Chapter Six
Fuck his life. Honestly. He had been with more women than he could count, which wasn’t a point of pride per se, but it just meant that he wasn’t a greenhorn when it came to dealing with the opposite sex. And today, he had very nearly kissed his employee, and had said, out loud, “I’m your boss.”
As if he was scolding her, when he was scolding his damn self.
Unbelievable.
“You weren’t wrong,” Walker said, riding his horse alongside Cody, and generally making Cody want to punch him in the face. “She’s hot.”
“I never said she was hot,” Cody snapped.
“You did. You relented and said she was beautiful. Maybe I’m embellishing the statement, but…”
“She also works for us. And her husband just left her.”
“What an asshole.”
“Stay away from her,” he growled.
Walker’s brows shot up to the brim of his hat. “You don’t need to tell me that,” he said. “I’m never going to go after avulnerable woman. That’s the last thing I want. Somebody who’s in emotional distress? I’m not that kind of guy. I can get the fruit at the very top of the tree, thanks, I’m not the type who goes collecting soft apples off the ground.”
“She’s not a soft apple.”
“I didn’t say she was, I just meant that I don’t do that in general. I’m not our dad.” Walker snorted. “Well. My presumed Dad.”
They had only ever spoken about this one other time, when Walker had been drunk the night their dad had died. Cody cast his brother a glance. “We could do one of those DNA test things if you want.”
Walker snorted. “Hell no. Then I might actually find somebody. Not that I’m super hungry to share DNA with David Reynolds, but I’m also not hungry to figure out that there’s someotherdeadbeat out there that shares my DNA.”
“Fair.”
“Better the devil you know, right? Because the devil you don’t know could potentially be a serial killer.”
“Man, I guess. I think that’s a bit of a leap.”
“Mom had shitty taste in men, Cody.” Cody’s shoulder muscles tensed, and he hoped Walker wouldn’t go on. But he did. “You know, none of us could be his kids. Mom wasn’t exactly a reliable narrator about all of that.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Nothing that deep. I just… Don’t think she was always super honest about her whereabouts, and also, there were more men than Dad.PresumedDad.”
“I know that,” Cody said.
“I know you know that, but sometimes I think you… I don’t know. I don’t think Mom wanted to be happy. I don’t think she knew how to be happy. That’s why I go out of my way to make my life happy.”
“Mom was miserable because that bastard was always keeping her on the hook.”
“And she chose the misery. Because it was the only thing she knew.”
He didn’t like this conversation.
“She was your mother. Have some respect.”
“I love mom. I love her still. Respect… that’s a little bit harder for me. You feel the way that you want to, Cody.”
Cody gritted his teeth. “She did her best.”
“Cody,youdid your best,” Walker said, his face uncharacteristically grave. “And without you, Lila and I wouldn’t have had anything. You know I hate to inflate your ego any, but that’s the fact. Whatever good we had growing up, that was you. We were lucky to have you.”
