Walker Pride (31 page)

“I don’t know yet,” Everett said as he took off down the dirt road following his brother’s truck.

~*~

Eric held tight to his arm as his uncle sped down the road.

“Where the hell are you going?” Eric asked through clenched teeth.

“I assume he’s headed to the lake. Son-of-a bitch!” He slapped his hands on the steering wheel.

“He was calling her Violet.”

“He’s lost his ever loving mind,” Byron said as he turned the corner at full speed causing the tires to slide on the gravel.

Holding on increased the pain in Eric’s arm.

“What happened between him and Violet?”

“They had something going on. It had been going on since he was in high school. Right before Bethany was born.”

Byron sped over the bouncy gravel and Eric winced at the pain it caused. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.

Byron wiped his hand over his forehead. “She was a failing model and a horrible actress. She felt as though she were too old. I guess having affairs with seventeen year old boys made her feel younger.”

The thought made Eric sick.

“I met her when she was thirty-five. I fell in love hard.”

Eric seemed to remember that. He didn’t remember Violet very well at all, but he’d remembered his uncle falling for the red head.

“She broke it off with Brant. She got pregnant and that set off her depression again. Now she was fat to boot. After Bethany was born she started up her thing with Brant again and he became obsessive about her.”

“She left then?”

Byron shook his head. “She broke it off with him. We were going to work it out. Get married. But she got scared. Not of marriage, but of Brant.”

“That’s when she moved to California?”

Byron nodded as he skidded into the entrance of the park where Douglas had once wrecked Eric’s truck. The thought of Douglas having had Violet Waterbury in his truck when he’d crashed it made Eric even madder, which only made the pain throbbing in his arm worse.

“This is why I didn’t want Bethany out here. I didn’t want her this close to the psychopath. She’s the spitting image of her mother.”

Douglas’s car was parked by the lake and shaded by a small grove of trees.

Eric felt the vile feeling rise up in his throat.

Byron skidded his truck to a stop and slammed it into park. He quickly jumped out and pulled the shotgun from his backseat.

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 and 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.”