Chapter 7 Walker Boone
walker boone
BOONE
She did not answer my question about the double Joining Ceremony invite. I could not blame her.
It was a stupid way to introduce myself. But I could barely keep my thoughts straight in her presence.
Bell Winters—the human woman I’d come to check on—smelled like sugar. And baking. Like sugar cookies.
At the first sight of her, my bear had gone still. Attentive. Something clicking into place that I’d never felt before.
The only reason—and I do mean the sole reason in the goddamn universe—that I took my eyes off her was because I had to go kill that scumbag ex-husband of hers.
But that to-do item was all slaughtered, and I was back to staring at her without knowing what to say.
Mine… Mine… MINE!
My bear roared inside of me, even as she lay there handcuffed to the bed, staring back at me through one swollen eye above her duct-taped mouth.
She was wearing a short-sleeved blue dress with a frilly collar—like something out of one of those old movies where all the women were housewives who cleaned until their husbands got home.
But mottled patches of purple marred the dark skin on her bare arms and legs.
Where he’d grabbed her, hit her, maybe even kicked—
A fresh wave of rage coursed through me, and I had to close my eyes when my bear threatened to surface again.
I killed him too quick.
I'd accumulated a few regrets by that point in life. But as I stared at the woman on the bed, waiting for her answer to my stupid question, that one shot up to the top of the heap.
Letting out my polar bear to shred him to pieces, then shifting back to human to unload every bullet in that gun he'd dared to point at me into his lifeless corpse hadn't been enough.
Should've made it slower. Should've made sure he understood exactly why he was dying and who was killing him on Bell's behalf. Should've let him feel every second of what he'd put her through.
Imagine if I'd actually had patience.
If I'd strung him up. Made him cough blood. Made him beg for her forgiveness. Then cut open his belly anyway for thinking that would be enough.
I’d been warned, and written up, and eventually forced into retirement over my quick temper.
But this was the first time I actually agreed.
He deserved worse—so much worse—for what he’d done to the mother of Koda’s and Mak’s mates. I kicked myself for ending it too fast.
But this wasn’t about me.
I started forward toward the bed.
Only to stop short when she made a scared sound, scooting back as best she could despite the metal holding her to the railing. The white of her open eye flashed as she tracked me.
That little bit of chain would have been nothing for a bear to undo, but a wisp of a sugar cookie like Bell… She rattled the handcuffs desperately, trying to get away.
Fuck, she’s scared of me.
I realized, then, how I must look to her. Naked, because I’d shredded my clothes in the shift, and covered in that asshole’s blood.
“Hey, hey, name’s Boone. Walker Boone. But nobody calls me Walker anymore.
And, look, I’m not trying to hurt you, Bell.
” I held out both hands, letting her see I had nothing in them.
That I wasn’t a threat. I repeated what I’d told the dead piece of shit at the door.
“Your daughter’s mates sent me. Noelle and Holly. ”
Back in March, I’d chucked that Joining Ceremony invite straight into the electronic trash. Now I was grateful I’d at least clocked their names because Bell’s expression relaxed. A little.
The abject fear ratcheted down a few notches to wariness.
That would have to do.
Keeping my hands up, I approached her the same way I did skittish horses I needed to save from wildfires.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I murmured. “Not going hurt you. Just trying to help. Just trying to help.”
She stared at me, the one unswollen eye impossibly wide and unblinking. But she kept still as I reached for the duct tape covering her mouth.
I could tell it took a lot for her to do that.
“You’re being so brave.” I began peeling away the duct tape. “Thank you. Thank you for letting me help you.”
I uncovered her mouth as gently as I could, but I knew it had to hurt—especially when I saw her lips. Dry, swollen, and split in a couple of places.
The bear threatened to rise again. But I pushed it down. Kept my face professional.
“I got something for that right here.” I slowly reached toward a small jar of lip balm, sitting on the nightstand. “Can I put this on you?”
