Danni Rose (The Sherwood Series Book 1) Read online

  Walker Wild appreciated family. The Hatfield family were like blood to him because he had only them and his mother. Jesse was lost to them by the time he turned sixteen. He laid back on the cot, leaving his jeans on, in case he had to move quickly in the night. He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

  Five years, he served to protect his mother and Danni. Five years of his life were gone, and he could never get them back. It left an ache in his gut. People looked at him differently. People who didn’t know him and those who did and no longer trusted that he was a good man. It was almost like it was tattooed on his forehead, ex-con.

  Jesse had set him up and told him to take the fall for him. He had leverage, his own mother and Danni. She was seventeen then. Young and wild. Free. He thought maybe he loved her even then, but she was with Jackson Hand. The jealousy he felt turned him inside out. It also made him feel like a dirty, old man. Matt would have strung him up if he knew how he felt about Danni then. Maybe he would even now.

  It was like at sixteen, she suddenly became this beautiful, young woman and her spirit and beauty took his breath away. He had to stop himself from touching her every time she smiled at him. It gripped his heart and shredded it when he thought about the day the sheriff arrested him on Matt’s farm in front of her and Matt.

  Matt knew he couldn’t have done what he was being accused of. He begged him to tell him the truth. Only after he got out did he tell Matt and Simon Hatfield why he had confessed to his brother’s crime.

  Simon had never given up on him. He told him he should have been honest with him and Matt. Even the sheriff, Hawk Simpson hadn’t believed it was him that was dealing. They all knew it was Jesse but had no proof. Jesse was that good. He had covered all his tracks pointing all the evidence directly at Walker. His confession sealed his fate.

  He remembered her tears. Her crying no when Hawk handcuffed him. He begged Matt to get her inside. He didn’t want her to see him like this being shoved into the backseat of a police cruiser.

  Matt was stunned. He wasn’t listening. Danni cried harder. Walker couldn’t tune out Danni’s sobs of pain because they were taking him away. At the station he confessed without the lawyer that Simon Hatfield had provided for him.

  They didn’t understand. He had his future taken from him the few days before when Jesse promised him that he would hurt their mother or Danni if he didn’t take the fall for drug possession with the intent to sell. He couldn’t take the chance. Not with either of them. Only Matt and Simon knew the truth and only after he served his five-year, prison sentence in the Lebanon Correctional Facility.

  Five years locked inside a cell with limited outdoor time. He thought he would lose his mind except for the books that he read. Exercising in the small cell which drove his cell mate, Tobias crazy but it kept him sane. That and dreams of Danni Hatfield. Illicit dreams that he shouldn’t be having about her, his best friend’s little sister.

  Then he saw him leaning in the open doorway of the barn and Walker pulled himself to a sitting position. “What the hell are you doing here?” He asked Jesse.

  “You don’t have a phone. I can’t exactly come to the bar or the farm to talk to you so here is the only place that I can catch you.”

  Jesse didn’t look so dissimilar from him. He was smaller in build but not much in height. His eyes were as dark as his own but more menacing or was it his imagination? His hair was the same unruly, dark mass of wavy, messy curls that looked like they had rolled out of bed and never brushed it. His brother wore his longer than he did. Too long, in Walker’s book.

  They looked like their mother, Artemisia, Walker Wild. She was part Native American from a tribe known to Ohio not that her grandmother knew which one and part Scottish. The Scotts were heavy settlers in Ohio, in Brown County area in the early eighteen-hundreds. They had inherited the tawny skin that their mother had from her ancestors.

  Their father, he preferred to not think of him, but he wasn’t unlike their mother. Dark haired, silky black and built like Walker. Muscular and fit. He had left them alone. He had hurt his sons. One had built his walls up high and one had turned to anger and aggression, eventually criminal activities as a way of dealing with his pain.

  “I don’t have anything to talk to you about, Jesse,” Walker grumbled at his brother. He wanted him far away from Danni.

  “I need a small favor, Walker.”

  He rubbed his hand across his jaw and chuckled. Then he rose to his feet. “I think you are out of favors where I’m concerned.”

