Chapter Four
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“I think it’s time for me to head to town,” Logan said when the clock struck nine and Lena hadn’t returned yet.
“She’ll come home eventually,” Cass told him. They were seated in the living room, Cass working on the ranch’s accounts. “I’m sure she’s just having dinner with a friend.” She paused for a moment and lay a hand on her belly with a small smile.
Logan dropped the magazine he wasn’t reading and stood up. “Could use a change of scenery.”
Sadie looked up from where she’d been tapping the keys of her cell phone. “She’s at the Dancing Boot. Monopolizing the pool table. According to Caitlyn Warren,” she added in answer to Cass’s upraised eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t mind a game of pool,” Logan said.
“Good luck. Lena’s pretty damn good,” Brian said. He was seated near Cass, reading on a tablet. In fact, everyone was bent over some gadget or other. The scene stood in stark contrast to the hundred-year-old plus architecture of the farmhouse.
Once in town, it didn’t take Logan long to find the Dancing Boot, and when he opened the door, music spilled out around him. Patrons lined the long bar and sat at small tables around the edges of a sizable dance floor filled with couples dancing to canned music; there was no band on stage tonight.
He spotted the pool table in back and saw Lena bent over it, taking her shot. Two men stood near her, one holding a pool cue in his hand, the other leaning against a nearby wall.
Twins, if he wasn’t mistaken. The one standing behind her was checking out Lena’s ass while she took her shot. He didn’t like the look of either of them. They didn’t look like cowboys, though they were dressed much the same as the other men in the bar. They held themselves differently, Logan thought. They were hard around the edges. Brittle. And both of them kept glancing toward an older man leaning against the bar.
Logan shoved his way through the crowd, grateful most patrons backed out of the way when they saw him coming. He didn’t want men ogling Lena.
Didn’t like the way she was avoiding him, either.
He fished quarters out of his pocket as he went and slapped them down on the rim of the table when he reached it.
“Next game,” he said.
“Clear off. I’ve got next game,” the man leaning against the wall told him.
Lena glanced up. Was that relief he saw in her eyes?
“I already beat you, Harley,” she told the leaning man. “And I’m about to beat Ray, here. This man wants to lose his money, too, he’s welcome to try.”
Logan followed her lead. If she didn’t want these men to know they were together, he could play along. For now.
True to her word, Lena made her shots and took the win. Ray couldn’t hide his anger.
Harley was staring at the older man again, who finished his drink, set his glass on the bar and straightened. He nodded, and Harley nudged Ray.
“We’ll see you around,” he told Lena. “I’d like to get a look at that stallion of yours sometime.”
Lena shrugged. “I’m pretty busy.” She turned to Logan. “Ready to lose, big guy?”
“Ready to play,” he countered. Harley looked like he had more to say, but after meeting Logan’s gaze he shrugged and left. Ray’s shoulders were stiff as he walked away. The older man ushered them out of the bar. Logan watched them go, curious about the relationship between the three men. He waited until they were gone before turning to Lena. “Friends of yours?”
“Like hell.” She put her cue back in the rack.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“What about our game?”
“You weren’t serious about that, were you? You know I’d kick your ass.”
Logan stepped up to her, happy again to have the advantage of height and bulk. He made a big show of looking down at her. “I’d like to see you try.”
With growl, Lena grabbed the cue stick again, and for a second he thought she’d take a swing at him. Instead, she said, “Rack ’em and let’s get this over with.”
Logan racked the balls. Lena took the break. She pocketed a striped ball first, and another one, then missed a shot she really should have made. Were her hands shaking? She was far angrier than she should be at his joking around, Logan thought.
“Do you know the older guy those idiots were with? The one holding up the bar?”
Lena turned to look right where the man had been sitting. When she noticed he was gone, she shrugged. “I don’t know any of them. Never seen them before. Harley said he’s their uncle.”
“Wonder why they’re in town.”
“They said something about horse breeding. Wanted to know if I had any horses for sale.”