I’d uncovered her mouth, but still, she said nothing.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” I told her. “You shake your head if I’m doing anything you don’t want me to, though, and I’ll stop.”
No response. But she didn’t shake her head, so I took that as my go-ahead. I needed this, maybe more than Bell, even. Taking care of her was the only thing keeping my bear down.
She flinched a bit at my first light touch, and I stopped. But then she did that making herself be still thing and let me apply as much ointment as I wanted to her lips.
“We need to get you a compress for your face,” I told her when I was done. “Can probably make one out of whatever you’ve got in the freezer, but first, let’s get you out of these cuffs.”
I checked the drawer in the night table, but it was empty. “Know where the keys to these are?”
She paused. Then tilted her head forward slightly. Toward the door with the eviscerated body on the other side.
It wasn’t words, but I understood what she was telling me. The fucker I’d killed kept the keys on him so there was no chance of her getting free without his say so.
I knew in that moment that I could not be trusted to go fetch the keys. If I so much as looked at the motherfucker, my polar bear would take back over.
“Don’t be alarmed,” I told her instead. “I’m real strong for reasons I’ll tell you about later, so I’m just going to snatch you out of these. Okay?”
I waited, hoped for an answer.
She just stared at me.
Even after I gripped her wrist tight, so there’d be no reverberation when I pulled the cuff chain in two, like I was tearing through paper.
Her wrist was so small in my hand. Delicate. The bear in me rumbled again. She was mine, mine to protect. I’d never forgive myself for not getting here sooner.
Her thin arm flopped down like a doll made of cloth. She still didn’t say anything. Just watched as I freed her other arm.
And I didn’t want to push her. Knew this had to be some kind of trauma response. But I had to ask, “You got any questions for me?”
BELL
So many, but I couldn't open my mouth. My throat had closed up, and my hands were shaking—they wouldn't stop. I'd never been so scared in my life. I couldn't tell if it was fear of him or fear of actually feeling…. something… for the first time in months.
The man who’d come to save me—on behalf of my daughters—looked way more dangerous than Dennis, though I suspected they were around the same age.
Ice-blue eyes glimmered, bright and sharp, inside his weathered face.
He was huge, but not oafish. He’d approached me with careful intention, and his touch on my lips had been surprisingly light.
Even though he was shockingly strong. And naked, for some reason.
Also, covered in Dennis’s blood.
But that wasn’t why I was scared.
When I looked at him through my one eye, something new tingled in my chest. I think… I think maybe I liked it… looking at him. I couldn’t say anything, but I also couldn’t look away from him as he waited for my answer.
Patiently. Though something told me he wasn’t a patient man.
Eventually, he ended the silence. “Okay, if you don’t have any questions, how about answering mine? Anything broken?”
Everything was broken. But I was pretty sure he was talking about bones.
I shook my head. That was all I could do. My heart was beating so hard inside my ears. I wondered if he could hear it, too.
“Alright then, I’m going to take you to the bathroom. Get you cleaned up.”
The bed let out a huge, relieved creak when he rose back to his feet. I braced my sore muscles to get out of bed.
But, to my surprise, he lifted me into his arms, cradling me against his chest, which was covered in silver hair.
“I’m going to need to keep you with me. Sorry, sugar.”
I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but I was too tired to not lay my head down on his shoulder as he carried me to the door. I let my fingers curl into his chest, nesting in the silver hairs there. They were softer than I expected. Like him.
My heart was hammering so hard, I thought it might burst from my chest. I hadn’t felt my own heartbeat in months—I’d been dead inside. Yet now it was practically screaming at me. But in some foreign language I couldn’t understand.
Close your eyes, sugar," he said softly as we neared the open door. "I don't want you to see this."
He didn't say what "this" was, but I easily guessed. Dennis's body.
I obediently closed my eyes, and by the time I opened them again, he was setting me on the toilet.
"Give me a sec," he said before reaching for the yellow towel hanging on the door hook and wrapping it around his waist.
