Chapter Five
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“I think you know why I called this meeting,” Brian said later that morning.
Connor shifted uncomfortably. He, Brian and Connor stood clustered around Brian’s laptop. Jack’s face filled the screen.
“I’ll bet it’s got something to do with Hughes,” Jack said. “What’s wrong; Lena doesn’t find your scintillating personality attractive?”
“She finds me attractive.” He didn’t like the man’s tone. Like he was going to do any better with Alice.
“But every time you go near her she explodes,” Brian pointed out.
“Why should she be different from anyone else?” Jack asked pointedly.
“We danced,” Logan said defensively. “Once,” he added.
All three of the other men shook their heads.
“It’s going to take a lot more than one dance to convince her to marry you,” Connor said.
“I’m trying. I can’t help the fact that she hates the General and anything to do with him. I should have come here undercover. She would have been all over me.”
“I’ll bet.” Jack snorted.
His attitude was beginning to rile Logan. “It’s true. We’ve got plenty in common—”
“Like what?” Connor asked. Not in a snide way—in a curious tone that let Logan know he was interested in the answer.
“Like…” What did they have in common? “We like horses.”
“You and everyone else in a five-hundred-mile radius,” Brian said.
“We’re independent thinkers. We want to do things our way.”
“Nice—I’ll put that on your wedding cake,” Jack said.
“No, wait. We can work with that,” Connor said slowly. “You’re right; Lena likes to think for herself and do things for herself, too. She likes to be in charge.”
“She’s made that clear,” Brian said ruefully.
“Maybe… maybe you’re going at this all wrong,” Connor said. “Hold up and listen,” he added when Logan bristled. “You’re always trying to help Lena, and she’s always getting pissed off. Maybe you’re the one who needs to ask for help. And then let her take charge and help you.”
Hell.
That wasn’t the way a man was supposed to do things.
Everything inside Logan rebelled at the thought. “I just said we’re similar. I don’t like interference. And I don’t like to be bossed around,” he said.
“Suck it up, Buttercup,” Jack said, laughing on-screen. “Time for the big man to play it small for once.”
“It’s going to be your turn next,” Logan told him, stung.
“I’m already getting the lay of the land,” Jack assured him.
It was Logan’s turn to laugh. “How’s that going for you? Got a visual on the maze yet?” On his way back to the house, he and the other men had watched the drone bounce off the invisible wall that delineated the maze’s airspace. Alice had been sitting on the back porch shucking corn in easy view, laughing at its lack of progress.
Jack’s face fell. “I don’t know how she’s scrambling my signal, but I’ll get through her defenses any minute now.”
“Good luck with that,” Brian told him. “But maybe you shouldn’t rile your bride-to-be too much before you even meet her.”
“Information is the key to any mission,” Jack said.
Logan excused himself from the room, leaving the others to their talk about USSOCOM and Jack’s future plans. He came downstairs to find Alice in the kitchen tucking containers into a big wicker basket.
“Almost ready,” she told him.
“For what?” he asked curiously.
“To give you this.” She added a bottle of wine, a corkscrew and two plastic cups, then latched the basket. “All yours.” She handed it to him.
“A picnic?” Logan didn’t understand.
“You have something to ask Lena, don’t you? I figured it would go over better on a full stomach. That’s not too heavy, is it?”
Logan hefted the basket. “I’ve carried a lot worse, but what am I supposed to ask her?” He remembered Connor’s idea. He needed a problem for Lena to solve.
“You’ll have to figure that out,” Alice said, reaching down to pet Tabitha, her white cat. “Better get going. You’ve got quite a hike ahead of you, and Lena’s on horseback.”
She outlined the directions to Lena’s favorite getaway point and assured him, “We’ll keep an eye on the backhoe, so don’t worry about anything here. Take your time.”
“Will do.” He headed out the back door. Was the picnic one of Alice’s famous hunches? He supposed it must have been. No matter why she’d thought of it, it was a good idea. Alice was right; he needed to ask Lena a question. Ask her for help.
But what problem could he ask her to help him solve?
As he walked, the sun came out, and Logan’s mood improved. Fall was one of his favorite seasons. He thought up ideas and discarded them one after another. He couldn’t ask her help with ranching chores; she’d think he was stupid. He couldn’t ask her to help him build the stables; she’d say they were her stables and then she’d want to build them all by herself.
He didn’t have any problems to solve—
Except the trouble with his family.
