McCarthys of Gansett Island Boxed Set Books 1-3 (9 page)

Raising his head, he found her eyes in the encroaching darkness. “And what’s that?”

“Easy.” Her quiet dignity touched him in places he normally kept walled off and unreachable. “Cheap.”

Mac chose his words carefully. “Sweetheart, I’ve had easy and cheap, and you’re neither.”

Incredulous, she stared at him. “How do you know that?”

“Gut instinct.”

“And your gut is never wrong?”

“Hasn’t failed me yet.”

“People in town will speak poorly of you if you get involved with me.”

“Maddie, I’ve never once given a crap what anyone thought of me, and I’m not about to start caring now.”

“That’s easy to say when you’ve been loved and adored your whole life. You have no idea how vicious people can be.”

He dropped another light kiss on her swollen lips. “If it means I get to spend some more time with you, I’d be willing to find out.”

“You say that now . . .”

“How about that lobster?”

She held up her injured hand. “I might need some help.”

“You got it.” He scooped her up and carried her to the table. “After dinner, we’ll change the bandages and put some more ointment on those cuts.”

“Oh goodie. Something to look forward to.”

He grinned at her, enjoying her cutting wit. “Give me one second to throw on some clothes.” When he returned a minute later dressed in clean cargo shorts and a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, he leaned down to bring his face in close to hers. “I want you to know that I’m not here because I feel like I have to be.”

Her pretty lips formed a surprised O. “No?”

Mac shook his head. “Today has been fun—not the part where you got hurt, but everything since then.”

“Clearly, you don’t get out enough.”

Wiggling his brows at her, he uncorked a bottle of white wine and poured it into mismatched glasses he’d found in her cabinet. He handed one to her and raised his in toast. “Here’s to getting out more.”

Maddie made him wait an uncertain, breathless moment before she touched her glass to his.

Celebrating the small victory, Mac got busy with the lobsters.

Linda McCarthy paced the length of her wide back porch without noticing the spectacular sunset. She’d succeeded in luring Mac back to the island, but nothing else was going according to plan. If she didn’t find a way to get him to come home, the whole town would be talking about
her son
being shacked up with that . . . that woman!
 

He hadn’t given his own mother even an hour of his precious time, but he had plenty of time to spend with a woman most people considered the town tramp. Not that Linda had anything against Maddie. She was a good worker at the hotel and at the house one afternoon a week. However, she wasn’t someone Linda wanted to see with any of her sons, especially Mac.
 

Linda didn’t believe in a mother having favorites, but Mac had always been special, a son any mother would be proud of. Watching him pitch his team to the state championship his senior year remained among her fondest memories. When he suffered the injury that ended his professional baseball aspirations, her heart broke right along with his.
 

And then he picked himself up, refocused on his education and emerged with an engineering degree that led to his current career as the co-owner of a thriving business. Along the way, she’d hoped and prayed he would meet a woman who’d complement and support him as he continued along his successful path.

That certainly wasn’t going to happen once the local woman she had in mind for him heard he’d stayed overnight with Maddie Chester. He’d just made his mother’s plan to find him a suitable wife on the island a lot harder than it would’ve been otherwise.

The phone rang in the kitchen. Hoping it might be Mac, Linda rushed inside and groaned when she heard her sister’s voice. “Hello, Joan.”

“Why didn’t you tell me Mac was coming home?”

“Because I wasn’t sure which day he was getting here.” No way would she admit he hadn’t bothered to share his travel plans with her. Joan would take too much pleasure in hearing that.

“Teensy just called. Her grandson delivered lobsters to Mac at Maddie Chester’s apartment.”

Linda suppressed a groan. Three hundred pounds on her slimmest day, “Teensy” was the island’s biggest gossip. If she knew Mac was shacking up with Maddie, everyone else knew, too.
 

“And get this,” Joan said, clearly enjoying the scoop, “Mac answered the door
in nothing but a towel
!”

Linda would kill him. “He knocked her off her bike and hurt her badly. He’s helping her until she recovers. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“Teensy’s heard they looked
awfully
cozy.”

When she was finished with Mac, Joan would be next on her hit list. “Honestly, he’s been in town for eight hours. What do you think could be happening when she’s bruised and bloody from falling off her bike?”

Joan’s chuckle infuriated Linda. “Use your imagination. He’s a red-blooded man, and she’s always willing. A few scabs won’t slow her down.”

“That’s just unkind, Joan, and beneath you.” It really wasn’t, but Linda had no desire to start World War III with her sister. “Mac is doing an honorable thing by helping her. I don’t appreciate you making it into something dirty.”

“Don’t get pissy with me. I’m not the one who answered the door in a towel.”

“I have to go. Big Mac’s home, and he’s hungry.”

“Before you run away, I heard from Josh today. Ellen’s expecting again! We’re having a regular baby boom in our family.”

Linda wondered if a head could actually explode. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful. They sure do stay busy, don’t they?”

“Lucky for me. Talk soon.”

Linda slammed down the phone with a swear word that never usually left her lips.

“Well, good evening to you, too, my love.” Big Mac kissed her forehead. “What’s got you all fired up?”

“
Your
son!
That
woman and Teensy.” Linda banged around the kitchen fixing him a plate of the spaghetti and meatballs she’d eaten earlier. “How could he answer the door wearing only a towel?”

