Page 71 of Indigo Ridge (The Edens 1)

“I know.” I pulled her into my side.

“Don’t take your mind for granted, Griffin. Or your heart. They are your gifts. And they are not guaranteed from one day to the next.” She sniffled again, then held up her chin. Because that was my mother. She walked through life with her chin held high. “Your dad is in denial. When I told him what happened with Briggs, he didn’t believe me. He made an excuse that since I had my hair up, I looked different.”

“Yeah, he didn’t seem to believe me either.”

“When his father’s mind began slipping, it was devastating. To see it happen to his brother . . . I think he worries that maybe he’ll be next.”

That was my fear too. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it if my father looked at me and didn’t remember my name.

“We can’t leave this alone,” I said. Not only because he might cause himself harm, but because he might cause harm to others.

Over the past week, since I’d delivered those boots to Winn at the station, I’d thought a lot about this situation. Briggs had most likely found those boots while he was hiking. He’d always been disconnected from events in town, and even if he had heard about Lily Green’s suicide, I doubted he would have put the pieces together.

I’m sure he would have expected that she’d died with shoes on her feet. Winn had told me they’d confirmed the boots as Lily’s.

But that outburst in the truck, when we’d argued over the month, had plagued me daily. Briggs wasn’t a violent man. Except there were times when he simply wasn’t Briggs.

Could he have stumbled on Lily? Could he have found her on Indigo Ridge and done the unthinkable?

No. Never. He wouldn’t have taken the time to remove her boots. No, she had to have done that. She had to have jumped.

Lily Green and Briggs Eden had nothing to do with the other.

“Give Dad time. He’ll make the right decision.”

“He will.” She pulled away and poured the dregs of her coffee into the sink, rinsing it clean. “What are you doing today?”

“Moving cattle to the forest service.”

“Then I’ll get out of your hair. I just wanted to see your face. You’ve been scarce lately.”

“I saw you Tuesday.”

“For a whole five minutes to drop off the mail.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen, pausing before she could disappear down the hallway to the front door. “Bring Winslow around for dinner one night.”

“That’s not really our kind of relationship, Mom.”

“Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea of your kind of relationship. But you can bring her by regardless. Your father speaks highly of her and I’d like to meet her. I suspect she’ll be part of this community long after you two quit one another. Covie is her only family left now that her parents are dead, and I’d like her to know that she’s got more than her grandfather pulling for her to make Quincy home.”

“Hold up.” There was a lot there to appreciate. My mother’s warm and inviting heart. But my head was wrapped around something else. “Her parents are dead?”

“For a couple of years now, I think. They were killed in an accident in Bozeman.”

But I’d just seen their photo in her office last week. I’d met them years ago at Willie’s when they’d been here to visit Covie. How had I been sleeping with Winn and not known that her parents had been killed? “I didn’t know.”

“Covie didn’t talk much about it. He didn’t tell many people in town that they died.”

“Really? Why?”

“He lost his son and his daughter-in-law. I believe they were very close. We all handle our grief differently. I think Covie went through a period of denial. Pretending life was the same was his way of coping. And he spent a lot of time in Bozeman with Winslow. He mentioned to your dad once that she was having a hard time.”

What the actual fuck? I hated that my mother knew more about this than I did. Why hadn’t Winn told me? Maybe she’d suspected that I already knew. Still, not a hint that they were gone. In fact, she hadn’t spoken much about her parents other than to remind me that her father had grown up in Quincy.

I opened my mouth to ask Mom more about it, but the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it.” She disappeared down the hallway, and when the door opened, I recognized Jim’s voice.

“I think he was just grabbing a cup of coffee,” Mom said. “Griffin?”