GansettAfterDarkKobo Read online

  Thinking about the day they’d spent hiding out from the rest of the world and his adorable, romantic proposal, suddenly it didn’t matter anymore why her parents were happy for her. It didn’t matter that her sister had stolen her boyfriend and the rest of the family had acted like that was no big deal. Nothing mattered but the man who stood beside her, wanting to spend the rest of his life with her.

  Kelly and Matt had actually done her a favor. If they hadn’t betrayed her, she never would’ve felt the need to leave Bar Harbor. She wouldn’t have come to Gansett or met Dan, and that would’ve been truly tragic. She’d loved Matt, but not the way she loved Dan. Nothing could compare to that.

  Kara could tell she surprised her fiancé when she turned to him, gave him a big, warm smile and then leaned in to kiss him right there in front of everyone. As their friends whooped it up around them, she curled her hand around his neck and slipped him a hint of tongue. When she ended the kiss, he stared at her, confounded, as if trying to decide what had come over her.

  Happiness had come over her, pure and simple.

  She laughed at his befuddlement and then hugged him, loving the way his body fit against hers, as well as the scent of his cologne and the rough scrape of his whiskers against her face.

  “You never fail to amaze me, babe,” he said close to her ear, sending a shiver all the way through her body.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  The clatter of smashing glassware interrupted the moment as everyone turned to see what all the noise was about. Beside her, Dan gasped at the sight of Jim Sturgil, Tiffany’s ex-husband, as he pushed past a waiter carrying a tray of champagne glasses and knocked the tray out of the waiter’s hand, sending more glass smashing to the floor.

  “What the hell?” Dan said.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kara saw Blaine get up from the table where he’d been sitting with Tiffany, her sister Maddie, Maddie’s husband, Mac, and Mac’s parents. Tiffany stared at Jim, her eyes big and her face suddenly pale.

  “Is everyone having a good time?” Sturgil asked, his voice slurring. His eyes were wild looking, and his white shirt was dirty and hanging untucked over torn pants. He looked like he’d been on a multiday bender. “Is everyone celebrating the man who’s ruined my life? You ruined my life, Torrington! Everything was fine until you showed up here with all your money and connections, and now everyone wants the big celebrity to be their lawyer, and no one wants me! I am this island’s lawyer. Not you! You need to go back to your fancy life in LA and leave us alone. No one wants you here.” From the table where a man in a chef’s coat and hat had been carving tenderloin, Jim picked up a large knife and began swinging it around.

  “Don’t take another step,” Blaine said in a tone Kara had never heard from him before.

  “You! You stole my wife and kid! My own kid likes you better than she likes me!” He swung the knife in Blaine’s direction. “I ought to gut you the way you’ve gutted me.”

  “You did this to yourself, Sturgil,” Blaine said calmly but firmly. “You can toss all the accusations around that you want, but you have only yourself to blame for your problems.”

  Jim lunged at him with the knife, but Blaine jumped out of the way.

  Dan dropped his arm from around Kara’s shoulders and moved across the room to help Blaine.

  “Dan!” Kara screamed after him, afraid he would get hurt again after only recently recovering from the injuries incurred in the sailboat accident.

  Everyone was on their feet, and Evan and Mac went to help Dan and Blaine, who were confronting Jim. He waved the big knife around in front of him, daring anyone to get close to him.

  “Someone should call the police,” Judith said nervously.

  “Blaine is the police,” Kara said. “Give him a minute. He’ll take care of it.”

  “Jim,” Tiffany said as she walked toward her ex-husband. “What the hell are you doing? Think about your daughter. Put down that knife and quit acting like a jackass.”

  “Tiffany, step back,” Blaine said without taking his eyes off Jim or the knife. “Right now.”

  “You think I’m a jackass?” Jim screamed at her. “You did this to me, you stupid bitch!”

  Blaine roared and pounced on Jim, his arm tight around Jim’s neck as Dan went for the knife.

