41
" It’s where I want to be most in the world, Starfish. I know my home; I’ve found my place in the world. I shouldn’t--won’t--keep you from finding yours.”
“But--”
He kissed her, gently at first and then with all the hunger of a man who might never eat again.
Tears were trickling down her face now. “What if I want to come, if I know the risks, but--”
“You might be able to handle that,” he said roughly. “But I’m not sure I could.”
“Life doesn’t offer any guarantees,” she said, knowing she had to push, had to make him understand. She wouldn’t get another chance. “I want to try. I want us to try. What happened to figuring things out because that’s what you do for the people you love?”
He kissed her wet cheeks and pulled her close. “Can’t you see?” he whispered hoarsely. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
And then he was gone. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
42
" Would it be so bad, to stay in one place? I mean, you loved it there, didn’t you? Fergus said--”
“Seriously, I’m never telling him anything ever again,” Kerry grumbled.
“He wants to help you. We all do. I mean, you have to understand, it’s hard for us. We know you were happy there, and weddings and strokes notwithstanding, you’ve surprised us all by sticking around such a long time. Now here’s this amazing guy showing up, proposing marriage to you--who, let me tell you, is also not hard on the eyes--or the ears, for that matter. Wow, with the accent. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
43
" My, my,” she teased, her heart full to bursting, “what a big…sword you have.”
“All the better to pillage you with,” he murmured, lowering his head again.
“I should tell you one more thing,” she whispered, making him lift his head a bit, an eyebrow raised in question. “I’m protected. Makes traveling easier when you know what will be happening when,” she explained. “So if you’re okay with, uh, keeping your sword there unsheathed, I’m okay with--”
“Oh, aye, I’m very okay,” he said, eyes gleaming that much more brightly.
“Good,” she sighed, then tipped her head back and arched up into him. “Please feel free to pillage away.”
He laughed, a deep, sexy, guttural laugh, full of joy and promise. He moved slowly inside her this time, both of them groaning in appreciation of the increased pleasure with no barrier between them.
Their lovemaking was slow, yet all the more intense for the increased intimacy, as they kept their eyes open, looking at each other, kissing, playing, moving, enjoying.
And, for the first time, she let herself believe that maybe he was right, maybe there was a way to have it all. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
44
" Grab your phone from the truck before you go in,” he said.
“Why?”
“So I can send you suggestive and encouraging texts when you take too long with the party planning of course.”
“Of course,” she said. “I really might have to revamp my whole not-thinking plan and put you in charge.”
He lifted his hands. “I’m willing and able,” he said, then sketched a bow. When he stood, he slid his phone out and handed it to her. “To put in your number,” he said when she looked confused.
“Oh, right.” She did as he asked, then that mischievous light sparkled in her eyes as she took a moment and typed in a little more before turning it off and handing it back to him.
“What was that last bit?”
“Just helping to get that encouraging conversation going.” She left him standing there, looking down at his phone then at her retreating back as she headed back around to the parking lot and her truck.
He pocketed the phone without reading the message, thinking he should probably be alone when that happened. And possibly naked.
“Yes, much better when we don’t think.” He planned to do his best to keep them both not thinking for at least the remainder of that day and, if he was lucky, all of the night, too. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
45
" We’ve got things under control here.”
“‘We’?” Kerry repeated. “Shouldn’t you be out sampling cake or agonizing over invitation fonts? Assuming you don’t have clients to design interiors for.”
“I have clients,” Fiona replied easily, honest joy beaming from her every pore. “Very happy ones. Trust me, after running McCrae Interiors, I can juggle Fiona’s Finds and planning a wedding at the same time with my eyes closed.”
Kerry gave her sister a hard time--it was what they did--but she was truly happy for Fiona, with both her new business success and her lovely and loving relationship with their longtime family friend, Ben Campbell. Fiona had sold a successful business in Manhattan to return home and start over. She’d just opened a small design studio in a converted cottage near the harbor, focusing on recycling and repurposing antique and vintage items into something fresh and new. Her designs were both eco-friendly and wallet friendly, and the Cove had embraced her return home and her new business with equal enthusiasm.
“Remember you said that,” Kerry commented. “When it’s go time on the big aisle walk and you’re still running around like a crazy person trying to pull everything together at the last second, I don’t want to hear about it.”
