Chapter Seventeen
P rivacy hasn’t been an issue since I moved into this place.
For some reason those words kept circling in her brain as she drove home. Of all the things that had happened today, she picked this to fixate on? All the things they’d seen, the delight on her nephew’s face, the growing peace and happiness so obvious in her beloved brother, and yet here she was consumed by those words Logan Fox had said?
Did he mean no one came here? No one spent time in that rustically charming cabin with him? Was he that isolated?
Or did he mean no one had been there who wanted privacy? Now that, she could believe. She could easily picture a female guest being secretly glad the bed was right there in the open, and so close…
She was more than a little stunned at herself. Ever since she’d run into him—literally—in the Baylors’ barn, she had started to think about him differently. He was no longer just the man she’d heard about, the expert blacksmith and the more whimsical but undeniable horse whisperer. Now he was also the unexpected history buff who felt the same need she did to see and experience the places where that history had happened, and a voracious reader who bought or checked out books by the stack, again just as she did.
She also found his reticence rather charming, and his quiet contemplations intriguing. And now she knew he was instinctively protective of Jeremy, and even Jackson, which warmed her to her soul.
She busied herself with her nighttime routine, focusing on it more intently than usual to try and keep herself from focusing on the other now undeniable facts about the man she’d—again—spent the day with.
That he was a tall, strong, beautiful man with the most amazing green eyes she’d ever seen.
She sat on the edge of the bed, putting her phone on the nightstand. Her gaze, as always, went to the framed photograph that sat there beneath the lamp. Her and David, laughing and delighted at the unveiling at the high school. Less than a year later, they would be in the fight of their lives, and a year after that they would lose that final battle.
She grimaced slightly at the dichotomy of what she’d done. She’d moved out of and sold the house they’d lived in because she couldn’t bear to be inside those familiar walls without the man who had always been there. Yet she brought with her the picture that had been in the same spot all that time because she couldn’t bear not to.
It was a different nightstand, yes, and definitely a different bed—there was no way she could continue to sleep alone in the bed they’d shared—but the photo was still there, within reach, one of the first things she saw every morning and one of the last things every night.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered to the image.
Yes you do.
As clearly as if he’d been there and spoken she heard David’s voice. And thought about the letter that lay locked away in the top drawer of her desk. The letter she’d read once and never again. The letter she’d thought about tossing in the fireplace of their old home, sending it up in a spiral of smoke just as her life had been.
Seven years.
When she’d stood at his funeral, she’d known she would love him forever. Seven years later she knew it was still true, but the kind of love had changed. She had changed. She’d made progress.
Hadn’t she?
Or was she the same, mired-in-grief woman she’d been that day in the cemetery, standing by his newly dug grave? Had she truly not made any progress at all?
She stood up, picked up that framed photo, and slid it into the drawer.
An image flashed into her mind, last Sunday at the cemetery, when she’d looked up to see Logan standing there. If she was still the same woman she’d been at that funeral, she would have merely nodded and walked away, back to her car to leave. She was sure she would have.
But she hadn’t.
And here she was now, having spent her excursion days in his company four times now, albeit twice it was unintentional, just a couple of mad coincidences. That was more time than she’d spent with any one man except her brother since David had died.
And she liked it. All of it. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
But Jackson had felt the same way. He’d thought that part of his life was over, after Leah’s death. And now…well, he was proving again he was the brave one.
So learn by his example.
The thought startled her. What didn’t surprise her was that the first person she thought of was Logan. He seemed to be taking up a lot of brain cells lately.
It was probably a good thing she had lots of work to distract her. They were bearing down fast on the last week of the school year, and starting next week she would have plenty of extra work for distraction as everything wound up in preparation for the summer break.
She was always focused on work at school, giving her best to the children she taught. Parents had chosen this small school and paid for it privately, and with the small classes she was able to search out each child’s skills and talents and nurture them. It was what she loved most about her work, that chance to truly focus and bring out the best in her kids, especially those who were surprised to learn that odd thing they could do, or that different way of looking at things could be valued and useful.
But this time of year, she spent many of her own hours outside of classroom time on working up her own tests to supplement the state-mandated ones to gauge her students’ progress. And she was actually thankful for that now, as it kept her mind occupied, and away from thinking about other things.
At least, consciously. She realized it must have been in the back of her mind all week anyway as, when she reached Friday night, it suddenly struck her she’d made no plans for tomorrow. No Saturday excursion to some interesting spot, no visit to a place of history to try and imagine herself in that time, and how she would react to the event commemorated in that place.
No chance at all of running into Logan Fox.
