Trouble After Dark: Gansett Island Series, Book 21

by Force, Marie

  Erin and her parents reached the spot where Slim stood waiting for her. Mary Beth and Tom kissed Erin and hugged Slim. It meant so much to her that they adored him. Although, how could they not? He was perfect for her, and they’d seen that even before she’d been willing to admit it to herself.

  She handed her bouquet to Jenny and took the hands her groom extended to her.

  He kissed her cheek. “You’re simply breathtaking.”

  “Likewise.”

  They shared a warm, loving smile that filled her with elation. She’d gone years without experiencing a fraction of what he made her feel simply by existing.

  Frank welcomed them and their guests and led them through the traditional recitation of vows before turning to Slim, giving him the floor.

  They’d debated about whether they wanted to write their own vows. Slim had insisted on it. “I have things I need to tell you,” he’d said.

  Now that the moment was upon them, he gazed down at her with his heart in his eyes and a smile on his face. “I’ll never forget the night I picked you up by the side of the road.”

  “Slim!”

  He laughed, as he did every time he said it that way. “My beautiful bride will want me to clarify that she’d sprained her ankle, and I was the lucky one who found her, along with her bike, which had a flat tire. I picked up her and the bike, drove her home and stayed with her that night so she wouldn’t be alone. I’ve wanted to be wherever she is ever since.”

  He took a pause to wipe away the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

  “My beautiful, sweet, brave Erin, I admire you more than anyone I’ve ever known. You’ve survived things that would’ve ruined a lesser person. I never had the chance to know your beloved Toby, but I have no doubt that you’ve made him so proud with your fortitude, your resilience and your grace.”

  Oh Lord. He’s bringing the big guns.

  After he’d wiped away more tears, Slim cupped her cheek. “I promise to never use semicolons and to overuse exclamation marks every chance I get. I promise to never use the word moist unless I absolutely have to. I promise to occasionally eat a veggie pizza, even though that goes against everything I believe in as a carnivore, and I promise to keep you in Thin Mints year-round.”

  Erin laughed even as more tears filled her eyes as she recalled discussing their likes and dislikes for the first time.

  Slim wiped away her tears. “More than anything, I promise to love you forever.”

  Judge McCarthy turned to her. “Erin?”

  “How am I supposed to follow that?”

  Everyone laughed, including her beloved.

  “You did good.”

  His broad smile lit up the kind eyes that looked at her with so much love.

  “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, Tobias Fitzgerald Jackson Junior. For the rest of my life, I’ll never forget the night you told me your real name. The realization that my Toby had sent a new Toby to me is something that’s meant so much to me, especially because I know, without a doubt, that he would’ve loved you as much as I do. He once told me that I was with the wrong man, and oh, how that made me mad. That was the last time I ever saw him, and I left angry with him, even if he’d tried to fix it by telling me someday I’d know what he meant. It wasn’t until I met you that I figured out what he was trying to tell me and that he was right, as always. There was someone better waiting for me, and that someone was you.”

  Now Slim had tears in his eyes as he listened to her.

  “I once told you how I’d been spinning for years by the time I met you, and only after we were together did the spinning finally stop. Before I met you, I would’ve said I was perfectly content with the life I’d figured out for myself after everything went sideways. But I would’ve been so wrong. I was merely existing before I had you and your love and your laughter and the joy you bring to each day. Not only did you get me back in an airplane after fifteen years, but you’ve also taught me how to fly so I won’t be scared. You’ve taught me to fly in so many ways. Thank you for being just what I need and more than I ever allowed myself to dream possible. I love you and our life together more than anything, and as long as you forsake the word moist and semicolons, I can’t wait to spend forever with you.”

  Slim laughed and kissed her, his tears mingling with hers.

  “Not quite yet, folks,” Frank said, making everyone laugh. “Jack, could we have the rings, please?”

  Slim’s brother handed over the rings, which they exchanged.

