Page 70 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
She nodded.
“The two of you showed up and tore my whole world apart and put it back together in a shape I didn’t know I needed, and I just—I wanted to build you somethin’. I know it’s just a nursery, but itisfor both of you. I swear it. I just—”
“Logan—”
“—wanted to make somethin’ to saythis is yours. This house and this family. Yours.”
He ran out of words.
Grace crossed the room.
She moved fast. Faster than he’d expected. Fast enough that he didn’t have time to brace or think or do any of the things his brain normally insisted on before allowing a moment to justhappen. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt collar and pulled him down.
Then she kissed him.
And every plan, fence, locked door, straight line, and ironed saddle blanket in Logan Foster’s carefully ordered life collapsed into the space between her lips and his.
She tasted like the chamomile tea she drank after supper. Her hand on his collar pulled tight, twisting her fingers in the fabric, holding him there like she’d thought about this and decided he didn’t get to back away from it.
He kissed her back.
He’d meant it to be careful, meant to give her something measured and respectful, the kind of kiss a man offers when he isn’t sure he’s earned more. But her hand came up to the side of his face, and whatever restraint he’d built over nineteen days of sawdust and silence just buckled.
Her hand softened on his collar. Slid from the fabric to the side of his neck until her palm pressed flat against his pulse point, and her mouth curved against his in a smile she didn’t break the kiss to show.
Then she pulled back. Just far enough to breathe. Her forehead rested against his, and her eyes were closed. Thelamplight from the window seat turned her eyelashes into small shadows on her cheeks.
“Thank you.”
He sniffed. “What for?”
“For the room. The crib. The roses on the headboard, the fabric from Gunnison, the window seat, and all nineteen ridiculous days of it.”
“It wasn’t—”
“It was.” She curled her fingers into his shirt. “It was, Logan.”
He chuckled and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty
Logan kissed the way he built things. Methodically at first, like he needed to check the fit before committing, and then all that precision gave way, and the rest of him showed up. He tasted like coffee, smelled like cedar soap, and held her face in both hands as if he’d just figured out what hands were actuallyfor.
Grace’s fingers stayed curled in his shirt. Not because she needed the grip for balance—though the balance had gotten unreliable somewhere around the third second—but because letting go meant the moment would end, and some moments deserved to go on for a while longer.
She pulled back first. Had to. Because her lungs had run out of air about ten seconds ago, and dying in a nursery, while poetic, lacked the dignity she preferred.
“We should...” She breathed. “Miriam.”
“Right.” His hands dropped from her face. “She’s uh, still—”
“In my room, yeah.”
“We should…”
“Yeah.”
Neither of them moved. Because moving meant walking down the hall, picking up a sleeping baby, carrying her back, and placing her in the crib. A simple and ordinary thing after the mostextraordinary event in her life. And she was just supposed to do it? Like any other parents on any other night?
