by Jill Shalvis
“Why? What’s stopping you?”
“The fact that if I ever get lucky enough for a second chance with you, I’m not going to stop until you’re panting my name.”
“Again . . . what’s stopping you?”
He dragged her into his lap, sank his fingers into her hair, and had her halfway to indeed panting his name when someone pounded on the door behind them. “That,” he muttered. “That’s what’s stopping me.”
“Breakfast!” Dillon yelled through the door. “Caitlin made pumpkin pancakes and says that the last one of you downstairs has to do all the dishes. In perpetuity.”
Maze scrambled to her feet, making Walker laugh. “Nice to see you’ve got your priorities straight,” he said. “Food over nookie.”
“Hey, you’ve tasted her pancakes. It’s no contest.”
He caught her and pulled her to him, sliding his fingers into her still-wet hair. “I’m going to make you take that back later. When we’re alone.”
“We’re never alone.”
“Trust me. I’ll make it happen. Later,” he said again, meeting her gaze with his own heated one.
Her breath caught. “Later,” she promised.
Chapter 15
Caitlin’s to-do list:
—Make it through the week without becoming an alcoholic.
Caitlin was late. Not to a meeting, because please. She’d never been late to anything in her whole life. Nope, this was a different kind of late altogether. Like nine months of getting a big belly late. It had her both excited and terrified as she went through the motions at the coed wedding shower luncheon with Dillon’s coworkers. The whole thing was a stuffy, overdone waste of time and her face still hurt from fake smiling. She’d been asked at least ten times by ten different people what she did for a living, and when she said she managed a deli and prepped all the food, inevitably the follow-up question was what were her career goals.
Implying, of course, that she was surely working on bigger and better things.
And she was, in her own way. She loved to cook and would continue to do that in whatever capacity worked for her, and she wanted to build a family. Every time the question came up, her first instinct was to glance at Dillon, thinking he’d maybe deflect for her. She hoped he’d say, “Whatever she wants to do.” But in each instance, Dillon had turned to her as expectantly as his friends.
So she started taking a shot every time she was asked, and then she added a new game: making up answers. Her favorite had made Dillon flush with anger, but she still thought “teaching exotic dancing” was pretty damn funny. And okay, maybe she went overboard because Sara called her no fewer than three times to ask questions that she’d have no need to ask if she’d only read the notes Caitlin had left.
In any case, by the time they got back to the cabin, she was pretty sure she and Dillon were no longer speaking, but he surprised her when they all gathered in the kitchen for snacks because the food at the shower had sucked.
With both Roly and Poly following him like he was the Pied Piper, he took out the plate of burgers she’d had in the fridge for dinner. “I’ll light the grill.”
Walker looked at Caitlin in surprise. “You’re going to trust him to cook those?”
Dillon frowned. “Excuse me?”
“No offense,” Walker said with a laugh, “but she never trusts anyone to cook anything.”
Caitlin narrowed her eyes at Walker. “If you think you know everything, why don’t you go help him?”
Walker pointed at her, but he started out the door, because at least one of her people knew better than to argue with the bride.
“Wait,” she said. “If you’re ruler of the universe today, shouldn’t Maze have to do it for you?”
Walker’s eyebrows went up. “You want Maze to barbecue your burgers?”
“You’re right. What was I thinking?”
“Hey, standing right here,” Maze said, tossing up her hands.
Dillon was staring at them like they’d all lost their minds. “What’s wrong with Maze’s cooking? Is she going to burn another house down or something?”
Everyone sucked in a shocked breath.
“Babe, I told you that in confidence,” Cat finally said, horrified. “And it wasn’t her fault.” She turned to Maze, her heart stopping at the look on her face. “Honey—”
Maze shook her head and walked out of the room.
“What?” Dillon said when everyone glared at him.
“You know those double half lattes you love so much?” Walker asked him, voice very quiet—and as any of them knew, while most men got loud when they were furious, Walker just got quietly lethal.
Dillon nodded. “Yeah.”
“Get in your car and go to town to get yourself one before I forget that I’m an off-duty federal agent and put my fist through your face.”
Dillon turned to Caitlin in disbelief. “These are the people you want at our wedding? In our wedding? Seriously?” He tossed up his hands. “I’m going to catch up on some paperwork in the office. Let me know when the food’s ready.”
Caitlin swallowed her stress and turned to the doorway—not the one Dillon had gone out of, but the one Maze had. “I’m going after Maze to apologize.”
“You’re not the one who should apologize,” Walker said.
But she was. She’d brought them all here. She’d expected Dillon to play nice, to not act like he was . . . indifferent to those she considered family. It steamed her that she’d done her best with his family and friends all year and he couldn’t afford her the same courtesy for a week.
“I’ll go,” Walker said.
“Wait.” Cat was torn. “Maybe Jace should go?”
“No.” Jace met Walker’s gaze. “I think it should be someone who was there that night. Someone who loves her.”
Caitlin’s eyes widened as they met Walker’s. “Wait. What?”
Walker shook his head with a not now look and went out the door.
