Walker Pride (The Walker Family Book 1) Page 23

Eric managed his way out of the truck as Byron started toward the car.

  A patrol car skidded to a stop behind Byron’s truck just as the unmistakable sound of sobbing was heard from behind them.

  “She’s over there.” He nodded his head in the direction of the sound.

  “Bethany! Bethany,” Byron shouted.

  “Here, Dad. I’m here.”

  Smyth pulled out his flashlight and illuminated the area.

  Bethany sat with her back against a tree. Blood stained her face and her torn shirt. Her red mane hung around her shoulders and she held a gun in her hands.

  Byron knelt down in front of her. “Are you okay? Baby, did he hurt you?”

  Her eyes were wide and glossed over. She nodded and that made Eric even sicker.

  “I shot him,” she said on a quick breath and then dropped the gun on the ground.

  Smyth slowly walked toward the car parked in the grove of trees.

  Eric could hear Douglas now as he cried, cursed, and moaned. Smyth had stopped and Eric wasn’t so sure he hadn’t heard him chuckle.

  A moment later he called for backup and ambulances.

  Eric felt the need to sit on the ground next to Bethany. His legs were growing weaker by the second.

  “He shot you,” she sobbed looking at his arm. “You fell. You hit your head.”

  “I’m okay.”

  She shook her head and the curls bounced. “I thought you were going to die. He set the bed on fire and dragged me out to the car.” Her teeth chattered and Byron slipped of his jacket and wrapped it around her. “He thought I was my mother.”

  “I know, baby,” Byron said softly as he pulled her into his arms.

  Smyth walked back toward them with what looked like a smirk planted on his face.

  “Your girl can certainly take care of herself,” he said.

  Byron kissed the top of her head. “What happened?”

  “She managed to shoot him in the ass with his own gun and cuff him face down in the backseat.” Smyth knelt down next to her. “I have an ambulance coming for you so they can look you over. Did he do anything to you?”

  “He hit me,” she stuttered. “He pulled my hair and ripped my shirt.”

  Smyth nodded. “Did he do anything else?”

  Bethany shook her head. “I told him I was Violet, my mother, and he set the gun down. That’s when I took it and shot him.”

  Smyth rested his hand on her shoulder. “Smart girl.” He turned toward Eric. “I have an ambulance coming for you too,” he said and Eric nodded before he leaned back against the tree.

  Another truck sped through the entrance of the park. It was his father’s.

  He winced from the high beams that shined toward him and from beyond them he could see her…Susan.

  “Oh, God! Look at you,” Susan cried as she fell to his side. “You’re shot! We have to get you to a hospital.”

  Smyth touched her arm in a very calm manner. “I called one for him. It’s on the way.”

  “Your house.”

  “I know.” The pain seemed to fade as she knelt there beside him. Her hands came to his face and tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “I was worried. Oh, God, you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay. The house can be rebuilt.”

  She nodded. “Right.” She lifted her head and her eyes went wide. “Bethany,” she sobbed as she crawled toward her.

  “I’m okay. I’m—okay,” she said again.

  “Who did this? Why?”

  “Douglas. He’s messed up,” she said.

  “No wonder you didn’t want to go out with him.”

  Bethany actually laughed. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  Byron walked toward Everett, who stood at Eric’s side. “I was afraid he’d get to her if she came,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t tell her about Dad’s funeral. I didn’t want her here for her own safety.”

  “I take it Douglas was the young man Violet had the affair with.”

  Byron nodded. “I ran into him a few weeks ago. It was like he snapped when he saw me. Suddenly it was twenty years ago to him. When I told him Violet had died, that’s when he began destroying everything.”

  “He’s the one that killed my horse?” Eric asked.

  “I’m sure that’s what you’re going to find out when Smyth is done with him. I lived in your house back then, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s a messed up young man.”

  Bethany stood from her seat against the tree and moved to her father. “You kept from me to keep me safe?”

  “I’m a lousy father. I was a lousy husband too, but I don’t wish bad things on my children. You’re stunning, Bethany. You’re the spitting image of your mother. I was afraid that he’d come after you if he saw you in person and he did.”

  She placed her hands over her face. “This is all my fault.”

  Eric came to his feet as quickly as he could with his arm dangling to his side. Susan helped him and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders for support.

  “You can’t blame yourself for this. Douglas has always been a mess. I covered his ass for years and I didn’t even know who he was messing around with. I’m sorry it came out like this. I guess we both got a dose of reality this week when it came to mothers.”

  Byron rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and looked at his brother. “We can pick ‘em, can’t we?”

  “Despite the mother, we make some terrific kids.”

  Bethany smiled through her tears.

  The sirens of the ambulances and extra police cars pierced the night. Soon Eric was on a gurney with people poking and prodding at him. The only constant was that Susan was still by his side, holding his hand all the way to the hospital.

  The bullet was lodged in his arm, but when he woke from surgery she was still sitting there, asleep with her head rested on his pillow from where she sat in the chair.

  What a messed up few weeks, he thought as he kissed the top of her head softly.

