Wilde Fire (Forever Wilde 3)

“Just saying hey to an old friend, Tish,” I explained. “He’s got horses, if you can believe it. Hopefully I can take you out there sometime soon and let you see them.”

I knew full well Otto wouldn’t be there, but I wondered if Doc and Grandpa would welcome my family and me to the ranch. Would Otto tell them what had happened between us? Had they heard through the grapevine that I’d moved back to Hobie with a wife and child in tow?

I followed Tisha back to the kitchen where I smelled onions and garlic enough to make my mouth water. I’d always teased Jolie about becoming some lucky bastard’s housewife one day with her cooking skills, but she’d always answered with a wink and the same phrase…

I already am.

She glanced up at me from the oven where she was pulling out a glass dish of chicken breasts. “Hey, Sheriff. I hope you brought your appetite because I made one of your favorites.”

I looked at the woman cooking me dinner in my home. Our home. She was different from the first time I’d met her all those years ago. More mature and relaxed, not quite so terrified of being abandoned and alone.

She was a beautiful woman. My brother had always had exquisite taste. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and she wore leggings with one of my old SPPD Academy sweatshirts that swamped her small frame.

“Hey, beautiful,” I said out of habit, but this time the word tasted like poison on my tongue. I wanted to pull it back and keep it for someone else, someone whose word it should have been all along. But the time for that decision had long passed, and I’d been the one to make the choice willingly.

She stepped forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek, pulling me in and wrapping her slender arms around my waist. “How was work? You look exhausted. Did something happen?”

I shook my head, throat filling with the unsaid lie. “Work was fine.” At least that part was true. “How did things go here? Did you and Tisha finish any more of that puzzle?”

She nodded as she began dishing out food onto three plates. “Your mom and dad came over and worked on it for a bit. They seemed to be having fun. I think they’re happy we’re here, you know?”

I blew out a breath, realizing just how shortsighted my move back had been. When my parents had decided to move back to Hobie, Tisha had been devastated. She’d already lost her best friend to Hobie a few years before, and losing my parents to Hobie as well had sent her into a downward spiral. She and my nephew Cody were bosom buddies. They were only a year apart in age and thick as thieves. When even Jolie had expressed a desire to move near my family, I’d thought it would be for the best. After all, Otto was in the navy, and from all the gossip I’d heard through the grapevine, he was planning on staying in for the full twenty.

But now he was back. He was back, and I was stuck between a rock and a huge goddamned boulder.

I felt my chest tighten and my eyes smart.

There was no fucking way this was going to end well. Regardless, I had to find him and tell him what the hell was going on.

But first, I needed to have a serious conversation with my wife.

It was time to bring this marriage to an end once and for all.

It took about a week and a half before Luanne began calling me the Ghost Sheriff. She’d told Jolie and my mom the other day I was there but not there, just like the Maberley sisters in that haunted inn she’d read about somewhere up north. I floated around doing what needed doing but never really came down to earth long enough to interact with mortals.

She wasn’t wrong. I felt about as hollow as a ghost. Worn thin and flimsy as hell, not to mention aimless.

Otto had run.

He’d taken the first opportunity and not only split town, but left the goddamned country with Doc and Grandpa. Motherfucking coward was what he was. After everything we’d ever had between us, he couldn’t stick around for five fucking minutes to let me explain?

Shit head. Jackass. Asshole cocksucker.

“What did you just call me?”

I whipped my head up from my desk at the sheriff’s office to see a young man with spiky pink hair and a leopard print apron over some kind of bright yellow jumpsuit. He stood in front of the empty reception counter with hands on his hips and a knowing smirk on his face. I thought I recognized him from the bakery in town.

“Not you.”

The guy looked around at the empty space and back to me with a raised eyebrow.