  “Dan!” Kara screamed, feeling as if her worst nightmare was unfolding right in front of her. “No!”

  Cornered, Jim slashed at Dan, who grunted when the knife made contact with him before clattering to the floor.

  Kara ran for her fiancé, who was bent in half, while Blaine dragged Jim kicking and screaming from the room. “Dan! Dan! What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  He looked up at her, grimacing in pain. “Just a scratch.”

  That’s when she noticed the pool of blood forming on the floor in front of him.

  “Someone call for rescue,” Mac said behind her. “Come on, Dan, have a seat.” After getting Dan into a chair, Mac grabbed a napkin that he wrapped around Dan’s right hand. The napkin quickly soaked through, and Mac calmly swapped it out for another one.

  “Sorry ’bout this,” Dan said.

  Kara cradled his head against her chest. “It’s not your fault. You weren’t the one with the knife.”

  “What’ve you done now, Torrington?” his close friend Grant McCarthy asked as he squatted in front of Dan.

  “I was safer in LA than I am here,” he said, forcing a smile for Kara’s benefit. “Might be time to go home.”

  Kara knew he was joking, but the comment scared her nonetheless. Gansett was their home, or at least she thought it was.

  The EMTs arrived a minute later, and Kara stepped back from Dan to make room for them to tend him.

  Her mother’s arm encircled her waist. “Are you all right, honey?”

  “I will be when I know he is.”

  “He did a brave thing rushing at that man with the knife. Who is that guy?”

  “Jim Sturgil. He used to be married to Blaine’s wife, Tiffany, and people don’t like him because of the way he treated her when they got divorced.” As she filled in her mother, Kara never took her eyes off Dan. “When Dan came to the island to write his book, people started seeking out his legal advice, and now they prefer him to Jim.”

  “So Dan is actually practicing law here?”

  “Has been for a while now. He didn’t intend to, but that’s how it worked out.”

  The lead EMT signaled to Kara to come with them.

  “I’ll call you later, Mom. Sorry about all this.”

  “I just hope he’s okay.”

  “So do I.” Kara ran after the stretcher that Dan was strapped to.

  “Much ado about nothing,” he said to her when she caught up to him. Despite his assurances, his face was pale and his eyes were glassy with shock, which reminded her of the aftermath of the boating accident—a time she’d much rather forget than relive. “Do you like how I got you out of the stupid party?”

  “Don’t make jokes.” The instant the words cleared her lips, she regretted sounding so snappish. It wasn’t his fault he’d gotten hurt.

  “I’m okay, babe. I swear. It’s just a cut. They’ll stitch me up, and I’ll be good as new.”

  Kara forced herself to breathe through the need to cry with relief that he was okay. When she thought about what might’ve happened, she shuddered.

  In the ambulance, Dan held out his good hand to her, and she took it, holding on tight to the man she loved with all her heart.

  Chapter 17

  “What. The. Hell.” Maddie stood with Tiffany, watching the EMTs take Dan Torrington away from his engagement party on a stretcher.

  “Goddamned Jim,” Tiffany muttered, mortified and humiliated by her ex-husband’s tirade. At times like this, she had no idea how she ever could’ve loved him. “What was he hoping to prove by pulling a stunt like this?”

  “He looked like he’d been drinking for days.”

&nb
sp; “I wondered why he hadn’t called to see Ashleigh in a while. For all his faults, that’s not like him.”

  Maddie’s arm came around her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Just kind of shocked to see him lose it that way. I had no idea his business was in such bad shape.” Suddenly chilled to the bone despite the warm summer day, Tiffany wrapped her arms around herself protectively. “You don’t suppose Blaine will kill him, do you?”

  “I’m sure he’d like to rough him up a bit, but he’d never do that to you or Ashleigh. He’ll go totally by the book on this one because of who Jim is to you.

  “He’s nothing to me,” Tiffany said forcefully.

