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

Chapter Eighteen

I ris woke up Thursday morning eager to get on with her day, in spite of a lack of sleep. An hour or so before dawn, she’d helped Scott back into his chair and watched him wheel himself off down the hall.

There’d been no big ending moment. No hug. No acknowledgment that their conversation had been anything but ordinary for them. Just a yawn. A suggestion that they should get some sleep and get him off the bed. All very practical.

And very them.

She woke up with the sense that she and Scott were back to normal. Thinking of him as the valued friend he’d become over the years, not a sex mate.

And she felt free.

To the point of wondering why she thought she’d had to reinvent herself, move hundreds of miles south, to be able to live a somewhat-normal-to-her life.

Maybe Dr. Livingston and she had both been right. She’d come full circle and her psyche had had a bit of a resurgence. Allowing her to bring her past into her present. To quit pretending that she hadn’t suffered. And she was right, too. The emotional overload—a surge as the result of the melding of her two selves.

Not a psychological choice to reignite an emotional way of life that had died when a drunk driver hit her and Ivy head-on .

She was accepting her past. She couldn’t ever bring it back to life.

As she walked the beach with the dogs midmorning, she wondered if maybe she’d needed the distance from what had been, in the beginning, but that time had healed her more than she’d ever thought it would.

And at the same time—even with new perspective, with the ability to accept what had been, to be able to welcome some good memories back—she was in full approval of her current life. She liked herself. Her choices. Her world.

So while she felt as though she’d undergone major change—nothing in her daily life, or life plan, was changing. Or needed change.

The same couldn’t be said for Scott. Maybe because of being so in tune with his sister, or because of his awareness of what made others tick, the man was far too giving to spend the rest of his life alone.

He’d failed once. By the sounds of things, in a big way. But as she talked to Sage on Thursday afternoon—a daily check-in to let her know that Scott was fully cooperative and doing well in all aspects of his treatment—she couldn’t help but mention that which had been bothering her so much she’d had to bring it up the night before.

“He’s actually really easy to share space with,” she reported to his worried sister. “Respectful, but also aware…like preserving hot water for a second shower, considering my needs into the timeline, giving me space to work, physically, but by not interrupting, too.”

“Gray said he was a great roommate,” Sage offered. But Scott with a boarder hadn’t been where she was going.

“I was thinking more in terms of his failed marriage,” Iris said, glancing at the dogs as they trotted beside her for their afternoon trek by the water. “Scott takes full responsibility, but it seems to me that if he was even half as attentive to his wife’s autonomy and comfort, there’d at least have been some indication to her that he was present in the relationship. That he cared.”

She heard the words. Shivered as fear sluiced through her for the second it took her to catch her breath. Yes, Scott was present in their friendship. Of course he cared, as did she. Both qualities were basic to any good relationship. She wasn’t seeing herself in his ex-wife’s role.

She was seeing Scott blaming himself for a failure that might not have been all his to claim. Or for which to take the blame.

“I think he did care,” Sage said. “As did she. Just maybe not enough.”

“On both their parts.”

“That’s how I saw it. Why?”

Afraid that Sage was reading her wrong, Iris wished she hadn’t started the conversation. But she had. Was in. “He takes full responsibility. As though the failure was one hundred percent his.”

“I know. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but he won’t listen.”

Iris rolled her eyes. Back to herself. Talking to her friend about her twin brother. As they’d done many times over the years. “I tried last night, too.”

“Same result?”

“Pretty much.” They were two people who cared platonically for a mutual someone. Of like minds. The same as they’d been for years. Unchanged by Sage’s marriage.

The relief was palpable. Had her smiling as Morgan and Angel glanced up at her.

“So what brought up the conversation?” Sage’s question stopped Iris’s celebration midstream.

Not because it was all that unusual to delve further when they were discussing Sage’s sometimes recalcitrant twin. But because Iris’s immediate reaction was to not want to answer.

And she didn’t have a good reason why not.

“Talking about his surfing.” The response came to her in the nick of time. A good one. And totally honest. Which made her hesitation even more off-putting.

“He needs to be able to fail,” she continued, brushing aside the tinges of uneasiness that kept trying to rear up and darken her day. “To see failure as a way to learn. A natural and necessary part of life. Not some kind of egregious wrongdoing.”

“You told him that?” Sage sounded like she wished she’d been there.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

He’d yawned. She’d taken the hint and sent him on his way.

“Sounds like that hardheaded brother of mine,” Sage said, just as Leigh’s voice came from a distance, calling for her mommy.

In normal life, on the beach, the child would be running for Iris, too. She missed the little tyke. A ton. Felt lonely just hearing the lispy young voice sounding so far away.

