Chapter 14

14

T abby wasn't sure why she was so nervous about having her horse and his four-year-old ward over for dinner. She already knew all of his torrid secrets, between watching his niece turn into a foal and the research she'd dug up on him when she was trying to get her horse back.

She's already pressed herself wantonly against him and ridden him for several hours and…

Tabby yanked her thoughts back to Logan's human side.

On paper, he was a dirtbag, through and through. His records insisted that he was a con man with a shady past and a dozen misdemeanors, a lot of questionable history, and at least four separate identities.

In person, he was trying to gently redirect a four-year-old from touching every single thing in her house.

"This is a really pretty place you've got here," he said, looking around.

Tabby followed his gaze with pride. It did look good, with modern appliances paired tastefully with vintage restoration. "I did most of it myself," she admitted. "You want to destroy a good marriage? Try remodeling a house together." She regretted adding that as soon as the words were out of her mouth. What was wrong with her that she couldn't just say thank you like a normal person?

Logan gave her a smoldering look. "I don't think that working together destroys a good marriage, only a bad one. I've worked with you a little now, and you're a good partner."

Tabby opened her mouth but had absolutely no response for that.

Fortunately, Franzi tugged on Logan's arm until he bent down and she could stage whisper, "I have to go potty!"

"Down the hall on the left," Tabby said, pointing. "I'll set the table."

Franzi pulled Logan down the hall with her insistently, then slammed the door on him.

The timer went off while Tabby was still laying out plates and she went to take the tube biscuits out of the oven.

She came back with a basket of biscuits to find Logan setting the table. "Can I get drinks?" he offered, after the napkins were spread out at each place.

"Glasses are in the left cabinet. There's cold water in the fridge, ice in the freezer. Oh, I've got some milk. Do you want a beer?"

"Water's great for me. I'll pour Franzi some milk."

"Good, because I'm not actually sure I have any beer left. I think I drank the last one when my horse left me. I like ice in my water, please."

Franzi returned from the bathroom. "I flushed!" she announced.

"Did you wash your hands?" Logan asked her .

"I used soap!" Franzi said, which was apparently a yes, and when she spread her hands in proof, they were still coated in bubbles.

"Let's go finish rinsing those," Logan suggested, chasing her back down the hallway.

Tabby finished pouring the drinks herself, but Logan picked up where she left off when he came back, dropping ice cubes into her water without reminder.

She dished them each bowls of crock pot chicken stew. "How much will Franzi eat?"

"I'm hungry!" Franzi declared as she scrambled up onto a chair.

"We'll start with just a little," Logan countered. "You can get more," he promised her.

The chair was clearly too short for Franzi, and Tabby vowed not to worry about the food she managed to drop and to get a booster seat for future three-foot guests. One with a buckle, she decided, after Franzi had scrambled in and out of her chair a dozen times chasing dropped food, her napkin, her fork, her biscuit, and her shoe.

Logan shot her an apologetic look each time, and Tabby had to chuckle and shrug. It certainly took the pressure off of the meal, making Franzi the focus of their conversation by necessity. Tabby had been worried that it would be too date-like, and give Logan unreasonable expectations…and she'd been worried that she might want to live up to those expectations. But there was nothing romantic about Logan trying to chase stew off of Franzi's face every few minutes, or the little girl's lively and half-incomprehensible chatter.

They did manage a little grown-up talk when Franzi remembered to eat. Tabby told Logan more about her dreams for the ranch. "I've had several offers to sell the place. A lot of these farms and ranches near Nickel City are being bulldozed to build suburbia and this is apparently a sweet spot. Veronica Chase tried to buy it before we got it, and then she tried to snake it from Hank when the divorce was in process. Her office still sends me an offer every couple of months, but at this point, she's been such a—" Tabby glanced at Franzi, who was drinking her milk with hands so buttery from biscuits that she was surprised she had a grip on the glass. "Anyway, I'm not interested in selling."

"You shouldn't," Logan agreed. "This is an amazing place."

