Book 2 Fool for Love
He’s always been like her fifth brother, but her feelings for him are far from platonic.
Joe Cantrell, owner of the Gansett Island Ferry Company, has been in love with Janey McCarthy for as long as he can remember.
At the same time, Janey has been dating or engaged to doctor-in-training David Lawrence.
When things go horribly wrong between David and Janey, she calls her “fifth brother” Joe, one of the few people in her close circle who lives on the mainland.
Janey decides a few days with Joe is just what she needs before she goes home to the island to face her parents and family with the news of her broken engagement.
It was bad enough for Joe to love Janey from afar but having her in his house is absolute torture.
Will he take advantage of this opportunity to show her what they could have together?
And what will Joe’s best friend and Janey’s protective older brother, Mac, have to say about it?
Main Characters:
*Joe Cantrell, co-owner of the Gansett Island Ferry Company and a Coast Guard-certified ferry captain.
*Janey McCarthy, vet tech at the Island Veterinary Clinic, engaged to Dr. David Lawrence.
*Indicates recurring throughout the series
Supporting Characters:
*Mac McCarthy, Jr., partner in McCarthy’s Gansett Island Marina and owner of McCarthy Construction in MAID FOR LOVE, engaged to Maddie Chester in MAID FOR LOVE, father of Thomas Chester McCarthy in MAID FOR LOVE.
* Maddie Chester, mother of Thomas, engaged to Mac McCarthy in MAID FOR LOVE.
*Dr. David Lawrence, ex-fiancé of Janey McCarthy
Leroy, ferry boat captain, Gansett Island Ferry Company.
*Doc Potter, veterinarian, Gansett Island Vet Clinic, Janey’s boss.
*Chelsea, bartender at the Beachcomber.
*Blaine Taylor, chief, Gansett Island Police, classmate of Mac’s and Joe’s.
*Big Mac McCarthy, grandfather of Thomas Chester McCarthy in MAID FOR LOVE.
*Linda McCarthy, grandmother of Thomas Chester McCarthy in MAID FOR LOVE.
*Luke Harris, partner, McCarthy’s Gansett Island Marina, ex-boyfriend of Sydney Donovan.
Trio, Janey’s three-legged cat.
Sam, Janey’s blind dog.
Dexter, Janey’s cocker spaniel, who was found with his ears missing.
Muttley, Janey’s dog who was malnourished when he was found.
Riley, Janey’s German Shepherd, has no back legs.
Pixie, Janey’s Jack Russell, has a persistent skin infection.
*Kay Lawrence, David’s mother.
*Ned Saunders, island cabdriver, land-owner and giver of wisdom, best friend of Big Mac McCarthy.
Rob, mate on the ferry.
*Francine Chester, mother of Maddie and Tiffany, grandmother of Ashleigh Sturgil and Thomas McCarthy.
*Tiffany Chester Sturgil, daycare and dance studio owner, mother of Ashleigh, wife of Jim Sturgil.
*Sydney Donovan, Luke Harris’s ex-girlfriend and Maddie’s friend, recently lost her husband and children in a drunk-driving accident that left her badly injured.
*Grant McCarthy, screenwriter in Los Angeles.
*Evan McCarthy, musician in Nashville.
*Adam McCarthy, owns a computer company in New York City.
Headlines in FOOL FOR LOVE:
Janey catches David in bed with another woman—they’re done!
Janey’s car breaks down and Joe comes to her rescue!
Back at Joe’s house, Janey asks him to make her feel something other than devastated!
She has the best sex of her life with Joe!
Joe encourages Janey to consider all her options, including vet school!
Joe tells Janey he loves her and has for as long as he can remember!
Janey tells Maddie she slept with Joe!
Afraid of how he’ll react, Maddie keeps Janey’s secret from Mac!
Joe punches David and gets arrested!
Hello, Blaine Taylor, Gansett Island Police Chief!
David’s mother has coffee with Linda, hoping to Janey and David back together!
Francine is released from prison and doesn’t approve of Maddie’s plan to marry Mac!
Mac and Maddie hit a speed bump right before their wedding!
David has cancer!
Janey is going to vet school this fall!
Luke Harris’s ex-girlfriend and recent widow, Sydney Donovan, is back on Gansett!
Grant, Adam and Evan McCarthy come home for Mac’s wedding!
Luke rows his boat across a pond to check on Sydney, who’s crying on the porch!
Mac and Maddie get married!
Joe and Janey get engaged! He’s going with her to Ohio for vet school!