  His brother glanced over his shoulder at the cabin where Danni was sleeping. “She gets prettier by the day, Walker. Why don’t you tell her how you really feel about her?” Jesse suggested.

  He got to his feet and crossed the floor to stand by Jesse. He was taller than his brother by two inches. Bigger thanks to being in prison for five years. His gaze was hard as he stared at his younger brother. Jesse had been in trouble since he was sixteen, giving his mother every gray hair on her head. The fact that Jesse cared so little for her that he threatened to hurt her made his gut ache with anger at Jesse.

  “You need to leave,” Walker informed him.

  “It’s not illegal,” Jesse informed him talking about the favor he wanted from him.

  “I don’t give a damn, Jesse. I’m not doing jack-shit for you.”

  “I’m your brother,” he declared trying to appeal to his good nature.

  Walker snorted. “You stopped being that eight years ago when you set me up to take your fall. You are nothing to me.”

  He watched Jesse look over his shoulder again at the cabin and it made his blood run hot in his veins. The implication was clear. Jesse could get to her if he wanted. Walker couldn’t watch her twenty-four hours a day.

  He grabbed Jesse by the throat. His brother’s hands went to his trying to push him away. He wasn’t the nice man that went to prison eight years ago. Now he protected what he loved, and he loved Danni Hatfield. He wasn’t doing anything for Jesse. He would kill Jesse first, brother or not.

  Walker applied enough pressure that it was difficult for Jesse to breathe. “You stay away from Danni. Do you understand?” Jesse’s face was turning red as he struggled to breathe. “Can you speak?” Jesse shook his head no. He let the pressure release a little. “Now, can you?”

  “I’ll stay away from Danni,” he responded.

  “I thought so.” His own implication was clear. He would put him in the ground before he would do time for him again or let him hurt Danni. He stepped back, and his hand dropped to his side. “Now, get the hell out of here.”

  He went back to his cot after he saw Jesse disappear into the woods that led to the Hand place. No one lived there anymore but Jackson’s mother. Walker hoped he was just heading in that direction to get his vehicle not to cause trouble at Selma’s place. He knew she wasn’t well.

  Then he saw her. Danni was heading in his direction. She wasn’t wearing much, just a short, cotton nightgown and her feet were bare. The reaction he felt was in his jeans. She walked right up to him and looked at him with sleepy eyes.

  “Was that Jesse?” She asked.

  He nodded.

  She was afraid. He could see it in her eyes, but her fear wasn’t for herself. It was for him. “What did he want?” Danni asked.

  “A favor.”

  “Did you tell him to go to hell?” She snapped. Danni still believed that Jesse was the root of his troubles eight years ago. She still believed in him. He reached out and caressed her cheek. The softness of her skin surprised him. The sound that escaped through her pretty, lips shocked him to his core. He dropped his hand and took a step back, easier to put distance between them than to do something stupid like kiss her which is what he wanted to do.

  “Go back inside,” Walker told her.

  “I want you to come inside right now. You can sleep on the sofa.”

  “No,” he said with more force than he had intended. Her sofa was too close to her bed wher
e he wanted to be. Danni was sweet and vulnerable, and he wouldn’t take advantage of her.

  She took his hand and tugged on him. “Yes Walker, please. I won’t sleep if you’re out here where Jesse could surprise you.”

  She didn’t understand. In prison, you slept with one eye open all the time. No one would surprise him. She wouldn’t give up. She tugged on him again. Danni wanted him in her house with her where she would feel secure.

  “All right, dammit. Let me get my things.”

  She released him and let Walker grab his shoes, socks and shirt. In the grass that tickled his feet with dampness, he walked across the lawn to the cabin’s back door. “What are you doing up?” He asked her.

  “You aren’t the only one who sleeps light,” she informed him.

  “I guess so.” Walker followed along behind Danni carrying his things, watching every movement of her body. The way her hips swayed. The swing of her hands by her side. The small steps she took even though her shapely legs were long. She was delicate and appeared fragile, but Walker knew that there was nothing about this woman that was breakable.

