Chapter 4
Covered in mud and shivering from the chill, Grant and Stephanie made their way to the clinic on foot.
Stephanie had decided he was the most confusing man she’d ever met.
One minute he was pushing her away with his surliness, and the next he was lying beneath her, looking up at her with a dazed expression on his face and a substantial bulge in his pants.
Which version was she supposed to believe? The Grant who made it clear he still wanted his ex-girlfriend, or the Grant who’d made passionate love with her the night before and clearly wanted to again, if the erection pressing against her in the mud puddle had been any indication.
Once he’d returned to his senses, he’d disentangled himself from her, helped her up and acted like nothing unusual had happened.
A smart woman would steer clear of him altogether.
His heart was obviously still committed elsewhere, and the last thing she needed was a big complication right now.
She had her plan in place with no desire to deviate from it.
After the summer on the island, she’d be returning to Providence and getting back to work on the most important thing in her life.
Nowhere in that plan was there room for the kind of trouble Grant McCarthy could bring.
Stealing a fleeting glance at him, she sure did wish he wasn’t so freaking hot.
With his thick, wavy, jet-black hair, brilliant blue eyes, prominent cheekbones, sensuous lips and a to-die-for muscular frame, Stephanie could stare at him all day and never get tired of the view.
Even covered in mud with wet hair clinging to his scalp, he still maintained that aura of elegance and class that had drawn her in from their first meeting.
Too bad he was such a pain in the ass—and madly in love with someone else.
If she were being honest with herself, she’d admit to being seduced long ago by his amazing words in Song of Solomon, the movie he’d written.
She’d watched him accept the Academy Award for best original screenplay and had been dazzled by his handsome face, self-deprecating wit and touching acceptance speech in which he gave his parents credit for encouraging him to follow his dreams.
Stephanie vividly remembered thinking at the time how lucky he was to have the kind of parents who stood behind their children the way his clearly had.
Imagine her surprise when those same parents showed up one day last winter at the Providence restaurant where she worked and struck up a conversation that led to the job offer to run the restaurant at McCarthy’s Gansett Island Marina for the following summer.
It had been a gamble, of course, to leave the year-round job in the city for five months on Gansett, but the change of scenery had done her good, and the money was fantastic.
She’d made as much in a summer on Gansett as she did in a year in Providence—and she’d been able to live for free at the marina.
However, the uncertainty of what awaited her when she went home in October weighed on her, but she’d figure something out. She always did.
Grant seemed to falter as they reached the clinic parking lot. Stephanie knew the last thing in the world he wanted was to rely on his ex-girlfriend’s new fiancé to stitch him up, but since Dr. Cal was the only game in town—other than Doc Potter, the vet—Grant had little choice.
“Just go in, get the stitches and keep your mouth shut,” Stephanie said.
“What else would I do?”
She sent him a withering look. “Remember when I told you not to get into it with Abby when your father was in the hospital? Did you listen to me then? No. You had to get all hot and bothered with her and show her how ridiculously jealous you are that she’s with someone else now.”
That made him mad, as she’d known it would. She couldn’t say, exactly, why pushing his buttons was so much fun. It just was.
“What the hell would you have me do? Let the love of my life walk away without a fight?”
Stephanie swallowed her own burst of unreasonable jealousy and fought to keep her voice calm and rational. One of them had to be. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you haven’t met the love of your life yet?”
That stopped him in his tracks, and he spun around to face her. As luck would have it, anger only made him more attractive. Life wasn’t fair. “You have a lot of nerve saying that. You don’t even know me.”
He was absolutely right, of course. She told herself to shut up and mind her own business. But before her mouth could get the message from her brain, she was already talking again. “You spent ten years with her, lived with her for what? Five years and never married her. What does that tell you?”
“I don’t need you to tell me I’m an idiot. I already know that.”
The wind whipped around them, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk away from him. “I never said you were an idiot.”
“Whatever. How do you even know all that?”
Cornered, Stephanie looked down at the wet blacktop. “I heard your sister and Maddie talking about it.”
“Great, so they think I’m an idiot, too, I suppose.”
“The word ‘idiot’ was never used.”
“I forgot how much I hate it here,” he muttered. “Everyone up in my grill, minding my business for me.”
“Oh yeah, poor you with the lovely parents and the gorgeous home and the successful businesses, not to mention the brothers and sister and friends who’d do anything for you.
It must really suck to be you.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back.
They were talking about him, and she’d shown him a little too much about her.
“Stephanie, listen, I didn’t mean—”
She held up a hand to stop him. The very last thing she wanted from him—or anyone—was pity.
“Forget it. Feel free to mope around after Abby. In fact, if you’re so all-fired determined to get her back, let me help you.
