“Fair enough. Though right now I would argue that there’s a case to be made for inevitability. Whatever your issue is.”

“I think there’s a bigger case to be made for self-control,” he said. “But then, what do I know?”

“I don’t know. But right about now I don’t know much of anything.”

“He’s a good man,” Logan said. “Better than me, that’s for sure.”

“Better than me,” Sammy said.

“They had that foundation. Losing their parents was hard. But your parents are scum. My mom was great. I don’t even know my dad.”

“You really don’t know who he is?”

He paused. And that told her everything she needed to know. “Good night, Sammy.”

“Good night.” She stood for a moment and listened to the crickets. Breathed in the warm air. “Aren’t you going to warn me not to mess this up? I mean, as the other nonblood relative, aren’t you going to warn me not to tear my square out of this crazy patchwork life of ours?”

“Don’t mess it up,” he said, but there was no heat or heart in it.

“That’s unhelpful to me.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Life is hard, and it’s lonely sometimes. And I’ll tell you this. I do know what it’s like, like you, to have a living parent that you still can’t see or touch or have a relationship with. They lost everyone, and that’s tragic.”

“Yeah, ours just don’t want us.”

“So all I’m saying is...well, nothing. I don’t have anything to say. Not about this.”

“Well, good night, then.” She started to walk down the steps.

“He was different before you came.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Huh?”

“Ryder. He was different. Before he met you. You taught him to smile.”

She laughed. “Not well. He still doesn’t do it often.”

“Before you he didn’t do it at all.” He stood then. “Good night.”

And she nodded, and fled across the driveway, letting her hair fly wild in the breeze, running until she thought her heart might burst from her chest.

She’d had sex with Ryder.

Everything felt changed.

But he hadn’t smiled until she’d come to the ranch seventeen years ago.

So maybe, just maybe, there was hope all this wasn’t broken after all.

And neither was she.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHEN RYDER GOT UP the next morning his whole body ached. Like it was punishing him for the pleasure that he’d found last night inside Sammy.

Sammy.

If he didn’t feel the effects of last night so keenly on his body he would be tempted to imagine that it had been a dream.

A fevered dream that blended the past with the present, reality with fantasy.

But no. It had happened. He was sure of that.

His skin felt different. Hot. Because of her.

Because she had touched him that way. All over. Because she had kissed him, taken him into her mouth.

Because he had...

He gritted his teeth, walking into the bathroom and turning only the cold water on in the shower. He stepped beneath the spray, bracing his hands on the wall and gritting his teeth. He waited. Waited for the cold water to do something. To make him numb so that he didn’t feel any of this anymore.