The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(41)

“Back again.”

“Damn,” he said, his voice rough and groggy. It reminded her a little bit too much of the morning after. “Guess I dozed off.”

“I guess so,” she said.

“I was pretty beat from working at my brother’s.”

“What do you do there?” she asked, opening the car door and then rounding to the back to open the trunk. There was so much stuff.

“Well, today it was fences. For more pastures. He’s breeding rodeo horses.”

“Oh. I thought maybe you did something with wood carving.”

“Wood carving?”

“You made those beautiful pillars in front of the cabin.”

“Yeah. But that’s nothing serious. I told you, I just mess around with that.”

“Oh. Well anyway... I don’t really know all that much about ranch work. My brother had this really big equestrian facility down in the Bay Area. But I didn’t spend that much time there. And when...” She suddenly felt sad.

“I know,” he said.

She smiled. “Because you talked to Iris?”

“The keeper of all the secrets between us, I guess.”

She huffed a laugh. “Except she doesn’t know that we slept together.”

“We didn’t really sleep.”

“True.”

She cleared her throat, trying to do something to ease the tension in her body. She took the baby, and he carried all of the items into the house.

They got the things spread out in the living room, and they both looked around.

And then she burst out laughing. “This is crazy. This one tiny little creature necessitated all of this.”

“Seems about right,” Colt said. He shook his head. “I was just looking at my cousin’s toddler thinking... Damn, I never want kids.”

That made her lungs feel tight.

“Well, it’s just temporary,” Mallory said.

More for herself than him. She’d gone a little crazy with the baby clothes and she needed to not be... Forgetting what this was.

“Yeah. Temporary.”

“Do you have an extra bedroom?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Although, I can tell you, she might wake up a lot. And if she does, it might be better to have her in your room.”

He nodded. “I’m going to have to explain this to my brother.”

“I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow I’ll take the shift with her. You can work on what you want to say.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I don’t have anything scheduled for tomorrow. In fact, I won’t be all that busy for a while. I’ll come to the house, and I’ll take care of her.”

“Nothing here is all that... It’s not really set up for company. Or inhabitants that aren’t me.”

“It’ll be fine. You’re exhausted.” Silently, she helped him get things set up. A bottle warmer in the kitchen. A baby monitor. Downstairs, upstairs, in the bathroom. Thankfully, he set the bed up, so she didn’t have to go into his room. She didn’t think she would’ve been able to handle that. You would think that a baby would do something to dull the attraction between them.

But no. That was functioning just fine.

Mallory took it upon herself to set up the little baby bath on the kitchen counter and give her a quick bath before dressing her in a fresh outfit. It gave her another opportunity to check her over. She made sure that she fed her, and the infant drank greedily from the bottle. Mallory stared down at her while she fed her, then kissed her little forehead. “It’s okay, Lily. We’re here. You’re taken care of now.”

And she realized that keeping that promise was the most singularly important thing in the world to her right now. She had the strangest sense of fate, yet again. That if she was here for anything, it was for this. That maybe she was meant to be here. Meant to hold this baby in her arms. Meant to stand in this spot, in this house right now for the sole purpose of caring for this child.

It was deep and certain.

And it terrified her all the way to her bones.

By the time everything was set up, and Lily was asleep, it was eight thirty.

“I’m pretty beat,” Colt said. He laughed. “You have no idea how ridiculous that is. I used to stay out all night and drink and... Not anymore.”

“Things change, I guess.”

“I guess... I ought to sleep while she’s sleeping.”

“Yes,” Mallory said. “You definitely should. And... Put her to bed on her back, and make sure that none of the blankets go up too high.”

She wasn’t sure that she could release her hold on this baby. She wasn’t sure that she could... “Got it,” he said.

He took Lily from her arms and held her, and Mallory just stared at them. She felt reluctant to leave.

“Thank you for your help,” he said. “Honestly.”

She hadn’t expected that.

“I... I really want to. I want to help.”

She took a step forward and put her hand on Lily’s back. And that brought her in such close proximity with Colt that she could... She could smell him. The scent of the fields, and the woods, his skin. She was intimately familiar with him, but it was just that once. And so it lived inside of her like a whisper, so faint that she could hardly grasp it fully. But so real and deep that it seemed almost clearer than anything around her.