Blackout After Dark: Gansett Island Series, Book 23

by Marie Force

  She pulled back so she could see his face. “In case I forget to say thank you for this…”

  He kissed her. “No thanks needed.”

  “Yes, Joe, I do need to thank you for everything you’ve done from the start to make this happen for me. I was thinking downstairs how cool it is that us going to Ohio brought Seamus here, and now he’s married to your mom, and they’re so happy.”

  “That’s right. That never would’ve happened without you going to vet school. We have to look at all the positives.”

  “I’m glad you see him as a positive now.”

  Joe laughed. “It took a while for me to see him as my mother’s partner, but the crazy Irishman has grown on me like nontoxic mold.”

  Janey lost it laughing. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “You told them our plans, right?”

  “Earlier today. They were very happy to hear you’re going back to finish, even if they’ll miss us. They said they’d come visit, too.”

  “I hope so.”

  Joe rubbed her back, which helped her relax and decompress. “As long as we have each other, everything will be okay. I promise.”

  Since that’d been true thus far, Janey decided to take him at his word.

  Chapter 3

  In Providence, Adam McCarthy had been up all night as he tried to think about anything other than the appointment that loomed over them like a dark cloud. Something wasn’t right. Abby was almost to the end of her first trimester, but she looked much further along. From the outset of her high-risk pregnancy, David and Victoria at the Gansett Island clinic had advised them to seek out a specialist on the mainland to be doubly sure everything was okay.

  They’d made an appointment at Women & Infants Hospital, waited weeks for the date to arrive, and in the next hour or two, they’d know more. Except he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  If something was wrong…

  His heart broke at the thought of that. Abby had been through so much before they’d found each other, and even since then, being diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and told she might never conceive. They’d adopted their son, Liam, last winter, but Abby’s pregnancy had been a complete shock to both of them.

  Their baby was a miracle, and he was determined to do whatever it took to make sure she and the baby were all right. Even if that meant moving to Providence for the duration of her pregnancy. They’d do it if they had to.

  They’d hired a young woman named Candice to help run Abby’s Attic at the Surf this summer. Candice had been a godsend so far, and if they had to rely on her to finish out the season at the store, so be it. Whatever it took to get Abby and the baby successfully through this pregnancy.

  A chirp from the portable crib let Adam know eight-month-old Liam was awake. He went to retrieve him and found that Abby already had him up and was changing his diaper.

  “I can do that if you want to sleep for a little while longer,” Adam said.

  “I didn’t sleep at all, so I’m glad to have something to do.”

  “I didn’t sleep either.”

  They worked together to get Liam washed up, dressed and fed.

  “How about some breakfast?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t think I could eat. Maybe after the appointment. But you go ahead.”

  “I sort of feel the same way.”

  They put Liam on the floor in the living room to play with toys while they killed the last hour before it was time to go.

  At the hospital, they were taken directly to the ultrasound department for the first of several appointments and tests that would be conducted before they saw the specialist.

  Adam held Liam as the ultrasound technician moved the wand over Abby’s protruding abdomen. He watched the screen but couldn’t make heads or tails out of what he was seeing.

  The technician moved the wand around, clicking something on the computer. Each click was like a shot to his nerves. What did it all mean? He took comfort in the very strong sound of the baby’s heartbeat. After Mac and Maddie had lost their son Connor in utero, Adam had feared the same silence that had confronted his brother and sister-in-law at a routine ultrasound appointment.

  “Excuse me for one minute,” the tech said as she left the room.

  “What’s happening?” Abby asked, her brown eyes gone wide with fright.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. You heard the heartbeat. That’s what matters.” He said what she needed to hear even as he tried to hide his own panic. He’d seen enough movies and videos to know that nothing good ever came of the tech leaving the room.

  The tech returned five excruciating minutes later with another woman, who introduced herself as a doctor of radiology.

  Adam didn’t catch her name and didn’t care what it was.

  They started the entire process again from the beginning, as Adam and Abby were forced to wait in agonizing silence for someone to tell them what was going on.

  Finally, the doctor looked up at them with an odd expression on her face. “Did you undergo fertility treatment?”

  “No,” Abby said. “Why?”

  “Has anyone mentioned the possibility of multiples to you?”

  “M-multiples?” Abby asked, gazing frantically at the doctor and then at Adam.

  The doctor pointed to the screen. “We’re detecting four heartbeats.”

  Adam’s knees wanted to buckle under him. “Four?”

  Still gesturing toward the screen, the doctor counted. “One, two, three, four.”

  Now that she pointed to each of them, he could see them. Four. Four babies. Quadruplets.

  “I have PCOS. They…” Abby choked on a sob. “They said I couldn’t have babies, and we… This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Well,” the doctor said with a cheerful smile, “there’s no question you’re carrying four babies, which is why you’re showing so early. Sometimes people with PCOS will suddenly drop a bunch of mature eggs. So it can happen. We’ll get the ultrasound to your OB so you can figure out a plan going forward. Congratulations, Mom and Dad—times four.”

