Free Desire After Dark: A Gansett Island Novel by Marie Force Page B

touch? Would he want to stay in touch if they had a hot and heavy fling while he was here? Maybe a fling was all he wanted anyway.
    This, right here, was why she avoided entanglements at all costs. Sohow had she found herself firmly entangled in this enigmatic man?
    It had happened the night he told her his real name. Nothing had been simple after hearing he shared a name with her beloved brother.
    “Hey,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. “Where’d you go?”
    She emerged from her thoughts to find that Evan McCarthy and Grace Ryan had arrived with her friend Fiona, Evan’sbrother Adam and his fiancée, Abby Callahan.
    “Nowhere,” she said in response to Slim’s inquiry.
    “You’re not overthinking things by any chance, are you?”
    “What? No. I’m not doing that.” Scalded by his insight, she tried to escape, mumbling something about helping Jenny in the kitchen.
    He took her hand, stopping her. “You want to go?”
    “I…” She wanted to go, andshe wanted to stay, to buy herself some time to figure out what was happening to her and how to get it under control while she still could.
    He watched her with those knowing eyes that saw right through her bullshit and found the heart of her more easily than any man before him ever had. “Let’s go.”
    “I, um, Jenny…”
    “She’ll understand.”
    And she would. Erin had no doubtabout that. “Okay.”
    They made their excuses to Jenny, who was far too pleased about the development for Erin’s liking.
    “Call me in the morning and tell me everything,” Jenny said as she hugged her. “Take notes so you don’t forget anything.”
    “Stop it.”
    “You stop it.”
    “What am I doing?”
    “Other than freaking out?”
    “I’m not doing that.”
    “No?”
    Erin could fool some people but not Jenny. Never Jenny. “Maybe a little.”
    “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
    “You can’t know that for certain.”
    “None of us can, but one thing I know for certain is that a life half lived is no life at all.”
    And what, really, could Erin say to that?
    After shaking hands with the McCarthy and Martinez brothers, Slim held outa hand to Erin, who was still reeling from Jenny’s pronouncement. “Ready?”
    Eyeing his hand the same way she might an unpinned grenade, she nodded and let him help her into her coat and lead her from the house.
    “Leave your car here,” he said. “We’ll get it in the morning.”
    “Oh. Okay.” Relieved not to have to drive, she let him help her into the passenger side of his truck andtried to put on her seat belt. Her fingers were like a bunch of thumbs, refusing to behave, which was why she was still fumbling with the seat belt when he got in and clipped it for her.
    He turned on the engine and cranked the heat. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Could you not do that? Could you not say it’s nothing when anyone who knows you even a little can see it’s something?”
    Remember that thing about the way he saw her? Yeah. So…
    “Have you changed your mind about this, Erin? If you have, all you’ve got to do is say so. I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”
    Suddenly, that was the very last thing she wanted. “I don’t want you to leave me alone. But I also don’t want…”
    “What?” His hand was warm upon her cheekas he caressed her face so tenderly it brought tears to her eyes.
    “I don’t want you to hurt me. And you could. You could so easily.”
    “Erin, sweetheart… God, that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.” The seat belt he’d just clipped was released, and he lifted her right out of her seat onto his lap and into his arms.
    “How’d you do that?” she asked, stunned by his strengthand how quickly he’d reacted.
    “I will not hurt you. I promise.”
    Moved by the ferocity behind his words, she said, “You can’t promise that.”
    “I can promise I’ll do everything I can to make you happy if you give me the