Sandpiper Island

Book 3: Bachelors of Blueberry Cove

by Donna Kauffman

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

A military veteran and a diner owner unite to save baby puffins and their small town in this contemporary romance from the author of Half Moon Harbor. Ford Maddox was running from his past when he came back to Blueberry Cove, Maine, where he’d tasted both heartache and comfort. With feisty Delia O’Reilly there to cheer him on, he couldn’t have picked a better place to start over—even if he’s determined to do it alone in his island tree house, working to save endangered seabirds...and himself.  But when he finds Delia fighting to hold on to her local diner, and all that’s best about their little seaside town, Ford has to lend a hand. Suddenly two fiercely independent people are building something sweeter than they ever imagined...together. DIY is so much better with two... Includes an easy do-it-yourself restoration project! “Kauffman’s third visit to endearing Blueberry Cove, Maine…solidifies the idea of the whole town as a quirky family…. Kauffman’s stories show that the bravery to reach for a connection is all we need to discover joy; she excels at expressing the struggles and joys of giving in to love.”— Publishers Weekly

Release date: December 13, 2013

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 353

Sample

Ford Maddox stared at the message that had popped up on his laptop screen and scowled. When, exactly, had he lost command of his oh-so-carefully controlled world?

He looked away from the screen, back to the entire summer migratory season’s worth of notes he was steadily working his way through, but it wasn’t so easy to turn away from the request. That only served to deepen the scowl. There was no question whom the note was in reference to. Not because he was aware that Delia was in need of something, particularly something he might be able to provide, but because, with the lone exception of the person who’d sent the message, there simply wasn’t anyone else it could be about.

He’d come to Blueberry Cove to get a grip on his life, and on himself. At the time, those two things had been synonymous. He’d arrived in Maine having narrowed his life down to one person who required his care, one person whose well-being he was responsible for: himself. At the time, he hadn’t been at all certain he could even pull that off.

That had been thirteen years ago.

In the intervening years, he’d done everything in his power to keep that list from growing. He’d only been marginally successful where his work was concerned; any number of seafaring critters, both flippered and feathered, relied on him to preserve their continued existence. But where people were concerned . . . that population he’d maintained strict control over. No one gets close, no one gets hurt. Or dead. Simple math for the not-so-simple life he’d lived.

Granted, the only thing bombing him these days were bird droppings, but it had been the real deal for enough years that he knew he could no longer be the go-to guy when things got rough. Not personal things, anyway. He had no problem being the guy in charge on Sandpiper Island. Out on his patch of rocky, sea-locked real estate, perched at the outer edges of Pelican Bay, the only battle he fought these days was the one against the relentless forces of nature.

Other than the twelve weeks every summer when the annual crop of interns invaded his sanctuary to help study and record the various nesting populations, it was just him, the wind, the sea, and the tides. His troops these days consisted of a few thousand migratory seabirds, along with whatever harbor seals found their way to the tumble of boulders and rock that hugged his shores. That he could deal with. That was what he preferred to deal with. The animals he’d devoted his life to were simple creatures, relatively predictable and, most important, minded their own business. Human animals . . . well, that was an entirely different story.

Getting involved in the personal matters of that particular breed, especially in a small town like Blueberry Cove, and even more particularly in matters of any kind that involved one Delia O’Reilly? “Pass,” he muttered under his breath, steadfastly ignoring the twinge in his chest. The Cove had saved his life, no argument there, but he was giving his life back to it, in the only way he knew how, the only way he could.

Of course, if he were being honest, Delia had played a pivotal role in that rescue as well. And one thing he was, to a fault, was honest. Most critically with himself. The truth in this case, however, was that he definitely wasn’t the man for the job. Or any job that had Delia’s name on it. And he was pretty damn sure she’d be the first one to agree.

He went back to the painstaking and often frustrating task of deciphering his notes on the recently completed nesting season, reluctantly looking up again when a ping indicated another incoming message.

I’ve only known her a few months, Ford, and I can already state with fair certainty that she’s never going to come out and ask for help. Not from me, and most definitely not from you.

“My point exactly,” he retorted, even though the note sender couldn’t hear him. He and Delia had a past, a distant and some might say a complicated one. They weren’t on bad terms. More like they weren’t on terms of any kind. Hell, he hadn’t seen or talked to her in . . . longer than he cared to figure out, much less admit. Because figuring it out would mean admitting he’d been intentionally avoiding her. Which meant there was something between them that needed avoiding. Only there was nothing between them. Good, bad, or otherwise. Other than her brother, and Tommy had been gone a very, very long time.