  The doctor and tech stepped out of the room, leaving the stunned parents alone.

  “Adam,” Abby said, gasping. “What did she just say?”

  Adam was still trying to process the news himself but forced himself to rally for her sake. “It seems we’re expecting quadruplets.”

  “H-how is that possible? They said we couldn’t.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” Still holding Liam, he leaned in to kiss the tears off her face. “It’s a miracle.”

  “No, Adam, it’s not a miracle! Four babies! What will we do? How will we—”

  He kissed her until she stopped talking. “We’ll figure it out the same way we have everything else. Now let’s get you up and dressed and off to the next appointment so we can ask all our questions.”

  “I can’t remember my own name right now. How am I supposed to ask questions?”

  “Your name is Abigail Callahan McCarthy, and you’re the strongest person I know. Whatever they tell us, we’ll handle it. I don’t want you to worry about anything.” He helped her sit up and steadied her when she seemed like she might topple right off the exam table.

  “I can’t be pregnant with four babies. That doesn’t just happen.”

  He smiled at the adorably confused expression on her face. “Apparently, it does.”

  “You’re not allowed to find this in any way amusing, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, but I just want you to remember there’re a lot of really awful things we could’ve heard today. This doesn’t really count as awful.”

  “Spoken by the one who doesn’t have to turn into a beached whale while having four babies!”

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  She punched him in the gut, making him gasp from the surprisingly hard hit.

  “Ow.”

  “Do not laugh, Adam McCarthy, or I swear to God I might actually stab you for doing this
to me.”

  “How is this my fault? I thought I was your hero for getting you pregnant in the first place when they told us that couldn’t happen.”

  “You were my hero until I found out you’re firing some sort of super sperm.”

  Adam’s smile turned smug. “My boys are rather super.”

  “Still not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny. Come on, you have to admit it.”

  “I have to do no such thing, and if you’re wise, you’ll keep your laughter to yourself. I don’t think it’s funny at all.” She broke down again, her entire body shaking with the force of her emotions. “What is wrong with me? All I wanted was to be pregnant, and now I’m freaking out because it’s not happening the way I thought it would.”

  Adam had to bite his lip not to laugh again. He sat next to her on the exam table and put his arm around her. “You’re freaking out because we just got the most unexpected news we could’ve gotten. But we have to be thankful it was an overabundance of good news and not tragic news.”

  She nodded and wiped her face. “I know. It’s just going to take me a minute to wrap my head around it.”

  “Me, too, sweetheart.”

  “We’re going to have five babies, Adam.”

  “Yes, I heard about that.”

  “Five babies under the age of two, Adam.”

  “I got that memo.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “You still think this is funny.”

  “I figure it’s better to laugh than cry.”

  “How are we going to do this?” she asked in a frantic tone.

  He took her hand and held on tightly. “We’re going to meet with the OB and find out what we need to do to keep you and the football team healthy. Then we’ll figure out a birth plan that has you right here when you have them, and we’ll recruit grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends to help us survive the first couple of months, and we’ll make it work. Somehow.”

  “You’re so rational. How can you be rational at a time like this?”

  “One of us has to be.”

  She elbowed him again. “I can hear you laughing.”

  “I’m not laughing. Not much, anyway.” He brought her closer to him and nuzzled her hair. “It’s really your fault, you know.”

  “I can’t wait to hear how it’s my fault.”

  “You prayed so hard for a baby that you got four of them.”

  “I see what you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work. It’s one hundred percent your fault. Clearly, something is going on with you McCarthy boys knocking up your wives with multiples.”

  Adam puffed out his chest and received another elbow to the gut that promptly deflated him.

  “Let’s get moving to the OB appointment so they can tell me how in the hell I’m supposed to carry four babies.”

  Adam got up and used his free hand to help her down from the table. When she wobbled, he put his arm around her until she was steady. “Just hold on to me, sweet girl. I’ve got you.”

  “It’s a very good thing I love you so much.”

  “It’s a very good thing indeed.”

  Chapter 4

  In Los Angeles, Stephanie McCarthy had been up since four in the morning, sitting in front of a huge window that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Grant’s Malibu house, the one thing he’d held on to from his previous life in LA, was one of her favorite places in the world. But even here, she couldn’t seem to relax. She couldn’t eat or breathe or do anything other than worry about how she would possibly sit through the premiere of the film he’d been working on for the better part of two years.

  He’d written her story. Hers and Charlie’s, and from all accounts, he’d done a masterful job of bringing their story to life on-screen.

  But after having spent fourteen years desperately trying to free her beloved stepfather from prison, she and Charlie were now so far removed from that nightmare that it almost seemed as if it had happened to other people.

  Almost…

  Some scars couldn’t be ignored no matter how well the wound had healed.

