Chapter 10
GIDEON
Icouldn't believe I was flirting.
Gideon Dane didn't flirt. I tracked threats in the dark, put steel to flesh when orders demanded it, vanished before the dust settled or the questions came. Words were weapons or silence—never this soft-edged banter, never this heat that had nothing to do with combat and everything to do with want.
But with Hazel, unease flipped inside out. The careful distance I kept from people—from women especially—cracked like old plaster. All I could do was grip the edge and ride.
"We'll finish after."
Christ. It had slipped out like truth, hanging between us thick as the humidity pressing down on the island. Her eyes had widened, that green flashing surprise and something hotter, something that made my pulse kick before Maude's voice cut in from the kitchen.
Saved by the bell—or the cook.
We stepped inside together, the screen door slapping shut behind us.
The dining room smelled of fresh bread and something savory bubbling on the stove—comfort food, the kind that made you remember places you'd left behind.
Maude bustled in with plates, her apron tied neat, gray hair pinned back like always, moving with the efficiency of someone who'd done this ten thousand times and still found pleasure in it.
"Lunch," she announced, setting down bowls of shrimp gumbo and cornbread that steamed inviting, golden and crumbling at the edges. "Sit, you two. Can't fix a house on empty stomachs."
Hazel slid into her chair across from me, cheeks still flushed from the porch—from the work or from me, I wasn't sure. Maybe both. She avoided my eyes at first, busying herself with her napkin, smoothing it across her lap like it needed that much attention.
I took the seat beside her instead of across—close enough our knees brushed under the table. Accidental at first. Then not.
She stilled, just for a heartbeat, then shifted slightly toward me instead of away. That small motion said more than words could.
Maude joined us, settling into her chair with a soft sigh, and suddenly the three of us were around that long table like old friends sharing a meal instead of strangers thrown together by circumstance and a grandmother's will.
The gumbo was rich, spices lingering on the tongue—heat and depth and something that tasted like care.
The cornbread crumbled perfect with butter melting into its warm center.
Simple food, but it grounded me, pulled me back from the edge I'd been teetering on outside when I'd almost crossed a line I had no business crossing.
Not yet.
Maude launched into stories without prompting, her voice warm and nostalgic, like she was pulling threads from a quilt she'd sewn years ago and wanted us to see the pattern.
"This place has seen its share," she said, spoon stirring slow through her gumbo.
"Back in the eighties, we had that actor—oh, what's his name, the one with the dimples and the cowboy hat.
Big box office, but you'd never know it to look at him here.
Stayed a week incognito, fishing off the dock every dawn, barefoot in old jeans.
Said the quiet here let him remember lines without the noise of Hollywood pressing in. "
Her eyes softened, gazing past us to the window where light played on the marsh beyond.
"Then the storms. Lord, Hurricane Hugo in '89 nearly whipped us clear to Georgia.
Waves crashing over the dunes like they had a grudge, wind howling like banshees come to collect.
Your grandmother, Hazel—" she looked at her with something like reverence "—she boarded windows with me till our hands bled, hammering in the rain, then sat on the porch after it passed, watching the sky calm like it hadn't just tried to end us.
'Still standing,' she said. Just that. 'Still standing. '"
I listened to every word, fork paused mid-air now and then, caught by the weight of history in her voice.
Maude's tales carried honest yearning, a pull for days when the inn buzzed with life, when guests filled the rooms and storms tested but didn't break.
There was love in every syllable, and loss, too—the kind that came from watching something you cared for fade.
"Quiet nights are the best, though," she continued, voice dropping softer, almost reverent.
"When the whole world presses pause just so you can breathe it in proper.
Stars so thick you feel small in the best way, ocean whispering secrets you're not quite meant to hear.
Nora—your grandmother—she'd say that's when the house talks back, tells you what it needs, if you're willing to listen. "
Hazel smiled faint, stirring her gumbo without eating much, but her eyes flicked to me across the bowl. I couldn't look away.
Maude's stories wove the room together, filling the silence with ghosts that felt almost friendly.
But Hazel's presence pulled harder—the curve of her neck when she laughed soft at something Maude said, the way her fingers traced the bowl's rim like she was mapping it for future reference, the small furrow between her brows that appeared when she thought no one was watching.
Our words on the porch echoed in my head: If I kiss you now, I don't stop at one.
Both. Warning and promise.
My knee pressed hers under the table, deliberate this time, testing. She didn't move away. If anything, she leaned in, just barely, the pressure increasing by a fraction that sent heat straight through me.
Lunch wound down, plates emptying, the conversation settling into comfortable silence. I stood first, gathering dishes before anyone could protest.
"Let me."
Maude waved a hand, surprised. "You're a guest, Gideon. Sit yourself down."
But I was already stacking, carrying plates to the kitchen with the ease of someone who'd done his share of KP duty. She followed, protesting mild, but I caught the pleasure in her eyes—the help, the company, the simple fact of not being alone with the work.
