Page 48 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
She shook her head. “It’s too quiet out here.”
“Yeah, well.” Logan kicked at the dirt. “I missed your cookin’. Pa tried to make stew last night, and I’m pretty sure it violated several laws.”
“That bad?”
“Thomas compared it to somethin’ you’d use to patch a wagon wheel.”
“Lord.”
“Mason tried feedin’ his portion to Brutus. Poor dog walked away.”
A laugh broke loose from her chest.
She hadn’t expected it, hadn’t planned for it, and it came out too loud for the clearing, startling a bird out of the nearest pine. But it kept going, bubbling up like that creek down the hill, and Grace’s eyes watered.
“Thedog? The dog walked away?”
“Tail between his legs. Like we’d insulted him.”
She laughed harder. Miriam fussed at the jostling, and Grace pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead and rocked her until she settled. The laughter tapered off into something warm that sat in her chest alongside the ache that’d lived there since yesterday, and the two of them just sort of... coexisted. The ache and the warmth. Side by side.
Behind her, the tent rustled.
Jonah stumbled through the flap with his hair going in four directions and one boot on and one boot off, squinting against the light like a mole surfacing into noon. A crease from his rucksack pillow ran across his left cheek, and he’d buttoned his shirt wrong, the bottom half hanging an inch lower than the top.
He stopped when he clocked Logan.
Every line in his body pulled tight, and he shifted his weight onto his back foot, which happened to be the bootless one.
“Uh.” Jonah glanced at Grace. Then at Logan. Then back at Grace. “Mornin’?”
Logan turned to face him.
For a beat, the two men just looked at each other across the fire. Jonah’s hand drifted toward the bruise on his own forehead, the one Logan had put there, and he pulled it back down.
Grace watched them and didn’t breathe. Everything she wanted was standing on opposite sides of that fire, and if either one of them said the wrong thing right now, she didn’t know what she’d do.
“I owe you an apology.” Logan crossed the clearing and stuck his hand out. “I’m Logan Foster. I’m your sister’s husband. And yesterday I acted like a damn fool.”
Jonah looked at the hand. Then up at Logan’s face. Then over at Grace, who nodded once.
“Jonah Linton.” He took Logan’s hand. “And you did hit like a mule.”
Logan smiled. “Your sister tells me you’re a hard worker.”
“My sister’s been lyin’ for me since I broke Ma’s good vase when I was six, so, take that with a grain of salt.”
“Jonah,” Grace sighed.
“What? I’m bein’honest. Man deserves to know what he’s gettin’.” Jonah scratched the back of his head and yawned wide enough to show every tooth he still had and the gap where the missing one lived. “But yeah, I can work. I mean, I ain’t never done much ranch work, I’ll be honest, but I ain’t above nothin’ and I ain’t too proud for hard labor.”
“Good. Because there’s plenty of it.” Logan let go of his hand. “I’m offerin’ you a position on the ranch. Steady work, steady pay. You’d sleep in the bunkhouse, eat with the family. My brothers will try to call me a tyrant, but—”
Grace squinted. “Logan…”
Logan sighed. “I’ll, uh, try not to be.”
Jonah broke into that lopsided grin, the one she’d grown up watching, and the gap in his teeth caught the morning light.
