Book 8 Waiting for Love #5
While sneaking back into the Beachcomber, with wet hair and clothes, Abby and Adam run into his parents, who haven’t heard she was back on the island.
Adam tells them she ended her engagement with Cal.
Big Mac invites them to have a drink and makes it sound mandatory.
Abby runs upstairs to shower while Adam goes into the bar with his parents.
Linda wants to know what he’s doing with Abby.
Big Mac encourages Adam to tell his mother what happened to his business and his relationship.
Linda still wants to know what’s going on with Abby and what Grant will think of it.
Adam has talked to Grant about it. Big Mac doesn’t want him to do anything that might lead to a falling out with Grant, especially when things with Grant are so unsettled. “You’re playing with fire, son.”
“I’m thirty-five years old, Dad. You know I love you both, and I love Grant, too.
But this really has nothing at all to do with him—or with you.
I’m sorry if that sounds disrespectful, because I don’t mean it that way.
I’m asking you not to make it into something it isn’t.
We’re hanging out together. That’s all it is so far.
She’s not looking for anything serious, and neither am I. ”
“If that’s the case, you’d be a fool to let it come between you and your brother,” Linda says. “I can see risking your relationship with him if it were serious between the two of you, but to just ‘hang out,’ it doesn’t seem worth the risk.”
“Let me decide that. I’m asking you to stay out of it and let me figure this out for myself. And please, give me a little credit where Grant is concerned. I’d never do anything to hurt him intentionally, and I’d never let anything come between us. Ever.”
Abby comes into the bar wearing a hot red dress, making Adam stare at her with his mouth hanging open. “Just hanging out, my ass,” Big Mac says.
The dress does wonders for Abby’s self-confidence, even if it is too much for drinks at the Beachcomber with the McCarthys.
Adam is blown away by her. He puts a hand on her leg, and she sucks wine into her lungs.
At the worst possible time, Cal shows up asking for a minute of her time.
He tells her he loves her. Abby is convinced he’s in love with his ex-girlfriend Candy.
She wants more out of love than what she found with him.
She’s throwing away a good thing, he says.
It wasn’t good for me, she replies, hating that her hands are shaking.
Adam is worried about what might be happening with Abby and Cal.
Will she decide to give him another chance?
And why does it matter so much to Adam if she did?
She’s beautiful inside and out, and he hates that she feels she has to turn herself into someone new when there’s nothing wrong with who she is.
When she returns, Adam is dying to know what happened.
After his parents leave, she tells him she stuck to her guns and told Cal it’s over.
Adam is relieved and asks if they can go upstairs.
He notices her new tattoo and is proud of her for getting one that people can see.
She looks up at him with those guileless brown eyes. “So your brother knows, your parents know and Cal knows we’re really done. Where does that leave us?”
Because he can’t live another second without touching her, he puts his arms around her and draws her in closer to him.
Her hands slide up his chest to link behind his neck.
Bending his head, he kisses from her throat to her ear, drawing the lobe between his teeth. “It leaves us alone together in a hotel room with only this astonishing red dress between us.”
This night is all about her, about finding out what she likes and needs and wants. “We have all night,” he says. “I have nowhere to be and nothing on my mind except you.”
Adam already understands what she needs more than anyone else ever has.
David Lawrence finds himself thinking of Daisy frequently.
He decides to stop by her house to see if he can take her to dinner.
He wants to take her to Stephanie’s, but she doesn’t have anything to wear there.
He’s never dated anyone but Janey, so he’s off his game, especially when Daisy kisses his cheek.
Before this goes any further, he needs to tell her he cheated on Janey.
Grace has given Evan seven days and nights to bury himself in his work before she goes to get him. After she gets him home, he confesses he promised her father he wouldn’t propose to her until the studio is making real money. Grace is shocked and speechless.
“This is why you’ve been working like a madman over there?”
“Not the only reason, but the most important one. I’m determined to show him—”
“Stop.” Grace blinks back tears as she covers his mouth with her fingers.
