Claiming The Rancher's Heir (Gold Valley Vineyards #2) - Maisey Yates Page 0,46

thoughts she was having about herself and deal with her mother instead. “What did you mean about ‘someone who could love you’?”

“The Coopers are good men,” her mother said. “If Creed is anything like his father, he has a lot more honor than James Maxfield ever did.”

Wren’s whole world felt shaky, and she decided not to press the issue, because she didn’t think she could take on any more right then.

Instead, Wren and Emerson went down to the grand event hall, which was decorated and lit up, overlooking the valley below. It was all pristine glass, floor-to-ceiling windows and honey-colored wood beams. A huge fake Christmas tree was at the center, lit up, merry and bright.

It looked elegant and perfect, and stations for each winery were beginning to come together. Lindy Dodge, from another local winery, was there, setting out samples and arranging small plates of food, her big, cowboy husband, Wyatt, helping with everything. The sight of those two people, so very different from each other—Lindy, petite and polished, and Wyatt, big, rough and ready—did something strange to Wren’s insides. Made her long for something she didn’t think was even possible.

She turned away from the couple, and made a show of looking at some of the displays put up by the other wineries before busying herself with the fine details of their own.

And when Creed arrived, her world spun to a halt. Just looking at him made her mouth run dry. Made everything in her go still, and her sister’s words echoed inside her.

She doesn’t know what it’s like.

Not a relationship. No, nothing quite that simple. Not attraction either. Because that was not deep enough.

No, what Cricket didn’t understand was what happened when a man entered a woman’s life, who was wrong in every way, but fit so beautifully.

Who seemed to take all the jagged pieces and press them together, turning something ordinary into something new. Making each fractured line seem a beautiful detail rather than a fatal flaw.

What Cricket didn’t understand was the miracle involved in loving someone she shouldn’t.

Loving someone who made no sense. And the way that it rearranged one’s life into something unrecognizable.

What Cricket didn’t understand was that love was a storm.

Wren had always imagined that loving somebody was civil. That it was something she could pick out, like selecting the perfect wine in a refined cellar.

But no. That wasn’t how it was with Creed.

He was a brilliant and glorious streak of lightning, shooting across the sky, a low, resonating boom of thunder that echoed in her heart. He was nothing she would have ever looked for, and everything she was beginning to suspect she needed.

And that need wasn’t comfortable.

Because just like a storm, she couldn’t control it, didn’t know how much damage it might cause, didn’t know what the landscape would look like after it was finished raging.

Feelings like this, they could uproot trees. Reorder the slopes of mountains.

Damage her heart irrevocably.

She didn’t know what to do, because she couldn’t unthink all these things. Couldn’t unknow the feeling that made her heart squeeze tight when she looked at the man. That made her want to mess up her hair and makeup and make love to him on the floor before an important event.

That made her want to test all his rough against her soft. That made her feel enamored of their differences, rather than disdainful of them.

The reason she had fought with him from the beginning was because she had been desperate to keep him at bay. She could see that now, with stunning clarity.

It was the wrong time to be realizing all of this. Any of this. Because she had to focus on this event. It mattered. It was the reason they were together in the first place, these initiatives.

Is it?

Or had she been unable to see a way forward without Creed because she had been desperate to spend more time with him?

Desperate to make him a part of her life and part of her business.

Honesty.

Hadn’t she dedicated herself to finding honesty in who she was and what she wanted?

Her heart felt tender as she gazed at the tall, striking figure of her husband across the room, at a different winery station from her.

She didn’t even know how that was going to work. They were separate. Though they were married.

And it wasn’t just because they worked at different places. But because there was a very deliberate barrier between them when it came to emotion.

Creed had made it plain he wanted the marriage to