Logan shook his head. That problem was impossible to solve, and while he welcomed the idea of getting to know Lena—marrying her—sharing more about his past with her felt uncomfortable.
But the longer he hiked, the more he became sure it was the only problem he had to offer her. Who knew? Maybe she’d have some insight he’d never thought of. Stranger things could happen.
“What are you doing here?”
Logan staggered to a stop, so deep in his thoughts he hadn’t seen Lena on horseback round a curve in the trail ahead of him.
“Coming to see if you’re hungry.” He lifted the basket. He’d run out of time to find a different problem to solve.
Family it was.
She pressed her lips together. Scanned their surroundings as if looking for a good reason to say no. “I guess so,” she said finally. She urged Atlas to turn around. “There’s a spot just up ahead. Meet you there.”
She spurred Atlas on, leaving Logan in a cloud of dust to trudge after her. Up here he had a fine view of the rest of the ranch. It wasn’t hard to see why Brian already felt attached to the place. He thought he could dig in here, too.
If Lena let him.
Let her solve the problem, he reminded himself. Let her take charge.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
“What did you bring?” Lena asked when he finally caught up with her.
“I’m not sure; Alice packed the basket.” He set it down, opened it up and pulled out a red-and-white-checkered blanket. He handed it to Lena, who spread it on the ground. “Looks like sandwiches, potato salad, pickles…” He took them out one by one, appreciating Alice’s attention to detail. There were plates and silverware, chips and apple pie. And, of course, the bottle of wine.
“I’m hungry,” he said, realizing it was true.
“Me, too.” They settled in, passing the containers back and forth, Lena holding the cups while Logan poured the wine.
It was almost civilized, Logan thought.
But how long would that last?
Lena wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to this picnic. Maybe because her ride had settled her down and made her realize she couldn’t be upset with Brian for falling in love with Two Willows. He was Cass’s husband, and it was right for him to stake his claim here, especially with a baby on the way. That didn’t mean she had to accept Logan’s presence here, though.
Although right now his presence wasn’t that bad. He hadn’t called her baby girl again, for one thing. Hadn’t said much at all, actually. Their companionable silence made her feel mellow, and the food Alice had packed was hitting the spot.
“Out here, you could almost pretend it was a hundred years ago,” Logan said suddenly.
She’d had that same thought many times before. Lena liked to come out here and pretend the world was a much newer place. That the continent hadn’t been overridden by cars and airplanes, and that there were vast stretches of land sparsely populated, enough for everyone.
“If you could go back in time, when would you go?” she asked him. It was a question she’d pondered often by herself but had never asked anyone else.
Logan thought about that for a good long while. “It’s hard to choose. I’d love to go back and see the Romans. On the one hand they seem so modern, and on the other, so incredibly ancient. But mostly I think I’d like to be here in the United States in the 1600s. I’d like to be one of the first Europeans who set out to explore this continent. Just a musket in my hand and a pack on my back, walking into the forest to see what was there. I guess every man wishes he could be a pioneer at some point. How about you?”
“The Revolutionary War,” she said without hesitation. “Fighting for freedom. For shared values. Against tyranny—I can’t think of anything better than that.”
“I imagine you don’t picture yourself sitting in a parlor with the other ladies rolling bandages for the war effort?”
She couldn’t help but meet his impish grin with one of her own. “Hell, no.” That was the last thing she pictured herself doing. “I would’ve been a spy. A rebel spy. I would have worked for General Washington.”
“Can I ask you something?”
Lena hesitated. People only led with that if their question was personal. “I guess.”
“Why don’t you sign up? Hell, why not be a spy—today? I’m sure you could do it.”
“College. Languages. The military. Years away from my home.” She waved a hand to encompass the ranch. “It’s a nonstarter. Two Willows is my life. It always has been. I was born to run this ranch. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“I don’t doubt it, but I also think you could be an asset to this country. Did your father ever suggest—?”
“No, he didn’t,” she said shortly. “And my mother wouldn’t have liked it, even if he did.”
“She would have stopped you from going?”
“No, but—” How to explain to him. “She had a superstition. One she really believed.” Lena didn’t want to expose her mother’s memory to ridicule, but sooner or later someone would fill Logan in on her mother’s quirks if they hadn’t already. “She made a pact with the land. If she stayed on Two Willows—always—the General would remain safe.” She braced herself for Logan’s derision.
