Chapter 33
W ith McKenzie working late, Duke decided to go into town to see his friends for the first time in weeks. When he walked into the Beachcomber bar, a cheer went up from all the regulars, who greeted him like returning royalty.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Jace Carson poured a beer for Duke from the tap. “Where you been, old man?”
Amused by the reception, he took the beer from Jace. “I’ve been around.”
“He’s in love ,” Sierra said as she made kissy faces.
“Are you having a stroke or something?” he asked her while everyone else laughed.
“Am I wrong?”
“Nope.”
“I’m so happy for you, Duke,” Cindy Lawry said. “I met McKenzie when she came into the salon to meet with Chloe about the books. She’s lovely.”
“She sure is.”
Jace reached across the bar for Cindy’s hand. “Ain’t nothing quite like true love,” he said as he kissed the back of her hand.
Cindy’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she gazed at Jace. “That’s the truth.”
“So where is she?” Sierra asked. “Did she already dump you?”
“Haha, no, she didn’t dump me. She’s working, if you must know. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to come visit you losers. What’s been going on here?”
“The doc has managed to knock me up again.” Chelsea McCarthy grinned at her husband, Dr. Kevin McCarthy, as Summer slept in her arms.
“The doc has still got it,” Kevin said.
“Spare us the gory details,” Sierra replied.
“Nothing gory about it,” Chelsea said with a wink for Sierra.
“Congratulations, guys,” Duke said. “Happy for you.”
“Thanks, we’re happy for us, too,” Kevin said with a warm smile for his wife. “Never thought I’d be starting a new family at my ripe old age, but it’s the best thing ever.”
“All this true-love bullshit is nauseating,” Niall Fitzgerald said when he came to the bar for a refill of Guinness.
“What’s with you?” Duke asked the Irishman, who was usually the epitome of happy-go-lucky optimism.
“Nothing is with me. Absolutely nothing.”
“Uh-oh,” Duke said, glancing at Sierra, who always had the lowdown on whatever was going on with one of their friends.
“Not happening with John.”
“Oh no. I thought it was.”
“So did I,” Niall said. “I thought wrong, apparently.”
“I tried to talk to him,” John’s sister Cindy said. “I got nowhere. I can’t figure out what’s going on with him since he came back from Providence.”
“If you figure it out, let me know,” Niall said as he took his refilled glass back to the small stage where he performed most nights.
“Poor guy,” Duke said. “I liked them together.”
“We all did,” Cindy said. “I wish I knew what was going on with Johnny.”
“How’s your other brother doing?” Duke asked. “The one who was hurt in the storm.”
“Jeff has been moved to rehab and is making steady progress. They’re hoping to be able to come home in a couple more weeks.”
“That’s great news.”
“It’s a huge relief that he’s doing so well. Jace and I are going to visit him and Kelsey this weekend.”
“Tell him we’re all rooting for him,” Duke said.
“I sure will.”
Ace, Tim and Buster from the studio came rolling in, looking as if the Beachcomber wasn’t their first stop on their night out. They stopped short when they saw Duke sitting at the bar.
“ Whoa ,” Ace said. “He’s finally come up for air.”
Everyone in the bar lost it laughing.
“Haha,” Duke said with a grin. “Where’ve you boys come from?”
“The Scupper. It’s two-for-one shot night over there. We couldn’t pass up a bargain.”
That accounted for their glassy eyes, Duke thought, as he gestured to Jace to put a round for everyone on him. These were his people, the ones who’d been there for him through thick and thin and everything in between. Jace was a relatively new friend, but he’d quickly become one of Duke’s favorite people. Especially after he heard more about Jace’s life and how he’d ended up in prison for a very bad decision and had lost his wife and kids in the process.
“How’re the boys?” Duke asked when Jace put a refill on the bar for him.
“They’re doing great. Growing like weeds and full of beans as always.”
