“Don’t,” she said. “That’s not fair. Don’t put that on me. You don’t mean it. You don’t really want any of this.”

“You just know that?”

“Yes, I do know it. Because I know what you’ve been through. I care about you and I want you involved in my life, and looping you in on my major decisions is part of that. You accepted because you’re retired. A retired old man living in his golden years, in his thirties. And you don’t want anything to change. You don’t want to lose a comfortable relationship, a comfortable setup that you have. You’re not worried about me having a baby. You’re worried about things changing.”

“I said as much,” he said. “I said I didn’t want things to change.”

“Well, you can’t have your way. Not in this. It’s going to change. I’m going to do things the way that I want. The way they make sense to me.”

He turned off the main highway and pulled beneath the sign that said Hope Springs Ranch. It was a beautiful sign, one that had been there since before his parents had died. Silhouettes of horses and cowboys all around the letters.

She waited for the comfort of home to wash over her when they turned onto the property. But it didn’t come.

Because the man that should have helped provide that homey feeling was like a stranger to her right now.

Which was maybe a touch dramatic. But it didn’t feel like it. Not right now.

When he pulled up to the house, she got out quickly and began to walk back toward her camper.

She could hear heavy footsteps on the gravel behind her. She knew that he was following her. She paused, letting out a long, slow breath. “Did you have something else to say? Because I think we should sleep on it.”

“Go ahead and go to sleep,” he said. “But you ask yourself what you need, and then you ask yourself who you think is going to be able to give it to you.”

Ryder left her there, standing alone in the middle of the drive after that.

She walked back to her camper slowly, replaying his words over and over in her mind.

Think about what you need. And think about who is going to give it to you.

She knew what he meant. He meant: Who was going to help her provide stability? Who was going to be her counterpoint?

And truth be told...when she thought of raising a child, she saw him as a figure in that child’s life. Being... Ryder. The influence on the kid that he had been on her.

He meant health insurance and he meant practicalities.

But for some reason she kept flashing back to the conversation they’d had in the bar. The one she had tried to avoid.

The one about orgasms.

The way he had reacted; the things he had said.

Ryder was beautiful, but she did her best to think of him in terms other than real, human man.