Page 72 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“It’s quiethere.”
“Quieter.”
They rode west past the south pasture, through the aspen grove where the white trunks glowed like bones in the dark. Penny matched Dutch’s pace without guidance, and the rhythm rocked Grace in the saddle like a slow dance.
He kissed me back.
No, he hadn’tjustkissed her back. Kissed her back like he was ready to—
Grace Marie Linton. Do not finish that thought on a horse in the dark.
Logan rode close enough that his knee almost touched hers when the trail narrowed. The moonlight caught his profile, his jaw, cheekbone, and the way his hat sat low enough to shadow his eyes. Not his mouth, though.
Stop looking for his mouth.
She looked for his mouth.
He glanced at her. “You’re bein’ quiet.”
“I’m thinkin’.”
“‘Bout what?”
Your mouth. The callus on your thumb, how it caught on my cheekbone, and the sound you made when I kissed you. That low sound in the back of your throat, and how I want to hear it every day for the rest of my—
“Soil composition.”
He laughed. “That’s my line.”
“Youwerea liar when you said it.”
“And you ain’t?”
She grinned. “I never said I was honest.”
The pond appeared through a gap in the pines. Thirty yards across, fed by a seep from the hillside that trickled over mossy rocks into water so still it held the sky on its surface like glass. Every star reflected a perfect double, so the dark between the trees and the dark in the water merged into a single enormous night scattered with light.
“Oh.” She reined Penny to a stop. “You’ve been holdin’ out on me. You gotthisa mile from the house, and you never said?”
“I’m sayin’ now.”
They tied the horses and sat side by side on a wool blanket he’d grabbed from the porch, her shoulder against his arm. The cold found the gaps in her sleeves and the hem of her skirt, but the warm side—Logan’s side—held steady.
She looked down. “Can I tell you somethin’?”
“You can tell me anythin’.”
“I don’t know how to do this. Whateverthisis.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “When my ma died, she left a shawl. Blue wool, moth-eaten, smelled like lavender soap. Same soap I use now. Started usin’ it because of her. Figured if I smelled like her, she’d feel closer.”
Logan turned his head toward her.
“Jonah wanted to sell it. Fifteen cents. Which don’t sound like much, but we hadn’t eaten in two days, and fifteen cents bought bread and a tin of sardines.”
A ripple from the seep broke a constellation in half.
“I screamed at him. Told him that if he sold that shawl, I’d never speak to him again. He went out that night and came back with a dollar. Wouldn’t tell me where he got it. Just said,Keep the shawl, Gracie.”
Logan’s hand found hers. Palm to palm. His fingers laced through hers, pressing against the backs of her knuckles.