His friend glowed when he spoke of his beloved sons, Jackson and Kyle, who were being raised by Seamus and Carolina O’Grady after Jace’s ex-wife, Lisa, had died of lung cancer. Lisa’s death had been a massive blow to everyone who’d loved her, including Duke.
“I’m so glad you get to see a lot of them.”
“Me, too. I’m very thankful for the way it all worked out. Seamus and Carolina are family.”
As someone who’d never had a family of his own, Duke was endlessly fascinated with the concept of “found family,” or the family one created for oneself. He’d been enormously blessed in that regard, thanks mostly to the people in this room and a few others, such as Rosemary.
After sipping his second beer for more than an hour, he settled up with Jace to head home to the two people who were quickly becoming his new family.
“See you again in six months,” Sierra said with a cheeky grin.
“Won’t be that long.”
“Bring McKenzie in sometime,” Chelsea said. “We’d love to meet her.”
“Will do. Y’all be good.”
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Ace called after him as the other guys laughed like the fools they were.
“I’ll do my best.”
In the parking lot, he took the time to don the helmet McKenzie insisted he wear before firing up the bike for the ride home. Soon, it would be too cold for the bike, but he was enjoying it while he could. He’d also enjoyed the night out with his friends and wanted to bring McKenzie in to meet them. It’d be no big deal to bring Jax with them. Nothing was a big deal on Gansett, which was another reason he loved it so much.
He pulled into the yard and cut the engine as soon as he could so he wouldn’t wake the little guy. Seeing the light on in his house filled him with a deep sense of homecoming. The house he’d loved so much for so long had truly become a home when they’d all but moved in with him over the last few weeks.
Jax now slept in an actual crib McKenzie had shipped from the mainland, along with a shocking amount of other “necessary” equipment for a tiny human. Duke’s living room was littered with toys, his bathroom counter was covered with girly stuff, and his heart… His heart was full to overflowing as he stashed the bike in the garage and walked swiftly toward the house, where his love waited for him.
It had taken a few weeks with McKenzie to know for certain that he’d never been in love, truly in love, with Lynn.
This… This was love. The heart-pounding, lightheaded feeling of pure joy he experienced every time he laid eyes on her, like it was the first time all over again.
“Hey,” she said with a smile as she looked up from her laptop.
“Hey yourself. Why you still working?”
“Too much to do, not enough time to do it.”
He’d loved seeing her in hot demand among all the island businesses. He didn’t love paying estimated quarterlies, but he did what he was told by his business manager. She’d taken a huge load off his shoulders, and he’d heard others say the same thing. “She’s worth every dime,” Sierra had said bluntly a few weeks ago.
Duke leaned over to kiss her. “All work and no play makes McKenzie tired and cranky.”
She laughed. “Guilty as charged.”
“Missed you. Long one hundred and twenty minutes away from you.”
Smiling, she said, “Missed you, too. How was the visit with your friends?”
“I took a lot of ribbing, thanks to you.”
Her brows came together adorably. “Because of me ?”
“Uh-huh. I used to be a regular over there, and now I’ve got much better things to do with my evenings.”
“Oh, I see.”
“They want you to come in.”
“Let’s do that sometime. I’d love to get to know them.” She glanced up at him, and he saw torment in her expression that immediately put him on alert to trouble. “Can we talk?”
Oh God. No, no, no . Nothing good ever came from those words. For a second, he was struck so dumb with fear that she wanted to tell him they were over that he couldn’t breathe.
“It’s not about us.”
It took a full ten seconds for him to start breathing again.
“Duke! Come on, you know it’s not about us.”
“I, uh…”
She stood and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t. Not much, anyway.”
“Yes, I did, and I hate that I did. You have nothing to worry about where I’m concerned. Please tell me you know that.”
“I do.” He kissed her and leaned his forehead on hers. “It’s just that you’ve become so damned essential to me that I could barely stand to spend one evening away from you and Jax.”
“We missed you terribly. Jax didn’t want to go to sleep without Doo Doo.”
“Best nickname ever,” he said with a chuckle.
“What I wanted to tell you is that we heard from Eric about a financial settlement.”
