Walker Pride

by Bernadette Marie

  ~*~

  The afternoon had been filled with beer. Ben and Russell had stayed all day. They’d helped fix that section of fence that Eric needed fixed, and it was worth paying them with beer. But now none of them were going anywhere.

  “He’s a son-of-a-bitch!” Russell slurred as he opened another bottle. “And I’m talking about Uncle Byron.”

  Ben chuckled as he set his bottle down on the coffee table and it wobbled. “I wonder what else we will lose before he’s done.”

  Eric let out a long burp as he stretched his weary legs. “We’re not going to lose anything. Morgan can’t have what he wants. We own it and there has to be some legal thing that means we keep it. And I’ll be damned if he moves my mother. Over my dead body will he move her.”

  His voice had risen and he realized, as his head swam, just how loud he was.

  “Bethany came home hoping he’d accept her too. I hate to see him screw her over. She doesn’t deserve that,” he said as he slowly stood and tried to steady himself. “How in the hell are we even related to that asshole?”

  He wasn’t as steady as he thought he was he realized when he kicked the leg of the coffee table.

  Russell laughed and quickly tried to hide it behind a cough.

  “Screw you,” Eric shouted.

  “Get over yourself,” Russell retorted. “Enjoy your buzz and relax.”

  Ben took a long pull from his beer, finishing it off. “He can’t relax. Have you ever known him to relax? He thinks he has to take care of everyone and everything all the damn time.”

  “I’m the oldest. I’m supposed to.”

  Ben stood, wobbled, then with his hands fisted on his hips, he managed to be still “Why don’t you let everyone help you for once? Let us help fight for your house. Let us help you with the land. Let us, I don’t know, set fire to the Morgan’s.”

  Eric stood and stared at his brother. He’d always felt alone among his large family. He’d do anything for his brothers, but even sober, he couldn’t remember a time he’d depended on them.

  He never made it to the kitchen for another beer. He fell back into his seat and just stared at his brothers who simply stared back.

  “He wants to move my mother,” he said flatly.

  Ben sat back down on the couch. “I know. That’s not going to happen.”

  “I lost her once. I can’t lose her again.”

  Russell nodded. “It won’t happen. He’s messing with you, Eric. He wants to wear you down.”

  Ben leaned back and rested his hands behind his head. “I haven’t drunk this much in a very long time.”

  Russell slapped Ben on the arm. “How wasted is this? There aren’t even any women around.”

  Women, Eric thought. Woman—he thought more clearly. “You have to get the hell out of my house.” He stood then quickly sat back down.

  “I ain’t driving anywhere,” Russell argued.

  “No. I have a woman coming.”

  That sent both of his brothers into hysterics and only seemed to piss him off.

  “You have a woman?” Russell nearly choked on his laughter. “I have never seen you with a woman.”

  “Yes, you have,” Ben argued. “That one with the funky eyes.”

  “Oh yeah. What did you see in her?”

  Eric felt his sobriety begin to surface. “She’s coming here in the morning. I’m making breakfast.”

  “You don’t cook,” Ben reminded him.

  “I told her I could cook breakfast.”

  “Toaster waffles?” Ben asked and that again sent him and Russell into another bout of laughter.

  “C’mon, get out.” Eric managed to stand.

  “No way,” Russell leaned back on the couch. “I’m not moving from this space. You wouldn’t make me leave if you really cared.”

  Eric grit his teeth. “I’m going to bed. You’d better be gone by the time the sun comes up.”

  “Can’t we get a few blankets?”

  “You know your way around. You can either both sleep out here or use the guest room.”

  “I get the bed,” Ben quickly claimed.

  “No skin off my nose. I have the fire out here.” Russell kicked his feet up on the couch and rested his head on the arm.

  “Glad I could accommodate you guys. Now remember to get out before she gets here.”

  Russell closed his eyes. “Sure, bro. We’ll be gone if she shows up.”

  Eric shook his head. Brothers were a pain in the ass, he thought as he walked to his bedroom and shut the door behind him. He wouldn’t trade them for anything.

  Russell and Ben were still sleeping when Eric headed out to feed the horses before the sun. This would be a unique sunrise. He hadn’t looked forward to seeing the sun for a very long time.

  For the past month, each sunrise brought the uncertainty of his grandfather’s health. A few days ago the rain moved in just as his grandfather passed. But today felt different. Perhaps the sun would actually shine today.

  Eric zipped up his coat as he walked down the front steps of the house. He pulled the collar of his coat up toward his ears and straightened his hat. The slightest sliver of sunshine was peeking over the horizon. As soon as he was finished with the horses he’d be kicking those brothers of his out of the house. Eric wanted this promise of a perfect morning to be just that—perfect.

  It was just a bit too cold to want to walk to the barn. And if the old truck was too loud this morning, maybe it’d wake his brothers up without him having to punch them in the arm. The memory of doing just that when they were younger had him chuckling to himself as he pulled open the door to the truck and slid in to the cold environment.

  A moment later he turned the key and the engine protested before rumbling, loudly, to life. Yep, that had to have awakened one of them.

  Eric shifted the truck into drive and headed out toward the barn, but as he crested the small hill toward the barn, he noticed there was a car parked outside.

  It wasn’t just any car. It was a Subaru. Her Subaru.

  Susan shivered in the cold morning air with her camera poised and ready to capture the perfect sunrise over the horizon. But her attention shifted when she heard the rumbling of Eric’s old pickup truck coming toward her.

