“It was taped above the doorjamb.” Walker shrugged. “You should have seen the tape. It was ancient.” Keira wondered if she was imagining the faint red tinge to his cheeks.
“So, Smith’s taking Susan out to dinner?”
Walker tipped his head back, studying the dusty ceiling tiles. “That seems to be the plan, yes.” He sighed.
“And your aunt’s not mad about that?”
Walker raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think he’s told her?”
Keira opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Oh. Right.”
Walker stepped behind the counter and motioned for her to follow. “Come on, there are two chairs back here.”
Keira bit her lip. That was exactly the sort of thing she’d wanted to avoid—the clinging girl routine. Hanging out with the hot guy at work. “Thanks, but I really did stop by to find some music. My dad gave me guilt money and if I don’t show up at home with something new, he’s going to think something’s horribly wrong with me.”
“He’ll show up at your bedside with a thermometer and the therapist on speed dial?” Walker guessed, flipping through one of Mr. Palmer’s catalogs.
“Forget the therapist. He’d probably skip straight to the exorcist.”
Walker laughed.
Keira walked over to the shelves, glad that they were alone in the store.
“So, why was your dad so anxious to get rid of you?” Walker asked.
Keira flipped through the books of music hard enough to raise a sparkling cloud of dust motes. “Honestly, I think he was waiting for my mom to get there. I think they had planned a hot afternoon of fighting.” She stopped the rest of the words before they tumbled out of her mouth. He’d heard them arguing before. The details were unnecessarily gory. She blinked, trying to get her eyes to quit stinging.
It must be the dust.
Even in her own head, the lie sounded hollow.
“Families suck sometimes,” Walker said.
“Wow . . . that’s, I mean, since your . . . ” Her stammering sent a flush of heat through her cheeks.
“Funny attitude for an orphan, you mean?” His eyebrow was cocked but there was only the gentlest teasing in the set of his mouth.
Keira nodded, staring intently at the book in her hands. A collection of Viennese waltzes. The illustrated lady on the front had been drawn with an impossibly tiny waist, as though a single wrong move on the dance floor would snap her in two. Keira knew how she felt.
She looked up at Walker. “You’re not talking about your parents when you say families suck, are you?”
He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Nope. See? I knew you’d understand.”
Keira slid the waltzes back onto the shelf.
“At least this time you’re leaving the music neat,” Walker observed.
“Very funny.” Keira remembered that first day she’d met Walker. She could still see the mess of music-covered pages on the floor, hovering at her feet like ghosts.
Walker leveled his gaze at her. It was like being caught in an unexpected spotlight. She suddenly felt completely visible, all of her flaws and secrets laid bare beneath the beam.
“I don’t want you to worry about my family.” Walker’s voice was even lower than usual—a rumble that made Keira shiver as it rattled through her chest. “They’re not worth it.”
Walker rubbed his forehead. His fingers left a smear of ink above the bridge of his nose.
“I’m not worried,” Keira insisted. “My whole family’s crazy, too, remember?” She smiled at him, reaching up to wipe away the smudge, but before her fingertips could touch it, the black stain sank into his skin and disappeared.
She froze, her hand inches from Walker’s face.
His eyebrows drew together. “You okay?”
Her own words echoed in her head. My whole family’s crazy. My whole family’s crazy.
Keira swallowed hard and forced herself to nod. She pasted on a sheepish smile. “I thought you’d gotten some ink here.” She stroked a finger across his forehead and Walker’s eyelids flickered. “But I guess it was just a shadow.”
He reached up and caught her wrist before she could pull her hand away from his face.
Her heart thudded so frantically that Keira was dizzy with it. He had to be able to feel her pulse racing beneath his fingers—it was like her blood was leaping up to feel his touch.
She hadn’t realized she’d moved so close to him. She couldn’t look away from his fathomless gray eyes and she didn’t want to. There was nothing else worth seeing.
“I’m sure it was just a trick of the light,” Walker agreed, each word slow and thick as molasses. He slid his hand along her wrist, his fingers lingering against her palm before he let go. Her skin tingled where he’d touched her and she pressed her arm against her body, holding the feeling there.