“Free!” I call across to her. “You’re too young to be back here. Scoot.” I step forward and give her a little shove toward the swing door.
But Free looks up pointedly at the photo of me crawling across The Cowherd counter. “Pretty sure there’s never been a minimum age requirement to be back here. At least, not if you’re a Henwood.”
“That’s right.” Daddy smiles at us and throws his arm across the counter so he can put his hand on Ben’s arm. “Ben’s been fully trained. This morning by yours truly, with some help from George. So he’ll be working alongside you every day this summer, Mace. He’s nearly old enough to bartend, aren’t you son?”
“Nearly old enough!” I say incredulously. “I was serving drinks when I was a lot younger than Ben.”
“Well, you’re my girl.” Daddy smiles. “You were always so grown-up. Seemed to be born that way.”
I don’t have a comeback for that, and I swallow down my anger. But Logan turns on my father with a hard look.
“Sometimes, those traits are inherited, sure,” he says slowly. “But sometimes, they’re forced on a person due to circumstance.”
Mama reaches for her ginger ale, and Daddy clears his throat awkwardly.
Logan lets it go like nothing out of the ordinary just happened.
But something did just happen. And I love him for sticking up for me. For always, when it matters most, having my back.
He looks down at me. “You okay?”
I nod. “When were you going to tell me about New York?”
He takes my arm as I turn away for the taps. “Mace.”
I snap my head back to him. “What? What do you want me to say? That as you fly over Darcy you can wave good-bye to me? Or maybe as you fly over the cow pasture where we made lo?—”
Fuck. I cannot believe how far I just took that.
Free and Blake are staring at us, and I have to blink back my sudden tears.
Logan bends his head so he can whisper into my ear, so quietly nobody else could possibly overhear. “Please don’t get emotional. It’s just…temporary. Nothing’s gonna change.”
I lift my head so I can meet his eyes. “Are you really that naïve, or are you just getting that good at lying to yourself? Gigi Phillips will never be able to exist in Darcy, Texas. And the sooner you admit that, the better.”
I flip my hand in the air to make my point, but Logan grabs my wrist. I try to pull it away, but he holds on as his gaze fixes on Jamie’s commitment ring.
“What’s this?” He looks down at the fake diamond and then back at my face.
I recognize the flash of panic in his eyes, panic he tries to push away, and I have half a mind to tell him the diamond is real. Instead, I pull my hand away.
“Just a little commitment ring. From Wal-Mart. No big deal.”
“Commitment to what? To marry him?”
“Nooo.” I purse my lips. “You know I’m not the marrying kind. Not unless I’m drunk and in Nevada.”
Logan exhales. “So who is he? When did you start seeing him?”
“Just recently.”
He grabs my wrist again and looks the ring over. “So this is a replacement? For the ruby one?”
56
The hotness in my neck moves up to my cheeks. “No. Not even close.”
Logan’s eyes hook into mine, and he says in a tone I have to strain to hear, “Macey, you don’t understand. I wish I could tell you more. But please don’t…”
