by Marie Force
Ever since the day they’d spent in freezing-cold water together after a sailboat accident, Dan had felt more like a brother than a friend, and Grant was thrilled to have him around—not that he’d ever tell Dan that. His ego was big enough without that kind of validation.
Dan slid into the booth across from Grant. “Sorry I’m late. My mom called right when I was leaving, and she’s full of questions about me and Kara.” Dan rolled his eyes. “She’s like a dog with a bone.”
“Nice. Comparing your mother to a dog. How did she find out about the ‘bone,’ as you call it?”
“I refuse to refer to the woman I love as ‘the bone.’”
“Why? Does it give you a boner?”
“Jesus. Shut up, will you? I might’ve made the huge mistake of mentioning that I’d met someone here. You should know how mothers of sons in their mid-thirties get hopeful at the first sign of commitment of any kind.”
“So it’s your own fault that she’s planning the wedding.”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“Speaking of weddings, is there going to be one?”
“Not you, too! We’re not talking about weddings or other such foolishness. We’re enjoying our time together. Why isn’t that enough for everyone?”
“Because you’re no longer in your mid-thirties. You’re thirty-six now, which is that side of forty rather than this side of thirty. You ain’t getting any younger.”
Dan picked up the bread knife and ran it over his wrist.
“Not sharp enough,” Grant said. “And I didn’t waste an entire day saving your sorry life so you could end it with a dull butter knife just because your mom wants you to get married.”
“Wasted? I’m hurt.”
“Not anymore you aren’t. So what’s stopping you from popping the question? You know you don’t want to let her get away.”
“What’s stopping you from getting married? Seems to me you popped the question quite some time ago, but I don’t hear any bells ringing in your neighborhood either.”
Grant kept his expression impassive as Dan’s question struck at the heart of his insecurities. Despite frequent attempts on his part, Stephanie had dodged all conversations about setting a date for their wedding. But Grant would never admit that to anyone, so he went with the obvious excuse. “We’re both so busy. We haven’t had time to breathe, let alone plan a wedding. We’re not in any rush.”
“Need I remind you that you’re thirty-six now, too? Just in case you’d forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” That was one of his many concerns. He wanted a family, and he also wasn’t getting any younger. At some point he’d have to sit Stephanie down and force the issue, but he was reluctant to do that during her busy season at the restaurant, when she had more than enough going on. Timing was everything in these matters, so he planned to wait until October, after the season ended, to try to get her to set a date.
After hearing last night that Evan and Grace were getting married in January, he felt a greater sense of urgency to nail down his plans with Stephanie. They’d been engaged longer than Evan and Grace. Shouldn’t they have plans by now? Even after more than a year together, he still worried from time to time that they weren’t as solid as they could be. Part of that went back to her upbringing and her constant fear of the floor falling out from under her without any warning.
That was one reason why he’d proposed when he did. He wanted to assure her that he was in it for keeps, but every time she dodged talk of their wedding, he had reason to wonder if she was in it for keeps, too. The very thought that she might not be was enough to give him heart failure, so he tried not to think about it. Much… Absorbed as he was in writing about her fourteen-year effort to free her beloved stepfather from prison, it was hard not to think about her all the time.
This was especially true in light of the crisis they’d withstood following the sailboat accident, when he’d been so riddled with guilt over his inability to save both Dan and the boat captain, Steve, who’d died.
“What planet did you just visit?” Dan asked.
Jarred from his musings, Grant realized Dan had been talking to him and he hadn’t heard a word. “Sorry. Just thinking about some stuff.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Sure. A lot going on as always. Did you hear the plan the girls have for surprising Blaine and Tiffany with a shower this weekend?”
“I heard some rumblings about that. What I’d like to know is why we have to be part of it. Why can’t we take him out and get him drunk the way men are supposed to?”
“Because as much as we’d like to think otherwise, the girls are in charge, and we do what we’re told.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You’d better get used to it if you’re planning to keep Kara around.”
“I’m planning to keep her around, but she’s not the boss of me.”
Grant howled with laughter. “Keep telling yourself that. Let me know how that works out for you.”
“Are we going to get some work done, or do I have to continue listening to you talk shit?”
“Both.” Grant slid his latest pages across the table to Dan, who handed over his.
“Go easy on me with that red pen of yours, will you?” Dan said.
“My red pen is making this a better book.”
“No doubt, but you’re ruining my self-esteem.”
“Good thing you’ve got plenty to spare. Now shut up and read.” Grant thought he heard Dan utter “fuck off and die” under his breath, but he chose not to engage, because he did want to get some feedback on the latest scenes, and Dan had proved to be an able critique partner. His expertise was more in the storytelling than the writing, while Grant was helping to polish the writing in Dan’s book. It had turned out to be an unlikely yet productive partnership.
