But I do know this: Walker’s hand will be in mine. And that is enough for right now.
I pick up my ketchup-laden burger and take a bite. It’s good, but it doesn’t taste like comfort food usually does.
I look at Walker sitting on the bed next to me and tears fill my eyes.
“Why are you crying now?” he asks a brow raised and his hand on my cheek as he brushes the tears away with his calloused thumb.
“You are my comfort food now, Walker.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I hope it’s a good thing.”
I lean over and kiss his perfect mouth. “It is.”
23
Walker
It kills me to wake her up. She is sleeping so soundly. Naked and wrapped up in sheets, looking so angelic my heart feels like it’s grown paper wings. Light. I feel light for the first time in my whole damn life and it is all because of her. Love is crazy-assed thing that can change a man in a matter of weeks. Days. Hours. Minutes. I can never go back to being the man I was. Lost, blowing in the fucking wind with a scowl and a chip on my shoulder. Somehow, Waverly has managed to break down all my walls.
What is left is this: unconditional love. Pure and simple and ours.
I’m not letting anyone get a hold of that. Not when I just fucking found what I’ve spent my life looking for.
“Hey,” I say, leaning down, kissing her cheek. “We’ve gotta get going.” She sits up, her breasts so full and round. I can’t help myself; I lean down kiss the perfect mounds. “God, you’re gorgeous.”
She smiles sleepily, looking me over. “You’re dressed already.”
“Got us coffee too. Looks good. I know you like a dark roast.”
She smiles and places her feet on the floor. She reaches for her clothes and groans as she does. “Can’t we stay here forever?”
“We will have forever soon enough.” That makes her smile and I pat her cute ass, kiss her shoulder. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes to catch the plane.”
She dresses quickly, takes the to-go cup of coffee, and my hand. We leave the Four Seasons, dressed like we belong in the woods, boots and jeans and sweaters, a flannel shirt. It feels like fall. There’re orange leaves on the city sidewalks and storm clouds overhead. The beach is gonna be a jolt back into an old life.
“Are you nervous?” I ask as we buckle up on the plane.
She shakes her head, her fingers threaded with mine. “Not when I’m with you.”
I kiss the top of her head. Silently praying that this all goes as planned. I made her a promise and I need to fucking keep it.
* * *
When we land in San Diego, we’re both more than ready to get to the train station. We take a cab and I’ll admit that I’m looking over my shoulder the whole damn time. Anyone could be looking, watching, waiting.
And another thought is niggling at my mind, but I don’t want to worry Wavy. “We need to stop here,” I tell the driver. We’re at a strip mall and Wavy frowns, confused.
“I need to grab something,” I tell her, her hand in mine as we enter a cell phone store. The employees are eager to serve. No, I don’t want a data plan, no I don’t want a smartphone. I want a burner phone, so I get the cheapest, shittiest model available.
Outside, Wavy says she isn’t feeling well. Hungry and tired. We go into a gas station for water and granola bars. She buys two. And a bag of chips, beef jerky, and a maple glazed donut. She pays for it while I head outside to I start up the phone, taking a bite of a granola bar. I punch in Jameson’s number the moment I get a signal.
“Hey.” His voice is gruff. “Who is this?”
“It’s Walker.” I tell him where I am, what’s gone down since I saw him last. “Look, did you take care of the bodies?”
“I tried, man.”
“What do you mean, tried?”
“I took care of the small one. He was dead on arrival, buried him well and good. You owe me, you fucking realize that? Don’t you?”
“I know,” I say tightly. “What about the big guy?”
“Fuck, he was already in his plane when I got to your cabin, Walker. Flying away.”
“Shit.”
“What happened?” Wavy asks, concerned, a smidgen of frosting from the donut on her bottom lip. The sun is streaming down on her. Her light hair is loose. She’s in nothing but a thin tank top and she’s wrapped her sweater around her waist. No bra. Perfect tits and hard nipples with a flash of skin at her belly. God, she looks good, freshly fucked and utterly mine.
I shake my head. Fuck. “Thanks, man,” I tell Jameson. “You did me a solid. We’re gonna be back soon. I promise to make it up to you. Anything you need from the mainland?”
“A woman?”
I smile grimly. “I’ll see what I can do, motherfucker.”
Sliding the phone in my pocket, I give it to Wavy straight. “Beam made it out somehow. Which means Maker is on to us. We can only hope we beat them to it.”
“We shouldn’t have stayed at the hotel,” she says. “We should have found a flight and come straight here.”
I kiss her. Her lips are as sweet as sugar and I want to take a bite. God, I could devour her. “No. We needed last night.”
She nods. “Come on,” she says. “Let's go meet the family.”
I smile because somehow this girl gets me. Yes, this is fucked up, but it doesn’t mean we won’t deal with it. When things are hard, you push through.
We get to the train station to find that the parking lot is crowded, and I keep looking over my shoulder. She said we should have flown commercial, but that wasn’t an option. I needed to pack heat to deal with the shit show, and I sure as hell couldn’t have walked into the airport with a goddamn Glock.
“It’s on the left, on the other entrance. Row 15, locker 218. I memorized it.”