Duke went completely still when he heard that son of a bitch’s name.
McKenzie took his hand and towed him along with her to the sofa, where they settled next to each other with her legs over his lap and their hands still intertwined.
He never got over how soft her skin was or how much he craved everything about her when they were apart.
“What’d he say?”
“He offered a one-time payment of one hundred thousand, provided I sign away the right to more down the road.”
“Fuck him and his money. We don’t need anything from him.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say.”
For once, he didn’t react to her use of that dreaded word. He was too busy being enraged over the gall of that guy to care about being called sweet.
“But I want to do what’s best for Jax.”
“You do what’s best for him every second of every day. He has everything he’ll ever want or need, thanks to you.”
“Which is very nice of you to say, but how do I let Eric off the hook, as if he bears no responsibility whatsoever for Jax?”
“You don’t need him. You have me, and I have you, and Jax has us both, and we’ll make sure he’s the happiest kid who ever lived.”
“Duke…”
“Don’t tell me I’m sweet or else…”
She smiled. “Or else what?”
“I’ll think of some way to punish you.”
“I love when you punish me.” The only way he did that was by withholding orgasms until she was begging him for relief.
“I don’t want his money. I want him out of your lives forever.”
“That money would come in handy if Jax wants to go to college.”
“We’ll pay for his college.”
“Duke…”
“McKenzie…”
“I don’t expect you to pay for my son’s college.”
“Why not? I thought I was going to help you raise him. Why can’t I help to educate him, too?”
“You’re serious about this.”
“I’m as serious about you and Jax as I’ve ever been about anything in my whole damned life.”
She placed her free hand over her heart. “What did I ever do to get so lucky to find you?”
“I’m the lucky one, babe.”
“We both are, and we’re smart enough to know it.”
“That’s right, and we don’t need that deadbeat or his money.”
“I agree, and I appreciate what you’re saying. It’s just that after what he did to me, the way he lied to me and deceived me and tried to make me think he couldn’t have fathered Jax… I want him to pay for that. I want him to have to step up for our son, even if it’s only this one time.”
Duke listened to her and thought about what she’d said.
“Can you understand that at all?” she asked.
“I can, and I suppose you could invest that hundred grand and let it pay for college for all our kids.”
Her brows lifted. “ All our kids?”
“Yeah, we’re gonna have a bunch of them.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. My future wife is young and has lots of time left to have babies.”
The minute he said the words future wife , her whole body went rigid, and not in a good way.
“Did I go too far?”
“One step too far. I meant it when I said I don’t want to get married.”
“Even to me?”
“You’re the only one who could make me consider it.”
“But?”
“I want us to be together every day because we want to be. Not because we’re legally bound to each other.”
“Can’t we do both?”
“It’s just so freaking awful for everyone involved if it doesn’t work out.”
“This is gonna work out, sweetheart.”
“Everyone thinks that when they’re newly in love and planning a future. But then life happens, and things go sideways. The tearing apart is brutal.”
“When life happens, and things go sideways, I’ll be right there with you through it all. I’ll go sideways, hell, I’ll go upside down if I have to, if that’s what it takes. But one thing I’ll never do is leave you to figure it out on your own. We’d be in this together every step of the way, because we want to be, not because the law says we gotta.”
He tipped up her chin to receive his kiss. “I’ve waited my whole life for you and Jax. Every minute of every day and every month and every year was leading me to you and him and this family. I want us to stand up in front of our people and take vows and make a life together with Jax and that bunch of other kids we’re going to have. And I want us to be ridiculously happy for the rest of our lives.”
“Are you, like… um… proposing to me?”
“What if I am?”
“I, uh… Well… Wow.” She huffed out a laugh. “I’ve never been proposed to before.”
