The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(65)

“Yes. Thank you. This is amazing.”

Surprisingly, that happened to them a couple more times, and by the time he moved to the pillars on the outside, he had other business owners stopping to ask about his work. He had made a large Mother Earth sort of figure in one of the posts, a tree on the other, with animals twined around both. He kept to a similar look and shape of a craftsman pillar, while bringing art into it. And it was something that apparently resonated with the local community.

“I have about six commissions just from working in the front of your clinic,” he said to Mallory that night at home.

“Well, everything looks amazing.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought about making this your business?”

“No it’s...art, I guess. I never thought about doing that for money. I mean I love it...”

“Then shouldn’t you do it? I think you could charge whatever you wanted. And please, charge me,” she said.

“No,” he said. “You’re helping me with Lily.”

“And you’re not charging me rent while I help with Lily. You can’t do all this work for me for free too.”

“I can do whatever I want.” He set her down on his lap and dug his hands into her hair. He’d been waiting to do that all day. Then he kissed her.

They spent most of Sunday lying low. Doing tummy time with Lily, which he learned was something important to her development. They had gone to the pediatrician that week. And everything had been fine.

And he knew that he was intentionally ignoring reality, but he didn’t care.

“The flowers on those headbands are getting bigger,” he said, looking at Lily as they prepared to walk into the ranch house at Hope Springs.

“Impossible,” she said. “Because Lily is getting bigger.”

“I think you have a stash of ever-expanding flowers.”

The door opened, and they were greeted by everyone. And Lily was immediately taken out of his arms. She was a favorite. At this point, Iris’s pregnancy was public knowledge, Rose was nearly due, and Sammy was beginning to show.

It was a baby parade.

Little Astrid was particularly fond of Lily, and watching her try to be a little mother to the baby was pretty damn adorable, even he had to admit it.

“I think you’re getting soft,” Jake said, nudging his knee when they sat outside later that night with beers. Ryder was leaned back against the side of the house, his feet kicked out in front of him, the porch light shining down over his cowboy hat. Logan was seated on the railing, West, Pansy’s husband, propped up against one of the pillars. Griffin was sitting in a rocking chair nearby. Emmett, West’s half brother, was standing in front of the porch, throwing rocks in the general direction of the digger squirrels that were darting around. He wasn’t going to hit one.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I saw you making faces at the baby earlier.”

“Babies like it when you make faces. I’m not an animal.”

“I don’t know. I’ve heard some rumors,” West said.

“All greatly exaggerated. At least these days.”

“Soft,” Jake said.

“If I’m soft, big brother, you’re marshmallow.”

“Admittedly,” Jake said.

“So, what exactly is the plan, Colt,” Ryder said, lifting up his beer bottle and using the lip of it to push his cowboy hat up. “You been back for going on six months now. You haven’t committed to any kind of work. And you’ve got this baby for... An open amount of time.”

“As a matter of fact,” Colt said. “I’m thinking of starting a custom woodworking business.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“News to me,” Jake said.

“Sorry,” Colt said. “I was planning on talking to you about it. But he asked what was going on in my life instead of just making fun of me.”

“Well, I’m your brother. I’m supposed to make fun of you.”

“I can work on your ranch still,” Colt said. “It’s gonna take some time to get it up and running. And I need to buy some equipment. I got cash to spare, but I need to be... You know, smart about all that. It’s not like I have the kind of money coming in that I did when I was winning pots in the rodeo and getting endorsement deals and things.”

“Sure,” Jake said.

“So you know, I’ll be... Careful. But I’ve been doing some things down at Mallory’s clinic.”

That earned him a grunt from Griffin. Everybody looked at him. Griffin shrugged. “What? It looks nice.”

Griffin’s discomfort with him was still pretty apparent. While Iris was completely okay with it, her husband was definitely a little bit skeptical.

“So you’re going to stay,” West said, looking at him directly.

“Yeah, I figure I’ll stay.”

The door opened, and light spilled out onto the porch. Sammy came out holding a wiggly, fussy Lily, and Rose was behind them, holding a guitar. “She’s grumpy,” Rose said.

“Mallory said that she likes music.”

And that was how he found the guitar thrust into his arms.

“Play a song.”