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

Chapter Twenty-Two

S cott won the Ernst murder-for-hire case. Professionally, he celebrated the win. Knew that the world was a better place for the precedent that had been sent. Polly Ernst had most definitely been wronged by her ex, but being hurt didn’t give someone the right to murder.

At the same time, he couldn’t get past the fact that he’d once caused the same kind of pain that had driven Polly. He’d hurt his first wife as badly. It wasn’t something he could walk away from. The only way to make it right—aside from the generous settlement he’d given his ex-wife in the divorce, allowing her the means to build a good life—was to make certain that he never let it happen again.

And the only guarantee he had of succeeding there was to never get remarried.

A week passed. And then two. He had a couple of new cases. Iris was fielding offers left and right, lucrative, career-making offers. They were both missing beach nights on a regular basis, and yet, they’d only spent a total of two nights apart.

The night he’d traveled to LA.

And another when she’d been in Sacramento for a high-profile wedding.

The beach wasn’t what it had once been to him. While he still craved his time there, he went out, he did a modified version of jogging, which was mostly just a brisk walk with a few jogs in between, he visited with some of his neighbors while Morgan did the same, but he didn’t linger for hours.

Because Sage and Leigh weren’t out as much. Instead of Sage being a single mother whose only adult companionship had been on the beach, his sister had a husband and daughter in her home to care for, with another child on the way.

Sage had everything she ever wanted. Was truly happy. And Scott was happy for her.

He was also missing the two of them a lot.

And was afraid he could be using Iris to fill the gap.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Because she was using him to fill the same hole in her life? Living right next door to Sage and Leigh, Iris had seen them more than Scott had a lot of the time.

Walking with Iris on the beach late one Friday afternoon in mid-March, watching the girls dart in and out of the incoming tide, Scott said, “Nothing stays the same.” Just out of the blue. Hands in the pockets of his shorts, head watching his flip-flops sink into the sand, he went from casual friend to baring his soul.

At least it felt that way to him.

They’d just passed Sage’s cottage on the way down the beach toward Scott’s. Having already walked past Iris’s twice, once on the way down toward Gray and Sage’s place, and then on the way back. They’d seen lights on in the cottage, but no one had been out.

“And we were so worried Sage would pick up on the fact that we’re having sex.” Iris’s response fit right into his thought process. Not for the first time.

But he’d been talking about more than just afternoon hours on the beach. Though, on the surface, that had been a big part of it. Those hours had bonded a family unit of which he’d been a major part.

And now found himself more an outsider.

“I’m thrilled for her,” he said then. “And glad for me, too, if truth be known. Ever since she adopted Leigh, I worried about her a lot. Tried to take up the slack without stepping on her toes and didn’t always get it right. And now I can let go, and just be her brother and the uncle that spoils Leigh again. Something I’m much better at.” Saying the words aloud brought their truth home to him. In a sense, not having Sage outside, waiting, was a relief.

Because she was finally truly happy. Fulfilled. Not just as a mother, but as a person. Scott could take care of day-to-day responsibilities as needed, but he’d never have been able to fill the hole Sage had carried around in her heart.

“Which fits, doesn’t it?” he said aloud. “I’m better at being on the beach with the family, then inside, being a part of them.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong.”

Her hand brushed his arm as she sidestepped the tip of a small wave reaching farther upshore than the others. Scott almost reached for her fingers. Held on. But just in time kept his hand in his pocket. They weren’t going to lie about their physical relationship, but neither were they inviting anyone to know about it.

“Relationships take two people, Scott,” she said, when he’d expected silence to swallow up his words. “I’m guessing you were consumed by your work during your first marriage. You were a junior prosecutor building a future. Not just for you, but for your family, too.”

“I’d spend the entire night at the office and forget to call home.”

“She could have called you.”

Sage had said the same. More than once. “I didn’t like to be interrupted.”

“She could have texted. Or called anyway, and dealt with your irritation. Not every minute in a relationship, even a great one, is roses. People have bad days, get tense sometimes, don’t feel good. They get irritable. Even Leigh. We’ve both seen her in some less than precious moments. It doesn’t mean she’s a bad kid, or unworthy of our love. It’s just life.”

For someone who’d spent her entire adult life living alone, Iris was pretty in tune with how to be a part of a shared life. He was about to tell her so, when she continued.

“Take you, for example…”

“What about me?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. Saw that she wasn’t smiling, but still wanted to hear what she thought about him.

“You aren’t the cheeriest fellow when you don’t feel good.”

Oh, that. He’d expected something more encompassing than a moment in time. “I’ve apologized for that…”

“And you didn’t need to, because I understood. I’m just saying…if your ex was in love with you, she’d have tried to understand, too. And if not that, then to at least meet you halfway. Instead, by the sounds of things, she lived her own life, waiting for you to join in, and when you didn’t, she left and lived it elsewhere. On your dime.”

“You’ve been talking to Sage.”

“She’s mentioned things a time or two in the past, but honestly I didn’t spend all that much time thinking about your failed marriage.”

Didn’t. Past tense. As in she was currently thinking about it?

