“You want to own a bakery?”
Iris laughed. “Not seriously. I’m not that much of a dreamer.”
“No,” Rose said wistfully. “I don’t suppose you are. I don’t suppose I am, either.”
Iris laughed. “You are a dreamer, Rose. That’s why you meddle in people’s business. But I like that about you. I quit having those kinds of dreams a long time ago. But I’ve found a version of reality that I like quite a bit.” She squeezed her sister’s arm. Iris smiled. “It’s a good thing, too. Because nobody can keep a business going in this building, and I have no reason to believe I would be able to do any better. So it’s a very good thing that I’m just too practical to ever take something like that on. Plus I don’t have the money.”
Rose didn’t feel glad of any of that. Rose just felt sad. Sad and sorry that life had taken her sister’s ability to dream away from her.
But it made her more determined to do the dreaming for her. And it made her feel even more certain of her decision to try and get Iris and Elliott together.
“It’s not that nice anyway,” she said, looking at the beautiful redbrick building and lying horribly about its aesthetic appeal.
“Yeah. I get to bake bread and cake for you.” Iris nudged Rose’s shoulder with her own, and the two of them began to walk toward the truck. “I know you might not believe it, Rose, but taking care of you makes me happy.”
For some reason, it just made Rose want to cry.
CHAPTER FOUR
LOGAN WAS THANKFUL that by midday his chores had not put him in proximity to Rose. Damn that girl.
He was still fuming over last night. She was being dense as hell. And she didn’t seem to think so. In fact, the little hellion was dead set on arguing with him, sure as shooting that she knew when a man was attracted to her.
She didn’t. And if she had any damned clue what had been going through his mind...
He’d had half a mind to teach her a real lesson. Right out there on the dance floor in front of God, Iris and everybody.
He hadn’t. He wouldn’t. And until he got that through his thick head, it was best he didn’t see her.
He was out in the far north pasture, having just driven the cows from one field to the next. The ride had done him good, though not enough good.
He maneuvered his horse around and looked behind him, at the broad expanse of green rolling to the base of imposing mountains, covered in jagged pines with sharp peaks rising up above the treetops.
He had spent the first sixteen years of his life on a modest street just off the main drag of Gold Valley. His mom was best friends with Linda Daniels, and he had spent hours here on the ranch. Ryder had taught him to ride a horse.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened in his life if he hadn’t ended up living on Hope Springs Ranch. He hadn’t exactly planned on growing up to become a cowboy. Mostly because he didn’t know that was an option. He wouldn’t have been able to figure out the steps a kid took to get from the life he’d been born into to a life on a range. Sure, he knew that Ryder’s dad did it. But Ryder’s father had also been the chief of police in Gold Valley, in addition to being a rancher, and his uncle had worked odd jobs at other ranches to make ends meet.
Ryder had managed to turn the place into a profitable full-time operation, and some of that was the willingness of Logan and Rose to work for free for a while. But now they were all doing decently well, and it was one of those things that Logan couldn’t help but...
One of the weird-ass things in his life that was difficult to sort out.
He missed his mom. Every damn day. She had been his only parent. The only one he never needed. Didn’t matter who the hell his biological father was. He didn’t care.
Jane Heath had been all the influence and love he had needed. She had given him everything.
And losing her had been a blow he hadn’t thought he could live through. The guilt that went along with it was a gift in some ways. Because he’d had to keep going since she couldn’t.
His heart had to keep beating for her, because he owed it to her. And there was no amount of time he could put in that would ever make it right.
And this time of year...when the weather got cold and people got merry, it just reminded him of every step that had gone into creating that tragedy.
Of presents that had turned into curses.
Losing her had shaped him. Was the reason he was sitting here now on a horse.
Her loss had made him the man he was and he supposed that was the very best tribute he could offer. Even if it did make everything he did, everything he was, chafe like a son of a gun sometimes.
Tragedy felt so wound up in the good things in his life that he didn’t know how to separate it.
“There you are.”
He turned and saw Rose riding up on her paint, her cowgirl hat pulled down low on her head, her ponytail flying in the wind. She was wearing a battered old ranch jacket that was unzipped, revealing a scoop-neck top underneath. And with every motion the horse made, he could see a hint of soft, pale flesh.
Damn.
He blamed last night. He blamed holding her in his arms.
And even more, he blamed the look of confusion on her face when
