Book 7 Longing for Love #5
Blaine falls asleep with Tiffany and wakes to someone at his door.
His mother has come to throw cold water on his new romance.
She’s furious that he bought furniture for Tiffany and that one of her friends is calling Tiffany’s store the House of Dildos.
She reminds him how he lost his last job because of a woman.
Blaine tells her he’s a grown man, and Tiffany is good for him.
After she leaves, Tiffany appears and would like to go home.
She overheard the conversation with his mother.
He doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
Being with her feels good. He’s unnerved when she says nothing. That’s not like her.
Stephanie’s grand opening winds down to her closest friends on the deck for a nightcap.
She thanks everyone who helped her, especially Charlie.
She’s so glad to get to work with him and be with him every day.
She thanks Big Mac and Linda for keeping her on at the marina restaurant while she got her own place ready to open, and thanks Grant for everything.
Mac, Grant, Evan and Dan are going to crew for Steve the next day.
Stephanie is intrigued when Charlie follows Sarah inside and doesn’t come back.
Everyone is worried about Laura’s brother Shane and how quiet he is.
They love how Kara takes no crap from Dan.
Grant assures Stephanie that he never misses LA and is right where he wants to be.
He’s thrilled to see her dreams coming true.
Charlie and Sarah walk out to the South Harbor breakwater.
He opens up a little about Stephanie’s mother and what they went through when she was using.
Her accusations put Charlie in prison for fourteen years, when it was Stephanie’s mother who abused her, not him.
He tells Sarah to never to be afraid of him.
She’s not sure she can do that, and she’s not ready to tell him about her past. That’s okay with him.
She never has to tell him if she doesn’t want to.
Tiffany is reeling from the things she learned about Blaine from his mother.
He lost a job because of a woman. Every man leaves her.
Why would he be different? She’s mad at herself for falling in love with him.
He finds her crying in the bathroom and draws her a bath.
They have sex, and she wants to tell him she loves him, but not until she’s sure he won’t leave.
He asks why she was crying. She’s afraid that people who don’t approve of her will talk him out of wanting to be with her.
That’s not going to happen, he assures her.
He nearly went crazy waiting for her to be free of Jim. He’s not going anywhere.
Dan’s not ready to go home yet. Kara suggests a boat ride on the Salt Pond.
She irritates him by telling him a guy named Robert, in town for Race Week, asked her out.
She wanted to see how tonight went with Dan before she gave Robert an answer.
Kara and Dan have sex in the dark on the floor of the boat after he makes her promise she won’t hate him in the morning.
She won’t. After, she invites him back to her place to get more comfortable.
Joe wakes up to Janey telling him his mother needs to tell him something, and he needs to listen and not overreact.
He’s nervous about whatever it is, but as long as she’s not sick, he promises to be reasonable.
Carolina is the personal reason for Seamus giving his notice.
He’s shocked to hear that she and Seamus have feelings for each other, and she didn’t pursue them because of him.
He’s got to go. Where? Anywhere. Janey and Carolina go after him.
Since Carolina’s visit the night before, Seamus is trying not to get his hopes up. After bringing the ferry into port at Gansett, he finds Joe sitting behind the desk in the office.
“Love is love, Joe. I love your mom. I want to be with her. I want to make her happy and take care of her. How is that any different from what you feel for Janey?”
“She’s a lot older than you, for one thing.”
“Is she?” Seamus asks, feigning shock. “I had no idea!”
“Stop trying to be funny. This isn’t funny.”
“Stop acting like a little boy who’s miffed because his mum got a boyfriend behind his back.”
Joe is furious. “I’m not doing that!”
“Don’t you want your mum to be happy?”
“Of course I do! But what happens a few years down the road when you decide being with an older woman isn’t working for you anymore? Or you want kids of your own? What happens then?”
“What happens a few years down the road when you decide being with Janey isn’t as great as you thought it would be?”
“That’ll never happen! I love her with everything I am. What does that have to do with what we’re talking about?”
Seamus smiles as the realization settles into Joe’s expression and demeanor.