“All I’m saying, Scott, is that I don’t think you should just automatically deny yourself a chance at something because you have a failed relationship in your past. You act as though the failure was all you. But the truth is, if your ex wasn’t in love with you, or was more in love with herself than she was with you, then it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d been home every night on time and were available to her every second she wanted you there. The relationship still would have eventually failed because you wouldn’t have really been a consideration in it. It would have been only about her.”

He’d married a debutante. His ex had been raised to pay attention to herself. So yeah, she’d been a little selfish. So had he.

They’d been a great couple. Two young people with every advantage, hooking up because of who they were, thinking they’d have a great life because they had the same goals. Wanted the same things.

Except that she’d wanted a life enjoying society. And he’d wanted to spend his time making it a better place to be.

“You might have a point,” he said, not sure that it made a difference. Not even sure why, when Iris talked to him about his ex, he heard it differently than when Sage had.

Because he’d grown up?

Grown wiser?

Or just because he wanted an excuse to keep Iris in his life?

* * *

Iris spent the night at Scott’s cottage. In the master suite with him. He’d moved back to his old room the night she’d been in Sacramento.

She was in bed first and didn’t wait for him to reach for her. Instead, she climbed on top of him, as she’d done that first night on her couch. She didn’t want kissing and foreplay. She needed him inside her. Filling her emptiness.

And when they were done, she lay beside him, ready to sleep. To escape for a while, knowing that he was beside her.

She’d drifted off, had been on the beach, trying to save Leigh from a wave that was chasing the little girl up and down the sand. It was getting closer to her and Sage couldn’t get to Leigh. Couldn’t save her, when suddenly Scott’s hand on her face was her only reality. “Iris.” She heard his voice then. Soft and sure.

Eyes open, she looked up at him, seeing enough in the darkness to catch the glint in his eye. The focus. As though he was as much or more a part of her as the nightmare had been.

She stared at him. Unable to get wholly out. Because her current life had been there with her. In the darkness.

She’d brought her past into the present. Sweet little Leigh had been the one that death had been chasing. And Iris hadn’t been able to stop it. Death was stronger than anything she could do to stop it from attacking. Any fight she could put up against it. And it always would be.

Scott was up on one elbow. His bare chest close enough that if she turned her head she could kiss it. She didn’t.

He leaned over her, his hand on her forehead, brushing hair back from her face. “You okay?”

She nodded. Smiled. He was there. Still sharing moments with her. Probably not for long. They’d known from the beginning that their liaison wasn’t permanent.

No expectations, they’d promised. And she had none that reached beyond the present.

But when Scott lowered his head and kissed her softly, she gave herself fully to that present. Kissing him so completely she lost her air and sucked his. He touched her everywhere, and she touched him back. Letting her fingertips learn every part of him. And when they came together, lying on their sides, their gazes joined and held, along with their bodies, until the waves had come and gone. Making memories that they could call up at some point in the future if they wanted to do so.

Iris gave Scott the best of her, hoping that the experience would be a place of joy in his memories, too. That even if they were still having sex a year from then, they’d still be able to remember back and smile at how it had been. And if, as was more likely, they weren’t, then they’d both want to look back fondly from time to time because their weeks or months in bed together had given them joy.

Her friendship with Scott had taught her that she didn’t have to run from the love she’d lost. But that, after she recovered from the initial pain, she could bring memories of the past’s happy times into the future with her. She’d always be grateful to him for that. He hadn’t brought her twin sister back to life, but through him, she’d found the courage to keep Ivy’s memory actively alive inside her.

When she left before dawn, leaning down to kiss him goodbye, she heard him murmur “Tonight?” against her lips.

And gave him the affirmative he’d been seeking.

They were one night at a time for as long as it worked for both of them.

And for her, it was working better than she’d ever dreamed it could.

* * *

Life was working just as he’d designed. His career was flourishing. His successes were gaining him notoriety, which meant higher-priority cases, with tougher fights against powerful opponents. His sister was happy, Leigh was adored, and still made it clear that she wanted some Uncle Scott time, too. His best bud from high school was now his brother-in-law and living permanently on Ocean Breeze. His knee wasn’t one hundred percent, yet—he wasn’t back up on a board—but it was close. His back had fully healed.

And Scott was having the best sex he’d ever dreamed of having.

So why in the hell wasn’t he satisfied?

A month had passed since he and Iris had talked on the beach about his first marriage. The same night he’d slept in his king-size bed with her for the first time. The night she’d had another nightmare. Something they never talked about.

Neither Sage nor Gray had noticed anything different about him and Iris. To their credit, they were newlyweds with a precocious four-year-old on their hands, Gray’s new animal clinics opening, Sage’s law career booming and a baby on the way.

And when they were around Sage and Gray, Scott and Iris were who they’d always been on the beach. Close friends. He just hadn’t realized, until Sage’s wedding, how close they’d grown.

He had everything he wanted.

How could it not be enough?