  As soon as they released him, he was going to make everything right for her. He loved her and he was never going to let her go.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  With his arm secure in a sling, Eric stood with his other arm wrapped around Susan’s shoulders as they looked at the burned shell that had been his house. A crew was there to tear the rest of it down. Nothing had been salvageable.

  He was glad that Bethany had taken the advice from the psychologist at the police department to talk to a counselor. After Douglas admitted to having been the person that had been destroying the property of the Walkers and the Morgans, she’d been bombarded with guilt that had made her physically sick.

  Tyson’s truck was visible up at the barn. A horse trailer was attached. He’d managed to get three new horses for Eric to board. Thanks to his brother, he was back in business. Russell had agreed to work the horses until Eric was back to full strength.

  Pride swelled in his chest. Family was a good thing to have on your side, he thought.

  Susan’s shoulders shifted under his arm and he looked down at her. Tears streaked her cheeks as she watched the house come down.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

  She looked up at him with those sad, dark eyes. “Why aren’t you crying? This is your home!”

  Eric turned her toward him. “My home is wherever you are.” He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “Right now my home is in town where you’re letting me stay. But we’ll rebuild this.”

  “And then your home will be here.”

  “With you.”

  “Eric, I’m not in any hurry.”

  “I am. Life is too short not to grab on with both hands. I don’t want to live without you and if that means I live in town, well then that’s what I’ll do. But this is a fresh start,” he said as he brushed his thumb over her lips. “I’ll build you a kitchen of your dreams.”

  She was trying hard to control her smile, but it seemed to slip through a
nd that warmed his heart.

  “What kind of kitchen?”

  “You get to design it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. But the stipulation is, you have to live here to use it.”

  She stepped closer to him and rested her hands on his chest. “I could live here.”

  “You’ll need to change your name too.”

  She raised her brows. “You don’t like my name?”

  “Your catering company will need to be called Susan Walker catering.”

  “Oh,” she let out a long breath.

  “I like the sound of it, don’t you?”

  For a moment he was sure she was going to argue it, but he wasn’t going to let her win. He knew what he wanted and Eric Walker always got what he wanted.

  “I think it has a very nice ring to it,” she said, her eyes wide and a beaming smile on her lips.

  “You’ll marry me?”

  “I’ll marry you.”

  He quickly sealed her answer with a warm kiss that he felt surge from the tip of his head all the way to his toes. She was going to be his wife. Never in a million years would he have guessed that he’d meet the woman of his dreams at his grandfather’s funeral.

  “We have one more thing to settle.”

  “What’s that?” She rested her cheek against his chest.

  “What the hell does Q stand for?”

  Susan pulled back and smiled. “Quick.”

  “Quick? That’s not a name.”

  “I used to tell people it was the dog’s name.”

  “It’s not?”

  She shook her head. “Something you should know about my parents. They’re hippies, still are.”

  He knew his mouth had fallen open and nothing came out in response.

  She raised her arms around his neck. “My mother went into labor three weeks early and I was born in the bathtub within an hour. Quick.”

  “That’s where you got the name?”

  Susan nodded. “Would it humor you to know my sister’s middle name is Molasses?”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “She took longer than an hour to be born?”

  “Forty-eight hours longer and she was a week late.”

  Eric looked at her with the rose in her cheeks, her long hair cascading over her shoulders, and the thought of her Subaru and her Birkenstocks suddenly flashed into his head.

  “You’re a vegetarian that drives a Subaru. How come I didn’t see the hippy parent thing coming?”

  “I’m quick and you’re not?”

  “That’s funny.” He pulled her in. “Susan Quick Walker. It has a ring to it.”

  They turned and started back for his truck.

  “Are you open to non-traditional baby names?” She jabbed him with her elbow. “I have a list of some really great names.”

  “Are you going to move into my house, use the kitchen, and take my last name?”

  “I am.”

  “Then we can discuss that. The pride is in the Walker.”

  He smiled as he opened the door for her and she climbed into his beat up red truck. Yes, pride was having a family that stuck together even when things were not the way everyone thought they should be.

  SAMPLE OF STARGAZING

  BOOK 2 IN THE WALKER FAMILY SERIES

  Chapter One ~ STARGAZING

  Hands in front of her chest, palms pressed together, Bethany inhaled as she pressed her foot to her inner thigh. Her body wobbled on one leg as she closed her eyes in an attempt to achieve her balance.

  The Georgia sun glittered through the trees and the spring air filled her lungs on the patio outside of her bedroom.

  She held the pose for five full breaths, letting the peace of the morning wash over her.

  Letting her foot slide to the floor, she lifted her hands over her head, sucked in a deep cleansing breath and folded in half. Her spine gave a few pops as it lengthened.

  The problem with this pose was she could see her toes were in desperate need of a pedicure. The next exhale was a sigh.

  Bethany Waterbury stood, reached for her lemon infused water, and her towel. She wiped the sweat from her brow and sipped her water. In six hours she had an audition for a commercial. This would be her first audition in nearly a year. Deep inside she didn’t know what was worse, having done the horror movies she’d made in L.A. or wanting a grocery store commercial so bad she could taste it.

