because he saw what Rose recognized in Iris. He did. She spent most of her nights at home baking and knitting. When she did go out, it was with the whole family.
At this point, it wasn’t like he did a whole lot else.
Not since his libido had transformed into something spiky and untrustworthy. Yeah. Sometimes he went out of town and found a woman. But he didn’t like hooking up here.
Iris hadn’t come out with them tonight, and from the looks of things, Ryder and Sammy were going to have to call it an early evening. Which would leave them with West and Pansy. He was fine with that, he liked the man that Pansy was engaged to. They were going to have a Christmas wedding, which was likely half of what had Rose so amped up about romance, and seeing her sister happy.
He got Rose a bottle of her favorite beer, and went back to the table. He had snuck her beer a time or two starting when she was about nineteen. Ryder would be angry if he knew. He had been a stickler for minding the rules. But, Logan had figured it was a rite of passage. And since all Rose really wanted to do was have a beer out on the back porch, he had never seen the harm in it. As a result, he had a pretty good idea of what she enjoyed.
“He’s here,” Rose whispered.
“Who?” He sat down at the table next to her, and passed her the beer.
“Elliott.”
“Rose, what did I say?”
“When have I ever listened to you?”
“Well, you should listen to me. You should listen to me now.”
“What are you saying exactly?” she asked, her tone far too sweet.
“To leave well enough alone.”
“What are you two whispering about down there?” Pansy asked.
Rose’s older sister was looking at them keenly.
“Nothing,” Logan said.
“Logan doesn’t approve of me,” Rose said.
“Well,” Pansy said. “I should think that would be a goal of yours.”
“Yes. I don’t really care about whether or not I am meeting with anyone’s approval. It has to be said.”
That wasn’t strictly true, and he knew it. Rose wasn’t really a rebel, so much as she was...exuberant. She acted before she thought, and spoke even sooner than she acted.
“I’m exhausted,” Sammy said. “Even though I really do want to stay and hear about what all Logan disapproves of.”
Sammy was five months pregnant, and Logan knew that her desire to be in the middle of the fray often lost out over her current level of energy. He was happy for Ryder, that his friend was able to get over some of the trauma of his past, and begin to make a new life for himself. A new family. It had been completely obvious to him that Ryder had been in love with Sammy for the last decade and a half. His friend had denied it, but Logan had known.
And, it had turned out he was right.
That made him feel slightly uncomfortable, given that he was currently judging Rose for trying to get involved in people’s love life. But he had not gotten involved in Ryder’s. Not without his asking for input.
Anyway, in some ways he felt extra connected to Sammy. The two of them were the odd ones out. They weren’t genetically related to the Daniels clan, but had found themselves a part of Hope Springs Ranch, bonded together by the tragedies of life. For Logan, it had been the loss of his mother. For Sammy, the fact that her parents had been absolutely terrible. Her mother was still alive, but she wasn’t part of Sammy’s life.
For all the good they’d done raising her, she might as well have lost them.
“See you tomorrow,” Logan said.
“Bye,” Rose said.
“We’ll hang out for a while,” Pansy said.
Though, he could tell the by the way West was looking at his fiancée he was hoping to make it an early night, for pretty obvious reasons.
Logan’s stomach tightened up. Because that would mean being alone with Rose. And he didn’t like that. Not one bit. He’d already played with fire when it came to late nights and a little bit of beer with her. And she had no idea how close she’d come to being burned.
No. He’d never burn her. He wouldn’t. Never once had he thought seriously about acting on any of the feelings that he’d experienced for her over the last couple of years. But he’d been in situations where they had been closer to the surface than he wanted them.
And he wasn’t about to put himself back there again.
“I’m going to make a move,” Rose said, as Ryder and Sammy filed out of the saloon.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
And that was when the irrepressible brunette scampered across the saloon, and approached Elliott Johns.
He gritted his teeth and watched in horror as she began to talk to him, and Logan could see interest lighting up the other man’s face.
He was also absolutely certain that Rose was over there being an ambassador for Iris, and only for that reason.
Elliott clearly thought otherwise.
Oh, Rose. You don’t know what you’re playing at.
About thirty seconds later, they were crossing the bar, and she had brought him back to the table. “Logan, will you get another beer? Elliott is going to join us for the evening.”
Don’t miss The Last Christmas Cowboy by New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates, available October 2020 wherever Harlequin Books and ebooks are sold.
Copyright © 2020 by Maisey Yates
ISBN-13: 9781488056673
The Hero of Hope Springs
Copyright © 2020 by Maisey Yates
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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