Page 52 of Walker

It didn’t take us long to get to Spike’s shop. Once we were inside, I tossed my purse and key down on the desk that looked the least cluttered. “That’ll be your desk, if you agree to work here,” Spike stated. I turned to look between him and Walker. “Your man spoke to me about the possibility the other day. Honestly, we needed someone in here helping out yesterday. If you’re willing to take the plunge, the job is yours.”

“Even with everything going on?”

“Especially with everything going on. Just keep in mind that you would have been offered the position without the added security risk, but now I think we almost have to insist.”

I gave him a quick nod because if words came out of my mouth, I was afraid it would trigger all the tears that were waiting to release as well. “Mom, you got a new job?” Ariel asked. She turned around and really took in the office portion of the shop where Walker and Spike worked. “This will be awesome for you. It’s during the day, right?”

“Yeah, while you’re in school.”

The way my daughter beamed up at me made me wonder just how hard my schedule had been on my kids. I knew it wasn’t easy since they had to have someone at the house with them in the evenings before they ever went to bed, and I was usually sleeping in the morning on the weekends.

“Weekends off, too.” When Spike added that little tidbit, Ariel squealed with delight.

“That’s awesome.” She moved to Spike and threw her arms around him. “Thank you for giving my mom a job. You won’t be sorry. She’s one of the hardest working people I know.”

“Shit,” I mumbled as the first tear fell.

Walker moved in behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle. I turned in his embrace, more to hide my teary blubbering from everyone than anything else. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” he whispered in my ear. “You got them for a minute?” He asked his buddies.

“Yup.” It felt like they all responded in unison, though there were probably slight variations of yes, yeah, and yup blended together.

“Everything is going to be okay. I promise. Things will just get better from here.”

“Well, they can’t get much worse, honey. I have people literally trying to kill me right now.” Walker grinned down at me. “What? Why is that something to smile about?”

“You called me honey,” he said. I hadn’t even realized. “First time you called me by anything other than my name.” He leaned in and kissed me softly before he spoke against my lips. “I liked it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re mine baby and I like that you want me to feel like I belong to you too. Endearments are for people you want to keep around.”

“I do want to keep you around.”

“Good because I’m not going anywhere.”

By the time we got back out to the office, only Spike and Hollywood were standing there with my kids when Quickshot and Keys walked in. Spike glanced between them and me with an amused look in his eyes. “Hey, Keys, I poached one of your bartenders.”

She glanced around and smiled when she saw it was me he was talking about. “I guess that’s okay. We were going to ask you to move over to Redemption Inc. in the office, but if you’re okay working here, then it might be for the better.”

“Why?” I asked, not liking that she already had plans to shift me around.

“You have a kid in high school and another in preschool. Tash brought it to our attention how difficult that can be. I can’t imagine working late nights and then having to do all the mom things when you really need to sleep.”

I had to agree with her. “No, it isn’t easy.”

“If things don’t work out at the shop here, just let me know, and I will find a place for you in the security offices. You’re one of the few working at Paramour that could pass a background check in order to work there, so congrats on keeping a clean record.”

We all laughed at that and then things took a turn for the serious. “I’m not sure if you know this, but I’m in charge at Redemption Inc. because I do most of the cyber security stuff. Quickshot is good with computers too, so when you got those notes, the boys asked us to meet you guys here.”

“Okay. Are you going to analyze the paper or something?” I asked as I tried to remember the last person who had the notes. The second one had never even made it into my hands, so there was no clue what it said.

“They both referenced that you would receive a phone call with further instructions. I’m here to clone your phone, so we can hear or see everything they have to say to you.”

“So, you’ll have access to all my calls and texts?”

Keys tilted her head to the side, which made her bright red curls bounce and bob there for a fraction of a minute. “Is that a problem for you?”

“Not really, I only ever talk to my kids, Trinity, and Shaina. Sometimes, work asks me to cover a shift or…” I hesitated to mention my sister because we would no longer be communicating.

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