Contracted Cowboy (Quinn Valley Ranch Book 5) Page 7

  “There they are,” her mom said, giving her and Logan a fond smile. “Ready, everyone?”

  Choruses of “Ready, Mom,” filled the cottage, and Georgia went right back out the door she’d just come in. Around the corner of the house sat a few ATVs, and she got in the backseat of one, hoping she’d get Rhodes as a driver. Jessie could dump them out almost as easily as she could breathe, and thankfully, her dad took the wheel of her ATV.

  “Hey, baby.” Her mom reached back and patted her leg. “How do the gingerbread houses look?”

  “Great,” Georgia said brightly. “I have my favorites.”

  They started off then, and the crunch of snow under the tires, the wind, and the roaring engine made talking impossible. Logan took her hand and squeezed it. They exchanged a smile, and she snuggled into his side. The ATV didn’t have a rear-view mirror, and she felt a little dangerous being affectionate in front of her parents.

  Once out in the midst of all the pine trees, and after the sound of the engines had quieted, the resulting silence almost felt deafening.

  “We need a small one for Granny,” her father said. “And a big one for the homestead. Rhodes gets final say this year.” With that, they set off through the snow.

  “Rhodes gets final say?” Logan asked, still holding Georgia’s hand.

  “Yeah, that rotates,” she said. “Let’s just say that sometimes there’s a fight over which tree to get. So every year, one of us gets final say.”

  “A fight? Wow. I think I’d like to see that.”

  Georgia laughed, the sense of wonder and peace out in these woods almost overwhelming. “When I was a kid, I used to love coming out here,” she said. “It was so beautiful, with all the snow, and all the branches. Two colors. So simple.” She drew in a deep breath through her nose, which almost hurt. “I love it.”

  “Mm.” He swept a kiss along her forehead, along the bottom of her hat. “I can see why. It’s beautiful. Serene.”

  “Serene,” she echoed. That was the perfect way to describe it. “It feels like Christmas to me.”

  “Pine trees, and snow, and family. Definitely Christmas.”

  This year, there was no fighting among the siblings, almost like they all knew Logan wouldn’t really want to see that, and they got the trees back to the homestead without any issues. Georgia let her sisters go ahead to get the hot drinks and cookies out, thoroughly enjoying having Logan with her and not having to stress about every little detail as she had in the past.

  “Have you thought any more about getting a dog?” he asked.

  “I mean, a little.” She bent and picked up a handful of untouched snow, starting to pack it into a ball.

  “I was thinking you’d like a bichon frise. They’re these cute little dogs, and—” He cut off when the snowball struck him in the chest.

  Georgia pealed out a lungful of laughter and started to run for the back door. Sure enough, a snowball struck her in the shoulder blades right when she reached the bottom step. She shrieked and nearly went down.

  In the next moment, Logan caught up to her, laughing too, and pulled her back to the sidewalk. “You’re nothing but trouble,” he said between chuckles.

  Georgia had never felt such happiness in her life. Not before Simon. Not when she was with Simon. Never. She reached up and touched Logan’s cheek with her mittened hand, sobering the moment.

  It felt like a moment to say I love you, Logan, but she couldn’t get her voice to work. Thankfully, he kissed her, and somehow they both said what they needed to without speaking any words at all.

  Chapter 10

  Logan enjoyed every moment of his time with Georgia—and her crazy Quinn family. He couldn’t believe she didn’t love their eccentricities, but the more he talked to her about it, the more he realized that she actually did.

  The month of December was relatively quiet for the Quinns, and he went to work and prepped for the Customer Appreciation Day at the hot springs. He’d been volunteering since he was a teenager, and it was always a little intense when people got in for free. Especially if it had gotten cold early in the season, as it had this year.

  He’d told Georgia he’d be at the hot springs most of the day, and she’d said that while she’d been a time or two, it wasn’t a family tradition. She was, however, going to come so she could see him.

  He liked that she really seemed to like him, and he was fairly certain that she wouldn’t disappear in the middle of the night the way his last girlfriend had done.

  Logan had actually been panicked when he’d found Carol Anne gone. Missing. Finally, a week after he’d gone by her apartment and found it cleaned out, she’d texted him to say she just couldn’t keep pretending to like him.

  He’d never been so hurt in all his life, and honestly, the next couple of years were kind of blurry in his memory. Even Knox had told him about some things he’d done that he simply couldn’t remember.

  Nothing terrible, but stuff he should be able to recall.

  He pushed through the gate to enter the hot springs and joined the crowd of volunteers gathered around the check-in table. He’d wear a nametag the color hunters wore in the fall so anyone could identify him—and hopefully listen to him if he had to ask them to do something.

  He’d get lunch at eleven-thirty, and he’d be done by four. Not only that, but he got a week’s worth of free passes for the hot springs for anytime other than their special events. And Logan liked the hot springs after a long day building a house or laying cement or fixing a barn.

  Whatever he had to do to make ends meet. As he waited in line for his assignment, he thought about the couple of ranches he’d looked at online all those weeks ago. He’d never done anything about them. The pages were still folded and in the top drawer of his nightstand. Knox didn’t even know he’d been thinking about buying a ranch, and he should’ve told his brother first.

