She narrowed her mouth into a skeptical line. “Are you?”
“Just dandy,” he shot back.
“Be sure you stay that way,” she said, a very clear warning.
Rose bristled beside him. He could practically see her hackles go up. Feral little wildcat.
“Don’t you have some citizens to check on?” Rose asked.
“I’m doing my part to make sure no one does anything stupid,” Pansy said.
“Best get off to police some kids, then,” Rose said, waving a hand. “No one here needs your intervention.”
“I hope not.” Pansy directed that last part at Logan.
For his part, West looked vaguely apologetic as the two of them walked off into the crowd.
“She’s impossible,” Rose muttered, replacing her angry look with a grin when a group of people walked by. They didn’t stop, and her smile immediately flatlined, then turned down. “She has to stop thinking she’s police chief of me personally.”
“I mean, you’re a citizen of the town so I think technically she is.”
“Fine. So, if I graffitied Sugar Cup or...or carved my name on the wall in the bathroom of the Gold Valley Saloon...”
“You know why they do that, right?” In spite of himself, he asked the question.
She turned wide eyes to him. “No. There’s a reason?”
He laughed, but it came out more of a cough. “Um. Yes. You do it if you’ve hooked up in there.”
“No.”
The awkwardness between the two of them lifted for a moment while he could see Rose taking a mental catalog of names she remembered seeing there. “Olivia Hollister...”
“I mean, I’m sure her husband is to blame for that.”
“She just seems too...too prim.”
“But he isn’t.”
Rose frowned. “So that’s how it is then. This sex thing. It makes you crazy. Makes you carve your name in bathrooms. Makes you...do that in bathrooms.”
“Since the dawn of time, basically,” Logan said. “Which is why I told you, you don’t really know. You think you do. It’s not a lack of respecting you that has me turning you down. But to my mind it would be like letting a driver without a license behind the wheel of a car. Or letting someone with no experience on one of the stallions we have on the ranch.”
Her lips twitched. “Are you calling yourself a stallion?”
He snorted. “I’m not a gelding, that’s for damn sure.”
She was silent for a long moment. “All right, say your analogy holds. If someone wanted to get on the back of a stallion, let’s say, with no experience, wouldn’t you rather be right there to...instruct?”
“I’m lost now.”
“I’m going to do it someday,” she said. “And I think I’m a little too...”
Suddenly, her eyes went glassy. If she’d been any other woman he’d have thought they were tears. But Rose didn’t cry.
“Everything feels a little messed up right now. And I don’t know if it’s everyone pairing off or if it’s Christmas or...or kissing you. Maybe it’s everything. But I thought about what you said to me. Why I was meddling in everyone else’s business and not my own. It’s because I don’t like thinking about my own feelings.”
He huffed. “Join the club.”
He turned back to the forge and made a study of stoking the fire.
“Well, I really don’t like it. But I’ve been wallowing in them the past week. I hate it, Logan. I feel guilty about Elliott. I’m angry that you were right. That I didn’t recognize what was going on. That I didn’t even have the... I’m twenty-three, I’m not a kid. I should recognize it. I shouldn’t have gotten my first kiss in my brother’s kitchen years after I had my first beer. And well, come to think of it you gave me my first beer so it makes even more sense.”
“Oh, please, God, tell me you are not asking me to teach you about sex.”
“That was the bet.”
“The bet was me...teaching you about chemistry. Explaining things to you, not...actually...showing you.”
“Maybe I’m a tactile learner. I need hands-on examples.”
“Stop it. That isn’t going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Spoken like a virgin.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “I am a virgin. Hello.” She smiled broadly at the people who approached the booth, which effectively put their conversation on hold while they went into their spiel about horseshoes and blacksmithing again. When the family left, she turned back to him.
“I just don’t see what the problem is. You want to. I think I want to...”
“You think you want to.”
“Well, I haven’t done it. So, it’s really hard to say.”
“So, answer me this. Do you just want to because I’m the first man that’s ever shown any interest in you that you’ve noticed?”
“You’re not the first. There was Elliott.”
He snorted. There was not enough derision in the sound to express how much he felt. “Okay.”
“I’m not at all interested in Elliott that way,” she continued, as if he hadn’t snorted. “And I don’t need to trial and error that. I have immediately no interest.”
“All right. So, between me and one other guy that is the human equivalent of a pair of pleat-front khakis, you are more into me.”
“Rude. Also, I’m not sure how many people are required to go through a list and compare and contrast and decide if there’s another person out there they might want more than the one in proximity. Most people just do it.”
“My point is,” he said, “I think this might have more to do with opportunity for you. And what you’re not considering is the consequences.”
She blinked at him in utter confusion. “Well, use a condom.”
He just about pitched over the edge of the booth and landed on the poker he was gripping in his hand. But he didn’t have time to react. Because another group approached, and they had to do another bit in between this current nonsense they were engaged in. He gritted his teeth through the whole thing. And as soon as they left, he rounded on her. “What the hell do you mean talking like that?”
“I’m being pragmatic. That’s what you do to prevent consequences.”
“Pregnancy,” he said. “Which is not the only consequence.”
“It’s my leading concern.”
“I wouldn’t let
