Book 8 Waiting for Love #7
Dan takes the ramp to the launch landing and sits carefully on the bench, waiting for Kara to return, thinking about what he learned from Grant. Kara is shocked to see him there and obviously in pain. He tells her about the emotional discovery of what really happened after the accident.
“I was right up the hill from here, and I wanted to see you. I needed to see you.”
She’s so sad to hear what really happened and offers comfort. He wants to tell her something right there on the dock where they began: He loves her. She makes a joke about how he hasn’t met her sisters yet.
“I don’t care if you have a hundred single, fetching sisters, you’re the one I want, the only one I want.”
“I love you, too, you knucklehead,” she says. “I was just testing you.”
Abby goes to the Sand & Surf to join the girls’ night out with Janey, Maddie, Tiffany, Sydney, Grace and Laura.
She meets Jenny Wilks, the lighthouse keeper, who organized the evening.
Jenny has something she wants to say to them before she loses her nerve.
She updates Abby about how she lost her fiancé in the World Trade Center on 9-11.
She doesn’t want to chicken out on telling her new friends that she’s ready to date again.
She’s not looking for anything serious, but she’s getting tired of her own company, and if they know of anyone who might be fun to go out with, keep her in mind.
Laura whips out a notebook and pen. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.”
Sydney adds, “If you think we won’t take this job seriously, you don’t know us at all.”
They start listing every single guy they know. They put Mason, the fire chief, on the shortlist, as well as Laura’s brother, Shane. Laura asks about Adam. Abby wants to tell them he’s not available. Laura looks directly at Abby. “I heard Adam might be seeing someone.”
Mac told Maddie that Adam is going back to the city to deal with his business. That news hits Abby like a punch. She’s determined to keep moving forward with her life regardless of what happens with Adam.
The others talk about how David seems to be seeing Daisy, so he’s not available.
Grace says she has some news and puts her engagement ring on the table for everyone to see.
Laura tells them she doesn’t have the stomach bug after all, but rather a case of twins.
Then Janey announces that she and Joe have decided to stay on the island this year after the baby is born.
She’s taking a year off from vet school.
They’re looking for a bigger home and will be renting out Janey’s place in town.
Sold, Abby says, thrilled to be renting Janey’s adorable house.
Sydney and Luke are going to the mainland so she can have surgery to reverse the tubal ligation she had after her late daughter was born.
There’s no guarantee she’ll be able to conceive again, but the surgery is an important first step.
The women drink to good friends, good times and new beginnings.
Two hours later, the guys crash their party.
No one could beat Ned at poker, so they were getting bored.
They could either join the girls’ night out or find trouble somewhere else, Mac says.
Abby can’t recall an evening she’s enjoyed more than this one.
Maybe it’s the champagne or the excellent company, but suddenly, it doesn’t matter that Adam might be leaving or that she’s allowed herself to get more involved with him than she planned to.
The only thing that matters is right now. Tomorrow will take care of itself.
Grant wakes up after the deepest sleep he’s had in weeks. He’s sorry that Stephanie missed the night out with the girls to stay with him. He should’ve told her what really happened before he told everyone else.
“You talked when you were ready to. I’m glad your dad and brothers were there for you.”
He’s afraid he scared the hell out of them, but Stephanie assures him they were more afraid when he was silent. Everyone considers him a hero for what he did for Dan, but Grant doesn’t want that.
“Don’t let them say that about me.”
Stephanie loves him, and she’s so proud of what he did out there. “I’m choosing to focus on what you were able to do, not what you couldn’t.”
She wishes he would try to do that, too. He agrees to try.
When Adam and Abby return to her room at the Beachcomber, they discuss feelings of envy after being with so many happy couples. Their friends and family have it all figured out and know who they’re going to spend forever with. It must be nice to have all the questions answered so definitively.
“I want that,” Adam says. “I want the answers to the questions.”
Abby does, too.
“Have you considered that this right here might be the answer for both of us?” Adam asks.
She’s considered it, but since she only left Cal a few days ago, she’s got no business having fantasies about Adam.