That didn’t stop a mental scrapbook of photos from flipping through his mind’s eye. It had been quite some time since he’d thought about Tommy, at least in any specific kind of way. Tommy O’Reilly would always be with him, in the ways that mattered, every day. Over the past several months, however, memories of the most specific kind had popped up. Tommy, fresh out of boot camp, being assigned to Ford’s small platoon, and to Ford personally as his battle buddy. Tommy had been a few years older, but in all other ways, Ford had been the mature one, the one with more experience. In battle, and in life.

Coming from a small town in the northern coastal reaches of Maine and being about the most unworldly person Ford had ever met hadn’t kept Private O’Reilly from being a cocky know-it-all around his fellow grunts. Around Ford, however, he’d been almost tongue-tied. Ford remembered how annoyed he’d been by that, especially since he’d done his damnedest to be more—how had his CO put it?—accessible. Less threatening. Ford had had enough self-awareness even then to know he was intense, focused, motivated. It was why he’d been groomed early on for the army’s special forces unit, the rangers. But he’d never threatened anyone. Well, not anyone on his side of the trigger, anyway.

He forced his thoughts away from Tommy, away from the grinning kid who’d weaseled his way under Ford’s skin with wisecracks and sheer force of will and, eventually, even into Ford’s good graces. More shockingly, Tommy O’Reilly had managed to do the impossible. He’d found a way to be a friend. Ford hadn’t had many of them. A choice he’d made very early in life. Life, he’d discovered at a very young age, was simpler when you didn’t need people. Or even like them all that much. Especially in his line of work. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t have risked his life for O’Reilly, friend or not, battle buddy or not. He had. More than once. Tommy had saved his sorry ass, too, ultimately sacrificing his own while doing just that.

It was for all of those reasons, as well as the ones that Ford had been careful not to examine too closely, that he’d accompanied Tommy’s body home to Blueberry Cove, intent on making sure his family knew he’d not only died a hero but a damn good soldier, and an even better human being. Those last two things didn’t always go hand in hand. Ford knew that to be true every time he’d looked in the mirror.

Ford? I know you’re reading this because the little green dot is next to your name. If you don’t want me messaging you, then make yourself invisible.

Ford tossed his pen on the desk, leaned back in his chair, and scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he could scrub away the message screen and the voice he heard behind it just as easily. He’d spent the past thirteen years being deliberately invisible. He wasn’t used to anyone caring whether or not he was accessing the Internet, much less feeling compelled to communicate with him whenever the mood struck. The folks he needed to communicate with as part of his work knew that when information and data needed to be shared, he did so via e-mail or fax and responded in kind. Suited them, suited him, don’t fix what’s not broken.

Don’t make me come out there.

“Dammit, Grace.” Even as he barked the words, he felt the corners of his mouth briefly twitch upward. She was impossible to ignore when she wanted something and made a nuisance out of herself until she got her desired result. She’d been like that from the time she could stand upright and string more than two words together. She was a lot like him. In more ways than he wanted to admit, much less think about.

One thing was certain, that name flashing on the screen next to the message bubble was exactly the reason he’d lost control of his carefully contained world.

Grace Maddox. His baby sister. Not that there was anything baby about her these days. She might be thirteen years his junior, but she was thirty-two now, had a law degree, and was currently the proud new owner of an eighteenth-century boathouse she was converting into an inn. In Blueberry Cove. Where she’d moved, lock, stock, and stray dog, four months ago, specifically so she could be near her only family. Namely, him.

Grace had been another one of those things he’d carefully removed himself from. He’d told himself at the time he’d done it for her own good, which, he supposed even then was something he’d known would come back to bite him on the ass. It was one thing to join the army at age eighteen, certain he was doing what was right for him, telling himself his five-year-old only sibling would eventually understand, and even be better off without him. Their mother had finally passed away, so he no longer needed to play protector, shield his baby sister from the disaster that was their only known parent. Neither he nor Grace knew who their respective fathers had been—it was unlikely their mother had even known—and he damn sure knew they were better off for that, too.

The same friends who had been loyal to Sara Maddox the last few years of her life, for reasons that had never been clear to Ford other than some folks just needed to be needed, would see to Grace. That he knew, that he trusted. It had been the only thing he’d trusted back then. Not much had changed.

