Chapter 41
Forty-One
WALKER
“Thank you for hiding this here,” Sloane said, following at my back as I carried the large box containing Callie’s pink electric scooter into my bungalow.
I wanted to participate in the Christmas gift buying this year, so Sloane had reluctantly agreed to let me go halves with her on the item that was number one on Callie’s wish list.
“No problem.” I put it in my spare bedroom and turned to find Sloane leaning on the door frame, her expression thoughtful.
I knew why when she said, “Are you ready for today?”
Truthfully, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been nervous about something. Panicked, afraid, aye. But nervous? It wasn’t in my vocabulary. Until today. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever be ready for it. But I’m going.”
A few days after Sloane and I got back together, I gathered the courage to call my mum.
She was brittle on the phone and insisted we meet to talk.
At her suggestion that she come to me, I allowed it.
It was not in my DNA to allow a woman to go out of her way for me, but I think I needed this from her.
And Sloane had taught me that maybe it was okay to take what I needed.
My mum had arrived in Ardnoch last night and was staying at the Gloaming. I was meeting her there soon.
Sloane pushed off the doorway and I met her halfway, wrapping my arms around her waist as she laid her hands on my chest. “If you want to be alone after, I get it. But you know I’m here, right?”
“I know. I’ll come to you after,” I promised.
“I’ll take a ride with you into the village, if that’s all right. I told Monroe I’d meet her at Flora’s for a coffee.”
“Sure.” I pressed a kiss to her lips and smoothed my hand down to pat her arse. “Just give me a few minutes to shower and change.” I’d been on a run when Sloane called, asking if we could drop the scooter off at mine.
She grinned, not releasing me. “Can I watch that?”
Amused, I gave her a slight shake of my head. “Not unless you want me to fuck you.”
“Of course I do.” Sloane pouted playfully. “But we don’t have time. Darn it.” She pushed me away. “I’ll go wait in the living room.”
I parked at the Gloaming and rounded the hood before Sloane could get out to open her door.
She got out of the SUV, her entire focus on me as it had been since the moment we left my place.
I knew she was worried about me, and I disliked being the cause of her anxiety.
But I understood, and I could soothe it once I’d met with my mum.
Sloane leaned into me, palm over my heart. “Call me when you’re ready.”
I nodded and bent to kiss her. The intention was a quick thank-you, but as soon as I touched her, the yawning hunger inside me greedily demanded more. When I eventually released her, Sloane’s cheeks were flushed and she was panting.
“Okay.” She nodded like my kiss had been an answer to a question. Then she squeezed my hand before taking a step back. “I love you.”
The words I’d thought would forever feel forced since Iona’s death came easily. “I love you too.”
She bit her lip against a smile, a habit she had that made me want to drag her into my arms. But she was already walking backward. “Good luck.”
I nodded and gestured to the road. “Please watch where you’re going. I’m rather partial to you as you are, not as roadkill.”
This time, her grin was big and fucking gorgeous. With a wave of her fingers, she turned and waited for traffic to pass before she started across the street. It was then I noticed Monroe waiting at Flora’s with Nox in his pram. I gave her a nod, and she grinned and waved back.
I turned around, striding toward the entrance of the Gloaming, my mind returning to my mum and the conversation I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready to have.
However, just as I wrapped my hand around the door to the pub entrance, a scream rent the air.
“Sloane!”
At Monroe’s shriek, alarm blasted through me in icy heat as I whirled around, already running toward where I’d left her. A blue car idled in the middle of the road outside Flora’s as a man wearing a ski mask hurried into the driver’s seat.
Sloane.
“He took her!” Monroe yelled at me, face red with impotent fury as she guarded Nox’s pram.
No.
Roaring Sloane’s name, I rushed into the street as her panicked, fear-filled face appeared in the back passenger window. She threw herself against it, trying to open it.
“SLOANE!” Rage filled me as I hurried for the front passenger door. The window suddenly rolled down and her masked kidnapper raised his arm. I registered the gun a second before he fired.
The familiar burn slammed into my gut, and my knees buckled.
“WALKER!” I heard Sloane’s terrified scream and pushed through the pain, forcing myself up.
But tires screeched on asphalt as he tore away.
“Walker!” Monroe cried, her body still covering Nox’s pram but her eyes on me as I pressed a hand to the burning agony in my stomach.
“Call the police!” I yelled at her, my eyes on the blue car even as I was running, adrenaline fueling me toward my SUV.
