“You know he’s the sheriff now, right?” she asked.

Wonderful. She was marrying a fucking bully-turned-sheriff. If I didn’t get Alex under control soon, he might be slapping cuffs on me in the future, and I could only imagine the thrill he’d get at arresting me.

“I guess congratulations are in order.” I tilted my head, one brow raised.

“I guess so,” she said, her gaze veering to the backseat of the car. “I’ve really gotta go. It was good to see you again, Rafe.” Her voice softened, the same breathless quality I recalled from years ago. She slid into the driver’s seat, and that was when the kid in the back called her “Mom” and asked what they were having for dinner.

I froze as it dawned on me. I’d been so focused on Nikki, part of me still thinking of her as the twenty-year-old girl I’d known, that I’d unconsciously written the kid off as a nephew, or perhaps a child of a friend.

But he was hers.

As she moved to pull the door shut, I shot out a hand and blocked her. Peeking into the backseat, I laid eyes on the kid for the first time. Really looked at him. Fuck. He was a spitting image of my childhood photos.

“How old is he, Nikki?”

Her body slumped, and with a loud sigh, she said, “Seven, and I know what you’re thinking. I was going to tell you. Swear to God I was, but now is not the time.” Her eyes pleaded with me. “Can we meet for dinner? In about an hour?”

I couldn’t speak at first. I could have said so many things, but the truth hit me like a sledgehammer. Unless I was reading her wrong, or misunderstanding, she was telling me I had a son.

“Rafe?”

“An hour?” I asked, giving myself a mental shake.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you at Doc’s Grill. You remember where that is, right?”

“I remember.”

She pulled the door shut, and this time I let her. I stood frozen in that spot long after she pulled away from the curb, the kid’s green eyes burning a hole in my mind. His curious eyes that reminded me so much of my own. Had he seen it too, or was he too young to pick up on the resemblance?

Someone jostled me to awareness, and from the pinch of disproval on the woman’s face, she must have been in the “he should rot in prison” camp.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, then shook my head because I’d just apologized to a judgmental broad for simply standing in public. Fuck these people. I wandered down the main drag of the town until I reached the highway and stepped onto the shoulder. Checking my watch, I began walking to kill time before I met up with Nikki. The idea of that meeting sent my pulse racing. I wondered what he was like. Had he asked about me?

Hell, I didn’t even know his name.