Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gabi
There was something going on with Walker.
When the mayor had called his name as a nominee and he waved, Gabi had seen the shake in his hand.
And when they’d caught eyes, she’d seen the same strange fear in them that he’d woken with in her bed.
He looked haunted. And that had turned into a look of absolute panic when he was declared winner.
She watched him move almost automatically, putting one foot in front of the other, blindly making his way to the stage.
She saw alarm flash across his face as he looked at the crowd.
On what should have been one of the proudest nights of his life, he looked devastated.
He left the stage and rushed out of the nearest door.
‘Is Walker okay?’ Gabi whispered to Alex, sitting next to her. ‘He looked a bit overwhelmed.’
Alex considered for a moment, then nodded. ‘Probably just the shock of winning. He was a bit surprised to even be nominated to be honest. I’ll go check.’ He pushed his chair back to stand and accidentally jogged Amber’s elbow, tipping a full glass of wine straight down her front.
‘OMIGOD,’ Amber gasped, and Gabi remembered she always added ice cubes to her wine, liking it extra chilled.
Sure enough, Amber delved her hand deep into her cleavage and plucked out an ice cube, while Alex grabbed a napkin and started frantically patting her down.
‘I’ll go,’ Gabi said, not wanting to leave it any longer. The panic on Walker’s face was bothering her. She grabbed her crutches and set off, bumping into Fox coming out of the men’s room as she rounded the corner.
‘Is Walker in there?’ she asked.
‘Didn’t see him,’ Fox replied, signalling he was off for a drink.
Gabi checked the foyer, and the side room, and finally the cloakroom, but Walker was nowhere to be seen.
Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, maybe it was classic Walker: to run whenever things got hard, or scary.
It’s what he’d done to her the other night.
And now it just looked like he’d done it again.
She sighed, really wanting to be angry with him.
To be furious, in fact. But she couldn’t shake the look on his face, and that tremor she’d noticed when he raised his hand.
He wasn’t just panicked. He was scared. And however big of an arsehole he was, she didn’t want him to be scared and on his own.
Leaning against the wall in the foyer, Gabi pulled out her phone and rang him, not even really knowing what she was going to say.
Turned out, that didn’t matter, because Walker wasn’t picking up.
She heard it ring three times, four times, five, in the handset and then she heard something else.
A phone ringing in the room next to her, in time with the ringtone in her ear.
She shuffled to the glass door, the one with a notice on it that read: The Old Library.
And beneath it: Closed to the Public. She ended her call.
The ringing inside stopped. She counted to twenty and then rang Walker again.
Immediately, she heard the phone inside again. She had him.
She checked nobody was looking, opened the door and slipped inside, letting it swing quietly shut behind her.
The room was covered floor to ceiling with books, row upon row lining the walls.
With a soft carpet and some small round tables for two, it looked like a cosy reading room.
The lighting from the foyer only reached so far, and the rest of the room was in shadows.
Following the ringtone, and using her phone as a light, she rounded the corner.
There he was, slumped on one end of a window seat, head in his hands, silhouetted by the street lights outside.
The award glinted, discarded on the floor beside him.
‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ she asked. His head snapped up and he glanced at the phone and then at her, but his face was blank. He was lost. Her stomach fell at the sheer look of horror on his face.
Walker let his head drop back into his hands and it was then that she noticed his irregular breathing, his fluttering hands.
He was having a panic attack. She’d seen co-workers before on set a couple of times when stage fright turned into something much worse.
Gabi hobbled towards him as fast as she could, bent to him and took his hands in hers to reach him. He wouldn’t look at her.
‘Breathe with me, Walker,’ she said gently.
‘Follow my count. In, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, out, two, three, four . . .’ She gripped his hands tighter until he began to listen, but it was only after she’d repeated her instructions three more times that he finally raised his eyes to hers. He was back.
‘You should go, Gabi.’ His voice was tight with emotion, his back rigid as he pulled his hands from hers. She hopped to the other end of the window seat and sat, no intention of going anywhere.
‘I’m worried about you.’
Walker groaned and loosened his bow tie, letting it hang in his collar.
‘Why are you even here?’ he growled.
‘You looked upset on the stage. I thought you might want to talk.’ She lifted her boot onto the window seat, and it stretched out towards him.
He moved his legs over to make space. ‘And you know I’m a good listener,’ she carried on.
‘I’ve got over eight hours of practice of listening to you, even if you weren’t saying much at the time. ’
She smiled but he didn’t return it, turning instead to look out the window, down onto the empty Honeybridge high street.
‘Okay, enough with the jokes,’ she said. ‘You’ve just won an award for being a hero. I don’t understand why you aren’t happy? I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
His eyes flashed dangerously at her then in the shadows. His jaw could cut glass.
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘It’s not just me that’s calling you that,’ Gabi said softly. ‘It’s official.’ She held up the award as though in acceptance. It was engraved, Walker McBride scrawled across it. ‘You even have the shiny piece of glass to prove it.’
‘Not for long,’ he ground out between clenched teeth. ‘I’m going to give that back.’
‘What on earth for?’ Gabi asked, pressing it against her chest as though to keep it safe.
‘Because I don’t deserve it,’ Walker said. ‘I shouldn’t even have been nominated, let alone won. I’m not a hero. I never have been.’ He rubbed his hands across his eyes.
‘Well, even if you wanted to, you can’t give it back now,’ she said decisively. Their eyes met and held. ‘The mayor’s gone home.’
A moment passed as he questioned her silently with his gaze. Then he sighed, defeated.
‘I could keep it for you,’ Gabi said. ‘Then you could give it back tomorrow.’ She tucked the glass trophy into her bag.
