The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass by Maisey Yates
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEKEYWASthere early Thursday morning, along with the mail, and Iris nearly shot through the ceiling. The excitement of the key did something to erase the strangeness of the interaction that she’d had with Griffin on their trail ride. The trail ride she wasn’t certain why they’d gone on in the first place. She could feel a deep loneliness coming from him. And he could say that he liked to be alone all he wanted, but she could sense something underneath that. Something moving beneath the surface.
What was it they said? Still waters ran deep.
That was what he was like. Like a placid pool, but she could sense there was something beneath the surface, deep down under there, and it was going to take tenacity to get to it.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Or more accurately, she wasn’t sure why she wanted to.
She’d had a life filled with people who needed care. And she had done her share of caregiving as a result.
She was escaping that. She was living for herself. That she should become almost immediately consumed with the problems of a man she didn’t even know...
That made her wonder about her own sanity.
But he was compelling.
It’s because he’s handsome.
Her inner voice was pragmatic. And she felt like it probably had a decent read on the situation.
He was more than handsome. After the trail ride she had come to the conclusion that he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. The kind of man she hadn’t known that she would find appealing, but she most definitely did.
And that was probably why she found herself so compelled by him. That was kind of normal. As those things went.
“I got my keys,” she announced as she went into the dining room.
Rose was in there eating a bowl of cereal.
“Hey,” Iris said. “Remember when you baked cookies to win Logan’s affection? You can learn to make pancakes too.”
“I like cereal just fine,” Rose said, crunching noisily on the cereal, her nose wrinkled in such a way that it was clear she didn’t actually like cereal all that much. “Of course, it would help if Ryder didn’t buy old man colon-health cereal.”
“What do you want? Something with marshmallows?”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Obviously. What’s the point of being an adult otherwise?”
“You were raised by children,” Iris pointed out. “Nobody ever barred you from having sugary cereal.”
“True.”
“I got my keys,” she repeated. “I can go to the bakery today.”
Rose brightened. “Oh! Your keys! We have to go over there as soon as possible.”
“Don’t you have ranch work to do?”
“Nothing hugely pressing. I mean, nothing Logan and Ryder can’t handle. Make sure that Pansy knows she can meet us there.”
Their sister was likely working in town, so it would be easy for her to slip away for a break and wander around the bakery. And the idea of that made Iris feel... Good.
She had supported her sisters through their various life changes, and that Rose wanted to return the favor...
It was nice to be cared for. Nice to be cared for in the way that she had cared for other people for a long time.
Iris poured herself a bowl of cereal, and sat across from Rose, agreeing silently that Ryder’s choice of cereal was disappointing. But she wasn’t buying groceries for this house anymore. That was something that just occurred to her. She chewed her lip.
“What?” Rose asked.
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“Well, let’s quit thinking and go to a bakery.”
They piled into Iris’s car, and drove the short distance down to Gold Valley. They stopped at the four-way stop, and Iris peered anxiously around the corner of the redbrick building that was going to be hers. It was right there at the intersection of Main and Grape, a fantastic location, across the street from Sugar Cup. Visible, and adorable.
The redbrick facades of the buildings had old ads painted onto them, weathered with time. They were a popular backdrop for engagement photos and senior pictures, and it was easy to see why.
The whole town was imbued with historic charm. At Christmas there were white lights strung everywhere and deep green boughs, horse-drawn carriages and a parade. At Halloween the trolley led a haunted tour of the town and for Independence Day there was a big community picnic.
And this store would be right in the middle of all of it.
They parked their car right in front of the building, and she clutched the key tightly in her palm.
This was the moment of truth.
She’d been in the building before. But never when it was hers. Never when she felt like she could freely imagine all the things she wanted to do with it.
She took the key and pressed it into the lock on the blue door. It was lovely, with big windows that gave a view into the dining room. Right now, that room was empty. She would need tables and chairs. But fortunately, there was a beautiful counter with large display cases already installed.
The kitchen would be the real surprise. Good or bad.
Either it would provide everything she needed, or it was going to be a massive, disastrous money pit. And she wouldn’t know until she went in.
