Page 106 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“He’s got good reflexes and adeath wish!”
“Grace, just herd him toward the—”
“I’mherdin’! He won’therd!”
The gopher shot past her ankle, circled back toward the garden, and dove into a fresh hole that definitely hadn’t existed five minutes ago.
Grace threw the bucket onto the ground. “Oh, you’ve got to bekiddin’me.”
Logan picked the bucket up, refilled it, and poured it down the new hole while Grace stood guard with a stick she’d pulled off the woodpile.
She planted her feet wide and held the stick raised over one shoulder, and her hair came loose from the braid she’d thrown together in the dark. She looked like a Viking. A short, freckled, extremely angry Viking defending a vegetable patch in Colorado at four-thirty in the morning.
The gopher rocketed out. Grace shrieked and swung. The stick connected with a fence post instead, and she dropped the thing a second later.
“Ow! Son of a—”
“You okay?”
“I just—my hands—thatstung—did you get him?”
“He went under the fence. He’s gone.”
“Swear?”
“Cross my heart.”
She blew a strand of hair off her face. “How many’s that?”
“Four, I think. Maybe one more in there.”
“Four.” She planted her hands on her hips. “There’s more. I can feel it.”
“You canfeelgophers?”
“I grew up with rats, Logan.” She squinted at the holes. “I know when rodents are watchin’ me.”
“No way.”
“Yes way!”
“No. Way.”
“It’s a sixth sense.” She sniffed. “Like how you know when a fence post needs replacin’ by lookin’ at it sideways.”
“That ain’t a sixth sense. That’s calledexperience.”
“Same difference. Pour more water.”
He poured. Nothing came out for a long stretch, just the gurgle of water finding the tunnels and filling them up. Grace prodded the dirt with her stick. Logan crouched by the far end of the plot where a mound of soil pulsed—actuallypulsed, like a heartbeat—and then erupted into a gopher the size of his fist that launched itself directly at his chest.
He swatted it sideways on pure reflex, and the gopher tumbled through the air, landed on its feet, and streaked toward the tree line like the devil himself had kicked it.
Grace howled. She bent at the waist with her hands on her knees, laughing so hard her shoulders shook.
“You—youslappedit—”
“I did notslapa gopher.”
