Rose rubbed her nose, trying to get rid of some of the chill, then slipped her jacket off, leaving it haphazardly on one of the kitchen stools.
“Can you not?” Iris asked, picking it up and flinging it back at her.
Rose caught it. “I probably have to go back outside after dinner,” she protested.
“It will take you two seconds to go hang it up.”
Rose muttered as she went back into the living room to go hang her coat up on the peg. As soon as she touched the hook by the door, it opened.
And in walked Logan, looking as red-faced and cranky as she felt. “Fucking freezing out there,” he muttered.
“No kidding.”
They both quit moving, and suddenly, they were just standing there staring at each other. Very close together. The warm air in the room seemed to expand between them.
And in that space it felt like their last conversation settled there and just stayed.
You aren’t thinking about the fact you’re talking about someone being inside you, Rose.
It’s physical.
Hands.
Mouths.
Teeth.
“There’s stew,” she said, the statement falling out of her mouth and sounding exceedingly lame.
“Good,” he said, his voice rough, probably from the cold winter air. “I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” she said.
Neither of them moved.
Rose realized that she was going to have to eventually.
But it felt like the air was made of molasses, and like the floor might be covered in a thick layer of muck—the kind that was mostly clay and sucked your boots down in deep, making it difficult to take a step. Something was holding her there.
And she had the oddest sensation of her stomach turning over inside her body when something flashed in Logan’s blue eyes, and she had to ask herself if it was mud, molasses or that deep blue that reminded her of a summer sky holding her to the spot.
His eyes were familiar. Much like the beauty of the ranch around her, she woke up and saw those eyes every day.
She didn’t think about them, consequently.
But she was considering them now. Deeply. As they considered her.
And she wondered.
What could he teach her?
What would he teach her?
“Dinner?” she squeaked.
“Yep,” he said, his voice thick like the air, like the floor.
She swallowed and turned away from him, making her way toward the dining room. She could hear the heavy footfalls of his boots behind her. Pansy, West, and West’s half brother Emmett had decided to join them for dinner. Which meant that it was a fairly full house. Rose liked it like this. It reminded her of being a kid. In spite of everything, it was a good memory for her. She had missed her parents terribly. But even then those years when the grief had been sharp and cutting, before it had dulled to an ache that just sort of sat there in her chest, before it had simply wrapped itself around her soul and become part of what she was, she hadn’t felt alone.
She had missed her parents, but she had known that she wasn’t an orphan. Not really.
Not in the way that those poor sad kids in that one movie were. Singing while they scrubbed the floors. She got to live in her house. She had her brother. Her sisters. Cousins.
Logan.
There had been a huge amount of security in that. Because something in her had felt confident that she would always have them. Yes, she had experienced loss. But this place was here. This house. These people.
It was the thing that sustained her. Preserved her.
Their chipped cups and plates, noisy get-togethers and animals running all around.
That sweet nostalgic mist was a lot more comforting than that moment back in the entryway when Logan’s familiar eyes had become something else entirely.
“Arrest any bad guys?” Rose asked, sitting in the empty seat next to Pansy.
“No,” she said. “I did have to tell off a deer that got into Mrs. Niedermayer’s pond.”
“I can’t believe she has the nerve to call you and ask you to help her out, after she actively tried to keep you from getting your job,” Rose said.
Barbara Niedermayer was a whole problem. A city councilperson with too much attitude, in her opinion. She knew that Barbara’d had it hard, with her son struggling with addiction issues and her husband leaving her a few years earlier, but that wasn’t an excuse. She had tried to encourage Pansy to arrest West’s younger brother, who had been causing a bit of trouble, granted, but the poor kid was all alone in the world. Rose had endless sympathy for that kind of thing. Considering she hadn’t been alone because of the way her siblings had rallied around her.
West and Emmett hadn’t been raised together, and they had a huge age difference, but of course once West had realized the situation that Emmett found himself in, he had taken the kid under his wing.
At the same time, Pansy had been starting a relationship with West and had been up for the job of chief of police. Barbara had been opposed to both lenience for Emmett, and Pansy getting that job.
Rose was still mad about it.
“Oh, you know Barbara,” Pansy said. “I’m not supposed to take any of it personally. It was what she believed in, and she dug her heels in on it. But now things are different, and she is learning to adapt.”
“If I were you, I would leave her garden and her pond to the deer.”
“Yes, but it’s better that Pansy is not as bloodthirsty as you are,” Sammy pointed out. “Considering her position.”
Rose shrugged. “I’m not bloodthirsty. I just believe in listening to people when they tell you who they are with their actions.”
“You’re suspicious,” Iris said. “Naturally.”
“I’m not, either.”
She was a little. But parts of their childhood had been marked by visits from Child Protective Services, who had some natural concerns about Ryder handling the stress and grief of losing his parents and taking care of all the children. Even though they’d