It made her wish she’d saved some of that work to do at home tomorrow. But although she tried when morning came, she was out of even little things to do by noon. She switched to house cleaning then, but all she could think of was that Logan’s place had a certain advantage there, in that there was nowhere to hide stuff , as her students called it, so you had to keep things tidy all along.
She spent her Saturday night watching a movie her kids had been talking about a lot. She tried to keep up on things like that, although with this one it was difficult because the attitude of the main character had her grimacing more than once. And when she went to bed that night, she had a crazy dream about that main character…with Logan stepping in to redirect him, as he had those women last week in Houston, for Jackson’s and Jeremy’s sake.
Yes, the man was taking up entirely too much brain space.
By Sunday morning she knew she couldn’t just stay here staring at the walls any longer. With the fragments of that silly dream in mind, she decided to go see how her brother was doing, and perhaps spirit Jeremy off someplace fun, if for no other reason than to give Jackson and Nic some alone time.
When she got to the ranch, she encountered Nic’s mom first, and so stopped at the main house. The woman immediately invited her inside to show her a new software program she’d found, designed for helping students about the same age they both dealt with find which of several ways to approach studying worked best for them. It was intriguing, and before she realized it, they’d gone through an hour and two cups of coffee.
She wasn’t sure what triggered the memory of Nic telling her Logan had helped design and build this desk for Mrs. Baylor. But looking at it now, seeing how perfectly it fit the space, accommodated her wheelchair, those lovely drawer pulls, how perfectly sized the shelves that housed her up-to-the-minute computer gear were, how even the hinges on the cupboard doors looked intricately handmade, she wasn’t in the least surprised.
When she stepped outside to head up the hill to Jackson’s place, as if her thought had somehow conjured him up, she saw Logan’s truck parked by the barn.
“Oh, good,” Mrs. Baylor said. “Logan made it out. Sweet of him—Richard just called him this morning.”
“Somebody lose a shoe?” She was proud of how even her voice was.
“No, it’s the whisperer we needed. A new colt Richard has been trying to halter-break, and he was having none of it.” The woman flashed a bright smile at her. “This should be good. Let’s go watch. I never get tired of watching what Logan can do with a horse, even a stubborn young one.”
And I never seem to get tired of simply watching Logan.
As they headed toward the barn, Mrs. Baylor using the ramp Logan had also helped build, the only thing Tris could think of was that at least this wasn’t some crazy coincidence, them both ending up in the same place at the same time, like it had been in Fredericksburg, or Fort Sam Houston. Or the cemetery.
“Quietly,” Mrs. Baylor whispered as they neared the open barn door. “Don’t want to startle the colt.”
She nodded and made sure to walk the last few steps with care. But when she stopped dead just inside it wasn’t for the sake of silence, it was because she was staring at the sight before her. The colt, a long-legged, black and white pinto that reminded her of Jeremy’s beloved Pie, indeed had a halter on, but clearly was not happy about it, his feet in constant motion.
“Jackson bought him,” Mrs. Baylor said. “I think he has in mind he’ll be for Jeremy, when he outgrows the pony. He should have been halter-broke by now, we start them within a month, but apparently this one wasn’t.”
She only nodded. That was about all she could manage. Because standing at the colt’s head was Logan, dressed in a perfectly fitting pair of jeans—or maybe they were just ordinary jeans on a perfect male body—and a simple chambray shirt. It wasn’t an outfit that should have taken her breath away, but it did. Something about the sleeves rolled up halfway to his elbows, coupled with a glimpse of his powerful chest because of the top two buttons left undone, no doubt in his hurry to answer Mr. Baylor’s call for help. Top it off with a smoky-gray cowboy hat, and it was beyond eye-catching. To her, anyway.
Be honest. It’s not the outfit, it’s the man wearing it.
The colt continued to shift his hooves restlessly and gave a little snort, tossing his head as if in rebellion against the strange new device on his head. Logan leaned in, and although she could see he was talking, and the colt’s ears were trained on him, he was indeed whispering, and she couldn’t hear him.
She spotted Mr. Baylor standing in a stall she guessed must be the colt’s, behind the half-door, watching. Wondered if that was to make the colt feel safer, or simply to make sure the animal was focused on Logan. She managed to avoid veering off into making that a personal observation. Barely.
“Most foals are generally very curious,” Mrs. Baylor said, very quietly. “Like puppies. But most tend to be warier, too. Or less trusting.”
That made sense to her. “I suppose it’s part of the difference between being predator and prey.”
“Exactly,” Mrs. Baylor said, given Tris what appeared to be an approving nod. “Dogs have been domesticated for so long that a lot of people forget that part, that their ancestors would have hunted horses.”
“Does the new colt get along with Maverick?” she asked, glad to keep the conversation centered on the animals.
“He does, actually. That dog is very clever and welcomed him with half a carrot.”
