Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
The phone call Joe Cantrell had waited half his life to receive came in around nine on an otherwise average Tuesday evening. He’d put in a twelve-hour day on the ferries, done four round-trips to the island, and had just sat down to eat when his cell phone rang. Since he’d been in a foul mood all day, tortured by images of Janey in Boston with her fiancé, he’d almost ignored the call. Thank God he grabbed it on the last ring before voicemail picked up.
“Joe.”
One word set his heart to racing. He’d know that voice anywhere. “Janey? Why are you calling me when you’re visiting David?” He kept his tone light, but just saying the guy’s name made Joe sick. He couldn’t stand the way David went weeks, sometimes months, without so much as a visit to his fiancée. Sometimes Joe wished he didn’t have front-row access to who came and went from the island. Some things he was better off not knowing.
He’d seen her earlier in the day, skipping ont the ferry on her way to surprise her doctor-in-training for their anniversary. Thirteen years together. Lucky thirteen, she’d joked. Joe had found nothing funny about it.
“I need. . .”
Was shecrying? “Janey, honey. What do you need?”
“You.”
Joe almost swallowed his tongue. How long had he fantasized about hearing those very words from her? Forever, or so it seemed. “What’s wrong?”
“My car broke down on 95, just south of Foxboro.”
Why was she south of Boston when she’d gone to visit David for a few days? “Where’s David?”
“I’m callingyou, Joe. Can you come?” More sniffling. “What was I thinking? It’s too far—”
He was already leaving a cloud of dust behind his red pickup as he peeled out of the driveway. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be there in less than an hour.” Under normal circumstances, it would take much longer to reach her, but these were anything but normal circumstances. Something had happened. Something bad. If the bad thing was between her and David, then all of Joe’s dreams had finally come true. But hers had been crushed. He had to remember that. No matter what this night might bring, he couldn’t forget that she’d been with David for almost as long as Joe had harbored a secret, burning love for his best friend’s little sister.
