A SEAL's Triumph Read online

  “I’ve got to hand it to Elizabeth. She’s a mastermind getting us this ride alone together,” Avery told Walker the following morning. She was back in James Russell’s carriage, snuggled happily against Walker’s side, enjoying the May sunshine and the fresh smell of the morning, not a camera crew in sight.

  “Let us off here,” Walker called up to James.

  The older man looked down from his seat, where he was directing the horses. “Here?”

  “What are you doing?” Avery asked him. She looked around. They weren’t anywhere near Two Willows, and there was nothing but pastures here.

  “That’s right. Pick us up again at eleven thirty?”

  James raised his eyebrows, and Avery wondered if he’d object, but the man nodded a moment later. “I’ll take the horses for a good, long drive and pick you up again on my way home from Two Willows.”

  “You don’t mind finishing our errand for us? We’re just picking up some more gowns from Alice Reed.”

  “Don’t mind at all,” James said happily. “It’s a beautiful day for a walk in the countryside. Don’t blame you a bit for wanting to get out and stretch your legs.”

  “Exactly,” Walker said.

  “I can’t believe we might actually get away with this,” Avery whispered as Walker helped her down from the carriage, shouldering a day pack he’d brought along. There were no cameramen with them. Not only had Elizabeth ordered them on this errand to pick up her wedding gown, but also she’d created a scene with Gabe at the same time James had arrived to pick them up. They’d been able to sneak off without anyone noticing.

  “We’ll get away with it,” Walker assured her. “I told you we could count on James—and Elizabeth.”

  Walker shouldered the pack he’d prepared for the situation. “Walk on,” James said to his horses when they were free of the carriage. He tipped his hat to them as the carriage rolled away.

  “What now?” Avery asked.

  “Just an innocent, little walk.”

  She grinned. Her intentions for this precious time alone with him were hardly innocent, but they needed to clear the air before they could do anything else.

  Walker crooked his arm, and she took it as they set off across a meadow. She had no idea where they were going, but Walker had grown up in these parts, and she trusted him.

  Maybe now she could finally get a few things off her chest she’d been wanting to say for a while.

  “I need to explain something,” she said.

  Walker waited patiently, guiding her over the rough ground.

  “It’s about Brody. Why I married him and why I never told you about him before he showed up.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “The thing is, I was supposed to be married to someone else that year.”

  She could feel his surprise in the way his grip tightened a fraction on her arm. She could almost feel him willing himself to be calm as his fingers relaxed again, but there was a wariness about him now.

  “You have to understand I always wanted to get married. My parents—well, I hope you’ll meet them soon. They have the best relationship of anyone I’ve ever met. Thirty years in, they’re still madly in love. I used to open the refrigerator in the morning and find little love notes they left each other attached to the margarine. They stuck those notes everywhere. On the bathroom mirrors, the dashboards of each other’s cars. They went on date nights every week, held hands wherever they went. They don’t just love each other; they like each other tremendously. I want that, too.”

  She matched his pace and tried to think how to explain it all. She’d been in such a fervor of romance back then. Probably understandable in a teen but embarrassing now none the less. Her stomach twisted with the memory of it.

  “Prom was supposed to be the best night of my life. I’d made sure everything was perfect. I looked amazing.” She laughed, but it came out flat. “Honestly, it’s true—my dress was the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever owned in my life.”

  It was a deceptively simple gown that accentuated her curves and made her look taller than her five-foot-one stature. Her auburn hair had been professionally done that afternoon. Her makeup applied by a cosmetician her mother, Diana, had scheduled to come to their home. The photographer documenting the occasion had snapped away all the while, as if she were a famous actress preparing to walk the red carpet.

  The busy day might have flustered another eighteen-year-old, but Avery took it all in stride. After all, she’d been acting on and off in local productions since she was five. She’d had her hair and makeup done dozens of times. Had dressed up in all sorts of costumes—some beautiful, some decidedly not. Just because she’d never had a major part yet didn’t mean she wasn’t professional.

