Page 102 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“His old man’ll ride to the sheriff inside an hour, his brothers’ll have every cattleman in the county runnin’ search parties, and Grace—”
Grace. Grace, who hummed while she rocked Miriam to sleep in a crib Logan spent nineteen days carving by hand. Grace, who looked at that man like he’d hung every one of those stars she never saw in New York.
If Ace killed Logan, Grace would burn the world down.
“Grace what, Jonah?”
“You kill him, and you get nothin’.” Jonah leaned forward. “Think about it. Right now, the whole family trusts me. I’m inside.”
“Fat lot of good it’s done me.”
“I can still help!”
Ace tilted his head. The lantern caught the wet gleam of his gums. “So what do you suggest, since you’re so full of good ideas tonight?”
Jonah’s tongue sat dry and thick in his mouth. He’d been working this over since the ride out here, turning it like a stone in his pocket, and every angle cut. But the alternative—Logan in the dirt with a hole in him, Grace screaming—right.
So…
“The Pitkin County Harvest Fair’s comin’ up in a few weeks.”
“So?”
“Grace is enterin’ her vegetables in some kind of competition. She’s been talkin’ about it nonstop, got the whole family roped in. They’ll all go. Every last one of ’em.”
Ace scratched his chin and nodded.
“I stay behind. Tell ’em I’ll watch the ranch. Guard the property. And while they’re gone, you come in, dig wherever thehell you need to dig, find what you’re lookin’ for, and get out. Nobody gets hurt. Nobody even knows.”
“And the land? You go tearin’ up pasture and garden beds, that ain’t exactly subtle, son.”
“I know.”
The garden. Grace’s garden, the one she’d planted with seeds she picked out herself in town, the one she talked to like it could hear her, kneeling in the dirt with Miriam on her hip, checking the squash for bugs every morning as if it mattered more than anything.
It didn’t matter more than Logan’s life.
“I know it ain’t subtle. But a torn-up ranch beats a dead rancher, and you get your gold or silver or whatever the hell Dawson buried out there, and then you’re gone.”
“That right?”
“That’s right. You get what you want, and you leave us alone.”
Ace worked his jaw side to side slowly. The splinter gap in his front teeth made a soft whistle when he breathed through them. Three breaths. Four. Five..
“Alright.” Ace slapped his knees and stood. “Alright, Jonah. That’s the first smart thing you’ve said in weeks.”
“Don’t call it smart.”
“Oh, itissmart. You’re keepin’ the golden goose alive and handin’ me the eggs. That’s business. Your daddy woulda been proud.” Ace grinned, and the gaps in his teeth turned the expression into something worse than a scowl. “You’re more like me than you think, boy.”
Jonah’s stomach turned over like he’d swallowed pennies. Like the time he’d lifted a watch off a blind man on Fulton Street. At twelve, he’d had hands quick as lightning, and the man had saidGod bless you, sonbecause he thought Jonah had bumped into him by accident. Ace had grinned like this that night, too.
“We done?” Jonah stood up off the plank.
“We’re done. For now.” Ace settled the bowler hat back down over his forehead. “You just make sure that whole family’s on the road come fair day. Every one of ’em. I don’t want so much as a dog left behind.”
“Fine.”
