McCarthys [10] Meant for Love

by Marie Force

  Meant for Love

  The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 10

  By: Marie Force

  Published by HTJB, Inc.

  Copyright 2013. HTJB, Inc.

  Cover by Kristina Brinton

  ISBN: 9780985034191

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at marie@marieforce.com.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  marieforce.com

  The McCarthys of Gansett Island Series

  McCarthys of Gansett Island Boxed Set

  Book 1Maid for Love:

  Book 2: Fool for Love

  Book 3: Ready for Love

  Book 4: Falling for Love

  Book 5: Hoping for Love

  Book 6: Season for Love

  Book 7: Longing for Love

  Book 8: Waiting for Love

  Book 9: Time for Love

  Book 10: Meant for Love

  Author’s Note

  Welcome back to Gansett Island for Book 10 in the McCarthys of Gansett Island Series! A reader recently asked me if I’d ever imagined the series going to ten books when I first wrote Maid for Love. Absolutely not, I replied. I don’t plan that far ahead on anything, so it’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to anyone that the McCarthys are still going strong at ten books. It’s all thanks to you, the lovely readers, who write to me every day to tell me how much you love the island and its people. And because of you, I hope to continue writing the series for a long time to come.

  I have a confession to make. This one might be my favorite one yet. We’ve waited a long time for Jenny to get her story, and I’m completely in love with Alex Martinez, who turned out to be Jenny’s perfect match—even if it doesn’t seem that way in the beginning! He’s a little rough, a little coarse, a little gruff and a whole lot of sexy, and I adored writing both of them. I hope you enjoy Jenny’s long-awaited second chance at love.

  You’ll also see more of Grace and Evan in this story as well as series favorites Seamus and Carolina and Dan and Kara. Of course Mac and Maddie are back, too, because it wouldn’t be a Gansett book without them! If you’re having trouble keeping up with the Gansett Island cast, click on Who’s Who on Gansett Island in your table of contents for a refresher.

  Next up is a special edition we’re calling Gansett After Dark, which will feature Laura and Owen’s wedding along with some catch-up stories for each of our past couples as well as a few new ones. You’ll meet some other members of the extended McCarthy family as well as the Lawry siblings. I’m looking forward to writing that one!

  Special thanks to team HTJB: Julie Cupp, Lisa Cafferty, Holly Sullivan, Isabel Sullivan and Nikki Colquhoun, as well as my faithful beta readers Ronlyn Howe, Kara Conrad and Anne Woodall. Thank you also to my editor, Linda Ingmanson, proofreader Joyce Lamb and cover designer extraordinaire Kristina Brinton. I so appreciate everything all of you do to help me produce my books! Thanks to Sarah Spate Morrison, Family Nurse Practitioner, who is always willing to answer a medical question. Dan, Emily and Jake put up with me when I’m writing, and Brandy and Louie keep me company and provide snuggles on demand.

  My eternal gratitude goes to my amazing readers, who are so incredibly generous in their support of my books. You make my world go round, and I’m thankful for you every day. At the end of this book, watch for the very first sneak peek at All You Need Is Love, Green Mountain Series Book 1, out on February 4, 2014. Enjoy!

  xoxo

  Marie

  Chapter 1

  The dream was always the same, the last perfect moment before life as Jenny Wilks knew it ended forever. She and her fiancé, Toby, in their cozy New York City apartment, enjoying breakfast, the morning paper, the news on TV, talking about everything and nothing. He’d asked about their dinner plans, and she’d reminded him her parents were coming the next day, so they needed to clean their apartment.

  He’d groaned in protest, and she’d laughed at him, as she always did. She was a neat freak, and he was a certified slob. She loved him anyway, even when she had to pick up after him. Every time she had the dream, she tried to recall those final minutes, wanting desperately to know what they’d said to each other.

  It was the one thing she couldn’t remember, and the one thing she needed to know.

  Toby got up to leave for work in Lower Manhattan, leaning in to kiss her the way he did every morning. He looked gorgeous and successful in the suit that had been cut just for him, as he rubbed his freshly shaven cheek against hers. “I’ll—”

  A roar of noise startled her out of a sound sleep, setting off a panic deep inside where the lingering trauma still resided. An engine, close by… In a cold sweat despite the oppressive heat, she launched out of bed and ran for the window to find a shirtless man standing on the back of the biggest lawn mower she’d ever seen. At—she glanced at the clock on her bedside table—5:45 a.m.! Was he serious?

  Next to the clock was a framed picture of Toby that brought back the dream in startling, vibrant detail that made her eyes swim with tears and sparked fury that had her running for the lighthouse’s spiral staircase. Down she went to the first floor and then one more level below to the mudroom and out into the pearly predawn, where the air was thick with heat and humidity.

  She burst into the yard, screaming as she went, “Hey! Hello! Do you know what time it is?”

  The dark-haired man wore a bulky headset over his ears and couldn’t possibly hear her over the roar of that…thing…he was driving. It was massive—and very, very loud. His skin glistened with sweat as day three of the heat wave from hell began on Gansett Island.

