“I told you that I wanted to find myself. I haven’t yet.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “You don’t mean that. So what is this really about?”

She was naked with the man. With Ryder. Who she would have said was absolutely 100 percent too much of a stick in the mud to ever be naked out in the middle of the woods. Let alone naked and having this conversation. But he had done this with her, because of her.

And he said that he loved her.

Maybe he means it.

How would he know? He’d had every choice in life taken from him from such an early age. And he was...

He was beautiful.

And it reminded her of being seventeen again, to look at him and ache like this. She had wanted so much to join his family. Had watched them over the fence and thought that everything would be perfect if she could just be with them. But it was so much more complicated than that. Oh, how she wished it weren’t. Oh, how she wished it could be that simple.

“I don’t want to be married,” she said softly. “I told you that. But you pushed me and... And backing off when it comes to declarations of love and all of that... It doesn’t erase the fact that you pushed me into this part. And it isn’t what I want.”

His face had gone blank, his whole body tense. “Go, then. Do what you need to do. I’ll be here when you get back.”

“That’s not what I’m asking for.”

“And I said that nothing would break us. I said that. And I meant it. I still do. Nothing is going to break us, Sammy, not without our permission. Your permission. I won’t leave you. I won’t forsake you. I’ve been here for you all this time, and I’ll be here when you get back. No questions asked.”

“That’s the problem,” she said. Anger rioted through her. “That’s the problem. You don’t know what it’s like to choose something because you want it, Ryder Daniels. The only thing you know how to do is to martyr yourself to responsibilities. And I won’t be one more.”

“So now you get to tell me why I do things? What I feel?”

“I know you,” she said. “It was never sugar cubes. It was never the sugar cubes. You couldn’t resist the pitiful girl folded up in the corner of your barn. And you took me and you made the best of me just like you did every other thing that’s been thrown at you in your life. And I can’t live in that forever. And you shouldn’t, either.”

“That’s not it,” he said. “I was a man...a boy...drowning in responsibilities. Absolutely and completely dragged under the water with them. And you... You were my first glimpse of sunlight in all that time. Sammy Marshall, when I saw you I saw salvation and I reached a hand out. You’re right. It was never the sugar cubes. It was you.”