Walker (Bowen Boys) (3 page)

George got up and went to the door, but
stopped long enough to shove the younger man toward her. She might have thought
it was funny if she wasn’t terrified of him. He didn’t speak as he settled in
the empty chair. Then, when he reached for her hand, she snatched it back.

“I need to feel your pulse. Please.” She
put out her arm and was embarrassed to see it tremble. He pushed her gently
back on the bed and she had to let him. She was in no shape to fight him. “It’s
a little fast, but that could be because you’re angry.”

This time when she snatched it back she
put it under the covers. She was already getting tired and wanted him to say
whatever it was he wanted, then to go away. She looked around the room for her
clothes. When he chuckled, she looked back at him.

“You’re in no shape to leave just yet,
if that’s what you’re thinking. The bullets that entered your leg were clean
shots, but it will need to be babied for a few more days. The one in your
shoulder is doing well too, but again, will need to be kept still so that you
don’t tear out the stitches. Who was it that was chasing you?”

His change of subject startled her, but
she knew better than to simply answer because he asked. She’d been trained to
be on the alert to such ploys. She pulled the blanket back to see what sort of
injuries she had. He laughed again, but she ignored him this time.

“When can I walk on it?” She glanced at
the door again and wondered how much energy it would take to make it there. “I
have places I need… Why aren’t I at a hospital?”

“I decided that it would be safer for
all of us if you remained here. And you won’t be able to leave until I say so.”

