by Taylor Hart
“Bup, bup, bup.” Her father stood, his eyes serious. “Quiet now, we wouldn’t want to disturb anyone. Oh, son, sit.”
Walker didn’t sit.
Her father puffed his cigar again, not looking at all bothered. “This is part of what I’m trying to explain to you. This world, my world, is a world where I have lots of connections and lots of people who want to make me happy. Which is hard sometimes, I admit.” He shrugged, and his brow furrowed. “Even though my baby thinks she wants you, thinks you are going to be her fiancé, what she doesn’t know is that will never happen.”
Walker flexed his hand into a fist.
Her father held out the cigar in the air. “Because it’s about so many things, not just you or her or your brother. It’s about legacy. It’s about so many things you wouldn’t understand.”
Walker glared at him.
Now, the cigar was wagging at him again. “As I mentioned, a cigar is usually an acquired taste, much like a fine man …” He trailed off and let out a long breath. “A fine man, heck, that’s an investment too. Especially for a man like me with a daughter as fine as Scarlett.” He cleared his throat. “She can’t be choosing the cigars that aren’t worth the investment, can she?”
Walker hated how powerless he felt.
Her father took another drag on the cigar and then blew the smoke toward him this time, a grin on his face. “I would encourage you to play nice during this wedding, to not embarrass my family, but I will expect you to be gone when it’s done.” He turned away from him. “For your benefit and for your brother’s benefit.”
Walker watched him sauntering off and wanted to kick his butt. “Hey, Mr. Powers,” Walker called out.
Her father turned back.
Walker reached out a hand. “I think I will take a cigar.”
Her father grunted and turned to leave. “Unfortunately, you and I both know you couldn’t handle it, son.”
Chapter 12
Scarlett stood on the beach the morning after the dinner on the dock. She’d gone for a walk, and she was feeling good. Strong. Which was nice. The chemo pills still left her feeling tired at times, but for the most part, she could push through it. The day was gorgeous, and the beach had been recently combed by the resort. It was beautiful.
After all, she couldn’t believe she’d kissed Walker again.
She knew why. They had all been looking at her, and Kurt had been looking at him like he was trash. She had been feeling insecure and protective. After her father said that little toast, it’d all felt like too much.
“No drowning yourself today. I’m not doing the pony rides by myself.”
Startled, she turned back and saw Walker Kent in a black exercise tank top and black shorts with earbuds in. Those reflective sunglasses made him look … okay, fine, he was just cool. The guy oozed cool.
Her heart raced. “Hi.” She thought of how Charlene had handed out a written agenda of the next couple days and the activities. This afternoon was horseback riding. Her eyes swept him up and down. “Honestly, I don’t know if the resort will have a horse big enough for you.”
A small smile played at his lips, and he flexed his bicep. “Can’t stop checking me out, huh?”
A bit embarrassed, she let out a short laugh.
“Hey, I don’t blame you. I mean, I don’t blame you for kissing me last night either.” He smirked.
Feeling like a fool because she kept telling him not to kiss her, she shook her head. “Sorry.”
The smirk turned playful. “Hey, don’t apologize on my account. I don’t mind the kissing.”
The moment turned thick and heavy with chemistry, but she ignored it, moving on. “You were great last night,” she said, knowing she was turning red as she thought of her kiss to prove to everyone that their relationship wasn’t a fraud.
Lifting and lowering his shoulder, he looked out at the ocean. “It was interesting.”
She let out a light laugh, considering how she’d been more comfortable last night than she’d expected. When Marissa had left crying, Scarlett’s gut instinct was to go after her, but then she remembered they weren’t best friends anymore. The thought had stung.
But it had actually been fine. As fine as it could possibly be. She thought of Walker taking her to her room last night with his hand in hers. He’d teased her about kissing him, and then she’d thought he’d almost kissed her good night. But he hadn’t.
“What?” Walker asked, taking a couple of steps closer to her, cutting the distance between them. It was obvious he’d been up a long time, running on the beach. It was funny that they hadn’t seen each other until now.
“Nothing.”
“Not true. You were thinking something.” He took another step toward her until he was right at her side.
Not wanting to tell him the truth, she gestured to the ocean. “I was thinking day two is beginning.”
He grinned at her. “Yes, it is.”
It was unnerving, the way the man could look at her so intensely, so focused. She floundered for something to say. “What do you think of the view?”
He grunted. “Not bad.” He pointed to the ocean line, where waves crashed against large rocks. “I went on some missions where we would fly over the ocean a lot. I always enjoyed going over the rocks where the waves would crash and you’d get all the spray. I liked seeing how nature conflicts with itself all the time, and then it recedes and smooths out.”
This had not been the answer she’d expected from Walker. She found herself getting lost in what he was saying.
Turning to her, he shrugged. “There’s so much in nature we can learn from. Sometimes you crash, and you spray, and it’s uncontainable.”
Her heart rate kicked up a notch. Staring at him, she wanted to know more about him.
Gently, he reached up and moved a strand of hair out of her face. “And sometimes it flows easy, and it’s nothing but smooth sailing.”