It’s painful watching you do it your way.
You went beyond clueless about two weeks ago. ”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“For one thing, you have to stop looking at her with those sad hound-dog eyes. It’s nauseating to watch, and she doesn’t even notice.”
“I have not been doing that!”
“Oh please, here’s you at the wedding.” She imitated his pathetic expression.
“If I ever look that ridiculous, please shoot me.”
“Where can I get a gun around here?”
“You’re seriously starting to irritate me.”
She suspected she’d been irritating him since the second he woke up and realized she was in bed—naked—next to him.
And yes, she’d known he was awake the whole time she was sneaking out of Janey’s bedroom.
“You ought to see the way you look at Cal, like you want to gut him and feed him to sharks.” Furrowing her brows, she attempted to mirror his I-hate-Cal face.
She wasn’t sure she could do it justice, but she gave it a hell of an effort.
He shook his head. “You’re full of shit.”
“He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“He stole her from me!”
“Jesus Christ, Grant. Are you stuck in middle school? She’s thirty-something years old. She wasn’t stolen. She chose him.”
“Only because he was here and I wasn’t.”
“If that’s what you think, the situation is worse than I thought.
” Stephanie paused, choosing her words carefully.
While she wanted to help him extract his head from his ass, she wasn’t looking to purposely hurt him.
“You’ve been back a month now, and she hasn’t changed her mind.
At what point do you have to accept that she isn’t going to? ”
Apparently, he had no good answer to that. At the main door to the clinic, he stopped and turned to her. “Thanks for getting me here,” he said tersely. “I can handle the rest.”
“I’m not leaving until you’re stitched up.”
“I don’t need to be babysat.”
“On that we disagree.”
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
“It seems I’ve heard that somewhere before.” She pushed past him, activating the clinic’s automatic double doors. As they stepped inside, Abby came rushing down the hallway. Fabulous.
“What’s wrong?” Grant asked her. All his anger toward Stephanie morphed into concern for Abby.
“I need to go home and pack for Cal. He just got a call that his mother had a stroke in Texas.”
“He can’t go anywhere today.”
Tears flooded her big brown eyes. “One of his fishing buddies is going to run him over to the mainland. I tried to tell him they’re crazy to go out in this, but he didn’t want to hear it.” She glanced down and saw the bloody, muddy rag around Grant’s hand. “What happened?”
“Door slammed shut on my hand at the marina. Needs a couple of stitches, I guess.”
“Cal is getting ready to leave, but Victoria, the nurse practitioner, is here. She can probably do it for you.”
Stephanie could sense Grant’s relief that he wouldn’t have to be seen by Cal after all.
Looking harried and undone, Dr. Cal came down the hallway toward them.
As soon as she saw him, Abby turned away from Grant and focused all her attention on her distraught fiancé.
Wrapping her arms around him, she guided him toward the door.
Tall and blond in a rugged sort of way, Cal seemed to melt into Abby’s embrace.
“Um, Cal,” Grant said, hesitantly. “Sorry to hear about your mom.”
“Thanks,” Cal said, distracted and clearly anxious to be on his way.
“Uh, I know island life is still sort of new to you,” Grant continued, “but going out on the water today is taking your life in your hands.”
Against all odds, Stephanie found that she was proud of him.
“I know it’s not the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” Cal said in a deep Texan drawl, “but they’re saying the storm will last for days, and my daddy said Mama may not have days left. I can’t wait.”
Stephanie reached out to squeeze Cal’s arm. “We’ll pray for your safety and for your mother, too.”
“Thanks, y’all.” To Abby, he said, “Let’s go, baby. I gotta meet Steve down at the docks in half an hour.” With his arm around Abby, Cal headed for the door.
Abby never looked back.
Stephanie looked up to find Grant’s gaze firmly affixed on his ex-girlfriend. “That was good,” she said.
He finally tore his eyes off the retreating couple and looked down at her. “What was?”
“That you warned him about going out on a boat today.”
Grant shrugged. “Contrary to what you think, I don’t want him dead. I just want him out of her life. Maybe once he gets back to Texas, he’ll realize that’s where he belongs and that will be that.”
Stephanie shook her head with dismay. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
A nurse came down the long hallway to the waiting area. “May I help you?”
“He needs stitches,” Stephanie said, and a lobotomy, she thought but didn’t say.
“Let’s get you into an exam room and see what we’ve got,” she said, gesturing for them to follow her.
Grant hesitated long enough that Stephanie gave him a shove to get him moving.
“Ass pain,” he muttered.
“Baby,” she retorted. He was the most maddening of men, but there was something about him that had her following him into the exam room when her better judgment was telling her to get the hell out of there.