by Marie Force
Maddie hugged and kissed both kids and followed Mac out of the house. He held open the passenger door to the SUV for her and waited for her to get settled.
“Thanks.” She put on her seat belt without looking at him.
He shut the door and went around to the driver’s side, the frustration of the last difficult ten days boiling inside him as he drove away from the house and headed for town. Suddenly, he couldn’t take the silence for one more minute. He swerved off the road into a parking lot for the bluffs and cut the engine.
“What’re you doing? We’re going to be late.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s your brother’s rehearsal dinner.”
“I know where we’re going. But we’re not going anywhere until we talk about what the hell is wrong.”
“You know what’s wrong, Mac. Do I really have to explain it to you?”
“No, you don’t, but what I don’t get is why there’s this awful distance between us when we both lost something we loved. I can’t stand it, Maddie. It’s killing me.” His voice broke. “I can’t take feeling like you’re blaming me for what happened, or worse, you’re blaming yourself.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Please, talk to me. Please.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, each one of them like knives to his broken heart. He released his seat belt, got out of the car and went around to her side. Opening the passenger door, he reached across her to unfasten her seat belt. With his hands on her face, he forced her to look at him as he brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “Baby, please. I’m begging you. Let me in. I can’t do this without you.”
She broke down into sobs.
Mac put his arms around her. “Let it out, sweetheart.”
“Mac…”
“I’m here. I’m right here, and I love you so much.”
“So sorry.”
“For what, honey? Why are you sorry?”
“The baby…”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. This awful thing, it just happened. Not because of anything you did or didn’t do. It just happened.” He brushed at his own tears with his sleeve. “And it happened to both of us.”
Her arms encircled his waist, and Mac felt like he could breathe again for the first time in a week. “That’s it. Hold on to me.” He buried his face in her fragrant hair, wallowing in the familiar scent of summer flowers. Her brokenhearted sobs killed him. “It’s okay, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
Her hold on him tightened as she continued to cry. He had no idea how long they were there before she pulled back from him. “I’ll ruin your shirt.”
“I don’t care about the shirt. I care about you. I want you back. Please come back to me. I can’t function without you.”
“I… I thought you were mad at me.”
“No, baby. Everyone told me to give you space, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. But I miss you so much. I need you.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you. It was all I could do to keep myself together.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I just want you back, Maddie.”
She looked up at him, her face tearstained and her eyes rimmed with red. “I’ve missed you, too. I’ve missed us.”
“Maddie,” he whispered as he kissed her.
She kissed him back with all the usual enthusiasm.
Mac clung to her. Now that he had her back in his arms, he wanted to keep her there.
“We have somewhere to be,” she reminded him.
“Let’s skip it.”
“We can’t skip it.”
“Yes, we can. I’ll ask Adam to tell them you aren’t feeling well and we’ll see them tomorrow.”
“It’s your brother…”
“He’ll understand. He knew I was upset about things between us.”
“If you’re sure, I wouldn’t mind skipping it so we can spend some time alone together.”
“Let me just send a text to Adam.” Mac sent the text and asked Adam to give their regrets to Grant, Stephanie and his parents.
I’ll take care of it, Adam replied. Take care of your wife.
Thanks. We’ll see you all tomorrow.
“Put your seat belt back on for a minute,” Mac said when he got back in the car.
“Where’re we going?”
“A spot I remember from my former life as a teenager here.” He drove down a dirt road that twisted and turned, leading to a remote ocean overlook, which he backed into. “Come on.”
“Come where?”
“Meet me outside, and I’ll show you.”
Mac got out of the car and went to open the tailgate. He lifted Maddie into the back and then crawled in with her, making use of the beach blanket and towels she kept in the car.
“Why do I feel like you’ve done this before?”
“I’ve never done it with you.”
“Do the police come out here?”
“The chief is our brother-in-law. I think we’re good.”
Maddie laughed. “This is true.”
He traced the shape of her smile with his fingertip. “Nice to hear you laugh.”
“I’ve felt so sad. I’ve never been so sad.”
“Me, too, sweetheart.” When he gathered her close, she laid her arm across his stomach and rested her head on his chest. “I’ve been thinking that maybe we should give him a name. It might help us to remember and honor him.”
“I like that idea. What name should we give him?”
“We’d talked about Malcolm the third for a boy. Do you want to give him that name or do you want to save it in case we have another son?”
“Do you want to try again?”
“Only if you do.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“It’s nothing we have to decide now, but how about we save Malcolm just in case? We also talked about Connor.”
“We never actually decided to have him.” She hesitated before she said, “Connor.”
“No, we didn’t,” Mac said with a chuckle. “And neither of us will ever forget the night he was conceived.”
“Let’s hope Thomas forgets it.”
They shared a laugh that ended on a sob for Maddie.
