Chapter Fifty-Five
Gabi
Walker swam with her to the landing jetty.
Her lungs hurt with every breath as she hungrily gasped for air, but he felt solid and strong next to her, talking quietly to her as they made their way, using soothing words of encouragement, gently calling her name.
She held on tightly to his shoulders, her mind trying to cope with what had just happened.
Not the collision or the reeds or the terror of being trapped underwater.
But the fact that he’d jumped without a second of hesitation.
He’d come when she needed him. He’d saved her.
She wrapped her arms tightly around him as they got to the bank and instead of using the steps, he waded to the beach entry and carried her out in his arms. She didn’t want to let go, and he adjusted his grip to hold her to him.
Everyone surged forward, surrounding them; Isabella wrapped a towel around her shaking body, while Etienne threw another around Walker’s shoulders.
‘Are you okay?’ Isabella was holding her face, peering into her eyes. Gabi coughed and cleared her throat.
‘Where’s Jayden?’ she asked.
‘He’s here,’ Amber said, and Isabella moved aside so that Gabi could see him, looking worried and cold. He signed ‘are you okay?’ and only gave a trembly smile when she used one hand to give him a thumbs up, before putting it back around Walker’s neck.
‘That was a dumbarse thing to do – no life vest and a medical boot.’ Isabella rolled her eyes and then planted a big fat kiss on Gabi’s cheek. ‘I was so worried.’
Suddenly there were too many people around and she just wanted to be alone with Walker. She lifted her gaze to his and found his hazel eyes fixed on her, his hair dripping water down his face.
‘Can you take me home?’ she asked him.
‘Emergency room first,’ Walker said. ‘We need to get your leg checked.’
‘Then home?’ she pleaded. His eyes softened and he nodded.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Shall I come too?’ Isabella asked, already moving alongside them, concern etched on her face.
Gabi glanced at Walker again and their eyes confirmed that nobody else was needed.
‘Don’t worry, Isabella,’ he said, adjusting his grip to hold Gabi more securely against his chest. ‘I’ve got her.’
The exhaustion finally hit her as they pulled into the driveway at Walker’s house.
Walker parked and jogged around the car to open the door and lift her out.
She could have walked, maybe, although her limbs felt like lead, but instead she twined her arms around his neck, giving in to being carried, and not just enduring it, but loving it. He felt safe. He felt solid.
He hadn’t left her side all the time they’d been at the hospital, while they waited, were assessed and, finally, were given the all clear. The boot was removed for good. Her leg was unveiled. It felt strangely naked after so many weeks of being covered.
Now, at his riverside house, he carried her up the stairs to the bathroom and only then did he lower her to stand on the bathmat.
She stood, feeling the rug underneath her toes, the air around her calves, a strange sense of vulnerability at her damaged leg now being unprotected.
Turning on the taps, Walker added a good glug of bubble bath that smelled of lemons and swilled it with his hand.
‘We need to get you warm – and clean of river water,’ he said, piling white fluffy towels on the chair. ‘Can you manage to get in on your own?’
She nodded, feeling torn and suddenly tearful. She didn’t want to be on her own. She wasn’t used to feeling so vulnerable.
‘Can you come back?’ she said. ‘When I’m in?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Give me ten minutes. Let me grab a shower.’
Gabi was in the bath with bubbles practically up to her ears when Walker knocked and came in with a towel hung low around his hips.
Gabi’s shivering had stopped; her body was relaxing, letting go of its fear into the warmth of the water.
She felt recovered enough to appreciate the width of Walker’s chest, those flat, defined abs.
Mind you, she’d probably have to be dead before she didn’t appreciate those.
He sat on the chair opposite the bath and smiled ruefully.
‘Damn. I put far too much bubble bath in there for you,’ he said, deadpan. ‘Can’t see a thing.’
She laughed, delighted he felt similarly, and lifted a leg in the air. White suds slipped down her calf, her thigh and back into the bath. Walker stared and a muscle ticked in his cheek.
‘Someone’s feeling better,’ he said quietly.
‘Much, thanks to you . . .’ she said. Their eyes met and held.
‘Walker—’ she said.
‘Gabi—’ he spoke at the same time. Gabi smiled. ‘You go first,’ he said, sinking down to sit on the floor next to the bath, his back resting against the wall. The fact he was settling to listen relaxed her even more. He wasn’t going anywhere.
She took a handful of suds and watched them glistening in the light.
The bubbles popped delicately, and she let them drop off her fingers into the water.
