McCarthys of Gansett Island Boxed Set Books 1-3

Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 1-3

By: Marie Force

Published by HTJB, Inc.

Copyright 2013. HTJB, Inc.

Cover by Kristina Brinton

E-book Layout by Holly Sullivan
 

E-book Formatting Fairies
 

ISBN: 9780985034177

All characters in this book are fictional and figments of the author’s imagination.

www.marieforce.com

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The Gansett Island Series

Get the entire Gansett Island Series

Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 1-3

Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 4-6

Gansett Island Boxed Set, Books 7-9

Book 1:
Maid for Love

Book 2:
Fool for Love

Book 3:
Ready for Love

Book 4:
Falling for Love

Book 5:
Hoping for Love

Book 6:
Season for Love

Book 7:
Longing for Love

Book 8:
Waiting for Love

Book 9:
Time for Love

Book 10:
Meant for Love

Book 10.5:
Chance for Love
A Gansett Island Novella

Book 11:
Gansett After Dark

Book 12:
Kisses After Dark

Book 13:
Love After Dark

Book 14:
Celebration After Dark

Author’s Note

My favorite place in the world is Block Island, located twelve miles off the southern coast of Rhode Island. A tiny slip of land with a Great Salt Pond in the middle, Block Island is the place time forgot. You won’t find a stop light on the island or a hospital. Internet connections are sketchy at best, and good luck finding a hotel room or a spot on the ferry for your car in the summer if you haven’t planned months in advance. What you will find is peace and quiet and beaches and bluffs and quaint shops and a laid-back atmosphere that soothes the soul.

The island has played an important role in my life from the time I was a small child arriving on my parents’ boat, through a college romance and now as a favorite family vacation spot each summer. I’ve never been anywhere that inspires me more. Block Island pops up often in my books, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before I made up my own version of the island and set a series there. Thus Gansett Island and the McCarthy Family were born. “Gansett” is a tip of the hat to Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, one of my favorite places to spend a summer day.

Maid for Love
is the first book in the series.
Fool for Love
comes next then
Ready for Love,
all of which are included in this boxed set. When you finish these three books, check out the rest of the series listed in the back of this edition.
There's much more to come from Gansett Island, so stay tuned!

I love to hear from readers! Contact me at
[email protected]
and join my
mailing list
for news of upcoming books.

Welcome to Gansett Island! I so hope you enjoy the McCarthy family and friends!

xoxo

Marie

For the late Bob Broz, the “Big Mac” of my childhood.

Chapter 1

Madeline Chester retrieved her nine-month-old son Thomas from his crib and checked her watch. She was due at the hotel for the morning housekeeping shift in fifteen minutes. After a diaper change, she handed Thomas his bottle, grateful that he could now hold it himself.

He let out a squeal of delight that drew a smile from Maddie.
 

“You like that, huh, buddy?”
 

His pudgy legs bounced about on either side of her hips, and she tightened her hold on him while attempting to tame his soft blond hair. She grabbed the diaper bag, the tote she took to work, retrieved her lunch from the refrigerator and headed out the door. Across the yard, she entered her sister’s house through the screen door on the back deck.

“Morning,” she called out.

“In here,” Tiffany said from the living room where she sat amid three babies and a variety of toys. One of the babies was her daughter, Ashleigh, born just a month before Thomas. The other two Tiffany cared for as part of her in-home daycare business.
 

Maddie kissed Thomas, whispered that she loved him and plopped him down on the mat with the others. “I’m running late as usual.”

“Go ahead. We’re fine.”

“I’ll be back by three.”

“See you then.”

Tiffany watched Thomas for free during the day in exchange for Maddie taking over the daycare from three to six while Tiffany taught dance classes in her studio under the apartment Maddie rented from Tiff and her husband Jim. The delicate balancing act left Maddie worn out at the end of every long day.

She jumped on her bulky old bike and set off for McCarthy’s Gansett Inn on the other side of the island. Checking her watch one more time, she groaned when she saw how close she was cutting it.

From his vantage point in the ferry’s wheelhouse, Mac McCarthy watched the bluffs on the island’s north coast come into view and felt the vise around his chest tighten. Just the sight of the island where he grew up made Mac feel confined.

“Never gets old, does it?” Mac’s childhood best friend, Captain Joe Cantrell, owned and operated Gansett’s thriving ferry business.