“So… she never left the ranch?” Logan set his sandwich on his plate. “Not at all?”
“No. Not ever. Now she’s gone, it’s Cass’s job mostly—but we all help. There’s always one of us here.”
Logan nodded. “Brian said something about that, but I didn’t understand it. So, you feel since your mother never left the ranch, you should stay, too?”
“I want to stay,” Lena said fiercely. “You’re right; I would make a damn good soldier—and a damn good spy. But Two Willows needs me.”
Logan nodded. “The Revolutionary War?” he said, bringing them back to their earlier topic, as if sensing their discussion had strayed too far for Lena’s comfort. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be injured back then. Medical treatments were pretty much like torture.”
Lena chuckled, grateful to be back on solid ground. “I wouldn’t have gotten injured,” she said with conviction. “I would’ve made sure we won the war a year or two earlier.”
Logan laughed out loud. “Cocky, aren’t we?”
“I know what I’m capable of.”
“I bet you do,” Logan said, sobering. He lifted his sandwich and took another bite, and his gaze took on a faraway look. Lena wondered what he thought about when he got like that. The career he’d left behind? His family?
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she challenged him.
Logan swallowed the bite he’d just taken. “Do you think I’d be here if I did?”
“Why are you here?”
He looked away again. “The short answer is because your father sent me.”
“What’s the long answer?” Lena took a sip of her wine. She wondered if Logan would tell her the truth.
“The long answer is… I think fate wants me here.”
She sputtered and swallowed, the liquid going down the wrong way. Logan reached out, clapped her on the back, and her cup went flying, spilling the wine, which drained into the dusty ground beside the blanket.
“Shoot. Sorry.” Logan fetched her plastic cup and returned it to her. Lena looked at the dust covering it. He took it away again and replaced it with his.
“You’re kind of a menace, aren’t you?” Lena asked.
With that rueful expression on his face, he looked like the puppy he’d had her picturing the other day. “I don’t mean to be.”
She set his cup down and returned to her own sandwich. “Why do you think fate wants you at Two Willows?” she asked.
“It’s a little personal.”
“Now you have to tell me.” Lena winced. That sounded a lot like flirting, and she didn’t mean to flirt with Logan.
“You know my parents wanted me to be a priest.”
“Heaven help us all.”
Logan elbowed her.
“Stop it, or you’ll send my sandwich flying next,” she warned him.
“My parents wanted me to be a priest,” he tried again, heaving a sigh. He was even more handsome when he was losing his cool, Lena had to admit. She tried to focus on his words instead of his face. “I never wanted that,” Logan went on. “Never had the patience for that kind of thing. But for a while now…” He took a deep breath, and Lena waited curiously to see what he’d say. “I’ve been having these dreams.”
“I don’t want to hear any more,” Lena said quickly.
He made a face. “Not that kind of dream, although—” He cut off with a grin she was getting to know far too well. “Are you sure you don’t want to know? Some of them are pretty interesting…”
“That’s it; I’m leaving.” Lena made like she’d stand up.
Logan tugged her back down. “Fine, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Lena tried as hard as she could not to guess what she was missing, but she couldn’t help wondering what Logan thought about when he pictured them together.
Had he pictured them together?
She had, if she was truthful. And when she imagined his hands on her bare skin, well… things got pretty hot.
“Anyway,” Logan went on. “These dreams are different. I have this sense that something’s wrong. That someone needs help. A woman.”
“Okay.” Not too out of the ordinary.
“And here’s where it gets weird. In my dreams, St. Michael appears.” He lifted the medallion. “And he hands me his sword. I know I have to save… whoever it is I’m supposed to save.” He broke off for a moment and shook his head. “That’s why when trouble came, I did try to save someone. Not with a sword—”
“Save who?” Lena couldn’t help asking.
“The wife of a Major.” His face had gone ruddy, and Lena watched him, fascinated, as he looked anywhere but at her. “I was walking past their house. They lived on base, like me. I heard shouting through an open window. Stuff crashing around. It sounded like a fight, and there was a woman involved.” He finally met her gaze. “What was I supposed to do? Let her get beat up?”
Lena swallowed. “No. Of course not.” His earnestness told her the incident still bothered him. “What happened?”
“They were fighting,” Logan said. “But no one was getting hurt. Turns out the wife was taking her anger out on some of their possessions. All I managed to do was punch the guy, embarrass both of them and get myself reassigned to your father’s task force.”
