Book 4 Falling for Love #2
Ned takes the day off from cab-driving to spend some time with his lady, Francine, who’s worried about marital trouble between her daughter Tiffany and Jim Sturgil.
Francine is upset about something else, but she won’t tell Ned what it is.
She says maybe they shouldn’t see each other anymore.
Ned leaves heartbroken. Francine, who may still be married to Bobby, asks Tiffany if she found her father.
No, but she found his sister, Marion. Tiffany says Jim is moving out of their house. Francine asks for Marion’s number.
Stephanie is puzzled by Grant and knows she shouldn’t get involved, especially since she has to get back to Providence after the summer to deal with the most important thing in her life.
She suggests Grant hasn’t yet met the love of his life if he didn’t marry Abby during all the years they were together.
She offers to help him get Abby back if that’s what he wants and gives him advice.
Abby is at the clinic—Cal has gotten a call that his mother in Texas has had a stroke, and he’s leaving. The nurse practitioner, Victoria, can take care of Grant’s wound.
Ned goes to visit Big Mac and asks Linda for advice about Francine. She advises him to be patient. Adam and Evan are wrestling, and Ned is happy to see Big Mac engaged with his family as he recovers from his head injury.
Laura is in love with the Sand & Surf Hotel.
Owen admits the owners are his grandparents, and he spent summers with them there.
His father is an Air Force general, and his family moved around a lot.
His grandparents live in Florida and are trying to sell the hotel.
He doesn’t want it because it would require him to stay in one place.
He calls her “Princess” because there’s something regal about her, and says he’s staying to play at the Tiki Bar until October.
It’d be more fun if she were there, too.
On the way to Mac’s party, Grant stops at the marina to check on Stephanie, who lives in one of the back rooms there.
He doesn’t like thinking of her alone in the dark with no power.
He finds her at a table with a battery-powered light, poring over stacks of papers.
She’s startled by his sudden appearance.
He wants to know what she’s doing, and they bicker about minding their own business.
He pushes her to tell him what’s wrong.
“Fine!” The word seems torn from her very soul as she spins around, her eyes wild with rage, fear and pain unlike anything he’s ever seen.
“If you want to know so bad—here it is. Charles Grandchamp is my stepfather—the one person in my whole, entire, miserable life who was ever good to me, who ever loved me or gave a shit about me. And guess where he is?” Before Grant can begin to form a coherent statement, she answers her own question.
“In prison, serving a life sentence with no chance of parole, for kidnapping and assault of a minor.” Her chest heaves, and tears fall freely down her face.
Riveted by her outburst, Grant can’t seem to move as he absorbs what she said. “Who did he kidnap and assault?”
“Me,” she says so softly he almost doesn’t hear her over the howling of the storm.
He finds out that she’s been trying to get Charlie out of prison and goes to visit him on Fridays. They share an embrace, and he offers to help her. He talks her into coming to Mac’s with him so she can help make Abby jealous. She turns him on and makes him mad, often in the same second.
Stephanie is mad at herself for telling Grant about Charlie.
They arrive at Mac’s, and Grant tells Maddie that Cal left the island that day, and now there’s no doctor.
She pleads with him not to tell Mac that.
Grant talks to Abby, finds out Cal made it to the mainland, and is on his way to Texas.
Abby tells him again they’re over, and he ought to give Stephanie a chance if he likes her.
Grant is upset. Luke is going to the mainland for an MRI because his ankle isn’t healing.
He’s cranky with Sydney and then feels bad.
Watching Janey and her husband open wedding gifts is torture for Laura.
She goes outside for air, and Owen finds her there.
She tells him her new marriage is already over because her husband never stopped dating.
Owen’s grandmother wonders if Laura might be interested in running the Sand & Surf.
Evan asks him to play. Owen asks Laura if she has any requests.
Something by James Taylor. He plays “You’ve Got a Friend. ”
Francine tells Ned she has some things she has to take care of and that she’s sorry for being distant. She knows where to find him when she’s taken care of her stuff.
