Walker Pride (18 page)

Susan picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip only to find that it had gone cold. “Can I warm your coffee?”

Eric looked at his mug and shook his head. Susan stood and walked to the sink to pour out the cold coffee. She filled her mug with hot coffee and sat back down across from Eric.

She lifted the mug to her lips. “So her family wants the land?”

Eric nodded. “They want her back too.”

Susan set her mug back on the table. “They want who back?”

“My mother.”

She wasn’t sure what to think about that. “Where is she?” she asked with her words drawn out as she tried to think it through.

“We have a family plot. My mother is buried there.” He kept his gaze steady on her. “The plot is just up over the hill on our original land.”

“And now they want her buried on their land?”

“Yes.”

Susan reached for his hand now. “You look to lose your land and your mother?”

Eric’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. “Over my dead body will they take her from me.”

Susan certainly didn’t like the thought of him putting his life on the line. Though she certainly understood it.

Eric raked his fingers through his hair. “All of this has led us to someone poisoning my horses and my cattle. They cost me my business. You tell me my mother’s family isn’t involved.”

“You know that for sure?”

He shook his head. “No. My father says it’s not them. But they sure were defensive when I showed up asking questions.”

Susan moved to him and positioned herself on his lap. “If you need a place you can…”

“I won’t need a place,” he said. “No one is taking my house. No one is taking my mother.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Sharing all of this with me.”

Eric touched her cheek and then brushed his fingers into her hair. “Your turn, you know.”

“My turn for what?”

“Why did you get divorced?”

Susan winced. Yes, it was only fair she supposed. “I was horribly bored.”

The surprise in her answer surprised him. That was evident by the flash of shock in his eyes. “Bored?”

“I wanted to go to culinary school. I wanted children. I freaking wanted to drive from one end of town to the other without my husband telling me how bad it was for the world.” She took a breath. “I heard the phrases ‘
you should have, why don’t you,
and
I think it would be better if you’
more than I ever would have liked. My obsession with food was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Yes. Just wrong. I needed to focus on doing good for the environment and the world. I needed a job that brought in decent money. I simply wasn’t good enough for anything. I just got bored with being nothing.”

Eric brushed his thumb over her cheek. “I don’t buy into you being not good enough. I’ve seen what you’re building.”

Susan couldn’t help but smile. “That’s why I’m in Georgia. It was far enough away to not matter what I did. I gladly drive across town and I’m doing what I love.”

“You do a good job too.”

“He’d never have said that.”

“He doesn’t have to. I’m saying it.” Eric lifted his lips to hers and sealed his words with a kiss that had her clinging to him.

He pushed them back from the table and carried her to the couch, his mouth still firmly pressed to hers. Gently, he laid her on the couch and slid atop of her.

Susan hadn’t imagined she’d be happy with a man, ever. She’d written this part of her life away. But Eric had brought back the wanting.

Eric kissed her until her body eased beneath him. The warmth from the fire made the room’s new heat grow in intensity. Then, he pulled back and looked down at her with that grin that tugged at only one side of his mouth.

“What the hell does Q stand for?”

The humor that lit in Susan’s eyes had been priceless.

“Q?”

“Your business card. It says Susan Q. Hayes.”

She looked up at him and simply grinned. “Is this driving you crazy?”

“I’ll just lay here, pinning you down, until you tell me,” he said.

Susan puckered her lips as if to keep them tight.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“Didn’t you just say you’d lay here if I didn’t tell you?”

He let out a groan and lowered his lips to her neck. Having her beneath him was doing him in. In time she’d tell him. She’d probably tell him if he asked again. But his body couldn’t be controlled when she toyed with him like she was.

She moaned as she raised her arms to encircle his neck.

As he moved his hands to skim under her shirt and touch her soft, warm skin, he heard the unmistakable sound of a truck driving up to the house.

“My family has the worst timing.”

She smiled, her eyes still hazy. “How do you know it’s your family?”

“Trust me.”

Eric rose and took her hand, pulling her from the couch just as his father burst through the door.

Poised on the tip of his tongue was a colorful comment for the intruder, but when he saw who it was, he swallowed down his comment.

“Dad? What’s wrong?” He moved toward the door.

His father looked up at him and then toward Susan. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had company.” He turned and looked out the door before turning back to Eric. “I didn’t even notice the car.”

“I have coffee. We have some breakfast left. Why don’t you come join us?”

The look on his father’s face said he hadn’t made the trek out to his house just to say hello.

“Can we talk?” His father’s words were tight and hushed.

Susan smiled sweetly. “I should head out and get some work done.”

That wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to stay if it were
her
father walking in sounding so desperate.

“Give me just a moment, Dad,” Eric said following Susan to the kitchen where her car keys sat on the counter. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to go.”

“He needs you right now. Call me later. If I miss you tonight I’ll be out for dinner with your family tomorrow.”

Eric grunted knowing this was best. But the positive thing was she was still planning to come back.

He took her hands in his. “This isn’t how I planned this.”

“I’m flexible. I have a family too. My ex didn’t like giving me my space when my family needed me. I’d never do the same to someone else.”

“I think I love you,” he said quietly.