I should have been thinking about what he'd just carried me past. About the fact that Dennis was dead in my living room. But my brain refused to go there, latching instead onto his broad chest in front of me, carved with muscle. The defined abs disappearing into the towel.
How often did this guy weight train? Was he some kind of senior Mr. Olympia?
"Glad you have a tub," he said, interrupting the thoughts I had no business having. "Was worried you wouldn't. Apartments nowadays are cardboard boxes. Don't even offer the basics."
He was right about that.
I could have gotten a slightly larger shower-only apartment in a nicer neighborhood for the same amount of rent I paid here, but the location within walking distance of my new job at the Black Heritage Museum and the bathtub were what had sold me on it.
He hunkered in front of the cabinet in a deep squat that I figured would have been hard on his knees. But he appeared to have no problem rooting through my cabinet until he found the bubble bath and the Epsom salts I kept there.
Then he rose again without having to hold on to anything and pulled the tab on the spout.
I watched the bathtub fill up with water and bubbles as he poured what had to be half the bag of salt into the tub.
“We can order you some more,” he said, as if hearing my thoughts about that amount of salt being wasteful. “I’ll put it on the list.”
What list? I wished I was capable of doing more than staring at him.
He turned to me with another soft look that didn’t match his outside. “I’m going to help you out of these clothes. But I promise, I’m not going to touch you for any other reason. Not until you’re ready. Can you raise your arms for me?”
Not until I’m ready for what? I had no idea what he meant by that.
But I raised my arms.
He got me out of my clothes with quick, efficient movements. Like a nurse.
I braced myself for judgement when he saw my not-nearly-as-toned body, but his eyes didn’t linger.
He just hefted me into the bath, and the next thing I knew, I was hidden beneath the bubbles. I reached up, then winced.
Somehow, he knew what I’d been trying to do. “You want me to put up your hair so it doesn’t get wet?”
It sounded like a question, but his big hands were in my hair before I could nod, taking down the tight ponytail and swirling my dreadlocks around the nylon band to put them up in a messy and much looser knot on top of my head.
“Went through a man bun stage back in the early 2000s, when my hair was still blond,” he admitted in a gruff confessional tone. “Glad I remember how to do this.”
A weird urge to laugh almost made it all the way up my throat before it died, joining all my other emotions in the graveyard inside my chest.
“I’m going to go get you a compress for your face, but if you need anything before I get back, just holler—or bang on the wall. I got great hearing. I’ll come right back, whichever one.”
I just looked at him.
Some rational part of my brain was screaming at me in the distance. This wasn’t normal. Who was this guy? Why was he helping me? Being so nice?
He killed… he killed Dennis. Violently. Why wasn’t I screaming bloody murder? Demanding he get away from me, and calling the police, and… and…
All the possibilities of what I could but wasn’t doing made my mind spin out.
In the end, I couldn’t scream, couldn’t demand he get away from me, couldn’t ask questions… couldn’t even talk.
“Alright, then. I’m going to have to leave this open, so I can see you. Sorry.”
Again, I wasn’t sure why he was apologizing. Or why I couldn’t respond.
Only when he left the room, carefully not closing the door behind him, did my heart finally stop banging against the wall of my chest.
In a sudden whoosh, all the adrenaline left my body. I sank down into the warm water. It felt so good on my sore muscles.
Everything hurt. Especially my brain, where I was trying so hard to do a patch job on my reasoning center.
Walker… Boone… That was the name of the man who killed Dennis.
He was beautiful, in a weird way. Like the Farnese Hercules statue come to life. The art voice I hadn’t heard from in years whispered across my mind. Maybe you should sketch him.
But that was the shock and adrenaline-loss talking. No…
I needed to wash up before he got back. Get my mental together, so I could tell him I was fine now and needed him to leave.
But first… I found myself resting my head against the back of the tub. Closing my eyes… just for a little bit. Then I’d tell the violent male who’d saved me thank you. And send him away.