Eleanor’s gaze never wavered. “You’re not really talking about your work now. You’re talking about your armor.”
The words struck deeper than Isla had expected.
“I came here planning to tear into the restaurant,” Isla admitted, her throat tight. “Because I was hurt and angry, and I wanted to hurt back.”
This time, Eleanor nodded, as if that made more sense to her than anything else Isla had said.
“That,” Eleanor said gently, “is not the same thing as honesty.”
Isla looked down at her hands.
“My son can handle the truth,” Eleanor went on quietly. “What hurt him was realizing you hadn’t trusted him with it.”
That landed so squarely that it made Isla wince.
Eleanor’s gaze drifted to the courtyard, where Percy was carefully selecting herbs under Rachel’s watchful eye. “And that little boy of yours is watching how you move through the world. How you handle hurt. How you handle disappointment. Children learn from what we build around them.”
Isla followed her gaze. Percy looked happy. Safe. As if he belonged here.
“What kind of life do you want him to see you building?” Eleanor asked softly.
The question stole the breath from Isla’s lungs.
For the first time since arriving in Bear Creek, she saw it all with painful clarity. The endless cycle of restaurant visits. The calculated criticism. The clever cruelty that had become her trademark. None of it was what she truly wanted. None of it built anything lasting.
“I don’t want to live like that anymore,” she whispered.
Eleanor said nothing.
“I want to build something,” Isla said softly. “Not tear down. I want to create.”
This time, Eleanor smiled. “Now that sounds more like the woman my son saw in you.”
“I think I’ve completely ruined everything with Kirk,” Isla said, turning back to Eleanor with a pang of regret so sharp it almost hurt. “The way he looked at me when he found out what I do...”
Eleanor smiled gently and reached across the table, covering Isla’s hand with her own.
“You’re his mate,” she said simply, as though it were the plainest fact in the world.
“And that’s enough?” Isla asked.
“Oh, more than enough.” Eleanor chuckled softly. “Why don’t you let me keep Percy for a little while, and you go and find my son?”
Isla hesitated, glancing at her laptop where the beginnings of a review waited—sharp phrases already forming, critiques ready to be deployed. Words that suddenly felt alien to her, disconnected from the woman she wanted to become.
She opened the document one last time and stared at the brutal lines she had crafted out of hurt and anger. For a long moment, she simply looked at them, seeing them for what they really were—a shield, a weapon, a way of keeping the world at arm’s length while pretending to engage with it.
Then she selected the entire document and pressed delete.
“Percy would love that,” Isla said, closing the laptop.
Eleanor smiled. “Then go, Isla. Follow your heart.”
And for the first time in a very long while, Isla did.
Chapter Twenty – Kirk
The chilies needed him. Even as he feared, his mate did not.
