Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
SLOANE
Ithought the only person whose pain I could feel as if it were my own was Callie’s.
But I was wrong. In that room, holding Walker to me as he fought back tears, I felt his grief squeeze around my heart and throat.
I wanted to sob for days. Instead, I trembled with the tension of holding it back in order to be strong for him.
All the things this big, capable, brave man had seen in his lifetime, and nothing could scar him more deeply than his sister’s murder. How could it? No wonder he’d been able to deal with everything else life threw at him. If he could survive that, he could survive anything.
Slowly, Walker’s shaking eased, and he lifted his head from my chest to meet my gaze. The tortured look in his eyes would haunt me forever. I would give anything to change the past for him, to take away this pain.
I brushed my fingers down his cheek, his beard rasping against my palm as he leaned into my touch.
“Thank you for telling me.”
His arms tightened around me.
“You should know that knowing this about you only makes me more amazed at everything you’ve become, despite losing Iona that way.
” Walker Ironside was a fierce protector of women, and maybe he always would have been if life had gone a different way, but there was no doubt in my mind that his sister’s death had forged that fierceness.
The reminder that his father had blamed him caused a rage to simmer low in my gut. “And your father was wrong.”
Walker caressed my hip as if to comfort me. “I spent almost a year under his roof being treated to cold silence until I couldn’t stand it anymore and I left to join the marines. I haven’t seen my parents since.”
In other words, his father had planted the seed that Walker had failed Iona.
By his cold treatment, every day for almost a year.
If the man was in front of me, I’d tear him a new one.
“He was wrong,” I repeated vehemently. “He took his grief out on you. But he’s the one who bears the brunt of his actions … because he lost two children.”
“I … I know rationally, it wasn’t my fault.” Walker looked exhausted as he leaned his forehead against mine. “But no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to shake the guilt.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll shake it for you.
” I kissed his cheek tenderly. Then his other, and his nose and his mouth.
A soft brush of my lips, as if every touch could extract the pain from him.
“You tried to save her. She died knowing that. You’re a hero, Walker.
” Tears slipped down my cheeks, my voice quivering around the words.
“You try like no man I’ve ever met. Everything you feel is in everything you do.
No one has ever made me feel so safe and essential as you do. I … I love you.”
His eyes blazed with emotion, his grip on me tightening until it almost bruised.
Walker raised a gentle hand to swipe away my tears with his thumb.
Then, as if something snapped, unleashed inside him, he slid his hand beneath my hair to clasp my nape.
And he crushed me to him in a devastating kiss.
As if to prove my point, he poured all his feelings into the kiss.
Until I was breathless and panting and completely consumed by him.
We didn’t hear the knock at the bedroom door, but at the sound of a throat clearing, Walker reluctantly released me. We turned to look at the intruder at the same time.
Jock.
He wore a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry to interrupt but, Walker, we need all hands on deck. The paps have arrived.”
Walker turned to me and, seeing my confusion, he explained, “A story about a club member broke in the news and he came here to hide. Paparazzi are at the gates.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll tell you everything.” He squeezed me. “Can I come over later?”
It was Monday, so Callie had tae kwon do after school, something I’m sure Walker remembered. “Of course. Will …” I shot a look at Jock and lowered my voice. “Will you be okay today?”
His expression softened. “Do you love me?”
A shy smile prodded my lips. “Yes.”
“Then I’m more than okay.”
Walker didn’t need to tell me about the scandal.
Everyone at the castle was talking about how North Hunter was splashed across the papers and being ripped apart on social media for his involvement in the death of a homeless man years ago.
There were lots of different takes on the wider story, but no truth from what I could see.
I would not participate in the gossip. North had helped me, and I wouldn’t repay him by assuming the worst. The world was doing enough of that.
Rumors were that he’d already been sacked from an upcoming blockbuster movie.
The security team was on high alert at the estate and had been deployed several times today to stop paparazzi who’d tried to break onto the property.
The buzz of it wasn’t enough to distract me from Walker.
I was still heartbroken for him, but so relieved he’d finally confessed the truth.
That he’d trusted me. That I didn’t have to spend the next lonely, miserable months trying to get over him.
And I was thankful I hadn’t gotten up the nerve yesterday to tell Callie we’d broken up.
