Walker Bride by Bernadette Marie Page A

your
horse in our barn?”
    She laughed as she twisted the cap off the
bottle. “He likes it here better.”
    At that moment, Tyson couldn’t blame the
horse, or his sister, for spending all their time there. He found
he tended to like it better too.
    Tyson reached into the pocket of his shirt
and handed his sister the folded piece of paper he’d tucked there.
“This is for you.”
    Lydia took it from him and opened it slowly.
He watched her eyes widen and tears quickly well up in them.
“Tyson, this is a lot of money,” she said looking back down at the
check he’d handed her.
    “Is it enough?”
    “It’s more than enough. We didn’t need…”
    “Take it. I believe in what you’re building.
I think it will do well for you. Susan’s already been talking about
the kitchen she’ll be able to cater out of.”
    Lydia tucked the check into her pocket and
held her bottle up to his. “To partnership,” she said
    He tapped his bottle to her. “Silent
partnerships.”
    Tyson lifted his bottle to his lips, but
Lydia lowered hers. “I’m sorry about everything I said to you today
about Pearl. I had no right to…”
    “You were right. We’re partners now. All
three of us. There can be no getting involved with
partners.”
    She took a breath to speak again, but Susan
was running up the road toward them waving. Tyson chuckled. “She’s
been waiting for you. Some wedding planning something. It’s way out
of my league.”
    Lydia moved in and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you for this. You won’t regret it,” she said as she turned
and walked toward Susan.
    He took a pull from his beer. He’d never
regret giving her his money, even down to his last penny. But he
wasn’t so sure about the rest of it. Hormones and a beautiful woman
might have put him in the position he’d found himself in that
morning. He thought about that position—her beneath him, skin to
skin. Taking another pull from his beer, he let the heat of it
settle in his belly. But there was more.
    He tipped his head back and let the small
breeze drift over him. There was something more than just heat and
attraction between him and Pearl, he thought.
    For the past few months, since Tyson and Eric
had been bonding as brothers, Tyson had been bonding with all
members of the Walker family and Pearl, of course, had caught his
eye.
    Oh, he’d played it cool. He’d taken every
dinner invitation extended his way—as a group. When Eric and Susan
had moved back into the house and hosted a party, he’d lurked in
corners all night and stole moments of conversation with Pearl here
and there. And hadn’t she seemed always to have been here and
there—near him?
    He drank from the bottle again.
    It had been building. Who could blame them
for what had happened?
    Tyson let out a long ragged breath as he set
the empty bottle in the bed of the truck, turned, and pushed the
tailgate back up. Whatever there might have been between them, it
was over before it started. They were business partners now and
just as Lydia had said, there was no room in business for—well,
whatever it might have been.
    He walked around the truck and pulled open
the door. It was time to head home and dive back into life as he
knew it. Susan and Eric’s wedding was only two weeks away. He
supposed he’d see her then. Things would have died down between
them by then and everything would be normal again. What a shame, he
thought as he started the engine and gripped the steering wheel. He
never did get to see that tattoo on her back.
     
    ~*~
     
    The alarm on the nightstand to her right,
buzzed and rattled. Pearl turned and slapped her hand down over the
top of it just as her cell phone buzzed next to it.
    She fumbled for the phone and turned off the
secondary alarm.
    It was stupid she thought, now laying there
staring at the ceiling in the twilight. It was too damn early to be
up on a Monday morning, but she wasn’t going to chance even not
being stunning, in case Tyson Morgan paid