Fool for Love (16 page)

"Oh, there'll be a wedding. Neither
lying sisters nor disapproving mothers nor wild horses nor randy best men could
keep my brother from marrying you."

"Let's hope you're right."

Janey decided to call on Doc Potter to take care of the animals, rather than
give Maddie anything more to keep from Mac. She did, however, let her future
sister-in-law know where she'd be in case of emergency. As she packed for her
night with Joe, Janey's hands trembled with excitement and anticipation. She
might not be certain how she felt about him, but she was damned sure she
couldn't wait to see him again.

Her conversation with Maddie kept running
through her mind. Was she in love with Joe? Had she ever really loved David?
Did she even know what it meant to be in love? It worried her that she'd gotten
over David so quickly. She knew that was probably due to the shock of seeing
him with someone else, but still… Thirteen years was a long time, and whatever
love she'd felt for him had died a quick and sudden death.

She spent a last minute with each of her
beloved pets, grabbed her bag and skipped out of the house.

"Going somewhere?"

Janey about jumped out of her skin.
"Jesus, David. You scared the heck out of me."

"You're looking awfully excited for a
woman who just called off her engagement."

"I'm in a hurry. I can't talk right
now."

"Where're you going?"

"That's none of your business. You
lost the right to ask me things like that when I saw you in bed with another
woman."

He winced. "I wish you'd believe me
when I tell you how sorry I am about that."

"You're just sorry you got
caught."

"That's not true! If you'd just talk
to me—"

"I have nothing to say. Now, I've got
a boat to catch. Please let me by."

"Why are you going to the
mainland?"

Janey decided she had to humor him if she
was going to make the boat. "To get my car. It broke down after I saw you
in bed with another woman."

"Where are you staying tonight?"
he asked through gritted teeth.

"With a friend."

"What
friend
?"

"I'm not telling you that!"

He grabbed her arm and held it tighter
than he should have. "Have you got someone else, Janey? This whole time
you're making me feel like shit, and you're probably doing the same thing.
Who
is it?"

Infuriated, she shook him off. "I was
never unfaithful to you," she spat at him. "
Never
. Just like
our relationship, this conversation is
over
." Pushing past him, she
made her way down the sidewalk, resisting the urge to look back. Her future was
in front of her, not behind her. Joe was expecting her, and she couldn't wait
to see him.

Joe paced back and forth on the ferry landing.
Where was she?
The boat
was minutes from departure, and because he was the captain on this trip, he had
to go with or without her. After waiting hours to see her, Joe couldn't imagine
what was keeping her. A deep fog had descended upon the island, and the hours
he'd spent navigating the boats through the soup had left him tired and tense.

The final warning horn sounded just as he
saw her come dashing through the parking lot, her blonde ponytail streaming
behind her.

"Janey," he whispered.

Since the landing was crowded with people,
he couldn't greet her the way he wanted to. Instead, he grabbed her hand and
all but dragged her onboard the ferry.

"I'm sorry," she said, panting
from exertion. "I had an unwelcome visitor just as I was leaving."

"Again?"

"I wish he'd go back to Boston."

"Me, too."

Janey squeezed his hand. "We don't
have to think about him tonight."

"That's right."

"Will we be okay in this fog?"

He glanced down at her, feigning
indignation. "You doubt me?"

"Never." She looked up at him
with those captivating blue eyes. "I trust you with my life."

"Thank you," he whispered,
stealing a kiss in one of the darkened passageways. Just when he thought she
couldn't move him any more than she had before, she managed to top herself.
"Since you're such a major distraction, I can't have you up top with me
tonight. I'll come find you when we get in."

She smiled as if being called a major
distraction was a compliment. "I'll be waiting."

"You'd better be."

"Be careful, Captain."

"Always, but especially with such
precious cargo onboard." He kissed her once more. "See you in a
bit." He watched her choose a table and withdraw a book and her iPod from
her tote bag. Like any native islander, she'd come ready to kill an hour on the
ferry.

With seconds to spare before departure, he
bolted up the stairs to the wheelhouse. Since he'd completed a safety check
earlier, he ignored the raised eyebrow of his first mate, Rob.
"Ready?"

"Whenever you are, Cap."

"Then let's do it."

By the time Joe backed the ferry into its berth in Point Judith, his head was
pounding and his shoulders were stiff with stress. Following their usual
protocols for zero visibility, Joe had stationed two deck hands on the bow as
lookouts and had sounded the horn every thirty seconds. They'd relied on radar
to scan for other vessels in the area and GPS to lead them to port. No matter
how many times he safely guided a ferry full of passengers through the fog,
however, it never became routine.

"Nice job, Cap," Rob said when
Joe returned to the wheelhouse after locking up the aft controls he'd used to
back the ferry into port.

"A team effort as always." Joe
shut down the electronics and secured the wheelhouse. "See you tomorrow."

He parted with Rob on the second level and
went to find Janey. At some point during the trip, she had curled up on the
bench and gone to sleep with her overnight bag tucked under her head. Before
waking her, he took a moment to just take her in. Sometimes it was hard to
believe that she was real—that
they
were real. At least they were for
right now. He tried not to think about how it might end, but that sense of doom
hovered just above his head at all times, waiting to swoop down and take her
away from him. Well, now that was a pleasant thought…

Determined to not let gloom or doom ruin
their precious time together, he leaned over to kiss her awake. "Hey,
baby. We're there."

