by Marie Force
She took his hand and followed him inside, her sharp gaze taking in every detail of the living room and kitchen in one quick glance. “It’s lovely. Whose is it?”
“Ours, if we want it.”
Her eyes widened, and her lips formed an adorable O. “Ours?”
“Only if you like it as much as I do.”
She released his hand and went for a better look at the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom.
Shane waited on pins and needles to hear what she thought of it. “You could have your own room if you’re not quite ready to shack up officially.”
She ran a hand over the creamy-white wall. “If I had my own room, would you visit me there?”
“As often as you wanted me to.”
“Since that would be every night, it seems sort of foolish to have separate bedrooms.”
His heart skipped a beat when he realized she still wanted the same things he did. “Your thinking matches mine.” He took her hand again. “Come sit with me for a minute.”
They sat in the corner of the empty living room. Always the lady, Katie curled her legs under her, tugging her skirt down to her knees.
“I want to tell you a few things that normally I’d prefer to keep to myself for several reasons. One, I hate talking about this stuff, and two, it really has no bearing on you or us or how I feel about you. But it’s important to me that I be honest with you, so I want to tell you, okay?”
“Okay…”
He hated the trepidation he saw on her face and heard in her one-word answer, but he knew he had to come clean with her. “Earlier this week when you wrote me your adorable note, you said you’d noticed I had something on mind. You told me if I couldn’t talk to you about it, you wished I would talk to someone. You were right. I did have something weighing heavily on me, and I talked to my Uncle Kevin, who’s a psychiatrist.”
“What was weighing so heavily on you?”
“The things that Courtney said to me… I was messed up afterward. I didn’t want to be, because I’ve come so far from that situation, and I have so much in my life now to be grateful for. I’d started this awesome new relationship with you, and I was happy again for the first time in a very long time. So much of that happiness was because of you.”
“Did Kevin help?”
“He helped a lot. We talked it through, and he said a lot of things that made so much sense, but one thing in particular really resonated with me.” He took hold of Katie’s hand and linked their fingers, needing to touch her while he talked about his past for what he hoped would be the last time. “He said that with this new information about what really happened, it was no longer possible for me to make Courtney the villain in our marriage. I couldn’t hate her anymore, and I had to find a way to deal with the things she’d told me without derailing my new life.”
“And have you? Have you dealt with it?”
“Not entirely.” He gave her the honesty she deserved. “But I will. In time. The important thing for you to know is I have absolutely no desire to go back to her. I loved her very much for a long time, but I don’t love her anymore. I love you. You’re the one I want to be with. I want to live here with you or somewhere else, if this place doesn’t do it for you. I want to be close to our nephew and the new babies when they’re born. I want to spend time with my family and friends and your family when they come to visit.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. “I want to be with your mom and Charlie, Laura and Owen and Holden, and I want to help out with my friend Lisa and her kids, who are going to need all the friends they can get. I want to be here. With you. I want a life with you. I know we haven’t known each other long, but it took me no time at all to know you’re special, and the more time we spend together, the more proof I get that my initial gut feeling about you was spot-on.”
“Shane…” She took a deep breath and placed her free hand over her heart. “You take my breath away.”
“In a good way?”
“In the best way possible.”
His relief at hearing that was overwhelming.
“I love you, too,” she said. “I want all the same things you do and a couple of other things that it’s too soon to tell you about.”
“No, it’s not too soon. Tell me. I want to know so I can help you get everything you want.”
“I’ve mentioned this once before, but when I was younger,” she said tentatively, “before I understood just how screwed-up my family really was, I pictured myself with a lot of kids. I’m thirty-two, so the reality of a big family is starting to slip away.”
“Then we ought to get started on this project of yours sooner rather than later.”
She stared at him, seeming astounded. “You’re serious.”
“Completely serious. I remember you telling me before about the horde of kids you want to have. My life has been on hold for a long, lonely time. I’m ready to get busy living again, and in case you haven’t noticed, I love babies. Well, I love Holden, but I’m sure I’ll be crazy about our kids, too. I want the same thing you do, and there’s no time like the present to get busy living.”
“Is this really happening?”
“It’s really happening, and it’s amazing, and it’s only going to get better.” He leaned in to kiss her softly, just the touch of his lips on hers. All the turmoil and upheaval of the last week settled and calmed, leaving him in a state of peacefulness he’d rarely experienced since Courtney left him. And then he realized what he’d felt earlier, walking into the house he hoped would be theirs: pure, unmitigated joy. “About the house… Yes, no, maybe?”
