The Hero of Hope Springs

by Maisey Yates

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE GOLD VALLEY SALOON was packed full of people. Ryder hadn’t been back since the other night when Sammy had said that she wanted to have a baby. And now, here he was, ready to help join in with her harebrained scheme.

  He had to wonder if it mattered if the conductor of the train was a little bit more sane than the passenger if it was headed straight to hell anyway.

  Which was maybe a little bit dramatic. Hell was probably not the right word.

  Probably.

  “Okay,” she said. “There are some good options in here.”

  “Are there?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Laz, for starters.”

  He looked over at the bar owner, whom he quite liked, but for some reason he felt a little bit less charitable toward him at the moment. Well, okay, he knew the reason.

  He wished that Logan hadn’t come to impart his wisdom on him earlier, and he really wished that Sammy hadn’t followed him into his bedroom before his shower tonight. Because none of that helped with this. Not with any of it.

  Fundamentally, it didn’t matter that in spite of his best efforts, looking at Sammy made him...

  He’d fixed it so it wasn’t lust, not strictly. He’d had years to climb that particular mountain. But he wasn’t at the summit so much as camped somewhere in between.

  Because all his feelings about that were just too tied up in knots. It wasn’t straightforward, it wasn’t simple, and if—and that if was pretty big—he was ever going to touch Sammy, it would have to be as uncomplicated as it could possibly be.

  And there was no having that. So he didn’t go there. So he drew a line around it in the sand and called it sacred ground.

  “Well, you could just go ask them,” Ryder said.

  “I know that you don’t actually think I should do that,” she responded. “You want me to fail.”

  “I do not want you to fail.”

  “You do. And OMG what would you do if I got up right now, went over there and said, ‘Laz, I want to have your baby.’”

  He didn’t even want to imagine that.

  “I want you to be happy,” he bit out. “But I can’t say that I understand why you seem to think this is the way that you’re going to be happy. I’m not exactly understanding that at the moment. I’m not going to lie to you.”

  She looked up at him, and the expression of desperation on her face made him want to reach out and touch her. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not when things were still a little bit altered from that moment in his bedroom when he had walked out of the bathroom in his towel. He had been trying to get a reaction out of her. Because he had fashioned himself into a brick wall to separate Sammy from the rest of the world, and still sometimes he got a little bit upset when she looked at him and saw a wall instead of a man.

  Sometimes he got angry, resentful that she didn’t see him as a man, even though he didn’t want to see her as a woman. Even though he knew all of it was futile.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if it will make me happy. But... I don’t know. It’s something people do.”

  “Don’t do it because you’re bored,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  “I trust you,” he said. “Whatever reservations I might have, I have to come back to that. We’ve known each other for a long time, Sammy, and I might not always understand exactly what you’re thinking, and I may not agree... But I don’t have to. It’s your life.”

  “Okay,” she said. “So buy me a drink and give me your opinion on every man in this room.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  His back was still up when he went to the counter to order a drink from Laz, and he knew it wasn’t the other man’s fault. And if he sensed that Ryder was irritated with him for no reason at all, he didn’t say.

  He got one beer each for him and Sammy, and then joined her at the table she had snagged on the outer edge of the room.

  Prime viewing area.

  “You know,” Sammy said as he sat down at the table. “While we’re doing this, we could always find you someone to sleep with.”

  He was thankful that he hadn’t opened the beer yet, considering, because he would’ve snorted it up his nose. “Excuse me?”

  “It doesn’t seem fair. Looking for someone for me.”

  “Yeah, but the goal that you’re looking for is slightly bigger than an orgasm.”

  Something strange happened after he said that. Sammy’s cheeks went red. And the redness spread. All the way up to the roots of her pale blond hair. He had never known Sammy to be embarrassed. Not about anything. Least of all sex. She seemed to live to pick at his more conservative spots, try to make him uncomfortable. And over the years, he had just stopped letting her. At least, he had stopped letting her see it.

  And occasionally, he would do something like he’d just done. Be the one to go ahead and bring up orgasms. It never sat right with him. But he figured turnabout was fair play.

  “What?”

  “I... Nothing.”

  “I don’t hook up with locals,” Ryder said. “You know that.”

  “Yeah,” Sammy said. “But I find it weird.”

  “It’s just... It never seemed like the right thing to do.”

  He preferred to find women outside of town. If he needed to scratch an itch then he would go to Copper Ridge or Tolowa, but never here.

  He preferred to keep that part of himself separate. From everything here.

  From Sammy.

  She had never extended that courtesy to him, but then, why would she? And in a strange way he had never really resented it. Because again, her freedom.

  That easy way she had with herself, with her body... He had never wanted to do anything to hurt her, to stop that, to affect it.

  And he could never be that person. Ever. So he watched her be that person. Be the person she never could have been if she had stayed under her father’s roof. Light and happy and filled with joy.