“I loved that he came from that night,” she said. “I loved him, and despite what I said, I wanted him.”
Blinded by his own tears, Mac said, “I know, honey. I wanted him, too.”
“Connor. His name was Connor.”
“Yes, it was. And we loved him.”
“Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. I never want you to think I don’t. I always do. No matter what.”
While he knew that, he certainly appreciated the reminder after the week they’d had. “Same to you. You’re my whole world, Madeline. As long as everything is okay between us, I can get through anything.”
“We needed this. Thanks for making me talk about it, and I’m sorry if I’ve been locked in my own grief.”
“You could make it up to me by kissing me again.”
Though her eyes were still damp with tears, she smiled up at him and gave him what he wanted and what he needed more than anything.
Chapter 34
For a long time, Grant McCarthy had wondered if this moment would ever come, and now that it was upon him, he was a disaster. He’d never admit to Stephanie, who was gorgeous in a sexy, bronze-colored dress, that he was still hungover from the night before. That was all Dan’s fault, the best man from hell, who’d spared no expense in making sure every man in Grant’s family had far too good of a time at his bachelor party. Even his dad still looked a little peaked nearly twenty-four hours later.
But Stephanie, she was amazing, flitting from table to table in the big room at the Lobster House that his parents had reserved for the evening. There’d been no rehearsal, to speak of. Their wedding would be simple and small, the way they wanted it. All he cared about was making her his wife. He would’ve been
happy to run off and elope, but his mother would’ve killed him, and Stephanie deserved better.
It’d been one hell of a year since they’d gotten together during Tropical Storm Hailey. Back then, he’d been under the misguided impression that he needed to get his old girlfriend Abby back. What a difference a year made. Abby was now happily engaged to his brother Adam, who was absolutely perfect for her. They were perfect together.
With Dan’s help, they’d managed to get Stephanie’s stepfather, Charlie, out of prison. The day Charlie walked out of jail, Stephanie had been set free, too. But the path to happily ever after hadn’t been smooth for them. They’d worked through a lot of painful issues and were well on their way to forever when the sailboat accident happened, and derailed them again.
Nothing had been easy for them, except the love. That had always come easily. Their love for each other was the one thing neither of them had ever questioned. And as she returned to their table and slid onto his lap, Grant wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled the auburn hair she’d let grow longer for the wedding.
She moved to find a more comfortable position on his lap and discovered his predictable reaction to her nearness. Stephanie, being Stephanie, pressed her ass down on his erection, drawing a gasp from him.
“Knock it off,” he growled into her ear. “I don’t get to sleep with you tonight, so don’t start anything you can’t finish.”
“All I did was sit on your lap.”
“That’s all it takes.”
She was still laughing when Big Mac stood up and let out a whistle to get everyone’s attention.
“Oh God,” Evan said. “Who gave him a microphone?”
“I finally managed to wrestle it away from you,” Big Mac said, making everyone laugh at Evan.
“He totally burned you,” Adam said to his brother.
“I apologize for my children and their bad behavior,” Big Mac said.
“We’re used to it by now,” Frank said to more laughter.
“Linda and I want to thank you all for joining us tonight as we prepare to officially welcome the lovely and wonderful dynamo named Stephanie to the McCarthy family tomorrow. Stephanie, from the minute Linda and I met you in Providence the winter before you joined us here, we knew you were a special young woman. In the last year, we’ve come to know just how special you are, and no one was more thrilled than we were to watch Grant come to the same conclusion. We love you like one of our own, and after tomorrow, we get to call you one of our own. To Stephanie.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Grant said, kissing her as his brothers and cousins whooped and hollered.
“He made me cry,” Stephanie said.
“Grant, you’ve always made us proud, and tonight is no different. From the time you were a little kid, you were smart, sophisticated and classy—probably too classy for the likes of us.”
“No doubt,” Grant said dryly, even as he absorbed the emotional wallop of his father’s words.
“We thank you, son, for bringing Stephanie to our family, and we look forward to watching the two of you become a family. We love you both. To Grant and Stephanie!”
“Tomorrow,” Grant whispered in her ear as the others toasted them. “I can’t wait.”
She dazzled him with her smile and the sheer joy he saw in her eyes. Then she kissed him and dazzled him all over again.
* * *
“Why am I all weepy when I just met these people two weeks ago?” Katie asked, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin.
“It’s my uncle,” Shane said. “He does it to all of us.” He put his arm around her and kissed her temple. “How about another glass of wine?”
“I’d love one.”
“Coming right up.” Shane went over to the bar and ordered the wine for her and a Coke for himself. With his stomach still recovering from the bachelor party, he wasn’t drinking tonight.
Ned approached the bar at the same time, looking dapper in a shirt and tie with his normally wild white hair tamed for the occasion. “Got a place for ya right down the street from the Surf if yer still interested.”
“I’m definitely interested.”
