She deserves someone whole. Someone who can kiss her goodnight instead of standing there like a fence post while she blows kisses across five feet of air.
I rub my sternum again and go find my animals.
Logan's already at the haystack when I get there, sleeves shoved up, pitchfork in hand, splitting a bale for Cleopatra like he does most afternoons whether I ask or not. He hears me coming and doesn't look up.
“Rome's water was low. Topped it off.” He heaves a flake over the paddock rail. Cleopatra ambles toward it, Domino trailing her. “Brutus is sulking again.”
“Brutus is always sulking.”
“This is advanced sulking. He's facing the corner.”
I check the bear. He is, in fact, facing the corner, one round ear swiveled toward us to make sure we notice. I let him have his theater and start on Caesar's evening feed, weighing the meat, and for a while we work in silence.
Logan lasts about ten minutes.
“You sleep okay? After yesterday?”
“Fine.”
“No spiral.”
“No spiral,” I echo.
“Huh.” He forks another flake. “Usually anything to do with him puts you on the ceiling for a week.”
“Not this time.”
“Because of the doc.”
I don't answer. He takes that as confirmation, which it is.
“So how's that functioning?” He plants the pitchfork in the dirt and leans on it, watching me portion Caesar's meat. “You and her. Mechanically speaking.”
“Logan.” It’s a warning.
“I'm not being a pervert. Okay, I'm being twenty percent a pervert. Eighty percent your brother wanting to know if you're okay.” He tips his head. “Cole told me about the board.”
“Cole should learn to shut his mouth.”
“Cole will learn to shut his mouth when the sun burns out. Point is—” He gestures at me with a fire-scarred hand. “It's working. Whatever you've built with her. You're sleeping. You’ve hardly touched your arms in three days. You laughed at breakfast. Jonah nearly choked.”
“Your point.”
“My point is I'm happy for you, and I don't understand it.” He says it easily, no judgment behind it, just Logan thinking out loud like he always does, no filter between his skull and his mouth. “Twenty years, we throw women at you, you sit in the dark corner like a gargoyle. This one shows up and inside a week you're building sex furniture. What's she doing different? Is it a technique thing, or—Imean, how does she get around it? The touch thing. What's the trick?”
“There's no trick.”
“There's gotta be something. Because if there's a workaround, brother, that's huge, that's—maybe it's not as deep as we thought, maybe after Harlan's dealt with you could?—”
I clench my teeth. “There's noworkaround, Logan.”
“I'm just saying, if she's found a crack in it?—”
“It's a miracle I function at all,” I snap. Logan's mouth stops moving.
The afternoon goes very still. Cleopatra lifts her head from the hay.
“Rowe—”