Page 97 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“No. I reckon it don’t.” Rafe leaned back. “But that boy lost his mother on this land, Grace. And he blamed himself every single day since, even though it weren’t his fault, and I’ve told him so ‘til I’m blue. He ain’t gonna stop bein’ afraid just because you ask nice.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Just… sit here?”
“You’re supposed totalkto him. Don’t argue. Don’t holler. Sit him down and tell him what you told me.”
“I told him that two days ago!”
“He was fresh spooked then. Ain’t so now.”
She sighed. “What do I even tell him?”
“That you’re unhappy. That you’re suffocatin’. Because that stubborn son of mine would rather eat his own boots than see you miserable, but he can’t fix a thing he don’t know about.”
“He knows, Rafe. He’s right there. He can see—”
“Men don’t see what’s right in front of ’em, Grace. That’s about the truest thing I know. You gotta spell it out. Slow. In small words.” He chuckled. “And maybe twice.”
She laughed.
“He’ll listen, I promise.” Rafe shrugged. “He won’t like it. He’ll get that look on his face like you just told him the barn’s on fire. But he’ll listen. Because it’s you.”
She wiped her eye with the heel of her hand before anything spilled over. “Alright.”
“Good.” Rafe drained his cup and pushed back from the table. “Now. Where’s my grandbaby? I ain’t held her in two whole hours, and that’s just plain wrong.”
***
Miriam went down for her nap after the usual twenty-minute negotiation, the rocking, the frog song, and a full refusal to let go of Grace’s collar until sleep won. Grace tucked the red horse against her cheek and backed out of the nursery.
Rafe settled into the chair by the door with his whittling knife. “Go on. I got her.”
“I ain’t talking to Logan yet,” she huffed. “I got chores.”
Rafe chuckled.
Grace made her way to the barn, grabbed a curry comb, and started on Captain, who pinned his ears flat and bit the crosstiesevery thirty seconds because Captain hated grooming the way Grace hated mice.
“Hold still, you miserable—”
A shape flashed outside, moving along the south fenceline.
Grace’s hands stopped.
It was too thin and hunched to be Logan, and it moved different from how Mason, Thomas, and Jonah did. She’d learned how all of them moved by now, the way you learned a house’s creaks.
Her heart kicked hard against her breastbone.
She should go get someone. But Logan rode the north pasture with Mason. Thomas and Jonah hammered new posts along the east line. Rafe sat upstairs with the baby. By the time she ran to any of them and explained—
The shape slipped past the woodpile and cut toward the south field. Toward the spot where somebody had dug that hole that broke the heifer’s leg.
Grace dropped the curry comb.
Every smart thing she’d ever learned—every New York instinct that had pulled her through alleys where smart girls didn’t linger—screamed at her to go to the house, get the rifle, and wait. But the shape moved fast. It’d hit the tree line in two minutes, and then it’d vanish into the aspens. Two more weeks of locked gates and checked windows and Logan’s eyes following her across every room.
She grabbed Penny’s bridle off the hook. Her hands shook through the saddling. The girth ended up too loose, so she had to fix it before hauling herself up. Penny danced sideways with her ears pricked.
Grace kicked her into a canter and cleared the barn door.