It had been quite another thing, however, to see just how wrong he might have been on his first return home again. Grace had been shuttled around to quite a few of those caretakers in that short time, and though their hearts had been in the right place, and they’d managed to keep her out of the government-controlled foster care system, the result wasn’t all that different at the end of the day. It wasn’t the life he’d have chosen for her, thought he had chosen for her. He’d already re-upped for another four, though, and was heading into the kind of training that precluded toting along family members, so there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do to fix it.

By the time he and the army had parted ways . . . hell, he could barely fix himself. By then it had been too late for him to mount any kind of rescue, and even if he could have, Grace had hardly needed it, not from the likes of him, anyway. She’d gotten herself through primary education, four years of college, and on into law school. She’d made something quite good out of the crap deal life had handed her.

Staying away, letting her start her life on her terms, do things her way, had been the right thing to do at that point. He’d abandoned her, for God’s sake. Why the hell would she want anything to do with him? He’d taken the only chance he had, gone down the only path he’d seen available, to make a life for himself. She’d deserved no less than the chance to do the same. So, he’d kept track, but he’d stayed away. For her own good.

You’re so full of shit, too, he thought, then and now. He reached out to flip the screen off, but his hand paused mid-reach.

Both Maddox siblings had made their way in the world, chosen their own paths, but only Grace had had the balls to reach out for what she really wanted, for what really mattered: family.

He curled his fingers into his palm and let his hand drop to the top of the desk, her words still staring him in the face. What he saw wasn’t the words, but her face, those eyes, that stubborn chin, the way she lifted one eyebrow as if to say “Seriously? You expect me to buy that?”

Grace was his one weakness. When confronted personally, there was no way he could deny her anything she wanted. Even if what she wanted was to rebuild a relationship with him. But that didn’t change the fact that he sucked at it, that he was supremely uncomfortable with it, that allowing even the tiniest chink in his damaged and beat-up armor to be revealed was the single most terrifying thing there was for him, because being vulnerable in any way, on any level, put his carefully constructed new self at risk. He’d survived a lot, more than most men could and still lay claim to their sanity, if not their souls. He wasn’t sure he could survive letting her down. Again.

She’d given him no choice in the matter. She’d simply shown up, made it clear she wasn’t going away again . . . and then she’d wrapped her arms around him, hugged the life out of him, and told him she loved him. Loved him. After all he’d done. After all he hadn’t done. How was that even possible? He didn’t even know what the hell love was anymore.

He only knew he couldn’t tell her no.

And now she wanted to drag him into other people’s lives. Namely Delia’s. But while Ford owed a debt he could never adequately repay to his one and only sibling, he and Delia were square. Ford would figure out how to continue to manage his world and have his sister somehow be part of it, but he’d be damned if he’d open himself up to anything—or anyone—else. Delia knew better than anyone—anyone—even Grace, that that was, by far, the best for everyone concerned.

He shoved his chair back and stood, too restless now to simply sit there and let the thoughts, the memories dive-bomb him like a sitting duck. He strode across the corner of the open loft space he used as an office and climbed down the ladder to the open space below that comprised kitchen, dining, and living area. He crouched down to check the pellet stove that squatted, fat and happily chugging out heat, in the center of the home he’d built himself, but it was going along just fine, which he’d known it would be since he’d just reloaded it that morning.

Swearing under his breath at his uncustomary restlessness, he straightened. Then, skirting the corner area that was both kitchen and dining room, he gave the rough bark of the heavy white pine tree that formed the far corner an absent rub with his palm before pushing open one of the triple-paned double doors. He stepped out onto the side deck. The dense, coniferous tree canopy provided year-round shade as well as much-needed protection against the elements. But the unseasonably brisk, late August sea breeze blowing inland through the treetops didn’t bring him the peace of mind it usually did.

Back when he’d been working toward his degree, he’d spent almost every minute of his spare time researching alternate living spaces. Initially it had simply been a brain puzzle, a way to keep his thoughts occupied when he wasn’t studying so they wouldn’t veer into territory better left in the past. But that particular puzzle—off-grid living—was more than a distraction. In fact, it had captured his attention so completely that he’d eventually admitted it was the best possible solution for someone like him. Someone for whom the term “normal” didn’t apply.

The first time he’d laid his eyes on a drawing of a sustainable, livable tree house, he’d known, instantly, that that was what he’d been searching for. After spending his school hours studying the habitats of the various endangered species he was learning about, he’d understood in that moment that he’d also been studying his own environmental habitat and that, being endangered himself, he’d needed to find the right home where he could, if not thrive, at least survive.

