Danni Rose (The Sherwood Series Book 1)

  Danni Rose

  The Sherwood Series

  Danni knew what she wanted. She had known for some time but convincing Walker they were right together was another matter.

  He was Matt, her brother’s best friend. Walker always looked out for Danni. He had gotten into some trouble thanks to his own brother, Jesse. He took the rap for a crime he didn’t commit.

  Five years later and three years of probation, he was free and clear, but his past still haunts him. Danni doesn’t care about any of that. Walker does though.

  So many things will work against them including Walker’s own thoughts on their relationship. Even the return of Danni’s first love, Jackson doesn’t change her mind about Walker.

  What Danni Rose wants, Danni Rose gets. She just needs to wear Walker Wild down. She needs to show him they can have it all. The perfect life if he will just give them a chance…

  Danni Rose

  The Sherwood Series

  By

  Lee Wardlow

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons living, or dead is coincidental. The suggestion or actual use of a business is used only to further the author’s story not to promote them.

  Copyright © 2018 by Lee Wardlow. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, redistribute, or transmit in any form, paperback or digital or any other feasible means possible.

  Dedication

  My niece Ashley.

  If your little D had been a boy, he was going to be called Danni Rose. Maybe not your spelling but that’s how I spelled my Danni’s name.

  I fell in love with the name and Sherwood was born thanks to you.

  I love you, Ash. You are an amazing wife and an even more amazing mother to a special little man.

  Chapter 1

  There are definite moments in life that change a person. Danni had that moment when Jackson Hand left the town of Sherwood. At seventeen, she thought they would live happily ever after with Jackson, but when she graduated high school she learned the harsh reality that love didn’t always last and her heart could be broken.

  Jackson was a year older, her brother Ben’s age and going nowhere which is what made him decide that he needed to leave town. It took a while to get over Jackson. A long while. And in the process of getting over him, she found someone else who had always been there for her. Danni’s brain knew that he was off limits but her just wouldn’t listen to her head. He was her brother’s friend, Walker Wild.

  Walker was much older than her. He was big and scary to some but not her. Danni knew that beneath that stern exterior was a quiet and sensitive man. He was everything that Jackson was not and never would be to Danni. He had always been her protector. Had always been her friend but he would never be her lover. She had her fantasies though and they were heavenly.

  So, she lives alone on the outskirts of Sherwood in a small, log cabin. She doesn’t own much, because she doesn’t need much. The front and back porch are her favorite place to be because they are peaceful.

  Crickets sing, large, bullfrogs hop into her pond that feeds into a creek. The song they sing at night can be heard before a loud splash lets her know they have gone for a swim. There’s also an owl that entertains her on warm, summer nights.

  Her family worries about her need for seclusion. What does she do out here all alone? Her parents forced her to get a cell phone when she moved into the cabin because it was so isolated, sitting back from the road surrounded by woods. Danni had refused to get a house phone. She doesn’t have a television or cable.

  She did have internet for research. Danni reads, to fill her free time. Books are her haven where she gets lost from the reality of life’s cruelty. Small towns are filled with sadness. Not much crime but a lot of heartache.

  The truck she drives to town where she works in the pub is the same one that she was driving when he left her. An old, beat-up Ford that has seen better days, but she can keep it running all by herself. That is all that counts as Danni is concerned.

  Danni Rose Hatfield had worked hard that day at the garage that her grandfather owned. One day, Hal Mills promised her, he would pass it on to her when he no longer felt the need to get up and go to the garage, day in and day out. She wasn’t sure that day would ever come, knowing her grandfather. She loved seeing him every morning, so she didn’t really care if he ever passed it to her.

  Tomorrow was Friday. In the evening and on Saturday, Danni would work at her father’s pub, her second job, not that she really needed it. Her father, she thought needed her more than she needed the job.

  She liked being around the people of her small town, Sherwood, Ohio. Backwards, not going anywhere, Sherwood. A tobacco town where people worked hard year-round, but there was little in the way of employment unless you drove for over thirty miles. Most people did that including most of her brothers but Matt who owned a farm on the outskirts of their little, town and Seth who worked at the pub with her.

  Danni snuggled into her chair on the back porch with the laptop resting on her thighs typing away at her latest attempt at a manuscript. She was never satisfied but what author was? Was she an author? Could she self-publish this one?

  Her youngest brother, Seth was the only one in her family who knew what she did besides Walker. They both encouraged her to keep writing and publish her work one day. Walker was the only one who had read anything, and he thought she was good.

  She gazed in the distance, hearing sounds of the night. An owl hooted from where he perched in the trees. She got lost in the past. She often did. Her memories overwhelming her with a sadness that she thought had died long ago with the girl who no longer believed in fairy tales. Danni lived in the real world now where she knew that Walker would never feel about her the way she did him.

  Eight years since, Jackson Hand left town with a kiss and a hug and a weak ass, “I’m sorry, Danni. I love you baby, but I’ve got to find my own way. Don’t wait for me, baby.”

