to dim the light from the stars, which were like crushed silver against black velvet.
She loved a country sky.
As long as she could see those stars wherever she was, it could feel like home. And she had done a bit of roaming over the past few years in her camper van, selling her jewelry. But she always came back here.
Always came back to her touchstone.
And she was starting to wonder if that was keeping her stagnant, rather than simply holding her steady.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“Okay.”
“I’m so proud of Pansy. Of how she’s grown up. And that makes me sound about a thousand years old but...”
“Hell, you practically raised them,” he said.
“No, you raised them. Iris did. But I was there. And watching her and Rose particularly become the women that they are is really inspiring. But Pansy... She’s in love. She’s making her own family. An offshoot of what you have. And that’s an amazing thing. It’s so brave.”
“Sounds exhausting to me,” Ryder said.
“Yes, I know your opinions on marriage and the institution thereof. Also your stance on children. And I don’t blame you. I really don’t. You know why I first started giving you sugar cubes?”
“Yes. And I told you a thousand times. The sugar was not required.”
She smiled. It had started with sugar cubes. There had been a spot where she’d gone, in the mountains, and she’d looked down on the ranch imagining she was part of them. Until she had ached with it. Been full with her longing for it. She had begun sneaking into the barn, and she had given the horses at the ranch sugar cubes. And then she had started leaving them behind. Leaving them for Ryder. It was how he had first known someone was sneaking into the barn at all. She had begun doing it to get away from her father’s rages. Had gone hiding out at Hope Springs, because the name had appealed.
She’d needed some hope.
Ryder had suspected someone was in the barn, but he never found her. Until one day she left an intentional trail of sugar cubes that led right to her.
She could remember it like it was yesterday. Looking up into those stern, brown eyes.
Who are you?
Would you believe I’m the sugar fairy?
And she held up a sugar cube. Reflexively, he held out his hand, and she had dropped it into his palm. You took my treat, she said. Now you can’t be mad at me.
And somehow after that, she had found a way to make sure she was never away from there—away from him—for very long.
At first he had been grumpy about it. And very unfriendly. But he had let her follow him around while he was doing ranch chores. And after a while, she just couldn’t remember what it was like to go a day without walking around Hope Springs Ranch in Ryder Daniels’s boot steps.
The idea of changing that, of ending it... It made her whole chest ache.
But Sammy wanted more for herself.
And she only had two real thoughts on how to do that.
“I think I’m going to leave,” she said, determinedly looking down the street.
There was a truck stopped at the four-way that headed out of town, two girls hanging out the windows, catcalling the cowboys walking down the street. One of them stopped to do spontaneous push-ups and the girls started howling.
“Okay,” Ryder said, his tone neutral.
“No, not like I do sometimes. Like...really leave.”
“What?” The question was sharp. She could feel him looking at her, but she didn’t look back.
“Not like...forever. But...for longer than I do sometimes. I think I need to strike out on my own a little bit more.”
“What brought this on?” She could hear the frown in his voice. Laced through with stern disapproval.
She shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal and not something that had been nagging at her for ages now. “Pansy. Pansy making her own way. Her own place. Her own family.”
Ryder looked like he wanted to say about ten different things at once, which was strange, considering he never looked like he had more than one thing to say at a time, if that. He said nothing.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “Because... I’m happy. But I’m not whole. I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I need to do to have the kind of life I want. I’m not a kid anymore. And it’s all hitting me really suddenly. I’ve always thought of Hope Springs