  “That night was going to be the most important night of my life,” she told Walker. “I had planned everything so I’d sweep into adulthood in the kind of fairy-tale romance my parents had. My dad proposed to my mom on their prom night. They married before they left for college together that fall and hit every major milestone together, from college graduation, their first real jobs, first house—and having me. Their love for each other just kept growing. I figured the love Daniel and I had for each other would be like that, too.”

  She shook her head. “I was so damn young, Walker. I thought I could make it happen by force of will, and Daniel went along with it. Prom was huge at our school. First we gathered with all the other students to show off our fancy clothes and get our photos taken. Then we joined five other couples for dinner at the best restaurant in town, all of us riding in a stretch limousine. Then we went to the hotel where the formal part of the evening was held. I was so excited. I thought our slow dances were good practice for our wedding waltz in a few months.”

  She hadn’t allowed herself to think about that night for a long time, and her throat thickened with the pain of it.

  “I’d already started planning our wedding, even though we weren’t engaged yet. I researched everything from venues to catering and more. It was going to be simple but lovely and happen in mid-August, so we’d have enough time for a tiny honeymoon before heading off to school. I was going to study acting, and Daniel was going to do pre-med. Once we graduated from college, we’d travel to California so he could be doctor to the stars, and I would be—well, one of those stars.”

  “What happened?” Walker asked softly when she didn’t say any more.

  “The dance was fine, even though Daniel was a little strange. Kind of distant, you know? Nervous. I thought he was twisted up about the proposal. I’d told him just how it happened for my parents. How they’d danced all night and then my father proposed…” She remembered the excitement blossoming in her stomach as the hours ticked by. “It was supposed to be a night to remember. A proposal. A ring—”

  Except it hadn’t worked that way at all.

  “By the time the dance was over, I knew something was wrong. We went upstairs to the room we’d gotten, and Daniel went to the bathroom. Stayed there a really long time.”

  Walker’s fingers tightened on her arm again, in sympathy this time.

  “When he came out, he was wearing street clothes. He said he couldn’t go through with it. His voice was rough. Higher than usual. He looked like he’d been… crying.” That part shamed her more than the rest of it. “He said he didn’t love me. Didn’t want to marry me. Sure as hell didn’t want to go to med school.” Her voice cracked. “I was so desperate to salvage something, I told him it was fine with me if he wanted to change his major.” A tear slipped down her cheek, and Avery fought to hold back the rest of them. “He laughed at me.” She put a hand to her chest remembering how bad that had hurt. “He said, ‘I don’t want to change my major. I want to change everything. Didn’t you hear me? I don’t love you. I’ve never loved you. You’re nice, don’t get me wrong, but there’s got to be more than nice.’”

  Walker stopped in the middle of the meadow and took both her hands.

  Avery hung her head. “He said he was lea
ving,” she whispered. “I thought he meant he was leaving the hotel. Turned out he’d packed up his car. He’d parked it outside earlier that day. He said he was leaving town and wouldn’t be back for months. He said, ‘Find someone else for your forever. I don’t want it.’ That’s who I was, Walker—the kind of girl someone like Daniel had to run like hell from.”

  Walker pulled her into his arms, and Avery breathed in the familiar scent of him. His comforting strength.

  “I didn’t know what to do. My parents had planned a party for the next day to announce our engagement. They’d invited everybody. How was I going to face them?”

  Her words were muffled against his chest, but she had to tell him all of it. “The only good thing was that I’d parked my car at the hotel earlier, too. We were supposed to take it to the party the next morning. I managed to slip out of the hotel with no one seeing me, found my car, got in and started driving—still in my stupid prom dress. I drove all night. Drove all the next day. Just kept going. My parents were frantic. Everyone was frantic. I got a million texts and calls, but I didn’t answer my phone. I got to Vegas the next night, found a dive bar, still in that dress. Brody thought it was awesome—the girl who ditched prom to come see him play.” She buried her face against Walker’s shirt. “He was the one who got me in even though I was clearly underage. He spotted me in the parking lot—they got there the same time I did. Told the bouncer I was with the band. I got really drunk. Danced a whole bunch. When their set was over, Brody and I kept going. I must have told him what happened.” She let out a long sigh. “He said I should marry him instead, and I said yes. It was obvious to me no one else would ever want me. I was so hurt and so sad—and so damn drunk.”

