Page 35 of Walker

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure if I wanted another one. I had my daughter young, had just turned 18 and she was born two weeks later.”

“You married your high school sweetheart?”

“I did, and we were happy for a time, until we weren’t.”

“That’s the way things go. Is he also your son’s father?”

“Yeah. He died when my son was two. Part of my grief was feeling guilty because I was ready to leave him before it happened.”

“Was he cheating?”

“I didn’t know it at the time, but some things have come out since that indicate he may have been. His mistress – the one I knew about – was his gambling addiction. Come to find out, he may have been gambling to try to double his money because he had another woman and possibly another child to care for.”

“That’s rough. I’m surprised, knowing that, that you would go for a man who was known to be a cheater.” There was no bitterness in her question, just curiosity.

“Walker is the one who informed me of the whole situation with my husband’s possible infidelity. I was already interested in him before it all came to light.” Poppy seemed taken aback by that. “Walker is close to Griffon, who goes to my daughter’s school. The teenage daughter of the woman my husband supposedly had an affair with approached my daughter with that news and instead of telling me about it she had been acting out. Griffon finally told Walker, who insisted that I should know. He was really sweet when he came to break the news to me and explained that he was worried about my daughter and what keeping that secret was doing to her.”

Poppy smiled widely. “I always knew he’d make a good dad. We’ve been hearing a lot about how he looks after Spike’s son.” She nodded as if she knew all along that he really was a good man.

“You aren’t still angry with him?”

She chuckled lightly and shook her head before her hand rested on her belly. “How can I be? He gave me the out I desperately needed. I’m ridiculously happy with Smoke and our growing family. Honestly,” she said and then looked me in the eyes. “This is my first time being back since I left all those years ago. I came because I was worried about him and how the club has been treating him.”

“That makes sense. The first night we met, he was sitting at the bar drinking water by himself. It was like he was a pAriel. I thought he was security for the night or something because he seemed out of touch with the rest of the partiers.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess, after we started talking and hit it off, it never occurred to me that no one really bothered us or came to talk to him.”

Poppy’s mouth turned down in a frown. “I never wanted that for him. No matter what he put me through, I never wanted him to lose the club. They’ve been his family his whole life.”

Commotion across the room caused us all to look up. The men who poured into the open bar area of the clubhouse all looked a little run down and as though they had each received some bad news. “This doesn’t really feel like a celebration,” I whispered to Poppy.

“No, it’s more of a transition period, and those are always tough.”

A handsome man with long dark hair and a thick five o’clock shadow sauntered over and smiled down at the woman beside me. “You making friends, beautiful?”

Aww. The way he said it, you could feel how genuine the sentiment was. Poppy smiled up at him as if he were everything good in this world, and I realized that was exactly what he was for her. No wonder she didn’t carry around bitter resentment for her ex-husband. She moved on to a happier union. There was no room for the past there. Good for her.

“This is Reesa and she’s…”

“Reesa?” Walker sounded surprised as he called out my name. I glanced up and smiled sweetly at him.

“Hey. Shaina dragged me along and said that you might…” Shit. I cut myself off there because I was sitting beside the woman I was supposed to shield him from. I glanced guiltily at Poppy and shrugged my shoulders as she started to laugh.

“It’s okay. I think your beautiful girlfriend here was meant to shield you from my presence, but neither of you should be worried about that.”Smoke winced and glanced between the three of us. “I like her, Walk. Do yourself a favor and don’t screw it up.” She winked at him and then threw her hand out to Smoke. “Help me up. I think my foot fell asleep.”

Smoke chuckled and helped his wife wobble to her feet. “You ready to go?” He asked in that gruff voice of his that skated over your senses and made you feel like a tumble on the rough side was just what you needed.

Poppy chuckled again, as if she could read my thoughts. “He’s a lot to take, I know.” She held her hand out to me and I shook it. “It was really nice to meet you, Reesa. I wish you all the happiness in the world, and I hope your girl is okay. We didn’t get to go into that fiasco, but it wasn’t right that she was told that stuff. If you ever need someone at your back, if anything comes from that, you let me know.” She glanced down at her burgeoning belly. “Well, I might not be much help these days, but I can send my girls down to handle business.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“I’m happy for you, Walker.” Poppy said as she tapped his shoulder before she and Smoke walked away.

“I’m almost afraid to ask what happened here but considering that was my ex-wife and she was being nice, and her old man hasn’t tried to kill me, I’m not going to.”

He leaned down and picked me off the couch, took my place, and then planted my ass firmly in his lap. As his arms wrapped around me, he leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Thank you for being here. You don’t know how much I appreciate you showing up for me.”

“You can thank Shaina, since she gave me the head’s up. Or maybe thank the S.H.E. MC, since they closed down all their businesses for a week and I got the night off.”

“Damn, they closed their doors?” He was surprised, but also not at the same time.

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