Page 82 of Whisper Of Attraction (Whisper Lake 3)

And that was something he hadn’t lied about. He’d given her all the space and time she needed, which was driving her batshit crazy. She knew the mature thing to do would be to tell him she was ready to talk. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t.

“Ms. Daniels, I see you’ve been practicing.”

Brynn looked up and saw Mrs. D standing over her.

“I have, yes.” Brynn hadn’t been sleeping well, and unfortunately her beloved romance novels weren’t as much fun to read when she kept envisioning the hero as Axel. When she found herself getting jealous of the heroines in the fictional stories she knew she had to put the Kindle down. So, instead of reading, she’d been knitting at night.

It wasn’t nearly as satisfying, but at least she was getting better.

“I heard that Mr. Vaughn and his sister moved into the B&B.”

“Yep. They did.” And he and Izzy were all Karen could talk about. Her morning walks were filled with stories about how brilliant Izzy was and how handy Axel was. He’d refinished and stained the stairs and railing and was working on restoring the intricately hand-carved corbels.

Brynn knew that Mrs. D was on a fishing expedition, trying to see what her reaction was and if she could glean any information. But she was not about to take the bait. She kept her face pleasantly blank until Mrs. D gave all three of them pointers and moved on to her next “victims.”

“Oh, speaking of the B&B, I heard Austin is back in the states.” Ali said quietly when they were alone again.

“He is.” Karen had told her that Cliff and Alma’s grandson had been honorably discharged a few months prior.

“I always had the biggest crush on Austin Stone.”

“I think every girl in Whisper Lake had a crush on him.” Brynn spoke from experience. “Who couldn’t with those—”

“Eyes.” All three of them finished in unison.

Austin Stone lived in New York with his mom, and to a small-town Midwestern girl, that was pretty much the epitome of cool. It also didn’t hurt that he had dark, emerald green eyes, thick lashes, and a body that rivaled Mark Wahlberg in his Calvin Klein ads.

“Isn’t he engaged?” Ali asked.

Jess hissed. “He was. But I have it on good authority, Facebook, that his fiancée is expecting a baby. With someone else.”

“He owns the B&B right?” Ali asked both Brynn and Jess. “Is he going to come back here?”

Brynn shrugged. “I don’t know. Karen hasn’t heard from him.”

“Well, if he does come back, maybe he’d be a good candidate.” Jess nudged her.

“A good candidate for what?” Brynn asked.

“For getting over Liar McLiarson.”

It really bothered Brynn that Jess was being so hard on Axel. “He didn’t really lie. He’s not the bad guy. I don’t think he meant for things to happen the way they did. And he did try to tell me. Yes, maybe he could’ve tried harder, but it’s not like he was doing it to hurt me. He was in a tough situation. Honestly, if I were him, I don’t know if I would’ve done anything differently.”

Jess and Ali both stared at Brynn for a beat before giving each other high fives.

“I can’t believe it worked.” Ali smiled.

“I told you.” Jess winked.

“What? What am I missing?” Brynn was used to them having inside jokes or references she didn’t always totally understand, but this one went completely over her head.

“She was good cop,” Jess said as she pointed to Ali and then herself. “And I was bad cop.”

“Jess and I were talking and from the texts you were sending we really couldn’t understand why you were so upset with Axel, and she thought maybe you didn’t really know either. So, she said that we should play good cop, bad cop. I’d stick up for him and she’d put him down to see how you really felt about him.” Ali nervously rushed to explain.

“Wow.” Brynn looked between her friends. “That’s actually kind of genius.”

“Oh good.” Ali let out a breath.

“I’ve been saying I’m a genius forever, I’m glad you’re finally on board,” Jess joked.

The girls chuckled and were shushed by several other knitters in their area. They spent the rest of the club discussing the play that was happening in two weeks and catching up on Jess’s wedding plans. They’d decided to get married in the summer on the pier. Ali talked about the boys and how Kade kept dropping hints that he wanted to start trying for a baby.

As Brynn sat with her friends, she didn’t feel the same twinge of envy that she used to. It was replaced with a different emotion. She’d never honestly believed that she would find someone that she’d feel the same about as her friends felt about their significant others. Now, Brynn knew that not only she could, she had.

And somehow, knowing what was possible was worse than thinking it was impossible.

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