  “Now I can pronounce you husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, and Slim, you may kiss your bride—again.”

  Slim wrapped his arms around her and kissed her face off. Erin kissed him right back as their guests cheered and whistled and cried right along with them.

  He held her for the longest time, mindless of the guests and the photographer and the party that awaited them. “We did it,” he whispered.

  “Yes, we did.”

  He extended his arm to her.

  She hooked her hand through his arm and stepped with him into their new life as Mr. and Mrs.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading Trouble After Dark! I hope you enjoyed Julia and Deacon’s story as well as Slim and Erin’s long-awaited wedding.

  Keep in touch with all things Gansett Island by LIKING the NEW Gansett Island Facebook page. Join the Trouble After Dark Reader Group to discuss the details of the new book with spoilers allowed.

  My profound thanks to my reader, Nicole, for her insight as the adult survivor of childhood abuse. Julia’s turtle without its shell description came from her. Thank you to my friend Dr. Kate Reynolds, DVM, for her help with rabies information, for sharing some of her personal story with me for this book and for doing an early read of the book.

  Huge thanks to my crack editing team of Linda Ingmanson, Joyce Lamb and Anne Woodall as well as my Gansett Island beta readers: Kelly, Amy, Jennifer, Gwendolyn, Katy, Doreen, Trish, Judy, Leslie, Kelly, Jaime, Melanie, Lynanne, Tammy, Betty, Michelle, Laurie, Andi, Mona, Juliane, Betty and Marianne.

  As always, a big thank you to the amazing team that supports me every day: Julie Cupp, Lisa Cafferty, Holly Sullivan, Nikki Haley and Ashley Lopez, as well as my husband, Dan, and my “kids,” Emily and Jake, who went and became adults on me.

  To all the readers who’ve supported the Gansett Island Series over 21 books, all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. And—there’s much more to come! Turn the page for read an excerpt of book 22, Rescue After Dark, out next summer.

  Xoxo

  Marie

  Rescue After Dark

  Chapter 1

  Summertime, and the living was… not easy for Gansett Island Fire Chief Mason Johns. During the seemingly endless winter, year-round residents on the remote island counted down to the summer season. For Mason, Memorial Day weekend signified the end of peace and the start of insanity.

  His department went from three to five calls a week to five to ten calls per day, and it went on that way for months. Summer on Gansett was an endless cycle of moped crashes, alcohol-related incidents, sun poisoning, falls from the bluffs, near-drownings, bicycle accidents, surfing accidents, unauthorized bonfires and the occasional house fire. At least once a week, they evacuated someone to get trauma treatment on the mainland via a light flight helicopter. On the island, the saying went, If you see the chopper coming, someone is in big trouble.

  The drama never ended during the summer, and while he enjoyed helping people and being part of the Gansett Island community, he found himself craving time away from the madness.

  Mason rarely took a day off until after Labor Day, which meant he had to make the most of the free time he did have to get in a workout. Exercise was critical to keeping the stress of the season under control. As he rode his mountain bike over rugged trails on the island’s north end, he tried not to think about the piles of paperwork he’d left behind or the long night he still had ahead of him as he tried to stay caught up.

>   Two weeks into another summer, and it was living up to its reputation thus far. He’d stolen a rare hour to ride his bike and get away from it all before he returned to the office with a takeout dinner to finish the endless paperwork that went along with the uptick in calls.

  The sun inched closer toward the western horizon, giving him about another hour of daylight before it became unsafe to be riding on the trails, even with the headlight he’d installed on his bike. After dark, he stayed on the road, but he preferred the trails that wound through some of the most scenic real estate on the planet.

  Or at least he thought so. Despite the madness that descended this time of year, he loved this island and all its wild beauty. He wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. When he’d first come to Gansett, he’d feared that island life would be too confining, too limiting, but he’d discovered the opposite to be true. Island residents were masterful at keeping themselves entertained, even in the dead of winter, and he’d come to love everything about living there.

