Page 21 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
Nobody in town had claimed her.
Mason and Thomas had ridden out twice, asking at every homestead and farm within a day’s ride, and come back empty-handed both times. No missing child. No frantic mother searching the roads. Just a baby in a basket with no note and no name, dropped at the fenceline like a parcel that couldn’t find its address.
Mason had wanted to name her, said she ought to have a name if she was staying a while, but Logan had forbidden it immediately. Said that, since she’d be staying here only temporarily, they could only call her the baby.
Someone just left the poor thing here. They’re looking for her people. Somebody will come forward eventually, I expect.
The pencil hovered over that last line.
Sure. Any day now. Some mother, some father, some relative would ride up to the gate and claim her and carry her off, and the dresser-drawer would sit empty by the stove, and the kitchen would go quiet in a way that made Grace’s stomach clench just thinking about it.
Because here stood the plain truth of the thing, the part she couldn’t write in a letter, she loved that baby already. Loved her with a fierceness that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the way the baby grabbed a fistful of Grace’s collar when she nursed from the bottle and held on as if her whole tiny life depended on the grip.
Which, in a manner of speaking, it did.
She’s a good baby, Jonah. Sweet-tempered when she’s fed and dry. She’s got a grip on her that’d put a dock worker to shame. I think you’d like her.
That was the understatement of the century.
As for Logan Foster, he is... a man of routine. He rises before dawn, goes to bed after dark, and fills every hour between with work. Fences, livestock, the barn, the stable, and repairs on things that don’t look broken to my eye but apparently offend his standards. I see him at breakfast, at supper, and, occasionally, when I collect his laundry from the hamper outside his door.
He is polite.
He eats what I put in front of him without complaint, which is more than I can say for his brother Thomas, who made a face at my cornbread last Tuesday that I will remember on my deathbed.
She grinned at the paper.
His youngest brother, Mason, is the one who wrote me.
He’s got a good heart and a face that makes him look about fifteen.
Their father, Rafe, sat me down the second evening and told me that his wife used to plant roses along the front porch railing and that if I had any inclination toward gardening, he’d appreciate it if I didn’t touch those beds because they were hers.
Then he patted my shoulder and went to bed.
I think he likes me, Jonah. In that gruff, roundabout way, certain men have of showing it where they can’t just come out and say a kind word without wrapping it in something practical first.
Write me back soon. Tell me you’re eating. Tell me you’re staying out of trouble.
All my love,Gracie
She folded the letter along crisp lines and slid it into the envelope she’d found in the hutch drawer, the one Logan kept stocked with writing supplies. All arranged by size, of course.
As Grace made her way through the front room, the baby stirred in the dresser drawer and let out a whimper that promised to grow into something bigger if ignored. Grace scooped her up one-handed, settling the baby against her shoulder, and pressed her lips to the warm crown of the baby’s head.
“Shh, shh, little bird. Just a fuss, that’s all. We’re all right.”
The baby burrowed into her neck and sighed.
Outside, Mason sat on the porch step, lacing his boots, hat already on and tipped back in that jaunty way of his that made him look more like a boy playing dress-up than a working ranch hand. Thomas leaned against the porch post with a toothpick rolling between his lips, and Rafe hitched the wagon team in the yard.
“Mason.” Grace held out the letter. “Would you drop this at the post for me when you head to town?”
He tucked it into his shirt pocket and patted it flat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And I need your wash. Yours and Thomas’s both. I’m doing laundry today, and I’d like to get through the lot of it before the sun moves off the clothesline.”
Mason jerked a thumb toward the house. “Pile’s by our door upstairs. Logan’s, too, if you want it.”
