Page 69 of A Reckless Memory

Emmaline danced into the room, her gauzy nightgown bouncing around her like a ball gown. Her new cowboy boots completed the look. “Can I help?”

My brother, the traitor, handed his peeler over, letting me and Emmaline do the work. I flashed him a look, and he smirked.

“Uncle Ansen, are you going to have kids with Aunt Aggie?”

I pushed the picture out of my head of Aggie and a kid or two dancing around the living room during the holidays. The clarity was startling, and the yearning was daunting. “I don’t know. We only just started dating.”

“You should get married.” She carved random spots from the spud. “Girls like rings.”

Aggie had loved hers. She hadn’t worn more than earrings once in a while, citing sensitive skin, but she’d loved the solitaire diamond ring I had picked out. The platinum setting matched my plain platinum band.

It’d been my first purchase with my first payment from her dad.

“If you know we’re not married, why are you calling her aunt?” I liked the sound of it.

“She’s nice. You like her.” That was all she needed. “How many kids are you going to have?”

“Em,” Archer interjected. “It’s intrusive to ask personal questions.”

She shrugged her tiny shoulders. “He doesn’t have to answer them.”

“That’s her grandma right there,” Archer muttered. “Blunt and don’t care.”

Laney walked into the kitchen with Vaden on her hip. “I’m going to tell Ma you said that.”

“She’ll take it as a compliment.”

Laney chuckled. “Yeah, she will.”

“Are you going to meet all my cousins, Uncle Ansen?” Emmeline asked.

“Yeah.” I gave her a quick smile. “They’re my cousins too.”

She launched into an explanation of all the kids and what they liked to play, some of their favorite foods, who’d gotten her dolls muddy before. Her stories made the potato chore go quickly.

I couldn’t escape the desire to have Aggie at my side while I met my extended family. She had her own family, and we’d kept a separation between me and them. Perhaps that was the real reason I finally accepted an invite. I needed people to be on my island with me, and I wasn’t sure if Aggie would stay or if she’d listen to everyone telling her to get off.

Fourteen

AGGIE

Christmas had turned out to be a good day. Cody arrived yesterday with the kids, and they’d delighted in running all over the yard with Tex and getting introduced to the horses, but Skinny and Shrek were the stars of the show.

Cody didn’t have pets. Meg had forbidden it. They were at the ranch a lot since Cody also maintained the books for Knight’s Arabians and Cattle Company, but Eliot kept the cattle side of the ranch going and, of course, the horse-breeding business. So unless it was a cattle dog and mousers, Cody didn’t raise any other animals.

Sutton and I had coaxed the kids inside for the meal. The dishes were done and put away, and I’d promised ham and farm-fresh eggs for breakfast in the morning before they took off.

Cody was inside the house, getting them to sleep, and Sutton was with me outside. She had helped with chores. My gaze kept straying to the trailer house. No lights were on.

Had he gone to his cousin’s? How’d it go?

Did he miss me?

Had he thought about me all day like I’d thought about him, worrying and wondering and wishing him a good day?

I shook the thoughts away. He hadn’t tried calling, and I’d take it as a sign things were going well. But I wanted to know. My thoughts were never far from him. Ugh. I had it bad.

I’d always had it bad.

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