It still didn’t add up to Logan’s way of thinking, and he resolved to keep an eye on the twins and their uncle. It would be too easy to suspect every man who came sniffing around Lena, but trouble seemed to come at Two Willows pretty regularly. Strangers needed watching. It was just how things had to be.
Thinking about the trouble that plagued Two Willows led Logan to think about the last man Lena had dated. Scott had hit Lena, then had attacked her and her sisters when they blew up the drugs he and his friends had been storing on their ranch.
Logan sank two of the solid balls handily. Did a fancy trick to sink another one, but when he tried to repeat it for a fourth ball, he missed. He’d been remembering the way Lena had fought him in the barn. The desperate look in her eye. He’d been kidding around earlier when he urged her to play this game, but even playful intimidation might reduce his chances with Lena. Maybe he needed to romance her instead.
Lena sank one, then another, then a third. She edged around the table to make an easy shot into a corner pocket.
“Let’s make this interesting.” Logan blocked her way when she tried to skirt the table to make her next shot. “You sink this ball, we go home.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You dance with me. Just one song,” he added when she visibly bristled.
Lena rolled her eyes. “Come on, cowboy—”
“Don’t think you can make the shot?”
“For God’s sake.” Lena nudged him aside with an air of exasperation. Lined up her shot—
And missed.
Lena stayed where she was, flabbergasted at what she’d just done. She could have sunk that shot in her sleep.
She’d rushed it—that was the problem. Logan had riled her, and she’d rushed it.
But he’d think she missed it deliberately.
“Come on, baby girl,” he said, taking the cue stick from her hand and putting it away. “Let’s get to it.”
“Stop calling me that.” Lena’s mind raced as he led her to the dance floor, where a crooning love song she’d always hated played over the loudspeakers. Other couples swayed to the music, some of them impossibly close, starting something they’d finish later at home—in bed.
“Stop calling you baby girl? It’s just a pet name. It means I like you.”
The idiot was grinning. He loved the fact he was making her mad, didn’t he? More than one woman on the dance floor was watching them, envy clear in their expressions. She knew why. Logan smiling was devastating. He set her heart thumping, her pulse thrumming. This close, he smelled good. All woodsy and manly, with an undertone of something that twisted her insides into a knot of wanting—
“Well, I don’t like you,” she declared.
“I bet you do. Just a little bit. In spite of everything you’re telling yourself about me. I’m like a puppy dog with muddy paws. You want to be mad, but I’m too darn cute to swat.” Logan took her hand in his, placed his other one on her hip and began to sway.
“Oh, I can swat, believe me.” But picturing Logan as a puppy did make her see the ridiculous side of the situation. She was overreacting to his messing around. As usual. Logan wasn’t like Ray and Harley. He wasn’t a stranger anymore, and he wasn’t dangerous. The stupid man was incorrigible. Unstoppable when he wanted something.
Did he want… her?
She stopped moving. Logan shifted his stance, pulled her in closer and kept going, dragging her feet over the floor.
She stumbled and caught up. “In case you haven’t noticed; I’m not some rag doll you can drag around,” she told him.
“Nope, you’re a real, live woman, so start dancing, or I’ll pick you up and do it for you.”
Jesus. He’d do it, too.
Lena began to move with him.
“That’s better. This isn’t so bad, is it?”
He tugged her in tighter until all Lena could do was reluctantly rest her head against his shoulder and let him sway with her. His cotton shirt was smooth against her cheek, and she could hear his heart beat, a strong, steady pulse. By all accounts, she should have been panicking. Lashing out with all her strength to get out of his embrace. Why wasn’t she?
Lena couldn’t answer that. Maybe the drinks were keeping her in a mellow mood. Besides, it was just one dance, she reminded herself. She’d danced with lots of men. It didn’t mean anything.
Still, she was aware of his hand resting on her hip, the other at the small of her back. His chin touching the top of her head. When was the last time a man had held her like this?
She shifted again, trying to create more space between them. Logan held her in place.
