Page 15 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
For about two heartbeats, nobody on that porch so much as breathed. And then Logan took a step forward, and the baby between them let out a shriek that could’ve curdled fresh milk.
“You didwhat?”
Mason coughed into his fist. “Now, before you go gettin’ yourself all riled up—”
“I amso farpast riled, Mason. I have blown clean through riled and come out the other side into territory that don’t even have a name yet!”
Thomas sighed. “I know, but—”
“And why New York?”
Mason groaned. “Becausethis. We knew you’d react like—”
“Mason.” The old man set the rifle against the doorframe and crossed his arms over the stained flannel. “Enough.”
“But, Pa—”
“Logan.” The old man looked at Grace, then at the wailing baby, then at Logan. “Maybe we oughta talk about this inside like civilized folk ‘stead of puttin’ on a show for the whole county.”
Logan exhaled slowly. “Ain’t nobody around for miles, Pa.”
“That’s beside the point, and you know it.” The old man stepped back from the doorway and swept one arm toward the interior. “Miss Linton, is it? Come on in outta the sun. You look about ready to fall over.”
Grace stepped through the doorway because, at this point, the alternatives included walking three miles back to an empty train platform or pitching over sideways from legs that had quit taking suggestions about an hour ago, and neither one appealed much.
The house opened up around her.
A front room flowed straight into a kitchen at the back, with a staircase running up along the right wall and a stone fireplace anchoring the left. The furniture looked like it could survive a stampede. There was a long kitchen table scarred with use, ladder-back chairs, and a hutch displaying mismatched crockery. And every last piece of it had a designated spot.
It all showed the kind of obsessive precision that bordered on military. Pots lined up above the stove in descending order of size. Even the firewood filled the box beside the hearth, with each log cut to an identical length.
But for all that careful order, thedetailstold on them. A film of greasy dust clung to the hutch shelves, the kind that built up slowly over months of cooking smoke when nobody thought to wipe things down. And the floor, though swept, grabbed at her boot soles near the stove with a sticky residue that pulled at the leather with every step. Water stains ringed the table where cups had sat too long.
On top of all that, there came thesmellof it—sour milk layered over something scorched, drifting through the kitchen the way pipe smoke drifted through a saloon.
These men had tried. They’dclearlytried. But trying and managing amounted to two quite different animals.
Thomas and Mason had followed her in. Now, all five of them—plus one screaming baby—crowded the kitchen in whatamounted to a standoff. Logan stood at one end of the table, bouncing the baby. Over by the hutch, the old man leaned back and crossed his arms. Near the door, Mason and Thomas hovered like a pair of horses eyeing a gate.
As for Grace, well, she dropped her bags by the wall and planted herself in the middle of all of it with her boots throbbing and her temples pounding.
“So, let me make sure I’m trackin’ this right.” Logan’s voice had gone quiet now, which somehow landed worse than the yelling. “You two went behind my back. Placed an ad in aNew York City newspaper.For a wife. Forme.And you didn’t see fit tomentionany of this at any point in the last two months?”
Mason just opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“We knew you’d say no.”
“You’redarn rightI’d say no!”
“And that, right there, is exactly why we didn’t ask!” Thomas pushed off the wall. “Look around, Logan. Look at this place.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong—”
“Look atus.”
“What do you mean?”
“We got a baby we can’t feed, a ranch we can barely run, and Pa ain’t gettin’ any younger. Ma’s been gone two years, and this house ain’t had a woman’s hand in it since, and you’re too mule-headed stubborn to admit we need the help!”