But as she hung up, and headed back up the beach toward the house, figuring Joel—who’d had to do an afternoon appointment that day—would be done, Iris’s thoughts weren’t on Sage or Leigh. On the wave of loneliness that was so unlike her. Residue to be disregarded.

Her mind was fully occupied with the girls.

Talking to them.

“Obviously Scott was negligent,” she told them. “He hadn’t even been around enough to know that his wife had moved out. But some of the fault was hers, too. Because if she’d told him how lonely and neglected she felt, he’d have done something about it. That’s his way. He’d never just let a problem lie there and not try to fix it. That’s a recipe for failure, and he would never use one of those.”

Angel barked. Morgan ran a few steps forward and turned around to look at them.

Iris upped her pace, jogging with them.

Satisfied that she finally had life fully under control.

* * *

Scott wasn’t sure if it was because he’d quit fighting Iris’s presence in his home, the talk they had, that he was just feeling better or a combination of the three, but over the next couple of days, he and Iris shared the same friendship in his home that they’d both grown to value so much on the beach over the past few years.

She was there when he needed her. Absent when he was about his own personal business or working. He was watching out for her, making himself available if she wanted to talk, giving her her space without question when she didn’t. Appreciating her help. Teasing with her. Helping with the chores as much as he was physically allowed to do.

Keeping his distance. As she kept hers.

And the other side of those days—because life, his job, had taught him that there was always another side—was learning how critically he needed that distance.

Because ever since he’d sat on his bed with Iris, talking about things they’d never spoken of before, he was struggling not to reach for more.

That one night had shown him more of Iris than he’d gleaned in three years’ time. The twin thing—the two of them didn’t share it with each other, but their shared knowledge of the connection, of the silent understandings, gave them a bond of their own. At least for him, it did.

As to the rest of her confidences…it was like the woman had been a figure in a black-and-white video to him before, and had now appeared in three-dimensional, full-color, concrete form.

And boy did he want to touch that form.

To hold it while she slept. To tickle it and make it laugh, just to hear the sound.

To raise it to heights of ecstasy that made it emit other sounds he yearned to hear. Carnal ones.

It. Not her.

With Iris, he could only live on the friend side. To cross over would obliterate that which he most cherished. Knowing her. The beautiful person she was.

Not just because he didn’t trust himself not to start taking her presence for granted and getting wrapped up in the daily life that he knew consumed him. But because he’d come to realize that if he pushed her for anything more, she’d have to back away.

He had no idea what he’d do if he lost Sage. But he could make some pretty accurate assumptions. It would literally be like losing his legs. Or a portion of his thought processes. The way Iris had described her mother’s handling of her own terminal illness—teaching her daughters to rely on each other, instilling in them that because they had their special bond, they’d never be alone—explained why she didn’t want another committed relationship in her life.

Chances were good she’d never be able to trust her heart that completely again. She’d lost faith in forever with anyone, for sure.

Along with an ability to trust that there’d be years in between finding love and losing it. Ivy dying at seventeen had shown Iris an awareness of death’s toll, of its ability to come at any time for anyone.

He could only imagine the pain she associated with loving someone deeply. But his awareness of the pain’s existence told him what he needed to know.

Unfortunately, none of his new awarenesses, his understandings, shut down his attraction to her. The more he knew, the more he wanted to know. The more he had of her, the more he wanted to have.

Period.

Had nothing to do with any pheromones or other hormonal nuances she might be sending out. Nothing to do with her having been hit by an emotional tornado.

He looked at her, he got hard. He heard her voice, he got hard. He thought about her, he got hard.

A small price to pay for knowing her.

And not nearly as painful as the leg and back injury he’d been dealing with all week.

The bigger worry was that she’d figure him out. See the evidence he’d been managing to hide. Which was why, on Saturday afternoon, when Joel went out to his van after their session and came back to hand him a pair of crutches, telling him he’d graduated from phase one of his recovery journey, Scott let out a whoop loud enough for the dogs to hear from the beach. And very studiously and carefully followed all the instructions the therapist had already given him to prepare for crutch use.

The crutches were the key to his freedom. To having his house to himself again. Where he could walk around hard all damned day if that’s what happened.

More likely, with the woman and her scent out of his home, his libido would settle back to that of a healthy, thirty-one-year-old male. He’d get hard. He’d deal with it. And move on.

He’d never been short of women open to having casual sex with him. Had never had to go looking for them, either. The invitations came on an embarrassingly regular basis.