Grant was completely absorbed in the story of how Dan and his team of law students had helped to free a man who’d been on death row in California for thirty years. He almost missed it… A conversation taking place in the booth behind him. They were speaking loudly enough to be heard over the din of voices in the diner.
“I don’t care if Kara wants to see me or not,” the woman said. “Connor is her nephew. She can’t refuse to acknowledge him.”
“I’ve gone along with this mission of yours, but I want to reiterate my objections to blindsiding her,” the man said. “She’s not going to be happy to see either one of us.”
“I don’t care if she’s happy to see me. She won’t be rude to us with the baby there.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
Grant reached across the table to nudge Dan with his pen.
Dan grunted in reply.
“Dan.”
“What?”
“Listen. Behind me.”
“This whole thing has gone on long enough,” the woman was saying. “I mean I didn’t steal you from her. What man in his thirties can be stolen from a woman if he doesn’t actually want to go?”
“That’s not how she sees it, and you know it. She had no idea that we’d begun seeing each other when I was still seeing her, too.”
The baby let out a squawk that had both his parents focusing on him for a minute.
“She’ll be happy to meet Connor, even if she wants nothing to do with us. I promised my mother I’d try to fix things with her, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Dan’s eyes got very wide as a look of utter distress overtook his face.
“Don’t come crying to me when the whole thing blows up in your face,” the man said.
“Sometimes I think you still care about her more than you care about me.”
“Honestly, Kelly, which one of you did I marry?”
“Go,” Grant whispered to Dan, who seemed frozen with shock. “Go to her.”
Dan pushed the pages he’d been reading across the table to Grant and was out of the booth like he’d been shot from a cannon. During their long day together in the water, Dan had told Gran
t about Kara’s sister Kelly, who’d married the man Kara had once expected to marry and how hurt Kara had been. Dan had been lucid for probably an hour all day, but he’d talked about Kara the entire time. They’d both been afraid they’d never again see the women they loved.
“Let’s get going,” the woman behind him said. “I want to get this over with.”
As he gathered up the papers Dan had abandoned, Grant could only hope that Dan got to Kara before her sister and brother-in-law could blindside her.
* * *
Dan had never driven so fast on the island’s winding roads, but he’d never been more frantic to get to Kara. Well, except for the day he’d spent fighting for his life in freezing water, thinking he’d totally blown it with her before he left on the ill-fated sailboat trip.
Flashing lights behind him made him groan with impatience and despair as he pulled his Porsche to the side of the road. He gave thanks when he saw his friend Blaine Taylor approach the car.
“In a rush, Counselor?”
“A big rush. I need to get to Kara. It’s a bit of an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“The kind that will hurt her badly unless I can get to her and warn her before it happens.”
Blaine took a step back. “Slow down, all right?”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“Go.”
“I owe you one.” Dan didn’t need to be told twice. He took off toward the McCarthy’s Marina in North Harbor, adhering more closely to the speed limit after his friend cut him a break. As he drove, he thought about the absolute audacity of her sister showing up out of the blue, expecting Kara to forgive and forget because there was now a baby involved.
He felt kind of sorry for baby Connor. It wasn’t his fault his parents were jerks. But Dan would be goddamned if he’d let Kelly and Matt do any further damage to Kara. She’d worked hard enough to overcome the betrayal of two people she’d loved. They weren’t going to get another chance at her. Not if he had anything to say about it.
As he drove, he scrolled through his contacts, looking for the number for Kara’s backup driver, Tim. He and Dan had gone out for beers a few times and had exchanged numbers, for which he was now extremely grateful.
“It’s too early to drink, Torrington,” Tim said when he answered the phone, sounding as if he’d just woken up.
“I need you to relieve Kara.”
“Why? I’m working tonight.”
“It’s urgent. Will you get down to the dock and use the backup boat?”
“What’s wrong with the main boat?”
“Nothing. I’ll explain later. Please. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t urgent.”
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
“I don’t care who asks, you have no idea where Kara is. Got me?”
“Yeah, sure. Is she okay?”
“She will be. I’ll make sure of it. Thanks, Tim.”
“No problem.”
Dan found a parking space on the street that led to the marina and grabbed it, knowing it might be as close as he’d get. He locked the car and took off running, which was still rather painful in the vicinity of his ribs, which had been broken in the accident. The pain was of no consequence, however, when it came to reaching Kara before her sister did.
He flew past the marina restaurant, oblivious to shouts from Grant’s brother Mac, who asked him where the fire was.
Dan took the ramp to the floating dock that housed Kara’s launch. Giving thanks to every god in the universe that she was just pulling in with a boatload of passengers, Dan waited until every one of them had disembarked before he jumped on the boat. As always, his loafers slid precariously on the deck, which made Kara laugh.
“Where the heck did you come from?” she asked, flashing the smile that made him weak in the knees. Her long hair was contained in a ponytail pulled through the back of a Ballard Boat Builders ball cap that protected her fair complexion from the sun.