“It was still the right thing to do.” She had to hand it to the General; he sent men of integrity to Two Willows.
“I’d do it all over again if I heard that kind of fighting,” he admitted.
“But you just said fate sent you here, because if you hadn’t had the dream, you wouldn’t have intervened,” she pointed out.
Logan seemed to mull this over. He shook his head. “I would always intervene if I heard a woman being hurt. Guess I don’t know what the dream means, after all.”
“You should talk to Alice about it; she’s all about premonitions.”
“Maybe I should do that.” He leaned back and rested his weight on his hands. “That still leaves me with the problem of my parents. How do I convince them I’m not priest material?”
He was asking her for parental advice? That was comical. “You realize I don’t even speak to the General, right?”
“You had a good relationship with your mother, didn’t you?”
Unexpected tears pricked her eyes. Lena blinked them away quickly. She would never cry in front of Logan. Wasn’t one for crying at all. Something had her all out of sorts these days.
But she had been able to show her feelings to her mother, and she realized she missed that. “Mom was amazing,” she said simply. “I mean, she ran this whole place while the General was gone. She had help, but she held it together, inside and out. She was the heart of the ranch. The five of us can’t match her.”
“What was she like?” Logan asked softly.
“She always had time to talk. You’d walk into the kitchen thinking you were hungry, and an hour later all your problems would be solved.”
“What advice do you think she’d give me?”
Lena considered him. “I think she’d start by asking what your goals are if becoming a priest isn’t one of them.”
He toyed with his fork. She noticed he’d barely touched his food—odd behavior from a man who loved to eat as far as she had seen. “I want to settle down.” He looked almost as surprised as she was by this pronouncement. He shrugged. “It’s time.”
“What about being a Marine? You’re ready to give that up?” She couldn’t explain why warmth had spread through her at his declaration. She wasn’t interested in Logan. Definitely not in settling down with him.
“I guess I am. I loved it.” He spread his hands wide. “Loved the action. The sense of purpose. The hard work. The camaraderie. But I think I can have all of that here—”
“Here?” Lena set down her plate. “What do you mean here?”
“Lena, you’re not dumb; you know why your father sent me.”
Lena blinked. She hadn’t expected him to come right out and admit that. “He sent you to marry me?” He was right; she had guessed something like that. But knowing it was one thing. Having Logan say it was another altogether.
“He did.” His gaze searched hers. “And I’m more than willing. I’ve been staring at your face back at USSOCOM for months, Lena. Saying hi to your photograph every morning when I went to work.”
“Saying… hi?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Hello, baby girl,” he said. And then he leaned over and kissed her. “Now that I’ve said what my goals are, what advice would your mother give me?”
Slug him. Slug him, a voice in her mind railed. Do something to stop this right now!
But Lena couldn’t move, because she heard her mother’s voice, too, as clearly as if she were here at the picnic. She knew exactly what advice Amelia would give Logan. “Stay the course, son. Don’t you give up on my girl. She needs you.”
Lena swallowed hard, scrambled to her knees and began to repack the basket. “She’d say it’s time to head back.”
Logan sighed. “I’m not going to push you. We need to get to know each other first. I’m just telling you how I feel.”
“You know how I feel about men,” Lena retorted. “Or haven’t I made myself clear?”
“We’re not all abusive.” He reached out to touch her cheek, as if he knew right where Scott had hit her. Maybe he did. Maybe Brian and the others had discussed her at length. The thought made her burn with anger.
She knocked his hand away. “You’re not necessary, either.”
“Maybe not. But maybe I could be a good addition to your life.”
“You know what my mother would say?” Lena exploded, pushed too far. “She’d say give the women of the world a freaking break and go be a priest!”
Logan’s walk home was long and dispiriting. Just when he’d thought he was making progress, he’d screwed it up again. It was his own fault for bringing up marriage after fifteen minutes of a shaky truce between them. He was always stepping in it.
Patience wasn’t his strong suit.
He was surprised when he rounded a corner near the ranch and found Lena standing beside Atlas in the middle of the path.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Everything’s wrong. But at the end of the day, it’s not your fault, is it?” she asked dispiritedly.
He was afraid to take the bait.
“I just figured it out—how the General convinces you guys to come here and marry us.”
Uh-oh. Logan thought fast. He knew none of the other men had told the Reeds the General had blackmailed them into taking this mission. He could only imagine their reaction to finding out. Brian, Connor and Hunter had all genuinely fallen in love with the women the General had matched them with. No harm, no foul, Logan thought.