Caitlin turned to Heather.
“I didn’t like that Dillon said that to her,” Heather said softly. “It was mean.”
“I know.” Caitlin’s stomach was in knots over it. “And the Walker and Maze thing?”
“If it happens, I think it’d be amazing for both of them.”
Caitlin nodded slowly. Maze and Walker were both far overdue for having true love in their lives, and together they’d complement each other in ways that would be truly amazing to watch. But if things went south . . . what would happen? Would it break up the family she’d just put back together, for good this time?
And how was it that she felt far more worried about that than going after Dillon?
WALKER SEARCHED THE immediate surroundings—no Maze. Not a surprise. She was good at hiding in plain sight. She’d had to be. Standing at the water’s edge, he let out a breath. In both his professional and personal life, he tried very hard not to do anything stupid. He also tried to learn from his mistakes, of which he’d made many. It was important to him, given how he’d grown up, to be a good guy. But at his core, he was also an opportunist. He had a chance here to right some wrongs, and he was going to take it.
He did love Maze. He always had. But he held no illusions that she could love him back. And yet the way she’d looked at him earlier, how she’d allowed her body to melt into his . . . He drew a deep breath. At the very least, she wanted him, and he could work with that.
All he had to do was find her and try to break through her thick skull that what had happened to Michael wasn’t her fault, no matter what Dillon had insinuated. That’s how he’d reach her, he thought, with a distraction. They could plan Dillon’s slow, painful death together.
And then maybe everything else would for once fall into place.
He found her at the small cove a mile from the house, sitting on the tire swing, staring at the water as she kept herself in motion.
When he got within twenty-five yards, she stiffened, then put her feet down, stopping the swing.
Walker circled around to face her. “Hey.”
Nothing. Not that he’d expected her to speak. For a woman who liked to talk, she clammed up when she felt things too deeply. Her eyes were thankfully dry, but . . . damn, filled with sadness and regret and guilt.
“Remember when you used to climb trees when you got mad?” he asked.
“Yes, because no one other than you would come after me.”
A surprisingly revealing statement. Taking heart in that, he moved closer. “I’m glad you didn’t climb one today. Don’t think I have it in me right now.”
She sighed. “What are you doing here?”
“You don’t own this beach.”
She smiled before she could stop herself, he could tell. Because that’s what he’d say to her back then: “You don’t own this tree . . .”
He moved behind her and gave her a push. She tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and let the wind roll over her as she soared. He gave her another, bigger push, and they stayed just like that for a while, her seeming to enjoy the peace and quiet, him pushing her to keep her in motion, just letting her have a moment without being alone.
“He’s right, you know,” she finally said. “I was the one who turned on the space heater that night.”
“Because it was freezing. If you hadn’t, I would have. Or Caitlin. Or any of us.”
“Are you just telling me that to make me feel better?”
“I don’t work that way.”
She studied him for a long beat and then nodded. “Thanks.” She got off the swing and turned to walk back.
“Maze.”
She paused and faced him.
“Do you trust me?”
She drew a deep breath. “I don’t not trust you, at least with my physical well-being.”
“And your emotional well-being?”
She bit her lower lip. “I’m pretty sure you’ve never been anything but brutally honest with me. So yeah.” She nodded with a very small smile. “I guess I trust that too.”
“And your heart?”
She snorted. “Now you might be pushing it.”
“Fair enough.” He held out his hand. “I think what you need is to get out of here, and I know I could use a drive. Come with?”
“You need a drive? Are you okay?”
He nearly smiled. Most people saw him as unapproachable, much less vulnerable. Too tough to need protecting, too cynical to garner caring. That Maze still gave a shit about him warmed something in his chest that he hadn’t realized was even there anymore. “I’ll be okay after a drive with you.”
“Same.” She gave him a small, but very real, smile. “Truth is, I’d probably go anywhere with you.”
He caught her and dragged her closer, kissing her, letting it linger and heat them both, even though he’d been heated since . . . hell, since he’d first seen her again.
“Am I hurting you?” she gasped, pulling her hands back from where she’d dug her fingers into the meat of his shoulders to hold on to him.
“Pain is not what I’m feeling right now.”
She laughed as she wriggled closer. “No kidding.”
Chapter 16
Maze’s maid of honor to-do list:
—Pick up Dillon’s wedding band and make final payment without letting Dillon know, since Caitlin was supposed to have done it weeks ago.
Maze had no idea what she thought she was doing, but she knew one thing for sure: She wanted this. She wanted Walker. They walked back to the house to get the keys to his rental car, trying to be stealth. But Roly and Poly sounded the alarm, barking so hard their back legs came off the ground, letting everyone within five hundred miles know that clearly there was an incoming zombie apocalypse and they were all going to die.
“Shh,” Maze whispered, trying to shut them up to no avail.
Finally Walker tucked a dog beneath each arm, lowering his head to talk to them in a quiet, low tone. The tactic worked. The dogs had to shut the hell up to listen to him, and listen they did, vibrating with intensity as they stared fondly and lovingly up into his face.
