The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(29)

“I’m not one of those people who thinks something can be too sweet. Though, I obviously temper that a little bit with a lot of my baked goods here. You have to meet mainstream taste requirements. Though I like to make sugar bombs for Rose. My younger sister. You’ve met her.”

“Yes. I remember Rose. She’s...”

“She’s a whole thing. Actually, I’ll have to tell you about how Rose and her matchmaking are sort of responsible for Griffin and I getting together.”

And so, Iris did. Recounting how Rose’s attempt to set Iris up with a man who was objectively very, very boring had backfired and had sent Iris out on a quest to make herself more interesting—which had involved pursuing her dream of opening a bakery, which had led her to Griffin’s door, back when he had been feral and barely human.

“I’m glad that you did,” Mallory said. “Because none of us could have ever reached him. I know that I thanked you already, but really, thank you. Griffin is... I’ve always idolized him. He has always been everything I ever wanted to be. And seeing him as unhappy as he’s been for all this time and not being able to do anything to help him...it was the worst thing. I did what I could, I called him, but I just wasn’t...”

For some reason, she felt a slight twinge around her heart as the words that she had to say to her sister-in-law hit her. She hadn’t thought them through before she started to speak them, and she hadn’t realized that she felt any kind of way about them until it was too late. “I... I wasn’t the person who could do it. I tried. I did. Maybe I should’ve driven up and brought him down from the mountain—I don’t know. But I called him. All the time, even when he didn’t pick up. Even when he didn’t call back. But you’re just the one, I guess.”

How petty.

How petty that you’re hurt that the woman he has fallen in love with and married is the one who was able to reach him. That’s the power of love.

But not her love. Never apparently her love.

Wow, Mallory. You could not sound more pathetic.

But she’d...she’d wanted to rescue him because she knew what grief was like. Even though hers was private. Even though his own had made her more determined to keep hers a secret.

How could she ever tell her parents that they’d lost another grandchild? One they’d never known about? And what would the point be?

Still she’d wanted... She’d wanted to find another way to give meaning to what she’d gone through. Wanted to pull him back from the edge.

But that hadn’t been for her to do. It had been Iris.

She was going to make an attempt to buck up, because she was sitting there being ridiculous while eating a delicious piece of cake with one of the sweetest women that she had ever met, feeling... Weirdly jealous of the fact that the woman had helped her brother out of the deep trenches of grief? She was grateful. That’s all.

That was what she had told herself ever since Iris had come into his life.

And it was a surprise to discover that her feelings were slightly more complicated... Well, that it was a surprise... A shock, really, to discover that the center of her caregiver core was a deep, real selfishness.

She was almost... In awe of it. She had known she had it in her. Quite literally. She wanted to be the one who saved Griffin. Because somehow she’d imagined it would give her value. Give her loss purpose.

Redeem her.

She was uncomfortable with that. And she only grew increasingly more comfortable with that the longer she sat there across from Iris.

So she didn’t say anything. She just sat there, eating her cake. And she thought about telling Iris about... Things. About Colt. She was trying not to think about him, so she didn’t really want to bring them up either.

“How did everything look at the clinic?” Iris asked. And that was when Mallory realized that her silence was probably uncomfortable.

“Great. Everything is great. I’m really excited to be here. I...” And then she realized it would be weird if she didn’t tell Iris that she was renting from Colt. “I found out that my landlord is your cousin, weirdly.”

“What? Oh, at the... The house. For a second I was still thinking about the clinic.”

“Yeah. I... Colt. He owns the property with the cabin I’m staying in. I didn’t realize it until I went there last night. I knew him because I... Met him. At Ryder’s house.” She realized everything she was saying sounded strange and lame and she was overexplaining things. And there was now no way the whole situation wouldn’t sound a little bit weird, which had been exactly what she was trying to avoid.

“I haven’t actually been up to Colt’s new ranch. He just moved there.”

“It’s... Rustic,” Mallory said. “But nice,” she added quickly.

“Great. Well... If he’s not nice to you, you’ll have to let me know, because I’ll beat him up.”

“Is he... Not nice?”

And she realized that it sounded a little bit like she was fishing for information about him, but really, she was just making conversation. She was trying to kind of not think about her general selfishness regarding her brother, and also to find the exact appropriate amount of conversation to make about Colt that didn’t make it seem like she had slept with him.

“Oh, I mean not any more or less than any of the guys in my family,” Iris said, waving a hand. “It’s just that they’re all... You know, their whole thing. Colt and Jake specifically. Well, Jake was more one before he got married. But you know. Rodeo cowboys.”