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 years have thought that Pansy’s kind of excitement would be a cowboy ex-convict?”
“Pansy is an anomaly. And she doesn’t count.”
“Okay. Well, good to know that you just get to decide who you think you know.”
“Pull the stick out of your rear, Logan.”
“Look, matchmaker, you meddle in people’s lives on your own time. It’s fence fixing time.”
“Fine. But tonight when we go to the bar, I’m going to put feelers out.”
“God save us all from your feelers,” he said.
“I’ll be successful. You can bet.”
* * *
LOGAN ALREADY NEEDED another drink, and they’d only been at the Gold Valley Saloon for twenty minutes.
This time of a year was a bitch anyway. His slow slide into seasonal grinchhood began in November and continued all through December. He didn’t do Christmas. Not at all.
Not since his mother had died.
So he was already prone to irritation as it was. And Rose was being particularly Rose.
There was no stopping Rose Daniels when she was on a tear and Logan knew that better than anybody. She was a frenetic lightning storm wrapped in skin. And she drove him crazy.
In all the ways that could apply.
Much to his endless chagrin.
He had known pretty little Rose Daniels since she was a child.
His mother had been best friends with her parents, and after they’d died he had moved in with the family, and essentially become part of it.
But there was something about Rose. She got under his skin, and made it itch. And that itch had transformed into something wholly inappropriate after she had gone from girl to woman, which had happened seemingly overnight. She had gone to bed, seventeen and a pain in his ass. And woken up eighteen—still a pain in his ass—and recognizably far too pretty for his own good.
No. Rose wasn’t like a sister to him. But the feelings he had for her were deep, special, forged in fire.
He had known that long before he had ever found her beautiful. He would be her protector. When she was seven years old, looking at him with eyes that were far too serious and asking when their parents were going to come back, because death was a concept that was simply too big for her to grasp, he had vowed it then. And he kept it now.
But sometimes the kid needed protection from her damn self.
He had turned protecting her from him into an art form.
It was her harebrained schemes that he couldn’t quite manage.
The woman had a habit of grating on him. And tonight, she was going to test every single one of his nerves, he had a feeling. More than a feeling.
He could think of nothing that Iris would like less than to have her younger sister trying to find her a pity date. Because whether Rose realized that’s what she was doing, she was. He recognized it. Well,