Page 68 of More Than Meets the Eye

He wanted his mother back. The woman who smiled at him and nurtured fruit trees and scolded him for bringing muddy shoes into the house. He’d thought restoring what had been lost to her would restore what had been lost to him.

Vengeance doesn’t heal pain, Logan. Love heals pain.

But it didn’t. He loved his mother. He’d shown it in a hundred different ways, yet she still clung to her grief. To her despair. Where was the healing in that?

Where is the love in what you are doing?

“I don’t know!”

Shamgar tossed his head and craned his neck around with a scold in his eyes for interrupting his nap and massage. Logan grabbed a currycomb and worked through the chestnut’s coat, but his mind refused to settle.

That was the problem. He didn’t know. Didn’t know how to help his mother. Didn’t know how to keep Eva in his life. Didn’t even know how to leave this town without looking like a complete imbecile for riding here in the first place.

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” The proverb, spoken in his mother’s voice, echoed in his mind.

“Remember this, Logan,” she had said as the two of them walked hand-in-hand to the stagecoach after visiting his father’s grave for the last time. “Your father never took this verse to heart. I don’t want you making the same mistake.”

Why was that memory suddenly popping into his head? He hadn’t thought of that conversation in . . . well, not since it happened. To be honest, he’d been too angry to think about anything beyond making the man who’d cheated his father pay.

Making him pay . . .

The currycomb dropped from Logan’s hand and thudded to the floor. The livery walls faded. Even Shamgar ceased to exist as the curtain veiling Logan’s heart finally fell away.

All this time, he’d convinced himself he sought justice. That his quest was righteous. A noble sacrifice that he’d dedicated seven years of his life to achieving. The wrong would be made right.

All this time, he’d lied to himself.

Deep inside, he was still that angry boy who wanted to make someone pay.

Dear Lord. Logan staggered backward until his spine pressed into the wall behind him. Eva was right. He was seeking revenge.

He raised a trembling hand to his face and rubbed at eyes that suddenly itched. His jaw clenched, and he banged his head against the wood planks supporting him, disgusted by the ugliness inside him. The anger. The hurt. The thirst to inflict pain.

“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.”

The verse rammed into Logan’s gut like a sucker punch. “I am the Lord.” Those last four words left no room for arguing. For diverting blame. For rationalizing.

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Logan sank down the length of the wall, his hands covering his face. Covering his shame. His heart throbbed as truth chiseled away its petrified outer layer. How had he ignored this voice for so long? Had his heart really become so hard?

“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

The chisel dug into another layer. Breaking him. Bleeding him.

“I hear you.” The whispered acknowledgment fell from Logan’s lips like a prayer. “I hear you.”

28

“Logan?” Jack Simmons’s irritating voice shattered the holiness of the moment. “Ya get lost back there?”

Logan scrambled to his feet, rubbed the moisture from his eyes, and dragged his hat forward to hide the evidence of his encounter with the Almighty. His heart was too raw, and Jack was too flippant. Better to hide until he could find some privacy to chew over what had just happened.

“There you are,” Jack said as he approached the last stall. “I brought you a feed bag if’n you still want it. Two bits.”

Logan nodded and dug a quarter out of his trouser pocket. “Thanks.” He accepted the bag without meeting Jack’s gaze. “I’ll be done here in a few.”

“No rush.” Jack patted Shamgar’s hindquarters. “You gonna stick around for some cards at the Seven Ponies later tonight? That braggart Bellows can’t wear his hat no more with how fat his head’s swole up since he raked in those winnings from you the other night. He needs someone to shrink him back down to size.”