Time for Love , The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 9 (8 page)

Sarah was driving the battered, twenty-year-old blue Ford she’d recently bought for herself—the first she’d ever purchased on her own. She was so darned proud of that car, and Daisy was proud of her, for surviving her violent marriage and for making a new life for herself on the island.

Blaine Taylor had introduced Daisy to Sarah, thinking the two women might be able to help each other due to their common experience with domestic violence. They had since formed sort of a mother-daughter relationship, or at least that was how it seemed to Daisy. It had been so long since Daisy had seen her own mother that she was enjoying her new friendship with Sarah, a mother of seven.

When she saw Sarah’s car pull up to the curb, Daisy grabbed a sweater and dashed out the door.

Sarah leaned over to unlock the passenger door for Daisy and greeted her with a hug when she got in. Daisy had been astounded to hear that Sarah was fifty-eight, because she seemed much younger than that.
 

“You look so pretty,” Sarah said.

Sarah always had something nice to say, which Daisy appreciated. “So do you. Love is clearly agreeing with you.”

Laughing, Sarah blushed as she pulled away from the curb. “I don’t know if it’s love, but it sure is fun.”

Sarah had been dating Charlie Grandchamp for a while now, and her eyes lit up whenever she spoke of him.
 

“I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“How about you? Still hanging out with Dr. David?”

“Still hanging out,” Daisy said, and making out, she thought but didn’t say.

“And having fun?”

“Lots of fun. It’s nice to be with someone I don’t have to be afraid of—at least not physically.” He was becoming a bigger threat to the well-being of her heart with every passing day.

“I know what you mean.” Sarah drove to Marco’s pizza place because neither of them ever had much in the way of extra money, so they kept their “dates” on the cheap. “Although, I wonder sometimes how long Charlie is going to put up with me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Every time he touches me, I flinch. Every time he makes a sudden move, I flinch. Every time he tries to kiss me, I turn away. I can tell he’s starting to get frustrated with me, and I can’t say I blame him.”

“You still haven’t told him about Mark?”

Sarah shook her head. “I hate to think about him, let alone talk about him with someone like Charlie, who has been so nice and so patient.”

“Maybe if he knew what you’ve been through, he’d understand why you react the way you do to him.”

“I’m sure he has his theories about why I’m so jumpy.”

“How do you plan to get around telling him where you’re going when you leave for the trial?”

“Owen asked me that, too.” Sarah had been living with her eldest son and his fiancée, Laura McCarthy, at the Sand & Surf Hotel since the fall. “He thinks I ought to tell Charlie the truth about what’s going on, but I’d rather wait until it’s over and behind me for good before I tell him. After all he’s been through himself, why would he want to be burdened with my baggage?”

“Has he talked to you about being in prison?”

“Yes,” she said softly as she found a parking space and killed the engine. “He told me how he saved Stephanie from her abusive mother and landed in prison for his trouble.”

“It couldn’t have been easy for him to share that with you—or anyone.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t. I could tell he was embarrassed about having been in prison, even if he was falsely accused of being the abuser.”

Daisy reached for Sarah’s hand. “You should tell him your story, Sarah. If he cares about you, and I think he does, he’d want to support you during the trial.”

“I don’t know if I want him to. I’d be so ashamed for him to hear about what I put up with for so long, not to mention what I let that monster do to my children.”

“It wasn’t like you ‘let’ him do anything. I don’t think Charlie is the type to pass judgment. He’s already shown you he’s nothing like Mark, hasn’t he?”

“He’s
nothing
like Mark,” Sarah said with a harsh laugh. “Thankfully, most men aren’t like Mark.”

They got out of the car and walked inside, pleased to find their usual table in the back corner of the crowded restaurant available. When they were settled with sodas and had ordered a pizza and house salad to share, Sarah propped her chin on her upturned hand and studied Daisy. “So tell me everything about the handsome doctor.”

Daisy thought of his laughter the night before and what it did to his gorgeous face. “He is handsome.”

“That he is. He was very good to me when I arrived here in pieces, and I won’t soon forget his kindness.”

“He’s been extremely awesome to me, too. Perhaps his specialty ought to be damsels in distress.”

Sarah laughed and raised her glass. “Sounds good to me.”

“There’s something else though, something he needs to tell me. Something bad, or so it seems. A few people have tried to tell me, but I want to hear it from him, you know?”

Sarah nodded. “That seems only fair.”

“I’m afraid that he’s going to tell me something so awful I won’t want to see him anymore.”

“If it’s that awful, it’ll be just as well he tells you now before it goes any further. If you ask me, it says something about him that he wants to tell you himself, when he knows it wouldn’t take much digging around here for you to get the dirt on your own.”

“I had two different people try to tell me today.”

“Hmm, so then it was big enough that people know about it, whatever it is.”

“I think it has something to do with his breakup with Janey McCarthy, which has my brain spinning in a number of unsavory directions.”

“Don’t forget it’s possible for people to make really serious mistakes that they regret tremendously and to learn from those mistakes and never make them again.”

“I know. Do you think Mark might be capable of learning from his mistakes?”

“Absolutely not. Mark is a violent, controlling monster who will never change. I don’t think there’s any comparison between his brand of evil and whatever sins David Lawrence may have committed, but you’ll have to be the judge of that. Something tells me that a man who is capable of the sort of kindness and compassion he has shown both of us is someone worth spending time with.”

