Book 2 Fool for Love #2
When Mac calls, she tells him what happened with David and asks him not to say anything to anyone on the island, especially their parents.
Mac is stunned to hear Joe took two days off during Fourth of July week when the ferries are running at full capacity.
When Joe returns from the store, Janey tells him she has no idea what to do now, and he encourages her to consider all her options, including veterinary school.
Everyone in Janey’s life was outraged when David talked her out of going, so they wouldn’t have to take on debt from two medical school educations.
She thinks it’s too late to apply to vet school, since she graduated from college six years ago.
Joe says it’s never too late. He notices she took off her ring and recalls that she doesn’t eat meat because she’s such an animal lover.
Joe finds it difficult to hide his feelings from her, and at the end of the day, the truth spills out of him.
“Janey,” he sighs, dropping his head to his hands.
She doesn’t know what to say or do. Keeping her hand on his back, she gives him a minute. “Joe—”
He stands up straight, frames her face with his hands, and captures her mouth in a deep, searing kiss.
“I love you. I love you so much, and I have for as long as I can remember.” Before she can say anything, he kisses her again.
“I hated watching you care for a guy who didn’t deserve you.
I hated how he would go weeks, sometimes months, without visiting you.
I hated watching you waste your time with him, knowing he would never love you like I do. ”
She’d suspected there was something…. But she’d never imagined he’d spent years silently in love with her. Flabbergasted, she stares up at him. “I, um… I….”
“I shouldn’t be saying these things to you, especially right now. But I needed you to know the truth.”
Janey struggles free of him. “I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t have called you yesterday.” Her hands begin to shake as images from their erotic night together run through her mind like a movie.
“Oh, God, Joe. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was like that.
” Sure, she’d suspected he had a little thing for her, but madly in love?
For years? No, she hadn’t known that. She hadn’t had the first inkling.
“There’s no way you could’ve known. I worked very, very hard to keep it hidden. Only one person has ever figured it out.”
“Who?”
He smiles and tilts his head.
“Mac.”
Nodding, Joe draws her back in close to him. “I don’t want you to go.”
“What happened between us…”
“Was the best thing to ever happen to me. Someday, when you’re ready, maybe you’ll see it was the best thing to ever happen to you, too.”
After two blissful, erotically charged days together, it’s time for Janey to return home to the island, and neither she nor Joe is ready to face reality.
They’re on the ferry when Mac calls to tell Joe that David is looking for Janey.
Mac plans to meet the boat and will take Janey back to his and Maddie’s house for the night.
Joe, who is heartbroken to be separated from her after what they’ve shared, asks him to take good care of her.
Mac reminds Joe of the Fourth of July party they’re having at their house, and he’s relieved to know he’ll see Janey again soon.
Mindless of the prying eyes that surround them, Janey drops her head to Joe’s chest and rests her hands on his hips. “I never would’ve survived this without you.”
Joe aches. How can he tell her he’d never survive the rest of his life without her? He can’t. It would be so unfair to add to her burden.
He holds her close. “You know where I am. You know how I feel. You know what I want.”
She nods.
“No time limit, no statute of limitations, no pressure.”
She looks up at him again, slaying him with the array of emotions that dance across her expressive face. “Thank you.”
Gratitude was the least of what he wanted from her, but being the needy fool he was, he took what he could get. He kissed her forehead, and even though it cost him more than he could bear, he let her go.
Janey and Joe go their separate ways, trying to cope with everything that’s happened.
Janey confesses to Maddie that she slept with Joe, and her emotions are all over the place after learning Joe has been in love with her for years.
Maddie struggles with keeping the news that Joe and Janey slept together from Mac.
Janey listens to voicemails from David, who’s wondering where she is, while Joe gets drunk at the Beachcomber bar.
He wakes up horribly hungover the next day and is heading to work when he runs into David.
Joe punches him in the face, breaking David’s nose.
Joe gets arrested, and while sitting in jail waiting for Mac to bail him out, he begins to wonder whether Janey will appreciate him punching David.