  She turned her camera to the truck and began shooting as he approached and the bright lights of the headlights grew closer.

  When he stopped, she finally lowered her camera. It was still dark enough she couldn’t see his face, until he opened the door and the dome light highlighted his scowl.

  She’d like to think he was unfriendly and that was just how he looked, but she knew it wasn’t the truth.

  Susan stood from where she’d been crouching and walked toward him. Her heart pounded in her chest like a bass drum in a parade.

  “What are you doing?” His voice was gruff. She wrote it off as his first words of the day.

  “I wanted to get a picture of the sunrise. I figured breakfast usually comes after sunup. Why not be here to capture it?”

  His shoulders eased and he took another step toward her. “Sunrises are prettier in color.”

  That brought a smile to her face. He’d noted all her work was in black and white. “I take color photos too.”

  Eric was right in front of her now, towering over her and that scowl had faded away. She swallowed hard against the fear that crept into her. She hadn’t been this close to a man in a year. There was certainly something between them and she wondered if he felt it too.

  “Let me see your camera,” he reached out his hand.

  Susan didn’t hand it right over. What did he want with it? At least there wasn’t any film him could just rip out of it.

  She took a breath of hesitation and blew it out before she handed him the camera.

  Skillfully, he turned it to look at the shots she’d already taken. There were only a few. Pictures of the barn and the silhouette of the horizon where the thin hint of yellow had begun to promise a new day. The last pictures
were of him driving closer to her.

  Eric then turned the camera up and pointed it at her. He looked through the eyepiece and then clicked the picture, then another.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice stammered.

  “Taking your picture.”

  “Why?” She began to reach for the camera, but he took a step back.

  “Because you’re beautiful.”

  Susan stopped. Her lips parted and she blinked as she heard the click of the shutter again and again.

  A moment later he lowered the camera. “Do you often go speechless?”

  “Hardly ever,” she admitted.

  “That’s what I thought.” He offered her back the camera and then walked past her toward the barn.

  Was that it? He was just going to tell her she was beautiful then walk away?

  The sky was turning color, but the urge to follow Eric into the barn was greater than that of staying outside to capture the perfect picture.

  Quickly she followed him inside. She hung her camera around her neck as he began to talk to the horses as if he’d just walked into an office building of co-workers.

  This was a moment she couldn’t help but raise her camera for.

  The dimly lit barn gave that particular horse, which Eric talked to most, a glow. Eric had walked to him first and rubbed his nose and spoke softly to him.

  They both turned their heads toward her as she lowered the camera.

  “He wants to know what you’re going to do with those pictures.”

  Susan moistened her lips. “I don’t know. I just take pictures of things that move me.”

  Eric looked at the horse. “Did you hear that, Whisky River? We move her.”

  The horse gave a neigh as though he understood and agreed with him.

  Eric stepped back from the stall and moved toward her. His hat rode low over his brow and he resembled an angry cowboy as he walked toward her. She pushed back her shoulders and lifted her chin.

  “I had a crappy day yesterday,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out…”

  “Your coming out here was the best part.” He lifted his cold hand to her cheek. “You came back.”

  “You invited me.”

  “Didn’t mean you’d come.”

  “I’m here.” Her breath carried on the cold air in the barn and her teeth chattered, but that was probably from nerves she decided.

  “We agreed there was an attraction—an interest between us.”

  “Yes.” Was he a businessman too? Was he going to go over all the points of this?

  “It’s killing me to find out just how much interest there is.”

  Eric stepped in closer, forcing her to step back and soon she was pushed up against a wall of hay bales. The hammering beat of her heart leapt into her throat as those dark eyes of his gazed down at her.

  “I’m not scaring you, am I?”

  “Are you trying to?”

  His lips curled into a grin that toyed with her. “Not really.”

  “Then no.”

  The hand, which had been caressing her face, now lifted and braced against the hay bale behind her. His other hand came to her waist.

  “I’m interested, Susan,” he said as he lowered his cold lips to hers.

  Suddenly the cold wasn’t a factor as his mouth warmed against hers. She parted her lips to feel the warmth of the kiss as he pressed his tongue against hers.

  She gasped for air, but it only managed to deepen the kiss. Her camera pushed against her as he moved in closer. Her head swam in wonder of this magnificent kiss from nearly a stranger—whom she hoped to share a few more of these kisses.

  Eric’s hand on her hip moved to her lower back and pushed her even closer to him. There was heat between them. More than just pressed together body heat. It was an electric surge that pulsed through both of them.

  Did his head sway as hers did? Did he feel the zap of the kiss clear down into his boots, because she sure could.

  She raised her hands to his chest and then wrapped them around his neck. A moan escaped his throat at he deepened the kiss even further.

  “Whoa!” A voice came from the doorway and Susan pulled back, but Eric didn’t. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Go away, Russ,” Eric said keeping his eyes on Susan.

  “Right. Just wanted you to know we were headed out.”

  “Good.”

  “Okay, we’ll see you later.”

  Susan never had seen the man that spoke. She was trapped beneath Eric, his eyes opening slowly and focusing on her.

  “Do you need to see them? Go talk to them. Tell them…”

  “Tell them what? He knows what I’m doing here. He saw.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “I wasn’t done yet,” he said as he lowered his head and took his time kissing her until her blood had fully warmed and now nearly boiled in her veins.