  “You know what I mean. He’s still Ashleigh’s father.”

  Tiffany knew her sister was right, even though Blaine was already more of a father to Ashleigh than Jim had ever been. Speaking of her husband… He came back into the room, his face stony with anger. When the brown eyes that normally looked at her with nothing but love and lust and tenderness connected with hers, she realized he was incredibly angry. At her.

  Tiffany’s stomach ached with apprehension, a feeling that reminded her all too well of her unhappy years with Jim.

  “Uh-oh,” Maddie muttered as Blaine crossed the room to them.

  “Where is he?” Tiffany asked. “What happened?”

  “I turned him over to my people.” His words were clipped and economical, nothing extra offered to calm or soothe her the way he normally did. “He’s on his way to jail, where he belongs. Let’s go.”

  With a grimace for her sister, she let her husband lead her from the room. He held the passenger door to his department-issued SUV for her and waited for her to get settled before he slammed it closed. As he stalked around the front of the truck, Tiffany’s nerves skyrocketed into all-too-familiar terrain. She’d spent years with a man whose mercurial temper left her in a constant state of dread over when the next blowup might occur. If a blow up with her new husband were imminent, at least Ashleigh wouldn’t witness it. She was spending the afternoon with Jim’s parents.

  Blaine got in the truck and slammed his own door as hard as he’d slammed hers. He pulled out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of dirt in their wake, and drove to their house in total silence.

  She noticed his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel with all his considerable strength. Swallowing hard, she finally worked up the courage to poke the tiger. “What’s wrong?”

  He looked over at her, seeming incredulous, before returning his attention to the road.

  “So you’re just not going to tell me? It’s not my fault Jim did that! I hadn’t seen him in weeks.”

  No reply. Fantastic.

  She crossed her arms to contain her own fury, which was mounting by the second.

  He pulled into the long driveway that led to their home a few minutes later, the truck swerving as he braked abruptly, threw the truck into Park and got out. Opening her door, he said, “Come.”

  “I don’t want to. You’re acting like a madman.”

  “I’m acting like a madman?”

  “Yes! What the hell has gotten into you?”

  “You want to know what’s gotten into me?”

  “Stop answering my questions with questions!”

  “Then how about you tell me what the hell you were thinking confronting a man who has professed his hatred for you to anyone who will listen when he’s wielding a fucking butcher knife?”

  All of a sudden, she got why he was so upset. She’d scared him. She released her seat belt and turned to him, still sitting in the SUV while he stood outside. “Blaine…”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t go all soft like that and think you’re going to get out of this by sweet-talking me. He could’ve killed you!”

  Despite his reluctance, she put her hands on his face and forced him to look at her. “You were right there, and you never would’ve let that happen.”

  “What were you thinking confronting him like that? He was clearly over the edge and looking for vengeance. You nearly made it easy for him.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about anything other than trying to make him stop before things got even worse. I knew you were right there and would protect me if it went bad.” She leaned in to kiss him. “I knew you were right there.”

  “Baby,” he said with a tortured moan as he hugged her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, “don’t ever do anything like that again. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, I hear you.”

  “You have to promise me. I think my heart stopped for a second there when I saw you approach him. I need you to promise.”

  “I promise.”

  He scooped her right up and out of the truck and carried her to the house, kicking the door open and then kicking it closed behind them.

  Tiffany wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the love and desire he aroused in her every time he touched her. “You scared me, too, you know.”

  “When? When did I scare you?”

  He sat her on the counter in the kitchen, right where their first significant encounter had occurred. “When you were angry with me. It reminded me too much…of him. Of how it always was with him when I spent most of my time waiting for him to lose it with me over every little thing.”

  “This wasn’t a little thing, but I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I never want to make you feel the way you did with him.”

  “I know.”