I was vaguely aware of frightened villagers hiding behind vehicles and making frantic calls on their mobile phones as I threw myself into the Range Rover and floored it after the car.
I almost teetered on the turn off Castle Street, but I had to keep going.
He’d put too much distance between us. Reaching across the passenger seat, I opened the glove box, ignoring the furious pain in my gut and the feel of blood soaking my shirt and trousers.
Sweat dripped into my eyes, and black spots crowded the corners of my vision.
I yanked my gun case out of the glove box and fumbled with one hand to get my thumbprint on the lock. It opened, and I snatched it up with my free hand.
I didn’t know who had taken Sloane or why … but if it was the last thing I did, I’d see her safe.
Feeling the blood flow too fast, too free from the bullet wound, I knew with a sense of yawning regret—because I’d only just found her—that saving her might really be the last thing I ever did.
SLOANE
Fear had stolen my rational thinking.
One second, I’d been stepping onto the sidewalk, beaming at Monroe, excited to see her, and the next thing, a stranger in a ski mask had pulled up beside me, pressed a gun to my head, and forced me into his car.
Then he’d shot Walker.
Walker was shot.
“He’s a determined bastard!” my attacker spat.
The familiarity of his voice … I knew that voice. He was American. His words registered too.
Walker.
Blood rushed in my ears as I turned around and peered through the back window. Relief flooded me at the sight of Walker’s Range Rover in the distance, but catching up. Fast.
I whirled, trying to think how to distract the gunman. “Who are you? I know you, don’t I?”
“Shut the fuck up!” His aggression reminded me so much of Nathan.
No way.
This wasn’t happening again.
And he’d shot Walker!
Glancing back, I saw Walker gaining on us.
Sliding along the back seat, I ignored the masked man’s orders to stay where he could see me, and then I lunged, wrapping my arm around his throat and hauling him back against the driver’s seat to choke him.
He wheezed and raged against me, eventually dropping the gun so he could try to break my hold. His fingernails tore into my skin, but I held fast with every ounce of strength I had until suddenly we were fishtailing across the road. The force of it threw me off him.
His coughing and spluttering filled the car as I tumbled onto the floor of the back seat. He braked us to a halt, but I’d barely had a second to process we’d stopped when tires squealed outside.
“Fuck!” my kidnapper barked hoarsely. “Where’s the fucking gun?”
The gun!
I launched up from the floor, ready to battle him when the driver’s side door flew open and the cold wind battered inside.
Walker’s voice was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard, even as he barked, “Don’t fucking move or I’ll put a bullet through your head.”
Everything went quiet. I froze, not wanting to distract Walker.
“Now get out of the car. Slowly.”
Leather creaked, and I heard footsteps on the asphalt.
“Sloane?” Walker called, and that’s when I heard the panic in his voice.
“I’m here! I’m fine.” The back passenger doors had no handles on the inside, so I clambered over into the front and spotted the gun on the passenger side floor. Pulling my sleeve down to cover my hand, I strained to pick it up and then inelegantly crawled out through the driver’s side door.
My eyes went to Walker first. His face was pale and clammy, but his arm was steady as he trained the gun on the masked man. “You good?” he asked without taking his eyes off my would-be kidnapper.
Sirens wailed in the distance as I shut the driver’s door and lifted the gun to train it on my attacker. “Shortest kidnap in history, thanks to you.”
“And you,” he said hoarsely. “You got him to stop.”
“I choked him.”
“Good girl.”
My lips curled into a smile that froze as I caught sight of the blood soaking Walker’s left side. Fear caused a plummeting sensation in my stomach. “Walker …”
He blinked, wiping sweat out of his eyes, and the movement made him sway.
“Walker?” I moved toward him.
“Baby … I need you to point that gun at the bastard until the police arrive.”
“Why?”
“Sloane, have you got him?” he asked instead.
Forcing myself to face my attacker, who glared at us through the eyeholes in his ski mask, I covered as much of the handle of the gun with my sleeves as possible, clasping it in both hands as I aimed it.
“I’ve got him.”
Out of my peripheral I saw Walker sway again and collapse to his knees. “Walker!” Terror shifted through me, but I didn’t dare take my gaze off the guy who was watching everything with narrowed, calculating eyes.
“Keep on him,” Walker replied hoarsely as he clutched his side.
“Is it bad?” I asked tearfully.
“Only a flesh wound, baby,” he promised.
Why didn’t I believe him?