They had all night.
It just made good sense to get comfortable.
* * *
Scott and Iris made no plans to see each other over the next week. He drove himself to his doctor visit on Tuesday morning without issue. His stitches came out, though the nurse practitioner who saw him butterflied the small area where his sutures had been ripped apart. And on Tuesday afternoon, still on crutches, he went back to work. And worked late.
He’d been following the Polly Ernst murder-for-hire trial as best he could through email, phone calls and even some video snippets, advising his second chair as he was able, and the prosecution was close to resting its case. He had to be in court on Wednesday to question their final witness, the defendant, Polly. And thereafter, to hear the defense’s case, so that he could be ready for final arguments.
And he’d been assigned a new case as well. A county prosecutor was on trial for having a relationship with a juror during a high-profile case. The charges had been filed in Los Angeles County, not in San Diego, but the trial had been moved to his jurisdiction.
Dale was back to letting Morgan out, and feeding her, too, as needed. Except that both nights that he worked late, the dog had run down beach to find Angel, and Iris had taken her from there.
He and Iris didn’t eat together at all that week. But every night, they met up. Three times when Angel had run down the beach to her friend and Iris had followed, to find him sitting on his back porch so Morgan could play in the sand. And Tuesday and Wednesday nights, out front, when he’d hobbled himself down to her place to collect Morgan.
Six nights in a row they’d shared a bed. Not all night.One or the other of them got up before dawn and made their way home. Him crutching it in the dark with Morgan by his side.
Six of the best nights of his life.
Scott knew the sex wasn’t always going to be as compelling. And at the same time, couldn’t wait for his leg and back to heal enough to allow him to give Iris the pleasure he knew he had to give. To make love to her so thoroughly that she’d never forget some of the moments in his arms.
He also looked forward to getting back on the beach with her. They only had two more nights before Sage and Gray came home, and as much as Scott yearned to see Leigh—and hoped his little niece hadn’t grown up too drastically during her month-long trip abroad—he also dreaded the loss of freedom he and Iris had had to enjoy each other without subterfuge.
To just be themselves.
Under Sage’s watchful eye things would have to change. The last thing he and Iris needed was to have his sister aware that they were having sex. She’d be all about having them engaged and married before summer.
The possibility loomed, growing so strong, that on Friday night, as he lay in his guest room with a naked and very relaxed Iris, he couldn’t just drift off to sleep. Based on the way Iris was running a finger along his forearm, he knew she wasn’t done with the night yet, either.
“One more night until Sage is back,” he said, knowing that the only way they were going to continue to work was through complete honesty. With themselves and each other.
“I know.”
“If she has any idea, gets any hint…”
“I know.”
“She reads me…”
“I know.”
He nodded. Relaxing some. He didn’t have to explain Sage to Iris. She really did know. As well and probably better than he did.
“She’ll think she knows more than we do about getting over the hurdles that keep people single.” He said what had been on his mind for days. “Because she was right where we were, for years. And then managed to climb hers.”
“She already told me, a week or so before the wedding, that she’d never expected to marry. That she’d been unable to love that deeply again,” Iris said, her tone soft, but not content. “Trying to get me to be open to the possibility that I, too, might feel differently. When the right guy came along.”
He tensed. He couldn’t help it. He was who he was. If Iris was about to tell him that the past week had changed her, too, that he was the right guy…
“Sage will say whatever she’s going to say. She can believe with all her heart that she’s right, but it isn’t going to change who we are, Scott. That’s all we have to remember…”
His breath came easy again. His body relaxed.
And he felt sad, too.
Which made no sense at all.
* * *
