Page 22 of Grace on the Rocks

“Maybe you just don’t want to write.”

“Maybe you have a lot of opinions about someone you barely know!” she snapped, and he raised his eyebrows, posture stiffening.

He opened his mouth for a long, drawn-out minute before words finally came out. “…Ionly meant… after years of telling myselfIcouldn’t come home—time wasn’t right,Iwasn’t ready—Irealized the inconvenient truth wasIdidn’twantto come home.MaybeI’mnot really an islander at my core.Notof the island.”

Was he suggesting she wasn’t really a writer at her core?

That hurt.Likea truth-punch to the gut she’d been dancing around for weeks. “Youwant to be though, right?Ofthe island?”

He nodded.

Grace shrugged. “Iwant tohavewritten.”

“Why can’t you finish?” he asked, turning the full force of his green eyes on her once more, and the air around them felt prickly with unintended innuendo.Ifonly he knew.

He took a drink and she realized too late she was watching the way hisAdam’sapple bobbed as he swallowed.Thiswas bad.Geta grip,Gracie.

“It’s worse than that,” she confessed. “Ican barely get started.”

The intense way he was watching her now made it impossible to breathe.

“Well,” he said, his words always so deliberate. “Mayyou find the words you’re looking for.”Helifted his glass in toast.

Were they still talking about her manuscript?

His gaze fell to her lips, and she drained the rest of her whisky to block them from view.

“What you won’t find is a vacancy, not in the midst of the festival.Unlessyou enjoy tent camping, might as well get used to… being in the way,” he added with a quarter-moon smile before finishing his own dram and heading back inside, calling, “Goodnight,Rios,” over his shoulder.

Grace sagged against the porch railing, her head starting to spin.Fora moment, she thought he’d been about to kiss her, which was the absolute last thing she wanted or needed, no matter whatWesleythought.GraceRiosRiveradidn’t go around kissing men.Shedidn’t date them or sleep with them or even go out to dinner with them anymore, and she wasn’t about to start getting distracted by them or their bee-tattooed forearms andBonolips.

So why did she feel disappointed the evening had come to an end?

ChapterSix

Somehow, returning toBarrahad thrustBryanright back into the same patterns of insomnia he’d left behind at seventeen, and theAmericanInvasionwas only partially responsible.Sure, he saw her dark brown eyes with flecks of shining ochre every time he closed his own, but he only closed them because everywhere else he looked, he saw his grandad.

This cottage had been his refuge as a boy—every time school became a bit too much or his father’s disappointment weighed too heavily.GrandadMacdidn’t care if words played hide-and-seek withBryan’stongue or if his penmanship resembled the same scrambled chaos he saw upon each page of text.Grandadonly cared thatBryanwasn’t afraid of slow worms and that he could distinguish between the calls of a guillemot, a puffin, and a kittiwake.

The old man had nourishedBryan’scuriosity when most everyone else gave up on him as stupid.He’drecognizedBryan’shunger to love and be loved by anyone who’d have him, and he’d always, always acceptedBryanjust as he came.Inreturn,Bryanhad spent every possible second here in this drafty home, learning about the flora and fauna of the isle, picking up bits of spokenGhàidhlig, and learning how to fix things around the place.

They’d been an almost feral pack of lost boys,Eòghann,Alec,Bryan, andTeàrlach, andGrandadMachad encouraged them to leave, though he might have wished for them all to stay forever.Inthe end, onlyEòghannhad stayed, andBryanconstantly second-guessed how things might have turned out if he’d stayed too.

He loved the old house, but even after receiving word it was his, he didn’t come right away.Itstood as a stark reminder of his darkest days, a cave for him to hide in when the world was too big or too cruel.

And he still didn’t understand why him.

He wasn’t the oldest grandson.Thecottage had belonged toGreatGrandadMacNeilbeforeGrandadMactook it over, so it could just as easily have gone toEòghann.LoyalEòghann, who’d never left the island and never would, wasGrandad’snephew andBryan’sdouble cousin.Thefamily tree got complicated fast when uncle and nephew married a pair of half sisters.

Everyone on the island probably thought the house should have gone toEòghann, though he’d already inheritedGrandadB’splace, and if notEòghann, thenBryan’sfather orCaitshould have been next in line.Instead, it was left toBryan, just one more thing his father would probably hold against him until the end of time.Andthe neighbors, too.TheysawGrandadMac’sas a slice of history, a historyBryanhad trampled by leaving, one he had no right to reclaim now.

Despite his unworthiness, though,Bryanwas grateful.Hewas excited.Heonly hopedEòghannwas right about the old man appreciating his plan.

He flopped away from the twilit windows, like a dolphin breeching the surf, and noticed a bouncing light filtering under his door accompanied by the soft creeping sounds of someone trying to move quietly through an unfamiliar environment.

He ought to ignore it.Oughtto let them be.

Except what if they needed something?

---