Book 13 Love After Dark #2
In the early morning hours, Paul awakens when Hope comes to collect Ethan.
Lisa died at four o’clock in the morning, and Hope is upset.
While he comforts her, they kiss and end up wrapped up in each other on the sofa where Paul was sleeping.
Hope, embarrassed by her behavior, puts a stop to the kiss and races back to her cabin with Ethan.
Worried he pushed Hope away by kissing her, Paul is awake the rest of the night.
When he sees Hope later, she avoids eye contact. Paul can’t let their middle-of-the-night kiss or worries that he upset her fester all day, so he meets Hope after she puts Ethan on the school bus.
Paul holds up his hands. “I come in peace.”
That draws a small smile from her. She folds her arms into the protective pose she seems to prefer and drops her gaze. “I’m so sorry, Paul. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You aren’t going to quit, are you?”
Gasping, she looks up at him. “Do you want me to?”
“Hell, no, I don’t want you to quit. We’d be lost without you.”
“It was very unprofessional of me to kiss my boss like that.”
“Your boss kinda liked it.”
“Oh. Um…” She seems to force herself to look at him. “You did?”
Paul nods.
“Still, it was extremely unprofessional.”
“No, it wasn’t. You were upset, and it just happened. We’re in an intense situation here with my mom’s illness and the isolation of the island and everything that goes with it. I’d like to think this isn’t your typical job.”
“It’s not. It’s the best job I’ve ever had, and I’d hate to do anything to mess it up.”
“Then let’s not allow it to mess things up for either of us.”
“Thank you for being so nice about it.”
They work together to convince Marion to go to the clinic for her physical.
Dr. David Lawrence has been caring for their mother for quite some time.
During the physical, David notes a significant decline in her health and would like to have her seen by a specialist on the mainland.
Hope agrees with his suggestion and offers to go with Paul if Ethan can stay with Jenny and Alex.
Alex is worried about Jenny. She’s quiet and withdrawn, which isn’t like her.
He convinces her to talk to him and learns that she’s afraid of something happening to Alex before their wedding.
She was right here, a month before her wedding, when her Toby died in the 9/11 attacks.
She’s worried they won’t make it to their wedding day.
Alex reassures her and vows to spend as much time with her as he can before their wedding day.
The Gansett Island community rallies around Lisa’s sons, Kyle and Jackson Chandler.
Seamus and Carolina O’Grady took custody of the boys a few days before Lisa’s death, but they’ve had their young neighbors for some time now.
Shane and Mac McCarthy were in the process of building Lisa, Kyle and Jackson a new home when she got sick.
Grace Ryan offers to help with the service for Lisa.
Stephanie insists on hosting a reception following the service at her restaurant.
It’s been twenty years since Seamus left his home in Ireland, and just as long since he felt at home, but watching how the community surrounds the boys, he finally feels at home on Gansett.
Alex, Jenny and Paul entertain their friends David Lawrence, his girlfriend, Daisy Babson, Jared and Lizzie Jame and Erin Barton and Hope, who had the night off with Ethan having a sleepover at a friend’s house and Marion out with her friends for the evening.
Hope talks about how the island needs a senior care facility to keep those who need care close to their families.
David knows of at least ten families on the island that would benefit from something like that.
Hearing of a need, Lizzie tells Jared they need to open a facility.
He promises to look into it. Paul tells them the old school building will be going up for sale, and Lizzie has a new idea to pursue.
Seamus comforts Kyle in the middle of the night when the child wakes up crying and missing his mom.
He asks Seamus if his mom really is not coming back.
Seamus confirms it, and the boy sobs himself to sleep.
After he gets Kyle tucked back in, Seamus worries he’s not the right man to be raising the boys.
Caro soothes him and reassures him that all new parents feel that way.
She tells him, “You’ll teach them how to be men, and if they’re even half the man you are, you will have done an amazing job. ”
Later that night, after getting their mom into bed, Alex and Jenny head to the new house they built behind the store.