“Definitely yes. I love it as much as you do. But we share a bedroom or no deal.”
“Done,” he said, smiling at her. “We’re going to need the extra bedroom for the kids we’re going to have together.” He kissed her again, lingering when her sweet softness filled his senses and his heart. “So when you tell these kids of ours how we met, what will you say?”
“I’ll tell them the truth.” She caressed his face and slid her thumb over his bottom lip. “I’ll tell them you saved my life.”
“And I’ll tell them that after I saved yours, you saved mine.”
Thank you for reading Shane and Katie’s story! Find the Kisses After Dark Reader Group to chat about the new book with other readers. Join the McCarthy Reader Group to hang out with 9,000 other fans of the McCarthy series. Much more to come from Gansett Island, so make sure you’re on the newsletter mailing list at marieforce.com to never miss a book! Join Marie’s postal mailing list to receive her holiday card as well as other postcards throughout the year. And remember to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads to help other readers discover the McCarthy Series. Thanks again for your support of the McCarthys!
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Turn the page for a sneak peak at the first two chapters of I Saw Her Standing There, book 3 in Marie’s Green Mountain Series, out on November 4, 2014.
I Saw Her Standing There
Book 3 in the Green Mountain Series
By: Marie Force
Sugarmakers in Vermont feel a bit tender about the weather this winter, what with memories of the heat wave in March last year that choked off the sap runs. In response, we decided to start tapping earlier than ever, on February 6. What’s two weeks? It sounds insignificant, but it feels akin to moving Christmas Day up to December 11.
—Colton Abbott’s sugaring journal, February 11
Chapter 1
Colton Abbott had never considered himself a particularly private person—that is, until he had something big to hide from his loving but overly involved family. His six brothers, three sisters, two parents and one grandfather were dying to know how he was spending his weekends lately, and Colton was loving that they had no idea. Not the first clue.
A smile split his face as he drove across Northern Vermont, from his home in the Northeast Kingdom town of Butler to Burlington, where his family owned a lake house and where his “secret” girlfriend would be meeting him in a couple of hours. He wanted to get there early and hit the store for supplies so they could relax and enjoy every minute of their time together.
Colton had big plans for this weekend, the sixth one he’d spent completely alone with her. During that time, they’d talked about nearly every subject known to mankind, they’d kissed a lot, fooled around quite a bit and last weekend, they’d even gone so far as to take each other all the way to blissful fulfillment. But they’d yet to have sex.
He intended to fix that this weekend before he lost his mind from wanting more of her. He’d tried to respect her wishes to “take things slow” so they didn’t “get in over their heads” when they lived so far from each other and had so little time to spend together. Of course he’d heard people say for years that long-distance relationships sucked, but until he’d experienced the suckage personally, he’d had no idea just how totally the situation sucked.
It got worse with every weekend they spent together when he was left wanting more and having to wait a full week before he could see her again. They’d been lucky so far. Other than the weekend he’d stayed home for the funeral of his sister Hannah’s dog Homer, they’d had six weekends with no other commitments to get in the way of their plans, but he knew reality would interfere eventually. They both had busy lives and families and other obligations that would mess with the idyllic routine they’d slipped into over the last month and a half.
They’d met halfway the other times, and this would be the first time that she’d come to Vermont. Since he wasn’t quite ready to expose her to the austere life he led on his mountain, he’d asked his dad for the keys to the lake house.
And what an odd conversation that had been the day before . . . With time to think about it during the two-hour ride across the state, Colton had the uncomfortable suspicion that the one person he wasn’t fooling with his secret romance was his dear old dad.
Colton had planned his attack stealthily, coming down off the mountain on a rare Thursday to see his dad at the office. Waiting until most of his siblings had left for lunch—except for Hunter, who never seemed to leave the office for any reason except a fire alarm—Colton had sat in his truck and watched his dad step out of the diner and head back across the street to the office above the family-owned Green Mountain Country Store in “downtown” Butler, if you could call Elm Street a downtown.
Colton had emerged from his truck and followed Lincoln up the back stairs that led to the offices where he and five of Colton’s siblings ran the store. Colton kept his head down as he walked past Hunter’s office and knocked on his dad’s door.