  That harsh reality had opened her eyes to how life really was. She was a realist if not still a hopeless romantic. She wanted Walker to see her as more than Matt’s little sister. The piggy tailed little girl who used to follow them around. Chubby faced, nose covered in freckles. Sure, she had grown up and developed curves in all the right places, but Danni didn’t think that Walker saw that woman she had become.

  At twenty-six, tiny laugh lines were beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was as dark now as it was when she was eighteen. Her mom had gone prematurely silver at thirty-two. She often wondered if she would too. Men thought she was beautiful, but Danni didn’t date. She was interested only in Walker Wild, but he didn’t take any notice in Danni Hatfield.

  Her hair was an unruly mess tonight. While she wrote, she tended to run her fingers through it, making it crazy. She pulled the nearly black, curls up and secured them with a clip letting long strands flow down her back and pieces frame her face. Her red lipstick from this morning had faded but the black eyeliner that made her eyes pop was still vibrant and looked good. Danni didn’t need anything else. She was a stunning woman.

  She heard his boots on the leaves and twigs as he rounded the house looking for her, knowing exactly where she would be. After a year of this, he would know.

  Walker wasn’t exactly homeless. He could live with his mother. She didn’t know why he didn’t. She saw him walking one night after leaving the pub and stopped him. Danni asked him where he was going, and he brushed her off. After a few times, of seeing him walking without a direction, she waited and followed Walker, he was sleeping in the park, showering in the gym or at one of his friend’s houses. He worked for her father too, washing dishes at the pub.

  Danni hated it that Walker had nowhere to go. She hated what had happened to him. She still didn’t believe he was guilty of what he had confessed to. Walker wouldn’t sell drugs. It wasn’t in his nature to do anything illegal but his brother, that was another story. For some reason, Walker had taken the fall for Jesse and five years in the Lebanon Correctional Facility.

  He rounded the house and the sight of him took her breath away as it always had. She thought maybe even when she loved Jackson, she had a bit of a crush on Walker. He was tall. His shoulders were broad and his waist lean. His legs were long and muscular and when Walker took a seat beside her he stretched them out in front of him and crossed his tennis shoe covered feet at the ankles. Walker was comfortable with Danni and it made her feel good that he was. Walker wasn’t comfortable with just anyone.

  Danni smiled at him and was rewarded with a rare, Walker smile that lit his face and made him more beautiful than handsome. His olive skin was dark from putting up tobacco on her brother’s farm. His jaw was dark with whiskers because he only shaved every few days. Walker ran his hands through his hair and it naturally, fell back in place.

  Walker and Matt were nine years older than her, but she could remember her childhood feelings of hero worshipping this man. He was always kind and tender with her even when some of Matt’s other friends were not. They didn’t want the little sister tagging along but not Walker. He didn’t mind her being a pest.

  “Hard at work?” He asked.

  Even his voice, deep and smooth caused a ripple of warmth to creep up Danni’s spine and the cells beneath the surface of her skin began to tingle. She wanted him in the worst way, but she
knew that he saw only Matt’s little sister when he looked at her.

  “I am. How was the pub tonight?” She asked.

  His pretty, eyes, fringed by long black lashes locked on her. They were so dark that in the moonlight, surrounded by the thick woods she could barely discern between the pupil and the iris. His jaw was rough tonight, and Danni wanted to reach out and caress Walker’s cheek. She knew he wouldn’t like that. He was a loner. He didn’t date women. He didn’t flirt with them even when they threw themselves at him.

  “Same crowd as always for a Thursday night.”

  She nodded.

  “How’s the book coming along?” Walker asked.

  “I think it’s okay,” she said feeling less than excited about the words she was putting on her laptop. She couldn’t find the right way to convey what she wanted. The outrage and frustration she wanted her readers to feel if she ever let anyone read it.

  She would though, one day. She kept putting them down, chapter after chapter. One day, she would get it right. Write every day, every author kept saying and that is what she did.

  “I’m sure it is better than you give yourself credit for,” Walker disagreed. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  This one she hadn’t let him read. This one, Walker wouldn’t like. It was about a man who confessed to a crime he didn’t commit. She hadn’t figured out the why part yet. Why her character had done what he did and why Walker had confessed to his crime when she was sure that he didn’t do it either.

  She closed her laptop and focused on Walker. “Staying tonight? Or just checking in?”

  He smiled sheepishly. Behind her house, twenty paces, was a barn of sorts. He called it that. She called it a large shed with a loft. In the loft, Danni stored all kinds of things that she had no room for in the small cabin that she had purchased two years ago.

  When she discovered that Walker was sleeping in the park, she made a bed for him on a cot that was really, too small but it was better than sleeping outside in the elements. The cot was in the shed because Walker would never sleep inside the cabin on her sofa.

  She could offer but Danni knew that he would refuse. She left him with a pillow and a few blankets. The shed had electric so when the nights became colder, she could put an electric heater outside for him too, so he would be warm enough.

  “I’m staying.” He looked away and Danni knew that his pride was taking a beating for accepting her charity. “You know I appreciate this.”

  “I do. I like having you there, you know.”