  There was a tapping on her bedroom door.

  “Come in,” she shouted as the door opened and her roommate Susan walked in, a cup of coffee in her hand.

  “It’s beautiful out here today,” she said as she joined her on the porch.

  “It is. Still can’t believe you gave me this room and didn’t take it for yourself.”

  Susan shrugged and sipped her coffee. “As soon as the house is built I’ll have my own porch off my master suite,” she said with a smile.

  Bethany knew the day was coming. Susan would be moving in with her fiancé, who happened to be Bethany’s cousin Eric.

  Two months ago a psychopath, who had once had an affair with Bethany’s mother, had shot Eric and burned his house to the ground. Weeks earlier he’d killed off his animals and caused destruction to Eric’s property as well as grandfather’s. It seemed as though Douglas was obsessed with Eric’s cousin Lydia as well.

  She sipped her water again. Guilt still plagued her when she thought about it. Had she just stayed in California, where the magic of Hollywood had long given up on her, none of this would have happened to Eric.

  It was her fault. She was the spitting image of her late mother. Just having seen her had set the man into some psychotic episode.

  He’d been locked up and she’d been in counseling. When she’d come to Georgia, this wasn’t what she thought she’d be doing. The point in moving was to bond with her father.

  Okay, she’d done that—a little bit.

  He was a mess of a man, just as her mother had been a mess of a woman. Perhaps that was the common factor that had them together for the short time in which she was conceived.

  “You look like you have a lot on your mind,” Susan said as she walked out onto the patio. Her new diamond ring sparkled in the sunlight.

  “I was just thinking about everything. My counselor says I can’t blame myself for Eric’s loss, but it’s hard not to.”

  “He doesn’t blame you. No one does.”

  “Just me.”

  Susan moved closer to her. “This is really bothering you.”

  “How can it not? I’m lucky that when Douglas shot Eric it didn’t kill him. Or that he didn’t die in the fire.”

  Susan knelt down in front of her and rested her hand on Bethany’s knee. “Eric is fine. The house is framed. The stalls are full of horses and you are safe. Honey, you have to be able to move on.”

  She nodded. This wasn’t anything that she hadn’t been told already.

  Susan stood and held out her hand to Bethany to stand. “What are your plans today?”

  “I have an audition.”

  Susan’s eyes grew wide. “Really? That’s wonderful.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “And you’re going with me to Pearl’s bridal shop this afternoon, right?”

  Bethany had forgotten she’d promised to wedding dress shop with Susan. At least her sister owned the store. It was another step in getting to know her family—spending time bridal shopping would do that.

  “I’ll be there. Pearl is expecting us.”

  Susan sipped her coffee. “You’re still able to work tomorrow, right? Lydia has us set to cater the book club dinner. They have Kent Black coming.”

  “Kent Black?”

  “The writer.” She held out her hand to gesture. “Haven’t you read him? Oh, he’s genius.”

  Bethany narrowed her gaze on her. “He writes science-fiction doesn’t he?” she asked and Susan nodded. “Why would I read that? Why do you?”

  Susan laughed. “I’m thinking you must be the only per
son who hasn’t read it. It’s been a New York Times bestseller for months. They’re looking to make a movie of it. Hey, maybe you can put in a good word to him and he can suggest they cast you as Dessilla.”

  “Dessilla? Sounds like a roll I was designed for.” She blew a hair from her forehead. “I’m done with horror movies.”

  “No, she’s a beautiful alien.”

  Bethany groaned. “I don’t think I want to be an alien either. I’d better get ready. And yes, I’ll be available for the book club.”

  “Good.”

  “How did she get him to come to the book club anyway?”

  “I think she’s more connected than we think,” Susan winked. “I’ll talk to you later. Good luck on your audition.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s bad luck.”

  “Right. Are you supposed to break a leg for TV too?”

  “It’ll do,” she joked as Susan walked back out of the bedroom.

  ~*~

  Coffee houses once were a source of inspiration. They had a vibe and a feel to them. Now, Kent thought, they were more like a bar.

  The same people walked in and out of the door every day. They ordered the same addictive concoction and either carried it out or sat for hours and chatted with others.

  He missed the days where he could pull up to a table and no one bothered him for hours. Since he was traveling it was one of his only options. Sure, he could hole up in his hotel room, but that wasn’t very inspirational either.

  Even though he’d rather be alone, he needed to surround himself with people for inspiration—he just wished they weren’t so noisy.

  The door opened again. It had become habit to look up and study the person. This one had him sitting up, removing his fingers from the keyboard of his laptop, and following her with his eyes.

  Long red curls bounced over her shoulders, which were bare in a sundress with yellow flowers. She was lean and toned and absolutely radiant.

  She walked to the end of the line and Kent turned in his chair to follow her with his gaze.

  Smiling at the boy behind the counter, Kent noted that the young man flushed at her simple gesture. That said something.

  She continued on to pay for her drink. He heard the woman ringing up her order offer a pastry to which the redhead waved off with her hand and a laugh. Obviously she’d avoid that, he knew just by looking at her. Her drink was probably low fat blah too.