Book 5 Hoping for Love #3
Evan goes surfing, trying to clear his mind of his confusing thoughts about Grace.
He’s haunted by the memories of being with her, even though he doesn’t want to think about her.
He mistimes a wave and is thrown to the bottom, his face smashing into rocks and shells.
Owen sees his wipeout and swims out to rescue him.
He tells Owen that the date with Grace was the best one he’s ever had, and Owen calls him out on his plan to steer clear of her, offering some of the first insight into Owen’s family that Evan has ever heard.
His father, the general, is a dick. As the oldest, Owen bore the brunt of his father’s abusive behavior.
Owen says Evan can walk away from Grace as long as he didn’t sleep with her.
Evan says nothing. Oh shit, Owen says. That changes everything.
Big Mac arrives to pick up Linda on Mac’s motorcycle to take her on an adventure. They end up at a camp on the beach where he’s planned a romantic dinner for them with Mac’s help. They talk things out and reconcile their differences.
Stephanie is upset about the way she and Grant have been fighting about the screenplay.
Grant assures her that nothing could ever come between them.
Evan arrives with his torn-up face. Grace comes in as Stephanie is cleaning his wounds.
She turns the job over to Grace. Evan had no idea she’d be there and is undone by her presence.
She’s only there because Stephanie invited her, not because of him.
He watches her have a flirtatious moment with that Irish charmer, Seamus O’Grady.
How do they even know each other? Evan returns a call from his manager, Jack Beaumont, who has bad news.
Evan’s record company, Starlite Records, has filed for bankruptcy.
All its assets, including Evan’s album, are caught up in the proceedings.
Buddy Longstreet’s company wants to buy Evan’s album from Starlite and release it on his label, Long Road, which would be a much better situation, but it’ll take a while to work that out.
Grant gives a toast, wishing Abby well in her new life with Cal in Texas.
A man comes to the door asking for Francine and her daughters.
Mac wants to know who he is and what he wants with them.
It’s Bobby Chester, and they nearly come to blows as Mac tries to get rid of Maddie’s deadbeat father.
Maddie comes out and asks her father what he wants.
There’ll be no divorce until Maddie and Tiffany spend some time with him.
When Francine hears what Bobby is asking of her daughters, she says there’ll be no divorce.
She and Ned still get to spend the rest of their lives together.
They don’t need to be married. Tiffany wants to see her father.
She has nothing of him, not a single memory.
If Tiffany sees him, then only Maddie would be standing in the way of her mother marrying Ned.
Grace has a great night talking to Seamus, and then with Blaine about people breaking into pharmacies trying to get drugs.
Blaine has heard about her buying Gold’s and congratulates her.
Laura tells Grace that Evan is seething with jealousy as she flirts with Seamus and talks to Blaine.
Stephanie encourages Grace to give Evan a second chance.
After what she went through to lose weight and get fit, she wants a real man, not a boy pretending to be one. Seamus drives Grace back to town.
Evan shows up at her door, fearing Seamus is in the room with her.
He’s a little drunk and a mess from his injuries.
She lets him in but says nothing will happen.
He accuses her of casting a spell on him and asks if it can be undone.
No, she says, I don’t think it can be. He tells her about his record company bankruptcy and how he gets stage fright.
He wakes up with a horrible hangover and hears her talking about state licenses and other business.
She tells him she’s buying Gold’s and how it was in the works before they slept together.
He wants to be with her. While they’re having sex, he tells her he doesn’t want her to do this with anyone else.
“Is that going to be a problem?”
She makes him wait a long, breathless moment before she says, “No.”
With that single word, she seals her fate—and his.
Owen takes the stairs to the third floor and hears Laura getting sick again. He scoops her up off the floor, tucks her into bed and makes her tea. Owen can’t deny he’s falling hard for her. When she asks what she’ll do when he leaves, he tells her he’s not going.
“What do you mean you’re not going? Of course you are! It’s the great gig in Boston that you do every year—”
Owen places a finger over her lips. “I’m not going.”
“Why?”
His face twists into a wry smile. “You know why, Princess.”
