Fool for Love (15 page)

Mac scowled at her use of his dreaded
first name. "Go back to ignoring me. Please."

Joe laughed at their banter.
"So," he couldn't help but ask, "what were you and Kay up to
over there?"

"She thinks we need to try to get
Janey and David back together."

The news hit Joe like a punch to the gut,
and it was all he could do to refrain from sucking in a sharp deep breath.

Apparently tuning in to his dismay, Mac
met his gaze and rolled his eyes. "Tell me you didn't agree to be part of
that, Mom."

"I agreed to think about it."

Mac's eyes bugged out of his head.
"You gotta be kidding me! The guy
cheated
on your daughter! You
can't still want to see her married to him!"

Linda sighed and seemed to sag a bit.
"Kay makes a good point about how long they've been together. I don't want
Janey to have any regrets."

Mac snorted. "The only regret she would've
had is if she'd married him and
then
found out he's a cheating
scumbag."

"He swears it only happened
once."

"And you
believe
that? Come
on, Mom. Get real."

Paralyzed, Joe listened to their
back-and-forth with a growing sense of dismay.

"Is that Janey's mug?" Linda
asked Joe. "She has one just like it."

He looked up to find Mac zeroed in on him,
but before he could say anything, Thomas let out a lusty wail, demanding his
new daddy's full attention.

Joe took that as his cue to escape.
"Gotta run, folks. I'm on the nine."

Distracted by the baby, Mac and Linda
uttered hasty good-byes.

Outside, Joe took deep, gulping breaths of
fresh air, hoping to slow his charging heart. Here they were trying to keep
their relationship a secret, and a stupid cow mug had nearly undone the whole
thing. Mac might've been distracted by Thomas, but later, when he had time to
think about it, he'd wonder what Joe was doing with an odd mug that was exactly
like one his sister owned.

"Shit," Joe muttered as he made
his way to the ferry landing. And Kay Lawrence, determined to fix things for
her creep of a son… That news didn't exactly make Joe's day, either. "You
gotta have faith in Janey. She knows what he is. It'll take more than a couple
of scheming mothers to undo the damage he did."

"Having a nice chat with
yerself?"

The voice startled Joe out of his musings.
Big Mac McCarthy's best friend, cab driver Ned Saunders, leaned against his
battered woody station wagon waiting for his next fare.

Joe shook his hand. "How goes it,
Ned?" The grizzled old man wore tattered khaki shorts with a T-shirt that
read, "Squeeze Your Lemons on a Lobsta."

"Getting tossed in jail and talking
to yerself. What's going on with ya, boy?"

Joe released a huff of laughter. "You
wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Never known ya to be one to take
care of things with ya fists."

"Your buddy Big Mac has already given
me the same lecture."

"I heard he didn't make ya spend the
night this time," Ned said, chortling with laughter.

"Now that you've had your entertainment
for the day, I gotta boat to catch."

Ned went back to perusing a copy of the
Gansett
Gazette
. "Give her some time, boy. She'll come round."

Startled, Joe stopped and turned back to
stare at the older man. "What'd you say?"

"Ya heard me right the first
time." Ned nodded to the ferry landing. "Looks like they're gonna
leave without ya."

Questions cycled through Joe's mind: how
did Ned know?
What
did Ned know? Who else knew? But the questions had to
wait, because the ferry wouldn't, and Joe needed to get back to his office on
the mainland. As much as he hated to leave the island—especially with David
still in town—Joe had a business to run, and last time he checked, it didn't
run itself.

Jogging down the hill to the ferry
landing, Joe felt torn in a thousand different directions. His love for Janey
had always been one of the simple truths in his life. How, then, he wondered as
he dashed aboard the boat just as the final warning horn sounded, had the
simplest thing become so damned complicated?

After Joe left, Janey resisted the urge to go back to
bed and instead took a shower and got dressed. She was out in the yard enjoying
the warm sun and playing with the dogs when Maddie arrived.

"Hey," Maddie said as she came
through the house to the backyard. "The door was open, so I let myself in.
Hope that's okay."

Janey smiled at her. They were still
working out the boundaries of their new friendship. "Of course it is. You
don't have to knock here."

"Oh, I'll still knock. I wouldn't
want to
interrupt
anything."

Janey felt heat creep into her cheeks when
she thought of waking up with Joe.

Maddie laughed. "Your face gives away
your every thought."

"I know! I hate that."

"Do I take that to mean you had a
friend
over last night?"

"Perhaps."

Maddie lowered herself to the grass next
to Janey. "Do tell."

Janey fell back onto the lawn, which the
dogs took as an open invite to lie on top of her. Running her fingers through
Muttley's soft fur, she tried to find the words. "Everything with him is
so
easy
, you know?"

"That's the way it should be. It
wasn't like that with David?"

"I thought it was, but it wasn't like
this. Joe is just so…"

"Perfect for you?"

"In many ways, yes."

"Why do I sense a 'but' coming
here?"

"Everything that's happened with
David has me questioning my judgment. If you'd asked me last week if I ever
imagined he'd cheat, I'd say not in a million years. I was that sure of him.
And look at what he was doing."

"Janey, you can't let what he did
cause you to doubt yourself. You loved him. You thought he loved you. Why in
the world would you think he'd cheat on you? The failing is in him, not
you."

"And I know that, but I can't get
past the idea that I must've missed something. There had to have been signs,
right?"

