It was now or never.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath that did little to calm the nerves dancing inside me, I grabbed two ice-cold Queen Conch IPAs I’d picked up at Island Market earlier that week. They were even brewed on the island, and I pegged Austin as a beer man. Clutching the cold, sweating bottles like talismans, I marched across the overgrown patch of grass that separated our properties.
Here we go again,I thought as a wave of dizziness washed over me.Please, please, don’t let him think I’m here to re-enact Friday’s, uh, incident.
He opened the door on my second knock. His shirt was three-quarters unbuttoned, like I’d interrupted him changing. I caught a tantalizing glimpse of dark hair and firm muscle. His expression, when he saw me standing with two beers clutched in my hands, morphed from wariness tosomething that looked suspiciously like a deer caught in the high beams of an oncoming semi-truck.
“Austin! Hi!” I tried for a bright, breezy, entirely-not-still-mortified-about-kissing-you tone as I held up the beers. “Sorry to bother you again. Peace offering? Or perhaps a bravery enhancer for the one about to ask a massive favor?”
He stared at the beers, then at me, his gray eyes unreadable.
“First,” I rushed on, before he could slam the door in my face or call the authorities, “thank you so much for your help on Friday. With the siding. I was… a bit overwhelmed, as you might have gathered.” I offered a weak, hopefully endearing, smile. “But I’m feeling much better now. Totally fine. I’m sorry if I overstepped the bounds of neighborly propriety. I assure you it won’t happen again.”
He still didn’t say anything, just continued to look at me as if I’d sprouted a second head that was currently singing opera.
“The reason I’m here… well, Mick Riley hasn’t shown up for two days. Since Friday, actually.” I took another deep breath. “So I fired him. Officially. And now I’m kind of stuck. In a rather large, siding-deficient, contractor-less pickle. And I remember you mentioned your brother-in-law? Is an architect?” My voice was starting to squeak in response to his wall of silence. “I was just wondering… if he ever, possibly, does consultations? For, you know, disastrous old houses and new owners with spectacularly terrible contractor luck? Just to put me in touch with the proper person for the job, you understand.”
Austin blinked. Once. Twice. He looked from the beers in my hand to my face, then back to the beers. A long, agonizing silence stretched between us, punctuated only bythe frantic thumping of my pulse. I was fairly certain I was going to pass out from sheer nervous tension.
Then he let out a slow breath, and the twitching muscle in his jaw relaxed. “All right. I’ll… I’ll talk to Chase. See if he’s got any time. Can’t promise anything, Iris.”
The sound of my first name on his lips, so unexpected, so normal, sent another jolt through me, this one warmer, less terrifying.
“Oh, thank you, Austin!” Relief, so potent it almost buckled my knees, flooded through me as I shoved the beers into his hand. “That’s… thank you! I really, really appreciate it.” I started to back away, eager to escape before he changed his mind or I did something else monumentally embarrassing.
“Iris.”
His voice, sharper this time, stopped me in my tracks. He still stood in his doorway, the beers still in his hand, looking conflicted. Like the words he was about to say were physically stuck, fighting their way out.
“Yes, Austin?” My voice came out polite and inquisitive. Not at all like I was scared to death I was about to get yelled at.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said finally, the words low, almost a growl. “For Friday. With the siding. I’m, I’m glad I was there when you… when you needed help.” He gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod, then looked away, as if the effort of that admission had cost him dearly. “I’ll let you know what Chase says.”
And then his door closed with a soft, definitive click, leaving me standing on his porch, clutching nothing but the faint, lingering hope that maybe things were about to get a little less disastrous.
Austin was a man of complicated emotions; that much was clear. He was a man who obviously disliked showingthem, hoarding his words like a dragon hoarded gold. But just as obviously, beneath that grouchy, barnacle-encrusted exterior, he had a sense of honor. He cared about people, even if he tried his damnedest to pretend he didn’t.
And he’s a darn good kisser too,my mind treacherously, inappropriately supplied as I walked back toward Heron House, a tiny, confused smile playing on my lips. The thought brought a fresh wave of heat to my cheeks. But this time, it was mixed with something else. Something suspiciously like optimism.
A fragile, Queen-Conch-IPA-fueled optimism.
Chapter Twelve
AUSTIN
The satisfaction of a job done,a promise kept, a full cooler, and happy clients—that was the feeling a successful charter was supposed to bring. But as I secured the last ofLine Dancer’smooring lines to the dock at Sunset Siesta on Monday afternoon, the usual sense of peace was gone, replaced by a low, humming buzz. The couple from Orlando had left thrilled with the kingfish they’d landed, but our easy camaraderie was already like a memory from another lifetime.
Reality had seeped back in.
Stepping back aboard, I should have started cleaning the boat. I should have been rinsing the reels, hosing down the deck. Instead, I stood at the helm, staring out at the familiar, bustling resort but seeing nothing. My mind was a damn washing machine stuck on the spin cycle as it replayed the images of Iris’s tear-streaked face, the desperate clutch of her hands on my shirt, the shockingheat of her lips on mine. How good it had felt. How I hadn’t wanted that kiss to end.
Then I spent the next two days avoiding even looking in the direction of Heron House, as if it might spontaneously erupt in another geyser of feminine emotion. Two days where the memory of her pressed against me, soft and trembling, had ambushed me at the most inopportune moments. In my dreams, it had been a relentless replay of the softness of her hair beneath my cheek, the taste of her mouth, the raw vulnerability in her wide blue eyes. And my dreams had carried that encounter right into the bedroom, which only made the situation worse.
I could not stop thinking about the woman.
Then the beers. Her on my doorstep. And her high-pitched, squeaky voice, asking me for help with the Riley situation. Son of a bitch. Because she'd fired her no-good, idiot contractor.
And somehow, that had becomemyproblem.
