” Riley asked David.
“Take it slow. He lost a lot of blood.”
“Get me to her, Riley. Now.”
Taking David’s directive to heart, Riley moved so slowly that Finn wanted to roar from the minutes it took to walk down the corridor to where Chloe was in a bed with Katie, Julia and Nikki by her side. Her face was pale, her violet eyes huge and tearful when she saw Finn.
“You shouldn’t be up!” she said.
“Excuse me, ladies.” Finn moved to her side when Nikki and Katie made room for him.
He took a visual inventory. “Where are you hurt?”
“My side. It’s just a flesh wound. Ten stitches and a tetanus shot, which was the worst part of it.”
Finn couldn’t recall any other time in his life when he’d felt this kind of fury. He turned to Riley. “Where is she?”
“Blaine carted her off to jail.”
“Call him. Tell him I want her charged with everything. No leniency.”
“I’m on it, bro. Why don’t you sit before you fall over?”
“Move over,” Finn said to Chloe.
She shifted to the left, wincing, and made room for him.
That wince made him feel like he’d been stabbed in the heart. Seeing her hurt broke something in him, especia
lly when she was hurt because of him.
“You should’ve seen her,” Riley said. “She was like Wonder Woman taking Missy down.”
“I was not,” Chloe said. “I just did what anyone would do.”
“You were incredible,” Riley said. “You might’ve saved his life. David said if she’d hit him an inch to the left, he could’ve bled out before they got him here.”
“His life has become very important to me,” Chloe said.
To his tremendous mortification, Finn’s eyes filled with tears. “I could kill her for hurting you,” he said in a gruff whisper.
“I could kill her for hurting you.”
“What do you say we give them a minute?” Riley said to the others.
Katie kissed Chloe’s cheek and hiccupped her way out of the room, followed by Julia, Nikki and Riley.
“Katie has had the hiccups for hours,” Chloe said. “She can’t handle her champagne.”
“Chloe…”
“What if she still has them for the wedding?”
“Chloe.” He held her chin, looked into her gorgeous eyes and kissed her. “I don’t want to talk about Katie. I want to talk about why you would endanger yourself the way you did.”
“She was holding a knife on you. I didn’t think. I just acted.”
He put his arms around her, wincing when the laceration on his chest made its presence known. “Don’t ever, ever do that again. You’re the most precious thing in the world to me, and I can’t bear the idea of you getting hurt because of me.”
“It wasn’t because of you. It was because of her, and I’d do it again in a hot second. Because you’re every bit as precious to me, and I’d rather get hurt than let anyone try to take you from me.”
“Have I mentioned recently that I love you?”
“It’s been a couple of hours, but you were kinda busy being stabbed, so I’ll let it go this time.”
“I really, really love you.”
“I love you just as much, but I really hope we’ve seen the last of Missy.”
“God, I hope so, because we’ve got things to do and plans to make.”
“And love to make.”
He cupped her cheek, drinking in the details of her exquisite face. “That, too.”
The moment was interrupted when Kevin appeared in the doorway, his eyes wild. “She stabbed you?”
“Both of us, actually.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What the hell was she hoping to accomplish?”
“Who knows? Who cares? Blaine tossed her in jail, where I hope she’ll stay for the foreseeable future.”
Kevin ran a trembling hand through his hair. “Jesus, Finn. You scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“Take a breath, Dad. Everyone’s fine.”
Kevin took a deep breath and released it. “The entire town is in the waiting room, along with eight mostly naked cowboy strippers.”
Chloe glanced at Finn, and when their eyes met, they lost it laughing. The knot of fear that had settled in his chest when he heard she was hurt finally eased. They were both okay, and they had each other.
What else did they need?
Nothing. As long as he had her, he had everything.
Epilogue
Shane and Katie were married on the beach outside the Surf at sunset, exchanging vows under an arbor Finn had helped build as one of the last official tasks on the Wayfarer job site. He and Riley had brought it over to the Surf the day before so Shane and Katie could use it to be married in the place where he saved her life. As he watched his cousin get married, Finn wondered how many brides and grooms would stand under that arbor in the years to come. He took pride in what they’d built together. The Wayfarer and that arbor would provide a lasting legacy to the McCarthy family, which had rallied around him and Chloe after they were injured.
Riley and Nikki had taken them both home to Eastward Look to recover, and the others had kept them in food and entertainment for a week, until they insisted on returning home to Chloe’s so they could have some much-needed time alone.
She’d asked him to move in with her rather than going to the apartment Nikki had offered, and Finn had jumped at the chance to live with Chloe. It had taken him two hours to move his stuff from the rental house to her place, which already felt like home to him. As long as she and Ranger were there, he had what he needed.
