Book 5 Hoping for Love #2
She makes an offer to buy the pharmacy, and Mr. Gold shows her the apartment over the store.
Mr. Gold promises to talk over her offer with Mrs. Gold and get back to her.
Next, she goes to the McCarthy home looking to reimburse Evan, but no one is there, so she walks down the hill to the marina, where she finds him.
He doesn’t seem happy to see her.. Stephanie offers her chowder and a seat at their table.
When it seems like Evan doesn’t want her there, Grace puts the money on the table and gets up to leave.
Evan chases after her. He gives her back the money and says he thought about her after she left. He’d been thinking of her when she walked into the marina restaurant. He was surprised by how happy he was to see her. He wants to hang out while she’s in town.
After ten days on the mainland, Laura is happy to see Owen, but she has no business being interested in any man, as she’s three months pregnant and still married to her ex.
“Are you okay?” Owen asks her.
“Not yet,” she says. “But I will be.”
Evan is more interested in Grace than he’s ever been in anyone, which Grant and Owen pick up on during an afternoon at the beach with Grace, Stephanie and Laura.
Owen says he and Laura are just friends.
Evan knows that Grace isn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman.
He’s not good enough for her. He invites Grace to take a walk with him.
He’s out of sorts because he likes her so much.
They share a passionate kiss. He asks her to go out with him that night.
Grace needs help from the girls to get ready for her date.
She tells them she’s lost 130 pounds and has no experience with men.
While they’re at Gold’s, Mrs. Gold tells Grace they accept her offer to buy the pharmacy. Stephanie buys condoms for Grace, just in case.
Mac is getting ready to leave the marina when he finds Big Mac standing at the same spot on the main dock where his accident occurred earlier in the summer.
He can’t remember what happened. Mac buys him a beer and tells him the upsetting story.
They talk about him arguing with Linda, and Mac suggests a romantic date to get back on track.
Tiffany is taking over the lease and helping Abby shut down her store so Abby can join Cal in Texas. The wedding they’d planned for October has been canceled because of his mom’s stroke. Blaine comes in, and sparks fly between him and Tiffany.
Evan is strangely nervous about his date with Grace.
Stephanie and Laura are leaving the Beachcomber after helping her get ready and warn Evan to be good to Grace.
He takes one look at Grace and realizes this won’t be just another date.
Grace is thrilled by his reaction to her.
It’s the first time she’s ever felt truly beautiful.
They share a kiss that makes her realize that her feelings for Trey were nothing compared to what she already feels for Evan.
Their kiss gets out of control. Evan reminds her he’s not looking for anything serious.
He wants to take her out and show her a good time.
She wants to sleep with him but needs more time to get to know him and prepare herself for her first time.
Laura returns to the Sand & Surf and finds Owen playing his guitar as the sun sets behind him.
She gets a call from her ex-husband, Justin, who’s outraged that she filed for divorce.
He wants to meet at their apartment, but she’s moved them out of there.
His stuff will be delivered to his mother’s that week.
He’s furious that his mother will know they’ve split and that she told her father they’re over.
Justin will never sign the divorce papers.
Owen offers comfort. Laura suspects that Justin, an up-and-coming lawyer, was more interested in being Judge Frank McCarthy’s son-in-law than he was in being Laura’s husband. Owen invites her out for pizza.
Tiffany sits in one of the only remaining chairs in her empty house with a glass of wine, picking over the slow-rolling disaster that led to her split with Jim.
If only she knew what had gone so wrong.
Mac stops by to ask Tiffany to help him plan a girls’ night out for Maddie, who’s been stuck at home since having Hailey.
Tiffany shows Mac her empty house, and he’s outraged.
Mac tells her he’ll be there for her and Ashleigh, and Tiffany apologizes for being hard on him when he and Maddie were first together.
Mac decides to confront Jim, jacks him up and threatens to ruin his practice if he doesn’t treat Tiffany and Ashleigh with the respect they deserve.
Maddie is waiting for him at home and checks his hands to make sure he kept his promise not to punch Jim.
He can’t bear to be close to her when they have more than three weeks to go until they can have sex again.
