Time for Love , The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 9 (21 page)

The thing that really burned his ass was she was finally happy. They both were. He’d never been so happy, never knew this level of happy even existed. When someone threatened those he loved, Blaine’s first impulse was to come out swinging. But that wouldn’t help Tiffany, and his entire focus was on whatever she needed. While bashing in the pretty-boy face of her sanctimonious ex-husband might make him feel a hell of a lot better, it would probably only increase Jim’s resolve to go after custody of Ashleigh—a thought that struck fear in Blaine’s heart. He’d become awfully attached to Tiffany’s adorable little girl and would do anything he could to keep her with them.

Outside the store, Blaine parked at the curb and went inside, the bells that had become so familiar to him announcing his arrival. And there she was, his love, his life, his woman. His entire body reacted to the sight of her as it had from the first time he laid eyes on her in her sister’s room at the clinic almost two years ago now.

“Hey, baby,” he said as he walked toward her, pleased by the delight he saw in her eyes. She was always so damned happy to see him. No one had ever been so glad to see him. “I saw Daisy and heard the dickhead is giving you grief again. What happened?”

“Come hug me good and hard, and then I’ll tell you.”

“You know I love it good and hard. Always happy to oblige.”

Her dirty laugh went straight to his heart. He loved her so goddamned much that sometimes it scared the hell out of him to think about all the ways it was possible to screw up the most perfect thing in his life.

He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in the scent of strawberries that clung to her hair and skin. That scent had positively bewitched him from the very first moment he spent in her presence. “What now?”

“He’s not backing down. If you move in, he’s taking me back to court to get full custody of Ashleigh.”

“Then I won’t move in.”

Her arms tightened around him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. “Yes, you will. We’re not going to let him bully us. If he takes me back to court, I’ll march everyone I know in there to tell the judge how he let me work two jobs to put him through law school and then dumped me as soon as the money started rolling in.”

“Thank God he dumped you. Best thing to ever happen to me.”

She framed his face with her hands and brought him down for a kiss. “Best thing to ever happen to me, too. He’s jealous because we have each other, and he has no one. If we let him push us around now, the next fifteen years until Ashleigh turns eighteen are going to be hell on earth.” Her hands fell to his chest as she took a long, perusing look at him, making his skin burn with desire.

“What?”

“I love you in your uniform.” She fanned her face. “So hot.”

“I love you in absolutely nothing.” He nuzzled her neck and made her giggle when he hit one of her ticklish spots. “Are you done here?”

“Since I own the place, I suppose I could close up a little early. What do you have in mind, Chief?”

“Where’s Ashleigh?”

“Having a sleepover with my mom, Ned and Thomas.”

“A night all to ourselves?” He wanted to sing hallelujah.
 

“Looks that way.”

“Christ, I’m already hard as a rock just thinking about a full night alone with you.”

Smiling, she said, “Are you off duty as you sport this hard-as-a-rock erection?”

“As of twenty minutes ago.”

Damn if she didn’t cup and squeeze him until his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. “We can’t let something that fine go to waste.” With one last, emphatic squeeze, she released him and went to turn the Open sign to Closed and lock the door.

When she returned to him, he took her hand and led her directly to the storeroom.
 

“Have I ever told you this is my favorite part of your store?” he asked when he had her in the relatively private back room.
 

“But this is the part no one ever sees.”

“Exactly,” he said as he captured her mouth in a searing kiss that nearly blew the top right off his head. Cupping her ass, he lifted her and pressed her against the wall. “Have I ever told you,” he asked as his lips went to work on her neck, “how insanely hot you make me?”

“I think you might’ve mentioned that a time or two.”

He loved that she tipped her head to the side to give him better access to her neck as she pressed her heated core against his erection. “I don’t know if you fully understand just how hot we’re talking.”

“How hot are we talking?”

“It’s an inferno—an out-of-control wildfire and the surface of the sun—combined.”

“That’s pretty hot.”

“Sometimes I think it’s going to consume me, but then you’re here, and you’re holding me and loving me and everything is perfect. Simply perfect.”

“I love you so much, Blaine. Your love gives me the strength to stand up to Jim and say
enough
, because I know that no matter what happens, you’ll be there with me, and we’ll deal with it together.”

Touched to his soul by her words and humbled by her love, he pressed his lips to the spot under her ear, breathing in her very essence. “I love you more than life. I love Ashleigh just as much.” He pulled back so he could see her face. “Marry me. Be with me forever. I’ll take care of you both if only you’ll let me.”

Her eyes widened with surprise and filled with tears. “I don’t want him to push us into something we’re not ready for.”

“This has absolutely nothing to do with him. It’s about you and me and Ashleigh and how much we love each other. That’s all.”

She grasped a handful of his hair as she kissed him with strokes of her tongue that made him want to beg for more.
 

“Marry me,” he whispered against her lips, tasting the salt of her tears.

She looked at him for a long moment that left him suspended somewhere between heaven and hell as he realized how much hinged on what she said next. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He froze, fearing his ears were playing tricks on him. “Really?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Really.”

Letting out a whoop, he spun her around until they were both dizzy. And then he propped her against the wall again and kissed her so hard his lips went numb.
 

“I love that you asked me here,” she said when they surfaced for much-needed air.

“I asked you here this time.” He’d asked her once before when they were in her bed, and she’d said she wasn’t ready after just getting divorced.

