Page 77 of Beach Cottage Kisses

“I know. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but he won’t listen.”

Iris rolled her eyes. Back to herself. Talking to her friend about her twin brother. As they’d done many times over the years. “I tried last night, too.”

“Same result?”

“Pretty much.” They were two people who cared platonically for a mutual someone. Of like minds. The same as they’d been for years. Unchanged by Sage’s marriage.

The relief was palpable. Had her smiling as Morgan and Angel glanced up at her.

“So what brought up the conversation?” Sage’s question stopped Iris’s celebration midstream.

Not because it was all that unusual to delve further when they were discussing Sage’s sometimes recalcitrant twin. But because Iris’s immediate reaction was to not want to answer.

And she didn’t have a good reason why not.

“Talking about his surfing.” The response came to her in the nick of time. A good one. And totally honest. Which made her hesitation even more off-putting.

“He needs to be able to fail,” she continued, brushing aside the tinges of uneasiness that kept trying to rear up and darken her day. “To see failure as a way to learn. A natural and necessary part of life. Not some kind of egregious wrongdoing.”

“You told him that?” Sage sounded like she wished she’d been there.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

He’d yawned. She’d taken the hint and sent him on his way.

“Sounds like that hardheaded brother of mine,” Sage said, just as Leigh’s voice came from a distance, calling for her mommy.

In normal life, on the beach, the child would be running for Iris, too. She missed the little tyke. A ton. Felt lonely just hearing the lispy young voice sounding so far away.

But as she hung up, and headed back up the beach toward the house, figuring Joel—who’d had to do an afternoon appointment that day—would be done, Iris’s thoughts weren’t on Sage or Leigh. On the wave of loneliness that was so unlike her. Residue to be disregarded.

Her mind was fully occupied with the girls.

Talking to them.

“Obviously Scott was negligent,” she told them. “He hadn’t even been around enough to know that his wife had moved out. But some of the fault was hers, too. Because if she’d told him how lonely and neglected she felt, he’d have done something about it. That’s his way. He’d never just let a problem lie there and not try to fix it. That’s a recipe for failure, and he would never use one of those.”

Angel barked. Morgan ran a few steps forward and turned around to look at them.

Iris upped her pace, jogging with them.

Satisfied that she finally had life fully under control.

* * *

Scott wasn’t sure if it was because he’d quit fighting Iris’s presence in his home, the talk they had, that he was just feeling better or a combination of the three, but over the next couple of days, he and Iris shared the same friendship in his home that they’d both grown to value so much on the beach over the past few years.

She was there when he needed her. Absent when he was about his own personal business or working. He was watching out for her, making himself available if she wanted to talk, giving her her space without question when she didn’t. Appreciating her help. Teasing with her. Helping with the chores as much as he was physically allowed to do.

Keeping his distance. As she kept hers.

And the other side of those days—because life, his job, had taught him that there was always another side—was learning how critically he needed that distance.

Because ever since he’d sat on his bed with Iris, talking about things they’d never spoken of before, he was struggling not to reach for more.