What? What the hell are you going to do?
To what end?
Yeah. She’d asked that. And it was the one thing he didn’t really have an answer for. Because the first thing he wanted to say was why did it have to end?
Well, he didn’t even know what Rose wanted. Not in terms of this kind of thing. Relationships. Did she fantasize about getting married and having children?
The thought made his throat dry.
Rose. Getting married. Having children.
No. It wasn’t for him.
He’d had a family once.
He wasn’t going to make another one.
He’d depended on one person in his whole life. And she’d depended on him right back. His mom had been his whole world. The woman who had devoted herself to raising him. His world had fallen when he’d lost her. And the thing that haunted him, and always would, was that it had all happened because of how he’d tried to love her.
He would never be able to get rid of that. That feeling of being so excited about something, so proud. And having it turn to death in the end.
Didn’t matter if thinking it was his fault was martyrish or thinking it would happen again was some kind of magic thinking. It was still there. Inside him. Likely where his ability to love another person right would have been.
He’d wished things were different a lot of times, for a lot of reasons.
Tonight, he wished they were different for Rose.
But it didn’t change things. It never did.
No matter who he made those wishes for.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE WASN’T USUALLY INDECISIVE. Rose was big on leaping before she looked. She got an idea, and she went with it. She also wasn’t used to regretting her actions. But she had been seriously regretting several actions for the past few days. One of the big ones was meddling in Iris’s life. And that was something that she needed to address.
The other thing was that she hadn’t addressed it at all yet, because she had been so consumed with her own stuff.
Then there was her own stuff. Yeah. She regretted what had happened with Logan. She regretted turning him away last night, too. She felt so fragile, so delicate, and she had no idea who she could talk to about it. Because it was Logan, it made things complicated. She probably would have just told her sisters if it had been any other guy. But Logan? If she told Sammy she would tell Ryder. Ryder would find his burdizzo and castrate Logan like one of their ranch animals.
Pansy had not been supportive at all just knowing that Logan had kissed her. If she found out what else they had done...
She sighed heavily. She was still avoiding him, and she didn’t want him to know that she was avoiding him. Eventually, she was going to have to deal. But he’d made it clear that he wanted more. And she didn’t have a handle on her emotions. She felt small. Embarrassed. Everything that had happened between them had been wonderful. Off the charts, amazing wonderful. A combination of riding her horse at full speed and Christmas morning, somehow combined. Exhilarating, magical. But she hadn’t expected the emotional reaction that had followed.
She’d woken up early in the morning, and everything from the night before had flashed through her mind. One of the first things she thought was that she needed to get away. Because if he was gentle with her, if he was nice, if he kissed her, well, if he anything... She might cry.
She had been running away from him, and from tears for the last two days. She worried that she was getting to the end of that. That she was either going to end up weeping at a really bad time, or was going to end up grabbing him and either yelling at him or kissing him.
She wasn’t sure which thought disturbed her more.
It was lunchtime, and she had managed to stay away from him for the day. She was sure that he had packed a lunch, and she went into the kitchen to collect something there.
But the house wasn’t empty.
It wasn’t Logan that she saw standing in the kitchen, it was Iris.
“Oh,” she said. “Hi.”
“You don’t have to be weird,” Iris said.
“I’m not being weird.”
“You nearly jumped out of your skin when you saw me.”
Well, some of that was because she was worried that the other person in the kitchen might be Logan. But she wasn’t going to say that.
“You just startled me. That’s all.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I meddled in your life.”
“Don’t. Just don’t do that.”
“But I am,” Rose said. “I’m sorry that I thought he liked you, when he liked me.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Iris said. “The fried chicken was a peace offering and a hope we wouldn’t ever speak of it.”
But Rose needed to speak of it. “I didn’t even think you liked him very much.”
“Rose, please,” Iris said. “It’s embarrassing enough without having to go over it.”
“Why are you embarrassed?”
“Because! I...I would never have liked him. I would never have gotten involved. But you’re right. I’m alone. I’m always alone. And he seemed interested and no one else ever has been, so even though I wasn’t immediately enamored with him I thought I should make myself have stronger feelings. And I did. I did and then he didn’t like me.”
Rose’s horror grew. Expanded. She’d thought her sister was maybe heartbroken, but this was actually worse. She was humiliated. Rejected by someone she’d forced herself to have feelings for. “Iris, I’m so sorry...”
“You know that’s not even the worst part, Rose. And it’s pretty terrible, but it’s not the worst. Do you know what the worst thing is?”
“What?” Rose asked, her throat going tight.
“Khaki pants. Water filtration. That’s what you think of me. That is the...the great and exciting guy that