Then he gave them each a kiss on their smashed-in foreheads and set them in their beds, where they turned in circles and plopped down to go back to sleep.
“What did you say to them?” Maze asked, marveling.
“Told them they were my wingmen, and as such, they’d be entitled to half my breakfast in the morning if they’d just shut the hell up. They understand the language of food.”
When they took off out of the driveway, Maze expected Walker to head west and maybe hit the highway to the beach. Instead, he turned east, which took them on a narrow road around the lake. Soon the road ended, and he turned onto a dirt fire road she didn’t even know existed. They went straight up a hill.
And up.
The road was narrow and twisty, but Walker was calm and relaxed, which in turn kept her calm and relaxed. Well, sort of. Because watching in the ambient light as he maneuvered the car, the muscles in his shoulders and arms working, his hands corded with easy strength on the wheel, was definitely revving her up.
“This week must seem pretty tame to you,” she said, “just hanging out and not doing much.”
“The break’s been good. Work’s been . . .”
“Crazy?”
“More like unfulfilling.”
She turned in her seat to look at him. “I thought you loved your job.”
“It’s been years since I told you that. Things change.”
“What things?”
“Things,” he said, shifting into a low gear as he took the next curve.
“So clearly, Cat didn’t give you the same ‘be open’ speech she gave me,” she said dryly.
He glanced over at her. “Cat said you need to be more open to me?”
“No.” She laughed. “But good thing your ego is in check. She said to be more open in general.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything, and she had to laugh again.
“That’s it?” she asked. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You do realize that you’re no more open than I am, right? I mean, you know everything about me: how I grew up, where, why . . . everything. And meanwhile, I know almost nothing about your past. And then there’s how you’ve kept tabs on me. I can’t do the same because you’re impossible to follow. You’ve got a low social media profile, and it’s not like I could just ask Caitlin or Heather. So . . . talk.”
He slid her an amused look. “Isn’t that usually my line?”
She shrugged. “I stole it.”
He kept driving, and she thought maybe he was going to ignore her, but then he spoke. Not about his early years, which was what she’d been hoping for, but about later.
“The military was good for me,” he said. “Gave me a sense of purpose and some badly needed discipline.”
She snorted her agreement, which won her a smile.
“Yeah, yeah, smart-ass,” he said. “I know you know. And after, when I went into the FBI, that was good for me in a different way. I thought I’d be helping people and fighting the occasional asshole, but . . .” He shook his head. “It’s more about red tape and political careers and winning, and I don’t think like that. The sense of purpose is gone for me. I need something else.”
“I can understand that,” she said quietly. “What else do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
The frustration in his voice was clear, and she realized he wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he led everyone to think. When she looked at him, really looked at him, she could see the lines of his body seemed tight and tense, and she frowned. Again, how had she let him fool her? “Are you happy here?”
“In Wildstone, with the others? Or here in this car, with you?”
Caught off guard, she stared at him.
“Yes.” He glanced at her, then turned back to the road. “To both.”
The answer should’ve scared her but actually had the opposite effect. Something deep
inside her loosened, allowing her to sit back and more fully enjoy the ride now, because she wasn’t in this—whatever this was—alone.
Surrounded by the dark night and the utter lack of city lights, the interior of the car seemed to cocoon them, giving off a sense of intimacy she hadn’t felt in a long time. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of leather seats and sexy male. She listened to the sounds around her. Music drifting from the radio, low but with a beat that seemed to match the pulse of her heart. Wind rushing past the windows. Tires gripping the dirt road. The engine humming beneath her. Her own breathing. And Walker’s.
It was hypnotizing, leaving her body vibrating like Roly’s and Poly’s with a sense of anticipation she didn’t want to put a name to yet.
The night was lit by a half-moon and some clouds that caught the moon’s glow and amplified it. She could see the black outlines of trees against a sky littered with myriad stars. She could see the hills, mostly beneath them now. And then the black span of the lake far below. “It’s all so beautiful,” she said softly. “I always forget how much I love it here.”
“You haven’t been back.”
“No.” She heard the wistfulness in her voice, so she knew he heard it too, especially when he took another look at her.
“It’s been a good week,” he said. “Maybe things will change. Maybe you’ll come back more now.”
“Maybe.” Definitely. “You?” she asked, holding her breath.
He nodded. “You and I haven’t been okay since Vegas. But the things that happened there”—he glanced over at her—“I’m still feeling.”
Her body quivered. “You mean the ‘animal magnetism thing’?”
“You sure that’s all it is?”
“Yes.” No . . .
He laughed softly and made a turn where she couldn’t even see a road. He turned again, and then once more, the soft vibration of the engine continuing to spread warmth through her. She let her gaze drift over his body and up to his face and realized he was watching her as well.
A few minutes later, he steered off the road and into what looked like a clearing of wild grass with a few oak trees around them, creating a little haven. He glanced over with so much heat in his eyes it stole her breath. Then he exited the vehicle, quietly shutting the door behind him. Walking to the front of the car, he rested his perfect ass on the hood.