She takes the edge off for him. Neither of them can wait to get back to normal.
Walking through town holding hands with Evan is one of the most exciting things that’s ever happened to Grace.
Their dinner at The Lobster House is full of (inappropriate) laughter, romance and sharing of stories about their lives.
After dinner, they walk on the beach. After more hot kisses, Grace wants to go back to the hotel with him.
Since she might only have this one night with him, she wants to try everything she’s read about in romance novels.
She’s glad she waited to experience her first time with Evan, who’s tender and sweet.
After, he says he wished he’d known it was her first time.
He would’ve been more careful. You were perfect, she says.
As it’s happening, she fears their one perfect night will haunt the rest of her life.
Owen makes Laura laugh as they share a meat-lover’s pizza.
Then he takes her to an arcade to shoot things to deal with her stress.
Laura feelings for him are overwhelming in light of her current situation.
When she takes off toward the hotel, he chases after her and kisses her.
She can’t set herself up for another disappointment.
He’s leaving soon, and they want different things.
Owen watches her go upstairs, wishing he could go with her to tuck her into bed.
He doesn’t need to be in the middle of a potentially ugly divorce with a child involved that the father doesn’t even know about yet.
Despite that, the thought of leaving for the winter and not seeing Laura again for months has him deeply unsettled.
Big Mac is picking up Linda at six and taking her out.
She is delighted about the date and tells him Grant and Stephanie are having a going-away party for Abby, which he finds funny since Abby is Grant’s ex-girlfriend.
Evan never came home last night, and Linda heard he was seen in town with Grace.
Linda likes her for Evan. Big Mac tells her not to get ahead of herself.
Owen and Laura were also seen walking arm in arm in town.
Big Mac and Linda share a sexy kiss, and then she tells him Abby’s party will be at their house.
“That’s okay,” he says. “We won’t be home. ”
The morning after his incredible night with Grace, Evan tries to make sense of what took place in that hotel room.
Freaked out by their intense connection, he’s determined to stay the hell away from her, so she doesn’t derail his entire life when all his dreams are about to come true with a new album and a tour with superstars Buddy Longstreet and Taylor Jones.
Grace is leaving the next day. He has no intention of ever seeing her again.
Grace is disappointed to wake up alone, but has no regrets about her wonderful night with Evan. She wonders if he’ll call to make plans for the day and decides she needs to see her new friends Stephanie and Laura to help make sense of it all.
Owen is thinking about Laura and how the ten days she spent on the mainland were among the longest of his life.
He’s been unreasonably happy to have her back on the island.
He goes upstairs to check on her, to make sure they’re still friends after he kissed her, and finds her retching from the morning sickness that plagues her.
Standing outside her door, he makes a big decision to cancel his annual fall gig in Boston to stay on Gansett with her. What the hell did he just do?
Laura is weak with sickness when Owen appears to pick her up off the bathroom floor and carry her to bed.
She shouldn’t rely on him this way, but she can’t help it when he’s so sweet and caring.
Owen asks her to go to Abby’s party with him and then leaves her to nap.
If you’d told him a month ago that he’d be rearranging his life to accommodate a woman who was still married to another guy and pregnant with his kid, Owen would’ve laughed his ass off.
Now he can’t conceive of a day that doesn’t include her.
Grace goes to visit Laura, who’s on the phone with Stephanie, asking how she got roped into co-hosting a party for Grant’s ex-girlfriend.
Grace tells them they were right that she’d be unable to resist Evan, and they shriek with excitement.
She’s disappointed that he was gone when she woke up.
Stephanie says he’s not going to call because he’s running away.
She and Grant had a huge fight about the screenplay they’re writing together.
The girls think Evan’s behavior is lame and inform Grace that she’s coming to Abby’s party with them.
Grace and Stephanie tell Laura that if her marriage to Justin is truly over, which she says it is, there’s no reason she can’t date Owen.
Grace talks to Seamus O’Grady about moving her belongings to the island on the ferry. They partake in a flirtatious conversation that bolsters Grace’s spirits. Evan isn’t the only guy in town.