Grandma Diane’s was a silent household, torture for a boy like him. Boone and the others had befriended him right away when he’d started at their school, and their boisterousness held his loneliness at bay.
He would have fit in better at the reservation school than in town, but Sue worried people would accuse her of favoritism toward him. That meant he ping-ponged back and forth, in town during the week, on the reservation for weekends, not truly belonging in either place. Boone, Clay and Jericho were his lifeline, so when they came up with a plan, and he was able to join them, he made sure he did, no matter how much trouble he’d catch for it later.
“You’re between two worlds,” Grandma Diane used to say with a quiet sigh, but that wasn’t quite it. He knew Diane did her best, but she’d never been comfortable with the fact her daughter had hooked up—there was no other word for it—with a man from the nearby Crow reservation, given birth and then taken off to live a life that was increasingly chaotic until finally dying at thirty-four from an aneurysm in Tennessee.
Walker wasn’t sure what had made his mother so restless. Maybe it was a reaction to her parents’ carefully scripted life of work, church and community service. Diane and Paul tried to love Walker but kept him at arm’s length. Sue had explained it once. “Diane can’t get over the loss of her daughter. She’s afraid to love you for fear you’ll break her heart, too.” Grandpa Paul was simply too busy to have time for anyone. He worked at the feed store full time when Walker was a kid, was a deacon at their church, volunteered with several local service organizations and served on the board of trustees at the Chance Creek library. He passed away when Walker was fourteen. Walker’s paternal grandfather, Gerald Norton, a kind man with a big heart and plenty of time for his grandson, passed away the following year. His grandmothers got him through the rest of high school.
Between Diane’s formal wariness and Sue’s stiff pride, he was never coddled, but he was always loved, and Walker figured he’d done well enough.
Still, that feeling that he never quite fit in all the way—anywhere—sat deep in him.
He’d thought he’d come to terms with it until the day Fulsom offered to fund Boone’s community if, and only if, they all agreed to marry within twelve months. He should have said no. Wanted to say no. Should have moved on and let his friends do what worked for them. For one thing, he’d have to be crazy to marry given what he believed was coming at them all. For another, he’d made a promise—a dumb promise—and needed to find an honorable way out of it before he could make any plans that involved a woman.
He’d opened his mouth to tell Boone—and Fulsom—just that. Instead, he’d heard himself say yes—like he had a thousand times when he was a kid.
And he’d regretted it ever since.
Now he was bound by two promises he couldn’t escape. A man lived by his word, that’s what his father had told him. A promise was a promise.
He was in big trouble.
Someone whistled, long and low, and pulled him from his thoughts.
A woman he’d never seen before strode down the path from the manor toward them, followed at a distance by Riley and two other women he didn’t know. Their old-fashioned dresses rippled around them as they walked. Boone had told him about the Regency gowns, but seeing them in person was something. The woman in the lead was coming fast, the rest hurrying to catch up with her. Boone straightened.
“She’s hot,” someone said.
“She’s pissed, you mean,” Angus McBride said. One of the new recruits to Base Camp, he loved to lay a Scottish accent on thick, although Walker had noticed he could drop it anytime he wanted. “I think we’re in trouble, lads.”
“Goddamn you, Boone Rudman,” the petite redhead yelled as she marched right in among them, “you are a stupid, lowlife, pond-scum-sucking, dirty old goddamn ass, and I hate you!” She gave Boone a shove that actually knocked him off balance, mostly because he was too surprised to react in time. Despite himself, Walker stifled a smile. He thought he heard someone else laugh.
When was the last time Boone had been pushed around by anyone?
“Avery—”
Avery wasn’t done. “You’ve ruined everything, you shitfucking butthead—you and your stupid band of merry frogmen. I hope you rot in hell!”
“Avery—”
The woman could swear like a sailor, but Walker thought she belonged in a Renaissance painting, all curvy and lovely and full of life. He wondered what Boone had done to piss her off so badly. His friend tended to boss people around.
“I’ve waited years for the chance to live with my friends and quit my asinine job so I could actually do something I loved, and now you want to steal it all away from me?”
“I’m not stealing—”
“Nora’s going to Billings to get a teaching job. Savannah’s going to California so she can have peace and quiet to practice her piano!”
A silence stretched out as Boone took this in, and if his expression was anything to go by, he knew he was in trouble. “You told them,” he said to Riley over Avery’s head.
Riley nodded, and Walker’s heart twinged with remembered guilt. The last time he’d seen her look this anguished was when Boone had passed her over for another, older girl when she was sixteen. At the time, Walker hadn’t been very sympathetic. He’d still thought of her as a kid.
He figured he knew why Avery was so mad now, though. Boone mentioned he’d explained to Riley about Fulsom’s rules. Riley must have told her friends.
And they were furious. The