"You guys have lived apart a long
time. It's not as easy to see the signs when you aren't with him every
day."

Janey stroked Muttley's ears. "Still…
When I look back now, I can see there were things I either chose not to see or
chose not to question. Like why it took him days sometimes to call me back or
how plans would get canceled at the last minute. I always chalked that up to
his job and didn't think a thing of it. But now…"

"Now you're questioning
everything."

Janey nodded. "It's making me
nuts."

"I don't want to say the wrong thing
or overstep," Maddie said tentatively.

Janey smiled at her. "It's not
possible for you to say the wrong thing to me. I want us to be the best of
friends. You should feel free to speak your mind."

Maddie's eyes flooded with tears, which
made her laugh. "I'm like an emotional disaster area these days.
Everything makes me cry."

"They're happy tears."

"Absolutely. Not only did I get Mac,
but you and all your family. I feel so incredibly lucky."

"Wait till our other brothers get
here. Lucky might not be the word you're using when you see how crazy Mac gets
with them."

"Don't try to scare me off. Nothing
could keep me from marrying him."

Janey grinned at her. "What were you
going to say? Before?"

"Just that I hope you won't hold what
David did against Joe. That wouldn't be fair to Joe."

"No, it wouldn't, but let's face it,
none of this is fair to Joe. He's in love with me, and I'm a mess. I know I
shouldn't be encouraging what's happening between us, especially right now, and
I have all these good intentions to stay away from him. But then he walks in
the room and all my good intentions disappear. I can't keep my hands off
him."

"You're in major lust—and I can see
why. He's adorable and sexy."

"Definitely
major
lust, but
what if that's all it is? That would crush him. He hasn't said anything, but I
know where he's hoping this is heading."

"How do you feel about him?"

"It's hard to tell. Everything is so
jumbled. If you're asking if I love him, of course I do. I've always loved
him."

"But as a friend."

"Right and that's the problem. It's
hard to tell if I suddenly love him as more than that, or if I'm under the
influence of great sex."

"If you start to feel like it's only
a rebound, you need to end it. Immediately."

"I know," Janey said. "I'm
so afraid I'm going to hurt him."

"He's a big boy, and his eyes are
wide open. You can't take responsibility for him. You have to think about
yourself and what you want."

"I'm trying, but it's hard."

"Just take it a day at a time and
don't feel that you have to figure anything out right away."

"That's good advice, and you should
know after all you went through with Mac."

"When I think about how close I came
to losing him…" Maddie shuddered.

"You two are meant to be. You
would've ended up together one way or the other."

"I agree, but my mother won't. I'm
picking her up in the morning, and I can only imagine what she'll have to say
when she finds out I'm marrying Mac McCarthy next week."

"You need to take your own advice and
do what's best for
you
. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to see
their daughter married to my fabulous brother. But if she gives you grief about
it, just let her know if she forces you to choose, you won't choose her."

"That's exactly what I plan to
do."

"Just remember what's waiting for you
in a week's time, and you'll find the courage you need to deal with her."

"I can't wait to be married to him,
but I just keep worrying that something's going to happen to mess it up before
we say I do."

"Nothing's going to happen."

Right on cue, Mac walked into the yard
with Thomas on his shoulders. Talk about meant to be… Janey couldn't get over
how easily her stubbornly single brother had slipped into life as a family man.

"There're my guys," Maddie said,
glowing at the sight of them.

"I got your text that you'd be here,
so we're making the transfer." He hugged and kissed Thomas and lowered him
to his mother. "See you later, buddy."

Thomas let out a wail of protest.

"It's so not fair," Maddie said
with a pout. "You carry him for nine months, you practically kill yourself
giving birth to him and then he picks his new daddy over you every time."

Thomas squealed with delight when the dogs
sniffed and licked his outstretched hands.

Mac squatted down to kiss the pout off
Maddie's lips. "Daddy picks Mommy
every
time."

"Well, I guess that's
something
,"
Maddie said with a teasing glint in her eye.

Chuckling, Mac kissed her again before he
stood. "Got any coffee, brat?"

"Sure. Help yourself."

"I need a travel mug." 

"Oh, I, um, left mine at work."

Mac studied her for a long moment before
he said, "Never mind, then. I'll get some more at the marina. Oh, by way,
Mom was powwowing with Kay Lawrence at the diner just now. I think they're
conspiring to get you and David back together."

"Fabulous."

"I reminded Mom that the guy cheated
on you, and you're better off without him."

"Thanks."

"Still, watch out for them. They're
up to something. And, oh,
man
, is Kay pissed at Joe! If looks could
kill!"

"Joe was there, too?" Janey
asked, making a supreme effort to sound casual and unconcerned.

Mac gave her a knowing look that set her
nerves on edge. "Uh-huh. Well, I'd better get to work. You ladies have a
nice day."

"Love you," Maddie said.

"You, too, babe." He waggled his
fingers at Thomas and walked around the side of the house to the street.

"What was that all about with the
coffee?" Maddie asked.

"He might be on to me and Joe. I gave
Joe my cow mug this morning, and I'll bet my mother said something about
it."

"You might want to tell Mac the truth
now rather than letting him find out later."

"Not until after the wedding. We all
know Mac is going to be pissed with Joe over this, so let's get through the
wedding before we go there."

"If he finds out I kept this from
him, there might not be a wedding."