Chapter Five #3
“And you’ve not dated since arriving in Pine Hill?” She couldn’t fathom that either.
Not that six months was that long but Maggie imagined it wasn’t from lack of women trying to catch Walker’s attention.
“Just call me lonesome, princess.”
Lonesome? Maggie arched her brow. “Excuse me if I’m not buying that.”
All he’d have to do was snap his fingers and Pine Hill bachelorettes would be lined up and vying for his attention.
“You’re right.” He grinned, digging those blasted dimples deep. “I have a good life and can’t say I have any real loneliness complaints. I’m rarely alone. My marriage failed but without it, I wouldn’t have Zoie. I’d never choose a past that didn’t include having my daughter.”
He stood a little taller as he spoke his last sentence.
Perhaps because it was something she’d never had as a child herself, Maggie appreciated how much he loved his daughter.
She’d seen it in the way he’d lit up at spotting the baby at the Halloween party, seen it in how he’d held her against him so easily while with his friends.
He’d been comfortable in his fatherhood and didn’t care who saw how affectionate he was with his daughter.
Knowing the backstory, his protective instincts and unabashed love for Zoie were attractive. Which wasn’t a good thing. She’d found him attractive enough without adding fuel to the fire. Annoyingly attractive.
“Enough about me.” He leaned farther against the quilt shop counter. “What about you? Would you change your past?”
“In a heartbeat.” But she wasn’t giving her backstory, not even the parts she could recall and tell. She sighed. “How did we get back to twenty questions?”
His eyes crinkled. “We circled around because you’ve still not said yes to dinner.”
“Which doesn’t mean that I didn’t answer,” she reminded.
Sarah came through the quilt shop’s back door, hand in hand with Jeannie who walked beside her. “Guess who is such a big girl?” Sarah asked in a praising, overly happy mother way.
“I went potty,” Jennie told them, looking proud.
Maggie’s heart squeezed at the look that passed between mother and daughter. Yeah, Maggie couldn’t imagine walking away from a child. She swallowed back the thickness in her throat. What could have happened to make his ex just leave? Had he done something?
Sophie came out with Rosie’s quilt kit, placing it on the counter. “Sorry I took a bit longer than intended, Sarah. After you and Jeannie said hello, Isabelle asked me something about one of our online orders for a special Christmas quilt kit I’ve put together.”
Sophie was dark hair and eyed, a distinct contrast to blue-eyed blond-haired Isabelle.
Although their basic features such as hair and eye color were complete opposites; their bone structure and build were similar and inherited from their mother, Darlene, who’d done Maggie’s hair and makeup for the Halloween party.
Which the thought of brought her right back to the man standing next to her.
“No worries,” Sarah told her friend. “Jeannie and I just finished with her potty break too. Let me pay for my material and then we’ll be on our way.” Sarah’s gaze touched upon Walker. “Unless Maggie wants to stay longer. In which case, I’m in no hurry.”
Maggie’s cheeks flushed. “I’m ready to leave.”
“I should go too,” Walker added, his gaze shifting to Sophie and Sarah.
“Amy brought Zoie to Janie B’s so I could sleep in to catch up due to pulling the twenty-four-hour shift on Saturday and staying up yesterday.
When she does that, I usually pick up Zo soon after I’m awake.
I’m on my way there but wanted to drop off the costume first. Thanks again for loaning it to me. ”
“You’re welcome,” Sophie said.
“Zoie is precious,” Sarah cooed. “I adore her in my nursery class at Sunday school. She was such a good girl yesterday.”
Maggie’s gaze cut to Walker. “You go to church?”
Why did that surprise her? It wasn’t as if she knew much about him. He might have aspirations to be the town’s next pastor for all Maggie knew. Just because he had a devilish grin that made her want to fan her face didn’t mean a thing. She. Was. Not. Interested. In. A. Relationship.
Amusement on his face, Walker arched a brow. “You thought they wouldn’t let me in?”
“No.” But that was yet another reason Maggie had refused to go with Sarah the previous day.
Even if Sarah’s pastor dad had let her in, Maggie hadn’t wanted to risk it.
Bodie had been off work and going with Sarah, so Maggie had declined.
Bodie’s schedule was to where he didn’t generally work on Sundays so Maggie, hopefully, wouldn’t have to test the theory of bursting into flames if she stepped through those hallowed doors.
She’d made so many mistakes over the past year-and-a-half.
“Why sound so incredulous that I go?”
Maggie countered, “Why go?”
“Maybelle and Andrew’s Grandma Ruby brought a ‘welcome to the community’ basket when I first moved here, invited me, Amy, and Zo to church.
