McCarthys of Gansett Island Boxed Set Books 1-3 (48 page)

The hand on her hip and the saucy tilt to her chin made him want her all over again, as if he hadn’t just spent hours trying to sate a need he was beginning to understand would never be fully sated.
 

“How’s it different?” she asked.

Cornered, Joe took the canvas from her and grabbed her hand to lead her from the room. “Put this with your stuff. It’s yours now.”

“You’re not going to tell me how you pursuing your artistic talent is different from me going to vet school?”

In the kitchen, Joe got a glass and filled it with ice and water. After he took a drink, he passed the glass to her and watched the way her lips and throat worked on the glass. It was official: everything she did turned him on.
 

“I have a job I love, one that fulfills me in every possible way. I get to be on the water all day. I regularly see whales and dolphins and have to use my brain and my instincts and years of hard-won know-how every day. It’s enough for me.”

She handed the glass back to him. “But it doesn’t have to be everything. Why couldn’t you have that and your art, too?”

“I already have both. The painting is something I do to relax, to blow off steam. It’s no big deal.”

“I took an oil class in college.” Her eyes were locked on the painting he’d given her, which she had propped against the wall. “I know what it takes to make the water appear to be moving, and I didn’t have it. In fact, no one in my class did. I don’t even think the teacher could do it. You’re incredibly talented, and you don’t even know it.”

“I don’t
care
,” he said, laughing softly with exasperation. “That’s what you’re not getting. The whole world could see my paintings and declare them masterpieces, and that wouldn’t add anything to my life that I don’t already have.”

Fixated now on the cabinet behind him, she bit her thumbnail. “And yet. . .”

He put down the glass, went to her and rested his hands on her hips. “And yet what?”

“You said that having me here with you, all the time, would add something you don’t have.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse with the emotion she aroused in him without even trying. “It absolutely would.”

“You have this amazing talent that means nothing to you, but I—”

“You,” he said, kissing her nose, “mean
everything
to me.”

“How can that be?”

“It just
is
, baby. Damned if I can explain it.”

She reached for him, brought him down to her and kissed him so sweetly, so gently, that Joe wondered how he managed to remain standing.
 

“Let’s go to bed.” She took his hands, linked their fingers and walked backward, leading him to what could be his ruination. Even knowing that, he willingly followed her.

On the first boat off the island the next morning, Maddie stood at the rail, holding a cup of coffee and pondering the coincidence of her mother being released from prison on Independence Day. “Let freedom ring,” she whispered as butterflies stormed about in her belly. After tangling with Linda over bad checks written to the hotel bar, her mother had a low opinion of all things McCarthy. What would she say when she found out her eldest daughter planned to marry their eldest son in a week’s time?

Maddie shuddered when she imagined her mother’s reaction. Over and over she had practiced what she would say, how she would break the news. Each time she pictured the scene, she saw her mother’s face turn red with rage.

Mac had wanted to come with her today, but she’d insisted on doing this alone. Besides, they were having people over later, and one of them needed to stay back to finish the preparations. Their new house had a fantastic view of the fireworks, and they wanted to share it with the people they loved.
 

She remembered the way he’d held her so close during the night and made sweet love to her at dawn, as if to fortify her to fight for them against what would no doubt be her mother’s strong objections. In the brisk breeze, tears stung her eyes. She shouldn’t have to fight for anything. He was a kind and decent man who loved her and her son with everything he had. Her mother had never even met Mac, yet she would judge him because his family was one of the “haves” on an island in which she and her family had always been one of the “have-nots.”

That wasn’t his fault any more than it was hers. Just as it wasn’t their fault that her mother had written enough bad checks to establishments such as the bar at McCarthy’s Gansett Inn that the proprietors had had no choice but to report her.
She
had landed
herself
in jail, and if the McCarthys could see fit to separate Maddie from her mother’s sins, then perhaps her mother could find it in her heart to judge Mac for himself.
 

“Wishful thinking, girl,” she whispered to herself. “She’s going to freak, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.” But nothing her mother could possibly say, Maddie reminded herself, would stop her from marrying the love of her life—with or without her mother’s blessing. It sure would be sweeter, however, if her mother could find a way to accept that her daughter was happy with Mac, and that she didn’t give two figs about his last name or his money.
 

With that thought at the forefront of her mind, Maddie drove off the ferry in the black SUV Mac had bought to get their little family around the island. Her mother’s first question would be about where she had gotten the money for such an extravagant vehicle.

During the hour-long drive to the state prison in Cranston, Maddie focused on happy thoughts of Mac and Thomas, on wedding plans and blissful nights in the arms of the man she loved. Nothing and no one would ever come between them again. She was almost to the prison when her phone rang, and Mac’s number popped up on the caller ID. Even though she knew he was calling to offer his support, she chose not to take the call for fear that hearing his voice would cause her to fall apart in these last crucial minutes.

No, she would wait until they were back on the ferry home before she returned his call. “Please,” she whispered as she pulled into the parking lot and turned off the truck. “Please, for once, be happy for me. Just this once.” As fortified as she was going to get, Maddie opened the door and stepped into the July sunshine. Inside, she signed in and was assigned to an air-conditioned waiting room.

Thirty minutes passed in which Maddie shivered in the chill before the door opened and Francine Chester appeared, wearing the release-day outfit Maddie had sent her and carrying a plastic bag of other belongings. Gray roots had overtaken her mother’s cap of dyed red hair. No doubt her first stop on the island would be at the beauty shop, which would sneak her in as long as she paid cash.
 