She smiled up at him, a sleepy, sexy smile
that stopped his heart. "Mmm," she said, stretching. "My
hero."

"Nothing to it."

"Somehow I doubt that." Sitting
up, she combed her fingers through her hair and retied her ponytail.

Joe took her bag and reached for her hand.
He was so anxious to be alone with her that he didn't bother to make his usual
stop in the office before leading her to his truck.

Janey shivered. "The fog makes it so
chilly. It's hard to believe it's July."

"I have just the thing for that at
home."

She smiled at him. "I can't wait to
see what it is."

In the truck, Joe took her hand again,
needing to touch her, wanting her close to him. This, he decided, was heaven.
Taking her home with him, talking to her at the end of a long day, anticipating
a night of passion and love. If this were all he ever had—if
she
was all
he ever had—his life would be more than complete.

"What are you thinking over
there?" she asked.

He glanced at her. "That I like
having you here with me."

"I like being here."

He told himself that her pleasure had
nothing to do with escaping from David and all her troubles on the island. It
had to do with him, with what was happening between them. Of course it did.

They reached his house within minutes.
"Damn it," he said as he killed the engine. "I just realized you
must be starving. I know I am." He'd been so focused on getting her home
that he hadn't given dinner a thought.

"How about we order a pizza?"

"We can do that. A veggie for my
veggie?"

Janey cracked up as she followed him
inside. "If that's what you like. I can do plain cheese, too."

"I like veggie."

"No olives, though," she said,
wrinkling her cute nose.

"You got it." While she stashed
her stuff in his room, Joe called in the pizza and wondered how long it would
take for her family to come looking for her if he kidnapped her and kept her
here forever.

As he ended the call to the pizza place,
she returned to the kitchen and slipped her arms around him from behind.
"I'm freezing. Warm me up?"

"Right this way." He took her
hand and led her into the family room that overlooked the deck and harbor, but
the view tonight consisted of pea-soup fog. Squatting before the stone hearth,
he had a roaring fire going in no time.

"Mmm," Janey said from the sofa.
"Perfect."

"Told you you'd like it. Come down
here with me."

Janey crawled over to him.

Joe put his arm around her and breathed in
her sweet scent.

When she leaned into his embrace and
released a sigh of contentment, all the tension of the day seemed to leave his
body.

"The heat feels so good," she
said.

He kissed the top of her head. "So do
you."

Titling her face up, she studied him
intently.

"What?"

"I couldn't wait to see you
tonight," she said softly.

Joe's heart turned right over in his
chest. Did she have any idea what she did to him when she looked at him that
way or said such amazing things to him? "I couldn't wait, either. Today
was a bitch with the fog. You start to feel like you're hallucinating after
staring at it for hours."

"I can't imagine. It's so cool how
you can get the ferry from point A to point B without being able to see a thing."

"It's stressful."

"It's
very
sexy."

Joe laughed. "Is that so?"

"Uh-huh."

"I need to take you out in the fog
more often, then."

Janey raised a hand to his face, sliding
it over the stubble on his jaw.

"I should shave," he said,
staring down at her.

"I like it." She followed her
hand with her lips. "Also very sexy."

A tremble rippled through him.
"Janey—"

The doorbell interrupted the intense
moment.

While she chuckled at his distress, he groaned
and got up to greet the pizza man. Joe unearthed a bottle of merlot, and they
ate picnic style in front of the fire.

"I look at you sitting here in my
house with the firelight dancing on your beautiful face, and I think I have to
be dreaming. Tell me I'm not dreaming."

Rising to her knees, she pushed the empty
pizza box out of the way and closed the distance between them, resting her
hands on his shoulders. "If it's a dream, don't wake me up, okay?"

He reached for her and fell backward,
bringing her with him. "Deal."

The hair she'd let down from the ponytail
made a curtain around them, sealing them off from the world as she lowered her
head and captured his mouth in a soft, sensual kiss.

Even though he wanted to devour her, Joe
cupped her face and let her take the lead. She seemed freer tonight, less
concerned about where all this might be leading and more interested in seizing
the moment—
their
moment. Her tongue traced a trail from bottom lip to
top before dipping inside to flirt with his.

Joe couldn't seem to draw a breath as he
responded to her gentle strokes. And then she was gone, shifting her attention
to his jaw before rolling his earlobe between her teeth. He sucked in a sharp
deep breath as the sensation traveled from his ear straight to his cock. "
Janey
."

"Hmm?" Now she was at his neck
on her way to his chest. She worked his shirt up and over his head without
missing a beat in her game of sensual torture. "You're so tense. Relax,
Joe. Let me take care of you for a change."

Would he survive her brand of caretaking?
Her lips were soft and smooth on his chest, and he had to remind himself to
keep breathing. She shifted lower, pressing her belly against his straining
erection.

"Baby, you're driving me crazy,"
he whispered, running his fingers through fine strands of golden hair.

Massaging his shoulders, she licked his
nipple. The sensation zipped through him like an electrical charge he felt in
every cell. Then she was at his belly, teasing and tempting him with her tongue
and lips.

Joe hadn't been this close to an
embarrassing accident since high school—and that was before he felt his zipper
travel down over his straining shaft. He bit his lip—hard—hoping to regain some
control.