“Don’t be sorry,” she said softly. “It wasn’t fair. That we had to do that. Go through it. That you had to explain it to me. That I had to understand it. But I’m glad that you were there.”
He put his chin on top of her head and rested it there. “Me, too.”
“I’m glad you are here for this, too,” she said quietly. “For me.”
A weird kind of symmetry to that. That he could be the one to teach her about grief and death and sex also.
They had chosen to deal with the first two things. But at least this was something they’d wanted.
“You’ve always been there for me,” she said softly. “It was really important to me that I was there for you today. I’m sorry that I ran away at first.”
He looked down at her. “You’re always there for me. I couldn’t do half the work I do without you there. You’re like... I don’t know. A really good tractor.”
She burst out laughing, the sound reverberating off the close bathroom walls. “That is the worst.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well,” she said, her tone sly, “I am on top of you. Also like a tractor.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I couldn’t get my work done without you.”
“Well, why am I the tractor? Because I’m the girl? That makes me seem like an implement. Rather than implementer.”
“Fine. You’re the best ranch hand a man could ever ask for.”
“Ranch hand.” Then, something wicked came over her face. “I could give you a hand... If that’s what you really want from me.” She slipped her hand between their bodies and wrapped it around his hardening length. “How’s that? Ranch handy?”
“That’s not what I meant, either,” he groaned. “But I’ll take it.”
“What I should probably do is assist you into bed.”
“Not a half-bad idea. As long as you get into it with me.”
“Admit I’m the rancher. And you’re the ranch hand.”
Well, he was basic, after all. So the only answer to that was for him to put his hand between her legs and stroke her, tease her the way that she was doing him. “What do you think?”
She sighed. “I think we complement each other pretty well.”
His chest burned then, with the desire for something more. Something he couldn’t put a name to. And for the first time in his memory he wanted to give something to someone else.
A gift.
There was so much damn baggage involved in him giving someone a gift.
But Rose...his Rose. She was in his arms all soft and warm and slick and he’d give her the world if he could.
The whole damn world.
He’d gone to a Christmas parade for her.
He’d give her a gift, too. And he knew just the thing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THINGS CHANGED AFTER THAT. Rose gave up trying to impose limitations on what was happening between them. She also never asked him again what the endgame was.
Because she didn’t want to think about it.
As long as she was living in the moment, she didn’t care.
The two of them worked together like they always had. And then at night, she sneaked off to his cabin.
The more she stared at the stark, determinedly undecorated space of his cabin, the more she was determined to find his mother’s cookie recipe and give it to him as a Christmas gift. But she was also a little afraid that it might upset him. She didn’t want that.
He didn’t do Christmas. He didn’t do gifts. She knew that. But he’d done the Christmas parade with her. And she wanted to believe that maybe for her...maybe with her he’d be willing to make something new.
She wanted to give him something. Something real. Because every so often she would look at him and the full scope of what he meant to her would hit her like a...well, like a tractor falling on top of her. Which, based on the lovely color of his still healing bruises, was quite a lot of impact.
West and Pansy’s wedding was getting close, and it was also the time of year that Colt and Jake came to town to spend Christmas with them.
Rose felt slightly guilty about how distracted she was.
It was tough to care about Christmas, or even her sister’s wedding when she was so consumed by her affair with Logan.
Affair. Was that the right word? She didn’t even know.
“Are you listening?”
Rose looked up from the pot of jam that she’d been stirring and made eye contact with Iris. Sammy and Pansy were staring at her, too.
They had gotten their berries from summer out of the freezer, and were making jam and pie filling. More jam to send off with the boys when they left again, and prepping the pie filling for dinner tonight, and through the next couple of weekends.
They went through so much food when everybody was here. And Rose wasn’t really the best person to assist with the cooking. But she did.
Not because it was women’s work really, or anything like that. She did enough of the ranch work that she didn’t feel like she had to go work in the kitchen, too.
But she loved spending time with her sisters, and Sammy.
Of course, a little bit less during times like this when she felt like she had been caught out at something.
“No,” she admitted. “I wasn’t listening.”
“Are you scheming?” Sammy asked. “Because I thought we put a moratorium on your scheming.”
“I don’t have anything to scheme about.”
For once it was true. She wasn’t as consumed with anybody else’s life because she was so wrapped up in her own. She had been avoiding that. For a very long time. Because it was... Well, caring so much about what was happening in her own life was scary. Potentially painful.
But she was in it. There was nothing to be done. And right now she was... Well, she wasn’t even upset that she was so consumed with her own life. Because her own
