“Wasn’t one of your staff guarding me?”
He glanced over at her. “I have watch of you tonight.”
A ripple of sensation shivered through her, and she pulled her robe closer around her. Neither of them spoke another word until Walker turned onto a winding mountain road and finally pulled into a drive. Once he’d put the car into park, neither of them moved. It seemed the air was so thick with anticipation, she had trouble drawing breath. He put his hands on the wheel and bowed his head slightly. Madeline examined his handsome, stark profile in the dim light.
“I regretted leaving you. More than you’ll ever know. But I can’t apologize for who I was then any more than I can say I regret what I’ve become. I needed to go and find my own way, Madeline. I was a kid. I didn’t have anything to offer you.”
“I never asked for anything but you,” she said, staring blindly at the house in front of her.
He gave a dissatisfied grunt. “You may have had a child’s dreams then, but you’re a grown woman now. Are you really going to punish me indefinitely for establishing a career for myself? I couldn’t have done what I wanted to do in Lake Tahoe. I’d have ended up doing rich people’s lawns for the rest of my life, like my dad.”
“Do you think I would have cared?” she exclaimed heatedly, turning toward him.
“No. But I would have, Madeline. I would have. Do you understand?”
Her breath burned in her lungs in the seconds that followed. He exhaled suddenly, informing Madeline he’d been holding his breath, too.
“It isn’t as if I didn’t try to contact you. I was miserable when I heard about your dad dying while I was doing my basic training,” he said gruffly. “I tried like hell to get you on the phone during those seven weeks. You were just as religious about avoiding me.”
She looked at her hands clasped in her lap through a haze of tears.
“I suppose you think I’m a fool, still hurting about a boy I fell in love with when I was nineteen years old,” she said angrily.
He put his hand on her shoulder, but she continued to stare at her lap, not wanting him to see her tears.
“I don’t think you’re a fool. It’s hard to know when you’re that young that what was happening between us was such a rarity . . . something so special.” He stroked her shoulder. “I told you I came back for you, Madeline. Do you really think I’d blame you for being set off balance at the sight of me? I’m fucking thrilled about it.”
Laughter popped out of her throat at his wry tone. A tear spilled down her cheek, and she furtively dried it with her fingertips.
“Madeline?”
“Yes?”
“Will you let me tell you now how sorry I am about not being here when your dad passed? I know how much he meant to you.”
A spasm of grief went through her. She hadn’t realized until that moment how long she’d waited to hear Walker say those words. “I’m so sorry about your dad, too,” she mumbled wetly.
She felt his fingertips on her cheek, drying tears that now flowed freely. “I wish you would have taken my calls back then. We might have avoided all this, Madeline.”
She shook her head as emotion clawed at her throat.
“I couldn’t. It would have hurt too much to hear your voice, knowing you were gone.”
“Shhhh,” he soothed as he took her into his arms. “I’m back. I’m back now.”
After a minute she gained control over her upwelling of emotion. She became increasingly aware of the feeling of Walker’s hard chest beneath her cheek . . . the steady, strong beat of his heart . . . the feeling of his chin resting on the top of her head and how he occasionally turned it to kiss her hair.
“Are you ready to go inside?” he asked.
She nodded. The pavement of the driveway felt cool beneath her bare feet. She glanced around the house curiously once he’d let her in the door and locked it behind them. She’d never shown the house but she’d noticed it on the MLS listing for sale. Three bedrooms, a den and a lake view. If Walker had purchased it, he must be doing all right for himself.
He hung his keys on a hook in the entryway. He grabbed her hand and led her upstairs without turning on the lights, moving with a confident stride in the darkness. She thought of what he’d said about how he hadn’t felt he could offer her anything as a young man. Part of her had always vigilantly resisted that explanation. Tonight, as she held Walker’s hand and followed his tall shadow down a hallway, she examined that part of herself that had blamed Walker for leaving Tahoe . . . for leaving her.
She hadn’t wanted what he said about finding his way to be true because then she’d officially have had to let him go.
Had she really been so selfish that she would have denied him his dreams . . . his desire to forge his character into something of which he could be proud?
The full moon reflected off the lake, creating a palette of shifting dark blue shadows and silvery white light in the bedroom where Walker led her. He paused at the foot of a bed and turned to face her. She put her hand on his forearm, halting him when he started to reach for her.