Page 82 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“I watched you lose weight you didn’t have to lose. I watched you shiver under every blanket we owned and still wake up smilin’ because you didn’t wanna make me feel bad. You weretwelve, and you were protectin’me, and I—”
“Don’t you use me as the reason.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare stand there and make me the excuse for—”
“You ain’t the excuse! You’re the reason I’m still breathin’!” His voice cracked. “I did what I had to do. It wasn’t right. Iknowit wasn’t right. But I’d do it again, every time, if it meant you ate.”
Something hot pressed behind her eyes. She blinked it back. No. She didn’t get to cry about this. He didn’t get that from her right now.
“The letter mentions a harbor job. Mentions a cut. Twelve dollars.”
“That’s from months ago. Before I came here.”
“And since you came here?”
“Nothin’.” He held both hands up. “I swear on Ma’s grave, Grace. I ain’t done a single job since I set foot on this property. Not one.”
“Ace just let you walk away? A gang boss just said, ‘Sure, Jonah, go work on a ranch in Colorado, no hard feelings?’”
Something flickered across his face. Quick. The kind of thing you’d miss if you blinked, but Grace didn’t blink, and she caught it. A flinch.
“I told him I was done. He didn’t… I mean, he wasn’t happy about it, but I told him I had a fresh start out here and I wasn’t comin’ back.”
“And he just accepted that.”
“Yeah.”
“Jonah.”
“Yeah, Grace. He accepted it. It’s done.”
She stared at him. Her brother. Same dark hair, same jaw, same crooked front tooth from the time he’d fallen off the fire escape when he turned nine. Same face she’d looked at across a kitchen table every day for twenty-one years.
And underneath all of it, a stranger. A whole person she’d never met, living inside the brother she loved, doing things in the dark she couldn’t even…
“Does Logan know?”
“No.”
“If he finds out—”
“He won’t.”
“If hefinds out, Jonah, he’ll throw you off this property so fast your boots won’t touch the ground. And this timeI won’tfight him on it. You understand me? This time he’d beright.”
Jonah’s face crumpled.
“I’m done with it, Gracie. I swear. This ranch… these people… Logan gave me a chance nobody else would’ve. I ain’t gonna throw that away.” He stepped closer. “I left that life behind. The letter’s old. I shoulda burned it, I just…”
“You just what?”
“I kept it as a reminder. Of what I ain’t goin’ back to.”
She looked at him for a long time. The stable smelled like hay dust and pine shavings, and somewhere outside, Miriam’s rattle jingled faintly in the grass.
“You burn ittoday.”
“I will.”
“And you tell meeverything. All of it. Every job, every take, every person you ran with. I deserve to know what I’ve been livin’ next to for twelve years.”
