Now she was a woman who knew.
A woman who wanted that man right back. And who knew what it was to have him.
Except... Did she?
She loved him. But she didn’t know what he wanted out of all this. Except that she knew that he didn’t seem to think he was a man who wanted commitment or anything like that.
She hadn’t even really started thinking of it in those terms.
But she supposed that was what it meant when you loved somebody. That you wanted to marry them.
Make a family with them.
Except, Logan already was family, so what did that mean?
He had given her this necklace, and she didn’t know what that meant, either.
“Let me put it on you.”
He lifted it out of the box and fastened it around her neck, the cameo sitting heavily between her breasts. “Thank you.” She wrapped her arm around his neck, cradled the back of his head and brought it down for a kiss. They were right outside, and she supposed anyone could walk out and see them making out underneath that clear sky, silver stars scattered against the black velvet like glitter.
She didn’t really care. Not right now.
Right now, she felt ready to accept any consequence. Any and all.
She felt ready to stand and defend what they were. Because it wasn’t... It wasn’t new. It was just a shift. Which didn’t make it less. No. It was a miracle.
A shift that made her see everything in her life differently. That made her see herself differently.
So she kissed him. Like it didn’t matter if anyone knew. And part of her hoped...wished that they would get caught. Because if it was out in the open, then they would have to decide. To fight for it. To keep it. Call it something. To make it something.
But no one caught them, and the kiss ended. “I should go back inside,” she said. “You know. For a while.”
“Sure,” he said.
“Logan...” She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him again, deeper, harder. And he scooped her up, lifted her feet up off the ground, returning the kiss with as much ferocity as she gave. “Your present will come soon,” she whispered.
He hesitated for a moment. “I hope that means you’re coming to my house tonight.”
“You can count on it.”
Then she released her hold on him and ran back to the house, her heart thundering hard, and when she went inside, she was thankful for the cold, because her cheeks would be pink from the weather. At least, that was what her family would assume.
She knew that she was flushed from his kisses. From her desire for him.
From the overwhelming...everything that was rolling around inside of her.
She saw Pansy’s laser focus go to the necklace around her neck. Rose touched it and nodded slightly.
A smile curved Pansy’s lips, wistful, but accepting.
Though, she hoped that Pansy didn’t think it meant that Logan... That he felt the same way. But what if he did? He said that he’d wanted her all this time. What if it was more than wanting?
She felt like she had to sit with that for a while. Because she didn’t know what to do with it. Not completely.
For now, she figured she would just enjoy what she was certain of. Her family. Sammy beckoned her to where the girls were sitting and pulled her into their conversation. And she tried to pay attention. But her mind and her heart were with Logan.
It was different. But it didn’t really make her sad.
It was just part of life. Changing, moving on. Everything at Hope Springs Ranch was changing. But in the years since their tragedy, they had only added people into the fold. They hadn’t lost any.
And in the face of the tragedy that had come before, Rose found that to be incredibly cheering.
Whatever happened between herself and Logan. Whatever happened in the future...
Her life felt full right now.
She was going to cling to that as her Christmas miracle.
And then tomorrow, she was going to have to go hunting through the barn that had all of their parents’ things for a recipe. Then she was going to have to practice her cookie baking.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT HAD TAKEN two hours of relentless digging in the barn where they stored all of their things for Rose to emerge triumphant with the recipe.
She remembered Jane Heath’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies well, and she knew exactly how they were supposed to taste. The problem was, she didn’t actually know how to bake. Which could present a bit of an issue. The other problem was, she knew that there was a certain amount of trial and error that she had put into the recipe, and that what was written down wasn’t precisely what she had done in the end to produce the cookies that they were used to.
And Rose had been just a kid the last time she’d had them, so whether or not her memory of them was exactly accurate, she didn’t know.
Iris and Sammy found her frustrated and surrounded by piles of cookies three hours later.
“What are you...doing?” Iris asked.
“I’m baking,” Rose said, furious.
“You’re baking?” Sammy asked. “You. You, the master of bringing soda to potlucks?”
“Me,” Rose growled. “Yes, me.”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to make Logan’s mother’s cookies.”
She knew that saying that was going to be... Well, maybe it was revealing, maybe it wasn’t. She was having difficulty sorting through what was just a normal thing to do for your friend, and what was the thing you did for a man you were in love with, who you got naked with.
She supposed the fact that she had never made cookies for him prior to getting naked with him was evidence enough that it was a little bit suspicious.
“Okay,” Iris said. “What’s going wrong?”
“I don’t know? I just know that they don’t taste like they should. And I really want them to. I want them to be right. Otherwise I’m just
