make. Squeeze into the cab, or climb in with her friend.
She got into the back with him, because if she didn’t, it would be weird. And the fact she was thinking about it all was weird, but there was really nothing to be done for it.
She crouched beside him, beside the animal.
“Your heart is too big, Sammy,” he said softly.
“Really?” She looked at the wound on her hand. “Here I was just thinking it’s not big enough. That’s part of my problem. Feeling like what I’m doing is so... That everything in my life is about me and it’s not really enough anymore.”
“You take care of us,” he said.
“Do I? Because it seems to me like you’re always taking care of me.”
He shook his head slowly. “I was drowning,” he said, his voice rough. “When my parents died... You know I don’t really remember that night very well. Except I remember Pansy’s old boss, my dad’s friend, Chief Doering, coming to the door. Except he wasn’t the chief then, he was just another officer. And I answered it and he looked so grim. I knew enough about my dad’s job to know what those kind of visits meant. But all of them... Sammy, all of them. My mom and dad, my aunt and uncle. Logan’s mom. Everyone. I just remember... It was like being shot. This burst of pain and impact like you don’t think you could possibly survive. And then silence. Nothing. Just numbness while you wait to bleed out. And then the strangest thing happened. Sugar cubes started showing up in my barn.” He lowered his head. “You know, it’s embarrassing, and I never told anybody this but at first I thought maybe it was...my mom’s ghost or something. Not a ghost. I never had the sense she was a ghost. Her soul. An angel. Because I couldn’t figure out where else sugar would come from. It was just so strange and funny. And that night I found you.”
She blinked hard, trying to keep from dissolving into tears right there in the back of the truck with an injured calf between them.
“Were you disappointed? I mean, I’m not exactly a brush with the supernatural.”
He shook his head. “I always thought you might be. It took me a while to be sure that you were real. And not...”
“Don’t tell me you thought I was an angel.”
He huffed a laugh. “A fairy. Not an angel. You are too damned pretty and not in the heavenly way.”
That compliment, delivered with a slightly wicked smile, made her stomach turn over.
What did he mean by that? Did he mean that he had wanted her even then? He’d said as much. That when she had come to his bed he’d wanted her. But this was still slightly different.
Because for one, it was easy to imagine that he just wanted her because she was a woman and she had gotten into bed with him. And he was a man, and it was a very basic response for that to become sexual.
“Why wasn’t I an angel?” she pressed.
“Because the things I wanted to do to you would’ve got me thrown into hell.”
She felt both satisfied and unnerved by the response.
“Oh.”
“But you know, that wasn’t the important thing. The thing was... It felt like everything was dark until you. You were something else. Sunshine coming through the darkness. And all that was more important than wanting you. So I forgot about that quick. Especially... Especially when I found out that you didn’t just come out from behind a flower in the garden one day and decide to join the family. When I found out about your dad.”
“You have taken care of me,” Sammy said.
They never talked about that night. Ever. It was as unspoken between them, as well... All of this was. Except, this was spoken now.
They had touched each other.
Things had changed.
The truck continued to rumble, the calf between them occasionally making a plaintive bleat. It was a ludicrous time to have this conversation, which made it about as good a time as any.
“I wanted to kill him,” Ryder said.
“You almost did.”
“No less than he did to you, Sammy. I’ll never get over seeing those bruises on your face. Knowing he put them there. Dammit. I still wish I had killed him.”
“He’s dead now anyway, and we’ve had all this time. And if you’d killed him then you’d be in prison. And we wouldn’t be here.”