The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(60)

So on some level he must know...

He must know he had something to offer the world. Because here he was. Offering himself.

And what about you?

Are you still waiting to figure it out?

Why does she stay with him?

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she moved away, because she didn’t want to interrupt this. She didn’t want to intrude.

Her own feelings were building, growing, the memory of that birth echoing in her.

Why does she stay with him?

Mallory had known. She’d always known.

She stayed because he was the father of her child.

Thinking that, really thinking it, took the wind from her lungs.

She had stayed with Jared because he was the father of her child. Because in her heart, Mallory was the mother to a baby she’d never hold in her arms.

She wept silent tears as Colt’s voice carried through the hall. She leaned back against the wall, her hands clasped behind her back, pinned there, and she swayed silently to the music. To the grief in her soul. To the joy in her heart that built, impossibly, even through the sadness.

She held her baby girl in her heart. Just on the other side of the wall from the baby she’d spent the past while holding in her arms.

The man she held at night.

The man she...

It was like the past, the present and the future were all too clear just now, and she felt like she couldn’t hold it all.

But maybe she could put some of it in its proper place.

Jared was over. She’d finally found the courage to let go. To admit she was holding on out of grief. She’d finally realized she could still be Lucy’s mother without being Jared’s girlfriend.

The future... She didn’t know what would come.

But right now, she had Colt. And Lily.

And if he looked complete with Lily, complete without her, she chose not to focus on that.

And she tried not to let her own words from earlier rebound on her.

That she was sure everything would be okay.

Because she wasn’t sure what her life would look like without Lily and Colt in it.

She’d come here for a fresh start. For independence. She’d found something else that she didn’t want to put a name to.

And when it ended...

She would have to start all over again.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN


MALLORY SHOULD BE happy to be invited over to her brother’s house for dinner, but she found that she was only resentful. In large part due to the fact that she wanted to see what was going to happen with Colt tonight. They hadn’t discussed it. They had slept together all night last night, though he’d slept on top of the covers, she had noticed. But he had come back to bed after putting Lily to sleep, and she hadn’t mentioned that she’d seen him singing to her. And then he had taken Lily and gone off to work at the ranch, and she hadn’t had the chance to... Kiss him. Rub up against him. Say that she really wanted to keep sleeping with him as long as she was staying at the house, because really, why not?

Yeah. That.

But, Griffin had asked her to dinner, and she did want to go. She cared very deeply about Griffin, after all. And he was the reason she was here.

“I’m the reason I’m here,” she said out loud as she got into her car and started to drive toward Griffin’s cabin.

She was the reason she was here, and that was becoming more and more apparent every day. Her work at the clinic was rewarding. Carving out a place for herself that was hers alone, making a space for herself in the community... It was gratifying. Just for her. And that was the conclusion she was coming to. That ultimately, whatever happened here, this was the right place to be. She was looking for a magic fix. It was just that slowly, over the course of time, she was becoming more at peace with what was. And that was... Her.

She’d felt isolated by the experience of her pregnancy and the loss of it. By the fear and shame she’d felt, the fear she’d disappoint her family and then the devastation of dealing with Lucy’s death alone.

She’d processed a lot of her grief, but there were things that remained.

Being in Gold Valley was for her, and she had to remember that. For her independence and her sense of self. Her acceptance of herself.

She thought a lot about what she’d realized last night. About vulnerability. And she just sort of let it sit there the whole drive through the winding, two-lane road, letting the pine trees blur all together.

She got out of the car and walked up to the front door, knocking, where she was quickly greeted by her sister-in-law and her brother.

“No baby?”

“No,” she said. “She’s with Colt.”

“Okay,” Griffin said.

“I’ll just be in the kitchen—you guys get caught up,” Iris said, fluttering out of the room in a very unsubtle manner. And suddenly, Mallory felt a little bit caught.

“How have you been?”

“Good,” she said.

“The clinic is going well?”

“Yes. I have some new equipment coming in next week, and I’m going to focus on getting some new decorations going. The outside needs a face-lift. It’s just a little bit run-down. But I have some ideas, and things are going well. I really like all of my new patients.”

“Good,” Griffin said. “Good.”

“What’s happening, because I feel like you just sat me down to tell me that I’m in trouble? The way that Iris made herself scarce was just a little bit too neat.”