“and I will follow you and I will drag him right back out of your bed.”
Her lips twitched. “You can’t save me from everything, Ryder. Least of all myself.”
“But there’s no point to me if I don’t try.”
And in that moment they were at a stalemate, because she knew it was true. Because she knew as well as he did that she had told him all this to give him a chance to weigh in. That she was goading him and taunting him to see what he would do. And that if he did nothing she would be damned disappointed.
It was Sammy all up. It was part of how they were. Her father had hurt her with his fists. Her mother had hurt her by not protecting her.
Ryder in turn protected her. Kept her safe. Treated her like she was glass sometimes.
And there were times Sammy pushed for that, especially when she felt wounded.
This was coming from her fight with her mom. It was coming from her feeling injured and wanting a shield.
He could indulge that. It wouldn’t hurt him.
“I suppose that’s true,” she said, clearly pleased she’d gotten a reaction from it.
“No suppose about it,” he said, holding the saloon door open for her. She scrunched her face at him.
“Sometimes it’s a damn menace that you know me so well.”
“Well, you can still surprise me. Let that keep you warm tonight.”
Because God knew if another man kept her warm tonight he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Mostly because he was worried she would go ahead and follow through with the pregnancy thing.
And not for any other reason.
As they took their seat back at the family table, joining everyone, who thought nothing of the fact that the two of them had slipped off for a few minutes of alone time, he cemented that fact in himself.
This was just a weird, crazy night. And that was all.
Nothing was going to change.
Nothing major. Sammy liked a shock, but that was it.
In the end, she would listen to reason. She always did, if only because he was there to act as the reason.
She might say that he didn’t need to protect her, but he knew the truth.
And that was what he would do.
CHAPTER THREE
SAMMY AND RYDER had a long-standing gentleman’s bacon agreement that she was seriously considering ignoring today. Still, she had woken up before dawn, which was when she had to wake up if she wanted to do breakfast with Ryder, and her body had automatically sensed that it was Saturday morning, and that there should be a bacon situation.
On Saturday mornings she cooked it for him. On Sundays, he did it for her. Unspoken, unwritten, but very real nonetheless.
He didn’t deserve bacon. Not at all.
Not after the way he had spoken to her last night. But...the problem was... The problem was it was hard to stay mad.
Well, maybe it was just hard to resist bacon. But she had slept on it. And actually, as she rattled around in her camper and pulled out a skirt, bangles, a thin T-shirt and a pair of sandals for the day, she felt even more resolute. She began to make a mental list. A mental list of all the things she had going for her.
She’d felt an indefinable sense of being incomplete for about six months now. Just the sense that she was on the edge of some new evolution or metamorphosis and she didn’t know what shape it would take.
Then her mom had said all that to her yesterday. Issued a challenge, essentially, and Sammy was a stubborn creature all the way to her soul. So the challenge had hooked itself in there and hung right on.
Then there was Pansy.
Pansy demonstrating what it was to grow. To move on. To make a life.
It was enough to bring everything into a crystal-clear vision in her head.
And Ryder didn’t trust her.
Fine. She would prove to him she wasn’t being spontaneous, crazy Sammy.
Well. Not just spontaneous, crazy Sammy.
He was worried about the camper, but she was going to ignore that for now. Because to her mind the camper was all that she needed. It would fit a bassinet nicely, and she intended to be a single mother, so there was no reason to dress it all up any differently.
As for health insurance, he did present a good point, and she was going to figure that out. It was on her list. Then she was going to have to figure out the whole father-of-the-baby situation. And that went on