“Awfully confident,” Ryder said.

“Yeah,” Logan said. “I am. Because I know you both. And because I think this place has a little bit of magic in it.”

“I don’t know,” Ryder said. “I always thought it was kind of...the opposite of that. Not a whole lot of magic, mostly a bit of grief and irony. Hope Springs. I tell you what. It made me want to pick the names of things a lot more carefully. Like it was setting us up for disaster.”

“That’s not how I took it. It’s just that even when things are hard... Well, there’s still hope, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, if there’s not hope, what is there? Maybe think about that. And see where it takes you.”

Ryder had no idea what to make of any of that, because it felt to him like his hope had up and driven off along with Sammy Marshall.

* * *

SAMMY WAS A COWARD. And she was sneaking around in Gold Valley like the coward that she was. She had gotten as far as Copper Ridge, spent the day at one of the craft fairs there, and had come right back home.

She was currently camped out in the spot that she had used to look down on Hope Springs Ranch when she was a teenager.

And now she was sneaking around in town, restocking her jewelry at the various places on Main Street and in general feeling like a wounded martyr.

She knew that Ryder wouldn’t see it that way. That he was currently probably feeling like the martyr. And she understood that. She did. But she was doing them both a favor.

Of course, right now that favor felt like a giant knife wound to her heart. But whatever.

She was just slipping out of Willow Creek when she ran square into Iris.

One of the last people on earth that she wanted to see.

Iris would be furious with her. Absolutely furious. And Sammy expected all kinds of angry words to flow from her friend’s mouth.

But instead Iris just stared, and then her eyes filled with tears.

“What are you...”

“Are you okay?” Iris asked.

Sammy took a breath that felt sharp and jagged, sharper than the words that she had expected from her sister-in-law.

“What do you mean am I okay?”

“I’m worried about you. You just disappeared. And you left him.”

“I know,” she said. “And I understand that means I left the family...”

“You didn’t leave the family, you fool. Is that what you think? That it would be that easy? We all feel cut in half, Sammy. Logan, Iris, Pansy and myself. We all feel torn. We love you both. And I hate seeing him like that, but I know that you didn’t do it for fun.”

“Well, no. But...”

“What’s wrong? I mean, I know he can be difficult but...”

“That’s not it,” Sammy said. “He has taken care of us, all of us, for way too long. And I couldn’t... I couldn’t stand feeling like I trapped him into it.”