“Don’t say any more. You don’t have to show anyone anything, least of all my family or me.
You’re everything. From the first minute you came over to me after that rat bastard Trey abandoned me here without a nickel to my name, you’ve been my everything.
You always will be. I don’t care if you’re dirt poor and never have another paying job.
None of that matters to me, and if you know me at all, you know I long ago stopped letting my parents’ opinions matter to me.
If I’d continued to listen to them, I’d still be three hundred pounds and as miserable as any person could possibly be. ”
“Grace….”
“I love you, Evan. I love you exactly the way you are. The studio could be the most successful in the business, and I wouldn’t love you any more than I already do.”
He proposes to her with a ring he bought months ago. They plan to get married over the winter.
Abby asks Adam if he thinks it’s weird that they never thought of each other this way until recently, and now it’s all they can think about.
“I think,” he says, as he crawls from the foot of the bed to join her, “it’s a matter of timing. It’s a matter of both of us being in this place and this time and finding something in each other that we need right now.”
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
He doesn’t want her to fake anything with him.
She comes three times and can’t believe it.
She realizes she’s in big trouble with Adam McCarthy.
After she falls asleep, he goes into the shower looking for relief.
She joins him and says, “Let me.” Abby can’t believe what he managed to do when she was with other guys for years, and they never understood her the way he already does.
She’s going to pester him for nonstop sex, which is fine with him.
Carolina wakes Seamus with kisses. She wants to talk about his mother.
He hasn’t told her he is seeing someone much older.
Carolina wants him to invite his mother to visit them.
He has six sisters who’ve given her sixteen grandchildren, so she’s not waiting on him.
His two brothers died young, one of cancer and the other from a drug overdose.
Carolina realizes he’s the last of the O’Grady line.
He says he’ll invite his mother, but adds, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. ”
Janey calls Abby to invite her to a girls’ night out.
She gets dressed and goes to find Adam at the Sand & Surf, where she gets to see him looking sexy with his glasses on, working on the hotel’s computer system.
Laura is sick again, so Adam calls Shane down to cover the desk.
He and Abby are going to get breakfast. They’re at Stephanie’s, holding hands, when Mac and Luke come in.
Mac asks for a moment alone with Adam, who says he can’t do it right now, so Mac asks him to find him before he leaves the hotel.
He wants to know what’s going on between Adam and Abby and if Grant knows about it.
Adam tells his big brother to butt out. Mac invites Adam to Luke’s house for poker while the women are out together.
After Mac walks away, Adam says he’s a pain in the ass. “You know he’s already on the phone with Grant, telling him we’re having breakfast together.” Abby worries about causing trouble between brothers who’ve always been close.
Mac calls Grant, who tells him he already knows about Adam and Abby. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“What do you want me to say? I’m engaged to Stephanie. Why would it bother me?” Grant tells Mac not to make a big thing out of it and to leave Adam alone.
“You’re ruining all my fun,” Mac says.
Mac mentions how they went through the same thing during the sailboat crash, and Grant says that’s not true.
But he won’t tell Mac what’s going on with him since the accident, and Mac is frustrated about that.
Luke advises him to give Grant some space.
He’ll talk about it when he’s ready. Luke informs Mac he’s going to be off-island for a couple of days because Sydney is having tubal ligation reversal surgery.
He asks Mac not to say anything about it because they have no idea if it will work.
Laura awakens from a sound sleep to find her dad knocking at the door.
Shane told him that Laura is still feeling poorly, and since he had a few days free from court, he’s come to see his kids.
Laura is frustrated that she’s now slept the day away once again while Owen covers for her at the hotel.
She tells her dad the news about the twins.
She was afraid he wouldn’t approve because she and Owen aren’t married yet, but Frank is thrilled for them.
Owen comes in and shares the news that Adam and Abby are seeing each other.
All Laura wants to know is what Grant had to say about it.