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“You’re kidding?” Mae asked.
“Nope.”
She went on. “Four. Kieran. He’s supposed to be another manwhore player. Just like his buddy who works with him at the Fire Department.”
Ryan chuckled and shook his head like he couldn’t believe she had put it like that. “You mean that the man is a thirty-something-year-old single firefighter, and a close friend of Liam?”
“Whatever!” Fianna said. Of course, Ryan would put it like that as Liam’s cousin. All those Moore/Mills cousins stuck together.
“Oh, I can’t wait what kind of fault you have found in your last half-sibling,” Ryan added. He’d always liked to tease her, and he was doing a bang-up job today.
Fianna sneered, “We don’t know if Finn is the last sibling. For all we know, Rob Walker has fathered thirty other kids with thirty other women!”
She had almost reached the point of crying. She was that mad.
“It will be good to meet your siblings, sweetheart. Nobody’s telling you should meet up with your father next. They had nothing to do with your father’s choices. They were victim of his lifestyle, too,” Shauni said and stood from the kitchen table.
“I just can’t understand how someone can start a family with two women at the same time and keep us all a secret from each other.”
Shauni crept her arm over her shoulder, hauling her into her arms. Fianna rested her cheek against Shauni’s chest and sighed.
Mae patted her back and said, “It’s crazy.”
Ryan walked over to them and just when she thought he would join their three-way hug, he said, “The chicken is burning.”
Mae and Fianna snickered as they shared a look. Ryan could be such a dry ass. But she knew he had a heart of gold. Just like the rest of his family.
The Moores had bought Fianna’s horse Stormchaser at seven years-old, when an acquaintance wanted to get rid of him after dropping his daughter one too many times. The horse was headstrong. Feisty. And he loved a challenge.
After a week at the Moore ranch, it was clear to everyone that Stormchaser had met his match in Fianna. She groomed him, loved him, but she also rode him hard and wasn’t afraid to get back in the saddle whenever he threw a fit.
When Fianna was twenty-one and Stormchaser eight-years-old, Ryan came to her with an idea. He wanted her to compete in horse jumping with the black Anglo-Arab.
At first, she laughed in his face. She knew how to jump, but riding professionally was an entirely different thing. It took lots and lots of determination of not only the horse rider, but the horse as well.
Ryan had bought several horses by that time and knew a few people in the industry. He had offered her financial backing if she would let him sponsor her.
She had attended almost every tournament and during his prime years between ten and twelve, Stormchaser moved onto a farm with her at Winter Peaks after her breakup with Ronan. The Mills cousins had a stable right outside of town where she could practice with Stormchaser.
And now he was sixteen, and a retired jumping horse. She enjoyed seeing Stormchaser out in the fields at the Moore farm. She would forever be grateful for the Moore family, as they had given her the opportunity to not only chase her dreams, but also to succeed.
Every win meant prize money of a few thousands dollars. But it was the endorsement money that did the trick to keep going. She wasn’t some rich and famous chick now that she moved back to Austin. But she was fortunate enough to live the life other kids had dreamt of.
The day she returned to Austin and walked into the kitchen’s ranch, she stopped dead in her tracks when Shauni and her husband Roger, together with Ryan, waited on her with several deeds laying on the dinner table.
“Stormchaser is yours. We should have done this a long time ago,” Ryan had said.
She was so afraid after her return to the Moore farm that she would have no say in Stormchaser’s future.
She should have known better than to expect the worse out of this loving family. But it kind of was ingrained in her from a young age. Never expect something from the people you love. You’ll only get burned.
“Sure, save the chicken. Don’t mind us,” Fianna joked as she stepped away from the stove to make room for Ryan.
“If only he would put this kind of effort into finding a nice girl to marry,” Shauni grinned, knowing well enough how her words would irritate her son.
“Ma…”
Shauni lifted her chin and said, “I saw you getting into a fight with that lovely lady this morning. She just wanted to know if you had room to board her horse. When you act all boorish, there will not be a lady in a hundred-mile radius who’ll put up with you.”
