The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(78)

His words tumbled down somewhere low inside of her chest and hit something tender. But just in that moment, the doctor came in. “Mom and baby are stable,” he said. “She’s going to need some assistance in the NICU. But I’m optimistic.” And if there was one thing Mallory knew it was that doctors were never needlessly optimistic.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”

“The husband said you could go home now. His wife is still in recovery.”

Colt helped her up out of the chair. “Thank you. We’ll call tomorrow.”

And she found herself being propelled out of the building and back toward the car. She sat in the front seat with him on the way back to the cabin. And he stayed there with her all night, holding her in his arms.

For a minute, she thought about resisting. But in the end, his own words kept echoing in her head. Because he was right. There were a fair number of terrible things in the world that you couldn’t do anything with. There was nothing to do but accept them. So why couldn’t she accept this good thing, even if just for tonight?

COLT’S DATE PLANS had been blown all to hell by what had happened the night before. But he had no issues delaying it for a day, and Iris and Griffin were happy to take Lily again. He wanted to do something special for Mallory.

Mallory.

The revelations of last night had only cemented everything that he already felt about her.

Finding out about her loss... Well, it damn near killed him. But... It left him in awe of her. Even more than he already was, which was an incredible damn thing.

Because it was Mallory who had brought him to the place where he could even begin to be what Lily needed. And he saw that now, for sure and certain.

That Lily was why everything fit together now.

That Mallory was the start, the spark of all the change in him, of the ability to become the man that he needed to be. It was her. And more than that, the feelings that she aroused in him. That she had brought out in him since the first moment he’d seen her. The real reason that he hadn’t been able to forget her, even though after that first time he’d gone back to the rodeo, gone back to pretending that he was the same man he’d been before he’d seen her.

But he hadn’t been.

She had created a storm inside of him that had washed away the remnants of what he’d been. A storm that had brought with it destruction then new life in all manner of brilliance, that had brought a new dawn into the darkest night he’d been living in for so many years. The hope he hadn’t imagined possible for a man like him.

She was a revolution all in herself. She was his fate, with beautiful curly hair and a floral dress. And she had been from the first moment they’d seen each other, and if they’d both been brave enough to step outside of that life they’d been living then, they could’ve had each other that much sooner. If she’d known then that she should leave that boyfriend of hers. If he’d understood then, without Trent dying—without a baby coming into his life—that happiness was never going to be found for him on the circuit, no glory wrapped up in winning prize money.

But they both needed something else, something big. And he’d failed at the first big shift in his life—he’d let it make him afraid. He’d let it close him off. But not again. Not again. He wouldn’t do it again. He was going to rise up now, and he was going to take hold of everything beautiful left in this world.

He was going to embrace fate rather than curse her; he was going to claim it all, rather than running away.

He heard the sound of a car engine, and he stood up from his position in Mallory’s living room. He was going to have to hope that she forgave him for co-opting the space and making a few improvements.

She would see his truck parked out front, which was just as well, because he didn’t want to scare her or anything like that, and he had a feeling that if she just walked in to see a dark, shadowy figure standing in her living room, it might make her feel uncomfortable. And that was the last thing he wanted.

He heard footsteps on the porch, heard the door open, and she stopped as soon as she got inside. “Colt?”

“I hope you don’t mind, but I thought we might have dinner in. After last night I figured you’d be tired.”

“I am.”

“How is Lizzie today?”

Mallory smiled. “She’s doing well, and so is baby girl. I’m so... I’m so happy for them. It could have gone very badly and it didn’t.”

“She had an amazing midwife on her side.”

Mallory ducked her head, compliments still obviously not sitting easily with her. “Oh,” she said. “It smells amazing. Did you cook?”

“Yes. I made everything but the bread. You mentioned you liked fettuccine, and I figured that I would... Make some for you.”

“You actually made Italian food.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you remembered that I said I liked it?”

“Yes,” he said.

And as much as it made him want to punch her ex in the face, he would never get tired of the wonder on her face when he fed her. When he touched her just with affection.

Because it healed something inside of him, and made him feel... Made him feel he was worth more than he’d ever imagined he might be. And for a minute that made him feel guilty, because it came from a wounded place in her, but maybe that was all part of it.