“For God’s sake, relax. It’s just a dance, and it will be over soon enough.”
Unexpectedly, disappointment flooded her, leaving Lena reeling. She couldn’t be disappointed about the dance ending. She didn’t want to dance with Logan. This feeling was simply… tiredness. She was worn out. Or something.
She couldn’t be… enjoying herself.
Lena closed her eyes.
This was wrong.
This whole night was wrong. She tried to draw back again.
Everything had been wrong since—well, since she’d been born.
Wrong gender. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong father—
Nothing was right with her life—and she had little faith it ever would be.
“Hey, we’re dancing, not getting ready for war,” Logan said. Was that frustration in his voice? He sounded as if he wished she was enjoying herself. And he wasn’t letting go.
Lena tried to relax.
“That’s better. Who taught you to play pool?”
“Jed Henderson,” Lena said, giving in to the situation. “He was the overseer at Two Willows before my mother died. He was a real man.” She remembered the way he’d taken her seriously—the only man who ever had, as far as she was concerned. He was courteous to all the women on the ranch, but he’d been almost a grandfather to her. Back then, the General was already gone a lot, making his career with the Army. When he came home, he and Jed got on well together, but it was Jed who’d heaped praise on Lena in a way the General never did.
“He must have been good at it.”
“He’s good at everything.”
“You keep in touch with him?”
Lena turned her head. “No.”
Logan didn’t push the line of questioning, and she was grateful for that. She was ashamed of the way she’d treated Jed. Furious at his defection, as she’d seen it, before her mother’s death, she’d refused to speak to him after he retired. The next overseer, and the next and the next, didn’t see any value in a young teenage girl’s opinions—not like Jed had.
She’d been shunted aside—displaced.
Just like Logan would try to—
“Quit fighting me.” Logan’s voice was low against her hair. When his breath whispered against her ear, Lena shivered and held her breath as a strand of desire coiled within her.
Where had that come from?
She was done with men. She didn’t want Logan.
It was this stupid dance. Being close to Logan—breathing in his scent—had knocked her off balance. And she was done with it.
Lena brought up her arms and shoved him away—hard.
“Hey!” Logan stepped back. But she suspected he’d released her because he wanted to, not because she’d really broken free.
“I’m leaving.” But Lena’s gaze caught on the neckline of Logan’s shirt, where a medallion he wore had come into view, reminding her of the lockets the General kept giving to her sisters. Despite herself, she leaned in for a closer look.
“What’s that?”
“St. Michael.” He must have seen her confusion. “You’ve probably heard of St. Christopher medallions.”
“Patron saint of… something?” she managed, dredging the idea from some recess of her brain. She remembered a movie based in Boston. A parish priest and a bunch of Catholic school boys. “You’re… Catholic?”
“Two priests for brothers,” he said ruefully. “St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers. So, people wear his medal for protection.”
She filed that information away to think about later. “What about St. Michael?”
“Patron saint of policemen, sailors, paramedics, and military men, among other things.” He held it up, and she saw it held an image of the saint holding a large sword in front of him. “He’s my patron saint. My middle name is Michael.”
“Huh.”
“Come on, just a few more seconds.” He tugged her against him again and held her lightly. Lena lost the will to fight him off. Too many drinks. Too long a day working. A bad combination. She rested her hands on his shoulders as they swayed together. This wasn’t… awful, she had to admit. If only the circumstances were different.
If only Logan wasn’t the enemy.
But when Logan rested his chin on top of her head again, Lena growled at him. His answering chuckle shook his body—and hers along with it.
“Why do you keep trying to make me feel small?” she demanded. She’d almost been enjoying herself for a minute.
“It’s more like I’m trying to make myself feel big,” he told her, surprising her with his candidness. “I want to be able to protect you from the bad guys.”
“Protect me?”
“Like St. Michael.”
She snorted. “Where’s your big-ass sword?”
Logan’s chuckle rumbled through his body again. “Oh, we’ll get to that sooner or later.”
