He had known that he would kill for her, but now he knew he’d die for her. He had known that he couldn’t live without her, but now he knew that he would do whatever it took, change whatever he had to, to live with her, which was an infinitely harder, sharper and more brilliant fantasy than the fear of loss could ever be.

The joy and the challenge of bending yourself and your life around someone else. Finding the better in the worse, the rich in the poor.

Yeah. Realizing that he was in love with her changed nothing. And everything, all at once.

And now she was here, and the breath in his lungs caught and held as he braced himself for what might come next. She looked beautiful. That ray of light she’d always been, streaming into his life and warming him with her brilliance. Lighting the path for him.

“Hi,” he said.

Weird now how sometimes it was hard for him to find the words to say to her. They never had that problem before all this. But it was like West had said. The interactions between them suddenly felt heavier. And the potential for pain much larger.

Everything had a higher cost, a higher weight.

“I came to... I thought we might take a walk,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, putting his pitchfork down. Immediately. Because if she wanted his attention, he was going to give it.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked as the two of them set off down the path toward the river that flowed through the property. She didn’t hold his hand. And she wasn’t looking at him.

“I just wanted to... To be with you.”

“All right,” he said, knowing he sounded skeptical and cautious. Feeling a bit skeptical and cautious.

But he couldn’t deny her. Couldn’t turn away from her.

He would follow Samantha Marshall wherever she went for as long as he lived. She had snared him that day seventeen years ago with a sugar cube in her outstretched hand and hope in her eyes and he’d been a goner ever since.

And he wasn’t even sorry about it. Not at all.

They made it down to the thick, dense package of trees that was near the water, that protected them from the harshest light of the sun. That was when she turned to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her breasts against his chest and kissed him.

The impact of it hit him like a sledgehammer. She hadn’t touched him like this, not since he’d told her he loved her.

And he was just human enough to be consumed by it. Even though he knew he should find out what was going on. Even though he knew there had to be more to this than she was letting on, he had to surrender to it, because with Sammy, there was no other choice. When her mouth was on his, he couldn’t much think.

They pulled back for a moment, and that was when he looked into her eyes. And saw that they were guarded. That she was trying to hide herself from him, and somehow was pretending she was opening up.