Chapter 1
This whole thing was Janey’s fault. If she hadn’t gotten married, Grant wouldn’t have had to watch his woman, wearing a slinky, sexy bridesmaid gown, prance around at the wedding with her new fiancé hanging all over her.
If it hadn’t been for Janey and her stupid wedding, Grant wouldn’t have felt the need to make Abby jealous by dancing with Stephanie from the marina.
Too bad it hadn’t ended there. No, he’d had to make sure Abby was truly jealous by leaving with Stephanie.
And now, as the hammer in his head reminded him of how much alcohol it had taken to get through the nuptials, the warm body sleeping next to him was an even bigger reminder of what a disaster last night had been.
Damn Janey and her damned wedding.
Grant was trying frantically to remember just how far things had gone with Stephanie.
He was pretty sure there’d been some kissing in the cab on the way to his now-married sister’s place.
Janey had traded him the use of her house in exchange for pet-sitting duties while she and Joe were on their honeymoon.
Since their mother had been driving him crazy with questions about the mess he’d made of his life, it had seemed like a good deal at the time because it would get him out of his parents’ house.
But now he was mad with his sister for getting married in the first place, and the sweet deal didn’t seem so sweet anymore.
He wished he could escape, but he couldn’t exactly leave his one-night stand in his sister’s bed. What to do?
Then the warm body stirred.
Grant stayed perfectly still, hoping she wouldn’t look at him or, God forbid, try to talk to him.
He’d been with Abby so long he’d never had the chance to indulge in one-night stands.
He had no idea what the etiquette was, and with a thousand hammers at work in his head, he had no desire to figure it out.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Stephanie—oh Jesus, she was totally naked—slide from the bed and get busy rounding up her clothes.
Still pretending to be asleep, he caught glimpses of small breasts and pretty pink nipples that quickly had the attention of a part of him that didn’t know enough to fake sleep.
As his cock rubbed against the sheet, he realized he was naked, too.
He was desperately trying to remember how he’d ended up naked in bed with Stephanie, but he couldn’t recall a single thing after being in the cab.
Not that being naked with Stephanie hadn’t crossed his mind far too often in the last few weeks .
. . He’d even bought condoms, just in case his horny body won the war with his better judgment.
But he’d never expected to actually go through with it.
Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe nothing actually happened.
That was possible, right? Naked didn’t automatically mean sex, did it?
Shit, shit, shit! If Abby heard about this, he’d never get her back, not to mention what his father, who’d taken a special interest in Stephanie since she came to work for them, would have to say about it.
Stephanie turned her back to the bed to put on the formfitting black dress she’d worn to the wedding.
Her pale skin was creamy white, and his eyes traveled from her shoulders to the two dimples at the bottom of her spine, above her firmly rounded ass.
When he first met her, he’d thought she lacked curves.
“Boyish” was the word he’d used to describe her.
But now that he’d seen her naked, it was clear that her clothes had hidden small but rather interesting curves.
Not that he was interested in her curves.
No, the only curves he craved were Abby’s, and somehow he had to figure out a way to get her back.
First and foremost, he had to stop drinking.
Booze—and Janey’s damned wedding—had landed him in bed with the wrong woman, and he couldn’t let that happen again.
If he had any prayer of winning back Abby, he couldn’t get caught with another woman.
Making Abby jealous was one thing, but his plan had clearly gone awry in a big way.
Stephanie never so much as glanced at the bed as she hooked her high-heeled sandals around her fingers and tiptoed from the room, closing the door behind her.
Grant let out a sigh of relief that he’d been spared the morning-after awkwardness.
But then he remembered he was in charge of the family’s marina while his father recovered from a recent head injury and his brother tended to his pregnant wife.
With Grant stuck running the docks and Stephanie managing the restaurant, he’d have to face her in a few short hours.
Groaning, he turned facedown on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. Something poked his belly, and he fumbled through the rumpled sheet to see what it was. When his hand landed on a torn condom wrapper, Grant’s heart nearly stopped beating.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
He’d rocked her world, and Stephanie would bet he didn’t even remember it.
