Book 13 Love After Dark #4
Paul recognizes his brother’s bullish tone and knows it’s pointless to argue with him. Growing up with Alex, he would’ve at least tried. Today, he can’t be bothered. “The thing with Hope isn’t going to happen.”
“Oh. Wow. I sort of thought it was already happening.”
“It was.”
“So what happened?”
“The meeting with the doctor happened.”
“Umm, you want to fill in the blanks for me?”
“She realized if Mom leaves Gansett, her job here will be done, and she’ll have to go elsewhere to find work. Her ex-husband wiped out their savings, so she has no cushion of any kind, apparently.”
“So she called it off with you because of that?”
“She said she couldn’t get further involved with me knowing she’d be leaving.”
Alex scratches at the stubble he left on his jaw these days because Jenny likes it—and he’d told Paul that when Paul asked why he never shaved anymore.
“That is a tough one. On the one hand, I can see where she’s coming from.
I don’t know the details, but I assume the ex put her through the wringer. ”
“It was bad business.”
“I figured it had to be if the guy’s locked up.”
Paul didn’t feel it was his place to tell Alex her story, at least not without her permission.
“Have you considered asking her to stay with you?”
“Not really.”
“Why not? I assume you want her to.”
“Hell, yes, I want her to.”
“Then tell her that.”
“Am I just supposed to ask her to stay, knowing she has no way to make a living here?”
“I hate to point out the obvious, but she doesn’t need to work if she’s with you. She could focus on Ethan and make more babies with you and maybe get a job at this place Lizzie is determined to open on the island.”
Paul’s mouth waters at the thought of such an easy solution. “I don’t think she’d go for that. She would say she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and no way is she putting all her eggs in some man’s basket again. Not after what happened to her before. He totally screwed her over.”
“And you’d never do that. Make the grand gesture.”
“What grand gesture?”
“The grandest of grand gestures.”
“Are you seriously suggesting I propose to her? We just started actually seeing each other a week ago.”
“We were thrilled that you guys took some time away together while Mom was in the hospital.”
“I’m glad you approve,” Paul says sincerely. “But it’s too soon for the kind of grand gestures you’re suggesting.” Although now he doesn’t know how he’ll think of anything but proposing and having Hope stay with him.
The party that Sydney and the girls throw for Jenny is fabulous and over the top.
It seems as if every woman on Gansett is there, and everyone is thrilled that Jenny is finally getting her long-delayed happily ever after.
Hope wonders what the others would think if they knew Alex and Jenny were already married.
She loves being in on the secret that only Sydney and Erin know, too.
Hope loves being a part of this group of women. They’ve made her feel so welcome from the first time she met Jenny, who assured her there’d be no lack of fun things to do if she and her son moved to Gansett Island.
That had proven true, and this group was a big part of the reason why.
Unlike the women she’d known back at home, these women don’t thrive on gossip.
They build each other up rather than tear each other down.
They thrive on being happy and productive.
They’re also some of the funniest women Hope has ever met.
Take Tiffany, for example, who’s relaying the fact that her husband, the police chief, wanted to do background checks on the male strippers the women hired for Jenny’s party.
“Wait,” Jenny says. “You guys got strippers?”
Hope isn’t sure if Jenny is intrigued or appalled. Probably a little of both.
“No!” Tiffany screams with laughter that draws the others in, too. “We’ve been telling them that all week. They’re out of their minds over it.”
Much too early for the women’s liking, Mac is first to burst through the door. “Get out of here, Mac.” Maddie gets up to push her husband back toward the door. “This is a private party! No men allowed.”
“Where are the strippers?” Evan asks as he enters, followed by the others in a big mass of angry testosterone.
The men search Sydney’s house for the male strippers they were led to believe were attending the party, only to find they aren’t there. “Where the hell are the strippers?” Mac roars.
“Did you hire strippers?” Maddie asks Sydney, the two of them looking like the picture of innocence.
“I didn’t.” To Erin, Sydney says, “Did you?”
“Nope. I wouldn’t know where to find strippers.”
“Don’t look at me,” Kara says as Dan glowers at her.
Blaine continues to glare at Tiffany while she cries with silent laughter.
“Gentlemen,” Joe says, his gaze fixed on Janey, “I believe we’ve been had.”