She turned the key, and pressed the door open, and she and Rose stepped cautiously inside. The floor was black-and-white checked linoleum, the walls exposed brick, with gorgeous wood beams running across a crisp white ceiling. Modern light fixtures made of bronze hung down low in the dining area, evenly spaced.
“Well,” she said. “Thank God the previous owners did a decent job with decor.” She winced. “Of course, they might have taken everything from the kitchen. It all depends on what all Griffin bought. And I’m not even sure he knows.”
“How has working with him been?” Rose asked, looking at her a little bit too innocently.
“He’s... Weird. I mean, exactly as you’d expect any guy who lives up there to be.” She shook her head. “I mean, he’s not living in a nice house up there. He’s in a cabin. He doesn’t always run his generator. So mostly there’s no electricity. I don’t know what he does all day, but he’s not there ninety percent of the time I’m cleaning. He seems to own a lot of properties. While cleaning, I stumbled across some paperwork underneath his couch. In folders. This isn’t his only piece of real estate. But he has a manager and basically acts like he doesn’t know any details. Or doesn’t want to know.”
“Young? Old?”
“Older than Ryder,” Iris said, though as she said that, she wasn’t entirely certain. No, he had to be. Late thirties, she would expect. His face was weathered and lined, and that only added to the appeal of it. He was a man who worked outdoors, and those hours spent in the sun were imprinted on him.
He smelled like the sun, like the mountain air.
She would not be sharing that with Rose.
“How much older?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he good-looking?” Rose asked.
“He is...” She didn’t know how to explain Griffin. Mostly, she didn’t want to talk about him. Because whatever happened up there felt totally separate from her life down here. Because the feelings that she had for him didn’t feel quite so simple as him being good-looking, though she had decided he was.
That made it feel cheap or easy. Like something silly. She couldn’t explain the sensation that worked its way through her when she looked at him. Couldn’t explain the way her eyes saw his brand of handsome and telegraphed it to her body.
Because it was more than a look. It was a feeling. One that ran deep and wide through her soul. And that didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t really that close to anyone that wasn’t part of the inner Daniels circle.
Her sister-in-law, Sammy, had come to live with them when she was sixteen. Logan had been a family friend, and then when his mother had died in the accident that had also killed Iris’s parents, he’d moved in with them too. Along with her cousins Colt and Jake. They’d grown up together. And they were the relationships in her life that endured.
She had friends, but it had never been anything like that. Never been anything like being close to people who knew your story. Who understood why birthdays were happy and sad. Who understood why Christmas and Valentine’s Day, Easter and every other holiday were celebrated with an edge of happiness that bordered on silly, because they were doing their very best to honor what their parents had given them.
To make the best life they could, because they had all known that their parents wouldn’t want them sitting around and crying on Christmas.
But that even when they laughed on that day, sometimes they wanted to cry.
They all just knew that about each other. Understood the loss.
She felt a little bit like an alien in school. An orphan. It was still such a strange word to her, one that she didn’t really identify with. Because in her mind, orphans were usually singing while doing a coordinated dance and mopping. Or little street urchins that were smudged with dirt and asking for more food in a British accent.
Orphans, in her mind, were alone.
And she never had been.
She had lost, but she had never been by herself.
But the reality was, it was them. Technically. Orphans.
It had made her an oddity, a little bit of an outcast. And she knew that it had impacted their social lives. Not very many people wanted to let their kids come over and play at the ranch run by children. The place where the “responsible adult” was eighteen years old.
But the Danielses had closed ranks around those who lived on the ranch with them. They had made their own family.
Still, it meant that the relationships she’d forged outside of that were nearly nonexistent.
And for some reason, Griffin felt linked to her. In a way no one outside of that core group ever had.
But she sensed something in him. Some deep sadness beneath the surface, and she couldn’t quite say why.
Because maybe a man who lived up there and punished himself by living such a Spartan existence had to have been wounded irrevocably?
Sure. It stood to reason.
“It’s taking you a long time to answer me,” Rose said, her eyes narrowed. “Handsome, or not?”
“He is,” Iris said. “If you like big, muscular brutes with beards.”