Paul convinces Hope to join him for a drink, and they end up kissing.
Paul brings Hope inside with him and takes her to his room in case Alex and Jenny return.
They talk about how a relationship could complicate things.
Paul convinces Hope to stay and let him hold her for a while.
Lizzie James is up and showered early on Sunday morning. She asks Jared to take her to see the school. Now that the seed has been planted about a senior care facility, Lizzie can’t let it go.
Lizzie calls and wakes Paul, who takes the call out in the living room so that he won’t wake Hope.
When he returns to his room, Hope is embarrassed to be in bed with her boss.
As soon as she can, Hope runs out of Paul’s room and returns to her cabin.
Paul laughs at the irony. The first time he spends the night with a woman in longer than he can remember, and she runs away like her ass is on fire the next morning—great way to start the day.
As Hope escapes back to her cabin, she tells herself she cannot be with her boss.
She and Ethan need the stability of this job.
She can’t screw it up. Determined to return to the easy friendship she had with Paul before the kissing happened, Hope returns to the Martinez house to get Marion ready for her day.
Once Marion is off for the day with her friends, Paul goes to the store to get some work done.
Shortly after he gets there, Hope comes in seeking shelter from the rain.
Paul kisses her, and she stops him, telling him they can’t do this and runs out, leaving Paul confused.
He makes a date with Chloe, who owns the salon in town, for that night.
As Hope gets home and starts to warm up, she thinks about the many reasons she needs to keep her distance from anything that can upset their lives.
Her ex-husband was a nice, desirable man, like Paul, until he wasn’t.
She can’t risk it. She’s confident she’s making the right decision regarding Paul until Ethan calls Paul his bestest friend ever, bringing tears to her eyes.
Mac McCarthy invites his siblings, cousins and uncles for a cookout that the rain forces inside.
He chose that day for the gathering because his parents are off-island for the day and he wants to talk about their upcoming fortieth anniversary.
The group decides on a surprise party. After the planning is done, the guys discuss Alex’s upcoming bachelor party.
The ladies tell them that while they are celebrating Alex, the ladies have hired strippers to keep them entertained at Jenny’s bachelorette party.
The men are outraged, which delights their wives and girlfriends.
Mac is especially upset about his wife cavorting with strippers.
Unable to sleep, Paul goes outside to sit and get some air.
He hears Hope crying and goes to her. She tries to send him away but ends up crying all over him.
Paul tells her he knows Ethan’s dad is in jail, which upsets her more.
Hope talks about her ex-husband, Carl. They met in college, he was in sports medicine, and she was in nursing school.
They got married right out of school and had Ethan.
He worked at a college and coached girls’ lacrosse at a local high school.
She worked overnight at a memory care facility, so someone was always home with Ethan.
Life was good, and then it wasn’t. She found out Carl had been arrested when police showed up at her work.
He was having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl he coached.
In court, she learned there were four girls involved.
He was convicted, and even though she knew nothing about what he’d been doing, she lost her job, her home and her ten-year-old car.
Ethan’s friends weren’t allowed to play with him any longer.
Paul is upset on her behalf and Ethan’s.
He says it changes nothing as far as he’s concerned.
She takes excellent care of his mother, and they consider her and Ethan as part of the Martinez family.
They kiss again, but Paul pulls away, insisting she think about what she wants and whether this is what she wants.
They will spend two days together on the mainland while Marion is with the specialists.
Hope wants Paul to tell Alex that they’re thinking about being together.
Slim picks up suits for the boys on the mainland.
Seamus talks to him about his concerns regarding parenting Kyle and Jackson.
Slim says, “Today was a tough day. Tomorrow will be a tough day. The next couple of weeks are apt to be rough. But one day, not too far off from now, they’ll begin to act like little boys again, and you and Carolina will be there to show them the way through it. ”
As Slim heads home, he encounters Erin Barton on the side of the road in the dark. She was riding her bike when she blew a tire and sprained her ankle. He drives her home to the lighthouse and stays to help her.