‘I won’t change my mind if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said, as if he could, in fact, read her mind. ‘I can’t keep it. It wouldn’t be right.’
She settled her back against the window seat, facing him. Their legs lay parallel between them.
‘Why do you think you don’t deserve it?’ Gabi asked quietly. Walker shrugged as if it was obvious.
‘I’m not as good as people think I am.’
She watched a ripple cross his face. Regret? Anger? Shame?
‘Well, the town thinks you are,’ she said.
‘They don’t know me, do they? They only know the job I do.’
‘Which is pretty damned heroic,’ she said. ‘Walking into fires to save people, Walker. You can’t just dismiss that.’
It hit her for the first time, that he did that out of choice.
He didn’t do what he did for personal gain, like she did.
He did it to help other people. If her stunt went wrong, it just ended badly for her.
If his efforts went wrong, other people died.
It was a brave job to do, no doubt about it.
But he wasn’t having it. Any of it. He closed his eyes as if to block her out.
‘That’s what I’m paid to do.’
‘But what about all the stuff you do for free?’ Gabi tried again, leaning forward and putting her hand on his knee, shaking him gently to get his attention. He lifted his eyes, but they were doubtful.
‘Like the tray you made for me? To make sure I could move things around safely with my crutches . . .’
He pulled a face as if it was nothing.
‘And the fact that Rosie told me you do all the smoke alarms at their house and maintain them every year.’
He shook his head to dismiss it.
‘And you lent Etienne the money to bring Alex home.’ Isabella had told her that the year before. He sniffed.
‘That’s just money.’ He sighed. ‘Who cares about money?’
Gabi flinched at that. Was he commenting on her?
Because he was right. Everything she did was for money; the bigger the cheque, the better.
Because it bought her independence and made sure she could always sort out her own problems. Fix her own roof, pay her own mortgage, look after herself.
That was important to her. Always had been.
But it obviously wasn’t to him. She thought for a moment.
‘I saw you making sure Riley had her crash helmet at the park, before she went roller skating.’ He shifted in his seat, but she pressed again on his knee.
‘And I know you help Reggie with his school projects every month. I’ve heard about your school project winning Tyrannosaurus Rex with the acrylic nails. ’
‘That’s just helping out a friend,’ he said. ‘Anyone would do the same.’
He was wrong. Not everyone would do the same.
‘That’s not true,’ she said fervently. ‘Not true at all, Walker.’
He lifted his eyes and she could see that he wanted to believe her. Her hand flexed on his knee, pressing home her words.
‘You help everyone at every opportunity. Whether you’re getting paid for it or not.’
She saw his shoulders drop, some of the tension leave him. ‘It hasn’t always been that way, though.’
‘Maybe not. But not even you can be perfect all of the time. You’re a good man, Walker McBride.’ She smiled and saw the flicker of a smile light his face. It gave her a little lift inside, to see his mood brightening. She poked him with one finger.
‘Come to think of it, you even carried me home once.’
He gave her a full-on grin this time and nudged her leg with his.
‘I might have had ulterior motives that time.’ Eye contact at last. And the glint in his eye made her tummy flip.
‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘What happened to those ulterior motives then?’ Their eyes were both playful now. She flicked her tongue over her lower lip and watched his gaze drop to follow it.
‘Thought I’d put you off with the nightmare.’ The sounds of the party next door echoed through the walls. Gabi was more aware of the beat of her pulse now as it quickened.
‘Not at all,’ she said. It was true. Looking at him now, all she wanted to do was clamber over him like a climbing frame. Damn this stupid boot.
‘What about the panic attack?’ Walker asked, a look of embarrassment crossing his face.
‘What about it?’ Gabi asked. ‘You’re human, Walker. It would be strange to meet someone who was never affected by anything that happened to them. We all have our worries, our fears.’
‘Not exactly manly, though?’ he said. She interlaced her fingers through his and he lifted his eyebrows in surprise.
‘You’re still the sexiest Scotsman I’ve ever seen,’ she said. ‘And you’re absolutely rocking that kilt.’
She dropped her eyes to his bare knees and wondered fleetingly if the rumours about the Scottish not wearing anything under their kilts was true. She crossed her fingers that she might get to find out.
Walker’s phone rang suddenly, breaking the silence.
As the screen lit Walker’s face, he looked lighter, brighter and hot as hell.
He angled the screen towards her to show it was Alex and answered on speaker.
Noise and laughter burst into the library.
Alex was trying to make himself heard, but Gabi could hear all the others in the background: Amber was cheering, Isabella laughing.
‘You okay, man? I’ve been looking for you.’
Gabi bit her lip. She should have let Alex know she’d found Walker.
Walker kept his eyes on Gabi. ‘All good, Al. I’m fine. You?’ Walker reached out with his spare hand and encircled Gabi’s ankle.
‘Just about to go on with the band,’ Alex said. ‘Going to play that new song.’
‘Hope it goes down well,’ Walker said.
‘Me too. You coming back in?’
Walker’s hand on her ankle stroked upwards now, towards her knee, and back down again. Gabi bit her lip.
‘No, I’m going to head off,’ Walker said, fingers lingering on the inside of her knee this time, stroking the soft skin at the back.
She widened her eyes. He was only touching her knee, for God’s sake, an area which she’d never before thought of as an erogenous zone but would now firmly be adding to the list. She felt like some kind of swooning Victorian, half reclined on a window seat in the library, having her leg felt.
‘Amber wants to know if you’ve seen Gabi?’
‘Yes, she’s here,’ Walker said, his eyes burning into her. The intensity between them now like an electric charge. ‘And she’s coming home with me.’