  Still, that was one thing. It was quite another to be discussing who she was going to have a baby with.

  “Well, it feels greedy,” she said. “You know, taking all the sex for myself.”

  And now she was back to her more typical persona. And he had a feeling that she was back with a vengeance for a reason. Because of whatever had made her so uncomfortable only a moment before.

  “I’m really okay with it,” he said.

  “Well. Okay.”

  “What was that about? I mean, you blushed. I can’t remember the last time I saw you blush, Sammy.”

  “Seriously? I thought we were here to have a grown-up discussion about which man in this bar should get me pregnant. Not about what made me blush.”

  “I didn’t know our friendship had boundaries. You know, given the fact that I am here in this bar hoping to help you find a man to get you pregnant. I would think that we can have this conversation, too.”

  “It’s not... It’s not a big deal,” she said, waving a hand. “And, has nothing to do with our objective.”

  “Orgasms made you uncomfortable.”

  The pinkness returned to her cheeks. He took a sip of his beer, long and slow, because he was enjoying having the control of the situation. It was honestly so difficult to get Sammy to react to anything, that having the upper hand here was somewhat enjoyable. And he knew it had nothing to do with why they were here, but he couldn’t help but stop and enjoy it.

  “Not uncomfortable,” she said. “It’s just...it has nothing to do with this.”

  “You want to make the baby the old-fashioned way. You want a connection. I assume somewhere in there pleasure is important.”

  “It’s nice to be close to someone,” she said. “It doesn’t matter... It doesn’t matter.”

  “Seriously?”

  She shifted. “No. It
doesn’t matter.”

  He couldn’t quite wrap his head around what Sammy was saying. “Orgasms don’t matter.”

  “No,” she said. “They don’t. And honestly the idea that they do is just... It just puts pressure on people. I don’t need that kind of pressure.”

  “What do you mean pressure? It’s not something that you should have to worry about. The guy that you’re with should... He should take care of that. He should make you feel at ease. He should make you feel good.”

  He couldn’t believe that he was having this conversation with her. Like some kind of unholy sex talk. The kind he’d been forced to give to his siblings, but worse, because it wasn’t just about basic bodily function but about...everything else.

  “It’s just that that isn’t a goal for me when I’m with a man.”

  Anger poured through him, unchecked and unexamined. There were just too many aspects of this that bothered him to be able to apply a label to any one piece of it.

  “You know why I don’t like that, Sammy? Because it’s the goal of every man who has ever touched you. The goal of every man who goes into a sexual situation. They want to come. That is the point. Especially if they are in a relationship with you. And if you aren’t their priority...”

  “How has it become this conversation. How?”

  “Because I’ve never seen you this worked up about something like this. Usually it’s the kind of thing you torture me with.”

  “I don’t torture you,” she said.

  “You do,” he said. “And you like it. So the fact that you don’t find this funny at all makes me think there’s something at play here that I don’t know.”

  “We don’t talk orgasms very often.”

  “Granted. But your reaction intrigues me.”

  “I’ve never had one with a partner,” she said, the words coming out on top of each other. “Okay? I don’t care. So I don’t talk about it. It doesn’t bother me. I can have them on my own, thank you. An exploration of self. A little bit of me time. I can relax and unwind with me. I know exactly what I like. Not a big deal. But yet...with guys...not so much.”

  “What?”

  He couldn’t wrap his head around that. Could not wrap his head around what she was telling him. Because...that was just bullshit. He was not a relationship guy. There was no room in his life for one. He was a sporadic one-night-stand guy or a meet-up-every-few-months-outside-of-town kind of guy. But he would never...

  “How?” he asked.

  “I mean I fake it,” she said. “It’s not really their fault.”

  “Oh, come on,” Ryder said. “You can tell.”

  “You can tell?”

  “If you’re paying attention you can tell,” he said. “There is no excuse for that.”

  “I’ve never asked for it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t need it. I just told you. Anyway. Now that we’ve covered that delightful topic, why don’t we get back to the subject at hand, which is just finding a guy to get me pregnant. And now we’ve covered the fact that I don’t need him to be filled with prowess and skill. Because it would be wasted on me.”

  “So what do you require? Soft, nonthreatening hands and in possession of a concave chest?”

  “You’re being an asshole,” she said. “I like the guys I’ve dated. They’re nice guys. And they make me feel good. It feels good that they find me attractive. That they... I like that they get off. Whatever happens with me... It’s deeper than an orgasm. I’m fulfilled. By the connected experience.”

  “Why can’t you have both? It sounds to me like it’s one of those ridiculous compromises that women are asked to make constantly. And let me tell you, when it comes to that I’m not a man who compromises.”

  He leveled his gaze at her, and when she couldn’t stand to meet his gaze for too long he didn’t look away.

  Because yeah, this was straying into deeply uncomfortable territory, and yes, he was beginning to feel a little bit hot under his shirt collar, but the fact remained that she needed to hear this. No matter how uncomfortable it was.