Big Mac plugged his cell phone into the charger and turned back to her. “What’s that you said? Teensy answered the door wearing only a towel?” He made a face of supreme dismay. “I just lost my appetite.”

“Not
Teensy
! Pay attention, will you?
Your
son answered the door at
Maddie Chester’s
apartment wearing
only
a towel! And he’s buying her
lobster
!”

“God, what a swine. Where did we go wrong with him?”

“
You don’t get it!
It’ll be all over town by morning that he’s sleeping with her! Then who will want him?”
 

“Any woman would be lucky to land him.”

“No one wants a guy who’s been with the easiest girl in town.”

“Lin,” he said in his disapproving tone. “She’s a nice girl.”

“With a reputation that would make a porn star blush.” Linda plopped his plate down on the table. “I need to fix this. Fast.”

“Linda. . . You know how these things always go. Remember when you fixed Sophie’s cousin up with Grant when she was visiting LA?”

Linda stared at him, incredulous. “How is that my fault? Sophie failed to mention her little cousin had just been sprung from the psych ward.”

“Then there was Debbie’s niece, who you sicced on Adam. . .”

“When I asked him to show her a good time in New York City, I never said he should spend the whole weekend in her hotel room. And if
she
didn’t know she had chlamydia, how was
I
supposed to know?”

“Of course Tina’s songwriting sister wasn’t exactly the one for Evan.”

“Tina never told me that her sister was more interested in boozing her way through Nashville than in songwriting. But Evan figured it out.”

“Not before she puked in his new truck.”

Linda scowled at him. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“Yours, love. Always.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“These meatballs are exquisite.”

“Don’t go using that McCarthy charm on me. I know all your tricks.”

“So matchmaking isn’t your thing. You have many other talents. Such as making meatballs that melt in my mouth.”

“Mac needs a wife. He’ll be having babies in his forties at this rate.”

“Maybe if you’d been a little sweeter to his friend Roseanne when we were in Miami this winter, he might not be shacking up in town tonight.”

Hands on hips, Linda faced off with him.

“What? I’m just saying. . .”

“
She
is
all
wrong for him. I had her number in five minutes. His head was turned by the way she looks, but he’ll figure her out soon enough—if he hasn’t already.”

“Let’s face it, babe. There’s not a woman out there who’ll ever meet your standards for any of those boys.”

“That’s not true! I want them to be happy. I want them to have what we’ve had all these years. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Aww, honey, of course there isn’t.” He reached for her hand and drew her onto his lap. “But you’ve gotta let them get there in their own way and in their own time.”

“I’ve tried that, and now I have four sons in their thirties who have no intention of ever settling down and having families. They’ll
regret
that later, Mac. You know that as well as I do.”

“Maybe so, but they’ll be
their
regrets.”

“I don’t want them to miss out on love.” The thought of it broke her heart. “Where would you be today if I hadn’t saved you from yourself?”

His big laugh rang through the kitchen. “God only knows.”

“See? That’s all I want for them, too.”

“Promise me you’ll leave Mac alone while he’s home.”

Linda hesitated. How could she promise that?
 

He drew back from her so he could see her face. “Linda. . .”

“Fine! I’ll leave him alone.” She intentionally didn’t use the word “promise” and made sure he couldn’t see the fingers she crossed behind his back.

Mac gathered up the trash bag full of lobster shells and followed Maddie’s directions to the garbage cans. He tossed the bag into the can and turned to go back upstairs when the flare of a cigarette lit up the darkness, illuminating Tiffany’s face.

“What’re you doing hanging around here?” she asked.

“I’m just trying to help your sister.”

“I can help her. Why don’t you go back where you belong?”

“And where’s that?”

“In your big white house overlooking your North Harbor kingdom.”

“It’s not my kingdom.”

“Whatever you say.”

“What’ve I ever done to you or your sister?”

“Not a damned thing.”

“So then what’s your beef with me?”

“I have no beef with you. I have a beef with guys
like
you who brag to your friends that you had a go with one of the Chester sisters.”

“That’s not my style.”

“What isn’t? Having a go with the trashy girls or talking about it?”

“Maddie’s not trashy.” Mac grew to dislike this bitter, unhappy woman more with every passing second. “Why would you say that about your own sister?”

“It’s not me who says it. Did she tell you where our mother is right now?”

“My sister did.”

“I’m sure she took great pleasure in that. Did she tell you how my mother got there?”

“No.”

“Ask
your
mother about that.”

“What does she have to do with it?”

“Ask her.” Tiffany raised a handheld baby monitor to her ear. “Talking in her sleep.”

“Where’s your husband?” Mac had known Jim Sturgil in high school but not well.

“Another good question.”

“Look, I don’t know why you’re so pissed at me—”

“You wouldn’t, but if you screw with my sister, you’ll deal with me.”

Mac had never known two more jaded women. “I just want to see her back on her feet.”

“Noble of you. Truly.”

“What would you have me do? Walk away and leave her to fend for herself after I caused her injuries?”

Tiffany ground out her cigarette. “I’ll be watching you.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

She left him standing in the dark. He saw her enter her house through the sliding door on the back porch and took a moment to get himself together before returning to Maddie’s apartment.

“Did you have trouble finding the trash cans?” she asked.

“No.” He skimmed his fingers through hair still damp from the shower. “I ran into your sister.”

“What did she say?”

Mac shrugged. “Nothing worth repeating.” He debated for a second but had to know. “What did my mother have to do with putting your mother in jail?”