Gone Country (Rough Riders #14)(135)

“You really think I’d drop everything to be at her beck and call?”


“Don’t you now?”


“That’s not fair. You know you’re the same way with Rory.”


Rielle shook her head.


“You didn’t drop everything when she called you last fall, so stressed out about school?”


“That was different. Rory is an adult. She needs me when she has the occasional breakdown, not every day like Sierra still needs you.”


“Okay then. Move to Arizona with me. If you love me and you don’t need to be in Wyoming because Rory is here. We’ll find a place with gardens and you can grow exotic chili peppers. After Sierra graduates, we can return here.”


“Move to Arizona? Really, Gavin? How am I supposed to make a living there? You expect me to just walk away from the business I’ve built the last fifteen years? It’s taken me a long time to get to the point that I’m not starving.”



“You wouldn’t have to work, Ree. You could take a couple of years off. Do things because they interest you, not because you have to.”


“I love the way I live my life and how I make my living. You accepted that about me. I wouldn’t work this hard if I didn’t love it and I know I’d miss it.”


“Would you miss me if I wasn’t here?”


“Yes.”


Gavin touched her cheek. “Can’t we start there and find a way to make us work?”


“I don’t see how. This is a lose-lose situation for both of us. I won’t go to Arizona. And if you don’t go, you’ll resent me for making you choose.”


“So what you’re telling me is if I’m willing to compromise for us to be together, that’s fine. But when I ask you to compromise, well, no way.”


“That’s an oversimplified statement,” she argued. “Because the move to Arizona wouldn’t be based on mutual compromise. The move would be because your daughter threatened you into a decision you didn’t want to make.”


Was that really how she saw the situation? Sierra throwing a fit and him just giving in?


Wasn’t that what was happening?


Rielle retreated. “I love you. I never thought a man like you would ever love me. We’ve had similar parenting styles with our only children. But I’m telling you…please don’t make my mistake. I didn’t see myself as anything but a parent to Rory until I met you. You gave me love and worth as a woman—as your woman. It was hard to tell my daughter, who, yes, had me at her beck and call even as an adult, that I deserved a life outside of being her mother. I’ve embraced it and she didn’t like the change but she’s accepted it. I didn’t have the guts to do that until you came into my life and changed it completely for the better. So don’t wait until Sierra is twenty-four to come to the same realization.”


Gavin was too stunned to say anything as she walked out and quietly closed the door.


Chapter Thirty-Nine


Rory knew the instant she’d talked to her mom yesterday that something was wrong. Like horribly wrong.


She assumed that f*cking McKay bastard had done exactly what she feared—ripped her mom’s heart out and run over it with his goddamned Lexus. So she’d been shocked to hear the McKay male wasn’t causing the problem, but his precious spawn.


At first her stubborn mother stayed true to her decision to exclude Rory from issues in her relationship with Gavin. But she wasn’t deterred. She adopted her mother’s soothing style of extracting information and her mom finally broke down.


And Rory had broken down too, silently, on the other end of the phone because she grasped her mom’s dilemma. If the situations had been reversed and Rory had made those demands? Her mom would’ve sided with her—seen to her child’s needs above her own without question. Even right now when her mom was miserable, she wouldn’t fault Gavin if he chose his daughter over her. But hearing her mother cry…Rory wanted to hop in her truck and kick some serious McKay ass—starting with Sierra’s.


But she’d promised to cover her co-worker’s bar shift last night and she hadn’t left for Sundance until early this morning.


Upon arriving home, Rory parked her truck at her cabin and skulked through the trees, avoiding her mom as she made a beeline for the house.


Gavin wasn’t around. Good. That might’ve been awkward, him asking what she was doing there and her answering…I’m here to bust Sierra’s balls.


Rory knocked on Sierra’s door, but didn’t allow the girl a chance to deny her entrance so she barged right in.


Sierra sat on her bed, earbuds jammed in her ears and the music cranked so loud Rory heard it by the door. Sierra’s head was back, her eyes closed. A notebook sat on her lap with words scrawled across the page.


Rory recognized heartbreak when she saw it. Grabbing the footboard, she jostled the bed.


Sierra’s eyes flew open. She scrambled out of her slouch, wiped her eyes and pulled out her earbuds. “Rory? What are you doing here?”


“Came to see my mom. She’s busy making hay while the sun shines, so I thought I’d grab you and we’d go get ice cream or French fries or something equally junky.”