  But now that Knox had the farrier job at Quinn Valley Ranch, he could afford the mortgage himself. It was only Logan that still hadn’t found his path in life.

  He pushed the thoughts aside and accepted his assignment to monitor the towel bins. He’d take in used towels to the laundry, and make sure there were fresh towels folded and available for patrons.

  The hot springs were huge, with three pools of varying temperatures and sizes. The biggest and coolest was one hundred and two degrees, and most of the time it was full of families. The huge canopies kept things shady in the summer and free from rain and snow in the winter.

  Open year round, the hot springs were the best during the winter months. They had heated decks to melt the snow, and the lights at night brought a smile to Logan’s face every time he came. During Christmastime, the lights shone in an array of colors, but at most other times of the year, they were just red—like lava.

  The premises weren’t huge, but he got a partner to help with the towels. He didn’t know anyone named Annie, which wasn’t all that surprising given the number of volunteers there that day. People from all over would come to this free day at the hot springs, not just Quinn Valley residents, and as he left the volunteer tables, he searched the nametags for his towel partner.

  He saw a woman standing beside the laundry door, her arms laden with towels, and he thought that had to be her.

  “Let me help with those,” he said, taking a huge chunk of the stack from her. Enough to uncover her face. He immediately dropped the towels, his heartbeat ricocheting around inside his chest.

  “Carol Anne,” he said, glancing down at her nametag, which read Annie.

  But he’d recognize her face anywhere. It had haunted him for a few months after she’d left town.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She stooped to pick up the fallen towels. “I’m volunteering.” She started folding them, but Logan would’ve just tossed them back into the laundry room. Guests didn’t want a towel that had been dropped on the ground. “And I go by Annie now.”

  Logan had no idea what to say. He looked over his sh
oulder, thinking he should go get a new assignment. Even working the churro truck would be better than working with his ex-girlfriend for the next eight hours.

  But the gates opened, and people began pouring into the facility though it was barely nine o’clock in the morning.

  “Here,” someone said, thrusting a stack of towels toward him. He had no choice but to take them, and he started toward the racks way over by the second hottest pool, the one that was entirely covered by a canopy.

  Maybe he could just do his job. He didn’t have to coordinate anything with Annie. He could do this job himself, and maybe she’d go ask for a different assignment. Anger fueled his steps, and he wasn’t even sure why.

  He’d dated Carol Anne for six months almost four years ago, and yes, he’d really liked her. Maybe he was even falling in love with her. He didn’t know; he’d never been in love before. But the way she’d left like that? Just up and ghosting him?

  Of course it had hurt. Logan wasn’t a robot, for crying out loud.

  He shoved the towels onto the rack with a little too much force, his pulse racing around inside his chest. She did not get to make him feel this way, like he was unimportant and not worth being straightforward with.

  Georgia had never lied to him.

  But she had wanted to lie to her family. The traitorous thought was there, poisoning the very air Logan drew into his lungs.

  Thankfully, he didn’t see Carol Anne with her dark hair and those long, long lashes. She’d never apologized, never even acknowledged that what she’d done to him was cruel.

  He’d told himself that he didn’t need an apology, but now that he’d come face-to-face with her, he was thinking maybe he did.

  They steered clear of each other until lunchtime, and when the volunteer coordinator caught him and said it was his turn to go eat, he didn’t hesitate. After all, he’d been walking around between two temperatures—hot water and snow—for a few hours now and he was famished.

  He went through the line for soup and salad and entered the break room at the back of the small building where people usually paid and rented lockers. It smelled damp and sweaty in here, and Logan wanted to go right back outside.

  Instead, he sat down and started eating. There was a strict no-eating policy near the pools, and the tables outside were reserved for patrons.

  Back to the towels. Back to avoiding Carol Anne.

  He should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to keep pretending like she didn’t exist. Because eventually, he ran into her along a narrow strip of cement between the largest pool and the fence.

  “Sorry,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why he was apologizing. She could easily go back the way she’d come too.

  “Logan,” she said. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  He clenched his teeth together and turned back to her, a fake smile on his face. “Sure, you start.” He hated feeling petty and small, but that was how she made him feel.

  She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear, like he was being difficult on purpose. Fine, maybe he was.

  “I thought you’d have moved on by now,” she said.

  He laughed, but it didn’t contain much happiness or kindness. “I have, Carol Anne.”

  “You still seem so mad at me.”

  “I am mad at you,” he said. “You disappeared in the middle of the night. I called the police, and it was embarrassing to have to be told that no, you weren’t in any danger. It just looked like you’d moved out.” His chest heaved, and he worked to control his emotions and his breathing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and everything inside him deflated. It was amazing what forgiveness could do to a person, and Logan was able to release some of the tension that had kept his muscles tight all day.

  She reached up and touched his face, and Logan closed his eyes for a moment, his prayer to the Lord to help him be kind almost over.

