The Hero of Hope Springs Read online

  “I know you feel like you already did it. And I know you think I don’t understand the responsibility. I do. Because I saw what it cost you. The way that you took care of everyone. The way you took care of me. I just... I ache, Ryder. For a connection. For that kind of deep love that people talk about. That magic that exists between a mother and a child. I don’t know what that is. Because my mother wouldn’t have laid down her life to protect me. She had ample opportunity to, and she didn’t. There was no sacrificial anything on her part. I want... I want to know what it is. I want to feel it and hold it in my arms. I want a child to grow inside my body. And I’m thirty-three. I know that’s not... I know it’s not too old, but if I don’t do it now, when am I going to do it? I keep asking myself what I’m waiting for when I know this is what I want. I guess I was waiting for signs from the universe that it was time. By which I mean a guy that I wanted to share the kid with, but I really don’t want that. I mean... I don’t ever want to get married.”

  It was the truth from the deepest part of herself. He was the only one who ever got to know those things.

  He was the only one who’d earned them. By being there. Protecting her. Being her constant.

  “You don’t?” he asked.

  They had never really talked about this. But then, they had never talked much about the kinds of changes that either of them might want. Mostly, they had just existed alongside each other. And it had been nice.

  “No. I can’t imagine giving that kind of control of my life to another person. The very idea makes my skin crawl. I don’t want to share my baby with a man. But I do need a man to make one.”

  “Were you thinking... You know...”

  His discomfort, stoic and monotone though it was, amused her. “Turkey baster?” she asked, her lips twitching.

  “Yeah,” he said, his face contorting slightly.

  “Does that disgust you?”

  “Now that you mention it I find the entire conversation somewhat disconcerting.”

  “Oh, grow up,” she said. “It’s all basic biological functions.”

  “Look, you seem to think that your biggest issue is figuring out health insurance. But it sounds to me like you’re going to have to find...a bank of some kind, or...”

  “A sperm bank?” she asked, grinning when he blanched.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That.”

  “I’m sure they have one down in Tolowa.” She frowned. “That wasn’t really what I was thinking, though. I kind of want... I know this might sound weird to you, but I would just kind of like it to be...done the old-fashioned way.”

  He went stiff like a salt pillar beside her. “I’m sorry. Why?”

  “It seems... I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of going and doing it in a doctor’s office.”

  “Well, the alternative is actually dealing with a guy, rather than disembodied... That.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Both have drawbacks, I suppose.”

  He continued to look at her skeptically, and she took a breath and carried on. “Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t use a doctor if I needed to, but in most cases nature has given us a built-in way to accomplish this and I feel like...why wouldn’t I try it that way first? It’s more connected and organic and...and I want that. The idea of going to the doctor to do it seems impersonal to me.”

  “I don’t understand how sleeping with someone random is less of a big deal.”

  “Sex isn’t that big of a deal,” she said.

  He treated her to an arched brow. “Okay.”

  His skepticism was noted. But in her experience sex was...well, it was nice. It made her feel good about herself. She liked that there was a way to feel close to someone without having to dig deep and spill all her darkest secrets.

  And frankly, she enjoyed that she had the power to make men a little bit weak. To make them react to her. She’d never actually...well, she didn’t let go during sex. But it was enough that they did. That she could have her control while they lost theirs.

  Anyway, there was something... Going to a doctor felt very intentional. Not that she wasn’t being intentional. But there was something slightly more...

  You want to be able to blame it on fate. Meant to be or not.

  Yeah, well. Maybe.

  “All right,” Ryder said, flipping the eggs out of the pan and putting them onto a plate. “I’ll make you a deal, Sammy. You agree to stay here, and I will help you find a man to father your baby.”

  * * *

  OF ALL THE THINGS that he had ever offered to do for Sammy in the name of friendship this had to be the strangest one. But things had solidified for him when she had shown up at his house this morning on the same schedule that she always did. It was bacon day. And that meant that Sammy would be here early in the morning to cook for him. And tomorrow he would cook for her. It was a tradition that went back seventeen years. And it mattered to them. It mattered to her, and he could tell because she was here. Even though she was angry at him, she was here.

  And it had hit him then that what he wanted more than anything was for things to stay the same. He had done the hard yards. He had sacrificed, dammit. And his life was finally in a place where he could call himself happy. Where he could say that he was content. Finally, he felt like things were coming together rather than falling apart.

  But Sammy leaving... That was unacceptable. If she wanted to have a baby, she could damn well have a baby, but she could stay here.

  He shoved the thought of her round and glowing and pregnant to one side. That didn’t matter. That wasn’t the mission. He would find her a guy and get her exactly what she wanted so that she would stay with him. He could do that. That was what he did. He fixed things. He could fix this.

  “You’re going to help me find a baby daddy?”

