and let her sister come in. “What’re you doing here?”
“I thought you were here, and I came by to check in. I took an early shift this morning.”
“Oh. Well, so did I.”
She smiled, but knew it was a rueful smile. Considering she had come in early to avoid her family. And yet, there her sister was. She couldn’t quite seem to escape them.
“What’s wrong?”
Iris narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t say anything was wrong.”
“You look like something is wrong.”
“It’s not,” she said. “I promise.” Except she was lying, and she was a very bad liar. She didn’t have any practice with it.
“Are you nervous about the bakery?”
“No. Not at all. I’m excited about this. I... I want this. But it’s a change, and I want to focus on that. On the change. And so is moving away from Hope Springs, and I am going to do it.”
“I know you are,” Pansy said. “I really do understand, Iris.”
“I know you do. Rose doesn’t like change, and everything she needs is right there at the ranch. She... She fell in love there.”
“There’s life off of it, though. Ryder and Rose might’ve found love there, but I didn’t. I found it in an unlikely place.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I really don’t want to pry.”
“Well, then you could not pry.”
“No,” she said, looking incredibly, falsely sad. “With great regret I’m going to. This guy that you’re working with... The landlord...”
“I think my problem is that I haven’t been in the vicinity of an attractive male that I’m not related to in...ever.”
“You’re not related to Logan,” she pointed out.
“But he’s like a brother to me.”
“Didn’t stop Rose.”
“Well, clearly he’s not like a brother to Rose.” She sighed. “He is to me.”
“So you think that you are just having some kind of testosterone overload?”
“It occurred to me. I mean, what’s wrong with me, that I go out to make a life for myself and immediately get...fixated on a very unfriendly man that I’m working with. It’s not like he’s nice,” she muttered.
“Did something happen?”
“He got mad at me yesterday.”
“He’s not dangerous, is he?” Pansy asked, and she could sense a shift in her younger sister. Her protective instincts going into overdrive. Pansy might be Iris’s younger sister, but she was also a police officer. And Iris knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to go handle a man who had gotten violent with her.
“No. Not like that at all. Just... Angry. He’s angry. And I’ve had my fill of caregiving and taking on projects.” Unease spiked in her chest, because that was close to the truth, but it wasn’t quite it. And she didn’t want to get any closer to it. “I have this bakery,” she continued. “And I think he’s beautiful. And yesterday even when he was mad I wanted to... I don’t even have the words for what I want. And I feel so horrifically frustrated by it.” Tears pricked her eyes, and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t sadness. It was a deep frustration.
“I took care of you. You and Rose and everyone else. I did the best I could. But I... I didn’t really have anyone to take care of me. And it isn’t that Ryder didn’t do his best, he did. But I think he considered me in his boat. It’s okay. I’m not... Upset about it. But there was no one there to talk to me about dating, or sex, or anything like that. And the idea of caring for someone that way just scared me anyway so I kind of shut it off. I didn’t want to go to bars and hook up. Because I couldn’t imagine giving that much of myself to someone I would never see again. I still can’t imagine it, but I don’t want... I don’t want to care about someone that much. But I want him. And I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Well,” Pansy said after a long moment. “I know that I didn’t do the caretaking. But I understand... I understand feeling like you missed something. Something big. West infuriated and frustrated me, but not half as much as what he made me feel. I don’t have the same reasons as you, Iris, but I wanted to be the chief of police. And being a police officer at all in a small town, knowing you might have to pull over some guy that you hooked up with... I was never into that. It just sounded like too much work. Like