“You said you got transferred for interfering in that fight,” she went on. “Transferred to serve under the General, right?”
“On his Joint Task Force for Inter-Branch Communication.” It sounded official enough—maybe it would put her off.
“On his Joint Task Force for Lying Idiots, you mean.”
“Lena—”
“Don’t get your knickers in a bunch. I see how it turned out. Brian came because he had to, but he fell for Cass. He couldn’t fake that.”
“He fell for her,” Logan affirmed.
“Connor fell for Sadie. Hunter fell for Jo.”
“That’s right. No one crossed a boundary.” He wanted her to remember that.
“How is he getting it right?”
Logan didn’t have to ask what she meant. “Jack and I were talking about that before I came—”
Fuck. Had he just said that out loud?
“Jack?” Lena raised an eyebrow.
He had said it out loud. He thought about lying. Realized it wouldn’t work. “The guy your dad picked out for Alice.”
Lena scrubbed a hand over her face. “Jesus. You realize this is insane, right?”
“Believe me, I realize it.”
She looked him over. “Did you really come here to marry me?”
Logan nodded. What else could he do?
“And you thought you could actually do that? Marry someone you don’t know a thing about? Make a life with her—me?”
He chuckled. “I know a thing or two about you, Lena.” When she scowled, he went on. “I know you love this land more than your own life. I know you’ve wanted to be a rancher since before you could walk. I know a man treated you wrong. I wish I’d been here to stop that. I know that if I could ever prove to you who I really am, the two of us could have a hell of a lot of fun. You’re wild in the best of ways. You’re funny. You’re smart. You’re… amazing.” As he ticked off her qualities, Logan realized he really did know her.
What’s more, he liked her. A lot.
Not as a conquest or a mission or anything like that.
As a woman.
Even without the General’s interference, if he’d met her in the course of his travels, he’d have fallen for her. And he’d have done his best to capture her heart. Lena was alive in the best of ways. A true match for a man like him.
“This is a strange situation. Stranger still because the man who’s trying to get us together is the one who’s keeping us apart. If your father hadn’t sent me—if you’d met me at the Dancing Boot one night and we’d played a game of pool, what would you have thought of me?”
An emotion flitted across her features before she schooled them into a frown. “I would have been pissed that you beat me,” she said flippantly.
But Logan’s heart lifted. He’d seen that emotion and knew what it was, because he felt it, too, all the time around Lena.
Desire.
She liked him despite everything she said. Despite her father. If he was smart, he’d get things back on track and stop talking about marriage for a while.
“I know one thing we have in common,” he told her. “Our love of history. You’ve gotten me in the mood to read up on the Revolutionary War since you’ve been talking about it.”
Lena nodded. She seemed to accept it was time to change the subject, but instead of chatting about history, she turned and mounted Atlas. “Better get home before it gets dark.”
He expected her to gallop away again, so he was gratified when she set Atlas to an easy walk, and he could keep pace. They finished their journey in silence, and when they drew close to the outbuildings, Lena surprised Logan again when she suddenly said, “I have a book you can borrow.”
“I’d love to borrow a book.”
Lena dismounted and led Atlas toward the barn. He helped her get the horse settled in his stall for the night. It was clear the other men had already accomplished most of the chores.
When they were done, Logan headed for the door, but Lena said, “Hold up a minute.” She crossed to a ladder that led up to the hayloft.
“Don’t think we’ll need hay tonight,” Logan said.
She hesitated, one hand on a rung. “I was going to get you that book. But it can wait if you’re in a hurry to get to the house.”
Logan worked to figure out the situation. Did she mean the book was up there? If so, he wanted to know why.
“No time like the present. I can start it before bed tonight.”
She began to climb, but she hesitated when he crossed to join her. He set down the basket, intending to climb up, too.
“You don’t have to come up here.”
“I’d like to—if you don’t mind,” he forced himself to say. He was going to kick himself if she refused him. He was far too curious to stop now.
Was that a sigh? He was pretty sure that was a sigh, but she kept going, and he climbed after her.