He’d already begun his work out on Sandpiper then, as an intern to Dr. Claude Pelletier, a man he’d greatly admired, and whose wisdom and formidable intellect he missed very much. It had been his first summer on the island when Ford had discovered the exact right spot, deep in the thick thatch of white pine forest that filled the center of the heart-shaped surge of boulders, soil, and rock that comprised Sandpiper Island.

The whole of Sandpiper was like a fortress, hugged entirely—barring the indent of the natural harbor—by a rocky, boulder-strewn shoreline, then surrounded by sea. There, deep in the tall, old forest—in the heart of the heart—he’d found his home.

By the time he’d graduated and taken over operations on the island full time after Pelletier had taken ill, Ford had long since figured out every last detail of how his tree house would be constructed. Multileveled at the core, then spread out to satellite structures he’d added over time, connected by a series of rope bridges, decks, and ladders, through a sturdy group of perfectly matched pine, naturally spaced, so as not to overly burden any one of them. It had taken him eighteen months to complete the main structure, and that had been with a relatively mild winter by Maine standards tossed in the middle of it. He’d hewn every log, cut every board, driven every nail, so he knew and understood its every strength and weakness. It was both his aerie and his bunker. It had given him the one thing he’d known he needed to survive, the freedom to feel completely safe for the first time in his life.

Only even his sanctuary couldn’t save him now from the entirely different set of images that flashed through his mind. Images he’d kept tightly sealed away from all conscious and subconscious thought for a very long time. These images weren’t filled with horror, weren’t the seeds of the endless nightmares he’d once suffered both while asleep and wide awake.

No, he’d kept these particular memories under lock and key for entirely different reasons. Polar opposite reasons.

He’d learned to live with his past, with the things he’d done, to the degree any sane, rational human being could. He’d made a certain kind of peace with himself by making a deal of sorts, that he was giving back, balancing a score that could never be measured, much less rectified, but that he was nonetheless working toward anyway. That deal had been carefully constructed with the knowledge that his work was where he funneled whatever passion he had left in him, where he gave whatever might resemble his heart, if not his soul. He wasn’t sure he’d escaped with even remnants of that left.

His work was the only place he could allow himself even a thread of the luxury of caring, of wanting, of being needed or necessary to something other than himself, greater than himself. The flip side of that deal was that he’d never allow those same parts of himself to be compromised by another person. He would never let someone in, allow them to rely on him, to need him or, God forbid, want him. And he’d most definitely made certain he’d never want those things for himself. He didn’t deserve them, for one, and he sure as hell hadn’t earned the right to even think he could be trusted with the care and well-being of someone else’s heart.

Yet he was helpless to keep the images of that long-ago night from roaring in. As if it had happened only the night before, he could see the storm-lashed windows of the small rooms above the tiny restaurant on the other side of Half Moon Harbor, flickering like bold neon as lightning strikes illuminated the walls. The twisted linens on the foldout bed were wrapped around his bare legs, and Delia was astride him, gloriously naked, her red hair glowing in the storm’s strobe lights, like some kind of flaming, otherworldly halo. She was completely unapologetic about taking her pleasure from him, wrenching his release in return. Mother Nature relentlessly pounded the shores of the harbor, unleashing her fury, while the two of them pounded their way just as relentlessly through each other, unleashing themselves, as if the delirious pleasures of the flesh could somehow simultaneously free them from the soul-ripping grief threatening to drown them both.

Delia sinking under because she’d lost her brother, her only sibling. And Ford feeling swallowed alive, because he’d known already, even then, that his grip on humanity, maybe on his very soul, had begun to slip away. Tommy was gone. Loyal, dedicated, good-will-always-beat-evil Tommy. Yet Ford had been left to live another day. So he could take more Tommys from the world. Cast more families into the devastating throes of grief he was witnessing, firsthand, on Delia’s beautiful, heartbroken face.

She’d been gone when he’d woken up the next morning. When he’d made his way downstairs, she’d already been hustling in the restaurant kitchen. Her grandmother had been the one to push his breakfast plate across the bar in front of him, her expression neither open nor shut, but simply vacant. She’d lost a grandson . . . but there was work to be done. One foot in front of the other. Delia hadn’t so much as looked his way, so he’d stayed out of hers. He’d eaten his breakfast, paid the bill, said his good-byes . . . and gone back to hell.

