Chapter 4 #2
“We barely know each other, and we’re rolling around on the beach like a scene out of From Here to Eternity.”
His soft chuckle was as sexy as every other damned thing he did. The man was truly a walking, talking example of sex on a stick.
Jenny sat up, covering her breasts with her arm as she felt around in the dark for her bikini top or bottoms, preferably both.
“Things are kind of screwed up for me right now,” he said, “and I sort of like the fact that you don’t know anything more about me than my first name and what I do for a living. But I’ll tell you my last name, if you really want to know.”
“No.” The word was out of her mouth before Jenny could take a second to think it through. “If you tell me your last name, then I’ll be tempted to call my friends tomorrow and find out everything about you. And that’ll ruin everything. You’re Alex Lawnmower to me.”
Laughing, he said, “Okay, Jenny Lighthouse, but there’s one other thing about me you already know.”
“What’s that?”
He cupped her bare breast as he kissed her. “I’m hot for you, and I want more.”
She shook her head as she pushed him and his hand away. “No more. This was a one-time moment of madness, never to be repeated.”
“You’ll take away my will to live if you tell me we can never do this again.”
“Don’t make jokes about dying. Not to me, anyway.”
“Why not?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. Telling him why not would change everything. “When you said things are screwed up, you don’t mean because of a woman, do you?”
“Yes, but not in the sense you mean. It’s family stuff, not romance stuff.”
Strangely comforted to know he wasn’t running from a bad relationship or worse—a bad marriage—Jenny located her top and tied it around her neck.
The brush of his fingers on her back tying the other part gave her goose bumps and made her nipples tighten with interest. Down, girls. The party is over.
His lips were soft against her shoulder, making her wish she was someone different, someone who could have a good time with a hot guy and not hate herself for it the next day. “It was more fun taking it off than it was putting it back on.”
Jenny smiled in the darkness. He was sweet and funny and sexy and so much more than she was ready for. She’d only recently decided to give dating a whirl. Rolling around naked on the beach with a guy she’d only met that morning was way too far outside her comfort zone.
He helped her to locate the other half of her bathing suit, kept his back to her while she got dressed, shook out the towels and walked her back to the lighthouse without touching her again.
Jenny wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed that he’d kept his hands to himself. At the door, she turned to him, his arresting face illuminated by a floodlight. “I’ll, um, I guess I’ll see you when you cut the grass again.”
His confident smile unnerved her. “If not before.”
“Alex, really, I’m not in a good place for this sort of thing—”
He silenced her with a deep kiss that made a total and complete liar out of her. “See you around, Jenny Lighthouse.” He let her go so suddenly that she had to reach for the door to steady herself as he handed the towels to her.
She held on to the door handle while he started the motorcycle and drove off in a cloud of dust. Her mother had always warned Jenny and her sisters to be wary of men who preferred motorcycles.
Alex was exactly the kind of guy her mother had worried about—a bit reckless, a bit devil-may-care and a whole lot of trouble.
Jenny planned to take her mother’s advice and stay far, far away from him.
By the end of the long, emotional day, Maddie was completely drained and feeling like a jerk for making such a big deal out of not being pregnant when she hadn’t even wanted to be pregnant.
She cringed when she recalled her breakdown at Syd’s.
Like she had any right to be mourning an unwanted pregnancy in front of her friend, who was going to such enormous lengths to get pregnant after losing two children in an accident.
“You’re one hell of a good friend,” she muttered to the darkness.
Her kids had refused to go to bed, and, sensing she was teetering on the edge of losing it completely, Mac had sent her outside with a glass of wine to decompress while he wrestled them into bed.
I have so much to be thankful for, she thought as she rocked on the deck that overlooked the ocean in the distance.
Two amazingly bright and beautiful kids, her wonderful husband, who was so tuned in to her he could tell when she needed a break, a lovely home, her mom and sister close by and happily settled with men who adored them, her adorable niece Ashleigh, a future stepfather she’d come to love, amazing in-laws and the kind of friends she used to dream of having…
With so much happiness in her life, what right did she have to be so decimated by such a silly thing as a false-alarm pregnancy?
“You have no right at all to feel this way. None.”
“Talking to yourself, love?” Mac asked as he joined her on the deck, dressed in only a pair of low-riding pajama pants that left his exquisitely muscular chest on full display.
Maddie took a long, hungry look at that most excellent man chest and added it to her gratitude list. That chest and the man who owned it were all hers, and he was the best thing in a life full of amazing things. “I’m the only one who wants to hear my woes today.”
“I want to hear your woes every day. Are you going to tell me what has you so wound up and weepy?”
“It’s so stupid, and I feel like such a jerk because I bawled all over Syd today when she’s going through so much. I’m an idiot and a bad friend.”
“Madeline… You’re going to piss me off saying something like that.
Who cooked dinner for Joe and Janey at least twice a week while she was on bed rest?
Who’s stepped up for Laura to help with Holden while she’s been so sick?
Who helped take care of Buddy while Luke and Syd were on the mainland?
Who has Ashleigh as much as her mother does?
Come on. You’re an awesome friend and sister and aunt and sister-in-law and cousin-in-law. ”
He pulled her up and slid into her chair, settling her on his lap with his arms around her. Nuzzling her neck, he said, “You’re the most awesome wife and mother. You’re the glue that holds our whole unruly crew together, and everyone knows it.”
Surrounded by him and his all-consuming love for her, Maddie was finally able to confess her deepest sorrow. “I wanted that baby we’re apparently not having.”
“I know you did. Shockingly, I did, too.”
She raised her head from his shoulder. “You did? Really?”
“How could I not want another one just like the two we already have? They’re so freaking amazing, and what’s one more in the midst of mayhem?”
“I thought you were mad about it.”
“Why in the world would I be mad when it was my fault in the first place? You were drunk, I was sober, and I forgot the condom. What right did I have to be mad about anything?”
“Still… I didn’t think it was what you wanted.”
“You know how I feel about this island and crazy-ass pregnancies, especially after what just happened with Janey and P.J. That’s the part I was freaked out about. Actually having another baby? Not so much.” The chair rocked slowly under them, stirring the heavy air around them. “Goddamn, it’s hot.”
“So hot. There’s not even the slightest breeze.”
“Supposed to last another couple of days,” Mac said.
“Thank God for central air.”
“I was thinking we ought to shut it off in our room and have sweaty heat-wave sex.”
For the first time in hours, Maddie laughed. “Leave it to you to want that.”
“Come on. You know you want it, too. We can work around the monthly thing.”
“The monthly thing was gone as fast as it came.”
“Wait… so it only lasted a day?”
“Less than, actually.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m overly obsessed with what goes on down there, but doesn’t it usually last a lot longer than that?”
“Yeah. It’s probably the heat or something.”
“Or something.”
“What does that mean?”
“What if you really are pregnant, and the one-day period was a false alarm?”
The possibility hit Maddie like a lightning bolt to the heart. “That doesn’t happen. Does it?”
“Might be time to pee on a stick, my love.”
All of a sudden, tears were flowing down her cheeks in a flood that couldn’t be contained.
“Hmmm, nonstop crying, emotional ups and downs…” Mac cupped her breast, making her startle from the almost shocking sensation that tore through her from the simple caress. “Sensitive breasts… I’m not a detective, but it seems like I might’ve witnessed these signs once before.”
“Don’t get my hopes up. I can’t bear to not be pregnant twice in two days.”