Nothing was missing, and yet, as he drove home from work one Friday in April, heading to a shrimp boil and fry on the beach behind Gray’s cottage—a small affair with only Sage’s family, Scott and Iris—he approached the evening with an acceptance that wasn’t like him.

He was glad to be going.

Couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather be spending his evening with.

He was really looking forward to the food.

And as, changed into shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, he walked down the beach with Morgan, he felt like he was settling, too.

A sense that escalated as Angel bounded toward Morgan, and he looked up to see Iris standing in the distance. She didn’t walk toward him, greet him with a kiss.

He didn’t want her to. Not on the beach.

And yet…he did.

On the beach.

In front of Sage and Gray.

He had it all.

And he wanted more.

More than the present.

He wanted a future.

With Iris.

The realization hit with the force of a ticking time bomb. He had to disarm it. Save himself from the explosion.

Morgan saved him instead, barking up at him as Angel stood in his path, wagging her tail. They wanted the treats he’d begun carrying in his pocket.

And because he didn’t fail those who were counting on him, he handed down the goodies. And came up with a smile on his face to greet the amber-haired, vibrantly alive woman he was approaching. She’d worn her hair down. Had on capri-length black leggings and a short-sleeved tunic that showed him the shapes of every body part he intended to touch that night.

She’d been out of town the night before.

Maybe that had been the source of his gloom. He’d had to go a night without getting any.

If anyone had told him that he could have sex every night for months and still not be at all satiated, he wouldn’t have believed them. Not in real life.

And yet, he was living proof to himself that it was possible.

Iris didn’t take his hand when he approached. She didn’t lean in for a kiss. But the look she gave him, long and…longing…stayed with him.

Was it possible she was feeling a lack, too?

Maybe it was time for them to just tell Sage and Gray that they were intimately involved. Without any plans to become permanent in any way.

Didn’t matter how much Sage tried to make of it. He and Iris were the only decision makers on that one. And neither of them were going to be swayed by Sage’s clearly prejudiced opinion.

Marriage was working for her.

But the institution wasn’t the right choice for everyone.

Even if Iris was right, that he was taking a failure on himself that hadn’t been his, that his marriage had been doomed from the start due to a lack of love, or mutual goals, he still wasn’t ready to trust himself enough to try again.

Not if the risk was breaking Iris’s heart.

Scott remained steadfast on that one.

Hands in his pockets, he walked beside Iris over the couple of acres of beach and land, the two cottages, between her place and the beginning of Gray’s property. Heard her talk about the night she’d spent with her stepmother. A woman she hadn’t had anything to do with since she’d left San Francisco.

She and Ivy had never understood how the woman stuck with their father, making excuses for his return to drunkenness after their mother died. A state that had culminated in their leaving his house earlier than planned the day of the accident. They’d refused to stay with him so drunk. But if he’d been sober, if they’d had dinner with him and his wife that night, they wouldn’t have been in the intersection when a drunk driver had plowed through it, hitting them head-on.

Iris had told him the details about that fateful night one evening on the beach, a few weeks before. As a prelude to her possibly accepting the invitation from her stepmother to see a play in Anaheim. One that the four of them, her dad and stepmom and Ivy and Iris had seen during a visit when their dad had been sober and their mother had still been alive.

He’d encouraged her to accept. And while the night had been hard in some ways, she was glad she’d gone. And planned to visit again.

Scott opened his mouth to express a desire to meet the woman sometime, but paused as it occurred to him that such an activity might not fit the friend thing they had going on—how did you explain to a stepmother that you were intimately involved with her daughter, but had no intention of committing to her?

Before he got words out, or closed his mouth, Leigh came hurtling toward them, tripping over her feet in the sand. His niece tumbled, stood up and just kept running, her eyes wide with importance.

She reached Iris first, grabbed her hand, saying, “Come on, Miss Iris!”

And then reached for Scott. “Uncle Scott! My baby sister played with me! Come on!”

Scott glanced at Iris, intercepted the affectionate grin she was bestowing on his niece, his breath catching in his chest.

“I feeled it!” Leigh was saying, pulling at both of them as they headed up the beach. Gray was standing over a pit with two large pots situated on metal propane stands in the sand—water and oil, Scott knew—while Sage sat in one of the four adult-size chairs positioned around it. Leigh’s little chair would move around the circle, as it always did. The little sea urchin knew how to spread her joy.

And spill secrets, too. Picking the child up in his arms, he glanced at Iris and hurried with her up to Sage. “You’re having a girl?” Iris half squealed the question he’d been about to ask.

His sister looked so beautiful to Scott, so truly happy, that he felt a brief prick of tears behind his lids as Sage grinned, stood, said, “Yes,” and hugged her friend.

His friend, too.

One who was smiling, and also fighting tears. Minutes later, as Scott watched Iris’s face as she felt Sage’s baby move beneath the palm she had on his sister’s stomach, he felt as though he’d been poleaxed. The expression on the beautiful, green-eyed face beneath that auburn halo was almost Madonna-like.

And he knew.

What he was missing. And what she was, too.

He had to give Iris the chance to have what she most wanted and needed. The only thing she’d ever wanted or needed.

A family of her own.