Fiona batted her eyelashes again as she took an extralong sip on the straw in her glass of lemon water. “I’m the epitome of a happy, relaxed bride. McCrae girls don’t do bridezilla. Well, Hannah didn’t, Alex was lovely, and I’m charming of course.” She looked at Kerry over the tip of her straw, smiling sweetly. “We’ll reserve final judgment until it’s your turn.”
“Har, har,” Kerry said, but Fiona was high on wedding crack again so she let her run with it.
“Besides, after handling weddings for Logan, Hannah, and the Grace-Delia double do out on that island, this will be a cakewalk. Ha!” Fiona went on, then laughed. “Cakewalk.”
“You’re a designer? And you do weddings?” Maddy turned on her stool and spun Fiona on hers until they were facing each other. She gripped Fiona’s forearms and grinned. “Hello, my new best and dearest friend.”
“Oh, brother.” Kerry surrendered, tossing her towel on the bar. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
46
" She shielded her eyes from the sun, her truck keys dangling down the back of her free hand, as Cooper lowered the passenger window and leaned forward so he could see her. “G’day, Starfish. Need a lift?”
She needed a lot of things. Hot coffee, sisters who weren’t nosy, a clear vision about what should be next on her life agenda. Being inside a small, sporty vehicle, trapped mere inches from Cooper Jax, even for the short ride down to Half Moon Harbor? That she definitely did not need. “I’m good, thanks. And can we retire the nickname? Please?”
He’d begun calling her that after she’d regaled him with a steady string of childhood stories of life lived by the sea, and he’d commented that she seemed too big a fish for such a small pond. A starfish, as it were. She’d rolled her eyes at the very bad pun, but the nickname had stuck. Aussies were big on nicknames. And the honest truth of it was, she hadn’t minded hearing him call her that, even though it had been a joke, delivered as a ribbing, not an endearment.
Now? Now she wasn’t sure how he meant it, or what it made her feel when he said it. Better to just bury it right, Ker? Like you do everything that makes you uncomfortable. She really needed to find a way to strangle her little voice. “I’ve got a meeting,” she went on, not giving him a chance to respond.
He nodded to the basket in her arms. “Yes, I can see that. Demanding lot, laundry.”
She glanced down, then back at him. “No, with my sisters. About Fiona’s wedding.”
“Yes, I heard about it.”
She didn’t ask how he could possible know that, or who he’d been talking to this time, because any person in town could have brought him up to speed on the goings-on about pretty much any person he wanted to know about. The downside to being home. One of the great things about being a wanderer was that folks only knew whatever parts of her story she opted to share with them. Cooper, she realized now, had already known more than pretty much anyone she’d met in her travels up to that point. God only knows what he’d learned in the twenty-four hours he’d been in the Cove. She didn’t want to examine how that made her feel either.
“Three McCrae weddings in less than a year,” he commented, as if casually discussing the weather. Then he grinned. “Is it catching? "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
48
" What’s so amusing, wench?” came a gravel-throated voice from behind her, followed by a gentle swat across her sheet-covered backside.
“Just plotting my mutiny, Captain,” she said.
“Mutiny?” he said, pulling the sheet, and her, closer to him. “I thought I’d convinced you to join my merry little band of thieves.” He tugged at the sheet she’d grabbed in her fist, rolling her neatly over and right up against his side. “You don’t want to be the pirate queen of the high seas?”
“You’re a merry band of one who can’t sail a boat, so--”
He silenced her with a kiss.
When he finally lifted his head, she sighed and let her head loll back on his arm. “Well, when you put it that way…”
He rolled on top of her, making her squeal. “I’m happy to put it another way, if that’ll help persuade you.”
“Sheath your sword, pirate king. Your wench needs some sustenance before she can allow you to have your pirate ways with her again.”
“I thought I was sheathing my sword,” he said, then laughed when she hooked her leg over his and rolled him to his back. “I see you’ve been paying attention to my pirate tricks.”
“Indeed I have,” she said, looking down into his handsome face and twinkling blue eyes. She didn’t want to think about the next chapter, not now, not yet. But there it was, staring up at her, framed in tousled blond hair and five o’clock shadow. This could be your life, Kerry McCrae. Just say yes. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
53
" You’ve stayed true to who you are, never letting anyone believe otherwise or leading anyone on. If you’re happy with your path, continue on along it. You know we’ll support you.”
“I’m not leading him on,” Kerry said softly. “Am I, Han? I mean, I’ve been honest with him. But at the same time, I’m here, spending time with him, giving him the chance to change my mind.”
