Confessions from the Quilting Circle, Maisey Yates [animal farm read TXT] 📗

of mischievous magic that Iris herself didn’t possess.

“I called about the bakery.”

“Yay!”

“Not yay. It’s being managed by a different company now, which means I think it got bought by someone else. And the rent is higher than it was when I looked into it a couple months ago. I just don’t think there’s any way I could ever afford it.”

“You know Ryder would help you.”

She nodded slowly. She did know that. But she didn’t want to put strain on her brother when he had just started a new family. Plus...

“But that’s not what you want, is it?” Rose asked.

Iris nodded. “I want to be independent. And maybe I’m jumping into it a little bit too fast. Maybe I’m being too ambitious.”

“I don’t think so,” Rose said. “I don’t see why you can’t have everything.”

She had a feeling her sister was being overly supportive in part because of what had happened between them a few months back. But she appreciated the support either way.

“Well,” Rose said brightly. “We just have to figure out another way to problem solve this. Is there a way to figure out who bought it?”

“It might be... Somewhere. I mean, I don’t know what difference that would make.”

“You don’t want to deal with the management company. Whoever has this all set up probably has a management company because they don’t have a business brain. They probably don’t have the resolve to handle all this kind of stuff. Which means if you talk to them directly, maybe they won’t hold firm on the rent. You can’t go through the rental company, because they’re set up to be a barrier. You need to remove the barrier.”

“I don’t... That’s not how it’s supposed to work, though.”

And even as she heard the words come out of her own mouth, she realized what she was doing.

She was wimping out. She was taking this first hurdle, and allowing it to be insurmountable. Well, she couldn’t do that. She was going to have to make it... Surmountable.

“Okay. Where do you suppose I might find the information?”

Rose sat down, and Logan pulled a chair up to the table, while Rose helped Iris scour the document.

If Logan was irritated by Iris co-opting his date, he didn’t show it.

Logan had grown up with them on their ranch. His mother had died along with Iris’s parents and aunt and uncle in a plane crash on their way to a joint family vacation.

The kids had all been staying together while their parents had gone on the trip, and they had remained together thereafter.

They had created a tight family unit, which had been a blessing growing up, but was now part of what Iris suspected was holding her back.

“What is it you’re looking for?” Logan asked.

“We’re trying to figure out who owns this place,” Rose said.

“Which place?”

“The one that used to be Sugarplum Fairy. Iris wants to rent it to make her own business.”

“Oh,” Logan said. “Well, I know who owns that.”

“You do?” they both asked in unison.

“Yes. West was looking into it because the guy who used to own Redemption Ranch also owned those buildings, and he decided to sell. But then, some out-of-state guy made an offer that the guy couldn’t refuse. So, West decided to back out. He didn’t want rental properties that bad.”

“And you remember the buyer’s name?” Iris pressed.

“Yeah. I think so. Griffin... Griffin Chance. Very California. You don’t forget a name like that.”

“I don’t suppose you do,” Iris said.

“Well, do you know where to find him?”

“I bet it would be easy enough to find out.” Rose had a wicked gleam in her eye.

“You can’t ask Pansy,” Iris said. “I’m sure that she’s not allowed to get that kind of information.”

“Maybe she just knows it. Because he’s a new person in town, and he bought a sizable amount of property, so honestly, she might...”

“I’m not one hundred percent sure he’s in town,” West said.

“Oh, right,” Iris said, feeling deflated.

“Well, all we can do is ask,” Rose said.

She was in full Rose mode, and this was when Iris had to be thankful for her sister.

Because Iris was very good at putting her head down and enduring whatever hardships came her way.

She was good at creating calm. At creating quiet.

When she was in her element, she was strong. She’d wrangled Rose and Pansy even before their parents had died. They’d been two of the most high-spirited kids Iris had ever seen. And it had been up to her to keep them corralled from an early age because she was naturally more...well, more of a rule follower.

She was used to taking that role at Hope Springs, but outside of it she tended to shrink back a little. Some people even read her as being shy or timid—Iris didn’t feel she was either—but she definitely didn’t have a lot of practice with taking charge away from the ranch.

She was in a space now where she needed to push, and Rose was an excellent pusher.

Rose scurried off, and made one phone call, and Iris could see from where she was sitting that Rose was wheedling. She exchanged a glance with Logan.

“Try living with it,” he said.

“I did,” Iris said, deadpan. “I raised it.”

“Yeah, well,” he muttered. “You’re not as much of a sucker for her as I am.”

“That is true,” Iris responded.

When Rose returned a moment later, she had a triumphant grin on her face. “I have an address for you. 9020 Carson Creek. That’s all the way up Echo Pass.”

“There’s not... There’s not even electricity out there,” Iris said. “He can’t live out there.”

“Well, that’s the address that Pansy had for him. Honestly, he’s probably got some huge fancy house up there with satellite internet and a generator and stuff. Anybody that owns that much property in town has to have some fancy spread way out there. He’s probably some rich old guy. You should bring cookies.”

Iris didn’t know how she had gone from standing in front of a shop window only a few moments ago to being sent