Chapter Fourteen
Walker
‘Well, well. Gabi is a woman of many talents,’ said Alex, placing his empty beer bottle on the nearest table. ‘The kids loved it.’
‘I quite enjoyed it too,’ said Walker truthfully.
He was impressed. Gabi had them in the palm of her hand for every page. They couldn’t help but be swept along with the story, when Gabi read it as she did, acting out the words and using a French accent that made Alex and Etienne nod in appreciation when she read the words of the circus master.
Alex laughed and then cut it off abruptly as Amber bumped into him. She was head down, looking for something on the floor, and didn’t realise who she was standing in front of until she raised her head.
‘Hi . . .’ Alex stammered.
‘Oh. Hi,’ said Amber, a flash of something passing over her face. Walker didn’t bother saying hello as nobody was interested in him anyway.
He saw a tiny smile on Alex’s mouth.
‘How have you been?’ Alex asked.
‘Oh, you know. Busy. Working mum. No time to waste on stuff that doesn’t count.’
Alex flinched but then reached out to touch her wrist. She looked at the contact; they both did. Walker took a half-step back. He felt like he was right in the middle of something.
‘Do you fancy a coffee sometime?’ Alex pressed. ‘We could talk.’
Amber raised her ocean-coloured eyes and Walker almost whistled out loud. She was going to say yes, he could see it. Her face was full of emotion. She wanted to meet him; he’d put money on that. And it wasn’t even him that was the reformed gambler.
‘There’s nothing to say, Alex . . .’ Her halo of curls shimmered with a minute shake of her head, but her voice was soft.
‘I know you still feel it, Amber,’ Alex said.
‘I do too.’ Walker edged another half-step away and tried to give them some space.
Jayden unfortunately had different ideas and when he spied them together, ran up and skidded to a halt between them.
He looked first at his mum’s face and then Alex’s, ready to read their lips.
Amber snapped her hand away and her face changed. She glanced at Jayden and then back at Alex. Her eyes were now shooting bullets and Walker was glad he was out of the firing line.
‘No time, as I said, for things that don’t mean anything.’ This time, her voice was sharp. ‘Come on, Jayden.’ Amber tugged the boy by the hand and headed for the exit. Walker saw Jayden turn and put a hand up to Alex in goodbye and watched Alex wave sadly back.
‘Wow, I thought you were getting somewhere there. But she’s still really angry at you,’ Walker said.
Alex shrugged. ‘Told you, man.’ He heaved his guitar onto his back. ‘Anyway, gotta go to practice. See you later at home.’
Gabi arrived back in the circle as Alex left, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright.
‘I just got asked for my autograph!’ She laughed.
The guests were leaving around them and the gang followed suit. Fox had to take the boys home to bed. Isabella kissed Gabi goodbye and left, wrapped up in Etienne. The shop emptied in five minutes, leaving it strewn with glasses and snack bowls and napkins.
‘Stay, Gabi,’ Wren said from the counter, opening a bottle of wine. ‘We owe you a drink to say thank you. That was a five-star performance.’ She poured her a glass of wine and brought it over.
‘And Walker – you stay too,’ Rosie added, passing him a beer and leaning against his chest briefly. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘I can help you clear up,’ he offered.
‘In a bit,’ Rosie said, pouring herself and Wren a large glass of water.
They all collapsed into the comfy chairs, discussing the evening and laughing about the kids’ questions at the end. Gabi had surprised them all, admitting to diving through windows, doing the high trapeze and getting shot out of a cannon.
Gabi was just telling them about a stunt involving an umbrella when Rosie’s phone rang. ‘It’s the babysitter,’ she said, answering with a frown on her face. She listened, agreed, then hung up the phone and stood in one movement.
‘Riley’s thrown up,’ she said to Wren. ‘And has a fever.’
Wren stood too, immediately, then looked around the bookshop at the debris that remained. Walker spoke without hesitation.
‘You two go, I’ll clear up.’
The two women glanced at each other and then Wren threw the bookshop keys through the air in a high arc. Walker caught them in one hand.
‘Walker to the rescue,’ Rosie said, already pulling on her coat.
‘We owe you,’ she said, as she hurried out the door.
‘I’ll drop the keys through your letter box,’ he said. ‘Text me later how she is.’ Wren turned off the main lights as she went, leaving Walker and Gabi in the lamplight in their reading corner.
