Page 32 of Destined for the Cowboy

She stood up, picked up that framed photo, and slid it into the drawer.

An image flashed into her mind, last Sunday at the cemetery, when she’d looked up to see Logan standing there. If she was still the same woman she’d been at that funeral, she would have merely nodded and walked away, back to her car to leave. She was sure she would have.

But she hadn’t.

And here she was now, having spent her excursion days in his company four times now, albeit twice it was unintentional, just a couple of mad coincidences. That was more time than she’d spent with any one man except her brother since David had died.

And she liked it. All of it. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

But Jackson had felt the same way. He’d thought that part of his life was over, after Leah’s death. And now…well, he was proving again he was the brave one.

So learn by his example.

The thought startled her. What didn’t surprise her was that the first person she thought of was Logan. He seemed to be taking up a lot of brain cells lately.

It was probably a good thing she had lots of work to distract her. They were bearing down fast on the last week of the school year, and starting next week she would have plenty of extra work for distraction as everything wound up in preparation for the summer break.

She was always focused on work at school, giving her best to the children she taught. Parents had chosen this small school and paid for it privately, and with the small classes she was able to search out each child’s skills and talents and nurture them. It was what she loved most about her work, that chance to truly focus and bring out the best in her kids, especially those who were surprised to learn that odd thing they could do, or that different way of looking at things could be valued and useful.

But this time of year, she spent many of her own hours outside of classroom time on working up her own tests to supplement the state-mandated ones to gauge her students’ progress. And she was actually thankful for that now, as it kept her mind occupied, and away from thinking about other things.

At least, consciously. She realized it must have been in the back of her mind all week anyway as, when she reached Friday night, it suddenly struck her she’d made no plans for tomorrow. No Saturday excursion to some interesting spot, no visit to a place of history to try and imagine herself in that time, and how she would react to the event commemorated in that place.

No chance at all of running into Logan Fox.

It made her wish she’d saved some of that work to do at home tomorrow. But although she tried when morning came, she was out of even little things to do by noon. She switched to house cleaning then, but all she could think of was that Logan’s place had a certain advantage there, in that there was nowhere to hidestuff, as her students called it, so you had to keep things tidy all along.

She spent her Saturday night watching a movie her kids had been talking about a lot. She tried to keep up on things like that, although with this one it was difficult because the attitude of the main character had her grimacing more than once. And when she went to bed that night, she had a crazy dream about that main character…with Logan stepping in to redirect him, ashe had those women last week in Houston, for Jackson’s and Jeremy’s sake.

Yes, the man was taking up entirely too much brain space.

By Sunday morning she knew she couldn’t just stay here staring at the walls any longer. With the fragments of that silly dream in mind, she decided to go see how her brother was doing, and perhaps spirit Jeremy off someplace fun, if for no other reason than to give Jackson and Nic some alone time.

When she got to the ranch, she encountered Nic’s mom first, and so stopped at the main house. The woman immediately invited her inside to show her a new software program she’d found, designed for helping students about the same age they both dealt with find which of several ways to approach studying worked best for them. It was intriguing, and before she realized it, they’d gone through an hour and two cups of coffee.

She wasn’t sure what triggered the memory of Nic telling her Logan had helped design and build this desk for Mrs. Baylor. But looking at it now, seeing how perfectly it fit the space, accommodated her wheelchair, those lovely drawer pulls, how perfectly sized the shelves that housed her up-to-the-minute computer gear were, how even the hinges on the cupboard doors looked intricately handmade, she wasn’t in the least surprised.

When she stepped outside to head up the hill to Jackson’s place, as if her thought had somehow conjured him up, she saw Logan’s truck parked by the barn.

“Oh, good,” Mrs. Baylor said. “Logan made it out. Sweet of him—Richard just called him this morning.”

“Somebody lose a shoe?” She was proud of how even her voice was.

“No, it’s the whisperer we needed. A new colt Richard has been trying to halter-break, and he was having none of it.” The woman flashed a bright smile at her. “This should be good. Let’sgo watch. I never get tired of watching what Logan can do with a horse, even a stubborn young one.”

And I never seem to get tired of simply watching Logan.

As they headed toward the barn, Mrs. Baylor using the ramp Logan had also helped build, the only thing Tris could think of was that at least this wasn’t some crazy coincidence, them both ending up in the same place at the same time, like it had been in Fredericksburg, or Fort Sam Houston. Or the cemetery.

“Quietly,” Mrs. Baylor whispered as they neared the open barn door. “Don’t want to startle the colt.”

She nodded and made sure to walk the last few steps with care. But when she stopped dead just inside it wasn’t for the sake of silence, it was because she was staring at the sight before her. The colt, a long-legged, black and white pinto that reminded her of Jeremy’s beloved Pie, indeed had a halter on, but clearly was not happy about it, his feet in constant motion.

“Jackson bought him,” Mrs. Baylor said. “I think he has in mind he’ll be for Jeremy, when he outgrows the pony. He should have been halter-broke by now, we start them within a month, but apparently this one wasn’t.”

She only nodded. That was about all she could manage. Because standing at the colt’s head was Logan, dressed in a perfectly fitting pair of jeans—or maybe they were just ordinary jeans on a perfect male body—and a simple chambray shirt. It wasn’t an outfit that should have taken her breath away, but it did. Something about the sleeves rolled up halfway to his elbows, coupled with a glimpse of his powerful chest because of the top two buttons left undone, no doubt in his hurry to answer Mr. Baylor’s call for help. Top it off with a smoky-gray cowboy hat, and it was beyond eye-catching. To her, anyway.

Be honest. It’s not the outfit, it’s the man wearing it.

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