“It’s not thinking little of you,” he said. “But it’s uncharted territory. And I know you. I know you, Sammy, and you’re great at a lot of things. You are capable of things that I can’t even fathom. But this is what I know. Responsibility. What it means to have to set everything aside to care for other people. You were escaping something when you came here, Sammy, and that doesn’t mean you don’t love us. I was just handed a whole hell of a lot of responsibility. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t have something worse that I was leaving behind. I had something great.”

“And you think that I have something great? What is that? My camper? Our friendship? Those are great things. But I’m not going to leave any of it behind. And... I am choosing this. I’m choosing this just like I chose being with this family. I’m choosing to expand my family. To make myself one. That’s why I want... That’s why I want to actually know the guy that’s going to be the father of the baby. Because I want...connections. I want roots.” Saying that, she realized for the first time that it was true. “In my experience roots have often been poison. But I want to grow down deep into my own soil and make something that belongs to me. Isn’t that okay?”

“Just don’t... Don’t go building up fantasies that you’re going to somehow find yourself a husband and everything this way.”

It was like he had reached into her chest and grabbed hold of her heart. Twisted it. Everything in her recoiled from the idea, but there was fear that immediately jumped into the back of her mind. Fear that he might be right. That there was another layer to the fantasy that she wasn’t allowing herself to acknowledge.

“I don’t want that,” she said. “I want... I want to raise my child here. I mean, not here the whole time necessarily. But this place... I’m glad that you asked me to stay. Because I can’t think of anything better than giving my child this whole family. Maybe you think I’m selfish. Maybe I am. But I do want to share you with my baby. I want to give my child the happiest parts of my own life.”

His dark gaze caught hers and held, and she found it difficult to breathe. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the way that he saw her. He didn’t just look at her, he stared. Down deep. And she was afraid that he saw things there that not even she knew existed.

“If that’s what you want, then I’m going to help you.”

“You don’t approve,” she said.

“I know.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because I’m your friend,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I disapprove. I’m going to help you get what you want.”

There was something heavy and unspoken at the end of that sentence, but she couldn’t quite figure it out.