  “So we scared each other.” He ran his hands up her legs and under her skirt until they were cupped around her bottom. “It’s only because I love you so fucking much that I nearly lost my mind when you confronted him. The thought of you in any kind of danger, no matter how fleeting, makes me want to lose my shit.”

  “I’m okay.” She caressed his face and smoothed his hair, which had gotten mussed in the altercation with Jim.

  “I should be at the station dealing with him, but I need to be inside you right now more than I need my next breath. I need you, Tiff.”

  She unbuttoned and unzipped the dress pants she’d had to talk him into wearing to the party. “Take me. I’m all yours.”

  He growled as he ripped the lace panties off her body in a move that sent her own need into the red zone. With his hands under her skirt gripping her ass, he pulled her toward him and impaled her on his hard cock, drawing a gasp from both of them. “Shit,” he whispered as he froze. “Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “That was rough.”

  “I loved it, and I love you.”

  Her words sent a tremble rippling through his muscular body as he took her on a wild ride. She hooked her arm around his neck and urged him into a frantic, passionate kiss.

  He made an inarticulate sound as he pulled at the bodice of her dress, tugging until her breast popped free of her bra. Squeezing and kneading, he pinched her nipple between his fingers until she cried out from the orgasm that ripped through her, sending waves of heat and sensation from her core to every part of her body.

  “Fuck, you’re so hot,” he said on a groan as he pushed hard into her again stayed there this time as he rode the waves of her climax into his own. Sweating and panting in the aftermath, he let out a gruff laugh. “I need to get mad at you more often. That was incredible.”

  “Please don’t get mad at me more often. I couldn’t take that.”

  “You have absolutely nothing to fear from me—ever. I’m your slave. I’m completely and totally under your spell.”

  Charmed and moved by his heartfelt words, she tightened her legs around his hips and pushed against the cock that was still hard inside her despite his orgasm. His stamina never failed to amaze and exhaust her. “Look at where we are.”

  He seemed to snap out of the sex-fueled daze to realize he’d taken her right on the kitchen counter where he’d once given her the orgasm that changed both their lives. “I do some of my best work right here,” he said with a proud grin that made her laugh.

  With his hands
still wrapped firmly around her buttocks, he lifted her off the counter without losing their connection and carried her to the sofa in the living room, where he came down on top of her. Lifting her skirt, he eased the dress up and over her head, leaving her only in the bra that had matched the now-shredded thong. He released the clasp on her bra and disposed of it with expertise that never failed to amuse her.

  “I know, I know,” he said before she could. “I’m good at that.” He nuzzled her bare breasts, teasing her nipples with his tongue and the rough brush of his late-day whiskers against sensitive skin. “It’s because I have the best possible reason to get rid of your bras with all due haste.”

  She grasped a handful of his hair and directed him to focus on her nipple. Her husband knew how to take direction and had her twisting and gasping and straining against him within minutes. “Blaine…”

  “What, baby?”

  “I want you to know…”

  “What do you want me to know?” He never stopped kissing or sucking or teasing as he spoke, and the wash of his hot breath over her wet nipple was nearly enough on its own to make her come again.

  “I told you that when you were angry with me, it reminded me of him. But you’re nothing like him, and our marriage… It’s nothing like that one was. It’s so, so much better. It’s more than I ever dreamed possible.”

  His forehead dropped to her chest. “You kill me, baby. The stuff you say to me… You’re so damned sweet, and I’m so sorry you went through everything you did with him, but I’m so, so glad it led you to me.” He raised his head to meet her gaze. “I never felt like I belonged anywhere until I belonged to you.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way.”

  “Love you,” he whispered as he began to move again, making slow, sweet love to her this time.

  “I love you, too.”

  “And you’ll never do anything like you did today again, right?”

  “Yes,” she said with a sigh.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise, Blaine.”

  “In that case, I’ll let you come again.”

  Laughing, she closed her eyes and held on tight to him and the love he’d brought into her life. “You are just too good to me, Chief Taylor.”