With her in his arms, he stood and returned her to the sofa. Then he knelt on one knee and reached for her hand, kissing the back of it. “McKenzie Martin, love of my life, owner of my heart and soul, would you please do me the massive—and probably undeserved honor—of being my wife, my soul mate, my life partner, my everything? If you say yes, in exchange I’ll give you and Jax everything I have, everything I’ll ever have and do everything in my power to make you happier than you ever thought you could be. I’ll do that every day for the rest of my life, which will no doubt end long before yours does because I’m so much older than you, and then you can live in sin with some other rando, but you cannot be as happy with him as you were with me. That’s where I draw the line.”
She was laughing and crying all at once. “You’re out of your mind planning my widowhood while you’re asking me to marry you.”
“I like to see to all the contingencies, especially since you’d be taking on a senior citizen compared to you.” He bent his head over her hand, peppering the inside of her wrist with soft kisses. “I heard you when you said you don’t want to get married, and I completely understand why after everything you’ve seen and been through with your parents and that jackass Eric and others. But here’s the thing…” He looked up at her now with tears in his own eyes. “I want us to be a family. I want you and Jax to be the first real family that’s truly mine. I want us all to be Sullivans, if that’s okay with you. I have the best friends in the whole world, and I love them. But they all have their own families to go home to. I want that, too. I know we could achieve that without the legal shit, but call me old-fashioned… I want the big white wedding day and the vows and the party and the happily ever after. And just for the record, I never pictured that for myself until I pictured it with you.”
She stared at him for a long time, long enough that a million thoughts passed through his mind—not all of them good ones. What would he ever do if she said no to him? Would he be satisfied to live with her and their kids without the vows? If that’s what she really wanted, he’d do it for her. He’d do anything for her.
“First of all, it is not an undeserved honor.”
He had to think about that for a second before he tied those words back to what he’d said earlier. “I’m batting way out of my league here, babe. Just want you to know I get that.”
“Stop talking, Duke.”
He swallowed a laugh and forced his expression to be serious. “Yes, ma’am.” God, he loved when she was bossy with him.
“You deserve my love and Jax’s more than anyone ever has. From the minute you showed up at Tiffany’s with as many of our things as you could find in our destroyed home, you’ve been showing me who you are and what you’re about. So I don’t ever want to hear again that you don’t deserve me or that I’m way out of your league. Is that understood?”
“I’ll keep the thought to myself going forward.”
“You do that.”
“What’s the second of all?”
“I meant it when I said I never wanted to get married.”
He felt like a balloon that’d been stuck with a pin as he deflated.
“However… I understand you wanting a family that’s all yours, and it seems I want to give you that more than I want to avoid being married.”
Just that quickly, he was back in the game, breathless as he waited to hear what else she might say.
“It gives me tremendous comfort to know how much my grandmother loved you. There could be no greater endorsement for me than that, but over these last few weeks, I’ve also witnessed how much everyone else on this island loves you. I can’t say your name without someone telling me what a great guy you are or how you helped them out with this or that or how you showed up for them time and again. And during that same time, you’ve shown up for me time and again, giving me a place to live and basically turning your truck over to me and helping with Jax and bringing me coffee in bed every morning and trying—not so patiently—to teach me to cross-stitch and sticking with me even though I totally suck at it.”
A grunt of laughter burst out of him. “You’re coming along very nicely.”
“No, I’m not, but you don’t give up on me.”
“I never will.”
“And I know that, so…”
Duke held his breath as his whole life came down to whatever she said next.
She looked him dead in the eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Duke.”
The burst of pure joy was unlike anything he’d ever felt. It filled his heart to overflowing as he drew her into the sweetest kiss of his life.
“One other thing…”
“What’s that?”
“When Kendall tells Jackass you’re taking the settlement, have her ask him to sign away his paternal rights to Jax so I can adopt him. If that’s okay with you.”
McKenzie blinked back tears. “Of course it is.”
“I’ll get you a ring. Any ring you want.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“I care about it, and it’s gonna happen.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. I love you, McKenzie. I love you so damned much.”
“I love you just as much.”
“Thank you for having the courage to take a chance on me.”
“A very wise friend recently told me that when you’re with the right guy, there’s no courage needed.”