  “I am. Look, I know everybody in town. If you want to find somebody that you know a little bit more about, you want things to be personal.”

  “So you’re going to act as my pimp?”

  “Don’t say that,” he said.

  “Well, I’m just saying, it’s a little bit weird.”

  “You’re the one that has an aversion to donors.”

  “Fair,” she said.

  “Why do you, exactly?”

  “I told you,” she said. “It’s clinical. And honestly... I want to know that the guy is a good guy. I don’t want to just guess. Anybody can put stats into paperwork and lie about who they are. And granted, I don’t really trust anyone enough to settle down with them and build a life with them, but knowing somebody... Their reputation, getting to talk to the people that know them...”

  “Are we going to conduct interviews?”

  “Would you?”

  “I will do whatever the hell you want Sammy Marshall. Because that’s what I do.”

  She stared at him with wide, doeish blue eyes. “I suppose you do. And...thank you. I guess.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking the pan out from in front of her and dumping the bacon onto the plate beside the eggs. “What is your top criteria?”

  “Don’t take all the bacon.” She grabbed another plate and divided the food up evenly. The two of them walked over to the long, empty dining table that still had some plates on it from the night before, and they shoved them down to the side.

  “Criteria,” he said.

  “Kind,” she said. “Probably... You know, kind of smart.”

  Leave it to Sammy to try and make this somehow soft and sweet.

  “Looks?” he pressed.

  She laughed. “Looks don’t matter.”

  He arched a brow.

  “They don’t,” she said. “I mean, there are plenty of people who are awful and very good-looking.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You’re going to sign up to sleep with a guy that isn’t good-looking, and also is going to be passing on h
alf of that poor genetic material to your child.”

  She sniffed. “I’m not comfortable evaluating somebody that way.”

  “This is literally the best time to evaluate someone that way,” he said. “You’re basically shopping for baby ingredients.”

  “That is the most distasteful thing you have ever said.” But she dug into her eggs nonetheless so he couldn’t be that distasteful.

  “You don’t want to put flawed ingredients into your baby cake, Sammy. That’s all I’m saying.”

  The conversation was bordering on absurd, but there was actually no way to have a conversation like this without straying into the absurd.

  “Fine,” she said. “I would like him to be tall. I’m not very tall. I would like to make sure that the gene pool is...you know, boosted.”

  “All right,” he said. “There’s quite a few tall guys around.”

  “True,” she said.

  “Tall, smart, decent. Laz, from the bar.”

  Immediately, he imagined Sammy in the arms of the other man, and suddenly his stomach turned sour and he didn’t much want his bacon. But he did his best to remain stoic and not to demonstrate any of the feelings that were swirling around inside him.

  “He would be good,” she said. “Good-looking, kind. Makes a good cocktail, which would help me not at all during my pregnancy, but maybe he’d give me free drinks after. I mean, I guess I would have to ask him if he would be comfortable having a baby that he doesn’t have a lot of involvement with.” She frowned. “You know, it would be okay if the guy saw the baby sometimes. Like a favorite uncle.”

  “Sure,” Ryder said.

  “Or, you know we can have your cousins ask around amongst the rodeo guys. Maybe they wouldn’t mind.”

  “Right,” Ryder said, gritting his teeth.

  He’d agreed to do this. He’d offered. He had no call getting annoyed now.

  But he couldn’t even imagine just how an offer like that might go. Offer a guy the chance to have unprotected sex with a gorgeous blonde who didn’t want you to hang around and deal with the consequences.

  The problem was most guys that were super on board with that probably weren’t actually all that decent.

  But he suspected that what Sammy really meant when she said she wanted a good guy was one who wasn’t violent.

  Sammy’s father had lived as long as he had only because there had been no way that Ryder would take the chance on getting sent to jail. He’d had too many responsibilities. And if he hadn’t...

  The night that he had discovered Sammy wounded like he had... Well, her father had been arrested, but he had barely served any jail time because her mother had failed to press charges.

  It was a sad story, and it was all too common. And unforgivable when it came to his friend.

  That was when she had come to Hope Springs on a permanent basis.

  He had made vows in his heart about the way he would take care of her.

  This was no different, not really.

  Sammy was hell-bent on this, and when Sammy was hell-bent on something there was no stopping her.

  There was only standing there to catch her if she fell.

  Or in this case, making sure that the fall wouldn’t hurt badly.

  “This is killing you,” Sammy said.

  “Look, I don’t love it,” he said. “Would you like to help me find a woman to knock up?”

  She laughed. The little minx laughed.

  “I would definitely ask you if you had taken to the bottle, Ryder, because you and I both know that you would never do that. It’s not in you. Honestly, I think the only reason this really bothers you is that it’s so unconventional.” She wiggled her eyebrows and took a bite of bacon.

