Chapter 11 #2
The thought sent a sharp pang through me. That kiss had been a hurricane, tearing down all his defenses. But nothing was preventing him from waking up and starting to mortar the bricks back into place.
The scones, thankfully, emerged from the oven looking like something straight out of a glossy baking magazine—light, perfectly golden, an absolute triumph. Maybe Captain Grumpy would appreciate a scone? Or was that pushing my luck too far into the realm of desperate, slightly unhinged neighbor?
“Oh, for crying out loud, who cares? I’m already a certified disaster in his eyes. What’s one more pastry offering?”
I arranged half a dozen of the best-looking scones on a plate, covered them with a fresh napkin, and, with a surge of what felt more like reckless abandon than genuine courage, marched them over to Austin’s front porch. His truck was gone, so I scribbled a brief, carefully neutral note.
More kitchen experiments! These cranberry-orange scones actually turned out pretty well. Thought you might like to try one. Or six.
Iris.
I propped it against the plate. No P.S. this time. I didn’t want to press my luck with sprinkler-related humor.
I spent the rest of the long Saturday trying to lose myself in Key West Affair, but the romantic travails of the heroine seemed pale and unconvincing compared to the reality of the awkward and confusing drama unfolding right next door.
Every creak of Heron House, every distant drone from a passing boat, made me jump, my gaze darting toward Austin’s house.
I crawled into my bed that night, still out of sorts. Austin’s truck was back, and the scones were gone from his porch. I’d checked, peering through the spunky hibiscus hedge like a highly caffeinated spy, but there had been no word, no sign, from him.
The silence was a deafening contrast to the explosive heat of the kiss we’d shared. And I sure hadn’t imagined how he had reacted. The way his tongue had skated over mine. But with nothing to fill the silence but my thoughts and very vivid memories, a sinking feeling settled in my gut.
Sunday morning brought more of the same. Echoing stillness from Austin’s house. And, more alarmingly, continued silence from Mick Riley. No truck. No crew. No returned phone calls.
The knot of dread in my stomach tightened into a cold, hard fist of fury.
“That’s it,” I declared to the jaunty mug I was currently filling with what was rapidly becoming my stress-fueled beverage of choice—very strong, very black coffee. “He’s fired. Officially. Irrevocably. Fired.”
I dialed Mick’s number again, my thumb jabbing at the screen with righteous indignation. Of course he didn’t pick up.
“Mick Riley.” My voice was clear, firm, and vibrating with barely suppressed rage.
“This is Iris Holloway. Again. Since you have apparently decided to abandon the job and left my property in a dangerous and unsecured state, please consider this official notification that your services are no longer required. You are fired. For breach of contract and gross negligence. I expect a full refund of my deposit.” I ended the call with a satisfying click, my hand trembling only slightly.
There. Done. Good riddance to bad, lazy, unreliable rubbish.
I didn’t expect to hear back, let alone get my deposit returned, but I felt better for having said it. A wave of both triumphant relief and terrifying responsibility washed over me.
“Now what?”
I was alone with a half-sided house, a mountain of interior demolition that looked like a plaster-coated war zone, and no contractor.
How in heckfire—see, professionalism!—was I going to find a replacement?
Someone who wouldn’t try to rip me off or treat me like an idiot?
I clearly had terrible judgment when it came to contractors.
Austin had been right about Riley from the start.
Austin…
My mind snagged on the memory of his words from a few days ago: “My brother-in-law, Chase, is an architect…”
A tiny, desperate seed of an idea began to sprout. Could I? Dare I?
I paced my chaotic kitchen, the pros and cons warring in my head.
Asking Austin Coleridge for another favor, especially a favor involving his family, after I’d already assaulted his prize-winning shrubbery and then, even more horrifyingly, assaulted him with my lips…
it was mortifying beyond belief. Especially since he’d been incommunicado since.
He probably thought I was dangerous. Or worse, that I was chasing him?
Oh, sugar, this is awful.
My cheeks burned at the thought.
But I needed help. Real, professional, trustworthy help. And the thought of blindly picking another contractor from some anonymous online review site felt like playing Russian roulette with Aunt Constance’s legacy and my rapidly dwindling sanity.
I spent a good hour, possibly two, hemming and hawing, brewing another pot of coffee I didn’t need, and staring out the window at Austin’s silent, shuttered house as if it held the answers to all my problems. At last, late that afternoon, the familiar sight of his dark-blue pickup truck pulling into his driveway greeted me.