  He chuckled at her. “You can take care of yourself,” Walker told her.

  “I can but it’s nice knowing you are so close.”

  “Okay,” he mumbled. She knew that he was getting uncomfortable, so she dropped that subject.

  They talked about everything else until Danni couldn’t stop yawning. The things they talked about, some might consider boring. Matt’s tobacco crop. The latest book they were reading. They both loved to read. Danni got books from the library for them. When they both had read them, they discussed what they liked and disliked about the books. Unless it was one of Danni’s romances then Walker wouldn’t read it.

  She didn’t want to, but Danni Hatfield still believed in romance and love. She had seen him without his shirt. She imagined running her finger down his solid chest. Kissing the exact spots on his skin after she touched them. Hearing a deep moan escape from him as she did naughty things on her knees.

  Danni just didn’t want to get hurt again and liking this big fella sitting next to her was going nowhere. She propped her chin in the palm of her hand and gazed at him with longing and lustful thoughts in her brain. It wasn’t often that Walker was this talkative which surprised her.

  “Danni, did you hear me?” He asked.

  She hadn’t. She had been imagining doing all kinds of things with Walker that were beautiful and nasty. Crazy, she knew. He had never been anything but friendly. Never flirtatious but she couldn’t get the sexy images out of her addled brain.

  Danni knew from a few conversations over breakfast that Walker just wanted to stay out of trouble and that’s what he did. Nobody needed to know about this arrangement they had made especially not Matt, her brother. Danni didn’t really know how Matt would feel about this. It didn’t hurt anyone so there was no need to tell anybody.

  She had known Walker since she was a little girl when Matt used to bring him home after baseball or football practice. Even then she had a little girl crush on young, Walker Wild.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t,” Danni replied.

  He shook his head at her. “Day dreaming again,” he said.

  “I was.” About you. She had seen him in shorts without a shirt playing basketball with her brother when he was younger. She knew what he looked like as a man without a shirt, in jeans and work boots and her fantasies had sparked even hotter.

  Sweat dripping down his chest. His dark, wavy hair a tousled mess like she had run her fingers through it. His skin kissed by the warmth of the sun. His body hard from working out and working hard on her brother’s farm. An ass she wanted to slap as she passed him as any lover would, but she wasn’t Walker’s lover. Danni sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked.

  I’m frustrated, she wanted to say but couldn’t. “Nothing,” she replied. “Just tired.”

  He might be an ex-con, but he was so much more than that. Walker needed a break and someone to show him that they still cared about him when he got out of prison. Her dad was always giving odd jobs to people in need. Her dad had always liked Walker. He picked him up at the prison and hired him.

  His mother had raised Walker and his brother as a single parent from the time they were small boys. She did a good, job with Walker, but nothing could save Jesse from the criminal element. Danni was sure that whatever had possessed Walker to confess to dealing drugs had something to do with his brother’s influence. She just didn’t know what.

  Her eyes traveled up to Walker’s face as he stood and reached for her. She placed her hand in his and he helped her stand. Every now and then, like tonight, Walker cupped her face in his hands and tilted her head down. Then he kissed her forehead. She smiled when his lips touched her skin. He said, “Go to bed, you have to work early in the morning.”

  “Goodnight,” Danni whispered unable to keep the huskiness out of her voice.

  Then Walker released her and stepped back waiting on her to go inside. She looked back once before she shut the door to the cabin. She went to her room and laid the laptop on the dresser. Then she tucked herself into her lonely bed.

  Chapter 2

  Walker watched her until she shut the door, then he headed across the yard to her barn. She didn’t know he and Matt had planned this. Would she be angry with him? Most definitely. His mother had neighbors, Danni did not. He didn’t know how to protect them both from Jesse. He couldn’t be in two places at once, so he was here, and his mother’s neighbors watched over her.

  He slipped inside the barn, she called a shed. It was too big to be a shed. He laughed at her description of it. Then he yanked the shirt over his head and dropped it behind him on the cot that she put out here for him. His feet hung off the end. Matt had laughed at the site of the cot that he knew was way too small for his large, frame.

  Secrets. He didn’t like to keep them but since Jesse started making noise about a year and a half ago he had to be close to Danni. Too close. He didn’t like it. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. He wasn’t a teenager either and Walker didn’t feel like the protective older, brother anymore. He felt like a man who wanted that woman in her bed right now. He kept fighting these feelings for her.

  He slipped out of his shoes and socks and laid on the cot. It would be better if he wasn’t near either of them, his mom or Danni but he couldn’t stay away. He couldn’t trust that would keep Jesse away from them. Matt and his dad, Simon had agreed. So, he stayed close to Danni, night after night, pretending he needed a place to stay when he very well could have stayed with Matt or his mom.

  He could buy his own home if he wanted to. He had some money. Not a fortune. His grandparents had left both him and Jesse a good amount of money if they took care of it. He had invested his inheritance. It was making him money. Jesse had squandered his. He was only seventeen when they died. His mother had put it in trust with her name on it. She took care of it for him, doing what he told her to and Walker took care of her.