Desire After Dark: A Gansett Island Novel Read Free

met.”
    The double meaning wasn’t lost on her. “Is that right?”
    “Absolutely! It’s Christmas . That means we have to bake and cook and wrap presents. Lots to do and not a lot of time left to do it before the big day.” He was still talking as he headed down the stairs. “Be right back!”
    Erin watched him go, oddly elated by his overabundance of Christmas spirit when that would normally annoy her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d given a crap about the holidays. Well,that wasn’t entirely true. The holidays were one of many things she’d stopped giving a crap about after her brother was cruelly murdered along with three thousand other innocent souls.
    Erin couldn’t help but wonder what a lighthearted, happy-go-lucky man like Slim would think of the darkness that dwelled inside her. What would he think when he found out that she hadn’t stepped foot on anairplane in nearly fifteen years and, if she had her way, never would again? There were a lot of things about her that would probably be a huge turnoff to a guy like Slim, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy this interlude with him while it lasted and then pick up her regular life already in progress after he left.

Chapter 2
    S he had erected walls in front of her walls, barriers intended to keep anyone from getting too close, which was why Slim was completely shocked that she’d asked him to stay with her. Not that he was complaining. Not at all. He was thrilled but shocked, too. Standing before the mirror in the lighthouse’stiny bathroom, he shaved his face and puzzled through the unexpected turn of events.
    During their many phone calls, FaceTime chats and texts over the last few months, she’d let him see her witty side as they bantered back and forth. Other than the night last summer when she’d asked him about his real name and she’d told him about the twin brother she’d lost, they hadn’t delved too far beneaththe surface. They talked about the winter weather in Florida versus Rhode Island, about his customers and flights, the places he went with his plane and the activities that kept Erin and her band of friends busy on the island during the cold winter months.
    They talked about the TV shows they were watching, and had watched much of the last season of “The Voice” together, rooting for thesame contestant to win.
    Not once had they talked about where all those conversations might be leading. He’d asked her where she planned to be during the holidays, and when she said she was debating between staying on the island or going home to Pennsylvania, he asked if he could see her after the McCarthys’ party. When he touched down on the island’s runway yesterday, he hadn’t known whetherhe would be here for one day or twelve days or what. He’d cleared his schedule in Florida through the holidays, hoping the longer visit to Gansett would materialize.
    She’d seemed genuinely thrilled to see him last night, as thrilled as he was to see her after counting the days for weeks. And kissing her had been… He blew out a deep breath. That had been incredible, if also unexpected.
    This entire situation with her was unexpected. He’d spent his adult life chasing the sun and the work. He flew out of Gansett Island in the summer and Palm Beach in the off-season, taking people where they needed to go while studiously avoiding anything that smacked of commitment in his personal life. That just wasn’t his style—or it hadn’t been before the September night when he rescuedErin on a dark road and found himself on the business end of a hook, getting reeled in slowly but surely by a woman for the first time ever.
    It was funny, really, when you considered how much pleasure he’d taken in mocking his friends Mac, Adam, Grant and Evan McCarthy, who’d fallen one by one in the last couple of years, along with Owen Lawry, the Martinez brothers, Luke Harris and evenSeamus O’Grady. His Gansett Island friends had gone to the