  “So you married him.”

  “I guess. I don’t really remember much.” She had a shadowy sense of a chapel. An officiant. Brody sliding a cheap ring they’d gotten somewhere onto her finger.

  Saying the vow she thought she’d say to Daniel.

  “I woke up the next morning and didn’t know where I was. I was still in my prom dress. Brody was gone. I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing, but there were too many details. I don’t think we even slept together.” Shame suffused her. “I think we fumbled around a little.” God, it was so tawdry, she couldn’t stand to think about it. “I think we both fell asleep.”

  “He wasn’t there when you woke up?”

  She shook her head. “Like he said, he took one look at me in the daylight, freaked out and split. He left nothing behind. I figured the wedding couldn’t be real.” She pushed away from him, and Walker let her go. Avery dried her eyes. “I hoped it wasn’t real. Years went by, and I never heard from him again. I let myself forget the whole thing.”

  She let the whole grim affair sink in. “I… lost myself that day. I thought Daniel stole my pride, my self-worth. I thought Brody took whatever was left afterward. That wasn’t true, though, was it?” A sob escaped her. “They didn’t take anything; I gave all my self-worth away. And I’ve been giving it away ever since. I don’t know why I keep doing that.”

  “You’ll stop now,” Walker said calmly. Avery felt as if he’d absorbed some of her pain and was using his strength and level-headedness to diffuse it, so it wouldn’t overwhelm her.

  She let out a shaky breath. “You’re right. Now that I’ve seen the pattern, it’s so obvious, I won’t be able to do it anymore. I won’t let myself.”

  “I’ve got something I need to say to you, too.”

  Avery braced herself.

  Could she take any more pain?

  “There’s a reason I promised to marry Elizabeth.” Walker wondered how it was that people managed to tie themselves into knots given the least bit of string. He ached to go back in time, meet eighteen-year-old Avery and take her to the prom himself. He wished he could spare her every hardship.

  Life wasn’t like that, though.

  “You told me that reason,” Avery reminded him.

  “I told you about Netta and Sue, but I never told you the rest of it. Why I felt I had to go along with what Elizabeth said that day. The reason behind the reason.”

  Avery waited, wanting to give him the same attention he’d just given her.

  “Before I was born, my father, Joe, was best friends with Netta’s son, Worth. Dad and Worth did everything together, and when Worth got a girlfriend, my dad did, too. Sounds like he did it mostly to keep up and be able to double date. They were barely eighteen when Worth and Tricia had a baby. I don’t know, maybe Dad knocked up my mom on purpose.” Walker shrugged. “I think he didn’t want to be left behind. Worth was the kind of guy who lit up a room when he walked into it. No matter who he met on the reservation, he had something to say to them. That’s what I was told,” he amended. “Never met him myself.”

  Avery wanted to reach out to Walker, but she knew instinctively he needed space to be able to go on.

  “An oil company came to the area looking to start a project. Outside the reservation but inside traditional Crow territory. It was a setup for trouble, and they knew it, so they came knocking, offering jobs, money, if we endorsed it.”

  “How did that go over?” Avery asked.

  He shrugged. “Some people were for it, some against, just like you’d expect. My dad and Worth were against it. My family has always put the health of our land and the waterways over profit, but you have to understand money can be hard to come by in Crow territory. Lots of temptation there.”

  “What happened?”

