Book 3 Ready for Love #3
Ned thinks about Francine, mother to Maddie and Tiffany, and how they were in love twenty-five years ago before Bobby Chester showed up and stole her away.
Seeing Luke back with Sydney inspires Ned to go to Francine’s apartment and ask her out to dinner.
Francine would be honored to have dinner with the nicest boy she’s ever known.
Sydney finds Luke working in the barn on his property, where he restores old boats.
His work is beautiful. She asks why he didn’t go to college after his mother died.
Luke wonders if her parents put that question in her head.
He had a choice: pay off his mother’s medical debt and keep their house or go to school.
He chose the house, and he’s never been sorry.
He’s not the same guy he was before. A lot has changed. She sees that.
Distraught over Abby, Grant gets drunk at the Beachcomber.
Big Mac comes to get him and take him home.
They see Ned and Francine together, giggling like kids.
Ned took Francine to Dominic’s and had a great time.
She invites him in for coffee. He says he wishes he’d come by sooner and is alarmed to find out that Tiffany has been looking for Bobby Chester because she has no memory of him.
Ned promises to come back and see Francine again.
Luke goes back to work expecting to be the center of attention because of his romance with Sydney, but he finds out that Ned is the one setting everyone abuzz with his rekindled romance with Francine.
Stephanie, the restaurant manager, brings doughnuts to the guys.
A drunk boater pulls Big Mac right off the dock.
Mac jumps in after his father, while Luke jumps onto the boat.
“Kill the power, now!” Luke lands on the boat’s deck, his left ankle at an unnatural angle. “We’ve got two guys in the water!”
With Mac screaming for help for his father, Luke is relieved to know at least one of them is okay.
Mac realizes Big Mac is badly hurt and not breathing.
He performs rescue breathing and is relieved when Big Mac starts breathing on his own again.
Paramedics tend to Big Mac, Mac and Luke, while Stephanie goes to find Linda.
Police Chief Blaine Taylor arrests the boat captain.
Big Mac has a head injury, a broken arm, and is hypothermic.
Mac is hypothermic, and Luke has a badly sprained ankle.
Sydney is at Maddie’s, looking at catalogs for the baby nursery, and talking about Sydney maybe staying for the winter on the island.
Janey calls to tell them there’s been an accident at the marina, and Big Mac, Mac and Luke have all been taken to the clinic.
Janey only knew that one of them was hurt badly.
They’re terrified of what they’ll find at the clinic.
Maddie and Sydney are relieved to see that Mac and Luke are mostly all right. Everyone is worried about Big Mac.
Janey can’t bear to see her dad unconscious and badly hurt. Joe, who’d been on the mainland, was flown back over by Slim, the island’s top pilot. Janey is so glad to see Joe. They agree they can’t get married without Big Mac.
Grant wakes up hungover and demoralized and finds out about his father’s accident.
He goes to the clinic and learns his father’s life rests in the hands of the man Abby is engaged to.
She comes to the clinic to be with the McCarthys.
Big Mac has a concussion and should be okay in time.
Grant is outside getting himself together when Stephanie appears to tell him Big Mac will be okay.
He has to be. She loved his movie Song of Solomon that won him an Oscar.
She advises him to act like he doesn’t care that Abby is engaged to Cal.
Back inside, Grant asks the others what’s going on with Ned and Maddie’s mom.
Everyone is shocked to hear that anything is going on.
They find out that Ned and Francine were together before Francine met Bobby.
Maddie starts having weird pains, and Mac wants her checked.
Sydney wants to get Luke home. He asks Grant to help out at the marina.
Sydney calls her parents to help her get Luke home.
Her parents offer to care for Buddy so she can take care of Luke.
Sydney worries about whether Luke can afford to be out of work.
She asks her parents to give Luke a chance.
She’s sick with guilt when, during an argument with her parents, she says she was happy with Seth but never loved him the way she loves Luke.
She says Luke has brought joy and optimism back to her life. Her parents invite them to dinner.
Grant and Abby talk about how she got tired of waiting for something that was never going to happen with him, and she loves Cal differently than she loved him.
Grant asks for another chance. She loved him so much, but it’s over now.
She’s going to marry Cal in October. Stephanie is waiting for Grant with a hangover remedy and points out that he didn’t exactly act like he didn’t care about Abby and Cal.
Maddie might be in pre-term labor and is on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.
Mac needs Grant to help out at the marina.
Stephanie offers to show him the ropes. She tells Grant he’s lucky to have a big family around when times are tough.
She doesn’t have that. Big Mac wakes up, confused and disoriented.
Sydney tells Luke that she knew, as she was marrying Seth, that she didn’t love him the way she’d loved Luke.
He says it was all meant to be, and you can’t have regrets.
Maybe they weren’t meant to get their shot until later in life.
Mac is driving Maddie crazy, wanting to take her to the mainland because of her pre-labor.
She refuses, and she’s about had it with him.
Maddie tells Sydney that Big Mac made Luke a partner in the marina.
Sydney wonders why Luke didn’t tell her that.
Syd agrees to help Maddie with Janey’s bridal shower.
Sydney takes Thomas to see Buddy and for dinner at Luke’s.
Mac and Maddie make up, and he agrees to try to chill out about her being pregnant on a remote island.
Sydney’s mom offers to help with Thomas while Maddie is on bedrest. Ned tells Big Mac how scared he was about his accident, while Big Mac needles him some more about Francine.
Big Mac says it’s turning into a recycle summer between Ned and Luke taking up with old loves.
Janey breaks down with Joe about the close call with her dad.
Grant stops by Luke’s to catch up, and says he’s not happy in LA, his career has gone to shit and he’s lost Abby, too.
Luke says Abby’s not married yet, and a lot can happen before October.
Tiffany visits Maddie at the clinic and tells her that Jim is accusing her of cheating on him, in the latest saga in Tiffany’s marital woes.
Tiffany is fed up with the entire situation and wants to separate from Jim.
Police Chief Blaine Taylor comes into the room, looking for Mac to tell him the boat driver is being charged.
Maddie introduces him to Tiffany, who thinks he’s hot, and she’d like to have an affair with him.
Maddie encourages her sister to deal with her husband.
Francine comes in, and her daughters tease her about having a boyfriend.
Maddie tells her mother that Ned owns half the island, and Francine is incredulous.
When she confronts him about his real estate business, Ned tells her all the money in the world can’t make him as happy as being with her again.
The next day, Luke asks Sydney why she’s shut down on him.
She wants to know if he was ever going to tell her he’s now a part-owner of McCarthy’s Marina.
Luke wants her to stay for him, not for what he has.
She realizes he’s never really forgiven her for what she did in the past. Money is important to her.
She looks at his home and sees that nothing has changed and thinks it’s because he doesn’t have the money.
They end up going to her parents’ house for dinner with nothing resolved.
Luke tells her parents that Syd is annoyed with him because he didn’t tell her about the partnership.
Syd realizes he didn’t tell her because he wanted her to stay for the right reasons, and she loves him.
That’s all that matters. Syd’s aunt has had a heart attack, and her parents need to go to the mainland.
Luke calls Slim to fly them over, and they appreciate it.
Luke asks her to redecorate his house and see how she feels about island life. He’ll go with her to the sentencing and help her pack up her house in Wellesley.
Big Mac rallies to walk Janey down the aisle, and Janey and Joe exchange vows with everyone they love there to witness the big day.