It was now or never.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath that did little to calm the nerves dancing inside me, I grabbed two ice-cold Queen Conch IPAs I’d picked up at Island Market earlier that week.
They were even brewed on the island, and I pegged Austin as a beer man.
Clutching the cold, sweating bottles like talismans, I marched across the overgrown patch of grass that separated our properties.
Here we go again, I thought as a wave of dizziness washed over me. Please, please, don’t let him think I’m here to re-enact Friday’s, uh, incident.
He opened the door on my second knock. His shirt was three-quarters unbuttoned, like I’d interrupted him changing.
I caught a tantalizing glimpse of dark hair and firm muscle.
His expression, when he saw me standing with two beers clutched in my hands, morphed from wariness to something that looked suspiciously like a deer caught in the high beams of an oncoming semi-truck.
“Austin! Hi!” I tried for a bright, breezy, entirely-not-still-mortified-about-kissing-you tone as I held up the beers. “Sorry to bother you again. Peace offering? Or perhaps a bravery enhancer for the one about to ask a massive favor?”
He stared at the beers, then at me, his gray eyes unreadable.
“First,” I rushed on, before he could slam the door in my face or call the authorities, “thank you so much for your help on Friday. With the siding. I was… a bit overwhelmed, as you might have gathered.” I offered a weak, hopefully endearing, smile.
“But I’m feeling much better now. Totally fine.
I’m sorry if I overstepped the bounds of neighborly propriety. I assure you it won’t happen again.”
He still didn’t say anything, just continued to look at me as if I’d sprouted a second head that was currently singing opera.
“The reason I’m here… well, Mick Riley hasn’t shown up for two days.
Since Friday, actually.” I took another deep breath.
“So I fired him. Officially. And now I’m kind of stuck.
In a rather large, siding-deficient, contractor-less pickle.
And I remember you mentioned your brother-in-law?
Is an architect?” My voice was starting to squeak in response to his wall of silence.
“I was just wondering… if he ever, possibly, does consultations? For, you know, disastrous old houses and new owners with spectacularly terrible contractor luck? Just to put me in touch with the proper person for the job, you understand.”
Austin blinked. Once. Twice. He looked from the beers in my hand to my face, then back to the beers. A long, agonizing silence stretched between us, punctuated only by the frantic thumping of my pulse. I was fairly certain I was going to pass out from sheer nervous tension.
Then he let out a slow breath, and the twitching muscle in his jaw relaxed. “All right. I’ll… I’ll talk to Chase. See if he’s got any time. Can’t promise anything, Iris.”
The sound of my first name on his lips, so unexpected, so normal, sent another jolt through me, this one warmer, less terrifying.
“Oh, thank you, Austin!” Relief, so potent it almost buckled my knees, flooded through me as I shoved the beers into his hand. “That’s… thank you! I really, really appreciate it.” I started to back away, eager to escape before he changed his mind or I did something else monumentally embarrassing.
“Iris.”
His voice, sharper this time, stopped me in my tracks. He still stood in his doorway, the beers still in his hand, looking conflicted. Like the words he was about to say were physically stuck, fighting their way out.
“Yes, Austin?” My voice came out polite and inquisitive. Not at all like I was scared to death I was about to get yelled at.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said finally, the words low, almost a growl.
“For Friday. With the siding. I’m, I’m glad I was there when you…
when you needed help.” He gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod, then looked away, as if the effort of that admission had cost him dearly. “I’ll let you know what Chase says.”
And then his door closed with a soft, definitive click, leaving me standing on his porch, clutching nothing but the faint, lingering hope that maybe things were about to get a little less disastrous.
Austin was a man of complicated emotions; that much was clear.
He was a man who obviously disliked showing them, hoarding his words like a dragon hoarded gold.
But just as obviously, beneath that grouchy, barnacle-encrusted exterior, he had a sense of honor.
He cared about people, even if he tried his damnedest to pretend he didn’t.
And he’s a darn good kisser too, my mind treacherously, inappropriately supplied as I walked back toward Heron House, a tiny, confused smile playing on my lips.
The thought brought a fresh wave of heat to my cheeks.
But this time, it was mixed with something else. Something suspiciously like optimism.
A fragile, Queen-Conch-IPA-fueled optimism.