  Danni was strong. She had grown up with six brothers and they had taught her well how to take care of herself. Jackson had come close to breaking her. The one thing they didn’t know that he did was how close he had come.

  She had written him letters in prison. Maybe because he didn’t or wouldn’t write back. It gave her comfort to spill her heart out in words that only his eyes would see. He had kept every one of them. The words broke his heart because Jackson had shredded her, and he wasn’t there to pick up the pieces of her. Walker wasn’t sure that her brothers could see just how bad she really was. He had hoped that writing to him was giving her peace because it was tearing him apart.

  When he got out three years ago, he was on probation. Things could have been awkward. Walker could have brought up the letters she had written to him. The letters that were stored in his duffel bag, that he kept at Matt’s house. The bag that stored all his possessions that meant anything to him. His grandmother’s ring that his grandfather gave to him when she died. He wanted Walker to give it to his wife. He laughed at that notion. He would never have that in his life. He was an ex-con. He wouldn’t attach that stigma to a wife or children.

  Everything else in his life was expendable, including him. Danni didn’t think so. Walker knew that Danni cared for him but love? She didn’t love him. She thought the moon and the sun set on him like she did when she was just a little girl with freckles on her nose and pigtails in her hair. She gazed at him, now like she did at eight-years-old, staring up at his seventeen-year-old self. Matt would always tease him about Danni’s crush on him.

  Now, she wasn’t eight. Now, Danni had curves like a woman. Curves that made him want things he shouldn’t. He cleared his throat. She turned and looked at him. She was bent over the sofa, giving him a perfect view of her beautiful ass. She was tucking a sheet into the sofa. “Let me do that,” he croaked.

  She looked at him with a strange expression. “I’m almost done. I can finish.” She bent over the sofa once again, the nightgown barely covering her shapely bottom. She wasn’t wearing underwear, he was sure of it. He almost groaned out loud. He scrubbed his hands over his face and waited for her to make up his bed on the couch.

  Danni straightened, and Walker looked towards the ceiling. Thank you, Jesus, he muttered to himself. She fluffed his pillow and threw down a blanket for him too. “There you go,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he replied.

  She tugged him down and kissed his cheek. “Sleep tight,” she told him then headed towards her bedroom.

  “Like that is going to happen now,” he mumbled.

  “What?” Danni turned at the bedroom door.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Go to bed.”

  She went to her room, leaving the door open. He laid on the sofa and could see her outline on the bed. He turned and put the pillow at the other end, so he didn’t have to look at her all night.

  “Walker,” she called to him.

  “What?”

  “Will you be all right?” Danni asked.

  “I will,” he promised.

  “Okay.” Danni was satisfied with that response and was quiet after that. He didn’t hear another peep out of her.

  Chapter 3

  In the morning, Danni showered and went to the living room where she found Walker sprawled across her sofa. The blanket barely covering him. Outside, he slept in his jeans and inside he had felt comfortable enough to sleep in his boxers or else he was too warm. She could see the edge of them beneath the blanket. His jeans were on the floor by the sofa.

  She perched on the edge of the coffee table, just to watch him for a moment. She couldn’t help herself, she touched him, running her finger down his bicep. She watched the trail her finger made on his skin.

  Her eyes went to his face. He didn’t stir. Danni got braver. She ran her finger across the curve of his jaw covered in sharp whiskers. He hadn’t shaved in days either. Then she captured a strand of his hair between her fingers and let it slide between her thumb and forefinger.

  He slept right through this. She knew she shouldn’t, but she peeked beneath the blanket and that is what woke him. He grabbed her wrist in an iron like grip so hard, he would have been hurting her had she not looked in his eyes. They were intense. “What the hell are you doing, Danni?”

  She smiled at him. “Being nosy,” she teased him. “Does Walker Wild wear tighty whities?”

  He threw her hand away from him. Danni rubbed her wrist. “Well don’t,” he said sitting up and pulling the blankets up with him. Danni almost laughed at Walker’s attempt at modesty.