“And do you?”
Apparently she did. A lot.
“Rose,”Iris scolded. “I’m not open for meddling. You did it once already, and you can’t meddle here. He’s my landlord, and he’s my boss. He’s...not nice, really. He’s kind of grumpy. And I also feel safe with him. Like I know he’s not going to hurt me, or anything like that. But he’s not particularly pleasant.” She was making him sound like an ogre. But all of it was true. All of it was true, and she still craved more time in his company. “And there’s definitely no possibility of it becoming anything other than a working relationship.”
She thought back to the trail ride. That was not explicitly part of a working relationship. There was something about it that had actually been quite personal.
He’d said she was strong.
And for some reason, now she seemed to feel a core of solid strength running through her body.
It had always been there, somehow she knew it. But it had taken his perspective for her to see it.
And she wondered...
She had to wonder if at least part of the problem of why she didn’t have a lot of friends, why she had difficulty dating, was that she was just very set in her ways.
She liked things the way she liked them, and she had been running a household since she was fourteen years old.
She didn’t have to do a lot of compromising.
She cooked what she wanted for dinner, she wore whatever she wanted to. She even helped her sisters pick their clothes out, so effectively, they wore what she wanted them to as well.
Yeah, she could see why it was difficult for her to arrive at compromises. To want to try and perform to be more interesting to somebody in a bar.
He’d said something to that effect. That he just didn’t have the energy to lie to people.
Maybe that was it.
Maybe the real issue was that she lost her parents and it had devastated her. But with it had come a knowledge that life could be cruelly short. That it wasn’t protecting you from anything.
And why bother with nonsense when that reality was so clear?
Why bother to twist and contort herself to be with another person?
She wasn’t special. She never had been. Why bother to want something out of life you couldn’t get?
“Well, at least he gives you something to look at, I guess.”
Iris felt her face heat up. “I guess.”
“You know, if he’s handsome, and in proximity... It’s not like you have to marry him.”
Iris stood there and looked at her younger sister. Her younger sister, who was nearly nine years younger than she was. Who was not a virgin. At least, Iris assumed, all things considered. Her living with Logan made that unlikely.
There were these great mysteries in her world, and her sisters knew them. Her sisters that she had raised. Her sisters that had needed her to guide them and help them and take care of them all through their childhood.
Something about that seemed remarkably unfair.
Her sister was now suggesting to her that she engage in a fling. Because she knew that Iris was a virgin, and that made her feel horrendously exposed, inadequate and embarrassed. And she knew she shouldn’t feel any of those things. There was no shame in the fact that she hadn’t found anyone that was worth taking her clothes off for.
She wasn’t going to do it just because.
That was another thing about that strength that Griffin had pointed out.
She didn’t believe in doing anything just because. She was far too stubborn for that.
“I’m not having this conversation,” Iris said.
And she was rescued, because a moment later her sister Pansy walked in, dressed fully in her police uniform, the bulky belt around her hips, with her pepper spray and service weapon comically large on her petite frame.
“This is great,” Pansy said as she entered, looking around like she was scrutinizing a crime scene.
“We were just about to go into the kitchen,” Iris said.
She looked between her two sisters, and remembered what Griffin had said. About not comparing. She was struck by the fact that she did, possibly more than she realized. That something inside of her had decided that they were particularly special and deserved a certain amount of effort dumped into them.
A certain amount of effort that part of her didn’t seem to think that she deserved.
She blinked, and they headed back into the kitchen. She breathed out a sigh of relief, and gave a small prayer of thanks.
“Ovens,” she said. “And big giant mixing bowls. And everything that I could ever need.”
She wanted to run back up the mountain and give Griffin a big hug, because clearly he had purchased all the kitchen equipment.
His business manager did.
You should send her a thank-you note. You shouldn’t think about hugging him.
No, and the thought of hugging him made her feel flushed, and she didn’t want to be flushed in front of Rose and Pansy.
But she bet his body was hot. And very, very hard and...and...
She turned her focus away from that and fast.
At the back of the kitchen was a small door. And she wondered if that led to the apartment.