Was she thinking about his… sword? Logan hoped she was, and for good measure, he tightened his embrace and flexed his biceps. He was a big man. Let her think about that.
Lena pushed right out of his arms as the song ended, though. “Time to go home,” she declared, heading for the door.
“How about a walk first—both of us could stand to clear our heads before we drive home. You’ve had a couple of drinks, right?”
“Not that many.” But when they reached the street, she turned to walk without another word. Logan matched her pace gratefully.
“Whole place shuts down after dark, huh?” he asked.
“Just about. Not very exciting, I guess.”
“I’m a small-town boy,” Logan told her. “I know how to make my own entertainment.”
“I’m surprised you’re not a priest—with your brothers and all.”
“Two’s enough for any family.” He was quiet a moment. “Not for mine, though. You’d think my folks would want a grandkid or two. Instead, it seems like they’d prefer to end the family line once and for all.”
She took this in. “Tell me about your brothers. Are you close?”
His hand brushed hers as they walked, but he held back from taking it. He had to build a foundation with Lena that wasn’t purely physical. “Not like you and your sisters. I talk to Anthony a fair bit, but he doesn’t understand my choices. I talk to James less often. He’s in Ethiopia currently. Pretty busy guy.”
“I don’t know a lot of Catholics,” Lena admitted. “The whole priest thing is… weird.”
Logan laughed. “I look forward to telling my brothers that. I think they’d like you.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Why?”
“Because you say what’s on your mind. You’ve got a good heart.”
“Wouldn’t they try to convert me?”
“Maybe.” He wasn’t sure. Another question for his brothers. He caught her looking again. “What?”
“Trying to picture you as a priest.”
“Don’t bother. Never going to happen.”
“Come on. Father Logan. It suits you. And it would certainly make the world a safer place.”
She was teasing him. He liked that. “Tell you what; when they let priests marry, I’ll put on a collar.”
Lena was quiet for half a block. “Your family must have been proud of you when you became a Marine, though.”
Logan pushed back at some uncomfortable memories. That hadn’t been an easy time. “Unfortunately, they weren’t. I mean, they didn’t stop me from signing up, but—like I said, man of God was their first pick.”
“I let my parents down, too,” Lena said softly. “By being born.”
Logan stopped short. “Don’t say that, Lena. Don’t even think it for a minute. You father loves you—that’s obvious—”
She snorted. “The General wanted sons. Plain and simple. You don’t have to stick up for him; it’s a fact of life my sisters and I accepted years ago.”
Logan considered his words carefully, something he didn’t often do. “If that’s true, and I don’t think it is, then the General is the biggest ass who ever lived.”
She smiled, and Logan’s heart rose. He’d made her smile.
Then her expression shuttered. “Race you back to the Boot!” In a flash she was gone. Logan caught his breath. Hell, she was going to win.
He didn’t care, he told himself as he exploded after her. The game was on—
And he’d catch her sooner or later.
“There it is again!” Alice cried several days later, on a morning that had dawned cold and overcast. She, Sadie and Lena were clustered by the back door, about to split up after eating breakfast together around the kitchen table. The men had already dispersed to do their chores. Lena was waiting to hear from a delivery driver coming to drop off building supplies. Within days of the stable burning down, she had found a set of plans online that almost perfectly replicated the building as it had stood before. She’d placed an order for all the materials they’d need, and it was finally on its way. Connor and Brian hadn’t been entirely pleased to find out she’d gone ahead without consulting them, but they’d wisely held their tongues about it.
“Where?” Sadie asked, ducking her head to see out the window.
“Right there. Another drone!” Alice yanked open the door and clattered out onto the back porch, and Lena and Sadie followed. Lena expected her to keep going, but Alice stopped at the edge of the steps. “Yeah, you just try and map my maze,” she shouted at it. “See what happens!”
Sadie and Lena exchanged a look. Had their sister lost her mind? She’d been edgy these past few weeks, frustrated at the way her hunches had gone wonky. Lena knew it bothered her to function without that extra information, but her hunches had never been exactly dependable.
