“I’m just thinking,” she said.
“That’s what concerns me,” he said, a smile tipping his mouth upward. “When you think, things seem to happen. And somebody has to clean up the mess.”
“Nobody asked you to do it,” she said. “Anyway, I seem to recall a time, though it was several years ago, when you got to thinking that jumping your bike off that rise down by the north pasture was a good idea, and you ran into the barbed wire fence, and I cleaned up that mess.”
“I was a teenager.”
“Yes, and I was seven. I still remember it.”
Something flickered in his blue eyes, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, he turned back to the fence that he was repairing, and she picked up a wire cutter and joined him on the line.
“I want to help Iris find someone,” she mused.
“Rose...”
“Hear me out. She’s alone. It’s going to be Christmas. I hate the thought of that.”
“She’s always alone. Seems to me at this point it’s a choice. And you should respect it.”
Rose shook her head. “Nobody wants to be alone.”
“You are also alone,” he pointed out.
“I’m twenty-three,” she said. “I have no designs on being anything but alone for quite some time. This is not about me. I want nothing more than to see the people I love most settled and happy.”
“Iris is happy,” he said.
“What if she isn’t?”
“Then she will do something to fix it. Or she won’t. But either way, it’s none of your business.”
She made an exasperated sound. “It’s not about whether or not it’s my business. And anyway, that’s not true. We are family. In a way that few other people ever will be. We... We had to raise each other.”
“Pretty sure Ryder did most of that.”
“I know,” she said.
She had been six years old when her parents had died. She barely remembered them now. She remembered not understanding. For a very long time. She had grieved when she’d been given the news, because she had known that dead was terrible. But forever was something that she hadn’t been able to wrap her mind around. And there was a point where it felt like they would surely come back. They had to.
But of course she had started to realize that the way her brother’s mouth was set, always turning down, meant something bad. That he didn’t go away to college like he had planned to.
When she was seven she had asked Logan, while she was bandaging his hands up. She’d been feeling proud because she knew where the first aid kit was. Knew how to help with his cuts. And she hadn’t been scared of the blood.
She’d felt helpful and she’d felt strong, like she mattered.
“When are they coming back?”
He had just looked at her with those blue eyes, and she had seen fear in them. Fear that hadn’t been there after he’d cut himself up. It was the fear that got to her.
He hadn’t spoken for a moment.
“They aren’t,” he’d said finally.
“How come? They love us.”
“Of course they do, Rosie,” he’d said.
Logan was the only person who had ever called her that. She’d thought it was for little kids and had been annoyed by it until that moment in the barn, when she’d been bandaging his arm and he’d used that low, husky voice that had made her feel soothed in spite of the sharp, dark hurts inside her heart.
“Then why are they staying away?”
“They didn’t choose to. But dying is forever.”
“Forever is a long time,” she’d said.
“I know, that’s the thing. It’s forever.”
She hadn’t cried. Even then she had known there was no point in crying. Because forever was forever, whether she cried or not. She understood it then.
And Logan had been there for it. Like he was there for everything. Dishing out advice and giving support. The problem was, he still did it, like she was seven years old.
“I wasn’t actually asking your opinion,” she said archly.
“That’s fine. You don’t need to ask for it to get it.”
“You’re so annoying,” she said.
“And you insist on talking to me.”
“We are fixing a fence. If we didn’t talk it would be boring.”
“Then don’t complain when I make it interesting by giving you my opinions.”
“You are a man who thinks a bit highly of himself,” she said. But she wasn’t actually mad at him. She could never really be mad at Logan. Not after everything.
“I think highly of myself because no one else will.”
He winked, and she had to suppress a silly grin that tried to spread over her face, and when she didn’t allow it to, her cheeks prickled slightly.
It was strange.
She chose to ignore it.
“Who do you think would make a good match for Iris?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
“What?”
“Not me.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course not you. You’re basically our brother. But there must be somebody else. Somebody who is calm and steady. Not a cowboy. Not for Iris. Iris needs somebody who likes to be indoors. Likes to read. She likes to talk about books and TV. And she loves to bake. She likes yarn.”
“So,” Logan said slowly, “you should get her a cat.”
“I know,” she carried on as if he hadn’t spoken of cats. “Elliott Johns. He would be perfect.”
Logan’s eyebrows lowered, and went flat. “The water filtration guy?”
“Yes. I mean, he knows everybody in town because of his job. And he must have a good reputation or people wouldn’t keep using him. So, somebody with a job like that is pretty safe, I would think. Plus, he’s sort of soft-spoken and good at making conversation.”
“I thought you wanted to get Iris some excitement.”
“I do. But the right kind of excitement. The kind that suits her.”
“Would you ever in a million
