“Who’s the lucky guy?” Logan asked.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Sammy said cheerfully. “Are you offering?”

“No,” Logan said, giving her a wink.

She didn’t know what she would have done if he’d have taken her up on it. A couple of months ago Iris and Rose had been teasing her about the possibility that Logan might have a crush on her.

The idea had unsettled her greatly.

She didn’t want anything to come between her and this family. This family that had become her own.

Plus, she just didn’t think of him that way. He was family.

Of course, as genetic material went, he would be a decent enough specimen.

But he wasn’t offering.

“Can we not talk about this at dinner?” Ryder said.

“Why not?” Rose asked. “It’s the most interesting thing that we’ve had to discuss in... I don’t know how long. You’re just going to find a guy to get you pregnant?”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Ryder said.

Rose made a face. “Oh, please,” she said. “Do I look like I’m someone on the cusp of doing something like that?” Rose was dusty from a day out on the ranch, wearing jeans and an old, ratty T-shirt. She had on a weathered baseball cap, which covered stringy, braided brown hair. “I can barely take care of myself. Anyway, I babysit Logan out there all day. I don’t need a kid.”

The look that Logan gave Rose was inscrutable. And Sammy realized she was happy for it to remain inscrutable. She sort of didn’t want to know what was behind it. There were just things she was better off not being in the middle of.

“You better not,” Ryder said.

“Oh, but you’re going to support Sammy?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

“You’re a hypocrite,” Rose said. Mostly just to say it, Sammy knew, because as Rose said...she did not want to have a baby.

“I’m not a hypocrite,” Ryder said. “It’s just that you’re my sister.” His eyes met hers, and Sammy felt intensity. Heat. Radiating from across the table. Was he that angry at her? So angry that it poured off him in waves? “Sammy isn’t.”

Something about those last two words took the heat inside her and twisted it. And that sparked something that sizzled in her stomach. She cleared her throat. “Well, I hate to dominate the conversation with my potential pregnancy. There really isn’t much to say right now. Except that when something is happening, I’ll let you know.”

They spent the rest of the meal talking about other things, but Sammy felt...regretful. Which she wasn’t used to. More than that, she felt weirdly protective of Ryder. Somehow the whole conversation had been turned around to have something to do with him, and that didn’t seem fair. Not after the way that he was supporting her. Well, grudgingly, but still.

She didn’t often regret the things that came out of her mouth. Whatever she accomplished with them she was generally happy to accept the consequences. Most people kept everything bottled up inside them. Not her.