Now the opportunity was here, where should she start?
She knew it was time – and she wanted to do it – but this was a big thing.
Opening herself up to him. She started with the obvious.
‘You’ve driven me mad the last few months,’ she said, and he laughed.
‘The feeling is mutual,’ he replied but she held up a finger and he raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.
‘Because you’re right,’ she continued. ‘I do push people away, hold them at arm’s length.
I do try to do everything myself. Because I’m scared of getting hurt.
’ He nodded and she exhaled slowly. It felt good to say it out loud.
To admit how tightly she was coiled. ‘But I realised over the last few weeks that it’s not so bad to have someone to rely on.
Someone to really trust. I’ve seen what Isabella and Etienne have and it makes me think that .
. . maybe I do want someone who’s there for me. ’
He hooked his arm over the corner of the bath and let his fingers trail into the water near her feet, listening intently.
‘The thing is, I’ve never wanted it before. I’ve always been too scared to dare.’
‘You? Scared?’ he teased.
‘Terrified,’ she said seriously, and he reached further under the water until he found her ankle, where he circled it with his fingers, pulling her leg closer to his side of the bath. She gasped. ‘That I’d like someone that much.’
‘I was scared too,’ Walker said. She murmured a denial, guilty still for ever calling him that, but he squeezed her ankle gently and shook his head.
‘It was true,’ he continued. ‘Until you came along and forced me to look back, I couldn’t look forwards.
I was never thinking about tomorrow with anyone.
I was trapped in the past.’ He tweaked her foot playfully.
‘And then this morning, when I thought you were starting something with Fox—’
‘What?’
‘I realised that I kept telling you to let people in, because I meant me. Let me in.’
‘Fox just took me to the hospital . . .’
‘He told me that afterwards.’
Gabi snorted.
‘You were jealous!’
‘Very.’ Walker’s fingers were trailing a line to her knee under the water, and she felt every millimetre he crept upwards.
‘That’s why I got on the bucking bronco at The Bolthole,’ she confessed.
‘You looked so sexy riding that thing,’ he admitted with a rueful grin.
‘I was jealous of the girl you were talking to.’ Gabi had never in her life admitted her feelings like this before.
Not to any man. Not ever. And he was listening, and taking her seriously, and .
. . it felt good. It felt as though with everything she said, every feeling she admitted to, they moved closer towards each other.
Not just physically, with his hand still moving up her leg, but emotionally too.
Her heart was expanding with every sentence.
Walker laughed.
‘Believe me, nobody else has had a look-in since a daredevil stuntwoman arrived in town.’
‘Same here, since a handsome firefighter caught me on a pole.’ Oh my God, she was actually saying it out loud. That since that day, all she’d thought about was Walker: impressing him, making him laugh, touching him, kissing him.
‘So.’ Walker stroked her thigh beneath the bubbles but held her gaze. ‘You do feel something for me?’
Gabi’s heart swelled. Every cell felt on fire; her skin was hypersensitive to his touch. She stopped worrying about how the words sounded and instead just said what was inside her heart.
‘I do. I can’t stop thinking about you. I look for you everywhere. When I was frightened in the river, you were all I could think of.’ She shook her head in disbelief at the memory. ‘And you came when I called.’
‘Of course,’ he said simply.
Their eyes were locked on each other now. She wet her lips, felt the heaviness of her breathing. There was no going back now. She just wanted to go forwards, with Walker, with this man who walked through fire to save people. The man who challenged her, who she craved, who saved her every time.
‘What now?’ she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Walker smiled, as if it was a simple question to answer.
‘I want to see you all the time,’ he said.
‘And I want to be with you as much as I can.’ Her words came out in a rush. It was as easy as that.
He stood suddenly, water cascading from his wet arm. The towel still hanging on his hips, low under the line of his taut abs. He towered over her, eyes scanning the surface of the water, hungry for what it concealed. She pressed her thighs together, wanting him with a desperate, sudden need.
‘Still scared?’ he asked.
She swallowed.
‘A bit,’ she said, wondering if it was more excitement now than fear.
He bent at the waist and put both hands on the side of the bath. His face was close and her stomach was doing somersaults.
‘Thought you told me there was a rule for stuntwomen?’ It took her brain a second to recollect a rule she’d lived by for many years.
‘Don’t be scared of falling . . .’ she said, her stomach lurching.
‘Well then,’ he said as he leaned in slowly and lowered his face to hers.