Dang, she wanted him to kiss her again.
No. No. No. She shouldn’t be feeling this way. She took a step back. “Uh, yeah.” Why were her thoughts scrambled? She didn’t know what to think any longer.
Neither of them spoke, but neither of them moved either.
She opted for teasing him. “Wise words from a football player.”
“What are you saying? You’re alarmed we’re not all dumb jocks?”
She grinned at him, thinking that he was flirting. That maybe she was flirting, too.
“Say it again,” he said in a challenging voice.
“What? That you’re pretty smart, even though you get your head hit all the time?” She flashed him a teasing grin.
Without warning, the man was bending down and picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. “You asked for it.”
In a juvenile response, she kicked and pounded his back. “Let me down!” But she giggled. It was ridiculous, this huge man charging with her toward the beach. “Stop!”
“Never!” he said, sprinting into the water with her.
Scarlett sputtered as he dunked her in the ocean before they bobbed up to the surface, but unlike the last time they were submerged in water together, they came up laughing.
Staring at his deep blue eyes and hearing him laugh as she splashed him, all she could think about was how beautiful he was. And not just because he was hot.
After splashing for a bit, both of them just stayed up to their necks in the ocean, dodging waves periodically, jumping at the same time. They made a game of it, counting to three before the wave would crest on them.
As they walked back to the beach, Walker motioned to the sand. “Want to sit for a bit?”
Taking him up on his offer to sit, she sat on the wet sand. It’d been a long time since she played at the beach. She started pushing sand together. “Only if you build a sand castle with me.”
“Deal.” He got down and began scooping sand toward her pile. “Let’s pile it here. Then we’ll make a moat around it.”
Liking that
he played her game, she nodded, and they began to work together.
As they worked on the castle and moat and then the details of the castle, he said to her, “So, I’m a bit worried I won’t be able to do what you brought me here to do.”
“What do you mean?”
He got up, rushed to the ocean, scooped up a double handful of water, and ran back to dump it in the moat. Unfortunately, it didn’t make much of a dent. “I guess we’re not going to have water until it comes in.”
She kept working. “What do you mean, you’re not going to be able to do what I brought you here to do?”
He leaned back. “I’m supposed to be the jerk, but you have Kurt filling that spot already.”
Unable to deny it, she laughed. “Yeah, he does do a great job of being the jerk.”
Walker pulled off his sunglasses, and once again, she was hypnotized by his eyes. “I do think I’m annoying the heck out of your father, so there’s that.”
Her heart rate kicked up a notch. “I think so too, but why do you say that?”
“He came to my cabin last night. We had a chat about fine cigars and how I wasn’t the right cigar for you.”
Anger twisted inside of her. She blew out a breath. “Are you kidding me? He said that?”
Walker rubbed the bottom of his chin. “In so many words.”
Stupefied, she threw up her hands. “Of course. He cares because you’re not from the kind of family he would want or …” She paused and eyed him. “Your soldier face.”
He looked up at her. “What?”
“You’re wearing the expression that means you don’t want to talk about it.”
“You think you’ve been able to read me since we met, but I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”
She grinned. “Oh, I can.”
He let out a light laugh, then sighed. “Then he threatened Grant’s career, too.” He raked a hand through his hair.
“What?” She knew her father didn’t play by the rules when he wanted to get his way, but to hear a firsthand account of it was somehow baffling. She shook her head. “Actually, it’s not surprising. My father never plays fair.”
“Can he?” Walker turned serious. “Ruin my brother?”
Scarlett was seeing more and more that this guy would never be the jerk she’d ordered him to be. Not when he was so worried about Grant. “I don’t know exactly. Your brother has a good reputation, but yeah, my father could probably do damage.”
Walker let out a breath. “I can’t let that happen.”
Worry pulsed through her. What could they do? She didn’t want Grant ruined. He was a good guy. He had been the only person she’d told her secret to, and he’d kept it.
Walker exhaled. “I don’t know.”
The truth felt inevitable. “Then go.” She turned away, hands trembling. “We’ll just end this. This is like classic celebrity couple stuff, right? We end it. I’ll just smile in those stupid wedding photos they’ll make us do and find someone else to dance with at the reception.”
“You really don’t like dancing, do you?”
Sputtering out a laugh, she shook her head. “I like dancing. I just don’t like the awkwardness of dancing with someone I don’t want to dance with.”
He frowned. “You’re an actress.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know me.”
For a couple of seconds, neither of them spoke. Then he reached for her hand. “Let me talk with Grant, and I’ll see what he thinks.”
Her eyes fluttered, and she bit back on her emotion. Part of her felt stupid that she didn’t want to face everything alone right now. She realized that since she’d been dealing with the wedding, she’d quit obsessing about the cancer so much, wondering if it would return. Truthfully, she hadn’t had time to think about it. It’d been nice.
Walker grinned. “After all, I do owe you a date or something.”
“I thought you said that cleaning closet counted as the date.”
