Page 54 of The Ones We Fight For

"Great." Walker sounded less than enthusiastic, the word slipping from his mouth like a cheap way of filling the space. "I guess you should go home, then." Stepping forward, his arms came around her, cocooning her in warmth and the scent of sandalwood mixed with a lingering frosting smell.

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

She didn’t want to leave at all. She didn’t want to hear Cliff out or spend even a second dwelling in the past. At the moment, she was convinced that anything but exploring Walker’s lips was a waste of time.

"Yeah, of course." Another space-filler. The sexual tension was gone, leaving nothing salvageable other than an awkward goodbye and a look of discomfort on his face.

When Walker closed the door, shutting her inside her car, Talia gave him a stiff wave through the window that he returned just as uneasily. The funk she was in when he walked away caused her to miss twice when she tried to shove her key into the ignition. Then, even worse, when she flicked her wrist to start it, the car turned over without the engagement of her spark plugs. Embarrassment coursed through her veins as she tried again, begging the car to start. It had to start.

A few tries later, to no avail, Talia let out a groan of frustration, bowing her head over her steering wheel and smacking the dash angrily with the palm of her hand several times.

"Why won't you fucking work, car? Why are you just as broken as me?" Great, now she was yelling at her car as if it would respond with a "sorry, ma'am. That was just a misunderstanding. Of course I’ll start for you now."

A loud knock on her window made Talia jump, slamming one of her knees into the underside of her steering wheel. Letting out a small gasp of pain, her head swiveled to look outside, where Walker was standing again. Shooting him a sheepish smile, she opened the door.

"Who the hell sold you this car? I want to have a little discussion with them." His tone had flipped to anger. Her car not working seemed to be an affront to his very being, and maybe it was, considering how they met.

"What are you gonna do? Walker, it's fine. I'll just take it back to the shop, and I'll have them do a full workup." Talia tossed her hand in the air to declare it no big deal.

"When you bought it, they said it was in perfect condition, did they not?"

"Well, yes, but it’s a used car, and—”

"I'm going to drive you home, then I'm going to find out who sold you this bucket of bolts and screws and I'm going to give them a piece of my mind. It should be safe for you to drive it. I need you to be safe!"

Safe. He was hyper-aware that driving took too many lives, and it felt like a stab of pain to her heart. He shouldn’t have to feel that way. He shouldn’t have to worry constantly that the people he cared about wouldn’t come home. The sudden realization that she was now one of those people struck a chord with her. It gave her even more of a sense of belonging.

"McDanielson’s," Talia gave in, providing the name of the dealership.

"Thank you. Now get in my car. I'll drive you home."

Chapter 20

Talia

The drive to Talia’s house was uncomfortably silent. Walker looked as though he was wrought with tension, his jaw ticking like he had to physically restrain himself from looking at or touching her. Talia couldn’t figure out if it was Cliff’s call, the car trouble, or the force that had been pulling them together all night that was putting Walker on edge. She had half a mind to try seducing him when they arrived and was still considering the logistics of that when they pulled up to her house to find another car in the driveway.

“You have guests?” Walker asked.

Talia peered at the unfamiliar black sedan with rental plates in front of her house. “Not that I’m aware of.” The strange car was pulled as far off to the side as it could get, as if whoever the vehicle belonged to was leaving her room to pull in beside them. No definitive markers told her who the driver was. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she glanced at her house. A shadow lay in wait by her front door. She latched onto Walker’s arm as fear spread through her body, all ideas of getting lucky abandoned. “There’s someone on my porch.”

Walker saw it, too. His face transformed into something cold and calculated as he turned to position his body closer to her. One arm stretched around her far side to grip her headrest, effectively blocking her exit and the shadowman’s direct view of her face. “Stay here. I’ll find out what they want.”

“Please be careful, okay?” Talia looked into his eyes, clutching onto his arm tighter.

Walker set a gentle hand on her shoulder, and his face softened. “I’ll be right back, I promise. You can’t get rid of me that easily.” She gave him the go-ahead with a jerky bob of her head.

When the driver-side door opened, Talia restrained herself from yanking Walker back down into his seat. This seemed like one of those moments in a horror movie when you scream at the main character for being stupid enough to investigate a too-suspicious noise. Walker slid out of his seat and shut the door, hitting his key fob to lock her inside as he moved around the front of the car. Talia could hear Walker call out a question to whoever was lurking on her porch, too muffled for her to understand. Panic welled up inside her as she realized too late that she should have called Roscoe or 911 before ever allowing Walker out of her sight. She was going to end up on Dateline as the girl who made all the wrong choices and ended up at the bottom of a lake beside a man whom she never even got to sleep with.

But then it was over. Walker was already making his way back to her and opening the passenger-side door. Her eyes shifted between the shadowman on her porch and a now very irritated Walker.

“I can get him to leave if you want.” Walker’s tone was clipped and harsh. He was no longer wearing the cautious expression from earlier. It sounded to Talia like he was looking for an excuse to use the intruder as a punching bag.

“Who is it? What do they want?” Talia cut right to the point.

Walker’s nose scrunched as if he had just smelled something foul, and she watched his fists clench harder at his sides. “It’s Clifford,” he spat. “And I didn’t ask him what he wanted.”

Talia’s eyes went wide in surprise as she flung herself out of the car, scrambling for words. “What? Clifford? Here? You’re sure it’s him?”

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