“Well, as long as you promise not to scheme,” Sammy said.
“The only scheming I’m doing is figuring out how to eat as much of this jam with a spoon as I can without Iris noticing.”
“Don’t do that,” Iris groused. “I’ll have to box your ears.”
“What does that even mean?” Pansy asked.
“You used to threaten to do it to me all the time,” Rose said. “And you don’t know what it means?”
Pansy shrugged. “No. But I figured it sounded frightening and that was what mattered.”
“And you’re the person keeping the streets of Gold Valley safe.” Iris shook her head. “Shocking.”
“I think we’ve already established that I’m vaguely shocking.”
“How are your wedding plans going?”
“Two weeks until the wedding, so they should be pretty well finalized,” Pansy said, looking pleased. “Though after all this I’m starting to think you and Ryder had the right idea.”
“Shotgun wedding?” Sammy asked.
“Pretty much. I wish he had gotten me pregnant. Then we could’ve just done it.”
“Right. But where does a pregnancy fit into your first year as police chief?”
Pansy sighed. “It doesn’t. I figured two years in the new job, and then I can have a baby.”
Rose and Iris exchanged glances. Babies were very far from both of their minds. For a moment, though, Iris’s face softened and Rose wondered.
A baby.
She had never wanted kids.
But as soon as she thought that it felt... Well, she didn’t know. Not strictly true. She had never thought about kids. Maybe that was the truth of it. It instantly set her mind to wondering what kind of father Logan would be.
Her stomach clenched painfully.
No. She did not want to think about that. That was ridiculous. What she’d said to him when she had been setting Pansy and Elliott up was true. She was not thinking about pairing off. Not permanently. Not just yet. Maybe never.
It was just something she had never thought about. And she would have to give it a lot of thought before she even knew if it was something that she might consider.
She hadn’t really imagined Pansy ever getting married and having a baby. She just had never seemed the type. And her soon-to-be husband West didn’t really seem like the type either, if she thought about it.
Her brother, Ryder, didn’t, either. He was the biggest father figure in her life, so it wasn’t that she didn’t think he’d be a great father. She did.
It was just that she didn’t think he would have wanted to be one. Not after spending all that time raising them.
And she knew that he had always thought he didn’t.
Until Sammy. Sammy had always seemed like an earth mother type. Definitely a nurturing, maternal person.
Sammy and Pansy were completely different from each other. So were West and Ryder. But they were doing the same things.
The common bond, she was forced to conclude, was falling in love.
It seemed to make you want different things than you did before.
She didn’t know quite what to do with that realization.
Jam making bled right into dinner preparation, and with all hands on deck they went a little bit crazy. Iris made the most beautiful sourdough, and Sammy helped put together a spectacular roast.
Pansy and Rose made themselves responsible for the green salad. And then scooted off to the store to buy beverages. Which was often Rose’s function.
She should have realized it was a mistake, though, to bundle off with her sister. Because the minute they were alone in Pansy’s little car, she turned to her.
“What’s happening with Logan?”
“What makes you think anything is happening with him?”
“The fact that you didn’t just answer my question.”
“Well... Well...”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Don’t ask me that!”
“Why not?”
“Because I am,” she grumped, “and I don’t want to tell you about it.”
“Oh... Rose...”
She could tell that her sister was genuinely upset by the information.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt. And I’m afraid it’s going to... Did you think about what it might do to us? To our family?”
Anger and guilt twisted at her heart in equal measure.
“You’re not actually worried about me,” Rose said. “You’re just worried that if something goes wrong between Logan and I things will change. You changed things already, Pansy, that’s not fair at all. Why do you get to change things and I don’t?” Irritation was moving through her like a freight train going downhill. Picking up dangerous speed.
“And what about Ryder and Sammy? If something had gone wrong between the two of them it would have destroyed everything. Sammy was prepared to leave.”
“I didn’t know about them.”
“I did,” Rose said. “I caught them kissing, and I had to keep it to myself. I knew about it, and I didn’t lecture them.”
“Well, both of them know about sex. You don’t.”
“I do now,” Rose groused. “Logan’s good at it. And he’s taught me a lot.”
She was mad now. So she wasn’t going to preserve Pansy’s delicate sensibilities. Far from it, it made her want to get into exactly what Logan had showed her in great detail.
“A man who can lift hay bales as easily as he can, can get up to some pretty athletic stuff.”
“I’m familiar with the virtues of sex with a cowboy,” Pansy said dryly. “You don’t need to fill me in on the details.”
“Well. Just making sure that you know.”
They got out of the car, and went into the small market. Rose pushed the cart, but angrily, and Pansy went about selecting chips.
For her part, Pansy seemed committed to ignoring the fact that she had made Rose angry. So Rose decided to fume with all the force of her irritation. And Pansy just doubled down on ignoring it. It was so irritatingly reminiscent of interactions she’d had with her sister when they were younger. And it was over something so...so adult. But somehow it had regressed them.
They overbought, essentially filling the cart with chips and soda, then not speaking to each other
