She needed answers. She had needed them for a long time. But more than that, now she was ready for them.

She had destroyed what she and Ryder had. She had destroyed their friendship. Their romance. Because she was afraid.

It was all bound up in seeing herself as a burden. In seeing herself as not enough.

It was all bound up in this toxic relationship with her mother, and it needed to be finished.

Ryder was right. He couldn’t do everything for her.

He couldn’t protect her from whatever was happening between them; it was impossible. Because now, finally, he was pushing her, rather than shielding her, and it was time for her to do something with that.

He’d said after the midwife that he couldn’t have the baby for her. And he trusted her to be strong.

Well, this was all wound up in that. He couldn’t do this for her, either. He couldn’t make her not afraid. He couldn’t make her okay.

She had to try and find a way to do it for herself.

She took a deep breath and walked up to the front door of the house that she hadn’t been to in years.

She had come over when her father had died.

But it was the first time she’d been back inside since that night they’d gotten in the fight. Since he had followed her back to her little caravan and unleashed his full temper on her. She had gone back because she had thought that her father was the barrier in keeping her and her mother from having a relationship.

But she had begun to realize then that he wasn’t.

That she had anger for her mother that was all kinds of separate. Over the way she hadn’t protected her.

And that her mother had anger that went right back at Sammy.

For doing what her mother couldn’t. For leaving.

Except now...

She had left Ryder. She had run, just like her mother had said.

She had to sort this out. She had to fix it.

She knocked on the door.

And her mother opened it.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came because... I wanted to tell you that you’re going to be a grandmother.”

Her mother looked down at her stomach. “Really? Did you go out and do that to spite me?”

The fact that Sammy was quite so predictable galled a little bit. “It was a reason, yes. I wanted to prove that I could, in fact, be a good mother. That I do understand. But while I’m sure that I can be a good mother to this child, I don’t actually know how to be a well-rounded person. And I blame you. I blame you, and the fact that you didn’t protect me. That you made me feel like I was worth less than your husband, who quite frankly, Mom, was a piece of shit. He was. He was awful to you, he was awful to me, and he wasn’t worth a damn.”