The bell jangled as the door shut and then it was just the two of them. And about four hundred cats. One of them butted against his shins and he bent to stroke it.
‘Do you like cats?’ Gabi asked. She looked more relaxed now, snuggled into the corner of the chair.
‘Love them,’ he said. ‘I’ve got one of my own. Fatboy Jim. He’s the biggest ginger cat you’ve ever seen. More like a small dog.’
Gabi laughed and sipped her wine.
‘Not that you would have believed it when I first rescued him. Someone dumped him by the bins at the fire station. He was the most pathetic little thing I’d ever seen. Hardly more than a few weeks old.’
He gave the cat at his feet a final stroke and sat back in his chair, taking a pull of his beer.
‘Have you got pets?’ he asked.
Gabi shook her head, thinking of her penthouse, all glass and stainless steel and white walls. Hardly cat territory.
‘What about when you were a kid?’ he asked. She shook her head again and looked away.
‘We weren’t a very cosy kind of family,’ she said eventually. ‘Which is probably why tonight felt right out of my comfort zone. My parents never read to me.’
Walker felt his eyes widen.
‘Never?’ he asked.
‘Mamma only liked fashion magazines and there’s not much to read to your daughter in Vogue . . .’
‘And your dad?’
‘He was away on business a lot,’ Gabi said. She rolled her shoulders against the back of the sofa and groaned.
‘You okay?’ Walker asked.
‘It’s just these crutches. They’re such a pain.
I can’t carry anything with them. I already owe Amber three mugs that I’ve broken.
And they’re agony on your shoulders after a while.
’ She closed her eyes momentarily and rocked her head side to side to relieve her neck.
‘Maybe I need a good massage.’ The words hung in the air between them as he watched her, remembering the feel of her body in his arms when he caught her. The shape of her body at the gym.
‘I can do that,’ he said, suddenly wanting to, very much indeed.
She glanced at him and there was that challenge in her eyes again. That glint of mischief.
‘Are you any good?’ she asked, one eyebrow raised. He stood, smiling.
‘I’ll let you be the judge of that,’ he said.
Walker moved to the back of her chair, looking down on the crown of her head.
He rubbed his palms together briskly to warm them before taking gentle hold of her cardigan and sliding it from each shoulder, leaving her shoulders bare apart from the straps of her vest top.
He heard her take a deep breath of anticipation and he saw the rise of her breast.
For a few seconds he just rested his palms on her shoulders, feeling the heat of her skin.
She made the tiniest sound, almost inaudible, at the contact.
Moving slowly, he ran his thumbs up either side of her spine and then began a gentle, rolling massage movement over her shoulders which drew out an inadvertent, louder moan. Walker laughed low in his throat.
‘Your muscles are so tight,’ he said softly. ‘I can feel how much you need this.’
He felt Gabi relax under his fingers as he concentrated his energy, his focus, his feeling into his palms. He saw the tic of a pulse at the side of her neck, letting his fingers move over her collarbones, her throat.
He wasn’t aware of the bookshop around him.
He was just lost in the rhythm, the pressure, the rub and press of his fingers on her skin.
Her body seemed to spark under his hands, and it was lighting something within him.
‘Good?’ Walker asked, his mouth bent close to her ear. Her head dropped backwards towards him; her lips fell apart. God, he hoped it was good. Her body was like fire. He couldn’t help but imagine moving down from her shoulders, exploring her body with his hands, his mouth.
The jangle of the doorbell jolted them out of the spell. Rosie stood in the shop doorway, wide-eyed, open-mouthed.
‘Oops,’ Rosie said with a little giggle. ‘I came back to help sort the shop out. Maybe I should have stayed home.’
Gabi recovered quicker than he did. She coughed and straightened, shrugging herself back into her cardigan.
‘Not at all!’ Gabi said. ‘Walker was just relieving my tension.’
‘I bet he was.’ Rosie laughed. Walker found he’d lost the ability to speak. His fingers still tingled with the energy that had forged between them.
‘So that I can help with the clearing up!’ Gabi said.
‘I can’t let you do that!’ Rosie said. ‘You’re our star performer. And you can’t carry anything either. So, I’ll drop you home and then come back and help Walker.’
It was decided. Gabi threw him a look, playful, naughty even, and Walker watched her as she swung through the door. The feel of her under his fingers had started a fire burning.
It was Gabi herself that had told him to enjoy life. To have fun. So, maybe a little distraction with Gabi for the next couple of months was exactly what he needed.