“Can he?”
“I don’t know.”
Hannah lifted her head, waited until Kerry looked up at her. “Do you want him to?”
Kerry didn’t think or analyze; she simply gave her instinctive, gut response. And nodded. “Yes. I think I do.”
Hannah grinned, seeming surprised but happy. Truly happy. “Well, then, good.” She squeezed Kerry’s shoulders. “Good.”
Kerry groaned. “I should never have answered you.”
“Yes, you should have. Maybe it’s the only way you’ll hear it, to hear yourself say it out loud like that. At least now I know you see what we all see.”
“Which is what?” Kerry asked warily, straightening away from her sister and leaning once again on the fence rail.
“That he makes you happy.” She lifted a hand to stall Kerry’s reply. “Maybe not for all eternity, but then, none of us can know that about anyone. What’s important to recognize is that he makes you happy now. So live in that space for a bit. Try it on, wear it around town. Sleep with it at night,” she added with a little twinkle. “Who knows, maybe in a few weeks the idea of heading back out into the world alone won’t look so appealing to you. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
54
" I see you’ve been paying attention to my pirate tricks.”
“Indeed I have,” she said, looking down into his handsome face and twinkling blue eyes. She didn’t want to think about the next chapter, not now, not yet. But there it was, staring up at her, framed in tousled blond hair and five o’clock shadow. This could be your life, Kerry McCrae. Just say yes.
“In other news,” she said, sliding off him to sit on the side of the bed, drawing the sheet around her, trying like hell to push those thoughts away for now, “we need to pull anchor before the sun gets any lower.”
“Aw, because that would be…bad?” he said, tugging at the sheet.
She couldn’t help it; she laughed, and the glow simply refused to fade. She tugged the sheet free from his grasp and stood, albeit on wobbly legs for a moment or two. Summoning her most haughty pirate queen manner, she made a show of draping the end of the sheet over her shoulder and shaking loose her bed-head curls, knowing she likely looked more like Medusa than anything remotely regal. “Your merry band of one here is going topside to get us underway.” She made the mistake of looking at him, sprawled in all his gorgeous, naked indolence across white sheets, beams of the lowering sun streaking across his golden skin, making it look even more burnished than it already was. Dear Lord, she wanted to have him all over again. Even hungrier now that she knew what awaited her when she did.
Taking full advantage of her hesitation, he propped his arms behind his head and crossed his legs at the ankles, a grin equally as indolent as his pose sliding across his handsome face. “You were saying, my queen?”
She scooped a pillow off the floor and threw it at him. “Incorrigible.”
Chuckling, he caught the pillow with one hand and tucked it behind his head. “Well, I’m pretty sure that’s near the top of the list of preferred character traits in the pirate handbook.”
She laughed, then dodged to the door when he made a sudden, nimble grab for the edges of the sheet. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
55
" My, my,” she said, as he hauled her up against him, feet dangling off the floor, and held her there as he walked her into the room, using his elbow to hit the button to close the screens and turn them opaque. “The invitation didn’t say clothing optional,” she said, running her sandaled feet up the back of his bare legs. Which matched the rest of him. She let out a little laugh as he tossed her gently on the bed.
“That’s because I wanted to peel your clothes off you,” he said, following her down.
“Well,” she said, stretching her arms up over her head, “if you must.” She reveled in the way the two of them sank into the thick down mattress pad and even thicker down comforter that was layered on top. The word sumptuous came to mind. Even better, the bed didn’t pitch and roll with each ocean swell, though that slow roll had provided a few key moments of its own, she recalled.
“Such a wicked smile you’re wearing,” he said approvingly, flipping her sandals off. “I think it should be the only thing you have on.” He unsnapped her shorts, then slid everything off the lower half of her body in one smooth slide.
“You’ve been practicing,” she said, though it was hard to keep the casual banter going now, seeing as he was slowly kissing his way past her ankle and on up along the curve of her calf. "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
58
" G’day, Starfish. I’ve a date with a horse this afternoon. If you’re free, I thought you might like to chaperone. You’re quite good at that, as it happens. Fortunately, this time I’ll actually know how to steer my ride, so your duties will be more limited. Might free you up to enjoy a ride of your own. And yes, I meant on horseback. Mind out of the gutter, pirate queen. Of course if you’ve time for dinner, I’ll be happy to discuss dragging it back there later. As ever, your swashbuckling merry band of one, Hook "
― Donna Kauffman , Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3)