I nod. “Okay, let’s go.”
She stops, her face gone white. Pressing a hand to her mouth. “Oh shit, God, sorry. I’m gonna be sick.” Spinning she runs to a women’s restroom. It takes me a second to get my bearings, but I follow her, not wanting her out of my sight.
“Waverly,” I call out, wanting to make sure she’s okay.
But there isn’t a response. Not wanting to be a dick and walk in there, I wait, but after several seconds of not hearing anything, I step into the bathroom. Fuck the rules — my girl’s life is what matters. “Wavy,” I call again, but my defenses are down — I’m only concerned about her — not myself.
And Beam knows that. He knows me too damn well.
I hear her scream. But then someone is behind me and hits me hard from behind.
I’m dazed, rattled to my core, and I reach out, for her.
But I can’t find her. Hear her.
It’s not black and it’s sure as hell not white.
My brother did this. This is where he likes to live.
In the gray.
24
Waverly
When I wake up, I’m tied to a chair, with a rope binding my wrists and my ankles. My mouth is gagged. My head pounds with fear. One second, I was throwing up in the stall of the train station’s public bathroom, and the next I am here, under fluorescent lights in what appears to be a warehouse in the middle of who knows where. It’s hot and my clothes stick to me, sweat runs down my face.
Alone. I feel so utterly and absolutely alone until I see him.
Walker.
But he isn’t tied up. He doesn’t have rope digging into his wrists. He isn’t struggling for freedom.
He is with Maker.
Tears fill my eyes and a sob rattles in my throat as my heart breaks because maybe he really played me. I want to scream but I can’t speak. It’s hard enough to breathe with this cloth gagging me.
Maybe it wasn’t about marrying me, about love, or even about a cabin in the middle of a forest forever. Maybe it was all a game leading to this moment, where I lead him to the cash he needs to get back in his brother’s good graces.
My whole life I
’ve been hurt. And I trusted him. Trust him.
No. He wouldn’t betray me.
But as I watch the two men talk, I remember that he has betrayed me before.
He lied about who he was.
And I gave him the benefit of the doubt and forgave him. Believed him when he looked in my eyes and told me I was his.
He chose me.
Didn’t he?
The two men begin shoving one another, their fists raised, with shouts I can’t quite decipher. They aren’t meeting on friendly terms though. This isn’t a family reunion, This is the end to something that should have been finished a year ago.
My heart breaks. How could I toss his love aside so easily? Assume the worst when I promised the best? Clearly, Walker is trying to end this feud.
Walker pins Maker against a wall and I see it all so clearly. Beam standing beside them — still alive. Back at the cabin, the bullet didn’t kill him. I see a thick bandage wrapped around his bicep and realize that somehow, he survived. He followed us down here and found us at the train station, knocked us out and then delivered us to his boss.
The man who was my boss too — Maker.
Walker’s brother.
My shoulders sag and although I am trembling still, I am no longer scared. Walker won’t let anyone hurt me.
He is my protector. He promised.
“Where is she?” Walker shouts. This time his words are clear enough for me to hear. I jerk the chair back and forth with all my weight until it crashes to the floor and the three men look over at me.
“The slut’s tied up. She’s a flight risk. She already ran once.” Maker talks about me as if I’m nothing. He’s wrong. I’m a fighter and it’s time he paid for when he didn't try to save my sister’s life. He could have called 911, Instead, he tossed her in the ocean. Let the waves wash her away.
Walker hears the chair topple to the ground; I pray with every fiber of my being that he runs to me.
He does. He hears the cry of my heart and I berate myself again for ever doubting him.
“What the hell did you do to her?” Walker shouts, running toward me.
“She’s fine,” Maker snorts. “And you have things you need to answer to.”
Walker runs to me. Maker and Beam are watching his every move, following him, but not stopping him.
“What I want to know,” Maker says, “is when this conspiracy against me began.?”
“There is no goddamn conspiracy, Maker. This isn’t about you.”
“You expect me to believe the whore who ran off with my drug money just happened to meet up with you in Alaska?”
It sounds insane, even I can see that.
But it’s the truth.
It did just happen. But it was no coincidence. It was destiny. Is destiny. Walker’s and mine.
And Maker is not going to steal that from me.
Walker unties me, pulls the gag from my mouth, and cradles my face in both his hands as he helps me to stand. “Oh, Wavy,” he says. “I swore I’d protect you and look at us.”
Beam and Maker both have guns pointed at us. I don’t blink because I don’t want to miss a thing. I suddenly realize how close we could be to the end. The end of everything. That dream of a life in the woods might be just that. A dream.
Because there is a gun pointed at my head. At Walker’s head too. And there is no way out that I can see.
“I love you,” I tell him, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“I know, Waverly. And I love you too.”
“Fuck this,” Maker growls. “I need my goddamn money or the fucking cartel is going to come up here and do to me what I need to do to you.”
“Stop, Maker. You can’t kill your flesh and blood,” Walker says, his eyes leaving mine. I reach for his hand, squeeze it tight. I can’t lose him.
“Watch me,” Maker says, cocking his gun.