  “There was a protest. Worth and Dad went to it. So did Worth’s girlfriend, Tricia, but Dad and Mom had split up already a few weeks earlier, and he was feeling it. Worth’s girlfriend didn’t mind him hanging around usually, from the sound of things, but she didn’t want Dad tagging along that day. The protest was off the reservation. She and Worth left the baby behind. Netta once told me those two were talking about getting married around that time. She was all for it, of course, and she took the baby for the day, wanting to give them some time to themselves. Anyway, I think Worth and Tricia believed in the cause, but I get the feeling it was supposed to be a bit of a getaway for them, too. Only problem was Worth didn’t have a car. Dad did. So he drove them. You’ve got to remember, they were all still kids, really, even if Tricia and Worth had a kid themselves.”

  A pit was forming in Avery’s stomach. She already knew this wasn’t a story with a happy ending.

  “There must have been an argument at the protest,” Walker went on, his gaze far off on the horizon. “Or maybe Tricia made it clear she didn’t want Dad around. I don’t know. They separated. Planned to meet up the next morning to drive home. Worth and Tricia got a motel room, spent the night. There was proof of that afterward. They checked out the next morning, went to the rendezvous point, I guess.”

  “But your dad didn’t pick them up? Did he go home early?” Avery guessed.

  Walker shook his head. “He was late. Dad found a girl. She took him home. Spent the night with her. Overslept. By the time he made it back to where they were supposed to meet up, Worth was furious. He’d been calling friends, trying to find out where Dad was. Those people Worth called said later they’d never heard him so angry.”

  Avery waited.

  “Guess Dad was angry, too. People saw them at a gas station, filling up the car. Worth and Tricia in the back seat. Dad pumping gas. He got into it with some local guy who’d stopped to fill up, too. The guy had seen Dad at the protest. He wanted the project to go through. Nearly came to blows, but other people intervened. They testified that Dad was really furious—both of them were. He got back in his car. Took off. The other guy followed them.” He swallowed, and Avery felt his pain in her own body, an ache in her throat, emptiness in her heart. “They were playing chicken on the highway until the other guy hit them and ran them right off the road. He kept going. By the time help came, it was too late; Worth and Tricia were gone.”

  Avery couldn’t imagine how bad the crash must have been for the people in the back se
at to have died. “I’m so sorry, Walker.”

  “When my dad woke up in the hospital and heard what happened, he took off and didn’t come home for weeks. Sue said when he did, it was to tell her he’d enlisted with the Army and would never be back again. She said he’d lost thirty pounds, looked like a ghost. Like he was dead already.”

  Avery covered her mouth with her hand.

  “A week after he was gone, my mom came around looking for him. She was from town. A White girl,” he spelled out, although Avery already knew that. “Her parents marched her over to the reservation to demand that my dad do the right thing and marry her. Sue was glad Dad was gone then. They weren’t doing it to get him to take responsibility for me; they were doing it to punish their daughter.” His bitterness was clear. “Later, they were sorry for that. My grandparents did their best by me after they lost Grace.”

  “Grace was your mom? Is she—?”

  “Dead, yeah. But she took off right after I was born. I never knew her. She lived a rough life. Had an aneurysm in her thirties.”

  Avery let out a breath. He’d never once mentioned a mother. Not once. Now she understood why. Grace had abandoned him. And then his father had died.

  “I don’t hate my mother, Avery,” he added quietly, and maybe it was true, but he hadn’t forgiven her either, Avery thought. One thing you could say about Walker: he was loyal to a fault. Grace’s deliberate absence from his life must have hurt him to the core.

  “So Sue brought you up,” Avery said.

  “She did. When Mom took off, Sue heard about it. Grandma Diane told me she showed up a couple of days later. ‘He belongs with us,’ she said. Grandma Diane went along with it.”

  Avery tried to take it all in. “How can you possibly be as together as you are after all that?”

  “Sue,” he said simply. “And Netta. And the others. Despite his threat, my father came home now and then on leave until I was seven. His father, my grandpa, lived until I was fifteen. Netta’s husband passed a year later. That gave me four stand-in parents on the reservation through half of my teenage years and Elizabeth as a very annoying sister. And Grandma Diane and Grandpa Paul in town. Grandpa Paul might not have been the friendliest guy, but he was there, always working, always doing good in the world. Diane and Paul really regretted their earlier behavior. They tried to make up for it.”