At the top of the ladder, the hayloft spread out before them, with bales stacked up just as he would’ve expected. But as they moved past them, he realized Lena had carved out a little space for herself. Under a window sat an old chest. Nearby, on the walls, hung two replica Revolutionary War swords and a musket, the kind of decorations you might find in any military enthusiast’s collection. He had to smile; his uncle had some items just like that hanging in the rec room in his basement. Once, as a kid, after watching a movie in which the hero sliced through a piece of parchment with his sword, Logan had tried to recreate the scene. The paper had survived intact, but his uncle’s old turntable had gone flying when the dull replica blade smashed into it. Logan chuckled at the memory.
All in all, the loft was a cozy space. A private one. Lena opened the chest, and he caught a glimpse of a battery-operated lantern, a blanket and several books.
As he took it all in, he realized of course a woman like Lena needed a place of her own. The barn made perfect sense. What surprised him was that she was a secret reader. He wouldn’t have thought she’d have to hide that particular hobby in a house like Two Willows. All the Reed women were intelligent; it made sense that they all read as much as they liked. But he was beginning to understand Lena was a private person. Maybe she needed a place to dream unseen.
He thought of what she’d said back on the ridge; that she would go back in time to the Revolutionary War. Maybe she felt as out of place in this world as he sometimes did.
When she closed the chest, stood up and handed him a book, he took it, perused the title and cover, and turned it over to read the blurb on the back.
“Sounds good. Thank you.” Against every instinct that made him want to take advantage of the privacy of the loft to kiss her, and maybe even more, Logan turned and made his way back to the ladder. When they were both on solid ground again, he touched her hand. “You’ll never climb that ladder and find me in the loft. Not without an invitation. Got it?”
After a moment she nodded, turned on her heel and led the way back out.
The kitchen was crowded three days later when Alice suddenly slammed her mug of coffee on the table. She tossed her sketchbook aside and flung her pencil down. “It’s back!”
No one had to ask what she meant. The drone trying to map the maze kept arriving day after day, driving Alice into a fury. Lena wasn’t used to seeing her normally calm sister so wound up, and when she joined Alice on the back porch, she meant to be soothing when she said, “Don’t even pay it any attention; it never gets past your barricade.”
Alice didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed the light work jacket Lena wore, yanked it open and reached for the pistol Lena carried in her shoulder holster.
Lena grabbed her wrist. “Hey—that’s not cool.”
“Then you do it. Shoot it. Take it out.” Alice’s eyes were wide, her brows furrowed.
“Okay, I’ll handle it.” A flying, weaving target wouldn’t be that easy to hit, but everyone else was safely in the house, and this was private property. What could it hurt?
She pulled out her pistol and took aim. She didn’t rush, knowing the drone would buzz around the periphery of the maze for an hour or more before it flew off.
Her first shot went wide, and the door behind her swung open not a second later.
“What the hell, Lena? What are you shooting at?” Brian shouted.
She ignored him. Took a second shot.
Missed again as the drone dove for the maze.
“Damn it.”
“Lena, what’s going on?” Cass called from inside.
“Alice wants the drone dead,” Lena called back.
“Well, so do I,” Cass said. “Go for it.”
“You heard my sister,” Lena told Brian. She noticed Logan standing in the doorway. He folded his arms and leaned against the frame.
She took aim again, but it was harder now that everyone was watching. She told herself to think of it like target practice. She couldn’t let her audience psych her out.
After lining up her shot, she took a breath, aimed and breathed out again while pulling the trigger.
The drone crashed to the earth.
Alice whooped and raced toward it. Scooping it up, she headed for the maze. “Come on!” she yelled back to Lena.
Lena emptied the remaining cartridges from her pistol, pocketed them and reholstered it, then jogged after Alice. Logan followed her, but she didn’t care. Taking that drone down made her feel ten feet tall.
She caught up to Alice in the center of the maze. Logan, who’d stuck close behind her, came to a stop when she did. Alice held the drone up to the standing stone.
“Your boundaries are sacred again,” she announced to it. “Next time I won’t wait so long. This is for you.” She dropped the drone on the ground and stomped it to pieces. Turning, she smiled triumphantly. “No one fucks with my maze!”
“That’s right.” Lena cheered her on. When Alice marched past them, leaving the smashed drone behind her, Logan turned to watch her go.
“Jack’s gotta be shitting his pants right about now,” he said with a grin.
“Good.” Lena grinned back. “What’s he like?”
“Honestly? Guy drives me nuts, but I think… I think he might be perfect for your sister. She’s perfect for him. He’ll turn himself inside out trying to figure out how she does what she does.”
