Longing for Love Read Online Free

brushed off a man. He couldn’t deny that she’d been right earlier when she’d said it wasn’t her fault the men involved with the accident hadn’t been paying attention to their driving.  
    Watching her prance around, waving to and flirting with passersby, trying to entice them into her store, Blaine seethed with jealousy. If he were being truthful, he didn’t want anyone else to see her creamy skin and tempting curves. It wasn’t like he had any kind of claim on her—yet. But if they were together, she certainly wouldn’t be dancing around mostly nude in public. That much was for sure.
    She bent in half to wave to a passing driver, and Blaine went hard at the view of barely covered breasts. He’d had more hard-ons today than he normally had in a week! God, she was beautiful. Every guy in town was no doubt talking about her, and Blaine wanted to march over there, cover her and drag her off to bed where he’d quickly uncover her again.
    Project alert! Oh shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Damned his cursed conscience. His mother’s voice was hardwired into his brain, reminding him of how he’d been taken advantage of in the past. That didn’t mean it would happen again. He heard his mother reminding him of what he’d gone through with Eden and Kim before that. Tiffany was nothing like them. She was smart and driven and working toward a goal. Eden and Kim had used and abused everyone they encountered, and the only goal either of them ever had was to find someone else to take advantage of. Even though he’d spent less than an hour total alone with Tiffany, he knew she was wasn’t like that, which was why his heart broke a little watching her try so hard to entice someone, anyone , into her new shop.  
    For two hours, she worked it hard, pouring on her special brand of Tiffany charm to anyone who ventured a glance her way, but no one stopped. Blaine watched her start to wilt under the hot sun, but her smile and enthusiasm never faded until she had no choice but to concede defeat. As she walked inside, her shoulders dropped with uncharacteristic despair.  
    Blaine pounded the steering wheel with a tightly rolled fist. The longer he sat there, the more obvious it became to him that he was going to do something stupid. Really, really stupid.
     
    While Grace worked the day shift downstairs at the pharmacy, Evan McCarthy whiled away the Saturday working on his latest song and practicing his guitar. He’d also spent an hour on the phone with the sound engineer he’d worked with on his album, trying to entice him to take a chance on a start-up recording studio on Gansett Island.  
    The Starlight Records bankruptcy proceedings that had Evan’s debut CD tied up in court had also put Josh Harrelson out of work. Evan was working hard to convince Josh to move north and be part of Island Breeze Records. Josh had agreed to think about it, which was all Evan could ask at this point.
    He’d been fooling around with a new song that he was calling “Amazing Grace,” which he hoped to make the first single released by the Island Breeze label. The equipment they’d ordered was due to arrive any day now, and the old barn on one of Ned’s properties they’d be using for the studio was all ready. Evan had spent months reconfiguring, sanding, painting and turning the once-dusty, abandoned space into a recording studio.  
    Above the studio, his father and Ned had helped him to install four bedrooms as well as a kitchen, bathroom and living room to accommodate visiting musicians. He’d offered Josh a free place to live in exchange for taking a chance on his upstart studio, and Evan was praying he’d take the bait. Without a decent sound engineer, his studio would be sunk before it ever even opened. After a long winter of hard work and planning, everything was coming together, and Evan was itching to get to work.
    A knock on the door interrupted the flow of the song, which aggravated him. His family and friends knew to