Beach Cottage Kisses (The Cottages on Ocean Breeze #2)

Chapter Sixteen

“E hhhhh!”

Scott woke, his mind hearing the scream, not remembering a dream attached to it. Looked for the clock on his nightstand. Saw a smaller one, on a shorter night table, and realized where he was.

The spare bedroom. Two in the morning.

Leg throbbing. Still resting on the pillow he’d placed underneath it after an eleven p.m. icing and bandage change.

“Hehhhhh…aaahhh!” The sound ripped through the air, hitting him hard. Without thought he threw the sheet away from him and swung his leg toward the side of the bed. Remembering in that split second, that his second leg couldn’t follow. The problem didn’t slow him down.

Iris was in trouble.

Morgan stood at attention, watching him as, with both hands lifting and supporting his bad leg, Scott ignored the pull in his back and had himself in his chair in record time. Grabbing his phone off the nightstand, he ordered the girl to stay and wheeled himself through the spare room door, down the hall they were keeping lit at night, only pausing long enough to open his own door, before wheeling himself inside. Wide-awake, and with the help of the hall light and the moon’s brightness through the window, he swept the room with a quick gaze, ready to act…

He wasn’t sure if he noticed the body shape beneath his comforter first or heard the sound of weeping. Didn’t much matter. Angel lay on top of the covers, against Iris’s back, her head at attention, facing Iris, but otherwise not moving.

“Iris?” he spoke in a near whisper. No response. From either of the females in the room. Human or canine.

Angel knew he was there. Wasn’t even bothering to look at him, to ask him why. To see if he had food. Or be curious about what he was doing. Her attention was on her person.

The intensity in the dog’s response seemed to demand that Scott give the situation the same attention. It was as though she was expecting him to do what needed to be done.

“Aahmmm.” The almost nonhuman sound sent a sense of despair through Scott. “Garohohohn.” A strangely guttural lashing out.

Followed by more weeping. But in spurts. A dry sob. Then silence.

And still Angel lay, watching. Not moving. Pointing out the source of need to Scott? If she stared long enough, he’d get that he was supposed to take care of the situation?

Not sure why the dog didn’t wake Iris herself, Scott listened for nearly a minute, eavesdropping on a moment he hadn’t been invited to join. Not sure what to do. Iris was clearly in the throes of a nightmare. But not in immediate physical danger. She wouldn’t want him there.

But he couldn’t go. Couldn’t turn his back on her.

Her breathing slowed. Steadied. Hands poised on the wheels of his chair, Scott started to propel himself backward, until he heard the anguished moan come from deep inside his friend. Just a dream or not, no way was he leaving her inside that private hell.

Wheeling his chair right up to the bed, he pushed with both hands, standing on his good leg, and then, with a hand on the nightstand and one on the headboard, he hoisted himself, held his body weight enough to get his right hip up on the mattress, then, with a hand still on the stand, he pushed off to roll himself fully onto the king-size bed. Feet away from where she lay on the edge of the opposite side.

“It’s just me. Scott,” he said softly, sitting there, with his left leg propped fully on his right. And his back warning him to change positions.

Angel was the only one who responded. Glancing at Scott, as if to say, It took you long enough , the girl jumped down off the bed.

“Iris?” He called her name softly. Repeated his. Trying to wake her without instilling more alarm. Holding himself awkwardly so he was as far away from her as he could get, with no chance of touching her, he continued to talk softly to her, calling out to her. Letting her know she was safe.

“Scott?” Her voice, groggy sounding, shocked him at first. Mostly because he hadn’t realized she’d woken up. There’d been no sudden jerk back to consciousness. No change of position. No sign of shock that someone else was on her bed.

No reclamation of her independence with the confidence and inner strength that defined her.

He didn’t move but was prepared to slide back down to his chair. “Yeah.”

When nothing else happened, no words, no movement, Scott was at a loss. “You want me to go?”

He’d consider her silence as an affirmative. Leave without taking offense. He had no right to invade her space.