Now I didn’t need to.
Walker hadn’t told me he loved me back, but I felt it in his kiss.
And I could wait for him to say the words.
I knew now that those kinds of emotions couldn’t be easy for him.
He’d avoided a relationship so that he never had to feel the failure he’d felt when he lost Iona.
When he lost his parents. I could be patient with him while he came to grips with working through his fears.
Thinking the paps would totally preoccupy him, it was a surprise when Walker met me after my shift.
“Don’t they need you?” I asked.
He shook his head, his palm on my back as he guided me toward our cars. He’d parked next to me this morning. “They’re handling it, and I wanted to escort you off the estate. Those arseholes are clambering at every car that comes out.”
“What about my car?” I asked as he guided me to his SUV.
“I’ll take you to work tomorrow, and you can collect it then if this circus has calmed down. That okay for you?”
“Yeah.” I hopped into his Range Rover.
As soon as Walker started driving, he leaned over and squeezed my knee. “All good?”
I covered his hand with mine. “We’re all good.”
His expression was suddenly so intense, it made my heart speed up. “You mine again?”
I swear my pulse fluttered. “I’m yours again. Are you mine again?”
Walker squeezed my knee once more. “Never stopped being yours.”
Tears stung my nose, and he tensed at the sight. “Happy tears,” I promised him.
He relaxed for about thirty seconds and then was on alert as we approached the gates. Not only had the paparazzi camped out at the main gate, it seemed they’d cornered the staff entrance too.
“Jesus,” I muttered, seeing the crowd being pushed back by armed security as the gates opened to let us out.
They shoved past the team, lights flashing in my eyes as they snapped photos just in case. It stopped when they realized we weren’t anybody of note, but I gaped in the wing mirror as I saw Jamie tackle paparazzi who’d run through the gate before it closed.
“Holy crap.”
“Aye. They’re like rabid animals,” Walker muttered in disgust.
Their vehicles also lined the road along the woodlands as we passed. “How many are here?”
“About fifty.”
“Poor North.”
“You don’t believe the papers, then?”
“I don’t know what’s true regarding his past,” I replied. “But I know he helped me … and I don’t get bad vibes from the guy, you know.”
“Agreed. Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to him.”
This time I slid my hand down his thigh. “I know.”
We shared a quick, heated look before his eyes returned to the road.
“I missed you,” I confessed again. “It’s been really hard pretending to Callie like everything is okay.”
His voice was gruff. “Did you tell her we …?”
“No.”
“Good.” He relaxed a bit. “That’s good. Now she doesn’t need to know. And I’m in this, Sloane. You don’t have to worry about our relationship hurting Callie.”
The need to be realistic after the pain of the past few weeks forced me to say, “No matter what we feel for each other, neither of us can foresee the future or what might happen between us.”
Walker was silent for what seemed like too long before his fingers tightened around the wheel. “I can’t imagine wanting to ever let you go.”
My heart did that fluttering thing again.
“But you’re right. We can’t promise each other the future. No one can promise another person that. But I can promise you this”—he shot me a searing look—“whatever happens between you and me, I will always be there for you both. I will always be there for Callie.”
Emotion thickened my throat as I stared at him in wonder. How did I get so lucky to meet Walker Ironside? “I’m going to work my ass off to make sure I get to keep you forever, Walker.”
His lip curled slightly at the corner. “Woman, you don’t need to work your ass off. I have no intention of going anywhere.”
Heat bloomed sweet and hot between my thighs. “I know we should do the sensible thing and talk about our future, what we want, if we’re compatible going forward … but when we get back to my place, I’m going to need you inside me as soon as we cross the threshold.”
Those flutters moved to my belly as Walker grinned, big and slow and sexy. “What things do we need to talk about that we can’t sort out right now?”
“Marriage, babies.” I threw them out there, trying not to be worried I’d scare him.
He shrugged. “I never thought I’d get married or have children …” Walker glanced at me. “Until you.”
My breath caught. “So, you’d want those things?”
“Aye.” His voice was gruff. “I’d want those things with you.”
“Good.” The word sounded squeaky, even to my ears. I cleared my throat. “That’s good.”
He grinned again, and I wanted to jump him right there. “Then I guess we know where we stand.”