Hazel excused herself with a murmur about checking the porch, slipping out before I could say anything. I watched her go, the line of her spine straight despite the fatigue I could see pulling at her shoulders.
Maude and I cleaned in easy rhythm: me washing, her drying, stories flowing unbroken like a river that had found its course.
"There was the writer in '95," she said, towel snapping soft against a plate.
"Came for a weekend, stayed a month. Holed up in the west room with nothing but a typewriter and black coffee.
Said the isolation cracked him open, poured words out like water from a broken dam.
Left us a signed copy—still on the shelf in the sitting room, if you're curious. "
Her voice held that ache for the past, for fuller days when the inn breathed with life, but no bitterness—just love for what had been and maybe hope for what could be again.
Dishes done, counters wiped clean, Maude patted my arm with her damp hand. "Nap for me. Choir practice at four—dinner'll be late tonight, if that's all right with you."
"More than all right."
The house settled into quiet around me after Maude left.
I dried my hands on the dish towel, hung it neat, then headed back to the porch.
Hazel was there, prying at a stubborn shutter hinge with a screwdriver, tools scattered around her feet like she'd waged a small war.
Sweat dampened her shirt, plastering it to her back, hair escaping in red wisps that caught the afternoon light.
She was getting it—real progress visible in the straightened rail, the patched spots that would hold through the next storm.
Determination radiated off her in waves.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching for a beat before speaking. "Thought you'd have the whole place rebuilt by now."
She glanced up, smirk tired but real, eyes bright despite the exhaustion. "Give me another hour."
"You're allowed to rest."
"Rest is for people who don't have a year-long deadline," she said, but there was humor in it now instead of the desperate edge from yesterday.
Awkwardness lingered from earlier—those words unspoken, hanging like humidity between us.
We worked around it at first, me taking the heavy lifting without asking permission: hauling lumber from the pile she'd started near the side of the house, muscling a sagging beam into place while she measured and marked with that little torpedo level, tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.
The property revealed its potential under the decay—solid bones beneath the rot, views of the marsh that could draw guests if polished right, a kind of wild beauty that money couldn't buy and tourists would pay good money to experience.
It stirred thoughts of home I didn't want, the old Dane ranch: fixing fences with Dad in the Montana wind, his hands guiding mine on the post hole digger, the satisfaction of work done and done right.
Stupid.
Me, picturing Hazel there—red hair whipping in the Bitterroot breeze, laughing as we patched barn roofs side by side, her competence matching mine, that sharp mind solving problems I hadn't even seen yet.
Where the hell had that come from?
I shoved it down, focused on the task. One board at a time. One moment. That was all I knew how to do.
Time blurred in sweat and sun, the afternoon stretching long and golden. We didn't talk much—didn't need to. There was a rhythm to it, the way she handed me tools before I asked, the way I knew when she needed me to hold something steady while she secured it.
Partnership.
The word lodged somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.
Maude's sedan crunched away down the drive eventually, choir practice calling, and suddenly we were alone. Truly alone for the first time since I'd arrived.
The air changed.
I fetched water from the kitchen—two glasses, condensation already beading cool against my palms. Hazel sat on the steps, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, exhaustion and satisfaction warring on her face.
Her hand shook faint as she reached for the glass I offered—fatigue, maybe, or something deeper. I steadied it with mine, fingers covering hers, the touch lingering longer than necessary. Her pulse jumped under my thumb.
"How long's choir practice?" My voice came out rougher than I meant.
She stared at our joined hands, then up at my face, eyes dark and uncertain and wanting. "Hard to tell. I'm new here, too."
We drank—water, air, the moment stretching thin and dangerous between us.
She set her glass down carefully on the step, like it might shatter. "Maybe enough manual labor for one day."
"Maybe," I agreed, though I didn't move.
Neither did she.
The silence pulled taut. Her lips parted like she was about to say something, then closed. Opened again. "Gideon—"
Before thought caught up with action, before the careful control I lived by could stop me, I leaned in.
Our lips met—soft at first, testing, a question asked without words.
Then hunger surged, answering. Hers parted under mine, and she tasted like salt and sweetness and something that felt like coming home to a place I'd never been.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer, and a sound escaped her throat that broke something loose in my chest.
I swept her up without breaking the kiss, arms sliding under her knees and back. She was lighter than I expected, all that fierce determination and sharp mind packaged in curves that pressed perfect against me as her legs wrapped instinctive around my waist.
She gasped against my mouth. "What are you—"
"Inside," I growled, already moving, carrying her through the screen door that bounced once behind us. "Now."
Her breath came hot and fast against my neck as I took the stairs two at a time, muscle memory guiding me down the hallway to my room. Her fingers tangled in my hair, nails scraping my scalp in a way that made me want to pin her against the nearest wall and forget about beds entirely.
But she deserved better than that.
Better than a hallway.
Better than me, probably.
I'd worry about that later.