“And what about me? Where will I fit? Because I’m not going to be a favorite uncle, Sammy. I am his father, and I will be a father.”

His eyes were hard, blazing with emotion, and she couldn’t bear to look at him. “No, of course... I’m not... I’ll never keep the baby from you, Ryder, but that’s not us. I can’t do us.”

And so she did walk away. And she had to swim across the damn river, crawl out naked and shivering and disgraced, rather than feeling cherished and sensual as she had done when she’d been carried into the river. She gathered her clothes, and she dressed. And he was still standing there watching her. True to his word, he wasn’t gone. True to his word, he remained. So damn loyal. So damn fearless.

Not her.

She was a coward.

But she couldn’t face the alternative. So cowardice it was.

But as she went back to the camper and looked around at the tiny place she had not called home now for over a week, she knew that it was more than cowardice. Whatever she was doing required that she leave her heart behind.

But she was afraid of it. Because it hurt. Because it was shattered.

But if she left it behind, maybe she could keep on breathing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

IT WASN’T UNTIL Ryder woke up the next morning and saw that the camper was gone that he truly believed what Sammy had said.

She had left him.

She had left him.

His wife. His love.

Sammy.

She hadn’t taken all of her things out of their room, but she had taken her jewelry. And as the sun rose up over the mountains, he didn’t go out and do his work. Instead, he prepared a bowl of fruit like he had done every morning and left it in her spot. Then he went out to the front porch and sat in one of the wooden chairs. And just sat. Sat until the sun was far too high up over those mountains. Until the sun had lit up the world around him and illuminated it in stark reality, made it impossible for him to pretend that maybe it was a dream.

He’d said that he loved her, and she’d thrown it back at him.

She’d told him that he never had a choice.

But he did. He could’ve chosen to stay in his fear, to stay in his grief, and he had chosen bravery. But those words hadn’t been there. Not then. Because all that had been there was shock. He had believed that nothing could break them. But it turned out that she could.

And he was turning it all over in his head, trying to figure out where he might have let it break.

It was Logan who found him. Damn his friend.

“I was expecting to see you out in the fields.”

“Well,” Ryder said. “I’m not in the fields.”

“I can see that.”