Tris laughed, albeit quietly. “Having eaten the other half himself?” she guessed. Jackson had told her how the dog’s affinity for them had helped overcome Jeremy’s wariness about the vegetable.
“That’s what Jeremy said.” Mrs. Baylor nodded toward the pair standing in the aisle of the barn. “And I see our horse whisperer has done it again.”
Tris looked up just in time to see the young, black and white horse walking alongside Logan toward the far end of the barn with every evidence of calm. She shook her head slowly in wonder.
“That,” Mrs. Baylor said with emphasis, “is an amazing man. To come up the way he did, yet still have that kind of empathy to give.”
That caught Tris’s attention. She remembered what Nic had said about him having a rough start in life, that comment they’d never gotten back to. But now it seemed too important to let pass. “The way he did?”
“He’s never told you he grew up in the foster system?” Mrs. Baylor sighed.
“No, he never did.” But it explained so much. His wariness, his quietness, that air he had of watching everything all around him. That need for the isolation his home gave him. He’d probably never had much privacy at all, growing up. It made sense, now.
Mrs. Baylor went on, looking at Tris rather than watching Logan work. “I don’t know the details. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten the whole story, since he so obviously likes you. But I guess he doesn’t really talk about it at all. I only know what little I do because one of my former colleagues was a teacher of his and she had the records.”
…he so obviously likes you.
She had to give herself a mental shake to keep from zeroing in on that phrase to the exclusion of all else. And from appearing too rapt at the way he moved, and how it was emphasized in those jeans.
They stopped near the far doors, man and horse. With a tug she could barely see from here, and a slight nudge of his hip against the colt’s side, he managed to get the animal who had been totally uncooperative just minutes ago to make a one-hundred-eighty degree turn with him. They stood quietly for a moment, Logan leaning over slightly as he whispered…whatever it was he whispered to work his magic.
The colt tilted his head back slightly, as if to better listen. But then his true motive became clear as he unexpectedly grabbed the brim of Logan’s hat between his teeth and yanked it off his head.
Tris couldn’t help it, she laughed. So did Mrs. Baylor, and Mr. Baylor as well, from his spot in the colt’s stall. Even Logan was grinning—taking her breath away all over again—as he looked at the young creature who was standing there as if a little uncertain what to do with his prize now that he had it.
“All you had to do was ask, y’know,” Logan drawled to the youngster, not whispering now.
She laughed again, especially when he reached up with one hand, fingers curled, and rubbed the colt under the jaw. The animal reacted the way Maverick did when you scratched that spot behind his right ear, blissfully. After a moment Logan freed his hat and had it back on his head.
“I think he looks much handsomer in that cowboy hat than the baseball cap he wears at the forge,” Mrs. Baylor said. “Don’t you?”
Tris didn’t trust herself to answer with what she really thought of his looks, hat or no hat, so said instead, “I’m sure he just doesn’t want an errant spark or ember to ruin that one.”
For a long moment Mrs. Baylor didn’t speak, long enough that Tris looked down at her. The older woman was smiling, a little bit too knowingly for Tris’s comfort.
The man and horse started walking back, and Tris couldn’t miss how the young animal followed obediently now, keeping pace with Logan’s long stride. They stopped in front of the stall where Mr. Baylor was leaning against the top of the lower door.
“He’ll be all right, I think,” Logan said. “But he’s got a quick brain, and I think he’ll always be one you have to keep your eye on.”
“The smart ones always are,” the rancher said, grinning as he took the lead and guided the colt back into the stall he’d been standing in.
Logan grinned back. “True, that. But keep working with him. Pull more down than forward, and stand close. And I’d say he’s reward-motivated, so a treat is good when he does it right.”
“Like letting him have at my hat?” Mr. Baylor suggested.
“I’d watch it if you switch to straw this summer—he’s liable to eat it,” Logan said with another laugh. Another delightful laugh she thought she would never tire of hearing. Perhaps because it was rather rare.
Or, she corrected, it was rare around her. Her he usually looked at warily, except when they got past whatever it was that put him so on edge and simply talked.
All that thought did was remind her how often she had thought about that—and him—in this week that had seemed so long and silent in her quiet life, the life she preferred, the life he’d disrupted without even trying, just by appearing in it a few times.
Times that had her thinking and feeling things she hadn’t thought or felt in years.
“Nicely done!” Mrs. Baylor called out with a smile, but not, Tris noticed, until after the colt was secured.
And that was the last thing she noticed, because in response a smiling Logan looked their way. And his smile froze when he spotted her beside Mrs. Baylor. Their gazes locked, and Tris suddenly found it hard to breathe.
And no amount of telling herself she’d imagined that flash of heat she thought she’d seen in those green, green eyes seemed to help.