  This was his favorite part of the trail, the top of a hill that always sent him airborne down an embankment that veered off to the left. More than once, he’d nearly ended up in the seagrass that grew along the trail, but he always managed to right the bike at the last second. He laughed out loud at the thrill of flying through the air on the bike and landed hard, still on the trail. But just barely.

  He got his thrills from exercise these days after kicking booze thirteen years ago. A binge-drinking habit from his college days hadn’t aged well, and he’d had the choice of giving up drinking or finding another line of work. Since he’d longed to be a firefighter his entire life, giving up his new job as a probationary firefighter in Providence hadn’t been an option. The department had sent him to thirty days of rehab with the edict to kick it or find another job. So he’d kicked it, which had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, hands down.

  Staying sober had been his primary goal ever since, and fitness had played a huge role in making that happen by giving him a more productive way to spend his time away from work. He pushed himself until he was so exhausted, he would fall into a dreamless sleep when he finally went to bed at the end of every long day.

  Sobriety was a daily challenge. He’d never lost the desire to drink, but he’d learned to control the desire, to channel it into other more productive things. AA meetings helped, and he tried to never miss a day, although that became more difficult this time of year.

  Mason completed one lap around the giant land conversancy Mrs. Chesterfield had deeded to the island upon her death and, after gauging the sun-to-horizon ratio, decided to take a second loop around the four-mile path. As he approached the jump, he sped up, looking for even more height this time, and as he cleared the incline, he noticed a plume of smoke that took his attention off the landing—only for a second, but that was all it took. He landed wrong and flipped over the handlebars, landing hard on his left side several feet from the path.

  The impact knocked the wind out of him for a full minute. He lay on the ground staring up at the sky, watching as daylight began to fade into night and wondering if he was actually hurt or only momentarily stunned.

  And then he remembered the smoke and forced himself to move, to breathe, to shake off the crash. Standing, he glanced in the direction of the smoke and found the plume had doubled in size in the time he’d been flat on his ass. He found his phone in the pocket of his jacket and called dispatch.

  “It’s Mason. There’s a fire on the west side. Dispatch all units. I’m on my bike but heading there now.”

  “Right away, Chief.”

  He ended the call, stashed the phone in his pocket and fished his bike out of the tall grass, groaning when his left elbow protested being used. “Crap.” The last freaking thing he needed right now was an injury, so he gritted his teeth and pretended his elbow wasn’t messed up as he pedaled hard toward the smoke.

  Something was wrong. Jordan Stokes didn’t know what or where or how she knew that something was wrong, just that it was. The sleeping pill she’d taken hours ago had made it so she couldn’t move to do anything about it. Her chest hurt like it had during the first major asthma attack she’d suffered as a child and every one she’d endured since.

  That’d been the first time she’d thought she was going to die, but it hadn’t been the last.

  Don’t think about that night or him…

  She was so tired—mentally, physically, emotionally. She’d taken the pill out of sheer desperation for some much-needed rest. While the pill had made it so she couldn’t move a muscle, her mind was wide awake, as always. With her identical twin sister, Nikki, and Nikki’s fiancé, Riley, off-island for a few days, Jordan was home alone in the house that Nikki and Riley had restored over the winter. Technically, it belonged to their grandmother, but Evelyn had all but given the house to the happy couple.

  Jordan had come to Gansett for the grand opening of The Wayfarer, where her sister was the general manager. After all the years of support Nikki had given to Jordan and her career, such as it was, the least Jordan could do was come to be there for Nik during her big weekend. Two weeks after the grand opening, Jordan hadn’t worked up the initiative to return to her so-called life in Los Angeles.

  Things were a mess, and the last place in the world she wanted to be was in that massive, empty house on the West Coast. So she’d stayed on Gansett, even if she felt out of place in the house that had always felt like home to her and Nik.

