Home, I thought, sitting on one of the two couches in the great room of the Turk ranch house. That’s what Walker had said. Certain I was overthinking things, I couldn’t help but wonder if he meant his home or a place that was, or at least could be, my home, too.
Something in the way he had said it, his tone, his smile, the green eyes glittering at me—one or all of those things had set my mind to speculating. It didn’t clear things up that he actually owned a house on the other side of the county.
“This,” Siobhan said, coming through the doors from the dining room with a tray in hand. “Is Betty Rae’s Mint Elixir. If there’s ever going to be a cure for the common cold, this will be it.”
“Ash busted her leg,” Sutton deadpanned from where he sat on the opposing couch. “You sure you work law enforcement, baby girl?”
“You can pour your own, Sutton Lee,” she grumbled. She put the tray down and filled a cup for me. “It’s good for restoring energy, I find. Definitely makes for an awesome hangover cure.”
“Thank you.” I took a sip and then another, the flavor rolling around on my tongue. “Well, I don’t feel my bones remodeling, but it certainly is refreshing.”
“Oh,” a feminine voice chirped. “I hope Betty Rae brought more than one gallon over.”
I recognized the speaker as Sage, Adler’s wife, before the woman came into view. Adler followed her into the seating area a few seconds later. Leah walked with him, her small hand curled around his pinkie finger. The conch was missing, but she was back in the grass skirt, the garland of fabric flowers double looped to form a crown instead of worn around her neck.
“You come up with anything?” Adler asked after giving his cousin a peck on the cheek.
“I’ve been to every outfitter and every other kind of business in the county with pictures and questions about the raft,” Siobhan answered.
She took a seat on the same couch as me while Adler sat next to his brother, Leah on his lap and Sage on his other side.
“Is that a ‘no’?” Sutton asked.
Siobhan pinched the pleat on her uniform pants, her gaze flicking at Sutton.
“Nothing yet,” she admitted. “At least now that we have Joyce Franco’s complaint, we don’t have to leave it to the Feds.”
Casting a guilty look at me, Siobhan smiled.
“No offense.”
“None taken,” I answered. “I’m glad for all the help your office has provided.”
“No,” Sage warned in a low voice as Leah seemed to take an interest in how the furniture had been rearranged because of my arrival.
Both Sutton and I needed to elevate our legs, Sutton his right and, for me, the left one. We each had an ottoman and faced one another on our respective couches. Together with the coffee table between the two couches, the ottomans eliminated the regularly placed walk-through.
“No, Honey Bee,” Sage warned again as Leah slid off Adler’s lap and got on her hands and knees. “What does Gam-Gam say about crawling under tables out here?”
Leah lifted her head, just her big green eyes visible. She stared directly at me, her gaze dancing with a mischief that, in turn, brought a smile to my lips.
“Oh, she’s got an appreciative audience,” Sutton laughed. “You’re not getting her to behave now.”
“Honey Bee,” Adler growled.
The tone wasn’t mean, but it sobered the little girl. Her shoulders lifted and held, the small mouth forming an argumentative pout.
“You follow Gam-Gam’s rules out here and we’ll make a blanket fort for reading time.”
The toddler’s face opened in wonder. Her hands lifted in the air, the palms exposed and fingers dancing. Climbing back onto her uncle’s lap, she patted his face.
“That’s my Addy.”
“I’m not sure which one of them has the other trained,” Sage laughed.
“Honey Bee is the boss,” Sutton answered. “She can even make me want a kid.”
“You know you need a wife first, right?”
Sutton shot his older brother an eye roll while Sage pulled a worried face.
“A wife and someplace closer than Roundup for emergency care!”
She finished with an anxious glance at my leg.
Adler kissed her cheek. “You’ll work it out, love.”
Love…
I let the word echo in my head, suddenly wishing Walker was with me instead of making a quick trip to inspect the work his crew had accomplished while he was in Billings playing nursemaid.
“What’s that you’re talking about?” Siobhan asked. “Are you…uh…”
Falling silent, she moved her hand in front of her stomach in an exaggerated half-circle.
Sage laughed. “No. I’m trying to get a grant for Willow Gap so we can have a local urgent care clinic. It really doesn’t make sense not having one with all the tourists at the parks and all the ranches and timber operations.”
“Good luck finding a doctor,” Siobhan grumbled. “We tried a twice weekly wellness clinic three years ago and couldn’t even keep a nurse.”
Leaning against the couch back, I took a sip of her “elixir” and enjoyed the easy banter between Walker’s family members. It was a little like the exchanges I remembered from my early days of law enforcement. Unfortunately, the more experience an FWS agent had, the more isolated the job became.
From everything I had witnessed, Walker’s family worked and played together, the attribute carried from generation to generation.
“Sage has a line on a great doctor,” Adler said as his wife pulled out her cell phone.
“Here.” Sage handed the device to Siobhan.
“Thorne took a scholarship for his last few years of study and residency that he will have to pay back unless he does three years at a rural clinic. Willow Gap is as rural as it gets.”
“Call him right now!” Siobhan squealed.
I choked on my drink, the mint burning the soft linings of my nose as I snorted some of the liquid.
“That’s a lot of enthusiasm,” I said once I recovered.
“Look at him,” Siobhan crooned as she rotated the phone to reveal a picture of a towering male with shaggy red hair and a full beard.
I shrugged. I would never say it out loud, at least not at this point, but every male I saw or called up from memory paled in comparison to how Walker made me feel. There was “Walker Sexy” and then there was every other guy in existence.
Siobhan responded with a snort. “What am I thinking? You’re as lost as Sage.”
Cheeks growing hot, I risked another sip of the cooling mint drink.
The doors to the dining room swung open. Lindy passed through carrying a long dress folded over her arm. Approaching the couch, she shooed Siobhan down to the far end and took a seat in the middle to show me the costume.
“I was even able to find some matching thread,” the woman beamed as she pointed out where she had altered the dress to fit my curves and hide the leg cast for the festival. “And I have Royce looking for some old time crutches from the loft above the stables.”
“I can do your hair up, Ashley,” Siobhan offered.
“Oh, the hair,” Lindy bemoaned, her hand creeping up to tug at one of her short tresses. “I wasn’t thinking about the festival when I got mine cut in April. I’ll have to wear one of the wigs. Be glad you have enough of your own!”
“Who did you get stuck with?” Siobhan asked.
“Mary Ronan,” I answered.
“Interesting life,” Siobhan said. “I suppose your boss picked her because she was married to an Indian Agent—closest thing he could find to early female law enforcement in the state, I guess.”
“For those days, yes.”
“Mama’s representing our Sarah,” Sutton put in. “The suffragette who left Chicago and arrived in Montana as Corryn Turk’s mail order bride.”
I felt the sides of my face pull in opposite directions.
“Really?” I asked, eyes watering as I tried not to choke on the mint water again. “That’s what the dynasty was built on?”
Walker must have snuck into the house because he was suddenly behind me, leaning over the couch so that his words caressed my ear.
“If you read Sarah’s diaries, you’ll know it was built on love,” he countered. “Love, and a Turk male who was a hopeless romantic.”
“All Turk males are hopeless romantics,” Lindy sighed.
Planting a kiss along the edge of my ear, Walker whispered just for me.
“I know I am.”