Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Walker
“What the fuck?” I say, looking over Skylar’s shoulder for a clue of how she got up here, but all I see are footprints. A clicking sound steals my attention, and I look down. Skylar’s teeth are chattering, her cheeks are bright red, and her pants are soaked up to her crotch. “Did you walk up here?”
“S-s-so c-c-cold,” she stutters out, and I motion for her to enter. Sprocket circles her, sniffing her feet and generally getting in the way, so I point to the corner. He obeys and immediately lies down to watch.
“Jesus, what were you thinking walking up here in only jeans and a jacket?” The first aid training I’ve done for both my job as a guide and my volunteer work with SAR kicks in, and without thought, I start stripping her. “We have to get you out of all this wet stuff.”
Thankfully, the entrance to the house is a mud room with a bench, shelving, shoe storage, and hooks to hang coats and shit when you come inside from the elements, so I have everything I need to get her warmed up.
I pull off her coat and vest before sitting her on the bench. Her body shakes and she makes no effort to help or stop me. She’s either hypothermic or damn near close to it. When I crouch in front of her and pull off her leather boots and socks, she hisses in pain as I reveal her bright red feet. She’s lucky she doesn’t have fucking frostbite.
“These have to come off too.” I motion to her buttoned-up flannel and jeans.
She nods as she tucks her hands under her armpits and stands. Her fingers are no doubt numb and in no shape to undo a button, so I take the liberty before tugging them down her legs. It’s all very utilitarian until I see black lace panties and watch as inch after inch of her long legs are revealed. I can still remember what they feel like wrapped around—fuck, you’d think after spending fifteen years stewing in my hate for this woman, there wouldn’t be an attractive thing about her, but apparently, I’m a goddamn masochist.
I stand to undo the buttons of her flannel, and goddamn it, she’s wearing a matching bra. And there’s no padding, so I can see her perfect little pointed nipples. I used to love getting them to this point by sucking—I look away because it’s inappropriate to think those things when she’s freezing to death. Also, because my cock seems to have its own memories of her and wants to relive them. Needing some space, I grab her pants, socks, and beanie and walk into my small laundry room connecting the mud room to the garage. I toss them in the dryer and start it up.
“I keep some sweats down here for when I’m covered in snow and want to warm up. They’ll be too big, but at least they’re dry.” I pull out the pair of white sweatpants, a heather gray sweatshirt, and a pair of wool socks from a cubby and, with my dick under control now, walk back into the mud room. “Need help?”
She shakes her head in the negative, so I hand the clothes to her and call for Sprocket to follow me. If I can’t watch the show, neither can he.
I’d been heating up some soup for lunch when I heard the knock on my door, and figuring it’d be good to warm her up on the inside as well as the out, I open the plastic container back up and dump the rest into the pot.
I shouldn’t feed her. I especially shouldn’t feed her Miss Martha’s famous chicken noodle. Of all the Geezers, she and her husband, Luther, are my favorite. He taught me everything I know about living mostly off-grid. They’re my closest neighbors, but that’s not saying much since they’re five miles south. Still, they’re some of the few I consider family.
There was a time when Skylar was part of that family, but now, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Why the hell did she come here anyway? I thought I made it clear I didn’t want to talk. Maybe it was a dick move to just walk away, but she’s the last person I expected to see today, and the shock sent me fleeing. Well, I suppose I can guess why she’s here, but I don’t know why it has taken her so long.
The first five years I lived in Culver Springs, I anxiously waited for her to find me. Each day, I woke up thinking it would be the day she’d show up and demand a divorce. But she never did, and as time passed, I quit worrying.
“Thanks for the dry clothes.”
I turn toward the sound of her raspy voice and notice she’s looking better already. Her cheeks are still chapped from the wind and cold, but her nose isn’t bright red anymore, and there’s life back in her green eyes.
Folding my arms across my chest, I try to look unaffected by the sight of her short, curvy body in my clothes. As predicted, she’s drowning in them, but fuck, she looks cuter than hell. I’m suddenly hit with a feeling of déjà vu. There was a point in time when I knew every detail about this woman, from her menstrual cycle to how she liked her steak cooked. Now I don’t know a goddamn thing, and my head is having a hard time reconciling that.
“I warmed up some soup. Take a seat.” I point at the stool on the other side of the island with my wooden spoon.
“I will, but only because you asked so nicely,” she sasses.
“Makes no difference to me if you do or don’t.” I take two bowls from the cupboard and ladle heaping spoonfuls into them. It can barely be considered soup with how overloaded it is with noodles and vegetables, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
The stool scrapes along the wood floor, telling me she decided to listen and sit down. The storm outside the window grabs my attention, and I wonder how the hell I’m going to get her back to town. Even with my four-wheel drive, it’s not safe to drive during a whiteout.
“Here.” I push a bowl of steaming soup in front of her and a hunk of bread I broke off the loaf I made yesterday.
