Page 2 of Isolated (Harper Security Ops #21)

Iris

“You’re thirty-one now.”

Sandwiched between my grandparents at the dining room table in my childhood home while we all ate my favorite birthday meal of steak tacos, I puffed up my chest with pride at my dad’s declaration. “I am.”

There was something I just loved about this. My family didn’t have this need to do something extravagant for birthday celebrations. It was all about spending time together as a family and enjoying each other’s company over some home-cooked meals.

Sitting at the opposite end of the table from my dad, my mom asked, “Do you feel like you’re where you want to be?”

Every year—usually every birthday and New Year’s Day—we were all asked some version of this question. Were we happy? Were there things we’d hoped to accomplish by now that we hadn’t? What were our hopes for our future?

Even if I hadn’t gotten such good news from my boss yesterday, I would have easily been able to give my mom the yes answer I knew she was hoping for. Because life was great. Wonderful, even. I had not a single thing to complain about.

“Interestingly enough,” I began, noting the way everyone leaned in with curiosity, “I got some excellent news yesterday.”

“What is it?” my grandfather asked around a mouthful of steak tacos.

I hesitated for a moment, taking in the looks on all their faces. “I’m getting a promotion.”

Jaws fell open and eyes widened.

“What?” my younger sister, Eleni, gasped. “You just got one!”

Nodding, I confirmed, “I did. But apparently, I’ve been doing so well that they felt compelled to offer me a new position.”

Flora, my soft-spoken sister, and the youngest of the three of us, asked, “What will you be doing? I thought you liked this new job as the marketing director.”

“I do. I love it. But they want to promote me to the vice president of marketing.”

“That’s my girl,” my dad declared, reaching for another steak-filled tortilla to assemble himself a second taco.

There was no doubt I got my confidence from him.

No matter what challenges were ahead of us, Adam Gibson never questioned our capabilities.

Maybe there was something for him about raising three daughters in a man’s world that did it, but he always led us to believe we could accomplish whatever we put our minds to. “I knew it’d only be a matter of time.”

“How wonderful, Iris.” My mom’s eyes were filled with tears. April Gibson was the one who’d given me my empathetic heart. She was the reason I found myself talking to anyone and everyone, doing whatever I could to brighten their days. Even someone like my grouchy neighbor.

I scooped up some chunks of avocado to put on my taco. “I’m really excited about the opportunity. It’s such a big deal, and it’s certainly something I hadn’t anticipated happening this quickly.”

My grandmother placed her hand over mine. “Congratulations, dear. Is this going to mean more responsibility?”

She removed her hand and curled her fingers around her glass of water. And after adding small bits of chopped red onion and a squirt of fresh lime to my taco, I lifted it to my mouth and answered before taking a bite. “I suspect it will. Most promotions do.”

“But she’ll have more money to go along with it, so the added responsibility is not a problem,” my grandfather declared from my opposite side.

Ever the practical one, I expected nothing less from him.

This was what I’d grown to know and love about my family. It wasn’t just me that they were like this about. If either of my sisters had any news to share—whether related to their career or otherwise—they could expect the same response from our parents and grandparents.

Of course, I was told every family had that one person who knew how to kill the moment. In my family, that was Eleni.

And so that was likely the reason I wasn’t the least bit surprised when it was she who decided not to sing my praises.

“This shouldn’t surprise me, but for some reason, it does.

Every time you have news to share, Iris, it’s always about work.

Do you ever get out and do anything? Do you ever have any fun? ”

For the most part, my sisters and I had always gotten along. We’d never really had any major fights beyond the typical bickering that had mostly occurred when the three of us were living at home with our parents through our high school and college days.

I guess that was to be expected, considering we were as different as could be. Our personalities were as dissimilar as our physical appearance.

Where I had dark auburn hair and green eyes, my younger sisters were both blondes with hazel eyes.

Eleni was tall and slender with an athletic build she didn’t need to work for.

Flora was several inches shorter than her, had the prettiest face of the three of us, and curves Eleni always told her she’d kill for.

At five feet four inches tall, I was the shortest of the three of us, standing just one inch shorter than Flora.

