But he had a feeling that getting rid of it would take sorting through some of that shifting that had happened inside him, and he didn’t know how the hell to do that. Didn’t think he wanted to, either. And he was pretty damn sure that Sammy wouldn’t want to anyway.

Because all he could do was think about that emotion in her voice when she had told him that story about her father. There had been no small amount of fear there.

He never wanted to be the cause of fear.

The day wore on and faded into evening, and he watched Colt and Jake set off fireworks and come damn near close to blowing their fingers off. Laughing like oversize teenage boys.

Ryder was grateful they did laugh like that. That they had come through everything with a sense of adventure. That they had grown into themselves. Gone off and joined the rodeo and all of that.

“What?” He looked over at Sammy, whose face was illuminated by the golden pink of the fireworks that were going off around them.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just watching the show.”

“And thinking so loud I can practically hear the gears in your head grinding.”

“I’m happy for them,” Ryder said. “I’m happy that they went and found their dream.”

“What about you?”

“I have more than I imagined I would,” he said.

But when Sammy smiled up at him, it seemed forced, and he didn’t like that, either, because Sammy didn’t do forced, not usually.

“You know, you can always find out if there’s a coaching position available at the high school,” she pointed out.

“I don’t need to coach,” he said, a strange, bruised feeling hitting his chest. “I’d be retired from the game by now anyway, even if I had gone on to play for real. And I wouldn’t have.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I mean, I pretty much do.”

“Everything is going to be okay, right?”

She was looking up at him, hopefully, and the problem was, he knew that you couldn’t make guarantees like that. That you couldn’t just say it would be fine, because you didn’t really know. But what he did know was that you could stay standing even when dark stuff went down. He knew that you could withstand a hell of a lot more than you thought you might be able to.

And that you could take broken pieces and turn them into something. Not necessarily something that was just as good as what you had, and not even something that would make it all okay. But if you worked at it, if you tried, you were never left with nothing.

He knew that much.

“It’s going to be,” he said. “That I know. The sun always rises and sets, Sammy, no matter what’s happening in other parts of the world. No matter what’s happening in your life.”

“So you’re telling me the world’s not going to end, and that’s about all you can guarantee.”