Maddie can’t deny she’s having contractions, and she’s in a panic knowing there’s no doctor on the island.
She’s in labor two months early. She should’ve listened to Mac and gone to the mainland.
She asks Stephanie to help find Victoria, the nurse practitioner at the clinic.
When he realizes what’s happening, Mac fights through the panic to help her to bed.
Grant takes Stephanie home to Janey’s house, so she doesn’t have to stay at the marina alone in the dark.
Janey tells Joe that her ex-fiancé, Dr. David Lawrence, called her the day before the wedding to wish her well. Joe is miffed that she didn’t tell him. David is home on the island visiting his mother. She wants to call David to help with Maddie. Do it, Joe says. David says he’ll be right there.
Stephanie helps Grant care for Janey’s pets.
They sit by the fire, and he gets her to admit she’s not sorry he and Abby are done.
He gets testy with her and is alarmed by her reaction to his anger.
He assures her she has nothing to worry about with him—ever.
Then he shows her how being in the same room with her makes him hard.
They have sex again, and this time he’s totally sober and realizes he’s begun to have feelings for her.
They talk about whether they want kids and his career woes since he won his industry’s top award. He says her story about her stepfather gave him the first buzz he’s had to write in a long time. She says he can’t write about her. He promises he won’t.
Mac is out of his mind with worry about Maddie.
Big Mac offers comfort. Maddie gives birth to a girl, whom they name Hailey, in honor of Tropical Storm Hailey.
The baby is perfect, and David suspects Maddie was further along than the doctors thought.
Mac says they’re never having sex again. Maddie just laughs.
Janey realizes David saved Hailey’s life because she wasn’t breathing at birth. He tells her he’s still in remission after being treated for lymphoma a year ago. Joe sees David kiss Janey on the forehead, and she quickly gets her husband out of Mac’s house and back to their honeymoon.
Ned gives Francine a ride home after her granddaughter’s birth. She promises to call him soon.
Grant wakes up thinking he’s with Abby and realizes he slept with Stephanie again, and just that quickly, he wants her.
They have hot sex and are interrupted by a knock on the door.
Big Mac has come to tell Grant that Hailey McCarthy was born, and everyone is doing well.
He warns Grant that if he hurts Stephanie, he’ll answer to him.
After overhearing the conversation with his dad, Stephanie tells him all she wants is sex, not a relationship.
Grant is oddly wounded by her withdrawal.
Laura tells Big Mac about what happened with her husband.
He’s outraged. She says she’s worried about her brother Shane because his wife had been hiding a pain medication addiction that landed her in rehab.
Her dad, Frank, couldn’t make it to Janey’s wedding because he had a big trial starting and couldn’t risk getting stuck on the island with the storm coming.
She tells Big Mac about the job offer at the hotel.
He suggests asking Shane to come over to help her renovate the hotel. Laura decides to take the job.
Mac takes care of Maddie the next morning. While she’s in the bath, she thinks about how happy Tiffany looked talking to Blaine Taylor the night before. They introduce Thomas to his baby sister.
Francine calls Bobby’s sister, Marion, to ask for his number because Francine needs a divorce.
Laura tells Owen she’ll take the job. He calls his grandparents so she can talk to them.
Grant talks Stephanie into continuing to stay with him at Janey’s.
She’s worried about coming up with $1,000 to pay her new lawyer by the end of the month.
With the storm expected to last another day, the island is beginning to run out of food, beer and other essentials.
When Grant sees that Stephanie is really worried about running out of food, he asks if that was a problem in the past. She says her mom did her best, but she was an addict.
Her mother would forget about her, once for a week when she was six or seven.
Stephanie has spent close to half a million dollars on lawyers for Charlie over the last fourteen years—every dime she’s ever made, except a small amount to live on.
His uncle is a judge, Frank McCarthy. Let us help you, Grant says.
If he can write about her story, they might be able to get even more help.
In all the years she’s been fighting this battle, he’s the first one to offer to help. She matters to him.