I was a mix of both sisters when it came to my body.

I managed to maintain a more toned physique with regular visits to the gym each week, but there was no amount of exercise that was going to shrink the size of my breasts.

I focused all my attention on her, once again wondering what it was that made her so easily riled these days.

I couldn’t ever quite work out if she was genuinely upset on my behalf about the lack of fun she imagined I had in my life, or if she simply couldn’t bring herself to be happy about my promotion that she needed to focus on some other aspect of my life .

It wasn’t like she had any reason to be jealous of my success.

She had done just as well for herself. Both of my sisters did.

Having always excelled at numbers, Eleni worked as a corporate accountant.

Flora was self-employed, working as an editor.

When it came to their jobs, they were both doing well, and I’d never gotten the impression that either one of them wasn’t happy with their chosen career path.

Like I always did whenever she tried to bring down the mood, I ignored Eleni’s tone and only considered the words themselves.

“I get out and do lots of things,” I assured my sister. “In fact, I went out to dinner last night.”

“Oh, you had a date?” Flora’s question came out like a song. Of the three of us, she was the dreamer.

“Don’t let boys distract you from your career,” my grandfather warned me. “You got this promotion because you’re focused on what’s important.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her going on a date,” my grandmother argued. “Don’t act like you weren’t chasing me all over town back in the day.”

I pressed my lips together to stifle a grin as my grandfather reasoned, “That was different.”

“It was not. And if Iris wants to have her career and a family, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Laughter spilled out of me. “There was no boy. I had a date with Kasey and Stephanie. They took me out for dinner to celebrate my birthday with me.”

“Kasey and Stephanie work with you,” Eleni pointed out, piling extra bits of red onion on her taco.

I nodded, reaching for my glass of water. “Yes.”

“So, that’s not you getting out and meeting new people. That’s you being so addicted to your job and the work you do that your only friends are your coworkers.”

“I’m not addicted to work.” Even as I said the words, I wasn’t entirely sure I believed them. My boss had to all but order me not to bring my laptop home, because even he knew that I’d spend time working on my birthday weekend if he hadn’t.

Mom, even though she wasn’t remotely confrontational, interjected, “You do work a lot, Iris.”

Quick to defend me, Dad jumped in, “But it’s clearly paid off.” He sat back in his seat, shaking his head slightly with disbelief and a smile on his face as he murmured more to himself than anyone else, “Vice President of Marketing…”

He was mostly at a loss for words. He couldn’t be prouder if he tried.

I rolled my eyes, entertained by all of it. It never bothered me when Eleni questioned me like this. The way I saw it, she could have said nothing, and that would have indicated to me that she didn’t care at all.

“Well, I guess I can share that dinner with Steph and Kasey wasn’t the only thing I did yesterday.”

My grandmother and Flora both perked up. “Oh?”

“There was leftover cake from the small party they had for me at work, so I brought it home with me. I wound up sharing some of that?—”

“With a boy?”

I dropped my taco and shifted my attention to my grandmother, unable to avoid the hopeful look in her eyes. I hated having to disappoint her. “Not with a boy.”

Disappointment leaked into her expression as Flora asked, “Who did you share cake with ?

I grinned at her. “Walter.”

“Walter? The old guy who lives next door to you?”

“Yes. I took some chocolate cake and a balloon over, and we sat outside on his front porch eating dessert together. It was nice.”

“He’s nearly the same age as our grandfather, Iris.”

“And how’s that a problem, Eleni?” I covered my grandfather’s hand with mine. “I’d share cake with him, too.”

My sister let out a frustrated sigh and returned her attention to her food, unwilling to elaborate on what was actually bugging her.

I really wished I knew what made her so upset sometimes.

While it was true that she’d always been the most outspoken of the three of us—which was saying something, considering I found myself talking to anyone and everyone—it seemed like my sister had grown more and more irritable over the last two years or so.

Right around the time I left Grouse and moved to Steel Ridge.

“Iris has never had any problems making friends with everyone,” Mom proudly announced. “Even as a kid, she made friends everywhere she went.”