“You love her that much?” Joe asks in a whisper.
“I love her that much.”
Janey and Carolina arrive, relieved that Joe didn’t hit Seamus.
Carolina focuses on her son. “Are you going to be able to live with this?”
“You haven’t given me much choice.”
“Actually,” Seamus says, “that’s not true.
You know as well as I do that if you disapprove or express your disappointment or in any way seem put out by it, she’ll throw me over like yesterday’s news.
So, it does matter. If you’re going to do any of those things, I, for one, would appreciate you doing them now before this goes any further. ”
“I’m not going to do any of those things.”
“Are you sure?” Seamus asks. “You don’t get to change your mind in a week or a month or a year.”
“Neither do you,” Joe says pointedly.
Seamus, who understands what Joe is saying, nods in agreement. “Neither do I.”
“It might take me a while to get my head around it, but I won’t stand in the way.” To his mother, he says, “I’d never want to be the cause of your unhappiness. I hate that you thought I would.”
Tears fill Carolina’s eyes as she hugs him. “Thank you.”
“Caro?”
She pulls back from her son and turns to Seamus.
“Come here.”
Joe nods and squeezes her shoulder.
Carolina takes a couple of halting steps toward Seamus.
He holds out his arms to her. “Come to me.”
She seems hesitant to get close to him with her son and daughter-in-law watching, but Seamus knows it’s vital that she take this first, most important step in front of them.
“It’s okay, love,” he whispers. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”
They told Joe, and nothing bad happened. Now they have all the time in the world to spend together.
Dan, in bed with Kara, wants to weep when the alarm goes off at six a.m. She says thanks for a great night, but she’s not interested in anything more.
He’s stunned and hurt by her coldness when she promised she wouldn’t hate him in the morning.
He wishes he hadn’t agreed to go sailing so he could stay and work things out with her, but he has to leave.
Carolina wakes up to realize Seamus never went back to work the day before.
He called in one of their other captains to cover for him so he could stay with her.
He asks if she’s prepared to deal with people who won’t understand what she’s doing with a much younger man.
After getting her to admit she loves him, he wants to marry her and have everything with her. She needs to think about it.
Tiffany is relieved that Dan worked things out with her landlord to provide a new check and assured the landlord it won’t happen again.
The landlord told Dan it was Jim’s idea to begin eviction proceedings.
Of course it was. Dan tells Jim he’s considering relocating to Gansett and opening his own practice.
As the island’s only lawyer, Jim doesn’t take that news well.
He orders Jim to leave Tiffany alone, or they’ll sue him for defamation.
Maddie and Big Mac wait on her deck for Bobby Chester to arrive. She’s a nervous wreck, but Big Mac reminds her that she’s strong and resilient, no thanks to her deadbeat father. Bobby wants to say he’s sorry. Maddie asks why he left. He says he wasn’t cut out for family life, but he loved them.
“You’ve seen me. Give my mother the divorce and let her be happy.”
“Is that the only reason you saw me?”
“Yes.”
Blaine connects Sarah and Daisy, who bond over their shared experience with abusive partners.
He talks to Sarah about his mother not approving of Tiffany.
While he’s with Sarah and Daisy, Blaine gets a call from Linc Mercier, commander of Coast Guard Station, Gansett Island, telling him that one of the Race Week sailboats collided with a freighter in the fog with one confirmed fatality.
Islanders were on the boat, and he needs Blaine’s help figuring out who they might be.
Blaine goes first to McCarthy’s Marina to ask Big Mac who might have been on the boat.
When he tells him why, Big Mac lets out an agonized howl.
Three of his boys are on that boat—Mac, Grant and Evan—along with Dan Torrington and the captain, Steve Jacobson.
Luke and Blaine stop Big Mac from going out in the fog to look for them. It’s too dangerous.
Someone needs to tell Linda, Maddie and Grace. Stephanie is working at the marina restaurant and breaks down upon hearing the news. Kara hears the shocking news when she comes to work at the marina. She was just with Dan.