Page 26 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
Mason put his hat back on. Thomas discovered something fascinating about his own boots.
***
Supper came and went, and Grace’s chair sat empty.
Logan had set the table himself since nobody else bothered to get the forks facing the right direction, he’d ladled out the leftover stew Grace’d made the day before, and sliced the bread she’d baked that morning. Then the four of them ate in the kind of quiet that tasted worse than burned cornbread.
Mason pushed a potato around his bowl. Thomas ate fast and excused himself. Pa chewed like he owed each bite a personal grudge.
By the time Logan finished washing the dishes, the sun had dropped behind the ridge, and the house had gone the color of tallow. He dried his hands on the cloth, hung it on the hook where it belonged, and climbed the stairs.
Pa had beaten him to Grace’s door.
The old man held his hand raised as if he’d been about to knock, but couldn’t get the rest of himself to follow through. He wore his housecoat over his shirt, and his hair stuck up in the back where he’d been lying on it.
“Pa,” Logan frowned. “What’re you doin’?”
“Mind your business.”
“If you’re fixin’ to go another round with her, I ain’t gonna—”
“I ain’t fixin’ to go another round with nobody, Logan.” Pa turned and glared at him over his shoulder. “I came to apologize. That all right with you, or do I need written permission to talk to somebody in my own house?”
Logan blinked.
“I shouldn’t have hollered at her like that.” Pa’s hand dropped from the door. “Your mother...”
He rubbed the back of his neck the same way Logan did.
“Them flower beds, they’re the last thing she touched. Last thing in this world that’s still the way she left it. And seein’ somebody else’s hands in that dirt, it...”
“Pa—”
“No. The girl’s right. Miriam wouldn’t have wanted her roses to die on account of an old man bein’ too proud and too sorry for himself to pull a weed.”
“You—”
The door opened.
Grace stood in the gap wearing her second dress, the everyday one, with her hair down around her shoulders and the baby propped on her hip. The baby blinked at both of them with that owlish look she got after naps, all round eyes, and milk-drunk calm.
“Y’all know these walls ain’t made of stone, right?” Grace arched an eyebrow. “I could hear every word you said. So could the baby, and shejustgot down.”
Pa pulled himself up straight. Squared those old shoulders.
“Mrs. Grace, I owe you an apology. I spoke harsh and I spoke outta turn. Them roses needed what you done for ’em, and I had no cause to bite your head off for doin’ it.”
Grace studied him for a beat. Then she shifted the baby to her other hip.
“Apology accepted, Mr. Foster. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You show me where your wife kept her gardenin’ gloves. Because I’ve been pullin’ thistle barehanded and my fingers look like I lost a fight with a porcupine.”
Pa’s mustache twitched.
“Bottom drawer of the hutch. Leather pair with the yellow stitchin’.”