The ice blue of his eyes glinted in the sun and his lips turned up. “Let’s just focus on today. And to start with, will you please tell me what you ever saw in Kurt?”
She sniffed and let out a relieved laugh, feeling a bit more relaxed. “Fine, but if you and Grant think you need to bail, then bail—no hard feelings. We can work out some type of custody arrangement for the house.”
“We’ll see.” He smiled and let go of her hand. “So tell me again what you saw in the old boyfriend?”
“I know. I guess I’m getting a chance to see him from a new perspective.” She thought about his ocean comment and sighed. “At one time, he was actually good. There was a lot of good in him, and he used to look at me differently.” She shrugged, not really comfortable talking about it. “I guess the short answer is I saw a life with him. I wanted that. I don’t know when it changed. Maybe I didn’t want to see the truth that he’d changed until I was forced to.”
He grunted. “Yeah, I don’t think that sliver of good is shining all too bright anymore in Kurt.”
Finishing her castle-building, she stared at him, then picked up a handful of sand and threw it at him. “You don’t have to be so superior about it.”
The sand hit his chest. He looked at it, then grinned at her. “Are we really doing a sand war?”
There was no need to have one; she knew he would win. She lifted her hands in surrender. “No!”
He laughed, and both of them began to build on the castle again. “You were with that guy forever,” he said.
Lifting and lowering a shoulder, she stared at Walker. “Too long, that’s for sure.” She kicked the sand. “He was always a friend. After he was done with law school and in L.A. full time, I saw him more and we got together. So probably two years we were ‘officially’ together. I thought I would marry him my whole life, though. Ahh. Thought I would have a bunch of kids and bake and … Sorry, that just got weird.”
He frowned. “Why?”
She shrugged, feeling comfortable with this guy. “Because I wanted that. To be a mom, to run them to soccer. It sounds stupid, but …”
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” he said quietly. “My mom was an amazing mom. And I thought I would have that life, too. I mean, not as a mom, but …”
She thought of that wedding picture of him and his wife. “I know it must not have been easy for you.”
He broke gazes with her and looked out over the ocean, letting out a rippling laugh. “To answer your question …” He trailed off, and she wondered if he wouldn’t answer it. His eyes flashed to hers. “Yes, I married my high school sweetheart. We had the same kind of dream you’re talking about.” He grunted. “I was driving when the semitruck hit and … it was my fault.”
She didn’t know what to say. All she wanted to do was put her arms around him, but it wasn’t the time.
He kept pushing sand around. “Yeah, it was tough. I did what Kents do. I focused on the military. I applied for special ops and got sent on the more difficult missions.” He let out a derisive laugh. “Then they kicked me out.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling his pain.
He pulled in a breath. “Yep. My dad used to say, ‘Life sucks and then ya die.’”
She thought of the rough way he must have been brought up. “That’s awful.”
“But true.”
They both stood there, and she wanted to reach out to him, squeeze his hand, show she cared. It was all mixed up in this fake relationship for everyone else, and she hadn’t expected to really start to get to know him. Not knowing if he would answer or not, she asked, “The other night, were you having a …”
“PTSD moment. Yep, it’s fun. Never know when those will be triggered.” He squirmed a little. “So what’s on tap today after brunch and horseback riding?”
Taking the hint he didn’t want to talk about it, she thought of the itinerary. “I think soap carving.”
Walker let out a breath. “Wow.”
“I know.”
“You would think if someone was laying out this kind of money for an event, they could afford to just buy them.”
“Oh, Charlene is all about making sure we have ‘team-building’ activities that also make it special for her guests.”
“If I hadn’t met her, I wouldn’t believe she cared this much, but the woman seems sincere.”
Scarlett smiled. “She is.” When his eyes narrowed, she wanted to ask more about his PTSD, but she stopped herself. “Are you okay?”
He grunted. “Right as rain, baby.”
She nodded, still pushing sand around. Nausea hit her, and she put her hand to her stomach. “Ah.”
“Are you okay?”
She tried to put on a fake smile. “Yep.”
Hesitating, he reached a hand out to her. “I bet you haven’t eaten anything. Let’s fix that.”
She took his hand and let him help her up.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but somehow, you look paler than you usually look.” He frowned. “You looked like this the other day. What is going on?”
She glared at him, but let him keep her hand, feeling a bit woozy. She hated this part of the treatments—the way she would feel sick at random times. “I’m fine.”
He grunted. “The thing I don’t tolerate in my fake relationships is lying.”
Chapter 13
After walking Scarlett back to her room and calling room service to bring up some toast, Walker had helped her into bed.
“Sorry.” She had smiled at him, but closed her eyes. “I guess everything is catching up to me.”
He hadn’t believed her, because at the beach she’d been totally fine. Then he’d watched how all of her energy was gone in a second. It was suspicious.
When she’d gotten in bed, she’d instantly fallen asleep. He’d waited for the room service to come and then put the toast and water by her bed.
Something felt off to him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The kind of off he’d felt in the military when he’d piloted helicopters. The kind of off that undeniably meant something wasn’t as it appeared to be.