“That’s why I was thinking you might have had some other news to share with us, Iris,” Flora said.

Tipping my head to the side, I squinted at her. “What news did you think I’d be sharing?”

She shrugged, her eyes dropping to her hand that was curled around her glass, her thumb stroking along it. “I was thinking that maybe you met someone or had been on a couple of dates.”

I hadn’t done anything to give her the impression that anything of the sort had happened. Flora was just a romantic at heart .

It’s not that I didn’t want what my youngest sister was hinting at. I did. I really did want to find someone to spend my time with and share my life with. But it hadn’t happened yet.

And although it was frustrating, it felt wrong to complain about my lack of success in my romantic life.

Because life was great for me everywhere else.

I had the best family, great friends, and a job that seemed to get better and better as time went on.

Wouldn’t it have been selfish of me to expect that I’d have all that and be upset I hadn’t gotten everything yet?

Then again, it was my fault I was in this position. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t really be mad at Eleni for calling me out on working so much. I hadn’t exactly given myself a real shot at meeting someone.

“I’m sorry to say that hasn’t happened yet.”

“It’s so surprising to me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been in Steel Ridge for two years now. And you’re so outgoing and friendly with everyone you meet. I’m just surprised you’ve been there this long, and nobody has asked you out yet.”

I cocked a brow, my eyes darting between her and Eleni. “Have either of you been on any dates recently?”

“Nothing that’s amounted to anything serious or is worth talking about, but we have had some dates,” Eleni shared. “We’re making an effort.”

Unsurprisingly, it was our grandmother who suggested, “Maybe Eleni and Flora need to go visit Iris in Steel Ridge, so the three of them can have a night out together.”

“That sounds like it’d be fun,” Mom bubbled. “With your dad and me leaving for our big vacation at the end of the month, it’d be nice to know the three of you were still getting together and spending time with one another.”

I’d love nothing more than to have more time with my sisters.

Despite what it often looked like on the surface these last two years, particularly with Eleni’s pessimistic attitude, I missed being able to pick up and visit with them whenever I wanted.

Sure, we were only an hour apart, but it wasn’t easy to work a trip like that into my schedule all the time.

“My door is always open,” I insisted. “I’d love to have the both of you come for the weekend sometime.”

Flora’s face lit up with a smile. “I’d love to visit and have a fun night out.”

Everyone shifted their attention to Eleni, who didn’t look the least bit amused. Following a beat of silence, she declared, “Well, I’m not going to leave it up to the two of them to make something happen. I’ll drive out with Flora in the next week or two.”

My grandfather sat back in his chair. “This is just one big distraction.”

“Agreed,” my dad chimed in. “All my girls are happy. Why spoil it with such nonsense?”

“Adam, I know you didn’t just discourage our daughters from getting together and spending time with one another. We aren’t going to be here for weeks. They should do this.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line to stifle the laughter threatening to spill out. My dad realized the pile he’d just stepped in, and as his eyes darted between his plate and my mom, I didn’t doubt he was attempting to figure out the best way to backtrack.

“Of course not, April. I’m thrilled they’ll have time to bond. I just don’t see how adding searching for guys in the process is helpful to anyone.”

She arched a brow, and something passed between them. Maybe that’s why it always seemed my mom was just a nonconfrontational person. All she needed to do was give my dad one look, and he knew.

A moment of silence passed between them before he said, “But I think it’s better that they’re doing this together instead of going out alone. Maybe it’s for the best.” His eyes shifted away from her and toward each of my sisters before landing on me. “I hope the three of you have a great time.”

Mom clapped her hands and stood. “Now that all of that is settled and everyone has finished eating, why don’t we have some dessert before we do presents?”

I grinned, swallowing down the giggles threatening to escape. I might have turned thirty-one today, but not a single birthday had gone by where my mom didn’t treat the party element like I was still ten.

Maybe it was strange, but I loved it. I adored the way my mom insisted on these family traditions.

Because no matter where we were in our careers and personal lives, or whether we lived an hour away from one another, there was something so comforting about knowing that these traditions would always be there, bringing us back together.