“That’s what my gut is telling me, but my gut has been wrong before. More than once.”

“I bet your gut has gathered some wisdom over the years and is more trustworthy than it used to be.” She covered Daisy’s hand on the table with her own. “The bottom line is you have to decide if you can live with whatever he tells you. If you can’t, there’s no shame in walking away, if that’s what’s best for you.”

Daisy knew Sarah was absolutely right, but the thought of walking away from David filled her with an aching sadness.
 

*

Piece by piece, Carolina Cantrell removed the china from the hutch in her dining room, cleaning and dusting each item before adding it to the growing pile on the dining room table. How so much grit and grime managed to get inside a closed cabinet was beyond her. It had been somewhat appalling to realize how dirty her house had gotten while she’d been busy carrying on a wild affair with an Irishman young enough to be her son.
 

The Irishman in question came banging into the house, home from work after a long day captaining the ferries. Even though Joe and Janey were back on the island for the summer, Seamus continued to run the Gansett Island Ferry Company that Carolina and her son Joe had inherited from her parents. With the baby due in August, Joe wanted to work as little as possible this summer so he could spend as much time with his wife as he could.

That left Seamus working from dawn until dusk seven days a week as the tourists began to descend on the island in droves.
 

“What in the name of hell are you doing?” he asked, surveying the mess in the dining room.

“I’m cleaning. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks to me like you’ve lost your bleeding mind, love. Why are you cleaning your mum’s china?”

“Because it’s filthy, and what if
your
mum decides she wants a spot of tea and takes one of these cups out of the cabinet and discovers that not only am I too old to ever bear her grandchildren, but I’m also a horrible housekeeper? What if that happens?”

“Caro, love.” His green eyes danced with amusement that irritated her as he placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “You’ve seriously gone around the bend.”

“Why? Because I want my house to be clean when your mother gets here?”

“The house
is
clean. It’s so clean my nose is burning from the smell of bleach and ammonia. If you keep this up, we’ll need respirators to continue living here.”

She reached for another plate to dust. “Look at this dirt! It’s not clean enough.”

He took the plate from her and put it on the table. “It is more than clean enough.”

“It isn’t. You’re not a woman. You can’t possibly understand this.” She reached around him for the plate he’d taken from her. It hadn’t been dusted yet. “I’m running out of time, so if you’d please get out of my way, I need to finish this.”

“I’m not getting out of your way, and this
is
finished. I can’t bear to see you doing this to yourself all because my mum is coming to visit. I never would’ve let you talk me into inviting her if I thought you were going to go crazy cleaning and cooking.”

“I’m not going
crazy
.” Carolina was starting to get mad with him. “I’m doing what needs to be done.”

“You’re going crazy.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Yes, you are! And it’s going to stop right now.”

“You can’t tell me—” Before she could begin to gauge his intentions, he had her tossed over his shoulder and was moving through the house as she beat on his back. “Put me down! Damn it, Seamus! This is not funny!”

The crack of his hand on her backside made her see red. Did he seriously just
spank
her? Oh, he was so going to pay for that! As soon as she was standing upright again, she was going to punch his lights out. With standing upright in mind, she began to fight against his tight hold, which only got tighter. And then he spanked her other cheek. “Settle down before I drop you.”

“Are you serious? You want me to
settle down
?” If he was going to play dirty, she could, too. Since she was in perfect position, she shoved her hand into his khaki shorts and pulled hard on his underwear.
 

He grunted out a laugh that turned to a groan when she used her other hand and pulled even harder. “If you hurt my boys, I won’t be much good to ya, love.”

“If you don’t put me down
right now,
your boys are never going to see my girls again.”

“Now don’t make idle threats. Your girls
love
my boys.”

“Not anymore they don’t.”

“I bet the boys can change the girls’ mind right quick.”

“Not happening. Will you please put me down? All the blood is rushing to my head, and I’m going to throw up on you.”

“Since you were very nice and said please, I’ll put you down.”

As quickly as he’d scooped her up, he put her down and held her arms until she got her balance. The second her head stopped spinning, she punched him in the belly as hard as she could. Her fist bounced off his rock-hard abs, and she howled in pain.

“Now, love,” he said in the condescending tone that had made her want to punch him in the first place, “that wasn’t very smart.” He took her hand and kissed her stinging knuckles.

“You make me so damned mad. Who do you think you are—”

He kissed her hard and fast, giving no quarter until the starch left her spine. “I’m the man who loves you and who refuses to watch you do this to yourself.”

“You don’t
understand
.” All at once, she noticed he’d carried her to the woods at the far end of her property. “What are we doing here?”

With his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face a campsite, complete with a tent and a stack of wood encircled by stones. “This is what we’re doing here.”

“We’re camping? Why?”

“I had to get you out of that house and away from your cleaning products. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“But your mother is coming
tomorrow
! I have so much left to do!”

“If it’s not done, it’s not getting done. For the next fourteen nights, we’ll have a guest underfoot. Tonight,” he said, sliding his arms around her, “is all ours.”

She pushed on his chest, trying in vain to break free of his tight hold. “I don’t have time for this! You don’t get it—”

Once again, his lips came down hard on hers, possessing her the way only he could with sensual strokes of his tongue that made her forget all about why she was so annoyed with him.
 

Then she remembered that he’d spanked her—twice—and she pushed harder on his chest. “You’re not getting off that easily.”

He nuzzled her neck. “I’ll get you off, too, love. Don’t worry.”