It sounded like he meant the rail.
It didn’t feel like he meant the rail at all.
10
GIDEON
Icouldn't believe I was flirting.
Gideon Dane didn't flirt. I tracked threats in the dark, put steel to flesh when orders demanded it, vanished before the dust settled or the questions came. Words were weapons or silence—never this soft-edged banter, never this heat that had nothing to do with combat and everything to do with want.
But with Hazel, unease flipped inside out. The careful distance I kept from people—from women especially—cracked like old plaster. All I could do was grip the edge and ride.
"We'll finish after."
Christ. It had slipped out like truth, hanging between us thick as the humidity pressing down on the island. Her eyes had widened, that green flashing surprise and something hotter, something that made my pulse kick before Maude's voice cut in from the kitchen.
Saved by the bell—or the cook.
We stepped inside together, the screen door slapping shut behind us. The dining room smelled of fresh bread and something savory bubbling on the stove—comfort food, thekind that made you remember places you'd left behind. Maude bustled in with plates, her apron tied neat, gray hair pinned back like always, moving with the efficiency of someone who'd done this ten thousand times and still found pleasure in it.
"Lunch," she announced, setting down bowls of shrimp gumbo and cornbread that steamed inviting, golden and crumbling at the edges. "Sit, you two. Can't fix a house on empty stomachs."
Hazel slid into her chair across from me, cheeks still flushed from the porch—from the work or from me, I wasn't sure. Maybe both. She avoided my eyes at first, busying herself with her napkin, smoothing it across her lap like it needed that much attention.
I took the seat beside her instead of across—close enough our knees brushed under the table. Accidental at first. Then not.
She stilled, just for a heartbeat, then shifted slightly toward me instead of away. That small motion said more than words could.
Maude joined us, settling into her chair with a soft sigh, and suddenly the three of us were around that long table like old friends sharing a meal instead of strangers thrown together by circumstance and a grandmother's will. The gumbo was rich, spices lingering on the tongue—heat and depth and something that tasted like care. The cornbread crumbled perfect with butter melting into its warm center. Simple food, but it grounded me, pulled me back from the edge I'd been teetering on outside when I'd almost crossed a line I had no business crossing.
Not yet.
Maude launched into stories without prompting, her voice warm and nostalgic, like she was pulling threads from a quilt she'd sewn years ago and wanted us to see the pattern. "This place has seen its share," she said, spoon stirring slow through her gumbo. "Back in the eighties, we had that actor—oh, what'shis name, the one with the dimples and the cowboy hat. Big box office, but you'd never know it to look at him here. Stayed a week incognito, fishing off the dock every dawn, barefoot in old jeans. Said the quiet here let him remember lines without the noise of Hollywood pressing in."
Her eyes softened, gazing past us to the window where light played on the marsh beyond. "Then the storms. Lord, Hurricane Hugo in '89 nearly whipped us clear to Georgia. Waves crashing over the dunes like they had a grudge, wind howling like banshees come to collect. Your grandmother, Hazel—" she looked at her with something like reverence "—she boarded windows with me till our hands bled, hammering in the rain, then sat on the porch after it passed, watching the sky calm like it hadn't just tried to end us. 'Still standing,' she said. Just that. 'Still standing.'"
I listened to every word, fork paused mid-air now and then, caught by the weight of history in her voice. Maude's tales carried honest yearning, a pull for days when the inn buzzed with life, when guests filled the rooms and storms tested but didn't break. There was love in every syllable, and loss, too—the kind that came from watching something you cared for fade.
"Quiet nights are the best, though," she continued, voice dropping softer, almost reverent. "When the whole world presses pause just so you can breathe it in proper. Stars so thick you feel small in the best way, ocean whispering secrets you're not quite meant to hear. Nora—your grandmother—she'd say that's when the house talks back, tells you what it needs, if you're willing to listen."
Hazel smiled faint, stirring her gumbo without eating much, but her eyes flicked to me across the bowl. I couldn't look away.
Maude's stories wove the room together, filling the silence with ghosts that felt almost friendly. But Hazel's presence pulled harder—the curve of her neck when she laughed soft atsomething Maude said, the way her fingers traced the bowl's rim like she was mapping it for future reference, the small furrow between her brows that appeared when she thought no one was watching.
Our words on the porch echoed in my head:If I kiss you now, I don't stop at one.
Both. Warning and promise.
My knee pressed hers under the table, deliberate this time, testing. She didn't move away. If anything, she leaned in, just barely, the pressure increasing by a fraction that sent heat straight through me.
Lunch wound down, plates emptying, the conversation settling into comfortable silence. I stood first, gathering dishes before anyone could protest.
"Let me."
Maude waved a hand, surprised. "You're a guest, Gideon. Sit yourself down."
But I was already stacking, carrying plates to the kitchen with the ease of someone who'd done his share of KP duty. She followed, protesting mild, but I caught the pleasure in her eyes—the help, the company, the simple fact of not being alone with the work.
