AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He nodded. What could he say to Walker. He took a step closer to his brother. What he wanted was to hug him one last time. He never expected to see him again. Walker shoved him. Danni gasped.
“I deserved that.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve turned over a new leaf?” Walker’s tone was incredulous. He was filled with condemnation. He knew that he blamed him for the two girl’s deaths. He blamed him for their mother’s death. Jesse blamed himself.
“No, I haven’t. I can’t go back and live a life like you will have with Danni. We both know that. A pretty little house to go with my pretty little wife…it’s not in the cards for me but I am sorry for Laura, Danielle and Mom.”
Walker sucker punched him in the jaw. He didn’t see it coming and neither did Danni. She cried out his name and pulled on his bicep, but Walker was a big man. “That’s for Mom,” he shouted at him.
Jesse rubbed the spot on his whiskered jaw and his eyes met Walker’s. “I guess I deserved that too.”
Walker hit him again. This time he didn’t curl his knuckles right and he cried out in pain. “Walker stop,” Danni pleaded with him.
“Go,” Walker told him. “Where ever it is you are going, just go.”
He nodded. He turned to walk back in the woods. Jesse had walked a mile through the thick brush that hadn’t been withered by fall’s low temperatures. He didn’t look back at his brother even though he knew that Walker still looked at him. He knew that he would never see him again. Even if Damon brought him back to the states, he wouldn’t return to Sherwood. There was nothing for him here anymore.
&nbs
p; **
Danni clutched at Walker’s arm while he stared into the woods where Jesse disappeared. “He’s gone, Walker. Let’s go to Ike’s.”
They were having a luncheon for his mother. Half the town was there waiting for them to celebrate his mother’s life. She wouldn’t want them to mourn her. She wanted them to live. She hadn’t wanted Walker to seek revenge and he wasn’t sure what Danni would have done to stop him if he hadn’t stopped himself after hitting Jesse twice because in those moments between throwing his fists at his brother’s face, he wanted to kill him.
After a few moments, he turned towards the car. She noticed his knuckles were swollen. She touched them with a gentleness that still caused him to flinch in pain. “Are you, all right?” Danni asked.
She knew that he wasn’t. “He won’t be back,” Walker replied and that bothered Walker. Jesse was all the blood family that Walker had left in this life. He felt responsible for not saving him from the life that Jesse had forged for himself.
“No, sweetheart, I don’t think he will.”
He shook his head as he led her to the truck. Her old, red Ford that she loved so well. He was going to have it painted for her as a wedding present, but she didn’t know that yet. It was already arranged.
“Could you drive?” He asked.
She chuckled. “I could and if you don’t get your license soon, Hawk is going to ticket you for driving without a license.”
Walker laughed. “Nah, he won’t. He’ll just keep complaining about it.”
“A deputy sheriff from the county won’t be as understanding if one of them pulls you over,” she teased him.
“Probably not,” Walker replied.
She held the door for him. “Dad will give you ice when we get to the bar.”
“I’m going to need it.”
“Do you think it’s broken?”
“Nope, just bruised,” he replied.
Danni shut the door on him and walked around to the driver’s seat. He watched her through the windshield. His breathe caught in his chest as he gazed at her. She opened the door and smiled at him. His feelings overwhelmed him. Danni was more precious to him than anything else in this world.
She climbed behind the wheel and started up the old truck that looked like it couldn’t possibly run but purred like a dream. “I love you, Danni Rose,” he told her.
“I love you, too.”
She leaned over the seat and he met her in the middle. His lips touched hers. Her eyes fluttered closed and he was reminded of how precious life was to him. This woman was all kinds of right for him as she put it. She got everything about him and made him want to be better for himself and for her.
