The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(86)

But it was going to require her peeling back layer after layer. It was going to require her to sit with herself. It was going to require her to confront all the deep dark things that existed underneath the surface, and her own fear along with it.

And sitting there, she just didn’t know if she was that kind of brave.

She understood now. Why a man would join the rodeo.

Because if this was learning to heal, learning to love, then even she would rather take being trampled by a bull any day of the week.

Because she thought that she was running away to Gold Valley to start a new life, but in reality, she had just been coming to find more of the same.

Something that was all hers. Something she could conduct, control.

Removing herself from any kind of accountability.

But even though she could see that, she didn’t know what else she could do. Even though she could see it, she didn’t know how to find the bravery in herself to go after them. Because the bottom line was, he’d said that he loved her.

And she knew that to accept it would be to surrender. To something that would take it all from her. All her emotions. All her everything.

And she didn’t want to give that to someone else.

She didn’t want to expose herself to loss and rejection.

Not ever again.

But this was the alternative. And it was hell.

And unlike that day in the hospital, that day of loss and pain, this was a hell of her own making.

But she didn’t know how to climb out of it. She never had.

If she had... She would have done it fifteen years ago.

He offered you his hand. You didn’t take it.

And she worried that now she’d be stuck down here forever.



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


COLT WAS SITTING in his living room, holding Lily and drowning in misery. He’d said that he loved her. He tried to get her to see what he felt.

And all that pain had poured out of her, and he hadn’t been able to stop it, or help it.

And he wasn’t a man given to misery, not after all the things he’d been through. He preferred guilt. He preferred a good healthy dose of martyrdom and shame. Because all those things went well with liquor. And this was just heartbreak, and that was something he wasn’t equipped to handle.

He looked at Lily, sleeping in her bassinet, and his heart did something strange.

“Someday,” he said. “Some asshole is going to come into your life. I’m going to hate it. I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with your heartbreaks. I’ll tell you what. I’m never going to let you date a man like Mallory did. Because he did a number on her.”

But it was more than that. He knew that. The loss of the baby was a grief that hurt her still. But there was something more too.

He also didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know what to do to make her see that when he said he loved her, it wasn’t a manipulation tactic. That when he said he wanted forever, he damn well meant it. Well, there’s always been one way he’d known how to express himself. But he hadn’t written a song in a long time, and he sure as hell hadn’t written about grief. About loss. About love.

He picked up his guitar and began strumming. Lily shifted, and maybe it was a coincidence, but he saw a little smile on her face. He was broken. But he was determined not to close himself off again. Because he had to be better for Lily. He had to do better for himself.

For his family.

And he started to strum, and as he did, a melody came straight from his heart. That Mallory melody.

And with it, lyrics, the first that he’d heard inside his soul for years. He strummed until he found the progression. The one that matched the echo in his heart. And then he started to write. It wasn’t for anyone. Just for him. But it was something he’d stopped himself from doing after his parents had died. He only played other people’s music. Because it was easier. Because the words in his own soul were something he didn’t dare give voice to. He would now. Even broken. Even bleeding.

In the end, there was one truth that was before him, glaring and bright and brilliant as the sun.

And that was that he could love her whether she ever loved him back.

But he could love exhaustively, even if she did say no. Because eventually love would win. Eventually, it had to.

It was the only thing that could heal.

It was the only thing that gave him the strength to get through it—the very same thing that made her breathe was the same thing that was going to make sure she survived.

All that imperfect love.

It didn’t need to be perfect.

It just needed to be brave.



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


MALLORY WAS AFRAID that it was too late. Because she felt hollowed out and stunned, the way that she had when her sister-in-law and niece had died.

But fear gripped her, fear kept her from going after him. And she just sat there in that cabin that he told her to leave, feeling small and wounded.

He loved her.

He’d said that he loved her.

But how would she ever...

She had never been enough. That fear had driven her for her entire life. Every time she’d felt compared to Griffin, and been found lacking. Every time teachers had said oh you’re Griffin’s sister! Only to be met with her average performance by comparison with her exceptional older brother.

You can do it, Mallory. You just have to apply yourself.