  “Are you hungry?” She asked.

  “No, don’t you need to shower or something?” He asked. His tone brusque and showing his irritation at her.

  “I already did,” she informed him.

  Walker scratched his head. Danni was enjoying his discomfort. “See, my Hal’s Garage. I’m ready for work.”

  “Then why don’t you go to work?” He snapped.

  She laughed at Walker. “Because I need to eat.”

  “Then go to the kitchen and eat, Danni.” He pulled the blanket up higher, clutching it to his chest.

  “Walker are you afraid of me?” She asked.

  He scoffed. “Danni Rose, I’m afraid of no woman.”

  Danni tugged on the blanket covering Walker and he slapped her hand away. She laughed, and he scowled. “Go get your breakfast before you’re late for work.”

  She got off the coffee table feeling a bit of a spring in her step because she had gotten under Walker’s skin. Maybe he wasn’t as immune to her as she thought he was. Maybe he wasn’t looking at her and thinking Matt’s little sister, Danni Rose.

  In the kitchen, she made some scrambled eggs, enough for two. Then she laid his on a plate on the other side of the island. She turned knowing he was there, dressed and ready to leave with her when she left for the garage.

  Instead of making him uncomfortable, Danni stayed on her side of the island and ate her eggs standing up. She could almost see the relief in Walker’s eyes.

  “Working with Matt today?” She asked between bites.

  He nodded.

  “Tobacco almost in, now?” She asked.

  “Yep,” he replied.

  She thought Walker was mad at her for teasing him. She shook her head and finished her eggs. Then she put her plate in the dishwasher. He would get over it. She wasn’t about to apologize.

  Danni wanted Walker to see her as more than the little girl he used to pick up when she fell. The one who made her feel better when the mean boys teased her. The one she loved when her brothers were being brats because he never treated her the way they did sometimes.

  He was perfect. They were not.

  She left the kitchen and grabbed her purse and car keys from the table beside the door. “Have a good day, Walker,” she told him. Danni often left him at her place.

/>   “You too, Boo,” he told her reminding her of her place in his life. Matt’s little sister. The boys, her brothers and cousins had always called her Boo. She walked out onto the front porch ready to spit nails, she was so pissed at him. The cabin door swung shut so hard the windows rattled but she didn’t care.

  She stomped to the driveway and climbed inside her truck, slamming that door too. Then she gripped the steering wheel. Hell, maybe she did need a date. A long night of hot, meaningless sex. Then to hell with the feelings of guilt in the morning. Maybe she wouldn’t think about Walker Wild so much and what was inside those jeans of his.

  Danni wasn’t the type of girl to sleep around. Jackson and Andy were the only two men she had ever been with. She was twenty-six. She had been in a dry spell recently. A long, painful dry spell because of Walker Wild.

  She backed out onto the street in front of her road and burned rubber on the asphalt as she took off to her grandfather’s garage. She repaired trucks, cars and sometimes even motorcycles during the day. It was a dirty job, but she had learned young, working with her grandpa how to fix a motor. She loved her day job. She liked her night job because she got to be with her dad and Seth at the pub.

  **

  At the end of the day, grease beneath her fingers Danni was tired. She had hurt her shoulder too. It ached like crazy right now preventing Danni from lifting her arm. She didn’t know how she would carry trays tonight at Ike’s.

  Danni stood beneath the water and let the heat penetrate her body, washing away the dirt and the grime from the garage. She soaked her fingers in bleach to get rid of the blackness that came with working on cars. Then she shampooed her hair and washed her body. Afterwards, her shoulder still ached but she towel-dried herself hoping some ibuprofen would ease her pain.

  Walking naked to the chest of drawers, she grabbed a thong. Her father had his servers wearing tight t-shirts and short shorts. The underwear, she usually liked to wear would show in her work shorts. The hot pink, silky fabric matched her bra and made her feel sexy. She slipped on the bra and adjusted the cups so that her big, C sized breasts were resting comfortably in the demi-cup bra showing a lot of cleavage when she put on her work shirt.