  He thought there had to be something wrong with him. The way that he watched her straight white teeth close over the crispy meat, the way that his focus was completely captured by how she chewed.

  But everything about her was ethereal.

  Even her bacon-eating.

  And years in her presence hadn’t done a thing to acclimate him to that.

  “Well, you seem to take a particular kind of joy in being unconventional.”

  “What did convention get me? Look at my parents. Conventional as could be. High school sweethearts. You know, I don’t know... If he turned into a monster after they got married or if he always was one. If she... If she knew when she married him, or if he changed on her. I wish I did. I wish I did, because it definitely changes the way that I think about trusting people. Whether or not I think other people are less trustworthy, or that your own self is.”

  “Either conclusion isn’t much good,” he said.

  “But it’s important,” she said.

  “You’re not your mother,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve pretty much gone out of my way not to be. Hence the lack of convention. I refuse to care one bit what somebody else thinks about what I should want or what I should do. My life is my own, Ryder. And I fought very hard for that.”

  “I know you did,” he said.

  That girl had carried more weight on those slim shoulders than anybody should have to. And she stood strong and brilliant in spite of everything that she had endured.

  “So you’re going to help me find the guy. And...”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, you want me to stay. What do you want me to do?”

  He looked at her, and his breath caught. The words caught right along with it. “Nothing,” he said. “I just want you here.”

  They didn’t speak after that. And Ryder found that suited him down to the ground.

  He didn’t have anything else to say.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SAMMY WAS FEELING much better about life in general by the time dinner rolled around and she was in the kitchen with Iris slathering butter onto French bread.

  The house had often been chaotic over the years, and she couldn’t say that she was the best housekeeper. Iris was a lot better at the cleaning and organizing than Sammy was, but ultimately none of them were going to win awards.

  But cooking... That was something that they had sunk into.

  There was something about it that had felt like creating all the lost hugs that they were missing from parents who were gone. Or in Sammy’s case, parents who should have loved her more.

  They had made holidays feel like something merry because they spent hours on cookies, cakes and pies. Roasting turkey, making stuffing.

  Neither of them had learned it from their parents. But Iris had an old recipe card box that had belonged to her grandmother, and with that the two of them had made mealtime at Hope Springs one place where no one felt like they were missing out on anything.

  “The bread is a little bit pale,” Iris said critically, looking at the slices that Sammy was buttering.

  “It’s fine,” Sammy said, making sure to layer it on thick because if there was one thing she knew, it was that life was short and butter was delicious.

  But Sammy hadn’t made the French bread today so she felt appreciative of it and not critical in the least. She knew that it was much harder to take a neutral view on bread when you were the one responsible for trying to get the rise, bake and color that you wanted.

  “It’s delicious,” Sammy said, taking a pinch off the loaf.

  “You’re a bread slut,” Iris said.

  “Yep,” Sammy agreed. “But luckily for you so is everyone else in this family, so no one is going to care. Not one way or the other. No one is going to have any opinions beyond the fact that it’s delicious.”

  Iris smiled and turned her focus back to the oven, where the meatballs were currently browning.

  Iris was pretty in a very unassuming way. She never wore makeup or anything like that, but she had clear, pretty skin, amber-colored eyes and an
easy smile. Her hair was dark and straight, and she often kept it clipped up high, out of her way, out of her face.

  Sammy sometimes wondered if Iris did anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. She was deeply practical, and the only place where flourishes seemed to exist in her life was with her baking.

  She knew that her relationship with Ryder, her relationship in the family in general, was sometimes strange to Iris. But the two of them had grown close, in spite of the fact that being close to the same age meant that Sammy had somewhat usurped her position as older sister, and had done it in a way that Iris didn’t always approve of.

  Sometimes Sammy thought Iris seemed a good ten years older than she was, rather than two years younger.

  And the idea of telling Iris that she was going to leave did not appeal. So on that score she was very glad that she had decided to take Ryder’s deal.

  Her stomach clenched.

  She had agreed to stay, which would mean doing this whole baby thing here.

  But when she thought about it... Of course she should stay. Of course she should raise her baby here.

  Oh, eventually she wouldn’t be in Hope Springs. But...she loved it here. And these people had been her family. Her child would have better than a mother and a father. He would have the entire clan here. And that was something that most people didn’t get.

  It wasn’t a traditional family, but it was a wonderful one.

  “You’re quiet,” Iris said.

  Sammy couldn’t decide if that was a simple observation, and inquiry, or an expression of gratitude.

  “Thinking,” she said.

  “About?”

  “Does it...” She hesitated before she finished the sentence, but she had started. There was no going back now. “Does it bother you that Pansy is getting married?”

  “Bother me?” Iris laughed. “No. Why would it bother me?”