Page 37 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
Because he’d burn that man’s house to the ground. That’s what he’d do. If anyone turned his brothers away without so much as a cup of water, Logan would ride out there himselfand take the matter up in person, and the conversation would involve very few words and a whole lot of property damage.
But admitting that meant admitting she had a point and losing control of this situation.
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because they’remybrothers.”
“And Jonah’smybrother. My only blood kin in this world. The person who kept me fed and alive after our parents died. And you want me to stand here and watch you run him off like a stray dog?”
“If you don’t like the way things work on this ranch...”
He pulled himself up to his full height, using every inch of the six feet God gave him, and delivered the line he’d been saving as a final card—the one he figured would end this and bring the whole argument back under his authority because no woman would actually walk away from a roof and steady meals over a visiting brother.
“...then you are welcome to leave.”
Grace went still.
For a stretch that lasted about ten years inside Logan’s chest, she looked at him. Just looked. With those brown eyes that’d gone all the way to dark in the early light, with nothing honey-colored left in them. Her face rearranged itself, piece by piece, like she’d been assembling an opinion of him for weeks and had just snapped the final one into place.
“Fine.”
She said it the way you’d close a ledger.
Then she turned and walked into the house. Measured steps that carried the kind of purpose Logan recognized because he walked that way himself whenever he’d made a decision and moved on to executing it.
The screen door closed behind her.
“Well,” Jonah picked up his rucksack and dusted it off. “That went great.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Just sayin’.”
Logan opened his own mouth to say something, but the sound of drawers opening and then closing came from inside the house. Quick footsteps on the floorboards. Then Grace reappeared on the porch with Miriam bundled against her chest in the cotton sling, her carpetbag in one hand, and her boots on her feet.
“Grace.” Logan shook his head. “Grace, what are you—”
“You told me I could leave, Mr. Foster.” She walked past him toward Jonah. “I’m takin’ you at your word.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You meant exactly what you said. Don’t insult us both by pretendin’ otherwise.”
She grabbed Jonah’s elbow and steered him toward the road, and Jonah adjusted his rucksack and fell into step beside her. Miriam fussed once against Grace’s collarbone, then settled.
Logan stood in his own yard and watched them walk away.
Down the road. Getting smaller. Grace’s stride eating up the distance with a rhythm that brooked no argument, and Jonah was matching it at her side. The baby’s bonnet, that flour-sack bonnet Grace had sewn by hand at the kitchen table, caught a patch of early sun.
Then the road curved behind the cottonwoods, and they vanishes behind the bend.
On the porch, Pa stood up. The chair creaked behind him.
“You know somethin’, boy?”
Logan turned.