“I want to... I want to go upstairs.”
“What’s upstairs?” Pansy asked.
“It’s an apartment,” Iris replied, brushing past her sisters and heading toward the door, which unlocked with the same key. There was a small, narrow staircase, the stairs painted black. She walked boldly up, having the vague fear that there would be spiders. Spiders seemed to be a primary concern.
But when they got up there, they were welcomed instead by a beautiful open space with soaring ceilings. The natural lighting coming in from outside kept it from seeming gloomy or dark in any way. It had the same floor as downstairs, the same exposed brick and beams. The kitchen and living room were the same large space, and there was a large couch and coffee table at the center of the room.
She wandered to one of the doors, and pushed it open. A bedroom. Complete with a bed.
“This is a fully...furnished apartment,” Rose said.
“I know,” Iris said.
And right then, she knew the decision was made. Right then, she knew exactly what she was going to do.
“I... I think I’m going to move here.”
“What?” Rose asked. “You can’t leave Hope Springs.”
Pansy, for her part, was silent.
“I think I need to leave Hope Springs,” Iris said.
“Why?” Rose asked. “I’ve never wanted to leave. I’m perfectly happy there.”
“I left,” Pansy said. “I needed to. You love it, Rose, it’s not the same. And it isn’t that we don’t love it. I mean, it isn’t that I don’t love it. But I had to move away to find my life. It’s different for you.”
Iris nodded slowly. “I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t think I can. All I can tell you is there’s too much of my sadness wrapped up in that house. And there’s so much happiness there too. But I’m one thing there. I’m a caregiver. And it has to stop. I have to take care of myself. I have to find... What I want.”
Right now, what she wanted was a stern jaw and blazing blue eyes.
Yes, he was...something. A project, maybe.
But there was something that appealed about him in a different way. He wasn’t a safe space, at all. He didn’t treat her like she was boring or sweet or soft.
He wasn’t just a project. Wasn’t just something for her to pour herself into.
He was something she could...test herself on.
He was a mountain, and she wanted to climb him.
“Nobody wants to stop you from finding what you want,” Rose said.
“I know you don’t. And you know what, it’s not you. It’s not any of you. It’s me. I’m in a habit. I’m in a rut. And I’m comfortable. That’s the thing. I take care of everyone else, but it doesn’t mean I don’t take care of me. I take care of me in a very particular way. That never tests me or pushes me or makes me contend with the big wide world outside, because it scares me. It’s easy for me to just stay home. It’s easy for me to tell myself that you and Pansy need something that I don’t. But you need me to push you and take care of you, and treat you like little birds, while I recede into the background.” Iris shook her head. “It’s not martyrdom. It’s self-protection.”
It all became very clear. Because she might be strong. Stubborn. But she was also afraid. Very afraid.
And that stubborn streak was well in place to protect her.
“Iris,” Rose said. “If this is still about Elliott...”
“It is,” Iris said. “But in a good way. That forced me to realize that nothing about the way I’m living matches up with what I secretly dream my life is going to be like. And of course I have dreams. But they don’t include being the spinster aunt in the attic at Ryder and Sammy’s house. And if they have more kids, you know I’m going to end up in the attic once all the bedrooms are filled. I want to have my own house. And maybe my own kids someday. I want to have my own business. My own dreams. I want to fall in love. I am ridiculously offended that I have never seen a naked man and you both have.”
Rose grinned, sly like a fox. Pansy looked like she might choke.
“So I need to reevaluate some things and change things. And I’m prioritizing the bakery. But this apartment is here. And I have the chance to live in it, and I think I’m going to use it to further my goals.”
“Your goals of seeing a penis?”
Iris shot Rose a deadly glare. “Well, not living in my older brother’s house would help with that.”
She felt humiliated and hot and embarrassed. And she hated that most of all.
It was one thing to be untouched, it was quite another to be as... Repressed as she had let herself be. She had just kind of ignored that part of herself for a long time. More self-protection. Because mostly, if she put herself out there, she knew she was going to end up hurt. Even though everything had worked out for Pansy and Rose, she had watched them be devastated by various hiccups in their relationships.