“This is the only time that matters.”

“Let’s do it this weekend,” he said, suddenly desperate to make it official before something could derail them.

“Are you crazy? We can’t throw a wedding together that fast.”

“Isn’t your sister having a cookout?”

“Yes, but—”

“That’ll be our reception.” He loved the idea more with every passing second, and had no doubt that her sister and his good friend Mac would be thrilled to be a part of it. “Their yard is perfect for it. We’ll get married on the beach with just our immediate families and then go to the party. Maddie will love it. She’ll be all over it.”

“You’ve lost your ever loving mind!”

“I’ve lost everything I’ve got to you and your little girl, and I’ve never been happier in my life. So what do you say? Can we make this happen?”

“Do you swear you’re not doing this because of Jim and his threats?”

“Who? I don’t recognize that name.” He propped his forehead against hers. “He’s nothing to me except Ashleigh’s father.
You
are everything. I want you, I want us, I want Ashleigh and a bunch of other kids who look just like their mother. Well, wait, not the girls. I couldn’t deal with more than one daughter who looks like you. I’d never let them out of the house.”

Tiffany laughed through her tears, her arms tight around his neck.
 

“So this weekend? Yes? You’ll talk to your sister?”

“Yes, I’ll talk to her, yes, I’ll marry you this weekend. Yes to everything, you crazy lunatic.”

“Let’s go celebrate in comfort.”

“Blaine?”

“What, baby?”

“Even though you said it has nothing to do with him, thank you.”

“I still say it’s got nothing to do with him, but if it also helps you out of a jam, it’s the very least I can do for the woman who’s given me everything.” He let her slide down the aroused front of him.
 

“Take me home.”
 

*

The parking lot at Domenic’s was packed, and the reception area was crowded with people waiting for tables. Great… Oh even better! Among the couples in line for a table were Janey’s parents. Awesome. Their backs were to David and Daisy.
Let’s hope they stayed that way.

Daisy tucked a hand into the crook of his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He was determined to shake off the funk he felt coming on. While he might not be the McCarthy’s favorite person, he had saved their granddaughter from certain death at birth. He hoped they remembered that when they saw him and not the way he’d betrayed their daughter. And why did he even care anymore what they thought of him?

“Why are you all tense?”

“I see some people I know ahead of us in the line.”

“I’d venture to guess you know most of the people on this island due to the nature of your work.”

“A lot of them.” Because he wanted to be different with her, because he wanted to be better, he said, “Janey’s parents are up there. I’m never entirely sure what kind of reception I’ll get from them. At least now you’ll know why, if I get the big chill.”

“It bothers you that they treat you that way.”

Intrigued by her insight, he attempted a casual response. “They have every reason to treat me the way they do.”

“But still it bothers you.”

“I always had a lot of respect for them and their family.”

“It hurts to have lost their respect.”

“I lost it for good reason.”

“Do you smell that?”

“Smell what? Garlic? Basil?”

“No, the flowers.” She pointed to the huge arrangement of lilies that sat on a table in the reception area, which he wouldn’t have noticed had she not drawn his attention to it. “They’re my favorite. See the ones with the red in the center? Those are stargazer lilies. Aren’t they beautiful? They put out one of my favorite scents. When they’re in the house, that’s all you can smell.”

Listening to her, David wanted to fill her home with stargazer lilies so she’d always be surrounded by her favorite scent. And he appreciated that she’d managed to get his mind off Janey’s parents being in line ahead of them.
 

“I can see why you like them.”

She curled her hands around his arm and rested her head on his shoulder.
 

He loved that she had no problem making a public statement that they were together despite what she knew about him. As they waited to get to the reception desk, he tuned in to the conversation the couple in front of them was having with Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy.

David realized it was Jenny Wilks, the lighthouse keeper, and Mason Johns, the fire chief. As Daisy leaned against him, David listened in on what they were talking about while hoping the McCarthys might not notice him there behind Mason’s towering form. The guy had to be easily six and a half feet tall.

“I’ve been meaning to call you, Mr. McCarthy,” Jenny said. “I was hoping you’d know who is supposed to cut the grass out at the lighthouse. It’s getting really long, and there’s been no sign of anyone.”

“That’s odd,” Big Mac said. “The Martinez family has had the town contract for years, and Ned was just saying this morning that the grass at Town Hall hasn’t been cut either. I’ll give them a call in the morning to get them out to the lighthouse.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

Oblivious to his presence behind them, they chatted about the new grandchild they had on the way and how excited they were for Joe and Janey. And then they dropped a bomb that David hadn’t seen coming. Janey had decided to forgo veterinary school for motherhood.

“Of course we’re thrilled that she and Joe and the baby will be staying close by,” Mrs. McCarthy said. “But we hope that maybe she’ll still get to finish school at some point. That was always her dream.”

The words were like a knife to David’s heart, since he’d been responsible for denying her that dream when they were together. Her parents had never forgiven him for steering her away from vet school, which he now knew had been a big mistake on his part.
 

At the time, he’d thought it was the right thing because he didn’t want them to be in debt for the rest of their lives. With hindsight, however, he could see how Janey had lost something important to her when he encouraged her to forgo that dream.

Mrs. McCarthy’s cell phone rang, and she excused herself from the conversation. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “Is she okay?”
 

David held his breath as he waited to hear what was wrong and whether it would change his plans for the evening.