“What’s that?” Mac asked.

“The first view of the island. Always gives me a thrill to see it appear out of the fog.”

“Even after all the times you’ve seen it?”

“I still love it.”

Mac studied his old friend. Time had worn some lines into the corners of Joe’s hazel eyes, and his sandy hair was now shot through with streaks of gray that hadn’t been there on Mac’s last trip home.

“You ever wish you’d done something else?” Mac asked. “Gone out in the world a bit?”

Joe took a long drag off his trademark clove cigarette and flicked the ashes out the open doorway. “Go where? Do what?”

“Those things are gonna kill you,” Mac said, nodding to the cigarette.

“No faster than working twenty hours a day is gonna kill you.”

“Touché,” Mac said with a chuckle.

“Are you planning to tell mama bear about your night in the hospital?”

“Hell no! She’d freak out all over me. That’s the last thing I need.”

Joe laughed. “What’s it worth to ya?”

Mac shot him what he hoped was a menacing scowl. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“So what happened?”

“The doctors said it was an anxiety attack—too little sleep, too much work, too much stress. They ordered me to take at least a month off to recover.”

“How’d your partners take that news?”

“Not so well. We’re busier than hell, but they’ll handle it until I get back.” Mac and his partners owned a company that reconfigured Miami office space for new tenants.

“And your girlfriend? Roseanne, right?”

“My
ex
-girlfriend. We decided to cool it for a while. And then I got the email from my mother about my dad selling McCarthy’s. . . I told my mom I’d help him fix the place up a bit.”

“I still can’t believe that.”

Mac shrugged. “He can’t work forever, and none of us want to deal with it.”

“How’s your sister doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Despite the nonchalant question, Mac knew there was nothing nonchalant about his friend’s feelings for Janey. “Still carrying that torch?”

Joe shrugged. “I’ve yet to meet anyone I like better.”

“She and David are engaged, man. Might be time to move on.”

“Maybe.” He flashed the grin that had made him popular with the girls in high school—not that he’d noticed after he gave his young heart to Janey McCarthy. “She’s not married yet.”

“Joe—”

“I’m not going to show up at the wedding in a gorilla suit and cart her off or anything.”

Mac studied the expression on his friend’s face: staged indifference mixed with wistfulness. “That sounds a little too well planned.”

“No worries, I don’t own a gorilla suit. I
am
thinking about getting a dog, though.”

Mac laughed at that because Janey worked for the island’s veterinarian.

Joe steered the one hundred ten-foot ferry past the breakwater to the island’s South Harbor port.
 

Mac watched the town of Gansett come into view—the bustling port, the white landmark Beachcomber Hotel with its clock tower and turrets, the Victorian Portside Inn, the strip of boutiques and T-shirt shops, the South Harbor Diner, Mario’s Pizzeria and Ice Cream Parlor where Mac stole his first kiss from Nicki Peterson in eighth grade.
 

His overriding memory of growing up there was plotting his escape. Once he finally managed to leave, he’d never looked back except for occasional visits to his parents. Every time he came home, he counted the minutes until he could leave again. This would be his longest stay since he turned eighteen and left for college. Mac wondered how long it would take before he was chomping to leave again.

Salt air, diesel fuel and rotting seaweed—the aromas of home—filled Mac’s senses and turned his stomach. He hated the smell of rotting seaweed.

“Come on back with me,” Joe said.
 

At the ferry’s stern, Mac watched as Joe used a combination of engine power and bow thrusters to efficiently turn the ferry in the tightest imaginable space and back it into its berth. “You make that look so damned easy.”

“It is easy—especially when you’ve done it a thousand or two times.”

Once the ferry was docked, they stood at the rail and watched the throngs of trucks, cars and tourists disembark from the day’s first boat to Gansett.
 

“I still spend Friday and Saturday nights on the island during the summer,” Joe said as Mac gathered up his stuff. “Come on by the Beachcomber if you feel like grabbing a brew or two.”

“I’ll do that.” Mac shook Joe’s hand. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“Been too long.”

“Yeah.” But as Mac took a long look at the bustling town of Gansett, he decided it hadn’t been nearly long enough.

Carrying his oversize backpack, Mac navigated the crowds on his way to Main Street. He stopped to let a family on bikes pass and continued up the hill, mesmerized by the frantic activity.