CHAPTER TEN
WALKER
I hated crowds. It was one of the reasons I left White Cap in the first fucking place. People crawled everywhere. If I had thought Red Hart was busy this morning before Faith and I escaped the big house with all of its twenty-two ranch hands and live in cowboys and assorted families, it had nothing on the chaos of the town I left behind over a decade ago. White Cap had more than doubled in size in the time that I had been gone.
Apparently, Faith’s unannounced absence was a big damn deal. The locals needed to know she was safe. Returned unharmed. People touched her. Hugged her. Bought her coffee. The newspaper turned up and took her picture, for fuck’s safe. The police, I understood. Even the radio station decided to get in on the act.
Some of the shops near her business decided to poke their noses in. Clients brought her flowers. She didn’t die. Okay, so her car made headlines. She wasn’t in it. But you know who never turned up? Family. Friends. Those people seemed to be missing from her life.
Because Faith Somerset, in the pursuit of her career, had foregone all the things that others lived for, while she existed solely for work.
I wandered around her private office space, the door shut between me and her, while her not friends and family visited for the first three fucking hours we were in White Cap because I couldn’t stand the noise. Or the company. I understood what she was doing, but fuck me if it didn’t annoy the shit out of me that she had to hide me away from the world because I couldn’t be there beside her when she was overrun with people who, as far as I could tell, she didn’t want around her in the first place.
Well, not most of them.
Finally, Faith managed to free herself of the crowd and stumbled into her own office holding yet another flower and a stack of takeaway coffees, one atop each other like a tower.
“Here. I don't know what flavor that is, but it's yours.”
I eyed the fancy pink cup she held out to me. “Why do I suspect this has a whole lotta sugar in it, Faith?”
“Probably does,” she admitted. “But it’s yours, now. Drink it or dump it. I do not give a single fuck.”
I leaned in and kissed her. Her eyes opened wide before she sank into me, her lips parting on a sigh. I took that invitation, deepened the kiss and wished I had fucked her the night before. But she’d been shattered, and holding her that night had been the right way to treat her. Still, I had fantasies that I wanted to play out with this woman, and the time we had together on my mountain hadn’t been anywhere near enough.
Waking up with her wrapped around me this morning…that had been its own moment to treasure. Her glorious red hair spread across us both, her legs tangled around mine, my hand curved over the swell over her ass.
Everything I hadn’t realized I missed from my life, because I hated being around people.
Or maybe I just wanted one.
Her .
“I wish we could start today again.” She echoed my thoughts to perfection.
“Could do,” I murmured against her lips, drawing back to look into her color change eyes. Here, away from the mountain, the greens were dulled. “You gonna take me out to see the land later on?”
Her eyes flared wide, and a flush rose up her cheeks. “Walker? Something you need to tell me?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “You wanna tell me why my father’s favorite tea is lined along your office back wall?” It wasn’t just his favorite tea. My father had five favorite tea brands. More than that, actually. He had an obsession with tea. And I spotted every single one of them on her back wall in a neat line, like she'd ranked them. And right at the end were the ones that contained…
I drew my finger in a line across the fancy tins and stopped at the end without saying a word.
She filled in the blanks for me. “Bergamot.” Faith wrinkled her nose. “Chaz hated the ones with bergamot hidden in them.”
“He did. How often was he in here?”
“Monthly. Usually when he came into town. Not that home was far away but you know, ten minutes is far in White Cap. When he stopped being able to come in and he was confined at home, I took the tea to him.”
I held onto her tight. “What did you talk about?”
My father talked to everyone, including me. I just… I was never able to talk back. I tried, but I couldn't. It was like a barrier formed between us, impossible to cross. Knowing he had someone he connected with eased some of the guilt weighing on my heart.
“Town. Gossip. Police. Politics. International, local. Your father was interested in?—”
“Everything,” I finished for her. “I never could keep up.”
Her head tipped to one side. “I don't think that’s true, Walker. You keep up with me just fine. I think you were scared you might disappoint a man you looked up to, someone you emulated. Your dad was your hero. But you know what?”
Her words rang true. Too true. I swallowed hard. “What?”
She smiled. “You were his hero, too. He was so proud of his boy for going off to the Army. That was something few others here did. You were the one who left. You didn’t need anyone else. He used to say that everyone else in White Cap was stuck here. Right here in this town where they were born with nowhere to go and only the wind of the next house to listen to them chatter. You, Walker? You got up. You ignored everyone else, and you did your own thing. He was so proud of you for leaving. Then you came back, and you made your way up the mountain on your own. He was proud of that, too. I think because he couldn’t bring himself to leave, either.”
My heart clenched down hard in my chest. I pressed my lips to the top of her head and rested my cheek there as she wrapped her arms around my waist and held on.
“Ovvvuuu,” she mumbled into my chest.
I frowned. “Huh?”
“I love you,” Walker Roan,” she whispered.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Bless you,” she said, pointedly.
“Sorry, Precious.. Just…you can’t blindside a man like that.” I turned her face up to mine and kissed her hard. “You gave me everything I needed from my dad, and then told me you loved me when I thought I was gonna have to walk away from you today and leave you right here and never see you again. Am I gonna have to do that?”
She shook her head. “Not unless that’s what you want.”
I watched her eyes, the ones that were dulled a moment before but flared bright with a rainbow of greens and browns now, all the colors of my mountain.
“Fuck, no. I love you too, Faith. Let’s see that land and work out what in the hell to do with it.”
She sent me the first shy smile I’d ever seen in her. “I have some ideas.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I bet you do. Does that come under conflict of interest?”
“Only if I handle it.”
I laughed out loud. “You do have a plan for everything, don’t you?” I took a slug of the pink coffee and nearly spat it all over her flooring. “Christ, that tastes like cotton candy.” I thought I'd forgotten the flavor, but it came rushing back in one and it was worse than ever mixed with burnt, overpriced coffee beans.
Her eyes flashed with mischief as I grabbed for her and crushed our mouths together, kissing her until she was breathless and sharing the love of the sickly sweet coffee.
“Gotcha, mountain man,” she whispered.