“Hey,” Lincoln said with obvious pleasure. His father was always happy to see him, which was one of the many things in life Colton could count on. “This is a nice surprise. Come in.”
Colton shook his father’s outstretched hand and took a seat in one of his visitor chairs.
“To what do I owe the honor of a rare midweek visit from the mountain man?”
“I needed a couple of things in town, so I figured I’d stop by.”
“Everything okay up the hill?”
“It’s all good. Quiet and relaxing this time of year, as always.” Colton thought of early summer as the calm that followed the storm of boiling season, during which he produced more than five thousand gallons of the maple syrup that was sold in the store. After nine years of running the family’s sugaring facility, his life had fallen into a predictable pattern governed by twenty-five thousand syrup-producing trees.
“I’m glad you stopped by. I was going to come up to see you today or tomorrow.”
“How come?”
Lincoln rooted around on his desk, looking for something in the piles of paper and file folders. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled out a light blue page and handed it over to Colton.
As he scanned the announcement of a trade show in New York City, he skimmed the details until he realized what he was reading. “What the hell, Dad? Pleasure aids and sensual devices? What’s that got to do with me?” He nearly had a heart attack at the thought of his father thinking he needed such things to move the relationship no one was supposed to know about forward.
“I’m considering the line for the store, and I’m looking for someone to send to the show. Since this is your off-season, I thought you might be able to make the trip for us.”
While trying to wrap his mind around the idea of “pleasure aids and sensual devices” on sale at their homespun country store, he tried to keep his expression neutral. Though he was slightly appalled at the reason for the mission, the location appealed to him very much.
In the interest of keeping his big secret a secret, he kept his reaction casual and indifferent. “What do the others have to say about that product line?”
“I haven’t exactly mentioned it to them yet. I figured I’d let you check it out first and see what you think before I bring it to them.”
“Why me?”
“Why not you? Everyone else is up to their eyeballs in work and life stuff, so it seemed to make sense to ask you now that your busy season is over for the time being.” Lincoln shrugged. “But if you’re not up for going—”
“Never said that.” He’d be a fool to pass up a chance to spend a whole week with her. “I’ll do it, but with the caveat that I think this product line has no business in our store.”
“So noted.”
“And I think you’re in for yet another battle royal with your kids over it.”
“I live for a good row with my kids,” Lincoln said with a grin that made his blue eyes twinkle with mirth.
“Don’t I know it,” Colton muttered. The latest row had involved the website designer Lincoln had hired behind the backs of his children, who’d made it clear they had no interest in taking their store online. Then Cameron Murphy had come to town and won the hearts of the entire Abbott family, especially Colton’s older brother Will, who was now madly
in love and living with Cam as she designed the website for the store. Lincoln Abbott had a way of getting what he wanted, and Colton and his siblings had learned to be wary of their father’s motivations.
In this case, however, Colton couldn’t care less about his father’s motivations. Not when he was looking at a full week with his lady.
“Talk to Hunter about getting you registered,” Lincoln said, clearly pleased with Colton’s capitulation.
“I will.” Colton folded the flyer into a square, with the images on the inside, and stashed it in his pocket. “Since you now owe me a favor, I was wondering if I could use the lake house this weekend.” When his father gave him an oddly intuitive look, Colton added, “I feel like doing some fishing.”
Lincoln didn’t move or respond for a long, uncomfortable moment.
Colton had begun to sweat under the steely stare his father directed his way.
“Of course, son,” Lincoln finally said, withdrawing a set of keys from his top desk drawer and handing them over. “You remember the code, right?”
Since the code was his parents’ wedding anniversary and had been for as long as they’d owned the house, Colton nodded and stood. “Thanks.”
“Have a good time.”
“I will.”
“Are you taking the dogs with you?”
“I thought I would if that’s okay.”
As Lincoln Abbott was the biggest “dog person” Colton had ever known, he wasn’t surprised when his dad said, “Of course it is.”
Now as Colton drove to the lake with his dogs, Elmer and Sarah, asleep in the backseat, he pondered the odd look his father had given him when he asked to use the lake house and wondered what it had meant. He thought about the bizarre conversation with his older brother Hunter, who’d questioned what in the hell their father wanted with pleasure aids and sensual devices in the store, before he begrudgingly registered Colton for the trade show that would take place in New York in two weeks.