” He shrugged. “Going felt right, and Zo enjoys it. To be honest, so do I. On Sundays, when I’m not at the firehall, I go.
” His eyes searched hers. “Walk out with me?”
Maggie could feel Sarah and Sophie’s curious gazes.
No wonder with Walker’s request and the way he was looking at her.
She’d tell him no, but that might make things worse.
Once they were outside, her face away from the quilt shop’s window, she didn’t hold back, though.
“Why did you just put me on the spot that way? By asking me to accompany you out here Sarah and Sophie will be salivating.”
“Sorry.” Standing there on the sidewalk, he had the grace to look remorseful. “That’s what I was trying to not do by asking you to accompany me out of the shop.”
“Seriously? Because Sarah will question why you wanted me to come out with you. What am I supposed to tell her?”
“That you have other plans for dinner,” he suggested, looking hopeful.
As frustrated as she was with him that didn’t stop her heart from skipping a beat. “There are no other dinner plans. Besides, didn’t you just say you’re on your way to get your daughter?”
“Yes, but—”
“Thanks for the offer,” she interrupted, “but I’m going to pass.”
“Okay, no dinner plans.” He studied her. “Can I have your phone number?”
Maggie’s hands went to her hips. “Why?”
“The usual reason—so I can call you.” He sounded so matter of fact that she just stared at him.
“Why would you need to call me?”
“In case I have questions about judging the contest.” He gave her a duh look.
Right. She wasn’t buying his answer. Part of her was thrilled that he wanted her number. Another part, the logical part, acknowledged that her time in Pine Hill would be easier if Walker would forget she existed.
“If you have questions about the contest, you should talk to Sarah, not me.”
“What if I asked for your number because I want to call so I can talk to you?” Had she ever thought a man’s eyes more beautiful, than his golden ones were at that moment?
They looked at her with such intensity that she fought gulping as he continued, “You know I like you, Maggie. I’ve not made it a secret. ”
“You don’t know me to like or dislike me.” True but the way he looked at her made her feel as if he did know her, as if she knew him, on some other world plane that connected them.
What was wrong with her? Her head injury hadn’t bothered her in months, but maybe she had residual issues that she hadn’t realized.
Although, to be fair, it wasn’t her head that was making her feel so off-kilter.
Her heart rattled her ribcage making her feel as if she was being chased by an air-to-air AIM-9 Sidewinder.
“I’m trying to rectify that with dinner and a phone call, but you aren’t cooperating.” His lips twitched, causing her to gaze lower to his mouth.
Yeah, her every flight or fight instinct was kicking in.
Prior to William she’d have given in to the twinkle in his eyes.
Now, she knew better. She needed to keep her focus on rebuilding her life, a career, in making something of herself when having to start over.
Walker’s simple existence was enough to put her on her toes.
But his honesty in his attraction to her was like engaging in a life-or-death hot pursuit that took her every survival skill to come out on the other side.
“Nothing about me is easy,” she warned.
That was putting it mildly. She wasn’t the only one who should be on their toes. He should be afraid and steer clear. Her life was a mess and much of it at her own hands. All of it at her hands if the military’s investigation was true. Her heart squeezed with denial as it always did.
“Difficult doesn’t bother me, Maggie. We all have baggage.”
“I’m beyond difficult.” She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets.
She couldn’t change the past. “I’m broken and can’t be fixed.
You’d do well to remember that and stay far away from me.
” She could change her future, though. The choices she made in the present were how she accomplished that.
She wouldn’t mess up, again. “Go pick up your daughter, Walker. I’m doing you a favor by saying no.
Do yourself a favor and forget I exist.”
“I don’t seem to be able to do that.” He studied her another moment, then inhaled a deep breath. “But if that’s what you want, I’ll try. Guess I’ll see you around, then, princess.”
What Maggie wanted had ceased to matter eighteen months ago when her Blackhawk had gone down.
Now she needed to rebuild her life. Granted, it would be a far different life from the one she’d envisioned, but with time and the hopeful regaining of her wings, Lukas would trust her at the helm of one of his helicopters.
That wouldn’t be the same as flying military grade, but oh, how she missed the feel of the chopper.
“Guess you will once the contest starts.”
He smiled as if he knew something she didn’t. He probably did.
But she knew things he didn’t know too. It was those things that gave her the strength to say no when, deep down, seeing Walker Mathieson appealed way more than it should.
Not as much as taking control of a helicopter again, but that she was even thinking of Walker in those terms was telling of just how much he had gotten under her skin.