“We’ve been what?” Mac asks, his face red with barely suppressed rage.
“Had, Mac,” Joe says. “It’s a prank. An evil, evil prank.”
“A prank,” Mac says, advancing toward Maddie, who backs up until she encounters a wall. “A goddamned prank?”
“Hi, honey,” Maddie says with a goofy smile. “Did you boys have fun at your party?”
“No, we did not have fun, because we were preoccupied by the thought of our women cavorting with male strippers!”
“What strippers?” Maddie asks, batting her eyelashes at him.
“As long as you’re all here,” Sydney says, “we ought to combine these two parties.”
Paul drives Alex, Jenny and Hope home after the party.
He drops Jenny and Alex at their new house.
Paul waits until they’re safely inside before he backs out of their driveway and turns toward home.
When he kills the lights and shuts off the engine, the darkness engulfs them.
“Be with me tonight. No commitments, no promises. Just us taking what we both want.” Hope should say no. More won’t make leaving any easier.
His hand finds hers in the darkness. “Please.”
The desperation she hears in that single word has her saying, “Yes.”
Kevin is at the Beachcomber bar, where Chelsea is bartending. She comes over to him, smiling warily. “Dr. McCarthy.”
“Ms. Rose.”
She raises a brow as she puts a napkin down on the bar and places an ice-cold light beer on it. “Glass?”
“Comes in one.” The cold beer tastes good going down. “You gonna call my big brother on me tonight?”
“You gonna give me reason to?”
Kevin laughs at her saucy comeback. When she smiles at him, he realizes how pretty she is. They talk about the demise of his marriage. A low hum of desire takes him by surprise. It’s been a long time since he’s felt anything resembling desire. “You’re easy to talk to, Ms. Rose.”
“Thank you, Dr. McCarthy.”
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but I’m not sorry you’re single.”
“Separated.”
“Permanently and legally?”
“Heading that way. Are you planning to go back to her?”
“No.”
“What if she shows up here and says it was all a big mistake?”
Kevin thinks about that for a minute. “Even then.” Permanent damage has been done, and there’s no undoing that.
“Then that counts as single in my book.”
“Does it, now?”
“Yep.” She gives him that look again, the one that can’t be mistaken for anything other than interest. “I slept with your niece’s husband once.”
“Joe or Owen?”
“Joe.”
“Before he was her husband?”
“Yes! Years before.”
“Okay.”
“So that doesn’t appall you?”
“Why should it? I assume you were both single and consenting.”
“We were.”
Kevin shrugs. “Sex happens.”
“Does it?”
“That’s been my experience.”
“What do you think about it maybe happening tonight?”
For a moment, Kevin is rendered speechless. But then he recovers. “I’m fifty-two.”
“Are you incapable?”
“No,” he says with a laugh. “All the equipment works just fine, thank you, with no medication required. But I suspect I’m a hell of a lot older than you are.”
“I’m thirty-six.”
“That’s sixteen years.”
“A doctor who can also add.” She fans her face dramatically. “You don’t find that every day.”
She’s cute, sexy, funny and lovely. And young.
Too young for him, but he’d gone hard as stone at the thought of taking her to bed.
The confident way in which she propositioned him is a huge turn-on.
He’s forever counseling his female patients to take control of their own sexuality.
To find a woman who clearly owns hers is incredibly hot.
“So what do you say, Doc? Would you like to come home with me tonight?”
He’s never once, in thirty years together, been unfaithful to Deb. But his marriage is over, and she’s moved on with someone else. There’s no reason he can’t do the same. Under the bar, he slides the wedding ring off his finger and stashes it in his back pocket. “Yes, I believe I would.”
David makes some calls on behalf of the Martinez family to look into facilities for Marion.
He finds a place that has an immediate opening due to the death of a patient.
He encourages Paul and Alex to take it, as it may be a long wait before another spot opens.
While Alex wants his mother at his wedding, out of concern for her comfort and well-being, they decide to take the spot at the facility and move her two days before the wedding.
Leading up to the move, Hope helps pack Marion’s things and label her clothing and personal items. When moving day comes, Alex and Paul decide to take Marion themselves, even though both Jenny and Hope offer to come with them.
On the ferry ride back to Gansett, Alex comments that it was easier than he’d thought it would be.
Paul says maybe it was easier because it was time.