  Jenny looked around for something, anything she could use to get his attention and zeroed in on the bumper crop of tomatoes that had begun to ripen on the vines she’d planted earlier in the summer. Without giving a single thought to what she was about to do, she grabbed a handful of pulpy tomatoes and began flinging them at the man’s bare back.

  The first two went wide, missing the target, but the third one hit him square between the shoulder blades, splattering on contact. Excellent.

  Recoiling from the direct hit, he cut the engine on the beast, threw off the headset and jumped from the platform, spinning to face her. “What was that?” Looking around, he noticed the remnants of the first two tomatoes on the ground next to him. “Are you throwing tomatoes at me? What the hell?”

  “I could ask you the same thing! Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “Ah…five something?”

  Despite her rage, she couldn’t help but notice a muscular chest and belly, dark chest hair, tanned skin and khaki shorts that hung from narrow hips. He wore work boots with dark socks that peeked out the top of them. “Five forty-five. In the morning!”

  “Thanks for clarifying. Do you mind leaving me alone? I’ve got a long day ahead of me, and you’re the one who complained to the town that we hadn’t been out to cut the grass. Well, we’re here to cut the grass.”

  “Not at five forty-five in the morning you’re not.”

  “Ah, yeah, I am.”

  She took a step closer to him. “No, you’re not.”

  He took a step in her direction. “Yes, I am.”

  The fourth tomato in her hand went sailing toward his head.

  He
ducked at the last second, avoiding a direct hit. “Are you completely insane?”

  As he looked her up and down under the cover of sunglasses, Jenny realized she was wearing next to nothing as she faced off with the angry lawn guy. The lighthouse didn’t have air-conditioning, and the heat had been unbearable, thus the short nightgown she’d worn over tiny panties. She crossed her arms over her unrestrained breasts.

  “Look, lady, I’m sorry if I woke you up, but I need to get back to work if I’m going to keep this already screwed-up day on schedule.”

  “You’re not turning that…thing back on at six o’clock in the morning! I thought I was being attacked or something.”

  “Right. Attacked. On Gansett Island, where it’s so unsafe.”

  Jenny knew what it was like to be attacked in a place where she’d always felt safe, a thought that brought back the images from the dream, reminding her of what she’d missed out on thanks to the roar of his lawn mower.

  Who knew when or if she’d have the dream again? It had been more than a year since the last time Toby had “visited” her slumber. “You never know when a safe place can become unsafe.” As she uttered the words, her chin quivered and her eyes swam with tears.

  “Oh my God. You’re not going to cry!” He tipped his head for a closer look at her. “Are you?”

  “No, I’m not going to cry.” She really had no intention of crying, but having that particular dream threw her out of sorts for days every time it happened. Being blasted out of a sound sleep on top of it was a recipe for emotional overload.

  “Good.” He ran his fingers through straight, silky, dark hair, a gesture that made his muscles tighten and bulge, not that she was looking or anything, and then he lifted his sunglasses to swipe at the sweat on his face, revealing dark brown eyes. She couldn’t help but notice how exhausted he looked. “Listen, I’m sorry I woke you up,” he said in a more conciliatory tone. “I wasn’t thinking about someone actually living here. I need to get this done while I can. Since you’re already awake, would you mind if I got back to it?”

  The exhaustion that radiated from him had her softening, too. Slightly. “And you won’t show up here again at this hour?”

  “I won’t show up here again at this hour.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.” He treated himself to another good look at her barely covered body before he stalked back to his Sherman tank of a lawn mower and fired up the beast.

  Damn, that thing was loud! Jenny covered her ears and headed into the lighthouse, kicking the door shut behind her because that made her feel like she’d gotten the last word on the matter. She went up the spiral stairs to the kitchen and poured a glass of ice water that she ran over her face, hoping to cool her fevered skin. This heat was unbelievable and heading into another day with no end in sight.

  Trying to ignore the impossible-to-ignore sound of the mower, she took the ice water with her when she went up another level to her bedroom and stretched out on the bed. She turned on her side so she could see the photo of Toby and stared at his boyish grin, wishing she could go back to sleep and return to the dream, back to the last minute in time when everything was still right in her world.

  What had he said to her before he walked out of their Greenwich Village apartment into a crystal-clear September day and disappeared off the face of the earth? If only she could remember. At times over the last dozen years, she’d considered hypnosis to jog her memory, but she’d never taken it that far. The dream did this to her every time. It made her start to wonder again, which tended to set her back a few steps in the never-ending cycle of grief.

  It was less raw and gritty now than it had once been, but it was always with her, as much a part of who she was as the dark blonde hair that refused to grow past her shoulders or the tiny mole next to her upper lip or the brown eyes that were too close together, in her opinion. Toby used to laugh at her inventory of “flaws.” He said she was the most beautiful creature on the planet, and he was the luckiest guy in the universe because she loved him. How exactly did one “move on” after experiencing the all-consuming love of a man like that?

