Book 16 Light After Dark #2
Linda helps Laura with her delivery and drives Mallory home after visiting the babies.
Mallory expresses that she’s angry with her late mother for keeping her from her father for so many years.
Linda suggests Mallory talk to her Uncle Kevin and suggests a Summer of Mallory, to process the changes she’s dealt with lately and figure out her next steps.
Mallory moves to Gansett for the summer.
She rents Janey’s house after Adam and Abby buy a house and move out of Janey’s.
She arrives from the ferry with a packed car and furniture in the truck she rented.
The whole family is there to help her unpack and welcome her home.
What she thought would take days takes three hours, and her family members make the house look like she’s always lived there.
The outpouring is overwhelming to someone who led a more solitary life, but she loves having a big, supportive family.
At her next AA meeting, Mallory confesses to a recent lapse in her sobriety that brought her back to meetings.
No one in her new life knows she’s an alcoholic, and she finds great support from others at the meeting.
Quinn tells her about the medical facility for the elderly he runs on the island and invites her to come see it.
As he drives them, they discover they will soon turn forty on the same day.
Once they arrive, they see her brother Mac and cousins, Shane, Riley and Finn, along with Mac’s business partner Luke Harris. They are the contractors remodeling the old school and turning it into a medical facility.
After showing Mallory around, they end up in his office, where Quinn shocks Mallory by offering her the director of nursing position.
She is flattered but wants to think about it since she just committed to working the summer as a paramedic.
Since the facility won’t be open until the fall, there’s time to think.
Then he surprises her again by asking her to dinner, and she accepts.
Mallory leaves the facility with much to think about and goes to the marina to see her dad.
He invites her to lunch at the Oar Bar. Mallory shares more of the details of her life, including that she’s an alcoholic.
He wants to hear everything, so she tells him about her best friend, Trish Bennett, and her first boyfriends.
She met her late husband, Ryan Daniels, in medical school, and they were married six months later.
He was a surgical resident, and she was in pediatrics.
Ryan collapsed one day in the operating room and was dead before Mallory could get to him.
She fell into a multi-year spiral following Ryan’s death before her mom and Trish got her into rehab.
Later, she decided she couldn’t return to medical school and switched to nursing, which is her calling.
Big Mac is touched to hear her stories and wishes he’d been there for her during the happy and sad times. Things are looking up, she says, mentioning the job offer and the date. Big Mac would love for her to stay on the island.
“It’s very nice to be wanted.”
As they walk back to the marina, Mallory leans on Big Mac and says, “I spent my whole life wondering about my father. When I was little, I made up a man in my mind and gave him all sorts of wonderful qualities. But in my wildest dreams, I never imagined he’d be as perfect as you are.”
He tightens his arm around her and kisses the top of her head. “Awww, honey. You’re gonna make me bawl like a baby.”
“It’s true.”
“Thank you. I wish I’d known about you sooner. I’m sorry that you had to grow up without me. If I’d known, that never would’ve happened. Not in a million years.”
“I know that, and I’m still trying to make peace with the fact that my mother kept us from each other for nearly forty years. I have a lot of unresolved feelings about that.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“When I was here in March, Linda suggested I talk to Kevin about it. You wouldn’t care if I did that, would you?”
“Hell, no. He’s the best. I’m sure he’d be happy to help you.”
“There’s no undoing the past, but it would be nice to be able to think of the mother who did everything for me without feeling bitter about what she kept from me.”
“I agree. You’ve had a lot of upheaval in the last year. Take your time and figure out your next move, and if that move keeps you right here with us, well, that would make your dear old dad very happy indeed.”
“My dear old dad,” she said with a smile. “I’ve been working up the nerve to call you that.”
Outside the main building at the marina, he drops his arm from around her shoulders and turns to face her. “Give it a whirl. Let’s see how it sounds.”
She looked up at him, feeling shy all of a sudden. “Dad.”
“Do it again.”
“Dad,” she says, smiling.
“One more time to make sure you’ve really got it down.”
“Dad.”
“See? Was that so hard?”
Mallory steps into his outstretched arms and sighs as he wraps his strong arms around her. “Thank you so much for being you and for making this so much easier than it probably should’ve been.”
“A year ago, I thought my family was complete, and then you came strolling down my dock and knocked the legs right out from under me. It was the best kind of shock to find out I had another daughter. I’m only sorry I didn’t know sooner.”