FOOL FOR LOVE has one of Marie’s favorite opening lines: The phone call Joe Cantrell had waited half his life to receive came in around nine on an otherwise average Tuesday evening.
And doesn’t that phone call change everything?
Hearing Janey needs him, Joe is in his truck and on his way to her location south of Boston before he takes one second to question the wisdom of this mission.
Something has happened between her and her fiancé, Dr. David Lawrence, and whatever it is must be bad if Janey is crying by the side of the road and calling Joe for help after her car breaks down.
As far as he knew, she was on her way to surprise David, who is finishing his medical training in Boston, on their thirteenth anniversary.
“Lucky thirteen,” she’d said when he’d seen her earlier.
So why hadn’t she called David when her car broke down?
Maybe she called Joe because he’s the only other person she knows on the mainland.
Or maybe she called him because she knows he’d come running.
His burning love for his best friend’s little sister is the biggest secret in his life.
Only her brother Mac is aware of it, but due to her thirteen-year relationship with David and a wedding planned for next summer, Joe knows there’s no point in harboring hopes where she’s concerned.
Until she calls him for help.
When he arrives, he learns Janey caught David in bed with another woman.
While Joe is secretly glad to hear her relationship with David is probably over, he’s focused only on whatever Janey needs.
After calling a tow for her car, he loads her into his truck and takes her home with him to hide out while she figures out her next move.
Her heartbreak makes him want to punch David Lawrence in the face, but as far as Joe is concerned, David never deserved the magnificence that is Janey McCarthy.
Back at his house, Joe lets Mac know where his sister is and tells him not to come running to get her.
Janey needs a minute to catch her breath, and she’ll be staying with Joe for a couple of days.
Mac expresses concern for Joe in this situation, which Joe appreciates, but it doesn’t change his mind about giving her a sanctuary for as long as she needs it—and as long as she needs him.
Joe and Mac are angry with David for treating Janey this way.
With her asleep in his bed, Joe settles on the sofa, wondering if now that things have blown up between her and David, there might be a chance for him.
But this isn’t the time, no matter how much hope he feels.
He wakes later to hear her sobbing and goes to her, holding her while she cries and losing his heart and mind to her as he holds her in his bed.
He immediately realizes his mistake when she clings to him, and then she asks him to make her feel something other than devastated… .
“You have no idea what you’re asking of me. No idea.”
“I’m asking someone who loves me and who I love to hold me and love me and make this awful, unbearable pain go away.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t, Janey. I just can’t.”
“Joe.” Her lips find his, her hand sinking into his thick hair, her fingers caressing his scalp, as he trembles. “I need you. Don’t say no. Please, don’t say no.”
His hands frame her face as he draws back from her. “You can’t ask me for this, Janey. I’ll get you anything else you need, but not this.”
“No one else could give me this.” She caresses his chest and belly, his rippling muscles responding to her touch even as he continues to resist. Emboldened, she rises so she’s on top of him. The press of his erection against her belly tells her his body is with her even if the rest of him isn’t.
His hands travel over her back, stopping at the waistband of her shorts. He studies her as if he’s making some sort of decision.
“We can’t, honey,” he says softly. “It’s not going to make anything better. It’ll only make everything worse.”
“No. It won’t.”
“You’re using me to get back at him. Evening the score won’t make you feel any less devastated.”
She shakes her head and slides her lips back and forth over his. “I’m not thinking about him right now. I’m thinking about you, and I already feel better.” Straddling him, she sits up and reaches for the hem of her shirt.
He stops her. “You’ll hate yourself in the morning. And worse yet, you’ll hate me.”
“I could never, ever hate you.”
“You don’t think so now…”
“I know so.”
Oh, Joe… Now he’s in big trouble! He knows it’s wrong to act on his overwhelming desire for her, but with her pleading with him to hold her and love her, how can he resist?
Making love to Janey is the most amazing experience of his life, and Janey realizes what she’s been missing with David.
Both their lives are changed forever after that first night together.
For Joe, it’s confirmation of what he’s always known—he and Janey belong together.
Janey is beginning to understand she may have spent thirteen years with the wrong man.
The next morning, Joe calls out of work for that day and the next so he can be with Janey, and they face the morning after in a charged state of disbelief.
They decide to spend the next two days together at his home, in a “bubble,” away from everything and everyone, while she contemplates her next move.
While Joe is at the store, she removes the two-carat ring David gave her and realizes he didn’t even call her for their thirteenth anniversary.
He was too busy sleeping with another woman.