She had watched Sammy tear through men for all of her teenage and adult life. And while she had seemed mostly untouched by it, it was just something that Iris didn’t ever think she could do. Sammy and Ryder, on the other hand, had had an extremely intense time navigating turning their friendship into something more. And along the way there had been a lot of fights, a pregnancy and her brother getting his heart shattered for a period of time.
Iris had watched it all like a terrified spectator who was a little bit happy to be in the safe seats.
Basically, she hadn’t seen a lot in the way of casual relationships. She questioned, deeply, if the Danielses were capable of having them.
Maybe that was another issue with them.
They had lost so much early on that when they found love, they wanted to cling to it hard. So casual seemed to be next to impossible.
But she was going to have to try at some point.
Immediately, Griffin came to mind, and she shoved his image aside.
That man had heartbreak written all over him.
That man didn’t even have running water. He bathed in a creek and had an outhouse. He was not a good choice for a physical only affair.
Of course, now you’ll have an apartment...
And he wouldn’t come down from the mountain. So it was moot.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Rose said. “And you know that you have our support whatever you do.”
“I’m fine with you moving,” Pansy said. “In fact, I say, it’s about time. You don’t owe anybody your eternal indentured servitude.”
“She is not in service to us,” Rose protested. “I thought she made pancakes because she liked them.”
Being with Logan had changed Rose quite a bit. Their relationship had brought a certain amount of maturity and understanding to her younger sister. She had become a woman, not because she’d had sex, that was a severely antiquated idea. And anyway, that would mean Iris was a... a maiden. Not a woman herself, and that was not true at all.
Rose had become a woman because she had to learn how to love somebody who had wounds as deep as her own. Because she had to learn to care about someone else’s feelings even more than her own, and she had to consider what life was like for someone else. What someone else was feeling.
All of that had worked to make her a much easier person to deal with. Because for all that Rose had always been a delight, she had also always been a handful.
But sometimes, she was every inch the girl that she always had been. And as far as Iris could tell, it was usually with her.
“I do like making you pancakes,” Iris said, knowing she was placating her a little bit. “Don’t get me wrong. But...”
“She needs to make pancakes for a naked man,” Pansy said, and Iris could tell her sister was slightly triumphant that she’d been the one to say it.
Pansy and Iris would just never be as comfortable making intentionally suggestive comments as Rose was.
“Why not,” Iris said, looking around the space. “Really. Why not.”
“Well, when you tell Ryder you’re moving out, maybe don’t mention the pancakes for the naked man,” Rose said.
“I should,” Iris said. “Lord knows we actually made things a little bit too easy on him.”
“That was a kindness on our parts,” Pansy said. “Because Colt and Jake didn’t make anything easy.”
Her cousins had been hellions when they were younger. Of course, now they were the ones that were home the least, spending most of their time on the road with the rodeo.
But that was coming to an end, at least, as far as she understood it. Jake had talked about buying a ranch in town, and everyone was hoping that meant he would be around more.
“Nothing was easy for any of us,” Iris said. “But I think we’ve all grown up pretty well. Or at least... I’m on the way to growing up.”
“Iris, you were born grown-up,” Rose said.
And there was something about that statement that settled wrong inside of her. She knew that it was a compliment. About her maturity, or whatever. But it made her question some things.
She was born grown-up, and she had never rebelled. Not ever.
And she had to wonder if she was overdue.
Well, not right now, she needed to start a business.
She did.
And she had all the means to do it.
She looked around the space again. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to need to make some lists. List of things I’m going to need for this apartment. And a list of what I’m going to put on the menu. Do you want menu items named after you?”
Pansy and Rose brightened. “Yes,” they both said in unison.
“Then you’re going to help me. And your favorites are going to be your namesakes.” She grinned. “And, if you want me to make you food, all you have to do is come here.”
She was suddenly feeling more confident than she had in a long time.
The proper lady in her wanted to write a thank-you note. To Griffin Chance.
Well, she could do better than a thank-you note. When she was finished making her menu, she could bring him a selection from it. And maybe, she would even name a specialty item after him.
She would just have to figure out what that would be.