  Nikki and Riley were so ridiculously happy that being around them was almost painful for Jordan to watch after the disastrous end to her horrible marriage to Zane. The one-name rock n’ roll wonder had beaten the crap out of her in a hotel room last year and then pleaded with her to forgive him every day since.

  Even after she’d blocked his number, he’d popped up again and again using other people’s phones to plead with her to talk to him, to beg for another chance. She’d read online that he was taking “time away” from the tour to deal with “personal issues” and had checked himself into a facility to contend with substance abuse and mental health concerns.

  Jordan was glad he was getting the help he needed, but wished he would stop contacting her. Each message she received from him further lacerated her already shredded heart. She’d put everything she had into that relationship, and the failure of her marriage weighed heavy on her heart.

  Her chest hurt all the time, but it hurt worse than usual now.

  She wanted to rub her aching breastbone but couldn’t seem to make her arms cooperate with the directive from her brain.

  Something was wrong.

  Alarm flooded her system, reminding her of the panic that came with asthma attacks.

  A piercing noise sounded, adding to her anxiety.

  Jordan struggled to find the surface, to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt like cement weights.

  Pounding footsteps came toward her, a shout that sounded like concern. Then she was flying through the air, more loud noises, a rush of cool air over her face, the press of warm lips to hers, a flood of air to starving lungs. The lips were soft against hers. She tried to get closer, to keep them there, to open her eyes to see the face that belonged to the lips, but her eyelids wouldn’t cooperate.

  Her chest hurt so badly, it was almost all she could feel, except for those lips against hers.

  A panicked shout, more loud noises, the lips were gone, something covered her face, a sharp pain in her arm and then, blissfully, nothing.

  “Is she breathing?” Mason asked Mallory Vaughn, a nurse practitioner who filled in periodically on the rig.

  Mallory held a stethoscope to the stunning young woman’s chest and nodded in response to his question. The woman had long, silky dark hair and exotically beautiful features. Something about her was familiar, though he couldn’t recall having met her. “But her respiration is labored, and her heart rate is through the roof. Let’s get her to the clinic. I’ll call David on the way.”

  Dr. David Law
rence, the island’s only doctor, was always on call.

  “Do we know her?” Mason asked.

  “She’s Nikki Stokes’s sister, Jordan. They’re identical twins.”

  That was why she’d seemed familiar. She looked like Nikki, but he saw subtle differences.

  Mallory moved with precision to stabilize Jordan while Mason’s guys extinguished the blaze that had started in the chimney. “Good thing you saw the smoke. It’s possible she’s having an asthma attack.”

  Adrenaline coursed through Mason’s system, making him feel amped up the way he always did after a rescue.

  Mallory glanced at him and did a double take. “What’d you do to your face?”

  “Huh?”

  She pointed to his left temple.

  He reached up, felt wetness and winced at the flash of pain. “Fell off my bike.”

  “You need to get that looked at.”

  “I’ll come by the clinic after we finish here.”

  “Let’s roll,” Mallory called to the firefighter driving the ambulance.

  They took off with lights flashing and sirens screaming.

  Jordan was in good hands with Mallory and David, so Mason turned his attention to the smoldering remains of Mrs. Hopper’s chimney. Jordan’s sister, Nikki, and her fiancé, Riley McCarthy, had done a ton of work to the house over the winter. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be too much damage from the fire that’d been contained mostly to the chimney.

  He tried to shake off the jitters that followed the rush of running into a burning building and bringing someone out alive. The amped feeling stayed with him as he supervised his firefighters, inspected the damage and tried to pinpoint the source of the fire as his mind raced, trying to process a strange occurrence.

  When he’d put his mouth on hers to blow air into her lungs… The craziest thing had happened. She’d moaned and moved her lips as if to kiss him. That’d certainly never happened before, and it was for damned sure that he’d never felt a current of electricity zip through his body while administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to anyone else.