“What do you mean—” Sadie began, but Alice held up a hand to shush her.
“Just look.”
The drone hovered near the edge of the maze, apparently interested in Sadie’s garden, too, but just as Sadie took a step to go after it, it lifted a couple of feet and turned toward the maze, picking up speed.
It was at least ten feet higher than the top of the maze, Lena estimated, but when it reached the airspace above it, it stopped short—bouncing back a few feet. It flew in a little circle as if shaking the jolt off and headed toward the maze again.
It bounced off the invisible perimeter again.
“How are you doing that?” Sadie asked Alice, awe tinging her voice.
“I have no idea,” Alice said. “I just keep picturing an invisible wall, and the drone keeps bouncing off it. This is the third time it’s happened.
“What if it comes when you’re not around?” Lena asked.
“I’m not getting many hunches these days, but whenever this sucker gets near, I feel it,” Alice told her.
“You can’t know that it’s not coming if you’re not here to see it,” Sadie pointed out.
“And yet I do,” Alice said simply.
Sadie glanced at Lena again. Lena shrugged. “Nothing that Alice can do makes any sense. Why should this?”
Lena’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she answered it as she watched the drone bounce off the invisible perimeter again. It was kind of entertaining.
“Can’t they get an angle shot if they want to photograph the maze?” Sadie was asking Alice when Lena accepted the call.
“Nope,” Alice said confidently.
“Hello?” A masculine voice on the line caught her attention.
“Hello.”
“Bud here, from the lumber company. I’m almost at your place. Where do you want this stuff?”
“Take the service road down to the barn,” Lena directed him.
“Will do. See you in a minute.”
She pocketed the phone. “As much fun as this is, I’ve got to go. Delivery man is here.”
Her sisters barely noticed her leaving. Lena didn’t mind. Whoever was flying that drone deserved to get the shit knocked out of it. How rude to try to decipher a maze you hadn’t even been invited to walk through. She and her sisters had always helped guests navigate the maze. They had a rule not to ever let someone get lost in it. Still, mapping it from the sky went too far.
As she hurried down the dirt track, she considered the project ahead. She’d worried about the actual construction, but with her crew of “hired hands” she figured they’d get most of it done with a little help from contractors. They needed to get going, however, or they’d miss the chance to build it before the snow came. If they waited too long, they wouldn’t be able to bring the rest of their horses back home before winter set in.
“Hi, Bud,” she called to the driver when he killed the engine and climbed out.
“Hi, yourself,” he called back cheerfully as he rounded the truck and put down the tailgate. “I think I’ve got everything.”
“Terrific. Let’s get it unloaded, and we’ll go over the paperwork.” Lena approached the truck eagerly, leaned in and pulled out a stack of lumber. She was looking forward to rebuilding the stables. It seemed like progress, and these days, she’d take that wherever she could.
“Here, let me help you with that,” Logan said, appearing around the side of the barn. Champ and Isobel trotted after him, interested in all the fuss. A moment later, Max appeared, too. The dogs ranged around, sniffing the new truck and getting underfoot.
“I’ve got it,” she told him automatically. Logan was still a thorn in her side. It had been a mistake to let her guard down the other night. Now he wanted to hang out with her all the time, and she had to be downright rude at times to get him to clear off.
He seemed to think that one little dance gave him the right to court her. That’s what he was doing, even if he hadn’t touched her since. He kept his hands—and his kisses—to himself but often stood so close she held her breath. He was driving her crazy in two ways. One, in that she didn’t want a man crowding her space. Two, in that his proximity had somehow resurrected her sex drive.
Not helpful.
Logan reached for the wood again.
Lena evaded him. “I’ve got it,” she reiterated. “Get your own stack.”
She was grateful when he finally did. Soon Brian and Connor joined them. As much as she resented the men, she had to admit she liked the way they all pitched in without even being asked. She also appreciated the way the lumber folks had coded the cut wood to match the building plans. They’d have the stables built in no time.