“Let us finish this, once and for all. It’s why we came. To give you the money. You will never believe me,” Walker says. “You think this was a set-up but you’re wrong. I’ll give you the money and then I get Waverly. And you will never look for us again.”
“Just like that?” Maker asks in disbelief. “You’ll hand over the cash and walk away?”
“It’s what I already tried to do once,” Walker seethes. “It’s why I left after Dad died. I don’t want this life.”
Maker’s lip curls. “You always thought you were better than the family, didn’t you?”
Walker’s body tenses and I see how little Maker actually knows about his brother because family is everything to Walker. His mother taught him how to love, what sacrifice meant, what it means to be strong. And somehow Maker missed those lessons and instead, turned into a man that embodies everything I hate. Corruption. Abuse. Power.
He needs to pay.
“You can go get the stolen goods, with Beam. I’ll stay here with this little slut. You can have her back when you deliver what you took.”
“No, Walker didn’t take anything,” I say. “It was me, all me.”
Maker laughs. “You taught this little cunt to take the fall for you? I forgot how ruthless you always were.”
Walker glares his brother down. “You can’t have her. She comes with me. We will bring the money back.”
Maker shakes his head. “You think I’d give her to you before you pay?” He pushes the gun to the back of my head. “Not a chance.”
“I’m not leaving her.”
“Do it, Walker,” I say, crying so hard it’s impossible to see straight. The cool metal barrel is so close to ending everything, and I was just starting to understand what it means to live. “Go to the station, I told you where it is. Just go.”
“I love you, Waverly. I don’t want to —”
“I know, Walker,” I say, pulling him close before Maker forces us apart. “But I need you alive. We both need you alive.”
“Both?”
I nod, whispering, “I’m pregnant.”
I thought I might be a few days ago when I realized I was late. At the gas station, I bought a test, buried it under my beef jerky and donuts. I went to the bathroom while Walker was calling Jameson and took the test. Saw two pink lines.
I’m pregnant with Walker’s baby.
There is no way in hell I am letting Maker take this from me. He’s already taken more than enough.
25
Walker
The last thing I want to do is walk away from her, but after she tells me she's pregnant, I know it's what I need to do. Must do.
Not just for Waverly, but for our child.
It seems impossible to know a woman for five weeks and already have a family with her, but when it comes to Wavy, all things are possible. She has made the impossible possible.
She made me a lover. When all my life I've been busy fighting.
I look into her eyes as I kiss her, my brother is watching from a few feet away. Beam glaring at us too and I understand why. He has every reason to hate me. I thought I shot him dead, and now he’s is looking for vengeance. If my brother gives him the okay, he'll have no problem shooting me in the back. God knows I already did it to him.
My brother wants us apart. “Get away from her. You got to make a choice, Walker. What’s it gonna be?”
But he didn't hear the words that Wavy whispered in my ear, her lips against me. Her word holding promise and so much more. Holding our future.
She's pregnant.
Of course, she is. She felt so sick and we should've put two and two together. We haven't once used protection and why would we? I want to feel her tight pussy with my thick cock deep in her. I don't want anything between us. Not now, not ever, and certainly not with this news.
She is my one and only, so I asked her to be my wife and I will make her marry me if it's the last thing I fucking do. She wants it too; I know she does. She's just scared and now I have a better understanding of why. She didn't know how I would react to the fact that she's carrying my child. But it doesn't change anythi
ng. I press my hand on the base of her neck, kissing her again. “I’ll be back for you. “
Fear fills her eyes and I hate this. I do. But it must be done. For all our sakes.
It's not like I have a choice. “I’ll come back for you. It won't change anything. Wavy, we have to do what he says.”
My brother sneers, his eyes are as dark as his heart and I wonder how we came from the same mother. He was always like this though. His heart leaned toward the dark and I dreamed of the light, but it wasn't until I found Wavy that I had a chance at it.
“I love you,” I tell her and my brother scoffs.
“You love her?” He thinks it's hilarious. “You could have any model you wanted, any piece of ass you desired. And you pick this girl? You're a stupider son of a bitch than I gave you credit for.”
I step back from Waverly and push my brother in the chest with both my hands. “Fuck you, Maker. You don't know anything about me, and you never have.”
He laughs, pushing back at me. “I know enough to know you're going to go and get that money. Beam will go with you because I don't trust you alone, Walker. Don’t trust that you won’t just gonna to take the cash and run. I know you, Walker. You don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself. If you had it your way, you’d leave for good, not waste time coming back for this little whore.”
I growl. “She's not just a piece of ass.” My words are sharp and tight. “She's my wife.” It's not true of course, but she will be soon enough, and I want him to understand what she means to me.
“No,” Maker laughs. “I know what she is. She's a pretty girl with a tight cunt and that's it.”
I shove him again, harder this time. I want to choke him out so badly to make him pay, but Waverly is scared, begging me to stop, while Beam pulls back the lock on his gun. I know if I want to walk out of her with Waverly, alive, I need to listen. Maker takes my hesitation as a perfect moment to punch me in the jaw, and my blood splatters on the ground. Waverly shrieks and I spit out blood.
WALKER: The men of Whiskey Mountain Page 11