That was when Iris had learned to cook. When she was tired of being in a transition. When she was tired of feeling the loss of her mother so keenly.
There were recipes. And she had watched her mother make bread countless times. So, she had purposed to make some herself. She had decided that she would take their situation and make it into something more. And she had found that food had taken a life that had felt shattered beyond repairing, and had introduced joy back into it. It was one reason she loved to cook. One reason she loved to bake. Because those early birthday parties, when their parents weren’t around, had been painful. But a beautiful cake had brought warmth back into it. Had made them feel like their mother was there in some regard.
And it didn’t matter to Iris if she was the one baking them. Or even baking her own. It had connected her to the woman that she missed more than anything.
She still felt connected to her through her cooking. It was magical to her.
The way that food brought you back to places you could never go again. Brought back people long gone.
Canned chili brought back the acrid taste of grief, loss and loneliness.
Freshly baked bread brought joy.
She moved away from the kitchen, and took a turn around the room. There was a couch, one that dipped in the middle and looked well-worn. And she had to assume it had probably been here when he’d moved in. There was that upright icebox in the refrigerator area. And his bed shoved in the corner. This was the place that a person lived when all they were interested in doing was surviving.
It was basic. But maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe he really loved living here. Maybe he really loved the wilderness.
Somehow, she doubted it.
Well, he obviously loved the wilderness well enough, or he wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be a place to find solace in here if he couldn’t stand the spiders.
She shuddered, and looked up at the beams. She was going to clear out those creepy crawlies as best she could. They didn’t need to have homes inside the house, that was for certain. He might be somewhat sanguine about them being there, but she didn’t have to be.
No, she did not.
It became clear he wasn’t going to be back for pancakes, and she set that idea aside—and her disappointment at not getting breakfast herself—and set about to work.
The house was small, and after getting into more dusting than she had managed to yesterday, she headed outside. There were flower beds. Or rather, there had been at one time. Perhaps a young couple had lived here before him and they’d planted edible flowers and other hipster things. Or an older couple. And they had made sure that there was cheer planted out in the yard. Such as it was.
Mostly, everything surrounding the cabin was untamed wilderness. There were a few walking trails, clearly forged by hiking boots and deer hooves. And there were those flower beds. Otherwise, the place might have been dropped into the middle of nowhere with no sign of human life at all. But the weeds had taken over.
Maybe she would plant some flowers.
He had hired her, after all, to make good use of her time up here, and the house was so small that, while it would definitely need upkeep, and would get dusty quickly because it was out here surrounded by all this nature, she would need to do other things to occupy her time.
Obviously, once she was running the bakery she wouldn’t be up here every day, but still. She could plant him a flower garden.
She was good at this. At finding small moments in life to create beauty, or something sweet. Sometimes when the big things were sharp and shattered, when hope was gone completely, finding a way to breathe was all you could do.
Sometimes breath came from the beauty of the mountains around you. A piece of pie. A cup of tea.
From a flower garden.
She knelt down onto the earth and began to tug the weeds out, shaking the dirt from the roots and chucking them into a pile. She got lost in the repetitive motion of the task. She enjoyed this. Being outside in the sunshine, sitting in the dirt.
She had always liked this aspect of nature. Ranching had just never gotten in her blood. Not the way it had for Rose, Ryder and Logan.
Pansy had been so determined in her own path from an early age. She had been a hellion as a child, Iris could just vaguely remember. But after they’d lost their father, she’d gotten very serious. Determined to honor his memory by becoming the chief of police, just as he’d been.
And she had done it. Gold Valley’s first female chief of police.
Iris couldn’t be prouder.
But while Iris had never found her passion in ranching, unlike Pansy she hadn’t really found it anywhere else either.
Not true.
She supposed it was in cooking. It had healed some of the loneliness in her. Had given her purpose when she’d been lost. It had connected her to people she loved.
It had always been a way for her to earn her mother’s favor. If Iris cooked a meal, she was lauded for being a helper, and she carried that good feeling around with her for days after.
It made her want to use it to give that sort of feeling to others, even in a small way.
She might be arriving at it late. But she was finding her passion. A way to apply it.
She stood and surveyed her handiwork. The now cleared planting spaces. It was looking good. It was perfect. Everything she needed it to be.
With a song in her heart she picked up the scraggly weeds and went over to her car, where she found a bag and dumped them inside.
She would take them back to the ranch and give them to Ryder to go on the burn pile. That way they wouldn’t leave any spores behind and replant themselves here.
She had a feeling that up this far the battle against weeds was a losing one, but she figured she would do the best she could.
She could leave. She was sure that she could. Because he wasn’t here to give direction, and there was nothing else immediate to do.
But from where she stood by the car she could see a small path that led up into the trees. And she was curious.
Right. Because he seems like the kind of man who would bear your curiosity well.
There was a strange shimmer beneath her skin.
That she had opinions on what kind of man he was. It felt strange and intimate. And she didn’t quite know why.
She shrugged it off, ignoring the feeling, and began to walk toward that path.
The deepest groove in the path was at the center, speaking to the narrow footprint spread of deer that must travel here frequently, and she wondered if there was water somewhere that way. But it faded out to shallower, bare dirt along the edges, which seemed to indicate that a person walked it often enough as well.
Griffin. It had to be.
Since as far as she could see there was no other life up here at all.