None of this is his problem. He knows, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
“You’re really staying?”
“I’m really staying.”
“Because of me?”
“No, because of Evan. He needs constant supervision.” Owen cuffs her chin. “Yes, because of you, silly. Someone has to pick you up off the floor every morning. It may as well be me.”
“Oh.”
“Is that okay?”
“You really don’t have to….”
Burying his fingers in her soft blonde hair, he presses his lips to her forehead. “I want to, Laura. I really want to.”
She’s worried that he’ll regret staying. He proposes they spend the winter together until the baby arrives and then see where they are. The idea of being domesticated no longer horrifies him, he says. They seal the deal with a kiss.
Grace gives up her spot on the ferry so Stephanie and Grant can get a car on the boat.
Dan Torrington has succeeded in getting an emergency hearing for Stephanie’s stepfather, Charlie.
That gives Grace another night with Evan.
He introduces her to shower sex, and she tells him about the lap-band surgery, how she’s lost more than one hundred pounds and the whale nickname.
He shares what he and the other boys did to Maddie once upon a time and how ashamed he is to have been part of that. He swears he’s not that guy anymore.
She’s worried they’re going in different directions, with her putting down roots on the island while he’s chasing a career that’ll keep him far from home. He wants to take a chance on love, something he’s never said to a woman before.
After Sydney tells a story she read about a woman who cuffed herself naked to her husband to get him to talk to her, Tiffany decides to give it a try with Jim.
The mission is a disaster, leading Jim to call the police.
Blaine arrives, and Jim demands that charges be filed.
Tiffany is mortified that Blaine is seeing her naked and desperate.
Jim wants her arrested. Blaine takes her to the station until they work things out.
Blaine can’t believe a woman like her has to resort to cuffing herself to a man.
He talks Jim out of filing felony charges, but she has to make restitution for the four flat tires on Jim’s car.
Jim is also demanding a restraining order to keep her away from him.
Blaine asks what a nice girl like her is doing with a tool like Jim.
Blaine is on fire with desire for her. He offers to give her a ride home.
She invites him in to see the condition of her empty home.
They share a hot kiss that spirals out of control.
He gives her the best orgasm of her life.
Before she can return the favor, he gets called back to work.
He studies her for another long moment. “If you’d cuffed yourself to me and wrapped those beautiful lips around my dick, I would’ve been calling for mercy, not the cops.
You can bet on that.” Pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, Blaine revels in the tremble that ripples through her.
“Take care of yourself.” He won’t soon forget the image of her delectable mouth hanging open in surprise.
Evan is panicked about losing Grace. He wants her, he wants them, he wants it all with her.
She suggests they take the next two weeks while she’s back home in Mystic packing to move to make sure this is what they really want.
While the drama over his record unfolds in Nashville, Evan gets through the first week after Grace leaves.
Stephanie’s stepfather, Charlie, is released from prison after fourteen years.
They bring him home to the island. Ned finds Charlie a rental while Mac offers him a job helping to renovate the Sand & Surf.
Sensing that Evan is suffering without Grace, Linda tells him she understands how it feels to want someone so badly and to see only obstacles standing in the way.
She and Big Mac dealt with some of that when they were first together.
Later, when he calls Grace, they have phone sex.
They can’t wait to see each other in two more days.
When Grace comes off the ferry, she throws herself into Evan’s arms.
“Did you think long and hard while I was gone?”
“So long and so hard,” he says in a tone rife with double meaning.
She smacks his arm. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.” He takes her hand and leads her away from the maelstrom of people, cars and bikes. Behind the ticket office, he presses her against the wall and kisses her senseless again.
“What did you decide?”
“I decided I’m no good without you. I decided I’ll do anything I can to keep you in my life.
” As he’d practiced this declaration over and over during the last few interminable days, he’d expected this last bit to be the hard part.
But with her in his arms, looking up at him with her heart in her eyes, he finds it isn’t hard at all. “And I decided I love you.”
“That works out perfectly,” she says with the cheeky grin he so adores. “Because I love you, too.”