Page 45 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“It’s late tonight.” He dropped his hands. “First light, I’ll ride out.”
Mason slumped back in his chair. Thomas blew out a breath.
Pa picked up his spoon and took a bite of stew, grimaced, and set it back down.
“Lord Almighty, that’s terrible.”
Chapter Thirteen
Miriam woke Grace up by shoving her wet fist into her nostril.
It served as an alarm clock of sorts, though Grace would’ve preferred one that didn’t come with baby drool and a fingernail up the nose. She peeled the tiny hand off her face, sat up on the ground, and every bone in her spine popped in a chain from the bottom to the top like somebody cracking their knuckles in slow motion.
I’m sorry, little one. You shouldn’t be in the cold like this.
She’d have to think of a way to get Miriam somewhere warm and soon.
The tent, somehow, smelledworsein the morning.
That mildew-and-river-mud scent had deepened overnight into something closer to wet dog mixed with old potatoes, and the canvas sagged so low on the left side that it nearly pressed against her shoulder. Through the gap in the flap, gray light leaked in, the thin kind that meant the sun hadn’t cleared the ridge yet.
Miriam grabbed a fistful of flannel and tugged.
“I know, I know. You’re hungry.”
The bottle. Right. Except the bottle sat in Jonah’s rucksack, and the rucksack sat outside by the dead fire. Even cooling for eight hours after the fire had died, the odds of the milk being any good ranked somewhere between slim and laughable.
I’ll figure it out.
She always had. Back in New York, she’d stretched a half-cup of flour into three meals by mixing it with water and frying it on the stove lid because the actual stove had broken, and Jonah hadn’t gotten around to fixing it. A person could make do with almost nothing if they’d had enough practice.
So. Breakfast.
She tucked the baby into the sling, pulled her boots on without lacing them, and ducked through the tent flap.
And stopped. Logan Foster knelt in the dirt next to a ring of fresh-stacked kindling, blowing on a curl of smoke that licked up between two pieces of split pine. Just there. In front of the tent. On his knees, in the clearing, like he’d sprouted out of the ground.
His horse stood tied to a low pine branch about thirty yards back, still saddled, which meant he’d ridden hard and recently.Dust on his trousers from the knees down. His hat hung on the saddle horn.
He looked up.
Those pale blue eyes hit hers across the clearing, and the smoke curled between them in a thread that broke apart in the breeze.
Grace crossed her arms, or tried to. Miriam occupied most of her chest real estate, so the cross came out more like a one-armed hug on herself, which probably undercut the effect she’d aimed for.
Her heart was hammering. She hated that, hated that he could still make her pulse kick up when she was supposed to be angry with him.
Logan sat back on his heels. “Mornin’.”
“Mornin’.”
The fire popped. Miriam squirmed against Grace’s collarbone and made that pre-fussing noise, the one that came about forty seconds before the full wail, like a kettle building steam.
“I brought milk.” Logan nodded toward a canvas sack beside his knee. “Fresh from this mornin’. And some biscuits. They ain’t great. Pa made ’em, so... prepare yourself.”
“You rode all the way out here to bring me biscuits your father made.”
“And milk.”