“Ya wanna see it in the mornin’?”
“That’d be great.”
Ned gave him the address. “Meet ya there at nine, or is that too early fer ya?”
Shane raised his class of soda for Ned to see. “I can do nine.”
“See ya then.”
“Thanks, Ned.”
“T’aint no big deal.”
Shane returned to the table with their drinks and took his seat next to Katie. She was talking to Owen, who sat on the other side of her. Without interrupting her brother, Katie smiled at Shane and took the wineglass from him. That smile, those eyes… Shane couldn’t get enough of the way she looked at him and smiled at him.
Since his conversation with his uncle earlier in the day, he’d felt calmer and more settled. Kevin had helped him to see his way forward, to understand why he’d been so undone by what Courtney had said to him. He was prepared to speak to Katie about it, but he would wait until after the wedding, as planned.
When the party broke up at eleven, they walked home to the hotel through town. She’d had the stitches removed the day before and had been delighted to be able to wear heels to dinner.
“How’s the foot?” Shane loved the feel of her hand in his and the easy ebb and flow of their conversation.
“So much better than it was, but I’ll be glad to get these shoes off.”
They arrived at the hotel and went upstairs to the third floor.
“Your place or mine?” she asked.
“Either is fine with me.”
“Your bed is bigger.”
“Then my place it is.”
“I’ll meet you there.” She went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek and then went into her room.
Shane continued on to his room, where he pulled off his tie and dress shirt and tossed them aside. Tomorrow was casual. The invitation had specified—no ties. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and stared into the mirror at the face looking back him.
Gone were the brackets of tension that had framed his mouth and the dark circles under his eyes. He’d been through the fire and he’d survived. This week had been nothing more than a minor setback and should be treated as such.
The life he was making for himself on Gansett was the life he wanted. There was no going back to what had come before. There was only looking forward to what was ahead.
Katie’s soft knock ended the introspection. He opened the door, and his mouth fell open in reaction to the vision that stood before him.
“Let me in before Owen comes home and sees me,” she said with a nervous giggle.
Shane stepped back to let her pass him in a cloud of feminine fragrance and silk brushing against his heated skin. “Where did that come from, and let me have a better look.”
“I went shopping at Tiffany’s store.” She turned in a complete circle. “You like?”
“Oh yeah.” The black silk robe clung to every delicious curve. “What do you got going on under that robe?”
“Come find out.”
Madly aroused, Shane went to her and tugged at the belt that held the robe together. It fell open, revealing a short black silk nightgown that molded to her breasts and ended at the tops of her thighs. “Holy shit, that’s hot.”
“I’m glad you like it. Tiffany assured me it would be a showstopper.”
“Tiffany was right.” He placed his hands on her hips, the thin fabric heating beneath his palms. “So you bought this hoping to fry my brain cells?”
“Not exactly,” she said with a low, throaty laugh that made him harder, if that was possible. “But if that’s the result, you won’t hear me complaining.”
“Me either.”
She looped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his.
“I’m digging this sexy siren version of my sweet Katie.”
“Don’t make too muc
h of it. I had to work up the nerve to even put it on and then to come down the hall hoping my brother wouldn’t catch me.”
“We need to get out of this hotel.”
“Yes, we do.”
Shane wanted to tell her about the place Ned had found, but he would look at it first to make sure it suited their needs. Then he’d tell her about that and everything else. “Come to bed with me, Katie.”
“Mmm, yes, please.”
He let her go only long enough to remove his pants and boxers as well as her robe. From the bedside table drawer, he produced a strip of condoms and threw them on the bed.
“Not taking any chances that you’ll fall out of bed again, huh?”
“That’s right.” He held up the covers and encouraged her to get in first and then followed her.
Katie wrapped herself around him, surrounding him in a cocoon of silky fabric and silkier skin.
“God, you feel so good, Katie.”
“So do you. Could I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Is it wrong that this is almost all I think about these days? Being in bed with you?”
His laughter shook his body and hers because she was snuggled up so tightly to him. “If it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.” He ran a hand up her smooth leg and encountered a supple buttock. “Oh Christ, are you wearing a thong?”
“I might be.”
“I gotta see that. Turn over.”
“This is kind of embarrassing.”
“No, it’s hot as hell. Trust me on that.”
She turned onto her belly, folding her arms under her head. She watched him warily as he placed his hands on her calves and smoothed them up her legs, taking the hem of the nightgown with him as he went.
He groaned at the sight of the tiny scrap of black fabric disappearing between her cheeks. Shane bent his head and kissed her there, making her squirm under him. “I love your sexy ass, Katie.”
“God,” she muttered. “I’m about to expire here.”
“We can’t have that.” He reached for a condom and rolled it on quickly before grasping her hips and bringing her up to her knees.
She looked at him over her shoulder. “What’re you doing?”
“Something new. Are you game?”