“Thanks.” She stares at her lunch while I remain standing on the other side of the island, shoveling the soup in my mouth while I watch her closely. She blows on a spoonful, her full lips pursing together in a way that reminds me of how they looked with her mouth full of my cock. It’s a memory I keep filed away, ready to be pulled out from time to time. “It’s good. Did you make it?”
Small talk, huh? That’s what she’s going with? I all but drop my bowl to the counter with a loud clank . “Why are you here, Skylar? I know it’s not to talk about fucking soup.”
I expect her fiery temper to flare, but instead, she flinches, and I almost feel bad. Almost.
“Don’t play dumb. You know why,” she says in a low voice I don’t recognize. With her head lowered, she climbs off the stool and walks back toward the mudroom. Seconds later, she’s back with folded papers in her hand. She flattens them out and pushes them in my direction. “I need you to sign these, please.”
Already knowing what they are, I don’t so much as glance down at them. “Why now?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s been fifteen years. Why the sudden interest now?”
She climbs back on the stool and pushes her bowl away, her appetite apparently gone, same as mine. “You were hard to track down, you know. I had to hire a private eye to find you.”
“I wasn’t hiding. I own this house under my real name, I have a driver’s license with this address, and I own my own company. Anyone worth a dime could’ve found me years ago. So I’m asking again, why now?” In my mind, there’s only one reason, and even though it’ll hurt like a bitch, I need her to say the words.
“I can’t be married to you anymore,” she all but whispers.
My nostrils flare, and I clench my jaw so hard, I worry about the stability of my molars. I knew this day would come, but that doesn’t mean it stings any less.
“I have chores to do,” I say and storm away, Sprocket following close behind.
“Walker, you can’t run from this.” She follows me to the mudroom, and I finally notice how worn the papers are in her hand. I’ve wondered if she has had them in her possession for the fifteen years we’ve been estranged.
I ignore her as I pull on my coveralls, push my feet into my boots, and put on a pair of gloves—actual winter gear, unlike that bullshit Skylar came in with.
“Please, just sign the papers, and we can go our separate ways,” she says.
“That’s hilarious.”
“What is?”
“That you think you’re going anywhere anytime soon,” I say, pulling open the front door to show her the additional foot of snow we’ve accumulated in the last hour and the whiteout conditions. I wince, even though I knew one last winter storm was coming. It’s why I needed to get groceries this morning. Looks like I—no, we—won’t have fresh produce for a couple days.
Not believing what she’s seeing, she walks over to the door. “How the hell am I gonna get off this hill?”
“You’re not.” I shut the door and pull my beanie on.
Her hand shoots up to her throat, her breaths coming fast. “For how long?”
I shrug. “I’ve been snowed in for damn near a month before.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why don’t you sit down? You look flushed or something.” I take her by the elbow and lead her back into the large, open space that makes up my kitchen and living room.
I’ve been a bit of a dick since I laid eyes on her a couple hours ago, but that’s only because I don’t know how to process my feelings. It’s no secret that my method of dealing with issues is to stuff that shit down so deep, I never see it again, and up until now, it has worked well. Getting pushed out of my home as a teen? Stuff it down. My new bride leaves me before the ink dries on the marriage license? Stuff, stuff, stuff.
Skylar showing up out of the blue didn’t give me time to unearth where I put all that hurt and sort through it. I thought the storm would give me a reprieve before I’d have to see her again, some time to figure out how I felt. I wasn’t expecting her determination to find me, but judging by her reaction to getting snowed in, there’s something more at play here. That’s not a normal reaction. Pissed? Sure. Disappointed? Definitely. Fear? Hell fucking no.
She sinks into my favorite leather chair, the one all men have that’s conformed to our asses, with the leather all cracked and a lighter color from how much we sit in it. She sits on that one, and I allow it because the woman looks devastated. Sprocket whines at her feet until she reaches down to give him a pat.
“You okay?”
“I think so. I hit my head in the crash, and I think maybe I have a concussion. Not sure.”
“Crash?”
“I drove most of the way here before I slid into a tree.”
Of course she didn’t walk all the way up here; she probably would’ve died from exposure. I don’t know why I didn’t think she must’ve had a car.
“Shit. Is that why the bridge of your nose is red and swollen?”
“Probably,” she says, but there’s something she’s not telling me. Something other than the crash. I can see it in her nervous gaze.
“I should be able to get you down the day after tomorrow. Do you have a job to get back to or something?” I sit down on the ottoman in front of her. Familiarity has me wanting to reach out and pull her into my arms the way I used to, but I don’t think that would be appreciated, and doesn’t that feel like a sock to the gut?
She squeezes her hands between her knees, not looking any less stressed. “No. I mean, yeah, I have a job, but I have the next three weeks off.”
“Then what is it?”
When she looks up and meets my gaze, her eyes are glassy, her nose red, and not from the cold. “I have a wedding to attend.”
Those six words have me biting my lip until it bleeds, needing the physical pain to distract me from the emotional. And even though I know the answer, I ask the question anyway. “Whose wedding?”
A fat tear rolls down her cheek. “Mine.”