Before she tells him what she’s thinking, he has a confession that might make her never speak to him again.
He programmed her phone to share her location with him and felt guilty the minute he did it.
He felt worse when he actually used it. He was worried about her and didn’t want someone like the guy in the bar taking advantage of her.
“Selfishly, I wanted you all to myself.”
She hands him her phone. “Turn off whatever you did and don’t use your mad techno skills on me again.”
Adam fills her in on what happened earlier with Grant, and she’s upset to hear what Grant went through.
Adam wants her to tell him about the fantasy she has that involves him.
“I had this thought about running my new store while you served as the island’s resident computer geek.”
But he has to go back to his life in New York at some point.
“What if that’s not my real life?” he asks. “What if this is? What if you are?”
Abby begs him not to say those things if he doesn’t mean them.
“The last few days I’ve spent with you have been the best I’ve ever spent with anyone,” he says.
He loves that he can be totally himself with her. He wants to make love to her and show her what might be possible. She’s afraid of how he makes her feel, of what will happen when he goes, or what will happen if he stays.
“Let’s live the fantasy,” he says. “For one night, let’s pretend it’s exactly the way you imagined it.”
She looks up at him, so handsome and dear to her, and decides to take a gamble. “Okay.”
Adam knows this is much more than a rebound with Abby.
He has real feelings for her. He’s determined to make this good for her.
He sets out to overwhelm her to the point that she’s not thinking about anything other than pleasure as he works his way inside her.
He says and does exactly what she needs to fully enjoy the moment.
She doesn’t understand how she’s had all kinds of problems with sex, but not with him. She didn’t know it could be like that.
“I felt like I was someone else,” she says, and wants him to do it again.
Adam’s happy to do it as many times as she can handle.
She’s got a lot of fake orgasms to make up for.
Abby has found the answers to her most pressing questions.
They do it every which way until she’s addicted to sex with Adam McCarthy.
He’s what she’s always wanted and had begun to fear she’d never find.
But once again, she’s ended up with a man whose home and life are elsewhere.
She wishes things were different, that he was planning to stay on the island.
He’s not sure when he’ll have to go back to New York, which is why he didn’t say anything about that to Abby.
He’s decided to fight for his company, which will take months.
Until that’s worked out, he’s right where he wants to be with her.
He wakes up more relaxed than he’s been in years, with no responsibilities and nothing to think about but her, until his lawyer, Rick, calls with a development in the case.
Sasha resigned the night before. The board has reached out to Adam with a letter of apology and an invitation to return as CEO. They’ve set a meeting for four o’clock that afternoon in New York, and they’d like him to be there.
“This is moving very quickly, Adam,” Rick says. “We’ve got them right where we want them. This is your chance to return on your own terms.” If Adam doesn’t wish to return, they still have to buy him out, and they know it, so the ball is in Adam’s court. He says he’ll be there at four.
He wakes Abby up to tell her he has to go to New York for a meeting about the company and invites her to come with him. She wishes she could, but Laura is counting on her to open the gift shop, and she’s got a lot to do. He promises to call, and she asks him not to.
“Let’s not make promises we can’t keep. It was lovely. I enjoyed every minute we spent together, but let’s not make it into something it’s not. My life is here on the island, and I can’t do another long-distance relationship, not even for you.”
He makes her promise not to sleep with strangers. “Don’t ever let anyone try to convince you that you aren’t perfect exactly the way you are.” She encourages him to fight for what’s his. “I fully intend to.”
After he leaves, Abby breaks down into sobs.
She wants to chase after him, to beg him not to go, to tell him she loves him, but she’s done all that before and can’t do it again, even if she already loves him more than she ever loved Cal or Grant.
Everything is different with him, and it’s only taken a few days to know that for sure.
She’s mad at herself for letting this happen after declaring she was done with men.
How did you manage to make everything worse in only three days?
She’s determined to survive the aftermath of her time with Adam and to make this new chapter in her life successful if it’s the last thing she does.