She raised a brow at him. His laughing
at her was getting on her nerves. She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

~~~

Walker watched her until she fell
asleep. He knew she had to be hurting, but didn’t give her anything for the
pain. She’d be just stubborn enough to get out of bed and do some serious
damage to his work before she fell again. He reached up and brushed a lock of
her hair from her face.

When she’d first been brought to the
house his mother had helped him clean her up. Her face had taken a beating, but
the rest of her body hadn’t fared much better. While there were no broken ribs,
she was badly bruised and he had been able to make out boot print bruising on
her. Her legs were covered in long, wide scratches, probably from her run, and
her arms too were covered in scrapes as well as numerous cuts. He looked at the
marks on her wrists again and got angry all over again.

She’d been beaten; her back told him
that story. A whip had been used and if he didn’t miss his guess, he’d say a
belt as well, the buckle end on her tender skin. He’d had to stitch up quite a
few of them, two cuts along her breasts especially.

Her face had intrigued him. Neither he
nor his mom had been able to tell anything about her looks. Her face had been
swollen, her eyes too. The left eye had been hurt so badly that blood had
filled it until recently. Now he could see that they were a lovely shade of
blue.

And lovely she was. A small, pert nose,
high cheekbones, as well as full, lush lips that he wanted so desperately to
kiss. The swelling had gone down considerably and in its place was a woman he
could look at and wanted to for the rest of his life. He leaned back in the
chair and thought about her and the relationship that could never be.
Everything about her made him want to strip down and crawl into bed with her
and never leave.

Khan hadn’t actually forbidden it, but
he had been very vocal in that he didn’t want her here. He could understand him
to a point and his brother, oldest of them all, was the new leader. But neither
Khan nor the rest of them, with the exception of his mother and father, knew
that she was his mate. He doubted very much that it would make a difference to
Khan either.

But the fact remained she was his other
half. Standing up, he leaned over her and smelled her. He tried to tell himself
it was to see if any of her wounds were infected, but knew it for the lie that
it was. He wanted her scent and nothing more. Leaving her before he did
something incredibly stupid like lick her throat, he closed the door softly
behind him. His mother was standing in the hall when he looked up.

“She’s sleeping again. I didn’t give her
anything for pain because she might use that to leave—”

“Did you talk to her? Did you tell her
what she is to you?”

He shook his head, frankly tired of
telling her that he wasn’t going to claim her.

“She’ll be gone soon enough and then
what are you going to do?”

He kissed his mom’s forehead and stepped
back. “Nothing. I have to go into town and check on a patient. Don’t wait up
for me.”

“What kind of patient needs you for that
long? Walker Bowen, answer me this minute.” He stopped on the stairs and turned
to look at her. She had always been very perceptive and now was no different. “If
you think going to another woman will solve your problem in that room then
you’re just as naïve as your brother.”

“Stay out of this, Mom. This is between
her and me, and I will do what I want. I’m a grown man who knows what I’m
about. And have been for some time.” He looked down the stairs to avoid seeing
the look in her eyes. “I won’t be coming back until she’s able to move on her
own. She’s well enough in her healing that she only needs to rest and heal.”

He was down the stairs and out the door
before he changed his mind. His mom said his name a couple of times, but he
didn’t turn back. He felt like shit enough and didn’t need her compounding it. It
didn’t help him that his brother Dylan was leaning against his truck when he
came out.

“Wanna go for a quick run?”

Walker shook his head.

“Then how about we go into town, get
roaring drunk, fuck a few girls, and hole up at my place for a few days while
Khan cools off? He’s pissed again.”

Walker got into his truck and Dylan in
the passenger side. “What about now? I swear to Christ, I’m thinking about
hiring someone to get him laid so he’ll relax. Maybe if he does then he’ll see
that we’re grown men and not his children.”

Both men laughed and Walker pulled out
into traffic off the compound. He was about a mile out when he turned to his
brother and saw that he was staring at him. Dylan, like their mom, was very
good at simply waiting until someone fessed up to whatever they had done. Walker
shifted on the seat and tried not to give in. But he needed to tell someone and
Dylan wouldn’t tell if he asked him not to.

“She’s my mate. The girl sleeping in my
bed right now? She’s my mate.” Dylan nodded and Walker wasn’t sure if he meant
he knew or to continue. Walker continued. “Her name is Caitlynne McCray. She
told Dad when he asked, but to me she’s… I’m not going to claim her.”

“Because of Khan.”

It wasn’t a question, but Walker nodded
anyway.

“Thought so. You may not have claimed
her, but you do smell like her a little. So how does that work? You not
claiming her?”

He shrugged. “When she’s better, she’ll
go back to wherever she came from and I’ll go about my business.”

“You think that’ll be all it takes?”

Walker didn’t know and said so.

“I don’t. I’m pretty sure that once you
find her it’s either claim or go fucking nut ball on her. I read somewhere that
a male didn’t claim his mate for whatever reason and he simply went insane
until he did. Then it wasn’t pretty. He was in such bad shape that he ended up
raping her and it was all she wrote after that.”

Walker looked at his brother then back
at the road. “Where the hell do you get this shit? He wouldn’t be able to rape
her, he wouldn’t be able…you’re making that shit up.”

“Nope. Mom has those books that she’s
always pushing us to read. The ones about the traits and traditions of our
kind? You should read the second one…or the third, I can’t remember, but it
talks about all sorts of reasons for a mate to claim and what happens when you
don’t.”

Walker didn’t ask where they books were
because he knew. Right now, book three was in his home, given to him by their
mom a few days ago. He hadn’t planned on reading it, but now thought that he
should give it a try. He looked over at Dylan when he laughed.

“And trying to fuck her out of your
system won’t work either. I can’t remember why, but I don’t think you can get
any satisfaction from anyone but her.”

That statement nearly had him run off
the road.

“Watch it, moron. I haven’t found my
mate yet and won’t if you scar my pretty face.”

“Are you seriously telling me that I
won’t be able to have sex with any other female but her?”

Dylan nodded then grinned. “You can
probably have sex with them, but you aren’t going to get off. According to the
legend, you will be able to have all the sex you want, but it will be painful
because you can’t get off. Also, you should know, that your mate will know it
too. That you go to others for your…hum, to get your rocks off. Something to do
with perimeters.”

“Pheromones,” Walker corrected without
thinking. She would know kept going through his head. How she would know was
because he would be… “What about jerking off?”

He flushed when his brother laughed. “Don’t
know, big brother, but I would say probably. What the hell does one know about
the opposite sex anyway? Besides, I’m pretty sure that won’t help you a hell of
a lot either. I’ve not seen the girl in awhile, but I have a feeling that she’s
pretty and more than likely stubborn as hell. How the hell else would she have
withstood what happened to her and still manage to save Dad?”

Walker had forgotten about that. To hear
his dad tell it she’d known who he was and what she was doing when she tossed
the rock, or depending on the time of day he was telling it, the boulder, she’d
thrown to distract the men away from them both.

He drove to the hospital and told his
brother to not flirt with any of his nurses while he was gone. Walker knew
Dylan was going to heed his warning like he was going to become a monk, but he
did try. The patient he was seeing was an older woman who had been a friend of
his mom’s for nearly all her life. His mom asked him to make sure she had the
best of everything. He was trying.

Mary Donald was dying. She was in her
late nineties and still as sharp as the day she’d turned thirty and met his mom
as a child. When his mom had shifted accidentally, Mary had kept her safe until
Walker’s grandparents had come to get her. She’d been an honorary pack member
since.

“You said you’d be here at ten and it’s
ten past. What did you find, a girl?” She looked at him hard. “You did, didn’t
you? Hot damn, who is the lucky mate?”

“No one. And keep your voice down. You
want someone to hear your potty mouth?” He grinned at her when she snorted at
him. “And I have no one in my life but you at the moment.” He opened her chart
and started to read what had been put on it last night and the day before after
he’d left her. She’d had a bad night, and again last night. Walker sat on the
chair and finished reading it before he looked at her. She was staring at him
intently.

“Who is she? A regular girl like me?”

He nodded, knowing that if he didn’t
tell her, she’d hound him to death.

“And your brother Khan, he’s keeping you
from her, ain’t he?”

“He doesn’t know about her and our being
mates. None of them do but Dylan and Mom and Dad. And I want to keep it that
way.” He knew she wouldn’t say anything if he asked her not to, so he wasn’t
really worried. “He would forbid it and you and I both know that.”

“He’s been hurt bad, your brother. Can’t
really blame him for that. What he needs is a woman of his own to bring him
around. That she-bitch, the girl he fell in love with, you know where I might
find her?”

“No. And what do you plan to do if I
did? Hire a hit man? I’ve already thought of that and it won’t work. She’s as
human as you are and people would begin to miss her. Especially knowing who she
is.”

Roseann Yates had been the woman who had
hurt them all, but especially Khan. She’d betrayed him so badly that it had
taken nearly five years of hard work and Khan crawling so deep within himself
that he had never been able to come back. And his hatred of humans, any of them,
including his distrust of this woman, had been legendary. He looked at Mary
when she touched his cheek.

“He’ll come around once you tell him who
she is to you. He’ll have to. He won’t be able to keep you two apart once you
have her and we both know that you won’t be able to keep away.”

“I have to. And I will.” He opened the
file again and started asking her what she thought they could do with her
future treatments. She glared at him at first, but told him in no uncertain
terms that when she died he was to simply let her.

“I’ve been waiting to jump off this
train for some time. You have to let me go.” She lifted his chin to look into
his eyes. “Guess I’ll have to hang around until you get this settled, but not
one minute more. You bring her to see me and I’ll let you know if this
foolishness you’re thinking about of not claiming her is gonna stick or not.”