Chapter 1
Owen Lawry stood on the porch of the Sand & Surf Hotel to watch the last ferry of the day leave South Harbor for the mainland.
He and his van were supposed to have been on that boat.
With his obligations on Gansett Island over for the season, he’d planned to be heading for a two-month gig in Boston, the same autumn engagement he’d had the last five years.
It paid well, and, after all this time, the club owners were friends.
His gaze was riveted to the ferry as it steamed past the breakwater into open ocean, where it dipped and rolled in the October surf.
At the end of the holiday weekend in October, the official end to another summer season on Gansett, Owen wondered what the hell he was still doing here when he was supposed to be on that boat, leaving for good-paying work on the mainland.
“You know why you’re still here,” he muttered, thinking of the blonde beauty who had him wound up in knots. He was at the point where he wondered if a man could actually die from pent-up desire.
It might’ve been better for them both if he’d left as scheduled, if he’d taken the gig in Boston and gone about his carefree existence with the same lack of responsibility that had marked his entire adult life.
What was he doing here pining after a woman who was still married to someone else and carrying her estranged husband’s child?
What was he doing spending every possible moment with a woman who’d made it clear she was unavailable for all the things he suddenly wanted for the first time in his thirty-three years?
He was driving himself slowly mad. That was the only thing he knew for certain.
Before he met Laura McCarthy, he’d been perfectly satisfied with his life.
He spent summers playing his guitar and singing on the island—the closest thing to a real home he’d ever had—and worked autumns in Boston and winters in Stowe, Vermont, playing to the ski crowd.
In the spring, he headed for a few months off in the Bahamas.
It was a good life, a satisfying life. Watching the last ferry of the day fade into the twilight, Owen had the uneasy sensation that he was also watching that satisfying life slip through his fingers.
He usually felt sorry for guys who allowed themselves to be led around by a woman.
His best friends, Evan, Mac and Grant McCarthy, Joe Cantrell and Luke Harris, had fallen like dominoes lately, one after the other finding the women they were meant to be with.
Only Adam McCarthy remained untethered and seemed happy that way.
Owen, on the other hand, was stuck in purgatory, caught between the single life he’d embraced with passionate dedication and the committed life he had never imagined for himself.
He wasn’t with Laura, per se. He just spent all his free time with her.
Weeks ago, they’d shared a couple of chaste kisses that had been hotter than full-on sex with other women.
Since then, there’d been nothing but an occasional hand to his arm or a brief hug here or there. He’d continued to collect her off the bathroom floor each day until the relentless morning sickness suddenly let up as she entered her fifth month of pregnancy.
As he leaned against the railing he’d recently replaced on the hotel’s front porch, Owen realized he missed that time with her in the mornings when she’d been so sick and he’d been there to prop her up. “You’re such a fool,” he said to the gathering darkness.
The autumn days were shorter, the nights longer and the chilly air a harbinger of things to come.
Shivering in the breeze, Owen questioned his decision to stay with Laura this winter for the millionth time.
Did she even want him here? Did she want company, or did she want him?
If she wanted him, she was doing a hell of a job hiding it.
For a while there, he’d thought they were at the start of something that had the potential to be significant. Now he wasn’t so sure.
She treated him like a platonic buddy when all he did was fantasize about getting her naked and into his bed.
Was he sick to be having such fantasies about a woman who was pregnant with another man’s child?
Probably. But as she rounded and swelled and glowed, he only wanted her more.
At times, he even let himself pretend they were married and the baby was his.
“You’re one sick son of a bitch,” he said to the breeze. Sick or not, he wanted her with a fierceness that was becoming harder and harder to hide from her. One of these days, he was going to grab her and pin her against a wall and show her exactly—
“Owen?”
He sucked in a sharp, deep breath, ashamed to have been caught having such uncivilized thoughts about a woman he truly cared for. Attempting to calm himself, he turned to her. “Yeah?”
“Aren’t you cold out there?”