And although bringing to mind a few of the most recent women who’d hit on him raised no current reaction in him at all—there wasn’t one of them he’d want to have see him in his current state—he knew himself well enough to know that as soon as he was healed enough to please a woman, he’d feel all the right things in all the right places.

But he was getting ahead of himself. First step back to normal life was getting Iris home to her own place. And meeting up with her on the beach, rather than in his bedroom.

Filled with victory, with determination and a rush of energy, he thanked his physical therapist, waved him off and, positioning the crutches under his arms, headed off toward the back door, planning to meet Iris and the girls on the back porch.

He was halfway through the kitchen when the door flew open. “Scott!” Iris called before she’d stepped inside, her voice kind of frantic sounding.

“Yeah?” He hurried forward, wincing as his back took on the unfamiliar work.

She rounded the door, saw him and stopped. “Oh!”

Frowning, he watched for the girls to follow her in. “What’s wrong?”

“I heard you yell…” Her tone brought his gaze to her face. Her eyes were wide.

He grinned. Couldn’t help himself. Didn’t even try. “A victory cry,” he told her, holding up one crutch. “Sorry if it startled you.”

Iris blinked. Stared.

She didn’t smile.

He’d dropped his gaze to her mouth. Of its own accord, it went lower. Saw the pointed circles of clearly hard nipples pushing against the long-sleeved T-shirt she was wearing.

I’ll be damned . His only coherent thought.

Seeing him on crutches had turned her on?

He’d figure himself for being out of his right mind, for being so horny he was seeing sex everywhere, if not for the fact that Iris’s cheeks reddened and, blurting that she had to pee, she quickly brushed by him.

Apparently, they both needed her to get the hell out.

* * *

She had to go. The past couple of days had shown Scott’s body gaining in strength and endurance. She just hadn’t realized how big his arm muscles really were, until she’d seen them flexed and bulging on the outside of those crutches.

She’d seen him shirtless countless times on the beach. How could she have missed such an obvious portion of his physique?

How could she honestly be salivating over an injured man’s arms?

The size of a guy’s biceps had never turned her on before. More surge residue.

It had to be. Any other option was out.

If Scott knew that she was standing in the bathroom with her belly on fire, getting wet for him, he’d become a control freak and insist on staying away from her until they both regained their usual footing .

Which meant until Sage and Gray got home, at the very least.

That was another full week away.

And he needed bandage changes and compression wraps.

He was the patient. The one in need. It was up to her to control the situation for the good of his care.

Decision made, she pulled her satchel up onto the king-size bed she’d spent those soul-freeing late-night hours on with him, and as efficiently as possible, loaded her things inside. Her camera equipment was next.

Their agreement had been that she’d remain in house until he was on crutches.

For the sake of their friendship, now that he was mobile and capable of tending to most things himself, now that he was strong enough to do everything he needed to do, she couldn’t stay.

He was in the kitchen, at the table with his laptop in front of him, when she rolled her bigger bag out—her smaller satchel over her shoulder and on her back. Whistling for Angel, who appeared from under the table immediately to stand beside her, she didn’t meet the man’s gaze as she said, “There’s plenty of stuff in the fridge for dinner. I’ll be back at eight for compression,” and reached for the door handle. He knew where his antibiotics were. Knew when to take them.

Even if he didn’t, he could read the bottle.

She was pushing through the screen door when she heard, “Iris?”

Glancing behind her, she saw him standing, those damned muscles hugging his crutches again. “You don’t need to come back if you’d rather not. You’ve gone over and above this week. I can call Dale over…”

It was probably for the best. On the verge of nodding, she assessed him instead. Afraid suddenly that if she didn’t come back, that’s how the future would be for them. One or the other turning to someone else, walking on the beach with someone else after work, as a way to avoid what they both feared.

Ending up with the result neither of them wanted. Losing each other.

But the choice wasn’t just hers. “Is that what you’d prefer?” she asked him, point-blank, her eyes daring him to look away from her.

“No, of course not. I just—”

“Then I’ll be here at eight.” She cut him off. Didn’t want to hear what he just…when it referred to her possibly being cut out. Cut off.

She recognized that the emotions were over-the-top. Gave herself some slack for them until she had time to reacclimate to her regular routine back in her own space.

“Hey…”

She had to turn back. Couldn’t ignore the disappointment in his voice.

He looked her in the eye. Warmly. Friend to friend. With a knowing that comforted her. “Thank you” was all he said.

With a shrug, a grin and a “What are friends for?” she held the door for Angel and let herself out.

He might have watched her go.

She felt like he was watching.

Wanted to know if he was.

But Iris walked down the beach, shoulders straight and head up, without looking back.