  She rested a hand over the small bump of her abdomen where her baby was growing bigger by the day, even if she wasn’t showing much yet. Victoria Stevens, the nurse practitioner-midwife on Gansett, had told her that was perfectly normal for someone of her slender build. She was right where she should be, or so Vic said, with her baby due in late December.

  In truth, she never had shaken the feeling that she had no business having a child after being raised by a woman who thought nothing of beating the hell out of her own daughter. Her mother had been both wonderful and monstrous, and Stephanie had grown up navigating her mother’s ever-changing moods.

  Charlie’s arrival on the scene when she was eleven had been the best thing to ever happen to her, until he’d been accused three years later of the abuse her mother had inflicted.

  Stephanie shook off those memories, unwilling to fall into that rabbit hole when her life today bore no resemblance whatsoever to what it had been then. From the minute she’d fallen for Grant McCarthy—which had happened almost the second she met him, if she was being honest—everything had changed for the better. It was only thanks to him and his lawyer friend Dan Torrington that Charlie had been freed and exonerated, and that was the story that would be told in the film Indefatigable, set to debut that night.

  Tears burned her weary eyes. Her beloved husband had worked tirelessly to write and coproduce the film that would share their story with the world. He’d gone all out to do justice to the epic war she’d waged to free Charlie.

  And she couldn’t bear to watch it.

  “Hey.” Grant’s voice startled her from the disturbing thoughts. “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  He sat next to her and turned so he could see her face. “Did you sleep at all?”

  “Not much.” With her head resting against the back of the sofa, she turned to look at him. “Are you excited for tonight?”

  “I guess.”

  “You don’t know for sure?”

  “I’d be more excited if I didn’t sense you melting down about it.”

  “I’m not.”

  He gave her a quelling look that made her feel silly for trying to downplay it. He always saw through to the heart of her. “Talk to me, Steph. Tell me what you’re thinking, and let’s figure it out.”

  Her eyes flooded with tears that infuriated her. She didn’t want to be an emotional disaster area, but past agony resurrected by the film coupled with pregnancy hormones made it impossible for her to combat the overload.

  He gathered her into his warm embrace. “Aw, baby, come on. Don’t cry. You know it kills me when you cry.”

  She rested her head against his bare chest, loving the soft fuzz of chest hair under her cheek and the steady beat of his heart against her ear. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I actually expected this to happen.”

  “Expected what?”

  “That when push came to shove, you wouldn’t want to see the finished product, and that’s totally fine. I understand.”

  “I wish I did. You’ve worked so hard for so long. This is the biggest night of your life, and I need to be there.”

  “This isn’t the biggest night of my life.”

  “Right. You won an Oscar. What am I thinking?”

  His low rumble of laughter had her raising her head to see what was so funny.

  He tipped her chin up, compelling her to look at him. “The biggest night of my life was the night you finally married me and made me the happiest and luckiest guy in the entire world. Nothing I ever do or have ever done would or could top that.”

  She sighed. “You still have a way with words.”

  “I hope so. They’re my bread and butter.”

  “I want you to know how proud I am of you and how hard you’ve worked to tell our story in a way that’s respectful of what we went through.”

  “It was a labor of love so big, it�
��s the one thing I can’t seem to describe in words.” He caressed her face. “I want you to stay home tonight.”

  “I need to be there for you.”

  “You are. You’re there for me every single day. You’re the reason I had this incredible story to tell, a story that’s resurrected my career, which was flagging badly before you came along with your guts and your grit and your determination. You inspired me, and you’re the star of this entire thing, Steph. And while I can’t wait for the rest of the world to know what an amazing woman my wife is, I’ve known that for a long time now. I get that it’s too painful for you to relive the past, even for me, and I’d never put you through something that would hurt you.”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know if it would hurt me, and I’m too scared to find out.”

  “You’re not scared. You’re protecting yourself from old wounds, and I completely understand that.”

  “Thanks to you and Dan and so many other people, I’ve traveled a million miles from the mess I was when we first met and—”

  Grant kissed her. “You were not a mess. Please don’t say that. You’re the reason this film is called Indefatigable. You refused to give up, no matter how big the mountain was that stood before you. That’s what people will see when they watch this film. They’ll see the same brave, strong, resolute woman I saw when we first met.”

  “That’s not what you saw,” she said with a small smile, desperate for a bit of levity.

  He grinned. “Well, after I got past your sexy body and saucy mouth and how you put me in my place like no one else ever has, I saw the rest of you, and I was in awe. I still am.”

  Deeply moved by his sweet words, she said, “I want to be there for you tonight.”

  “Let’s do this… I’ll go to the premiere by myself and send a car to pick you up for the after-party. That way, you can achieve your most pressing goal, which is meeting Flynn Godfrey and Hayden Roth.”

  Stephanie smiled. “Do you think we’ll ever hear the end of Dan talking about Flynn playing him?”

  Laughing, Grant said, “Never. I’ll be hearing about that for the rest of my life.”