No, he was on fire thinking about her, not that he could confess such a thing to her. “Not really. It’s nice.”
Laura tugged the zip-up sweatshirt of his that she’d “borrowed” around herself and joined him on the porch. Even though the oversized jacket swallowed her up, she was still his regal princess. She snuggled into his side, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slip his arm around her.
Resting her head on his chest, she let out a contented sigh. “It’s so pretty this time of day.”
His throat tightened with emotion, and his entire body ached from wanting her. “Sure is.”
“It’s pretty every time of day. I never get tired of our spectacular view,” she said as a shiver traveled through her.
“You shouldn’t get too cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s a good night for a fire.” Now where did that come from? He’d no sooner said the words than he wanted to take them back.
“Oh, can we? I’d love that!”
Owen wanted to moan as he imagined how gorgeous she’d look in the firelight.
With her around to look at all day, every day, he never ran out of ways to torture himself.
“Sure, we can. Mac inspected the chimney last week and declared us good to go.” Owen had collected a ton of driftwood off the beach that had been drying on the porch for weeks.
“I got marshmallows at the store. We can have a campout.”
Perfect, Owen thought. More torture. Her childlike glee at the simple things in life was one of the qualities he liked best about her and part of what made him want her with a burning need unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
“Will you play for me, too? You know I love listening to you.”
Here, wrapped around him, was everything he’d never known he wanted. And wasn’t it ironic that he couldn’t have her. He would’ve laughed at the lunacy of the situation if his growing ache for her hadn’t been so damned painful. “Absolutely,” he managed to say. “Let’s go in before you catch a cold.”
Was she reluctant to step out of his embrace, or was that just wishful thinking on his part? As he followed her inside, he took a last look at the horizon where the ferry was nearly out of sight and hoped he hadn’t made a huge mistake by letting it leave without him.
Laura’s alarm dragged her out of a deep sleep the next morning. Ever since she’d moved to the island right after Labor Day to renovate and manage the Sand & Surf Hotel, she’d been sleeping well again. That was a welcome relief following months of sleepless nights.
Discovering that her new husband hadn’t quit dating after their May wedding had shocked the hell out of her—almost as much as discovering she’d been married just long enough to get pregnant.
Months of restless nights, mounting anxiety and relentless morning sickness had taken a toll.
By the time she arrived to start her new job, she’d been a wreck.
A month later, she was restored, energized, loving her new job and falling more into something with her sexy housemate with each passing day.
She thought about the evening they’d spent together in front of the fireplace, roasting marshmallows and singing silly songs and laughing so hard she’d had tears rolling down her face at one point.
What would she have done without his steady presence to get her through these last few weeks?
His care and concern had been a balm on the open wound her husband Justin had inflicted on her heart.
And while she had no doubt Owen wanted more than the easy friendship they’d nurtured since they met over the summer, she didn’t feel comfortable pursuing a relationship with him when they were on such vastly different paths.
Not to mention, she was still technically married, which wasn’t likely to change any time soon with Justin refusing to grant her a divorce.
With her baby due in February, her life would be all about responsibility for the next eighteen years.
Owen’s life was all about transience. He loved his vagabond existence.
He was proud of the fact that everything he owned fit into the back of his ancient VW van.
Other than the Sand & Surf, which his grandparents had owned and run for more than fifty years before their retirement, he had no permanent address and liked it that way.
His world simply didn’t fit with hers, even if she liked him more than she’d ever liked any guy—including the one she had married.
Despite their significantly different philosophies on life, their chemistry was hard to ignore.
She wasn’t immune to the heated looks he sent her way or the overwhelming need to touch him that was becoming almost impossible to resist.
Standing with him on the porch last night, looking out over the ocean as the sun set, had been a moment of perfect harmony.
They had a lot of those moments. Whether it was picking out paint colors for the hotel or discussing furniture options or reviewing advertising strategies, they agreed on most things.
And when they disagreed, he usually said something to make her laugh, and she’d forget why she didn’t agree with him.