Page 50 of Saddle Storm

I shake my head. “I didn’t even want the money. But my parents made me take it in exchange for him signing away rights.”

“Smart move.”

“Maybe.” I shake my head. “I don’t regret my son. Love him to death. But I do wish . . .”

“It was with someone else?”

I scrunch my nose, almost feeling guilty for it. Like I resent a part of where Max comes from. “Yeah.”

“Like Silas?”

I look at her, my eyes stretching slightly.

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s the one who ghosted you in high school, given you two grew up on the ranch. Plus, I see the way you look at him.”

“I don’t look at him in any way,” I argue.

“You look like you want to punch him and kiss him all at the same time. Harder on the punch though.”

I laugh. “Oh yeah, then maybe I do.”

Willow’s grin is wide, proud of herself. “I’ve still got it. So what’s going on there?”

“Well, I didn’t punch him yesterday—but I did kiss him.”

She sits up, baby cooing with the sudden shift. “See, this is what I’m talking about. Tell me more.”

“There’s nothing to tell. It was one of those kisses where you just have to see, you know?”

“And?”

I close my eyes. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“Yeah,” Willow breathes, sitting back. “The Thorne men’ll have that effect on you.”

“I can’t undo it,” I whine. “And the worst part—”

Dallas rides up on Trouble, his lips spreading when he finds his wife and baby on the back porch. “Hey, Sunset.” His eyes flick to me with a warm smile. “Storm.”

I’m prepared to stand to get back to work when Willow shoots a hand out to stop me and growls at her husband. “You have the worst timing.”

“This coming from the woman who set a wedding date three weeks after having a baby.” He jumps off his stallion and comes over to us, bending to kiss the top of her head.

“Sweetheart, I love you, but you are not ruining girl talk for me.”

He sighs, tearing his eyes off his newborn son. “Let me just go get cleaned up and I’ll take him from you.” He looks at me. “She complaining about me?”

“Nope.”

He narrows his eyes. “You complainin’ about me?”

I grin. “Only when I’m here on Sundays.”

He winces. “Fair enough. I’ll be right back. Carry on.”

Willow releases a breath. “Where were we? Oh, you were saying, the worst part of kissing him? Though I can’t imagine what that might be.”

“The worst part is . . . he kissed me back like he’d been waiting forever to do it.”