“Get me out of here.” Francine brushed past her daughter as if they had just seen each other yesterday rather than three months ago.

Nice to see you, too
, Maddie thought as she followed her mother to the exit and directed her to the parking lot.

Francine tilted her head into the sunshine and took deep breaths of fresh air. “About damned time they let me out of that hellhole. Was your sister too busy to come with you?”

“Ashleigh wasn’t feeling well,” Maddie said of her infant niece. “Tiffany said they’ll see you when you get home. She has the apartment all ready for you.”

“What apartment?”

“My old place at Tiff’s house. We figured you could stay there until you get back on your feet.”

Francine eyed her with cagey green eyes that didn’t miss a trick. “And where will you be?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that.” Maddie clicked the button on her key fob to unlock the truck and watched as her mother’s eyes widened with predictable questions.

“Did you hit the lottery while I was gone?”

In a way
, Maddie thought. Here goes nothing. . . “It belongs to my fiancé.”

Francine turned to her, incredulous. “What
fiancé
?”

Maddie swallowed the fear, the worries and the sense of impending doom and looked her mother dead in the eye. “The one I plan to marry a week from today.”

“You’re getting
married
, and you haven’t seen fit to mention this to me until now? You could’ve sent a letter or mentioned it during one of the calls.”

“I wanted to tell you in person.”

“So tell me. Who is he?”

Once again, Maddie refused to blink. She refused to be ashamed or to cower under her mother’s intense scrutiny. “Mac McCarthy. Junior.”

Francine released a harsh bark of laughter. “Like hell you’re marrying a McCarthy.”

“I am
absolutely
marrying a McCarthy, and I’m proud of it.” She held open the door to the truck.

Francine crossed her arms and tilted her chin defiantly. “I will not ride in a vehicle owned by a McCarthy.”

“Fine,” Maddie said. “Then you can find your own way home.” She walked around the truck to get in the driver’s side and started the engine. Her stomach ached, and her eyes burned with tears. Did she really have the nerve to drive off and leave her mother there with no money and no other way home?
 

In the brief span of silence that stretched into tense minutes, Maddie realized her entire life had come down to this moment—and if she had to choose between a past full of heartache and disappointment and a future with Mac that promised to be filled with love and joy, then she chose the future. With him.
 

She glanced at the open passenger door. “I love him, he loves me, he adores Thomas, and I’m going to marry him, with you or without you. I’d prefer to do it with you, but if you force me to choose, I choose him.”

Since she had no alternative, Francine got in the truck and slammed the door. “You’ll marry him over my dead body.”

Maddie shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.” Despite her show of bravado, her hands shook so badly she wondered how she would drive.

Chapter 15

Janey was thrilled to find Maddie and the SUV in the line for the three o’clock ferry. After checking her fresh-from-the-shop car into the line, Janey skipped over to where Maddie leaned against the black truck, her arms crossed and her face set in an unreadable expression.

“Hey!”

Maddie looked up, startled. “Oh. Hi.”

Janey studied her friend. “What’s wrong?”

“My mother.”

“
Ohhh
.” Janey leaned back against the truck, next to Maddie. “I take it the pickup didn’t go well?”

“Let me quote, shall I? ‘You’ll marry a McCarthy over my dead body.’”

“Ouch. I resemble that remark. What did you say?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Good for you.” Janey snorted. “Where is she now?”

“On the boat. She took the ticket I bought her and stalked off.” Maddie slid her slender foot in and out of her flip-flop, an aura of weary resignation clinging to her every movement. “I knew it was too much to hope that she might be supportive, but still. . .”

“You hoped anyway.”

“I never learn. That’s my problem. I expect people to change, but they don’t.”

Janey linked her arm with Maddie’s and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. “Do you know what I love best about you?”

Maddie tilted her head to lean it on Janey’s. “What’s that?”

“You’re always upbeat, even when you have good reason not to be. I admire that quality in you, and I know Mac does, too.”

“Thank you. That’s sweet of you to say.”

“I know she’s your mom, but I’d hate to see her take anything away from your happiness. Not when you and Mac waited so long to find each other.”

“You’re right. You’re
absolutely
right.”

“She can’t ruin it for you unless you let her.”

Maddie stood upright and turned to Janey, a brilliant smile lighting up her pretty face. “I can’t wait until you’re officially my sister-in-law.”

Janey hugged her. “I can’t, either.”

“So where’s Joe?”

“On the island. He was on the one thirty. I stayed over here to do a few errands after I picked up my car.”

“How was last night?” Maddie asked with a salacious smile.

“
Amazing
.”

Maddie laughed. “That good, huh?”

“It’s incredible. We just have this unbelievable connection.”

“So why don’t you look happy?”

“I am happy. I’m
so
happy. That’s the problem.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Not even a week ago, I was engaged to David. I had my whole life planned. I was in love, content, settled, you know?”

“Uh huh. And now?”

“Now, it’s like David’s dead to me, everything I ever felt for him is gone, and I can’t be in the same room with Joe and not want to jump him.”

Maddie giggled behind her hand.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are. You’re madly in love with
Joe
, and you don’t even see it.”

Janey stared at her, wondering if Maddie had lost her mind. “How can you say that? I was in love with David a week ago! When did I become this fickle fannie who loves a different boy every week?”