“I think your backhoe is on its way,” Bud told her. “I passed it heading out from town. Should pull in any minute.”
That was good news, too. “As soon as the foundation gets dug, we’ll get this sucker built,” Lena told the men.
“Sounds good, chief,” Brian said.
Lena nearly stumbled. Chief?
Was he making fun of her?
She kept her head down but watched the men out of the corner of her eye to see if they grinned at each other or were laughing behind her back. She saw nothing of the sort. Brian went straight back to unloading lumber, and all the men listened when she directed where the supplies should go. Once, Connor suggested a change, and she’d considered it and agreed before she even remembered she was supposed to be on the watch for insubordination. His suggestion hadn’t felt like a ruse to undermine her, though. It was simply a good idea.
They’d nearly finished unloading the truck when a big orange backhoe lumbered slowly down the lane. The driver hopped out when he reached them, and she hurried to show him the site for the building. First, he’d have to clear away the detritus from the fire. He’d scheduled a dump truck to take the mess away, and right on time, the huge heavy truck rumbled down the lane.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Bud said. His truck bed was empty. Lena thanked him for his time, and when he pulled out, the dump truck took his place.
“Now, we’re talking,” Brian said twenty minutes later as the backhoe filled the bed of the dump truck. “That pile of stuff has been bugging me for weeks. Our ranch shouldn’t look like a pigsty.”
Our ranch. Lena’s shoulders set and her jaw tightened. Who was Brian to use that language?
She caught Logan watching her and somehow knew he knew what she was thinking. He didn’t shake his head or send any other sign of what he thought she should do, and Lena struggled to regain her composure. She had to remember that to Brian it must seem like his ranch. He’d married Cass, after all. He planned to spend his life here.
Brian turned, looked from one to the other of them. “What?”
Lena couldn’t form an answer. She longed to spit out the angry words caught in her throat, but she also knew they weren’t fair. Cass loved Brian. And Lena loved Cass. She didn’t want to kick her sister’s husband off the ranch. Didn’t want Sadie or Jo to be unhappy, either. That’s what made this so hard.
Some of what she felt must have been written on her face, because Brian’s shoulders fell. “This is my home now, Lena. I can’t keep my feelings separate from the land I’m ranching. I love Two Willows. Maybe I don’t have your history with it, but it means a lot to me. All I want is to be a good steward to this land. Is that so bad?”
Pain pierced through Lena’s heart. All she could do was turn and walk away. She couldn’t express the varied emotions she felt about the tangled mess they’d gotten themselves into. She was grateful her sisters had found true love. She was furious the General had divided them and was close to conquering the ranch.
And it killed her to know he valued these men far more than he ever had his own daughters.
Logan caught up to her, and she wanted to scream. Couldn’t he give her one moment of peace?
“We’re trying,” he said. “That’s what making you chief is all about. We get what you feel—”
“How could you possibly get what I feel?” Lena cried. “You have no idea what it’s like to look in your father’s eyes and see how much you disgust him!”
“You don’t disgust the General—”
Now he was trying to rewrite history. She remembered her father’s words clearly from that day when she was seven. You trying to disgrace us all?
That’s what she’d done—disgrace him. Simply by being born a girl.
“Leave me alone!” Lena scraped a hand across her face, horrified to find tears there. What was wrong with her these days?
When he stepped even closer, she shoved him, hard. “I said leave me alone!”
“Okay.” Logan held up his hands in surrender. “But I’m here when you’re ready to talk.”
She was going to kill him. But then she’d end up in jail with Scott, and she’d have to kill him, too. Better for everyone’s sake to just get the hell out of here for a while.
She changed directions and made a beeline to the barn, where she quickly saddled Atlas. The backhoe driver had the plans; he didn’t need any of them hanging around while he completed his work.
Only when Atlas was galloping over the rutted track that led to the interior of the ranch did some of the tension drain out of Lena’s body. Horses understood. They never let you down.
Not like men.