“I never have been.”

He’d never lived alone. And neither had she. Not really. But it struck her then how funny that was.

Was that what she needed to do? Did she need to get back to her original thought of being independent? She wasn’t really sure.

“Let’s check this little guy out.”

For the next half hour or so Bennett gave the calf a thorough once-over and dressed his wounds. Primarily, his issue was dehydration. But Bennett was hopeful that with the minor injection of fluids and a speedy reunion with his mother, he would pull through quickly.

He left them with instructions on what to look out for, and then left on another emergency call.

“I better get back to... I was making jewelry, actually.”

“No, you don’t,” he said. “We need to go in the house and get your hands patched up.”

“I’m fine.”

Rose appeared from around the front of the truck. “You’re not fine. You’re bleeding like a son of a gun. A stuck pig. It’s awful, Sammy.”

“I’m fine,” she protested.

But she found herself being grabbed by said hands and propelled toward the house.

It took her a moment to realize it was only she and Ryder who had gone inside.

“Where’s Iris?” Sammy asked.

“Don’t know,” he said.

He opened up the cabinet in the kitchen that housed all the medicine and the first-aid kit and dragged it down. It was an old, metal thing that could probably be used for a weapon. She was sure that they’d had it since they were kids. Probably something that their parents had bought and they had just continued to restock.

Ryder got out an antiseptic ointment and some Band-Aids, and she leaned against the counter, watching his movements.

His dark head was bent low as he opened the Band-Aids and put medicine on them, one lock of hair falling into his face.

She fought the urge to reach out and push it back off his forehead.

A casual gesture that she might have engaged in thoughtlessly before last night. But now she just couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything like that casually.

Because touching between them was no longer casual.

It hurt her to realize that.

That last night they might have found something, but they lost some things, too. And she wasn’t sure that they would ever be able to get back to a place where they had them. She wasn’t sure if you could have everything after all.

She never had been.

It was one of those big promises that you saw trumpeted everywhere and she had always been naturally suspicious of it. As she was naturally suspicious of all things that sounded slightly too good to be true.

“Give me your hand.”

She did, and remembered this morning when he had kissed her wrist after he demanded her hand. But he didn’t kiss her wrist this time. Instead, he started putting a bandage on it, followed by another. “You should have waited.”