The realization hit with the force of a ticking time bomb. He had to disarm it. Save himself from the explosion.
Morgan saved him instead, barking up at him as Angel stood in his path, wagging her tail. They wanted the treats he’d begun carrying in his pocket.
And because he didn’t fail those who were counting on him, he handed down the goodies. And came up with a smile on his face to greet the amber-haired, vibrantly alive woman he was approaching. She’d worn her hair down. Had on capri-length black leggings and a short-sleeved tunic that showed him the shapes of every body part he intended to touch that night.
She’d been out of town the night before.
Maybe that had been the source of his gloom. He’d had to go a night without getting any.
If anyone had told him that he could have sex every night for months and still not be at all satiated,he wouldn’t have believed them. Not in real life.
And yet, he was living proof to himself that it was possible.
Iris didn’t take his hand when he approached. She didn’t lean in for a kiss. But the look she gave him, long and…longing…stayed with him.
Was it possible she was feeling a lack, too?
Maybe it was time for them to just tell Sage and Gray that they were intimately involved. Without any plans to become permanent in any way.
Didn’t matter how much Sage tried to make of it. He and Iris were the only decision makers on that one. And neither of them were going to be swayed by Sage’s clearly prejudiced opinion.
Marriage was working for her.
But the institution wasn’t the right choice for everyone.
Even if Iris was right, that he was taking a failure on himself that hadn’t been his, that his marriage had been doomed from the start due to a lack of love, or mutual goals, he still wasn’t ready to trust himself enough to try again.
Not if the risk was breaking Iris’s heart.
Scott remained steadfast on that one.
Hands in his pockets, he walked beside Iris over the couple of acres of beach and land, the two cottages, between her place and the beginning of Gray’s property. Heard her talk about the night she’d spent with her stepmother. A woman she hadn’t had anything to do with since she’d left San Francisco.
She and Ivy had never understood how the woman stuck with their father, making excuses for his return to drunkenness after their mother died. A state that had culminated in their leaving his house earlier than planned the day of the accident.They’d refused to stay with him so drunk. But if he’d been sober, if they’d had dinner with him and his wife that night, they wouldn’t have been in the intersection when a drunk driver had plowed through it, hitting them head-on.
Iris had told him the details about that fateful night one evening on the beach, a few weeks before. As a prelude to her possibly accepting the invitation from her stepmother to see a play in Anaheim. One that the four of them, her dad and stepmom and Ivy and Iris had seen during a visit when their dad had been sober and their mother had still been alive.
He’d encouraged her to accept. And while the night had been hard in some ways, she was glad she’d gone. And planned to visit again.
Scott opened his mouth to express a desire to meet the woman sometime, but paused as it occurred to him that such an activity might not fit the friend thing they had going on—how did you explain to a stepmother that you were intimately involved with her daughter, but had no intention of committing to her?
Before he got words out, or closed his mouth, Leigh came hurtling toward them, tripping over her feet in the sand. His niece tumbled, stood up and just kept running, her eyes wide with importance.
She reached Iris first, grabbed her hand, saying, “Come on, Miss Iris!”
And then reached for Scott. “Uncle Scott! My baby sister played with me! Come on!”
Scott glanced at Iris, intercepted the affectionate grin she was bestowing on his niece, his breath catching in his chest.
“I feeled it!” Leigh was saying, pulling at both of them as they headed up the beach. Gray was standing over a pit with two large pots situated on metal propane stands in the sand—water and oil,Scott knew—while Sage sat in one of the four adult-size chairs positioned around it. Leigh’s little chair would move around the circle, as it always did. The little sea urchin knew how to spread her joy.
And spill secrets, too. Picking the child up in his arms, he glanced at Iris and hurried with her up to Sage. “You’re having a girl?” Iris half squealed the question he’d been about to ask.
His sister looked so beautiful to Scott, so truly happy, that he felt a brief prick of tears behind his lids as Sage grinned, stood, said, “Yes,” and hugged her friend.
His friend, too.
One who was smiling, and also fighting tears. Minutes later, as Scott watched Iris’s face as she felt Sage’s baby move beneath the palm she had on his sister’s stomach, he felt as though he’d been poleaxed. The expression on the beautiful, green-eyed face beneath that auburn halo was almost Madonna-like.