He heard the ping from the other side of the door he hadn’t closed behind him and headed back inside and up to his loft office, drawn inexorably to the screen, already feeling fate wrapping its long, clever fingers around his neck . . . only the tightness he felt was in his chest.

He sat down, intending to find the words to explain to Grace that while he understood her concern, and appreciated her trying to help Delia, that he wasn’t going to be of any help. Not because he wasn’t willing, so much as he had no help to give. Only instead of typing, his fingers closed into fists as he read the words on the screen.

She reached out to help me before she even knew me. Because she cared enough about you to want you to have what you really needed. Family. We both should have listened to her then. We both need to help her have what she really needs now.

Another ping came, making him almost viscerally flinch. Memories, so long held at bay, roared in like thundering waves, breaching any and all walls, drowning his futile attempts to block them. Not just of that night, but of all the long mornings, afternoons, evenings he’d sat in her diner after returning to the Cove, drinking in the energy, the vitality, the life of her very presence. Her smile, her hearty, infectious laugh, listening as she alternately goaded a smile out of a gruff fisherman or a grudging apology from a short-tempered townie. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d lent an ear and a shoulder, offered a hug or a free meal, scolded, sympathized, lectured, loved, bussed cheeks, and even pinched the occasional ass. Hundreds of moments he hadn’t even been aware of were there for a detailed, exact recalling.

Through the torrent, he read Grace’s final message. This one was simply a cut-and-pasted a news story from the local Cove newspaper.

He skimmed the article, and the tight clutch in his chest matched the ones he’d made with his fists. “Hasn’t she lost enough in her life, you smug bastard?” It had been a while since he’d felt the need for physical violence. A very long while. But at that moment, he wanted to drive his fist through something. Or, more to the point, someone. “You have every other goddamn thing,” he said aloud to the absent “town scion.” “Why can’t you just leave her the fuck alone?”

The scion was Brooks Winstock, descended from one of the oldest families in the Cove, who still owned a fair chunk of it, and was richer than Croesus. Now he wanted Delia’s Diner. Or, more specifically, the piece of prime harbor-front property it sat on. For, of all things, a yacht club. What in the fresh hell would Blueberry Cove do with a damn yacht club? It was a tiny town with a three-hundred-year legacy of lobster fisherman, shipbuilders, and sailors. Hardly the yacht club type.

The diner, he knew, just as Brooks Winstock damn well knew, was all Delia had. And not just in terms of earning a living. It was the foundation and focus of the life she’d carved out for herself in Blueberry, as her family had before her, with their own blood, sweat, and tears. She loved her life and her livelihood, and had earned the right to enjoy it. And the town loved her right back. Delia’s had become a Cove landmark . . . both the diner itself, and its colorful, saucy, outspoken owner.

He couldn’t imagine her taking this lightly or well, much less going quietly. If he hadn’t been so pissed off, the image of her taking on Winstock might have gotten what passed for a smile out of him.

Instead, he punched the screen dark, took the ladder down in a step and a jump, then stalked to the other side of the kitchen and grabbed his boat keys from the hook on the pot buoy attached to the wall by the single door there. He took the fast exit, shimmying down the knotted rope that extended through a hole in the deck to the forest floor below. He was halfway down the path that led to the only pier on the island before he realized what the hell he was doing. Just what in the hell are you doing?

“Dammit, Grace,” he muttered again, under his breath this time, as he unknotted the ropes and jumped onboard the old lobster boat he’d bought off Blue years before and kept running with a combination of spit and sheer power of will.

So, he’d been wrong. There were apparently two people in the world he couldn’t say no to. Not that Delia asked you to stick your nose in her business. In fact, he’d be lucky if she didn’t bite it off and hand it back to him, wrapped neatly in a takeout box. Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he thought he could do. But he’d stayed on the sidelines once before in his life, and he knew now, every time he looked into Grace’s pretty hazel eyes, what his choice had cost her. He might not be able to do a damn thing to help Delia, but sitting on the sidelines wasn’t going to be an option.

God help us all.

She’d dreamed about him. Again. “And that is so not a good thing.” Delia O’Reilly plunged her rubber-gloved hands back in the steamy, soapy water. “Understatement of the week.” Month. Year.

Her livelihood—which was the same as saying her entire life—was being threatened with extinction, or at the very least a complete overhaul and relocation, which to her felt like the same thing, and what was she doing about it? Having hot sex dreams about a man she couldn’t have. . .