“Okay.”
He didn’t speak for the longest time. He slid his arms around her slim waist and held her. Tears slid from his eyes and he knew she probably could tell because they wetted her nightgown, but he didn’t care. She didn’t say a word about it either. They were like that together. Understanding each other which is why, they were so perfect together. He knew it too, but he didn’t know if he could let his walls down to let her in. Could he take a chance with her?
Chapter 11
The bruises faded with time but the memories of them didn’t. The longer they spent together, the more she realized that Walker’s feelings had grown like her own. He wasn’t looking at her like the little sister that he once saw when he looked at her. Now he saw the woman that she was. She could see the heat and the desire that he felt for her. She could see the love, but he wouldn’t give into the feelings. He was frustrating the shit out of her.
Jackson? He was only here for a brief time. Yes, he had made his feelings known. He wanted her again. What did he think she was going to do? Go to Louisiana with him? She couldn’t imagine he would give up that six-figure job he was so fond of talking about to move back to Sherwood. Danni couldn’t imagine leaving Sherwood and her family, not even for Jackson.
Her thoughts about him had changed. She didn’t know if it was seeing him again or seeing Walker in this new light. Jackson was now a happy memory. He would always hold a special place in her heart, but he was her past. Was Walker her future though?
Jackson had visited like he promised at the hospital, but he didn’t stay long because Walker only left long enough to go to work at Ike’s. When he left, someone stayed with her until she was able to return to work herself.
Everyone was so concerned about Jesse Wild and his threats on her and Artemesia that Walker had been with her a lot in the last few weeks. They ate dinner together almost every night that he didn’t work at the pub or when he wasn’t at the farm, helping Matt.
Tonight, the lights were low. The sun was fading fast, and the dishes were put in the dishwasher. He was wiping down her counters while she watched him. He insisted on cleaning because she paid for the food.
His muscles moved beneath his shirt as he moved across the kitchen cleaning up. He was broad and big. She loved the way he moved. Stealth-like for such a large man. She imagined her fingers tracing over the hardness of his back and tingles started in her body. He would be embarrassed to know she was thinking about him this way or maybe not. She didn’t hide her feelings for him.
Walker had to know that at seventeen she was crazy about him even though she loved Jackson. There were times when her boyfriend was jealous of Walker Wild. They were close, but she always reassured Jackson that Walker was just like another brother. Was he though? Is that how she had felt?
She remembered sitting with Layla, Matt’s wife on their front porch. They ogled Matt and Walker, Danni didn’t ogle her brother, but she did Walker as they loaded hay on the wagon or carrying tobacco sticks laden with freshly cut plants. Their shirts were off, their upper torsos covered with a sheen of sweat. Their foreheads damp and hair sticking to them. Walker still pulled off sexy even at his worst.
Walker often reminded her that he had held her as a baby, changed a diaper when Matt refused and gave her a bottle. He had told her that on so many occasions. Nothing romantic in those feelings but she thought about the seventeen-year-old girl that Walker gazed at. The one who had grown up and had become a young woman. Suddenly, or maybe not so suddenly she wasn’t that little pain in the ass anymore.
She had curves and breasts. She had a womanly body that was desirable. Jackson had it figured out maybe Walker did too. She made love with Jackson for the first time when she turned eighteen. A few months later, he left her. She thought about that special moment and wished she had hung onto it just a little longer. Maybe, it wouldn’t have a made a difference to Jackson. Maybe it would have made a difference to her heart not being crushed.
Suddenly, Walker was there. Standing beside her. What are you thinking?” He asked. So serious.” He traced his finger down her face and she smiled at him.
“Honestly?”
He nodded.
She smiled at him. “You putting up tobacco with Matt and how beautiful you were without your shirt, all hot and sweaty.” Her voice took on a husky note to it.
He straightened and cleared his throat. “You were only sixteen or seventeen when Layla moved into the farmhouse with Matt.”
She looked Walker in the eyes and responded, “I was.”
Walker was clearly uncomfortable with that news. It wasn’t like she was jailbait now at twenty-six. He took a step back further from her. “I’m heading out to the barn now. Sleep tight.” Even though they had declared their relationship a possibility after he dealt with Jesse, Walker had moved out to the shed to avoid temptation.
He nearly ran out the front door like his tail was on fire. Danni sighed with frustration. She slipped off the barstool and headed to the shower. She tied up her hair in a bun and showered her body, preferring to not wash her hair tonight.
When she was done, she dried herself and slipped into a nightgown, not the slinky kind. Maybe that was the problem. She wasn’t sexy enough. She took the bun down and let her curls cascade around her shoulders. Then she put on a sweater, so she didn’t get cold.
Barefoot, she walked outside, onto the porch to the end where she could see the barn. The barn, where Walker was inside. The door was wide, open which concerned Danni. She walked to the porch steps and hesitated. If something was wrong, she would have heard something. Right?
She had been in the shower for a while. Jesse could have surprised Walker. He could have hurt him. She ran down the steps and across the lawn to the open doors. He was flat on his back, in his boxer briefs. His long, legs covered in hair were hanging of
f the end of the chaise. She almost giggled at the site of him too big for her little chaise.
He was awake and staring at the ceiling. Thinking. He had the most intense expression on his face as he looked at nothing at all. He hadn’t even noticed her in the door to the barn watching him or he might have covered himself.
Danni couldn’t take her eyes off Walker. His chest rose and fell with even breaths. Hair around his belly button, dipped inside his boxers. His arms were big and tucked behind his head making his chest look even broader, expanding his ribcage. She felt a tingle of want and need. She felt that itch that she hadn’t felt in a while. She walked into the barn and Walker’s eyes caught sight of her. He didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t move. Walker just breathed in the sight of her with the moonlight as a backdrop behind Danni.
At the side of the chaise, she stopped. She wanted to slide in beside him. She wanted to cover his body with her own. She hesitated, wondering what Walker would do if she did.
“What are you doing in here Danni?” He asked lowering his arms to his sides.