As she shivered in driving wind and cold rain on her way to McCarthy’s Gansett Island Marina, she relived the night with Grant McCarthy.
Of course she’d figured out what he’d been up to at the wedding.
He’d been using her to make Abby jealous.
She’d also known he was drunk when they left and that he probably wouldn’t remember much of what happened between them.
Still, that didn’t stop her from taking full advantage of the opportunity for one night with the first guy she’d been attracted to in years.
She was under no illusions that this was the start of something with him.
He was in love with Abby and still hoping to reconcile with her, although Abby and her fiancé, Cal, had looked pretty darned cozy at the wedding.
If Stephanie were one to gamble, she’d bet on Abby being done with Grant, and him being the last one to realize it.
But even knowing that, there was no way Stephanie was going to get all stupid over a guy who clearly wanted someone else.
So they’d had sex. Big deal. Just because she hadn’t been with anyone in ages didn’t mean she was going to turn this into something it wasn’t and would never be.
A tooting horn caught her attention, and she stopped to find Mr. McCarthy’s best friend, Ned Saunders, pulling up to the curb in the beat-up woody station wagon that served as his cab.
“Jump in, gal. I’ll give ya a ride.”
Since she was soaked to the skin, Stephanie was thrilled to see the older man who hung around the marina every day. “Thanks, Ned,” she said as she slid into the front seat. The floor was littered with coffee cups and old newspapers.
“Sorry ’bout the mess,” he muttered.
“No problem. I’m happy to get out of the storm.”
“’Tis a doozy of a Nor’easter. Not seeing the newlyweds makin’ it off-island today.”
“That’s too bad. They’ll miss their flight, won’t they?”
“Looks that way.”
Stephanie appreciated that Ned didn’t mention anything about her obvious walk of shame. “How long is the storm supposed to last?”
“Coupla days at least.”
“The marina will be slow today,” Stephanie said, dreading a quiet day to spend alone with Grant.
Ned took the final turn that led to North Harbor. As they passed the McCarthy home, called the “White House” by locals, Stephanie looked away as memories of the night she’d spent with their son resurfaced. Mr. McCarthy had been so nice to her. She’d hate to do anything to mess that up.
“The boy’s confused,” Ned said, breaking the silence.
“Excuse me?”
“Smartest kid I ever knew,” Ned continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“From the time he was first able to talk, he’s been asking questions, studying people, filing stuff away to use later in his stories.
When it comes to people in his own life, though .
. . well, sometimes he ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. ”
Stephanie’s entire body was on fire with mortification as she continued to stare out the window. How does he know? And what will he tell his best buddy, Grant’s dad?
“Don’t think he gets yet that it’s really over with Abby. When he finally catches a clue, I suspect it’s gonna hurt.”
Her mind raced as she hummed with tension. It was like he could see inside her or something!
“A nice girl like you would wanna watch herself in the midst of all that hurtin’.”
Her mouth fell open, but damn if she could find the words. Luckily, their arrival at McCarthy’s saved her from having to reply.
“Thanks for the ride,” Stephanie muttered, reaching for her wallet.
Ned’s hand on her arm stopped her from withdrawing money. “My pleasure, honey.”
Stephanie was mortified all over again when tears burned her eyes.
She made her escape from the car, but the almost paternal way Ned had treated her stayed with her long after his car disappeared from view.
It’d been a long time since anyone had showed her that kind of care or concern, and it had felt good.
A ringing cell phone woke Captain Joe Cantrell the morning after his wedding. He wanted to grab the phone and toss it across the suite where he and Janey had spent their wedding night, but more than that, he wanted his lovely wife to sleep awhile longer.
After so many years of loving her from afar, thinking of her as his wife made him smile. He took the phone into the bathroom and closed the door. Seeing the office number on the caller ID further irritated him.
“This had better be good,” he grumbled into the phone.
“So sorry to bother you, Cap,” said Seamus O’Grady. Joe had hired Seamus to run the Gansett Island Ferry Company when he and Janey moved to Ohio so she could attend vet school. “Especially this morning.”
“What do you need?” Joe asked with unusual brusqueness.