But didn’t regret what he’d done, either…

When no response came, he braced his hands to scoot himself toward his chair.

“Don’t go.”

The words froze him in place. Braced. But not moving.

She hadn’t moved, either. Not a muscle that he could see. And he thought of Sage. Of the nights he’d sat with her through heartbreak after Gray had broken their engagement the week of their big society wedding.

Which led him to remember Iris’s recent revelations. The surge she’d mentioned. Residual from a past trauma.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked Iris. “According to my sister, I’m a good listener.”

Her back remained toward him as she stayed hunched in the fetal position he’d found her in. “She told me you saved her life when Gray walked out on her.”

“I just sat there,” he told her, stating the truth.

“You knew she needed to not be alone. But to be left alone.”

He was willing to continue the conversation about himself and his twin if it helped her get through the moment. “She told you that?” With an affectionate shake of his head, he could hear his sister saying exactly that. He’d always been able to sense when Sage was struggling. He’d just never been all that good with the words.

“No.”

One word. That seemed to freeze the moment. In his mind. But deeper, too. Like Iris was telling him something. Talking about more than the relationship between him and his sister.

Or needing to do so.

She knew him well enough to have guessed what he’d done for his twin during her darkest nights.

Wanted him to do for her what he’d done back then. Be there. But shut up.

He could do that. Just needed to adjust his body a little, to ease the stress on his back. And prop his left leg differently.

And then he’d sit there all night, silently watching over her, if that’s what she wanted him to do.

Because he could.

Sitting quietly through the dark moments was what friends did.

The night, her need had nothing to do with sex. And with his body in its current state, it wasn’t like he could be more than brotherly, even if she turned over naked and asked him to make love to her.

At the moment, he didn’t even want to try.

He’d made a commitment to be the friend to Iris that she was to him.

And he was not going to fail her.

* * *

She was being selfish. And a crappy caregiver, too. Scott needed to be in his bed, leg propped. Iris just needed a couple of minutes. Time to cross over from the darkness that had been, to the life she’d found on the other side.

To turn her mind away from the horrible truth she couldn’t change, to things that came after, which was the only way to get the sense of anguish to dissipate. It was up to her. Let depression rob her of the good she had left. Or choose to focus on the good even when she couldn’t feel it. To trust that it was there. Give up. Or fight for herself.

“Where’s Angel?” The second canine angel in her life. Adopted after the first one, the service dog that Sandra Livingston had gifted to her at eighteen, had died of old age.

“She jumped down when I came up.”

Scott’s voice. Normal. Reassuring. Nothing dramatic. Still there. A small wave of relief passed through her. Easing a bit of the strong hold the past had gained on her while she was unconscious and therefore unable to fight it.

She was going to have to tell him something.

Wasn’t sure what he’d heard. Or for how long. Living alone, she had no way of knowing if episodes were seconds, minutes or hours long. There were no witnesses other than Angel.

And hadn’t been anything to witness a long time.

What in the hell was going on with her?

And how bad was the situation with Scott? How big did her cover-up have to be?

On the bright side, sex wasn’t the problem. She almost wished it was. There was a plan in place to handle that.

The thought brought another wave of fear-engulfed hopelessness. She refused to lie within it, even while the feelings continued to linger.

She had to move her thoughts elsewhere. Focus on the present. She wasn’t alone. “Did I wake you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

He was there. A voice. A friendly one. One she trusted.

Witnessing more than she could easily explain.

The episode had been severe enough to wake him from behind a closed door and down a hallway.

Heaviness hit again. She couldn’t have everything she wanted. Couldn’t go back to who she’d thought she’d be when she was growing up. Still huddled into herself—afraid to let go until she could trust herself not to cry—Iris fought her mental battle. Refused to wallow. To give in to the moment. To let grief win.

The damned surge was a huge one.

On her own, she’d get up. Take a walk on the beach. But there, with Scott…

She hadn’t seen it coming.

People lost family members to car accidents all the time. She was one in millions. Billions even.

What if Dr. Livingston was right? What if she wasn’t in a surge? But was dealing with a psyche that had loosened its reins and had let her deep emotions decide not to be dead after all?