Katie’s sister Cindy had filled in for Chloe at the salon and had liked it so much, she’d asked to be considered for a position when the spa opened. Mac had agreed to renovate the building on the hotel property over the winter they did the hotel, with a goal of opening the spa by next May. After consulting with Big Mac and Linda, it had been decided to offer only a spa at the hotel and keep the Curl Up and Dye salon open in town to attract the walk-in traffic that had been so critical. Cindy had been thrilled to be asked to work there. She’d be moving to the island next spring. Chloe would manage both businesses and would no longer be cutting hair as of the spring. As an official employee of the McCarthy family business, she’d been offered full benefits, relieving another of her most pressing concerns.
With plenty of work lined up over the next year, Finn was eager to get started, to throw himself into life as a full-time island resident.
Next week, he and Chloe were traveling to the mainland to meet with an RA specialist in Boston that David had recommended and planned to attend a conference on the topic in Florida over the winter, taking some vacation time in the sun while they were there.
Finn still hoped to talk Chloe into marrying him at some point, but he wasn’t in any rush.
Missy had been charged with multiple felonies after stabbing him and Chloe and had been denied bail. He still couldn’t believe that she’d actually stabbed him—and Chloe—or that Chloe had tackled Missy and possibly saved him from a life-threatening injury.
He’d started calling Chloe Wonder Woman. His Wonder Woman. His love. As he watched Shane and Katie commit their lives to each other, he grinned at Chloe, who was standing next to Katie on the other side of the proceedings, to let her know he was thinking of her. Hell, when was he not thinking of her?
She returned his smile, her eyes watery from the emotion of watching two people who’d survived life’s storms and come out whole and happy on the other side as they took the next step in their journey together.
After the newly married couple had made their way down the aisle, Finn offered his arm Chloe, and whispered in her ear. “Maybe someday?”
She looked at him with her heart in those dazzling violet eyes. “Maybe.”
He could live with maybe—as long as he got to live with her.
* * *
Shane held Katie in his arms for their first dance as husband and wife, waiting to see what their best man had decided to play for them. They’d left it up to Owen, certain that he’d find the right song for them.
Standing on the stage at the front of the big room at the Wayfarer, with his sleeves rolled up and guitar in hand, Owen barely resembled the sharply dressed man he’d been half an hour ago as he gave away the bride and then stood by Shane’s side as the best man.
Now, he looked more like the rumpled Owen they knew and loved.
“I can’t wait to hear what he picked,” Katie whispered to Shane.
He couldn’t stop staring at his new wife. She was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen.
Owen began to strum his guitar, his gaze fixed on the two of them. “As the best man, it’s my job to toast the bride and groom, and I also got assigned the added task of finding the right song for them, something that summed them up as a couple. So first I want to welcome Shane to the Lawry family. My mom, my brothers and sisters and I all agree—we’re made better by having you as one of us, Shane. And Katie… What can I say about my sweet sister Katie, who has been right by my side through the best and the worst moments of my life, except that I love you and I’m so happy for you and Shane. Laura
and I have been blessed to have a front-row seat to Shane and Katie’s love story, which began at our wedding, after Shane saved Katie’s life when she got caught in a riptide.”
“And right after that,” Shane whispered to his wife, “she saved my life.”
She beamed up at him, her smile lighting up her entire face. “We saved each other.”
“I finally decided on ‘Lucky’ by Colbie Caillat and Jason Mraz. I think Shane and Katie would agree that the day he saved her life was the same day their luck changed forever. I love you both and wish you the best of everything. To Shane and Katie.”
While the other guests raised their glasses in toast, Owen played the opening notes of the song.
Holding Katie in his arms, with the weight of the ring she’d given him on his finger and their whole life ahead of them, Shane was thankful for the second chance he’d gotten with her. He still thought of Courtney often and mourned her premature death. But she was firmly in the past now. His present and his future were with Katie, the best thing to ever happen to him.
“Love you, Mrs. McCarthy,” he said as he kissed her.
“Love you, too, Mr. McCarthy.”
* * *
Julia stood in the back of the room, watching her sister dance with her new husband, trying not to be a jealous cow and failing miserably. Katie had never had a boyfriend until Shane, while Julia had dated every man in Texas. And Katie was getting married first?
How was that fair? She’d done the legwork—literally—and had absolutely nothing to show for it but three maxed-out credit cards, an empty bank account, an eviction notice and a newfound reliance on Maker’s Mark bourbon. She’d used the last of her savings to bring the cowboy strippers to Gansett, wanting to do something spectacular for Katie, and now she had to figure out how she was going to get home to Texas.
She’d have to hit up Owen for a loan, and the thought of that made her sick.
Julia took a deep drink from her glass of bourbon, straight up, while giving thanks to the inventor of the open bar.
“What’s up?”
