“That’s about all any of us have.”

“A great comfort.”

“You know,” he said. “It’s not different for anyone else. Really. No one has guarantees. It’s just that you and I know it. We know that sometimes life is not kind, and you’re born into the wrong family. Two parents who should never have had children.”

“That’s awfully cheering,” Sammy said.

“I’ve always thought so.”

But as they sat there together, together like they’d always been, and different than they’d ever been, he had to hope that it really would be okay.

Because they weren’t like anyone else. And they weren’t like they’d ever been before.

He reached out and took Sammy’s hand in his, brushed his thumb over her ring finger, which was bare because she’d told him she didn’t need real wedding things. Because she’d acted like rings and dresses would scare her away from the aisle.

And it felt wrong.

He knew how to be friends with Sammy. He knew how to protect her.

He had no real idea how to be a husband to her.

And if he was going to promise her it would all be okay, he was going to have to figure out exactly what to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHE HAD BEEN married to the idea that they would do this casually and unconditionally. But she was out shopping with Pansy, Iris and Rose one afternoon, and they passed by the small bridal store that occupied the end of Main Street.

“We’re getting married outside,” Sammy said. “In two weeks. It’s not like... It’s not like I can wear an actual wedding gown.”

She didn’t even have a ring yet. But of course, she could make her own, and she had told Ryder as much. She didn’t want diamonds or anything like that anyway. She preferred to work with more unusual stones. And for some reason, everything about what she said rang hollow in her chest at that moment, as she looked through the store window. And, at the gown in there.

She was being ridiculous.

“Why don’t you go see what they have?” Pansy asked.

“Are you going to wear a wedding dress?”

Pansy laughed. “I’m going to be a bride, aren’t I?”

“You’re getting married at the ranch, too.”

“Yes,” Pansy said. “In the barn, though. With the fall wedding, the weather is a little bit too much of a gamble.”

“Yeah. I mean, we’re going to get married in the field. Because it feels very me. But...”

“Sammy, why don’t we go look at dresses?” Pansy said.

“Can you imagine me in a wedding dress? It would be silly.”

“I couldn’t imagine you marrying my brother, either, but you’re doing that,” Pansy said. “And it makes sense now. So maybe if you go in to try on wedding dresses, it will make sense.”

She had not expected Pansy’s particular brand of practicality to extend to wedding dresses. But lo.

She would have thought that Pansy would say there was nothing practical about a wedding dress. Because there wasn’t. She didn’t need one. She didn’t need to pretend that this was normal. That they were normal.