“Thank you,” she said.

“Now, do you want to come back inside and have dessert?”

“Of course I do,” she said.

And she felt a little bit like things were better. Like they might be close to being fixed. Because they had fractured slightly around that table, and it had hurt her.

He would support her, and whatever she did. She could have a new thing, and the old thing all at once.

And she found that enormously cheering.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NEXT DAY Ryder was in a foul mood. He had taken that foul mood out on Sammy last night, and even though she had been the cause of it, he felt guilty about it even now. It made him even angrier. Which was why he was chopping wood with enough force to split a concrete pylon.

“Settle down there,” Logan said, wandering up slowly, his laconic movements only serving to amp up Ryder’s irritation. His friend was so damned laid-back. The kind of guy that people called for a good time, and an easy time.

Something Ryder would never be.

Except that he was a cowboy and about the furthest thing from a hippie as possible, Logan probably had more in common with Sammy than Ryder had with either of them.

“We don’t all have the luxury of wandering around life waiting for things to be handed to us. Some of us have to put in a little elbow grease.”

“Oh, yeah,” Logan said. “I’m from a real charmed background. In fact, I think it might be the same one you’re from.”

“Still,” Ryder growled.

“Yeah. I mean, when my mom died she did leave me a ranch, though, so...”

“Can I help you?”

“I just wanted to talk to you about what happened last night.”

“Why did I have a feeling that you would?”

“Does she know you’re in love with her?”

Ryder stopped; the muscles in his shoulders suddenly went tense. And he noticed he was grinding his teeth. He stopped. “What?”

“Sammy. Does she know that you’re in love with her?”

“I am not in love with her,” Ryder said.

“Sure.”

His friend looked at him, far too deep. Far too sharp. It made him remember that Logan was the only one who’d ever seen him break.

Six months after his parents’ death he’d lost it. Gotten drunk out in the barn and broken down. With Logan there as the only witness. A drunk one, but a witness all the same.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” he’d said. “I was supposed to be a thousand miles from here. In college. Playing football. I wasn’t supposed to be everyone’s dad.”

The responsibility, all that he’d given up, it had hit him like a ton of bricks then. His grief had finally cleared enough for him to see right where he was, and it had been...well it had been hell.

Logan had gotten him through that moment. Logan had seen the weakest part of him.

It wasn’t long after that Sammy had shown up. And if not for her...