Page 116 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“Ace putJonahup to showin’ her the ad. That letter came fromGrace. Every word.” Mason pulled his horse closer. “You saw her face. She didn’t know.”
Logan’s hands tightened on the reins. The leather bit into his palms, right along the calluses Grace had traced with her thumb that night at the pond when she’d told him about the blue shawl, the fifteen cents, and the dollar Jonah wouldn’t explain.
The dollar Jonah wouldn’t explain.
Stupid, Logan. Stupid.
Thomas appeared on the ridge and shook his head. More cuts, more open gates. The north herd had scattered.
Seven hundred became a thousand. Became more. Became a number Logan couldn’t put together without the ledger, and the ledger lay on the floor of a ransacked office in a house that had stopped feeling like his about twenty minutes ago.
No. Still his. But the trust—the part that made it more than dirt and fenceposts and a roof—
He turned his horse back toward the house.
***
Grace sat on the porch steps with Miriam asleep in her lap. She’d changed out of her blue dress—the one she’d pressed with his flatiron that morning, the one that still smelled like his starch—and into the plain brown one she wore for chores. The celebration had ended, and she’d dressed for it.
She stood up when he dismounted. Miriam shifted against her chest and made a small sound, and Grace’s hand came up to steady the baby’s head the way she’d done a thousand times, like breathing.
“How bad?”
“Bad.” He leaned against the railing. “Twenty head gone, maybe more. Fences cut in half a dozen places.”
She reached into her dress pocket and held out the money. Fifty dollars, folded tight, the bills she’d won three hours agowith tomatoes she’d grown from seed in a garden that didn’t exist anymore.
“Take it. Please, Logan. It’s all I got and it ain’t enough but—”
“I don’t want your money, Grace.”
“It ain’t aboutwant, it’s about what the ranch—”
“I said I don’t want it.”
He walked past her up the steps. Jonah sat inside at the kitchen table with a rag pressed to his forehead and Rafe’s whiskey at his elbow. He looked up when Logan came through the door with the kind of expression a dog got when it knew the boot had already started swinging.
“Get off my ranch.”
Grace followed him in. “Logan—”
“Don’t ‘Logan’ me. He can’t stay, and you know it.”
“Logan…” She stepped in front of him. “He’s mybrother.”
“Jonah?” Logan tilted his head to look past Grace. “You understand that you have to leave, yeah?”
Jonah closed his good eye and nodded. Then he stood up from the table. He put the rag down, pushed the whiskey glass away, and walked toward the back door without a word. At the threshold, he stopped and looked at Grace.
“I’m sorry, Gracie.”
The door closed behind him.
Chapter Thirty-One
The back door banged shut in Grace’s face. Miriam jerked against her chest and let out a startled squawk, and Grace just stood there for a second with her hand on the latch and her pulse thrumming so hard it shook her teeth.
Then she shoved the door open and went after him.
