Finally, she had everything worked out.
“It all makes sense,” she said aloud to the girls as she started back up to Scott’s cottage with them right beside her. “My psyche is acting out. That’s all. As soon as Sage, Leigh and Gray get back, everything will return to normal.”
In the meantime, she had a very dear friend who posed no sexual concern in his current state, who needed her whether he liked it or not.
And she felt right about being there for him.
* * *
Scott heard Iris come in. He’d heard her leave before, too. Had spent the entire time she’d been on the beach with the girls figuring out a way to get her to go home.
It was either that or lose the battle of his life.
He couldn’t have her around. Not when he was physically at a low point. And man, was his point low. He’d savored the touch of Iris’s hand on his brow as though she was his own personal angel.
Or…someone to whom he was heart connected.
He knew the feeling. His heart wasn’t dead. It just didn’t get to involve other hearts. Because his need to succeed, his self-respect, his sense of right and wrong, all beat it out every time.
He wasn’t kidding himself that he was falling for Iris. If that had been going to happen, it would have. Three years before when Angel and Morgan had introduced them on the beach.Iris had just adopted the miniature collie and had apologized for the fact that the little one hadn’t yet learned beach manners.
Or even that it was necessary to pee outside.
No, he wasn’t fallingforher, but he was definitely fallingintoher. Wanting to be with her. To have her in his daily life. To be in hers.
On more than just a casual level.
The casual thing had gone out the window the moment she’d handed him the urinal in the hospital.
With the local anesthetic still easing some of the pain in his knee, giving the rest of his leg some peace from the shooting electrical currents of shock, he figured there was no time like the present to take care of the situation.
Where there was a will, there was a way.
Getting himself off the bed and into his chair, he noticed the leg of his pajama pant, cut up almost to his groin. Saw his dark hairy thigh sitting there far too naked for the confrontation he knew was coming.
But had to get out to Iris before Sage reached her.
He’d tried to go the twin route while Iris was out on the beach. Hadn’t worked.
It was like the two women were ganging up on him. The time had come to put an end to it.
Wheeling himself out to the living room, bare leg and all, he thought, too late, about a stop at the bathroom first. Peeing could wait.
He had other more pressing business.
Iris was giving the girls their treats and stood when she saw him coming. “You feeling better?”
She’d changed into jeans and a button-down blouse. Before she went out to the beach? Or after she’d come in?
He’d thought he’d lain in bed, fully conscious, ever since they’d been home. Maybe he’d drifted some.
No matter.
Irrelevant.
“Fine,” he told her, coming to a stop a few feet from her.
He looked up, met her gaze. “I called Sage.”