Her eyes shot open wide and her breath seemed to catch. “I didn’t expect that.”

“I don’t think I did either.” He wiped a hand across the back of his neck. “In fact, I don’t want you to say anything right now and let’s just let that linger there.”

She smiled and he took that as a good sign.

Susan touched his cheek with her soft, warm hand. “Call me if you need me.”

“Dinner is always at five,” he said.

“I’ll be there. I’ll bring something.”

That made him chuckle. “She’s never allowed anyone to do that before. But something tells me you’d be allowed.”

She lingered a loving gaze on him before she walked past him and toward the door.

“Goodbye, Mr. Walker.”

“Oh,” his father said as if waking from a trance. “Goodbye…”

“Susan,” she said gently offering her name when he stumbled trying to remember. “I met you after your father’s funeral.”

“Right. I’m sorry. I remember.”

She rested her hand on his father’s arm. “Take care.”

Eric watched as his father’s mouth curled slightly and he was sure his father didn’t even know he’d fallen for Susan’s charm.

They both watched as she pulled on her coat and walked to her car. A few moments later she drove away.

“How about that coffee, Dad?” Eric offered, hoping to break the ice a little. Whatever his father had to say wasn’t good. That much was written all over his face.

“Sure.”

Eric hadn’t actually expected him to accept the offer. His father was a get-down-to-business kind of man.

But Eric would take the slight distraction offered by the time to pour the coffee.

His father took a seat at the table and picked up a piece of bacon from the plate, which had been left there. “I suppose if you get involved with a woman who cooks all the time you eat well.”

“I’ve eaten more full meals this week than I have in a long time. She’s a vegetarian though. I suppose I’ll have to get used to a few things.”

His father took another bite from the strip. “Getting used to things means you’re planning on keeping her around?”

Eric swallowed hard as he poured the coffee in two mugs. It was warm enough, for now.

“It seems as if that’s what I want to do.”

“I’m happy for you. Crappy timing though, huh?”

Eric turned toward the table and set the mugs down before he took his seat. “Who’s to say the timing would ever be right?”

His father nodded as he lifted the mug to his lips, sipped, then winced.

Eric sipped his as well. “I guess it got cold.” He stood, picked up the mugs and dumped them into the sink.

“They’re going to move your mother.”

Eric felt the mug slip from his hand and crash into the sink, breaking into big chunks. A ceramic shard bounced from the sink lodging itself into the side of his hand.

“Shit!” He yanked his hand back and pulled the shard from his hand. Blood trickled down his arm and onto the floor.

His father moved quickly, taking the dishtowel from where it hung on the oven door handle.

“Get this wrapped around it.”

Eric grit his teeth against the sting.

“Let’s look at it. Do you need stitches?” His father reached for him.

Eric pulled his hand back. “I don’t need any damn stitches. I’ll take care of it.”

He held the towel tighter, noticing that the blood was beginning to ooze through the fabric. Blood never bothered Eric, but having it pulse out of his body made his knees feel week. With a swift swipe of his foot, he pulled the kitchen chair out further and sat down.

His father looked down at him, forcing Eric to take a long, deep breath. Before he spoke, he bit down on the inside of his cheek trying to get just a little control over the anger that still boiled in him.

“You’re letting her go? You’re letting them move her?”

“Eric, there’s a lot going on here.”

“And I’m the one getting screwed!” If he were sure he wouldn’t fall over from the amount of blood soaking into the towel he’d walk out of the room. He didn’t need to have this conversation.

“You know this isn’t all about you,” his father’s voice broke. “I loved her. I lost her too.”

Eric gasped as his father spat the words toward him.

“They turned her away. They disowned her and pushed her out of their lives. She was your wife. My mother. To them, she was nothing.”

Eric watched as the color began to drain from his father’s face.

“That was so long ago,” his father’s voice drifted.

“What does that matter? You can’t go back.”

“People make mistakes, Eric.”

His heart pounded in his chest and his hand throbbed in the towel. He was damn sure he too was going to need stitches, but this conversation just might give him a heart attack first.

“She didn’t make a mistake. She fell in love with you, married you, and had me. Where is it written that that is a mistake?”

The color was coming back to his father’s face. His cheeks were red and the vein on the side of his temple became pronounced.

“We’ve had her for forty years. Elias has promised to have her buried in a cemetery in town. Not in their family cemetery and we’d move her from ours.”

“This is ridiculous!” He stood and quickly sat back down when the blood rushed from his head. “She’s not moving.”

“You don’t have any say,” his father said as he walked out of the kitchen.

Eric stood, fighting off the nausea that was setting in, and followed his father. “You’re just going to walk away?”

“I didn’t expect you to understand. But I don’t need your permission either. So if you want to visit her before they move her, you have three days.”

“Three days? When do I need to move out of here? You might as well uproot my whole life while you’re at it.”

His father’s eyes narrowed. “Then maybe you’d better start packing.”

“You’re giving up? What’s done is done? No one is going to fight Elias Morgan for the land that grandpa bought outright? You’re not going to fight to keep your wife on your own land? What about the cattle that’s dying? What about my business and the horses I lost? I’m not going to just let this lie. Someone is pushing me off my land and out of my house and now I wonder how much you know about it.”