The image of Walker going down on me in the barn flashed through my mind and set my entire groin on fire. I tried like hell to force the image away. I’d never knowingly engaged in sex with a married man, and the fact it was with the person I’d once trusted more than anyone else rankled the hell out of me.
I spent the rest of the family dinner night surrounded by comfortable chatter. Everyone grilled Saint and me about our jobs in Dallas and everyone but Grandpa and Doc seemed to want to get in their opinion about me moving back to Hobie. By the time everyone shut the hell up, it was too late to take Gulliver out on a ride.
After staying up a couple more hours drinking with everyone who’d chosen to stay over in the ranch bunkhouse, I turned in. I slept soundly and got up early in the morning to take the horse out before we had to get on the road back to the city after breakfast.
After greeting and tacking the big old guy, we made our way up past the scrubby forest to the edge of the ranch where one of my favorite trails led to my parents’ old house. The sun was just peeking up over the edges of the trees and the cold winter air seemed to make everything around me look brighter and cleaner than usual.
Halfway down the trail I heard a high-pitched squeal that startled both the horse and me. Luckily, Gulliver was smarter than I was and figured out right away we weren’t in enough danger to need to bolt or rear. I looked toward the fence off to my right and saw a little girl standing there almost vibrating with excitement.
I waved my hand and smiled, forgetting for the moment that the fence marked the border with the Walker ranch.
“Hey there. Good morning, sunshine,” I called out.
“Oh my gosh! Is that your horse? Can I see him?” she cried. “I’ve never petted a horse up close.”
I steered Gulliver toward the fence and hopped off so I could show the little girl how to properly greet the large animal.
“My name is Otto Wilde, and who might you be?” I asked, wondering who was living in Mr. and Mrs. Walker’s old place. Then it came to me. The Walkers were living in their old place. They’d moved back and brought the whole damned Walker crew with them.
“Tisha Walker,” she said proudly, running a tiny hand up the horse’s large nose. “Do you live next door? I thought it was those two granddads.”
I let out a chuckle. “No, ma’am. Those two granddads are my granddads, though. I’m just here for a visit. What about you?”
“I’m here for good. Which means I might be able to have my very own horse. I couldn’t have one in Minnesota because it was too cold. And we lived in a city. But here… well, I keep hoping Mom and Uncle Seth will let me get one.”
My heart stuttered a beat when I heard Seth’s name come out of her mouth.
“Uncle Seth?” I asked. “Who are your mommy and daddy?”
She tilted her head and shot me a look like I was an idiot. “Jolie and Seth are my parents. I mean, well, technically I guess Ross is my dad, but I never met him, you know? So really it’s Seth because he’s the one who raised me from when I was a baby.”
As she continued to babble on, my stomach twisted up and tried to make sense of the words she was saying. Seth’s older brother Ross had a child? But Seth had raised her? I looked up to see if I could spot anyone at the house across the expansive backyard. There were two houses on the Walker ranch, or there had been ten years ago last I checked. The main house was up closer to the road and was the house where Seth and his siblings had grown up. This house was more of a guest cottage and had only two small bedrooms with a loft upstairs that had a set of cheap bunk beds in it. Was this where Seth was living with his wife and this little girl?
“Is Uncle Seth around, sweetie?” I asked.
“No. He got called out on a case last night. He’s the sheriff, you know.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the pride in her voice. “Yes. He’s very important around here. We’re lucky to have him protecting us, don’t you think?”
She nodded, messy blonde bangs falling in her face. “Yes. Granddad says it takes a real man to be sheriff, and it’s a good thing Uncle Seth decided to become a real man.”
I felt my jaw tick. Mr. Walker had always been friendly as all hell most of the time, but damned if he couldn’t drop some of that old southern bullshit bigotry he still had.