“Hold. The. Phone.” Braden enunciated each word with deliberate, almost gleeful, precision. His usual easygoing grin widened into something positively predatory. “Rewind that last part. Did I just hear you correctly? Did the wordsgetting breakfast out of itactually escape the hermetically sealed vault that is your mouth, Austin?”
I took another long, slow swallow of beer, suddenly wishing a rogue wave would swallow me whole. I ignored Ben’s head swiveling toward me. “It’s nothing. The woman can’t seem to stop baking. Says she experiments and ends up with enough to feed half the town. Suppose it’s better than her experimenting with plumbing again. Or Godforbid, power tools.” I attempted a dismissive shrug. It probably looked more like a full-body twitch.
Braden’s eyebrows shot up. He dropped the log and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, his expression a mixture of disbelief and sheer, unholy delight. “Experiments? With baking? And she’s sharing these experiments with you? The guy who looks like he’d rather gargle with salt and sand than engage in polite neighborly chit-chat?” He gasped, his eyes widening. “Wait a minute.Getting breakfast out of it… Austin, are you sleeping with the noisy neighbor? Is that what this is? A little post-snuggle pastry offering?”
Ben roared with laughter as I choked on my beer, a spray of it nearly erupting from my lips to sizzle in the fire. “What the—Braden! Are you stupid?” My voice came out as a strangled rasp. The idea was so ludicrous, so utterly beyond the realm of possibility, it was almost offensive.
Sleeping with Holloway?
With Iris?
The woman was a walking, talking agent of chaos.
And yet, even as my mind reeled at his suggestion, a fleeting, unwelcome image flashed behind my eyes: Iris in my kitchen, the way the late-afternoon sun had caught the gold in her hair. The soft curve of her neck as she’d looked down at the basket. Her lips, full and pink, when she’d offered that hesitant, apologetic smile. The way her cleavage was revealed by the top few open buttons on her shirt…
I shoved the images away, hard, a fresh wave of heat flooding my face that had nothing to do with the fire. “Don’t be an asshole,” I bit out, glaring at my still-grinning brother. “She leaves the food on my patio. That’s it. It’s a… a neighborly gesture. To apologize for the damn noise, I assume.”
Braden was practically vibrating with suppressed laughter. “Right, right. Neighborly. Of course. My mistake.” He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “So, these purely platonic, entirely neighborly, post-noise-complaint breakfast items… are they any good? Or are we talking about those dry, crumbly things that old Mrs. Crowley used to bring to the school bake sales, the ones that could double as doorstops?”
I took another long sip of my beer, staring resolutely into the dancing flames, trying to regain my composure and project an air of complete indifference. “They’re edible.”
Braden threw his head back and laughed, a loud bark of amusement that echoed over the waves. “Edible! That’s practically a five-star review coming from you, brother!” Then his smile faded and he grew more serious. “Just be careful, man. It’s never a good idea to get all twisted up over a woman, especially an ambitious one. I know plenty about that.”
He’d just left me a Mack-truck-sized opening, but I decided not to twist the knife too hard. “Yeah, well, you’re the family expert, aren’t you?”
“Be nice, brothers,” Ben admonished softly.
Braden just rolled his eyes and turned back to me. “So what’s the game plan? Are you going to keep accepting these baked goods until she’s lulled you into a sugar coma so she can renovate in peace? Or is there, dare I suggest, a strategic counter-offensive involving… I don’t know… offering to fix her leaky faucet? Or maybe just an effusive grunt of acknowledgment?”
Ben cleared his throat, a smile returning to his lips. Traitor. “Sounds like you’ve got it rough, Austin. Forced to eat free, homemade baked goods. The horror.”
“I should have kept my damn mouth shut.” I folded myarms and scowled as both my brothers burst into guffaws again. Damn them. “Look. There’s no game plan. She leaves food. I eat it. End of story.”
Sometimes my family was more exhausting than a Category Three hurricane. The conversation shifted, thankfully, to one of Ben’s calls where he ended up taking someone to the hospital in Marathon. It was good to see him so driven, so focused on building a future for himself. He’d come a long way from the rudderless, angry young man he’d been after Dad left. We all had, I supposed, in our own ways.
Eventually, we doused the fire and called it a night, three bachelors going our different ways. Back in my house, I tried to settle into my evening routine. But with the crew packed up and the relentless noise from next door stopped, the silence that descended was unexpected. A hole where the sound of saws, hammers, and off-key singing had been.
The stillness was heavier than it used to be. Deeper.
I found myself at my kitchen window, staring at Heron House, and caught a glimpse of Iris’s silhouette moving behind a first-floor window.
What trouble is she getting herself into now?The thought was automatic, my default setting when it came to her.
But beneath the ingrained annoyance was something else. A low-grade hum of… what? Concern? Curiosity? I waited, almost unconsciously, for the sound of something crashing, for a yelp of frustration. For some sign of the life constantly thrumming just beyond my hibiscus hedge.
Nothing. Just the hum of my refrigerator.
In that moment, a blunt, unwelcome realization hit me. The silence was worse than the noise. Because the noise meant her vibrant, chaotic, undeniable presence. The silence just meant I was alone.
The thought was so unsettling, so alien to the man I thought I was, that I immediately dismissed it. But as I got ready for bed, the feeling lingered, a quiet, insistent thrum that sounded a hell of a lot like the beginning of a problem. A problem that had blonde hair, long legs, and a knack for baking coffee cake.
Chapter Nine
IRIS
The third-floor bedroom,destined to be the Magnolia Suite if my grand plans ever came to fruition, currently resembled the aftermath of a plaster-eating Tasmanian devil convention. Thick, gritty dust coated every surface and hung in the hot, still air like a shroud. Piles of shattered lath and crumbling plaster formed a miniature mountain range in the center of the room. Chalk lines, white against the dark, aged floorboards, optimistically delineated where a luxurious en-suite bathroom would one day exist.
“Okay,” I said to the echoing emptiness, my voice small against the vastness of the room and the task ahead. I clapped my hands, sending up another puff of dust. “This is progress. Definitely progress. Demolition is always the messy part. It has to get worse before it gets gloriously, beautifully better. Right?”
