Page 22 of More Than Meets the Eye

He’d trimmed his beard. Her heart stuttered at the observation. Yesterday it had been a mite unkempt. Scraggly. A tad fluffy, even.

The fluff had disappeared. Cropped close, the beard outlined the squareness of his jaw without the scraggly bits trailing down his neck that had been there yesterday. Had he done that for her? Because he’d wanted to look his best when she brought the supplies? His shirt was clean, too. And while his boots were just as worn as they’d been yesterday, less dust clung to the cracked leather.

Evangeline sat a little straighter and smoothed a hand over the skirt draped across her bent legs.

Of course, his efforts might have absolutely nothing to do with her. Perhaps it was simply his day to clean up. Like laundry day.

But he might have done it for her. To make a favorable impression. She nibbled the inside of her lip. No harm in assuming the best until proven wrong.

Logan glanced up from the loaf as if he’d sensed her attention. Evangeline looked away. Spying the crock of butter, she pounced. “If you’ll hand me a piece, I’ll start buttering it for you.”

“Thanks.” His eyes radiated nothing but warmth as she accepted the first raggedly uneven slice from his hand.

She slathered it with a generous portion of butter, then proffered it to him. “Here. I’ll slice the rest while you eat.”

“Probably a good idea,” he said, shaking his head over the four slices lying on the bread cloth. The heel was half an inch thick at the top, but thin as a toothpick at the bottom. “I seem to be making a hash of it.”

He handed her the knife, handle first, and her fingers rubbed against his in the exchange. Her skin tingled where she’d touched him, and her breath caught slightly. He didn’t seem in any hurry to release his grip. Even with the prize of warm buttered bread in her other hand, right below his nose.

Evangeline tightened her grip on the utensil’s handle and tugged it from his grasp. Logan might make her head spin and her insides dance around like popping corn in a hot skillet, but she knew better than to let a few frilly feelings turn her mind to mush. He was a mystery that needed solving before anything personal could develop between them.

Thankfully, he received her less-than-subtle message and removed the bread from her other hand with barely more than a brush of his little finger. Nothing more than what she’d expect from one of her brothers taking something from her, but the impact of that barely-there touch was magnified a hundred times compared to anything she’d felt from Zach or Seth. She could feel it still, even several heartbeats after Logan moved away.

Determined to focus on something other than the man consuming every thought currently running through her head, Evangeline set to work on the bread, fully intending to prove her womanhood by slicing the remainder of the loaf with geometric precision that would make an architect proud. Unfortunately, two slices in, Logan bit into his bread and started making the most disruptive sounds. Moans, really. Transported, elated moans that no baker with an ounce of pride could ignore. Apparently she had more than an ounce.

She glanced up and was immediately struck by the rapture on his face. Eyes closed, head tilted slightly toward the sky, he chewed and savored as if she’d fed him a fancy French pastry instead of a slice of ordinary bread.

“Oh . . . mmm . . .” he managed to get out when his mouth opened to take a second bite that ended up engulfing the entire remaining portion. “This is so tasty!”

At least that was what she thought he said. It was hard to tell for certain with his overstuffed mouth muffling the words. It could as easily have been “Thick as goo, pasty,” but he seemed to be enjoying what he was eating, so she assumed the first interpretation was correct.

She hurried to butter him a second slice. His enjoyment was such a delight to behold, she probably would have fed him the entire loaf if he hadn’t slowed after three pieces to insist that she take the fourth.

He held up a hand and shook his head, though he had to swallow before he could actually speak the apology his eyes were signaling. “You must think me raised by wolves.” He cupped his palm beneath the hand holding out the next slice and gently steered the offering back toward her. “Please. You take this one.”

“Are you sure?” she teased, even while her insides rioted at the touch of his hand on hers. “I don’t think I could enjoy it half as much as you seem to. It’d be a shame to waste it on such an unappreciative palate.”

“I insist.” He finally drew his hand away from hers in order to thud his fist against his chest in a gesture of fervency. “I swear I’ll not eat another bite unless you join me in the feast.”

“Well, we can’t let that atrocity occur. This was meant to be a gift, after all. I’d hate to have to take it back and feed it to Hezekiah.”

Logan’s stricken gaze darted from her face to the bread as if he actually feared she would do such a thing.

Evangeline laughed. “Here.” She pushed the crock of butter toward him, then lifted the bread to her lips and took a healthy bite off one corner.

“That’s my girl.” Logan grinned and immediately set about buttering a fifth slice, unaware of the impact of his casually spoken words.

My girl.

They tapped into every dream she’d hidden in her heart since childhood. The dream of belonging.

At first it had just been about family, but over the last few years, as she witnessed girls her age and younger pairing off with beaus, then marrying and having children, she’d started dreaming of belonging to someone in particular. A man. A special man. One who would see past her oddities and love the woman inside. Who would accept her patchwork family and rejoice in becoming a part of it. Who would give her the chance to be a mother like the one she barely remembered, to raise children who would know without doubt that they were loved and accepted, that they belonged.

Her whirling thoughts slowed her eating pace so that she barely finished her single slice in the time Logan ate two more. With a joking comment about how he’d eat every slice if he didn’t remove the temptation, Logan wrapped the remaining bread back inside the cloth.

As he tied a knot across the top of the half-loaf by pulling two corners tight, he searched out her eyes. “That was the finest bread I have ever tasted, Evangeline Hamilton.” His sincerity washed over her and seeped into every dry crevice that hungered for approval, for acceptance. “You’ve made me feel welcome in a place that has offered me little kindness in the past.”

“I’m glad.” Whatever he’d suffered, she wanted nothing more than to be the balm that soothed his wounds and helped him heal.