Page 115 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“Weeks ago?”
“—swore he’d left that life behind, that the letter—”
“Weeks ago! You knew forweeksthat the man sleepin’ in my bunkhouse, eatin’ at my table, holdin’ my daughter—” He gritted his teeth. “You knew, and you looked me in the eye every single day and said nothin’.”
“I didn’t know about the ad.” She pressed her lips together. “Lord as my witness, I had no idea. I thought the idea was his. I thought it was genuine, I swear to—”
“But you knew about the gang.”
“Yes.” Her jaw set hard. “I knew about the gang.”
Every morning. Every supper. Every time she’d pressed against him on the porch and kissed him, laughed at his stupid jokes, and called himcowboy… She’d known. Carried it around like a second sling alongside Miriam, and he’d never—
He’d trusted her.
That simple, that stupid. He’d handed her a horse and a garden and a nursery with a blue cushion and his dead mother’s name on a baby’s birth record, and she’d held a secret between them the whole time, like a rock in a shoe she’d decided to just live with.
“Logan, she’s innocent in all this.” Jonah tried to push himself up the wall. “I swear on our mother’s grave, Grace had nothin’ to do with—”
“Your mother’s grave.” Logan stood up. “Huh?”
“Please.” Jonah’s eyes watered. “She’s not guilty for my mistakes.”
Logan looked away from him.
His knees ached from the kneeling, his head pounded behind his right eye, and Grace’s face blurred at the edges, which meant—
Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what it means.
“Mason. Thomas. Saddle up. We’re ridin’ every fence.”
Grace reached for his arm. “Logan,please—”
He stepped back. One step. Just enough to put air between her fingers and his sleeve.
“Pa, get Jonah some water and bandages. Grace, take Miriam inside.”
He turned and walked toward the barn, and behind him, Grace said his name once more, quietly, the way she’d said it at the pond under the stars when she’d told him she’d stopped expecting things to be good.
He walked on.
***
The south pasture gate hung open on one hinge, the same as the yard gate. Ace’s people had cut the wire in three places along the east run. Fourteen head of cattle gone. Only open ground and hoofprints heading downhill toward the creek, and God knew where else.
Fourteen head!
In the current market, seven hundred dollars, plus the heifer from weeks back. Plus the fencing. Plus whatever damage they’d find in the north pasture, which Thomas had ridden ahead to check.
Mason rode up alongside him and sat quietly for a while. The boy had something to say, but hadn’t worked out how to sayit yet. Logan counted fence posts while he waited. Seven needed replacing. Eight. The ninth leaned at an angle that’d have it flat by next week.
“She ain’t in on it, Logan.”
“Don’t.”
“Ipicked her letter, remember? Out of thirty-two. I read every one of ’em. Sat at that kitchen table and—”
“And Ace Pike put her up to writin’ it.”