Logan had hair-raising tales about growing up with a circus. "Steven and I went to live with our grandparents when my mom skipped out." He eyed Franzi, who was spreading her napkin carefully in her lap again. "Dad started drinking, and it wasn't a great place to raise kids. Clancy stayed with the act longer than I did."

"That sounds awful," Tabby said quietly.

"You don't really notice it as a kid," Logan said. "You notice the music and the excitement, the cool animals and the noisy games. Cotton candy and corndogs, and a new place to explore every few weeks. You don't miss something you don't know you can have." He was still looking at Franzi, his mouth set in determination.

Tabby told herself that he had not gotten any hotter since the meal started.

Franzi was still eating her first serving, and slowing down drastically, when Tabby and Logan were finished. "I'll clear up," Logan volunteered. He froze halfway to standing. "I'd promised to make a salad," he remembered. "I'm so sorry!"

"That's fine," Tabby said. "You were a little busy, and there was enough of a meal without it. "

Logan didn't look convinced as he gathered up their plates. "I still owe you," he said firmly.

"Well, then you'll have to come over again some night." Tabby rose to show him the trick to opening the dishwasher and how the insert of the crockpot came out to wash. "This was…really nice."

Logan shot a skeptical glance back out of the open kitchen door at Franzi, who was looking at her reflection in her dirty spoon and making faces. "You must be kidding."

"It was," Tabby insisted. "I would have had too many leftovers and gotten sick of stew, and it's nice to run the dishwasher after one meal instead of three without feeling wasteful. I liked having company." It came out more wistfully than she meant it to.

"It's the best meal I've had in yonkers," Logan said. He was standing unsettlingly close, and he had that flirty little smile on his face that Tabby kept telling herself not to take seriously.

"Who says yonkers ?" Tabby teased breathlessly. "Is that a circus thing?"

"I have to go potty!" Franzi announced, starting to get down.

Logan sprang into action. "Wait, honey. Your hands are all dirty."

Over her strident protests, he wiped off her face and both hands, and dabbed at the stew on the front of her shirt before he released her to trip off down the hall.

"I'll clean this up," he promised, looking at the circle of disaster where Franzi had been sitting.

"Uncle LOGAN! My pants are STUCK!"

Tabby ended up loading the dishwasher and was cleaning up the splash radius around Franzi's chair when Logan returned .

"I have no idea how she managed to zip her shirt into her pants," he said. "Oh, let me do that."

He took the dishrag from Tabby and finished cleaning while Tabby ransacked her pantry for dessert. "I have some Girl Scout cookies," she announced, just as Franzi returned from her adventures in the bathroom.

"COOKIES!" Franzi said in delight, clambering back up into her chair.

Tabby realized that she should have asked Logan if dessert was a good idea. Franzi had already had a long exciting day and she wasn't sure if sugar on top of that was a recipe for disaster.

"You can have one ," Logan said firmly.

Franzi watched with suspicious eyes as Tabby served one cookie to each of them. It would have been way too easy to eat the entire box, and Tabby thought this was another point in favor of having Logan and Franzi over for dinner again.

Franzi reduced her cookie to crumbs as she ate it, talking non-stop, and Tabby understood even less of what she said than before.

Logan insisted on sweeping, a task severely hampered by having to keep a constant eye on Franzi and tell her not to touch things as she careened around the house. Tabby held the dustpan for him.

"I've got to get her into bed before she collapses," Logan said regretfully, as Tabby dumped the crumbs.

"I'm not sweepy," Franzi said drunkenly. She yawned and didn't seem to recognize the irony, but Tabby and Logan chuckled. She didn't protest when Logan picked her up, and after she stretched to try to reach the ceiling, she snuggled down into his arms and lay her head on his shoulder .

"Thanks for dinner," he said, and Tabby thought his gaze was more intense than the moment deserved.

"You were great today," Tabby said. "I really appreciate your hard work."

"I had a great rider," Logan said.

Tabby watched them go, telling herself that the warmth she felt was flattery, not fondness.