Page 67 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
Get ahold of yourself, Foster.
Down the hall, Grace’s voice drifted from the bedroom she shared with Miriam. She sang something low and tuneless, the way she always did at bedtime, a melody that didn’t come from any hymn book Logan recognized.
Logan wiped his palms on his trousers and made his way to her door.
It’s a room. You built a room. People build rooms all the time. This ain’t—it don’t have to be—just show her the room and let her decide what it means.
Soon enough, the door creaked open, and Grace walked out of the room.
She’d changed into the cotton dress she wore around the house in the evenings, the gray one with the small white flowers along the hem that she’d mended twice at the shoulder seam. Her hair hung loose past her shoulders, freed from the braid she wore during the day, and the lamplight from the bedroom behind her turned the edges of it copper.
She blinked when she saw him. “Hey…”
“Hi. She, uh, is she asleep?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “Took three rounds of the lullaby tonight. I think she’s getting’ wise to my tricks.”
“Good. I mean—good that she’s sleepin’. Not the tricks part.” Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “I got somethin’ to show you.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Now’s—it’s gotta be now. While she’s asleep. It’ll make more sense if she’s asleep.”
Grace tilted her head and gave him the look. The one where she tried to figure out what he meant before he’d finishedmeaning it, her eyes narrowing just a fraction, the freckles across her nose bunching together.
“Is this another ‘theory about fence posts’?”
“Grace—”
“Last time, you talked for forty-five minutes.”
“The fence post thing hadmerit.”
“Logan, you drewdiagrams.”
“Because the angle of the brace matters and nobody in this family—” He breathed in. “Just. Just come with me.”
He turned and walked down the hall before his mouth could steer them into another fence post conversation, which, honestly, hadhadmerit, and the diagrams had clarified points his brothers refused to absorb.
The nursery door sat at the end of the hall. He stopped at the door. Hand on the knob.
“Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Just—close ’em. Please.”
“Logan Foster, if there is a spider in there—”
“There ain’t no spider.”
“—because last time Thomas said ‘close your eyes’ it involved a garter snake, and Mason screamed so loud the horses spooked—”
“Grace.”
She closed her eyes.
He opened the door. Stepped inside. Took the lamp from the hallway hook and carried it in, setting it on the window seat so the light filled the room in a warm wash that caught the fresh whitewash and the oiled oak and the blue calico curtain he’d hung over the east window.