  She’d been trying to move on lately, accepting dates with guys her well-meaning friends had fixed her up with. So far she’d been out to dinner with the very nice—and very tall—Gansett Island fire chief, Mason Johns. They’d had a good time together, but there’d been no real spark. She almost hoped he didn’t call her for another date so she wouldn’t have to turn him down.

  Linc Mercier, the Coast Guard officer who ran the local station, had called to ask her to dinner tomorrow night, and she’d accepted his kind invitation. She’d met Linc a few times through her friends Mac and Maddie McCarthy and newlyweds Tiffany and Blaine Taylor. Linc seemed like a nice enough guy, and he was certainly handsome, but again, she didn’t look at him and think, wow, the way she had the first time she met Toby at Wharton when they’d been MBA students together.

  Maybe she’d never feel that particular emotion again. Maybe she should accept that she’d been lucky to feel it once, which was far more than some people ever got. She stared at the photo of Toby and thought of the phone call he’d made after the plane hit the South Tower. He’d said he was so sorry to do this to her and that he wanted her to be happy, that her happiness was the most important thing to him.

  She blew out a deep breath, mad at herself for wallowing in the past as she had far too often in the last twelve years. Toby was gone. He wasn’t coming back. She’d accepted that a long time ago. Now it was time to get busy seeing to what he’d most wanted for the rest of her life—true happiness. It was out there somewhere, and she was determined to find it, if for no other reason than she owed it to him.

  ***

  If Alex Martinez was looking for further proof of how totally his life had gone to shit, Exhibit A could be the sticky remnants of flying tomatoes drying on his back in the sizzling heat. He’d have full-blown spaghetti sauce ready to eat by the time he finished cutting the grass.

  As he rode the biggest mower they owned over the acres of land that surrounded the Southeast Light, the sun beat down on him relentlessly. He guzzled the last of the water he’d brought with him. The scorching heat wasn’t doing much for his already surly disposition. He’d gone from cultivating new breeds of orchids and other exotic plants at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, to cutting grass on Gansett Island, regressing to his former life as a sixteen-year-old.

  He’d left the respect of his colleagues, along with his ascending career in horticultural sciences, to come home to help his older brother, Paul, run their family business on Gansett and manage their mother’s rapid plunge into dementia. A year ago, she’d been running the business their father started on the island more than four decades earlier. Now he and his brother were doing their best to keep the business afloat while dealing with their mother’s illness, too.

  At times Alex felt like his head was going to explode from thinking too much about the staggering array of demands on his time as well as the overwhelming challenge of trying to care for their mother within the confines of the small island they called home. If they’d lived on the mainland, he and Paul would’ve investigated long-term residential facilities by now, especially after their mom strolled out the front door of their home recently and walked miles into town on bare feet.

  That incident had scared the hell out of both brothers and brought home the very real need for more qualified medical care than they could provide, even with the amazing support of Dr. David Lawrence, the island’s doctor.

  If one good thing had come from the tomato-chucking incident, he’d discovered that he was, in fact, still a man who could be moved by a sexy woman, even when she was spitting nails and hurling tomatoes at him. That was one hot lighthouse keeper, he thought, remembering the way she’d looked in the baby-doll nightie that barely covered all her most important assets. Too bad she was so unfriendly. He might’ve been interested in getting to know her better—as if he had time for such fr
ivolous pursuits. Who was he kidding?

  God, he was overheating, and he was only halfway done with this massive lawn. Thinking about the way she’d looked in that barely there nightgown wasn’t doing much for his temperature. Filled with frustration and unable to remember the last time he’d had sex because it had been so long ago, Alex shut off the mower and crossed the wide expanse of lawn he’d already cut to the lighthouse, where a hose lay coiled next to the lighthouse.

  He turned on the water, let it run until it went cold and then stood under the spray until he began to cool off. While he knew he should get back to work, he stood there for a few extra minutes, relishing the refreshing shower. So little about his life was enjoyable these days that he had to take pleasure where he could find it, and this cold shower was feeling pretty damned good.

  Alex pushed wet hair back from his face and startled when he saw the lighthouse keeper watching him take a shower under her hose. She’d put on a skimpy tank top and short-shorts that did awesome things for her legs. She was staring at him as if she’d never before seen a half-naked guy take a shower under a hose.

  He expected her to chew him out for helping himself to her water, but then she licked her lips and something in him snapped. He dropped the hose, and his stride ate up the space between them until he was standing right in front of her.

  Big brown eyes widened with surprise, but she held her ground as she gazed up at him.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “Not a damned thing. What’re you looking at?”

  He zeroed in on her lips, which were moist and very appealing. The entire package was very appealing. Well, except for the tomato incident. But he wasn’t thinking about tomatoes just then. Strawberries came to mind as he stared at her ripe lips and wondered if they’d taste as sweet as they looked. “Nothing.” Alex took another step that put him right in front of her.

  Her lips parted with surprise as she looked up at him, probably trying to gauge his intentions. And what were his intentions, exactly? Damned if he knew.