The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(71)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


COLT DIDN’T NEED HER.

As Mallory sat down on the bottom step, that thought thundered through her like a herd of wild horses. He didn’t need her anymore. Not at all. He had in the beginning. Because he hadn’t known what he was doing. But he did now. Full well. And he’d stepped up, he said that he was going to adopt Lily. Adopt her. And she was... She was overjoyed.

Sad, too, because poor Cheyenne.

That entire moment had been fraught. But she’d been able to help. She stood there and she’d comforted the mother of the child, which was something that mattered to her. It was a calling in life. One that meant the world to her. But it made her feel displaced. Because Cheyenne was gone, and Lily was taken care of, and she... Had to go back to being her.

You were okay with that, remember? You knew you had to do this.

She was. She was, of course. And she wasn’t going away. It was just that... The situation with Colt was intense anyway, and it was one that she probably shouldn’t encourage. Things had reached a head tonight, and they’d broken down, and it was... It was a lot.

She took a breath and stood up, feeling the dull thud of her heartbeat echoing in her head. Because this felt like breaking, but it shouldn’t. Because actually everything was fitting together exactly like it needed to, so it was a good thing.

She slipped out quietly, taking Lily’s seat out of her car and making sure to set it in the house. He was going to need to get a family vehicle. But that was a conclusion he could come to on his own.

Because Colt Daniels wasn’t a manbaby.

He didn’t need a mother.

He was a father.

That made her heart clench. She had helped. She had done exactly what she’d set out to do. Lily was safe. Cheyenne was hurting, but she would be okay. She had to believe that.

And now it was time for her to get back to her life. Because that’s what she was doing. She was building a new life for herself here, and she needed to go ahead and get back to that. She’d sought shelter with Colt and Lily. And there had been something singular and wonderful about it, but it was time for it to end.

He didn’t need her anymore. And if he didn’t need her anymore then... That was that.

It meant she needed to get back to the business of the life she was building here, or the rug really would get pulled out from under her. She really would end up rebuilding all over again. And she just... Couldn’t.

She sighed heavily, her chest feeling like there were fragments of glass resting inside of it. It was silly that she was feeling like this. But normal. She was attached to them both. She cared for them both. She blinked, her eyes feeling like there had been sand scrubbed into them, and got into the car, taking the drive up to the cabin. And once she was inside, she shot Colt a text letting him know that she’d gone home. Giving him and Lily this time. She opened the door to the cabin, and it was strange. She meant to make a home here, but she hadn’t done that. She’d gone and set about making a home inside Colt’s, and that was the wrong thing to do. It had been silly.

If she was hurt, it was her own fault. She should know better than that.

She wasn’t supposed to build her healing around someone else. That just caused pain, and she knew it, because she’d done it already.

She pushed that to the side. She wasn’t dwelling on that. Not on any of that.

She wasn’t dwelling at all.

She realized that she’d left all the appliances down at Colt’s house. Because she fished them out of the barn six weeks ago, and had never meaningfully stayed here since. She puttered around up here once, but that was it.

“You’re a fool, Mallory Chance,” she said.

So she crawled underneath the blanket and lay on the couch and watched a streamed movie on her computer, and then she took herself off to bed. But she felt restless, because she missed his arms.

And that was as good a reason as any to put things on pause. It didn’t mean that they would never...

It didn’t mean that.

She had spent her life so married to the intensity of being in a relationship. But she and Colt weren’t that, and they’d never been. They helped each other. They were friends. And sometimes they had sex.

All right, pretty much every night they had sex multiple times, but that was how it was when they were living together because it was convenient. It wouldn’t be like that now. But it would be better. They would have some kind of reasonable separation. She would be... Important to Lily, she hoped.

Until Colt gets married, because now he’s taking on this kind of traditional life...

She shoved that to the side. And she decided she was going to sleep instead of think. Because right now thinking hurt too bad.

She woke up to the sound of thundering footsteps in her house, and she startled, windmilling her arms.

Wrapping her blanket around her, she scampered to the door, conscious of the fact that the early morning light was filtering underneath her bedroom window curtains. She hadn’t realized she’d actually fallen asleep. Apparently she had. She cracked open the bedroom door, the blanket over her head like a hood, held tight right under her chin by her fisted fingers. And she heard... The sound of sizzling bacon. And smelled that not long after.

“Colt?”

“The one and only. Were you expecting another man to be in your house cooking breakfast?”