Scott never talked about his sister, but being an uncle...that was something a guy might share...
Sage was a mother.
Gray was happy for her.
Genuinely happy.
For her.
But try as he might, he couldn’t escape the disappointment crashing through him. Had he really thought, when enough time had passed and she still hadn’t had the child she’d thought she’d had to have to be complete, that she’d someday settle for him?
Had he been willing to accept being settled for?
He was shocked. At himself, at the child, a vision of Sage as a mother, the knowledge that she’d become what he knew he didn’t ever want to be—a parent. Gray couldn’t just stand there.
Turning, he left his beer on the kitchen counter, got out to his SUV, and was partway up the drive before he stopped long enough to text Scott and let him know he’d be back in a bit.
That was all. He’d be back. Didn’t say where he was going. Or why.
He didn’t know where.
And the why? He couldn’t explain his change of plans.
Didn’t completely understand them.
He just couldn’t pretend that things were okay.
That he was.
Because they weren’t.
And he wasn’t.
Ten years without Grayson Bartholomew being mentioned in her personal life—and in a blink, he was on the premises.
Not in her actual cottage, but close enough.
Too close.
She hadn’t seen him. Hadn’t even glanced toward her brother’s cottage.
But she’d known he was there. Could feel his presence like fingers walking up her spine.
And back down again.
Horrible.
And...something out-of-the-real-world good.
Which was worse than horrible. It was disastrous.
She could not, absolutely never, allow herself to fall back into her own sexual weakness for the man. The first time she’d done so had knocked her to her knees.
Maybe almost killed her.
She wouldn’t have been on the beach at all. She’d taken Leigh inside the second she’d heard Scott say that Gray had texted that he was there.
At the time the text had come through they—the brother and sister duo—had been explaining to Iris—their closest mutual friend on the beach—just who Scott’s temporary roommate was to the Martin twins. As opposed to who he was in the news, which Iris had already known. A friend from high school. One Scott had been in touch with on and off over the years. No mention that the man had once been more than a friend to Sage.
