by Marie Force
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.”
“I’m happy to deny her that. So, how do you feel about running away with me today?”
“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.”
“What am I supposed to say when you throw that out there like a live grenade?”
“How about yes?”
“You didn’t ask me a yes-or-no question.”
“Pardon the error.” He fell gracelessly to his knees before her, grimacing at the flash of pain that radiated through ribs that refused to fucking heal. “Kara Ballard, center of my universe, love of my life, future mother of my children, will you do me the humongous and probably undeserved honor of being my wife?”
Once again she stared at him with the flabbergasted look on her face that only made him love her more, if that was possible. “That was a yes-or-no question, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed.”
“And? Are you planning to make me suffer?”
Apparently she wasn’t, because she dropped to her knees in front of him, wrapped her arms around him and held him. “Yes. But—”
He had no interest in any buts, so he kissed the words right off her sweet lips.
Kara, being Kara, turned away from the kiss, determined to be heard despite his intense desire to avoid anything that sounded like a qualification of her acceptance. “Tell me you’re not asking me because of Kelly and Matt showing up here.”
“That’s not why I’m asking you.”
“The timing is a bit curious.”
“Perhaps, but that’s not why.”
“Then why?”
“Um, other than the fact that I love you to the point of madness, and the thought of you leaving me gives me nightmares?”
“Other than that.”
Damn, she was a worthy adversary for a man who prided himself on out-arguing just about anyone. “My mom laid into me about when I planned to marry you.”
“I knew it!”
“There’s only one other woman who scares me more than my mom does.”
“Who is she?”
“You, stupid,” he said, kissing her nose and then her lips. “It scares the hell out of me when I consider all the many ways I’m capable of messing up the best thing to ever happen to me. It’s in my best interests to get a ring on your finger before you wise up and figure me out.”
“I’ve got you figured out, Torrington, and you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“I’ll get you a ring, as soon as we can get to the mainland. You can pick any ring you want. Sky’s the limit.”
“I don’t need the sky when I’ve already got the sun and the moon.”
Didn’t she know exactly how to stop his heart? “You know what the best day of my life was?” he asked.
“The day you met me?”
“That was second best. You know what the first one was?”
“The day I let you sleep with me?”
“That’s tied for second.”
“Second?”
“Stay with me here, and remember my propensity for messing things up. The very best day of my entire life was the day I caught my fiancée in bed with my best man.”
Kara’s brows furrowed with confusion. “That was the best day of your life?”
“It certainly was. If that hadn’t happened, I might’ve married the wrong woman, and that would’ve ruined my life, because I never would’ve met you on the second-best day of my life.”
“Your logic needs some work, Counselor, but your point is well taken. I guess the best day of my life was the day I found out that Kelly and Matt had been fooling around behind my back, because it sent me out here, where I found you—or where you found me and drove me crazy until I had mercy on you and went out with you.”
“Is that the story our grandchildren are going to hear?”
“Is there any other version of that story?”
“I guess there isn’t. Luckily, my persistence is as legendary as my argumentativeness.”
“How lucky for me.”
“So if your sister and her husband did you a favor by stabbing you in the back, maybe we should return to the dock so you can introduce them to your extremely handsome and very, very successful—as well as famous, did I mention I’m famous?—fiancé, and you can have the last laugh.”
Kara’s silent laughter filled him with unreasonable joy. “You are so freaking full of yourself.”
“Is anything I said a lie? Am I handsome?”
“You’re not ugly.”
“Am I successful?”
“You’re not a total loser.”
“Am I famous?”
“In your own mind, for sure.”
He cupped her bottom and pulled her in tight against him. “Let’s go face them and show them they’ve got no power over you anymore.”
“Yes, let’s do that, but not until she’s had a few hours to broil in the hot sun.”
“What about the baby?”
“She’ll keep him in the shade with Matt while she paces the dock waiting for me to return after someone tells her we’re out on the boat. If I know Kelly, she won’t be satisfied until she gets her moment of drama.”
“What do you propose we do in the meantime?”
She gave him a gentle nudge toward the pads he’d put on the floor of the boat. “Lie down.”
Intrigued by the sexy glimmer in her eye, he did as he was told. Never let it be said that he couldn’t be trained.
Still kneeling, Kara took her shirt off and then her shorts before she stretched out next to him, wearing only her bra and panties. “We’re going to celebrate our engagement.”
He turned on his side to face her and put his arm around her. “That’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”
Chapter 15
Still processing the phone call he’d received right before leaving the studio, Evan turned the motorcycle into the pharmacy parking lot at one o’clock as planned. He stashed the bike under the stairs and sat to wait for Grace.
Running his fingers through his hair, Evan tried to stop his mind from repeatedly racing through the conversation he’d had with Buddy Longstreet. The king of country music had called him to celebrate the freeing of his album from the Starlight Records bankruptcy proceedings. Buddy had plans for him—big plans that were in sharp conflict with the plans Evan had been making for himself lately.
After the tremendous amount of time
and attention he’d poured into the studio—not to mention the huge investment Ned Saunders had made to get the place off the ground—how in the world would Evan walk away from that to pursue the performing and recording career he’d once thought he wanted?
And then he thought of Josh Harrelson, the sound engineer he’d wooed to Gansett and Island Breeze Records with the promise of a steady paycheck. Didn’t he owe it to Josh to follow through on the plans they’d made?
Finally, he thought of Grace and their amazing life together, which would be totally turned upside down if he went out on tour for God only knew how long. To hear Buddy talk, he’d be on tour for the rest of his natural life if things went according to the grand plan. And things mostly went according to Buddy’s plans. He was a star maker. There was no denying that.
At one time, not all that long ago, Evan had wanted the kind of stardom Buddy had promised him today. He wanted the big time, and nothing else would do. But now he knew a different kind of life, a simpler life that suited him far more than life as a performer ever had.
Never once, in all the gigs he’d played on Gansett Island with Owen and on his own, had Evan ever experienced the crippling stage fright that plagued him at almost every other venue he’d played. The stage fright was one of the reasons he’d been secretly relieved to hear that his record had been taken down by Starlight’s bankruptcy.
That news had forced him to go in a different direction, and that direction had been far more satisfying than anything else ever had. Buddy had put up a lot of money to bail him out of the bankruptcy. Evan didn’t know just how much, but his manager, Jack, had inferred it was no small amount. So Buddy would be looking for some return on that investment, which would require months on the road promoting the album Evan had worked so hard on.
Recording the album now seemed like it’d happened in another lifetime. That was how far removed he was from the years he’d spent in Nashville chasing the dream, only to watch it all go to shit when his record company went bankrupt. He’d had reason to think in the last year that the bankruptcy was actually the luckiest thing that had happened to him in show business.
