The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,36
you. So what’s the point?”
And just like that he was as angry at himself as he’d been with her a few moments before. He wanted to push her away. He wanted to keep her here.
He didn’t like the pull she created inside him.
He was used to certainty.
That was one thing about being up here that was good. His life was easy, and it was stripped back to basics. This wasn’t basic. It was something more. He couldn’t make sense of it any more than he could deny it.
He didn’t want her sad. That was all he knew right then.
“Why don’t you name it the Mountain Climber? Because you climbed up the mountain to meet me. And... I don’t feel like I deserve any credit for this. I’m not doing you a favor. Not really.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Really?”
“Really. I mean, it’s a business deal, right? So you don’t need to go doing me any favors. We are trading.” He looked down into the Tupperware. “What’s that one?”
“Well, the trouble with my sister Rose is that if you name a cookie after her, I suppose it has to have some Rose in it. So this is rose and lemon. And then I’ve got Pansy’s special, which is a sugar cookie with blackberry buttercream, which is of course kind of blue, for her uniform. Ryder’s is chocolate chunk. Because he’s kind of classic, but also...just him. Sammy’s is my take on a hummingbird cake, but in a cookie. Coconut crushed pineapple. Because my sister-in-law is a whole thing, but very sweet with it.”
“And this one?” he asked.
“Logan’s. He’s my...” She hesitated, and something in his chest hitched slightly. “Well, he’s my future brother-in-law. But he’s like a brother already. It’s complicated. It’s very complicated.”
“Your family is obviously important to you.”
“You have no idea. We just... We raised each other. Me and my siblings. And Logan. Sammy.” She pointed to two other cookies in the box. “Colt and Jake. My cousins. Pecan sandy and white chocolate raspberry.”
“I see.” He didn’t quite have it in him to ask. The silence stretched between them, and he wondered if she would offer. Clearly, she was deciding. Finally she said, “Our parents died in an accident. All of them.”
“Shit,” Griffin said.
It took a lot to shock him. Frankly, his tolerance for tragedy was blown way the hell out of proportion. But that did it. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Rose was six. Pansy was eight. Ryder was eighteen. He was the only one. The other boys were fifteen through seventeen. Sammy’s parents didn’t die, but they were abusive, and she was our neighbor. Eventually, she moved in with us. Well, she parked her camper on the property. It took her and Ryder a long time, but eventually they admitted that their feelings for each other were more than just friendship. But it was tough for them. Because... Nobody else really has what we do. We were so dependent on each other for everything. It was all hands on deck. The boys helping on the ranch, and me doing my best to take care of the household stuff. We just all did the best we could. And I guess that kind of explains me. I guess you can kind of see how I forgot to move on. How I forgot to get out of the role that I was in. I’m kind of an empty nester, I guess.” She scrunched her face up. “It’s the strangest thing.”
He felt like an ass then, for thinking what he had about her, and that was a feat. But she’d been through a hell of a lot more than he’d given her credit for.
When she’d implied she’d lost her mother he hadn’t realized this was the whole story.
“Sorry,” he said. “About some of the things that I’ve said to you.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Because I didn’t ask.”
“I realized that.”
He let out a long, slow breath. “It’s been a while since I’ve done... People.”
“I assume you don’t want me to ask,” she said looking down.
He shook his head once. “That’s true. I don’t.”
“And if I did?”
“I wouldn’t answer you.”
It was all dangerously too close to things he didn’t want to think about. Things he didn’t want to deal with. Not with her. There were just some things that were sacred ground, and there was no stepping on them. Not ever.
There was no use going over what couldn’t be changed. There was just no use at all.