“That’s how it should be.”
“That’s how it is for me, too,” Logan said as they slowly followed Alice out of the maze. Lena had a feeling he was trying to memorize the way.
“You can’t figure out how I do what I do?” she scoffed. “All I do is ranch.”
“And consume my every waking thought,” he admitted. “And most of my sleeping thoughts, too.”
Lena didn’t know what to say about that. Truth was, she thought about him far more than she wanted to.
“Ready to build that stable?” he asked.
“Hell, yeah.” Relieved at the turn of the conversation, she led the way through the rest of the maze and down the rutted track toward the outbuildings. It was clear the weather wouldn’t hold for too long, and they needed the stables up and ready to house the horses over the winter.
Several times during the last few days, she and Logan had gone over the building plans. Normally she would have resented his interference, but this time she had to admit he’d been helpful. Neither she nor Logan had worked with building plans before, and although it wasn’t a complicated structure, she wanted to take the time to make sure she understood them.
They met up with the rest of the men at the foundation of the new stable. The next few hours would have been satisfying if Logan wasn’t always trying to carry things for her or help hold the boards she was screwing into place. Every time she told him she didn’t need help, he replied, “I know,” and then helped her anyway. By midway through the afternoon, she was happy with the progress they’d made, but she was also thirsty.
“I need to run up to the house,” she told the men. “Need anything?”
“A refill on my water would be great. Want me to come with you?” Logan asked.
“Nope. Be back in a minute.” She hurried up the track before he could join her, wanting a little space. She wasn’t gone long, so when she was walking back down the track, she was surprised to see a truck she didn’t recognize heading out the track that led from the outbuildings to the main road. “Who was that?” she called to Logan as she approached. She passed out water bottles and downed half of her own before setting the canister on a handy pile of wood.
“Those twins who were so enamored of you at the Dancing Boot the other night.” Logan drank his entire bottle of water in one long gulp. “Needed that, I guess.”
“The twins? You mean Harley and Ray? What did they want?”
“They wanted to see that stallion of yours. Told them you were far too busy for that kind of nonsense. I sent them packing. I don’t think they’ll bother you again.”
Lena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You sent them packing? Without even asking me?”
“Didn’t want to send those two goons up to the house. Besides, the other night you made it clear you didn’t want them around.”
“That doesn’t give you any right to decide who I talk to or don’t talk to. You’re not my father.”
“Believe me; I don’t want to be your father.” Logan waggled his eyebrows at her.
Lena’s anger grew. He couldn’t distract her with a funny face. This was serious. She didn’t need some… man… making decisions for her.
“Look, they’re troublemakers, anyone can see that. I did what needed to be done. I don’t know what the fuss is all about.”
Now he was going to pretend he was the reasonable one? Lena’s throat burned with indignation. “First of all, they’re kids. Second of all, the fuss is about you sending away people who came to see me. You don’t get to make those decisions. Got it?”
“No, I don’t got it.” Logan straightened up. “Your father sent me here to protect you. If someone sets foot on this property and I don’t like them, I’m going to send them away. I’m not going to let them think I have to ask permission before I do so.”
“You do have to ask permission! This isn’t your home or your land. I’m the one who owns this place. I’m the one who runs it. And who the hell says I need protecting?” Lena hated the way her voice rose at the end of that question. She grabbed the closest thing to hand—a crowbar—unsure what she meant to do with it but needing to feel the heft of it in her hand.
“Lena—” Brian said, straightening from where he was going through a pile of lumber. “Be careful.”
“Far as I know it’s the General’s name on the deed to Two Willows,” Logan said, ignoring him.
Lena blinked. The General’s name? “Like hell! Two Willows is my mother’s land. The General forfeited any right to it the day he walked away from her funeral.” She lifted the crowbar higher. Logan snatched up a shovel and deflected her blow when she swung the tool at him in a wide arc. He blocked her next blow, too.
“Stop it. Jesus, woman, you’re going to get yourself hurt! Come on—we both know the General calls the shots here whether you like it or not!”
Lena swung again as hard as she could. Logan repelled the blow with two hands on the shovel. The crowbar bounced off its handle and smashed back into Lena’s forehead. She fell to her knees with a cry. The crowbar hit the dirt in front of her, but Lena was too busy cradling her head in her hands to see it. She heard Logan swearing, felt his hands lift her up. As the world tilted, her vision blurred and everything went dark.