  When he looked at her again, he felt as calm and as cool as he wanted to be. “I accept your apology.”

  She flung herself into his arms and held on tight. “Thank you, Logan,” she said. “You really are the best.” Carol Anne gave him a huge smile and stepped carefully past him, throwing another glance his way after a few steps.

  Logan sighed and continued toward his original destination—the laundry. Before he could round the end of the pool, Georgia appeared in front of him.

  “Hey,” he started, his heart leaping at the wonderful sight of her.

  “Who was that?” she demanded, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. It was then that Logan realized how angry she was. He’d seen her like this once—the first time they’d met in the barn, when he’d been holding her hammer.

  “That was nobody.”

  “You hugged her.”

  He squinted at her. “I guess. That was Carol Anne.”

  “Oh, your ex-girlfriend,” she said without missing a beat.

  How she knew that, Logan wasn’t sure. Confusion kept him silent a moment too long, because Georgia asked, “Have you been lying to me all this time?”

  “What?”

  “You said you didn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “I don’t. Well, I mean—”

  “Maybe you’ve been cheating on me this whole time.” Her voice went up a few degrees. “Seeing her during the week and coming out to the ranch on the weekends. And here I thought you’d been working.”

  “I have been working,” he said.

  “I can’t believe this.” Georgia shook her head, a tear splashing her cheek. She swiped at it, looked at him, and spun away. She marched toward the gate and pushed through it, leaving Logan to wonder what in the world had just happened.

  He dropped the used towels off at the laundry and ducked inside the building to call her. When she didn’t pick up, he said to her voicemail, “I don’t know what just happened. You’re my only girlfriend. Can you please call me back?”

  Chapter 11

  Georgia swung the hammer wildly at the rafters, knowing she was doing more damage than good inside the still-unfinished barn. But she just needed to hit something right now.

  She’d never felt so foolish in all her life. Logan had a hard time getting out to the ranch during the week because of his job. She’d accepted that at face value. Believed everything the man said to her, because he was handsome and fun and the best kisser in the world.

  She blinked, and she saw Simon’s face as he bent to kiss another woman. Simon as yet another woman hugged him in the grocery store parking lot. All in all, Georgia had discovered that while she and Simon had dated, he’d had no less than six other girlfriends. He hadn’t committed to any of them either.

  And she was not interested in that kind of relationship.

  Her tears threatened to spill down her face again, but she blinked them back. She’d only needed Logan for the holidays, and those were almost over. She had the big Quinn family Christmas soirée at the restaurant, where the gingerbread house winner would be named, and a smaller, ranch family party on Christmas Eve.

  She could go to both alone.

  After reaching down, she tapped her voicemail icon again and listened to Logan’s message. He didn’t sound like he was lying—but then again, she’d believed everything he’d said before too.

  She didn’t know what to believe now.

  Sighing, she got off the ladder and picked up the phone. She dialed Logan, knowing he was still at the hot springs, doing his volunteer work. And she’d thought he was so kind and so thoughtful to work while everyone else got into the hot springs for free.

  “Hey,” he said breathlessly. “I only have a few seconds.”

  “Oh,” she said. She didn’t really know what to say to him; she wanted him to talk.

  “That was Carol Anne, and we did used to date. But I haven’t seen her in years. Please, Georgia, you have to believe me.”

  She wanted to. She toed the dirt in the barn and said, “All right.”

  “All right? So I’ll come get you tonight like we planned
and we’ll go to dinner?”

  “Yeah,” she said, foolishness filling her. Still some anger in there too, but mostly embarrassment for the way she’d acted.

  Now you’ll have to tell him about Simon, she thought as the call ended. She’d told him some things, but not everything. She hadn’t thought it important.

  She wandered outside to the fence which kept the pigs and llamas from running wild around the ranch. Buzz and Boone loitered nearby, and she leaned against the rungs and said, “You guys have it lucky. Anyone you’re interested in is locked up in there with you. You’d know if they were cheating on you.”

  She stood there for long enough to draw over a few llamas hoping for a treat. When she told them she didn’t have anything, they went back to snacking on the hay she’d given them that morning.

  They already knew the sad saga of Simon-the-cheater. She didn’t need to repeat it to them. But it looped through her mind, and she wished she could somehow purge it.

  In the end, she had to go back inside because it was simply too cold to stand outside and talk to livestock.

  “Hey,” Cami said when Georgia entered the house. “Where have you been?”

  “In the barn,” she said. If Cami had wanted to find her, she wouldn’t have had to look very far.

  “I just got the strangest text.” Cami got up from the recliner where she’d been reading and approached Georgia in the kitchen. “Look.” She handed her phone to Georgia, who looked at the picture on the screen.

  It was Logan and that dark-haired woman.

  “I’ve already talked to him about her,” she said, handing the phone back. Cami took it, frowning. “But Riley just sent this to me. She said she’d just taken it a few minutes ago.”

  “No,” Georgia said, drawing the word out. “That was at least an hour ago.” After all, she’d driven all the way back to the ranch, hammered stuff, and then stood with the animals for a good long while. “Maybe longer.”