Along with Gansett Island Police Chief Blaine Taylor, classmate to Joe and Mac, Big Mac comes to have a talk with Joe.
Joe is upset to have disappointed the man who’s been a father figure to him since he lost his own father as a child.
Big Mac bails him out. Janey hears about the incident and is shocked that Joe actually broke David’s nose.
Maddie takes Janey to the clinic to see David.
She tells him what she saw that day in his apartment, says they’re over and gives him back the ring while he tries to explain.
Janey doesn’t want to hear it. She needs to tell her parents the engagement is off before they hear it from someone else.
Maddie takes her to the McCarthy’s home.
They encounter Joe and his swollen hand there.
Joe and Janey have a moment together outside.
She asks him to come to her house later that night.
When he’s leaving the Beachcomber to go to Janey’s, knowing it’s probably a bad idea to go back for more, he runs into Luke Harris, who razzes him about punching David.
They discuss Mac’s upcoming bachelor party.
Joe gets to Janey’s, intending to talk and only talk, but quickly finds himself in her bed.
He learns she has five dogs and three cats in her home, all of them special-needs animals.
Joe is worried about trouble with Mac after Janey says she told Maddie about what really happened between them on the mainland.
After another night in bed with Joe, Janey’s glad she didn’t get married before she knew what it was like to be with him.
He asks her to come back to the mainland with him that night to pick up her car and spend the night at his house.
With Joe in her shower, David shows up at Janey’s wanting to explain himself.
She tells him to leave. He says it’s not over between them.
Linda has coffee with David’s mother, Kay, who’s trying to get David and Janey back together.
Linda pushes back because David cheated.
Kay says David is having some challenges that he needs to tell Janey about.
Linda doesn’t think that’ll matter to her daughter.
Joe isn’t happy to hear that Kay and Linda might be trying to get Janey and David back together.
Mac notices Joe is using Janey’s favorite cow mug and is suspicious of how he came to have it.
Ned shocks Joe when he tells him to give Janey some time, that she’ll come around.
How does he always know what’s going on?
Janey talks to Maddie about the strange transition from friend to lover with Joe and how to know if she loves him-loves him as more than a friend.
Mac asks Janey about the coffee mug, and Maddie advises Janey to tell him the truth before their wedding.
If Mac finds out that Maddie knew about Joe and Janey and didn’t tell him, there might not be a wedding.
When she’s preparing to catch the ferry with Joe, Janey runs into David again.
He wants to know where she’s going. Meanwhile, Joe is afraid he might have to leave without her if she doesn’t get to the ferry landing soon.
They make the crossing in deep fog with Joe at the helm, and at his house, they make love in front of the fireplace on a chilly night.
Joe shows her his paintings, and Janey is shocked to realize there’s so much about him she doesn’t know.
Maddie takes the first boat off the island to pick up her mother, who’s being released from prison after serving three months for writing bad checks.
She is nervous about telling her mother that she’s marrying Mac McCarthy, since Linda was one of the merchants who reported Francine to the police.
Maddie tells her she’s getting married to Mac in a week.
Francine says she’ll marry a McCarthy over her dead body.
Maddie and Janey meet up on the ferry ride back to the island.
Janey encourages Maddie not to allow anyone, even her mother, to steal her happiness with Mac.
Janey wonders how it’s possible she could be falling in love with Joe when she was engaged to David a week ago.
Finding him in bed with another woman helped to move things along, Maddie says.
Mac and Thomas meet the boat, and Francine is rude to Mac.
Janey looks into vet school at Ohio State and takes a call from Kay, pleading with her to give David another chance, that there are things she doesn’t know.
David shows up at Mac’s party and insists on talking to Janey.
She makes a comment about him thinking he’s the only one allowed to have cheap, meaningless sex that Joe overhears.
Stunned and hurt, Joe walks away.
Before Janey can go after him, David tells her he has cancer.
Mac goes after Joe, asks if it’s true, and Joe says it is and he did not take advantage of Janey. Joe accidentally lets on that Maddie knows about them. Mac is incredulous.