Page 110 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“I’m plenty fun.”
“Name one fun thing you’ve done today.”
“I let you threaten me with a zucchini and didn’t say a word.”
She laughed.
They walked through the stalls, past the games. Logan’s hand found the small of her back again and stayed there, guiding her through the crowd like he’d done it a thousand times. Miriam kicked her feet and babbled at every passing face. A woman selling preserves leaned over the table and called her the prettiest baby in Pitkin County, and Grace said, “I know” without a shred of modesty, because it happened to be the truth.
The shooting gallery pulled Logan in like a magnet. A row of tin cans and clay pipes sat on a rail at the back of a canvas booth, and a man with a waxed mustache handed out battered single-shot rifles for a nickel a round.
What was the appeal in stationary targets, though?
Would’ve been way better if they could get them to move somehow, maybe then it would be interesting. As if anyone would miss these. Still, Logan grinned as he paid his nickel, so it couldn’t beallbad.
His hands settled on the stock, and his shoulders dropped. His breathing went even, and his whole body just... organized itself. Like every scattered piece of him clicked into a grid. Same thing he did, saddling a horse.
Five rounds. Five cans. The mustache man blinked. The kid next to Logan dropped his rifle and stared.
“Pick your prize, mister.”
Logan pointed at a stuffed calico horse about the size of Miriam’s head, a lumpy and cross-eyed one that somebody who had clearly never seen an actual horse had stitched.
He handed it to Grace. “Biggest and ugliest.”
“It’sperfect.”
She kissed his cheek. Right there, in front of God and the shooting-gallery man and the kid and everybody. His ears turned red. She loved that. Loved that she could put color on Logan Foster’s face in public with one kiss and a stuffed horse.
Miriam got the calico horse. She shoved its face directly into her mouth.
They circled back past the high striker, where Thomas had rolled up his sleeves and swung the mallet so hard he missed the pad entirely, drove it into the dirt, and jarred his elbow bad enough to shake his whole arm loose.
The bottle toss cost a penny. Grace paid it herself and hurled three balls at a pyramid of old whiskey bottles stacked on a barrel. The first went wide. The second clipped the top bottle and sent it spinning into the dirt. The third sailed a clean two feet over the whole setup.
“You throw like a girl.” Thomas appeared out of nowhere with his arm slung around a redhead.
“Iama girl.”
“That ain’t an excuse.”
“It ain’t an excuse because it ain’t aproblem. The bottles are crooked.”
“The bottles are fine.”
“The bottles arecrooked, Thomas, and you can tell your little friend there that I said so.”
The redhead smirked. Thomas steered her away. Grace threw one more penny at the bottle toss out of spite, missed everything, and decided the game had been rigged from the start.
The milk bottle knockdown next door ran on better odds. Three tin cans stacked on a post, one good throw with a beanbag. Logan handed her a beanbag without comment. She wound up, threw it hard and flat the way Jonah had taught her to throw rocks at the rats back home, and all three cans went flying.
The booth man handed her a tin star badge that said PITKIN COUNTY SHARPSHOOTER in stamped letters.
She pinned it to Miriam’s sling.
“Deputy Miriam,” she said. “First day on the job.”
Logan snorted. Grace filed that sound away in the part of her chest where she kept everything good.