“Go,” he said, tossing off the stern line.
“What’re you doing? I have customers.”
The bench on the dock where people waited for rides to their boats in the anchorage was empty at the moment.
“Drive the boat. I’ll explain on the way.”
“On the way to where?”
“Anywhere but here. Please. Drive the boat.”
Giving him a puzzled look, she tossed off the spring line and backed the boat out of the slip.
When she turned it toward the Salt Pond, Dan exhaled a deep breath that made his ribs burn like a mother.
“What’s gotten into you?” Kara asked.
He moved to her at the helm, wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her back to rest against him, his head dropping to her shoulder.
“You’re kind of freaking me out.”
Since there was no easy way to say what he needed to tell her, he went with quick and dirty. “Kelly and Matt are here with the baby.”
Her entire body went rigid with shock. “What? How do you know?”
“Grant and I were in the diner for our weekly meeting, and we heard them talking about you and how they’d come to clear the air and to introduce you to the baby.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I was. Their plan was to force you to deal with them by showing up with the baby.”
Because he was holding her so close to him, he felt her begin to tremble, which enraged him. Hadn’t they gotten enough from her already? “I called Tim. He’s coming in to drive the other boat.”
“Wait… You called Tim?”
“If they can’t find you, they can’t force you to do anything.”
“We can’t stay out here all day.”
“I don’t have anything else to do. Do you?”
“You do have other things—such as a book that’s due after Labor Day and is still not finished.”
“I’ll get it done. This is far more important.”
“What about food?”
“I’ll call Mario and have him deliver to us in the pond.”
“He only does that at nine, noon and six. We missed the noon run.”
“If I pay him enough, he’ll do it.”
“So we’re really going to hide out for the day?”
“Either that or we can go back to the dock and let Kelly try to blindside you.”
“Won’t I have to face her eventually?”
“Possibly, but this way you give her a very long and miserable day of waiting for you in the broiling sun with a newborn and a reluctant husband along for the ride.”
“Why do you say he’s reluctant?”
“Because I heard him tell her he thought it was a bad idea to show up unannounced and force you to deal with them.”
“I’m glad for Connor’s sake that one of them has a bit of sense left.” Clearing the anchorage, Kara slowed the boat, shifted into neutral and turned to him, sliding her arms around his neck. “My hero.”
“Hardly.”
“Did you or did you not come running, with broken ribs that aren’t entirely healed, when you heard what my sister planned to do? And did you or did you not have the foresight to call in another driver so I could actually run away for the day?”
“I might’ve done those things.”
“Then you’re absolutely my hero.”
“I absolutely love you, and I couldn’t let them do that to you. When I think about how they might’ve succeeded if Grant and I hadn’t heard them…”
“Well, they didn’t, and it’s all thanks to you.”
“And Grant. He heard them first.”
“How did he know about them?”
“That day in the water. I told him what you’d been through. He was as mad about it as I am. He heard Kelly say your name and some other stuff, so he knew they were talking about you.”
“You’re both my heroes. Thank you so much for coming running. I would’ve hated to give her that moment of my utter shock at seeing them.”
“There’s nothing else I’d rather do. Where should we go?”
Dan took a good look around and pointed to a free mooring. “Let’s grab that and hang here for a while and see if we can entertain ourselves.”
Kara directed the launch toward the mooring and pulled up next to it, picking up the stick attached to the rope that she looped around a cleat on the bow. Turning back, she found him removing the pads from the bench seats and tossing them onto the floor of the open launch.
“You got any extra sunscreen?”
“Do I have sunscreen? I bathe in it hourly.” She tossed him a can and watched him remove his shirt and kick off the ridiculous loafers he insisted on wearing in the heat of summer.
He covered his chest, belly and arms in sunscreen, wincing as he ran his hand over his ribs, which were still colored by yellowing bruises.
“Let me do your back.”
“Only if I can do yours.”
“I have a shirt on.”
“You won’t for long.”
“Oh, so it’s going to be that kind of field trip, is it?”
“Of course it is. Have you met me?”
“My delicates can’t handle this sun.”
“I’ll keep you covered so the sun won’t find your delicates.”
She raised her hands to his face and brought him down for a kiss that blew the top off his head.
He dropped the can of sunscreen and wrapped an arm around her.
“I love you, too,” she said. “Thank you so much for this.”
“While my approval ratings are at an all-time high, I’ve got something I need to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“When are you going to marry me?” The words were out of his mouth before his brain had time to catch up. But when his brain joined the party, he discovered he had absolutely no regrets about blurting out a somewhat major question without having given it his usual deliberation. Who was he kidding? He’d been deliberating on how to make her a permanent part of his life for as long as he’d known her. “Your mouth is hanging open. Not that I mind that, because it gives me all kinds of ideas, but I was sort of hoping you might say something at this juncture.”
