Page 104 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“Gophers.”
His hand stopped on the rifle stock. “Come again?”
“Gophers, Logan. A whole blessed family of ’em. In my garden. Right now, this very minute.” She grabbed his wrist and squeezed. “I’ve been losin’ squash all week, and I reckoned—”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“—it for rabbits, but I looked out the back window just now, and there’s at least five of the little demons runnin’ in and out of holes all over the plot—”
“Honestly, is this any way to wake me up for—”
“—and they got tunnels, Logan,tunnels, and they’re eatin’ my pole beans, and I swear to God if one more critter on this ranch takes somethin’ from me I’m gonna lose my everlovin’ mind!”
He leaned the Winchester against the doorframe.
Gophers. She’d pounded his door down at Lord-knows-what-hour, scared ten years off his life, and made him grab a loaded rifle in his own hallway… forgophers.
“Grace.”
“Don’t you ‘Grace’ me in that voice.”
“What voice?”
“That voice! The one you use when you think I’m bein’ ridiculous and you’re decidin’ whether to say so.”
Well. She had him pinned on that one.
“I ain’t sayin’ you’re ridiculous.”
“You’re thinkin’ it loud enough for the whole county to hear.”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s four in the mornin’, and you about gave me a heart attack over rodents.”
“Over rodents that aredestroyin’ my garden. The gardenyoutilled. The gardenyougave me. So, unless you want all that work to go to—”
“All right, all right.” He held up both hands. “Lemme get dressed.”
“Well, hurry up! They ain’t exactly waitin’ on your schedule!”
She spun on her heel and padded back down the hall, flapping that shawl behind her like a flag of war, and Logan stood in his doorway in half-buttoned trousers, watching her go. Three months ago, his mornings started with coffee and silence and a clean list of chores scratched on the back of an envelope.
Now they started with a woman in a nightdress hollering about gophers.
He pulled on his boots. Tucked in his shirt. Rolled his sleeves to the elbow and creased them evenly because a man had standards, even at four in the goddamn morning.
***
Grace had thrown a coat over her nightdress and shoved her feet into her boots without lacing them, which made her shuffle across the yard like a duck with a grudge.
She pointed at the garden plot. “Look.”
The plot Logan had spent two solid days tilling and raking into rows so clean you could’ve laid a ruler along them—that plot—looked like a battlefield. Little mounds of kicked-up dirt dottedthe surface. Half the squash seedlings tilted sideways with their roots chewed to nothing. The pole bean trellises still stood, but the vines at the base had gone ragged and nibbled down to stubs.
And, right there, dead center of the second row, a fat brown gopher sat up on its haunches and stared at them with beady black eyes and absolutely zero remorse. Just sat there chewing on a bean leaf like it owned the deed to the property and paid taxes.
“You see that?” Grace jabbed her finger. “You see that little thief right there?”
“I see him.”