  “Why can’t you have everything? When I go to bed with a woman her pleasure is my top priority, and I don’t take mine until she gets hers.”

  “What if she’s faking?”

  “I told you already. You can tell.”

  “How?”

  She was staring him down, her blue eyes glittering, and he knew that he was being issued a challenge. She was trying to make him back down. She was trying to make him uncomfortable.

  It was not going to work.

  Because if there was one thing he had learned over all these years of mastering his cravings for her, mastering the various needs that his body had, it was how to face a problem head-on when he wanted to turn away from it. It was how to hold steady when he wanted to crack. And he knew how to fake it. Since he had become responsible for an entire household he knew how to fake a smile when he didn’t feel like it. Yeah, he’d learned all that. Sammy wasn’t going to pull one over on him.

  “First of all, her breathing changes. Her pupils dilate. Her skin gets flushed. Not a blush. Flushed. Color that spreads up your neck and into your face. Goes all the way down over your breasts.” His heart was starting to pound heavily, his blood running hot in his veins. Because it was far too easy for him to build a picture in his mind that put Sammy into the position of lover. And that was something that he didn’t do. But he was breaking a host of rules right now. With her. And he didn’t know how to turn back now.

  “Her nipples are tight. She’s wet between her legs.”

  “That’s arousal,” she said breathlessly, taking a drink of beer. “That’s not an orgasm.”

  “You didn’t let me finish. Because then that’s when the magic happens. Some women are quiet. Some women are loud. But their muscles tighten and shake. And if I’m buried inside them, or my fingers are, I can feel all that pleasure squeezing them tight, deep and desperate. It’s almost as good as coming yourself. If you’re the kind of man who knows the value of pleasing his partner. And I sure as hell do.”

  “Great,” she said, her voice thin. “Thank you for the sex-ed lesson.”

  “Not a problem.”

  She was shaken by that. And a damn good thing, too, because so was he. He took a long drink of beer.

  But maybe she might be too consumed by her own issues to pay attention to how he was looking right now. It was only sheer force of will that prevented him from being physically affected by that moment.

  But he had a lot of practice not getting hard with Sammy.

  So this was not an unusual experience for him.

  “What about Lincoln?” she asked, gesturing to a man standing in the corner with a beanie pushed back on his head and one of those small French artist-looking beards that seemed like a man lacked either the testosterone or commitment to go with the full beard. Neither of which spoke well of him, in Ryder’s opinion.

  “Cool. If you want your baby to be a hairless, craft-beer-drinking snob.”

  “I don’t think snobbery or beer taste is genetic.”

  “But you don’t know that.”

  She huffed. “You’re actually the one that sounds like a snob right now.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “You’re just saying a whole lot of toxic, stereotypical things.”

  “You like it when I’m like that. Because I’m the secret part of your brain that you never let out, Sammy. And I think we both know that.”

  He was making assumptions now. That maybe he was the hard, dark edge to her sunny sweetness. Just as she was any amount of optimism that he was able to access.

  “This isn’t helpful. I don’t know why it should surprise you that I want a man that exemplifies the kinds of things I care about.”

  “Corduroy and beekeeping?”

/>   “He’s my type,” she insisted.

  “Your type doesn’t turn you on,” he said.

  Their eyes clashed, and it was like lightning cracking over the mountain that night. Sudden and sharp and echoing down into the valley below. The valley of his soul.

  “Fine. I don’t need to be turned on. Maybe I just need to be intellectually stimulated.”

  “Baby, if you were stimulated on any level you would have come.”

  “I don’t...” Her face had gone red again. “I’m done with that part of the discussion.”

  “We are actively talking about which man in here you should sleep with.”

  “For the purposes of creating life.”

  “You may have to sleep with him many times. You don’t just get pregnant the first time.”

  “I’ll check my ovulation. There are predictors for that. You could just buy them at the store. They’re like next to the pregnancy tests and condoms and maxi pads.”

  “Thank you for that little verbally guided tour of the grocery store. But I did know that.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve bought condoms. And maxi pads.”

  She squinted and looked at him through her spiky, golden lashes. “You’ve bought maxi pads?”

  “I basically raised three daughters, Sammy. I have bought maxi pads. Tampons. You name it. I’m sorry. Does the kind of man you hang out with usually get disgusted by that?”

  “No.” She sniffed. “They’re actually very enlightened. It wouldn’t bother them at all.”

  “Sure. Or is it that you didn’t expect me, caveman that I am, to be completely okay with that?”

  “I didn’t think about it.”

  “Have you ever gone and bought that stuff for the girls?”

  Sammy frowned. “No.”

  “Who do you think talked to them about all that. I mean, Iris helped. But she was young herself. And somebody had to talk to her...”

  “You did that?”

  “Someone had to. And I was okay with it being me.”

  “Okay just...” she sputtered. “Make a list, put Lincoln on it.”