Falling for Love Read Free Page A

if a dog could make him feel guilty.
    On his way out the door, he rolled the yellow foul-weather pants into a ball that he tucked under his arm for the mad dash to his father’s truck in the driveway.
    With his dad still recovering from a head injury and fractured arm, Grant had commandeered the truck for the time being. Although, with his brothers Evan and Adam in town for the wedding—and now stuck here for who knew how long—Grant made a mental note to hide the keys from his younger siblings the way he had when they were teenagers.
    During the short ride to the marina, he encountered downed trees and power lines as well as some flooded side streets. He wondered how Stephanie had gotten back to the marina where she stayed in a room behind the restaurant and felt guilty about leaving her to fend for herself in the storm.
    The windshield wipers in the truck were no match for the pouring rain, so Grant cracked the window, trying to find some added visibility. They hadn’t had a storm like this in decades. He remembered being without power once for ten days when all five McCarthy siblings were still living at home. That had been a
long
ten days.
    Arriving at the marina, the first thing he saw was Stephanie’s shapely behind sticking out of the toolshed as she wrestled with something. So much for a nice, easy morning, sitting around drinking coffee and shooting the bull with anyone who braved the storm.
    Looked like there was real work to be done, which was about the last thing Grant could handle with a percussion section still at work in his skull. He got out of the truck and jogged over to her. The rain had soaked her thin khaki shorts, which highlighted her dark thong. Grant bit back a curse as his body responded predictably to the view. “Let me help,” he said, sounding angrier than he’d intended.
    Startled by his sudden appearance, she spun around, wide-eyed. That’s when the second memory of the night before decided to show up—the same wide-eyed look she’d given him as he entered her for the first time.
    “For Christ’s sake,” he muttered as he stepped around her to get to the generator she’d been trying to remove from the shed.
    “What’s your problem?” she asked, wiping the rain from her face with the sleeve of a windbreaker that was far less of a jacket than she needed for this storm.
    “No problem.” He grunted under the strain of trying to lift the generator.
    “Let me help you before you throw your back out.” They had to shout to be heard over the roar of the wind.
    “You were doing it yourself. Why can’t I?”
    “I couldn’t budge it.”
    Grant turned and grabbed the back half while she took the front. Somehow, they managed to muscle it to the small deck outside the marina’s kitchen.
    “I’ll get the gas can,” she said when it was in place.
    “I will. Where is it?”
    “I’m perfectly capable of doing it.”
    Grant closed his eyes and counted to ten, praying for relief from the pounding in his skull and the stubborn woman. “I said I’ll get it. Just tell me where it is.”
    “Figure it out.” She turned and walked away from him, giving him yet another view of her soaking-wet ass, which of course his addled brain morphed into the nude version he’d seen earlier. He’d had more boners in the two hours since he woke up with her than he normally had in two days, which was absolutely infuriating.
    As he stomped back into the rain to search for the gas can, he wondered why his body reacted so strongly to her when he didn’t even
like
her. She was prickly and mouthy and stubborn as hell. Usually, she wasn’t much to look at either. Her hair was always spiky and messy looking; she was skinny, and she had a pierced tongue—he couldn’t imagine letting someone drill a hole in his tongue, although he had liked the feel of the stud on his shaft.
Stop it! Stop thinking about that!
    Despite his overwhelming desire to forget, the memory of her pierced tongue working up and down