“Me, too.”
“Love you, kid.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
Quinn picks up Mallory for their first date at the Lobster House.
Mallory tells him about coming to the island and meeting her father and family for the first time last summer.
Quinn mentions his four siblings, two older sisters Katherine and Melissa, him, Jared and baby brother Cooper.
Being the oldest son, he was given his mother’s maiden name, Quinn, and was always in trouble when he was young.
On his eighteenth birthday, his father took him to an army recruiter and made him sign up.
His father’s tough love saved his life. Quinn talks about becoming a trauma surgeon and serving in combat.
Mallory tells him about her husband dying, leaving her residency and getting her nursing degree.
Quinn is an amputee, and Mallory is the first person he has told.
She’s astounded that his family doesn’t know. He wanted to keep it private.
Janey texts Mallory to tell her the siblings and cousins are hanging out at Stephanie’s Bistro, listening to Owen play.
They decide to join the group, even knowing that the second they arrive together, the whole island will know they’re dating.
When they walk into the Sand and Surf, Mallory introduces Quinn to her cousin Laura and Laura’s mother-in-law, Sarah, who are each holding one of the newborns.
In the Bistro, Mallory introduces Quinn to Maddie, Adam, Abby, Grant, Janey, Joe and Katie Lawry, who is Shane’s fiancée and Owen’s sister.
Quinn already knows Mac, Shane, Riley and Finn from their work at the care facility.
“Is it me, or has Mac been on his best behavior since our trip to Anguilla this winter?” Shane asks.
“It’s not just you,” Grant says. “Everyone is concerned that he’s been declawed.”
“Perhaps it was because he organized a boy posse to steal our clothes when we went skinny-dipping,” Abby says.
“Or that he told the guys that Maddie worships at the altar of Mac McCarthy,” Katie adds.
“You all can shut right up any time now,” Mac says.
“Why?” Shane asks. “We’re just expressing our concern about your newfound good behavior.”
Mallory is weak with laughter. Their good-natured bickering, joking and pranks—some of which have been epic—are endlessly entertaining her after growing up so alone.
“Tell Quinn about the time you girls convinced the guys that you’d hired strippers for Jenny’s bachelorette party,” Mallory says.
The women proceeded to relay the story of their greatest victory to date, when they’d had the guys foaming at the mouth with outrage for a full week ahead of Jenny Martinez’s bachelorette party.
“Of course, my husband was the first one through the door at Syd’s house that night,” Maddie says. “Cost me a couple hundred bucks, but that’s what I get for betting on him.”
“You guys bet on which of the guys would be the first to show up?” Quinn asks, sounding astounded.
“Of course, we did,” Abby says matter-of-factly. “We all knew it would be Mac. Well, everyone but Maddie, that is.”
“The vows said I’m supposed to be loyal to him,” Maddie replies. “Even when he gives me reason not to be.”
“That is so awesome,” Quinn says, rocking with laughter.
“You should’ve seen Blaine, Tiffany’s husband, who’s the chief of police,” Mac says of his brother-in-law. “If you think I was out of my mind, he put me to shame.”
“No one puts you to shame,” Maddie says, “which is why you’re working on being better behaved.”
“It’s so boring being good,” Mac says glumly.
After taking Mallory home, kissing her good night and securing a second date, Quinn returns to his restored thirty-six-foot sailboat in the Salt Pond that’s serving as his home.
He takes his fifty-pound puppy, Brutus, to shore for a walk, then returns to the boat.
As he gazes up at the stars, he thinks about the best night he’s had in a long time.
When they run into each other on their morning run, Quinn invites Mallory to go sailing. Big Mac is on the docks when they arrive, and Mallory tells him that Quinn is taking her sailing. “You know what you’re doing out there?” he asks Quinn.
“Yes, sir. I’ve been sailing all my life.”
“What will you do if you see even the slightest sign of fog rolling in?”
“We’ll head back in. I’m no fan of fog, believe me.”
Big Mac seems to breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay, then. Sorry for the inquisition, but I nearly lost three of my boys in a crash in the fog last Race Week. Fog and I aren’t friends anymore.”
“I understand completely, and you have my word that Mallory will be very safe with me.”
Mallory gets the feeling that Quinn is talking about much more than sailing at this point.