How in the hell did one fight that?

Didn’t she get a say in the matter?

Of course she did.

Mind over matter. She knew how it all worked.

And was letting an injured man sit there with her anyway. Definitely a low moment.

That had to end. Disgusted with herself, she rolled over, glanced up at him. Figuring her tangled hair, lack of makeup and the T-shirt and sweats she was sleeping in—in case she had to get up in the night to tend to him—were enough to make sure she wasn’t emitting any unwanted come-on signals.

His glance was worried. Kind.

All Scott. The man she’d known for years. Her friend.

And nothing more.

“I’m sorry.” For the nightmare. Of course.

Any sense of loss over what had happened between them on the floor of Sage’s cottage, or emptiness due to the ending of all possibility that there could be more someday, was just a product of the nightmare. They were all about loss. Every time. And seemed to put a shadow on every other incident in life. Until she came fully out of them.

He frowned, seeming truly perplexed. “For what?”

“Waking you” seemed to be the obvious answer. “You shouldn’t have come in here, climbed up. If you’d hurt yourself—”

“I didn’t,” he interrupted, his gaze not going away. As though he knew she was hiding from him.

The effect of that look was eerie. Confusing. Throwing her back. Holding her captive in the moment.

And Dr. Livingston’s words came to her again. With a stab of fear. She didn’t want to go back to who she’d been. Had been happy to be half-alive. Or fully alive, but half emotionally engaged. No way was she going to risk being all in, trusting in a lifetime relationship. She couldn’t go through that loss again. It had nearly killed her the first time.

Well, that, and the accident itself…

Scott was watching her. Her gaze met his a time or two, as she checked in to measure his mood. Get a sense of what, given the circumstances, she could get away with. Thank you for coming, you can go now didn’t seem appropriate.

But she had to say something. The silence was getting way too weird. Both of them waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. There was just no casual way to get out of such a moment. “You want me to help you back to your room?”

He didn’t flinch. Just kept watching her. “Is that what you want?”

No. Yes. She didn’t know what she wanted. Or wasn’t sure it even mattered. What she wanted was to be the woman she’d been on Ocean Breeze from the day she’d moved in until Sage’s wedding day.

“What do you want?” she threw back at him.

“I want to know if I can help. And if so, how.”

Because they both knew more was going on. A lot more. No one, other than medical professionals when she was in the hospital, had witnessed one of her nightmares.

Back then, she’d been told they were pretty intense. Loud. Severe. All she ever remembered was the darkness. The fear. The loss she couldn’t prevent, no matter how hard she tried.

Iris sat up straight, ready to get off the bed. “There’s nothing to help,” she said. Looked at him. And couldn’t look away. His gaze seemed to hold her secrets. Which was ridiculous.

“Talking makes things easier sometimes,” he said, as though he’d suddenly become a guru of emotional wisdom.

The thought was beneath her. Unkind. Pure defense.

Because…she actually wanted him to know.

For the first time since the accident, she wanted someone to know who she’d been.

Truth sliced through her. Leaving her…weak. Defenseless. Unsure.

Until he said, “Maybe this…surge…you talked about earlier…is happening with me because you know I’m safe. Maybe sharing it will set you free.”

Free. That’s what she wanted to be. Free.

The word sounded so good. She’d always imagined that free would be the best feeling ever.

“Or you could blow me off, I’ll go back to my room and we’ll both pretend that I don’t know that something’s going on with you.”

Yeah. That was the easier choice. The wise one.

“I’d just hope that when Sage gets back, you’ll talk to her about it.”

Her gaze darted back to him. “No one should go through life alone, Iris. Unattached, hell, yeah. For certain people. But not alone .”

She wasn’t alone. She had him and Sage. Little Leigh. Angel. The residents on the beach.

None of whom really knew her. They only knew who she’d wanted to become.

Which had been fine with her. Enough.

Until she’d stood beside the man’s twin, had seen the look in his eyes across from her. And started to cry.