“Wow. Well, you do know that he owns part of the ranch, right? You can’t actually kick him out.”
“But I did,” she said. “I threw him out. And I’m sure that Ryder will support me.”
“Oh. I’m sure he will. But... Like all wounds, I suspect this one might just need a little bit of time.”
She did not call her sister a virgin. Because that would be mean. And she did not say that Iris didn’t understand.
But in this case, she felt like her sister didn’t understand.
She might be making her best effort toward understanding. But she had never been through anything quite like this. But Rose knew that she supported her.
She didn’t need the exact perfect advice to feel supported.
As for the rest. She was going to have to figure out how she lived her dream when half of it was gone.
Well, she didn’t know what she could do about her dream. But she had some thoughts about being stuck and what she was going to allow her life to look like in the future. What she was going to allow from herself. Because she damn well knew that pain could make a person mean. And the only solution to that was to find a way to not let it infect you.
She had worried a few weeks ago about becoming Barbara Niedermayer.
And that was why she found herself driving into town with a plate of leftover cookies, and a thermos of spiced cider.
When she knocked on Barbara’s door, the older woman opened it. She looked shocked.
“Have you come to yell at me some more?” she asked, her tone prickly.
“No,” Rose said. “Actually thought you might like some cookies. And an apology. And maybe... Maybe a visitor.”
Maybe she couldn’t fix Logan. She couldn’t fix anyone who didn’t want to be fixed. And right now, there was no fixing her heart.
But she could mend some fences.
And all things considered, that mattered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HE HAD LOOKED for answers on his best friend’s front porch. He had looked for them in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
But he was miserable.
He was out of places to look for answers. There was only one other place he could think of. One place where he might be able to find what he was looking for. He didn’t want to go there. Especially not this time of year. When the ground was frozen and everything was dead.
Guilt choked him. He never went there.
And he was the only one who would. Because he was the only one who cared about Jane Heath. But he had never been able to bring himself to go and stare at a cold, dead stone that was supposed to stand monument to everything his mother had been. Alive. Warm and beautiful. How could a rock over a hole in the ground ever be her resting place?
She wasn’t contained there. He knew it. Her soul was out somewhere else, being bright and brilliant because he could never believe that death was just the end.
And because he carried in his heart that idea that she was somewhere else, he had never made pilgrimage to her grave. Not since the funeral.
But he was miserable, and he was on the verge of having to leave the only place he really cared about. The only woman he’d ever really loved, and that was bringing him to a point where he had to ask questions. Because Ryder was right. He wanted to be told he had no choice.
He wanted to be sent away. He wanted them to condemn him, to confirm that he was the villain in the story. Because that was the safety of guilt.
That guilt that he carried over the gift he had given to his mother. It kept him safe.
It kept him separate.
Made sure he carried all the responsibilities that he had given to himself during her life. So that he never had to take a risk with the Daltons. So that he never had to take a risk with anything.
He parked his truck at the gate to the old graveyard, and slowly, a bouquet of flowers clutched in his hand, he made his way up the path. He might not have been back here for seventeen years. But he knew exactly where the gravestone was.
He stood frozen, staring down at the spot. Staring down at his mother’s name.
And he knew the real reason he didn’t come here.
Because it hurt. Because it all hurt so damn bad. And time didn’t do anything to take it away. It was just there were some days when he didn’t think of it. Some days when he woke up, and the first thing on his mind wasn’t her loss.
But when it was there... It was as fresh as the day, and it all came flooding back here and now.
Jane Heath.
Beloved mother.
Not daughter. Because her parents had disowned her when she had become pregnant on her own. Not wife, because Hank Dalton hadn’t loved her that way.
Mother. His mother. It was all she had been in the end, and he had felt so... He felt so much like carrying on her memory and honoring her hurt was the best thing he could do.
That carrying the guilt over what had happened kept her memory alive. Because God knew it actually hurt less than just carrying around the love of her.
It gave him something to do.
A grudge felt pretty active. Even if that grudge was against himself. Making talismans and putting holidays off-limits. Not celebrating Christmas because he had decided he didn’t deserve it. Not giving gifts. Not getting them.
Not allowing himself to love the one woman that he truly wanted.
“Mom,” he said, his throat tight. “I’m so sorry that I haven’t... That I haven’t visited. I miss you.” He swallowed down the rock that was climbing up his throat. “I haven’t been too busy. I’m just a coward. It hurts to stand here. To have to face the fact that you’re gone. Which is
