Could he do this? Help Elizabeth, appease Sue and keep Avery happy, as well?
While keeping his friends in the dark?
“You should come to the reservation,” Sue said. “We should be the ones to keep you safe.”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I won’t bring this kind of trouble there. That’s the last thing our people need.”
“But it’s fine for us here at Base Camp?” Walker said.
“Only because of the cameras. Think about it. No one can get to me while I’m being filmed, and I’m always being filmed. By the time the crew goes home, I’m tucked away in the bunkhouse, safe for the night.”
It sounded almost reasonable when she put it that way, but it wasn’t reasonable.
“You’re leaving on the twenty-fifth?” Walker hedged.
“I promise,” she assured him.
“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll tell Avery what’s happening. She’ll keep your secret.” He didn’t like it, though. Didn’t like any of this.
“What about me?” Sue said. “What about the promise you made to your grandmother?”
Elizabeth softened. She took Sue’s hands. “I have nothing but gratitude and honor for you both,” she said. “The two of you taught me what’s important in this world, and you taught me to fight for what I believe in. I believe in this. I’m sorry Walker and I don’t love each other the way you’d like us to, but we don’t. We never have. You know that.”
She held Sue’s gaze until Sue was the one to look away first.
“I hope you’ll give me your blessing,” Elizabeth said softly. “It would mean the world to me.”
“I hope you give Avery and me your blessing, too,” Walker said.
Sue shook her head. “We dreamed about your wedding day, Netta and I. We hoped for our families to heal together. My child and Netta’s looking out for each other all their lives.”
“We’ll look out for each other,” Walker assured her. “We know how precious friendship is.”
“That’s right. Whenever this troublesome grandson of yours gets in a fix, I’ll be there to bail him out, don’t worry,” Elizabeth said.
Sue wasn’t placated. “My son, Walker’s father, wronged your family,” she said. “I’d hoped a wedding would heal that.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Nothing any of us does will bring back my parents—or your son. Joe paid a price he didn’t deserve to pay for my parents’ deaths. The slate is clean, Sue. It’s time for us all to move on.”
Avery’s heart sank when Elizabeth came with Walker to talk to her after their meeting with Sue. Even when they explained what was going on, she didn’t feel much better.
“Five more days?” she asked. “That means I’ll have to do everything in a rush at the very end to prepare for our wedding. There’ll be only five days after you’re gone to get everything together.”
She wanted everyone to know how happy she was—right now. She’d spent a lifetime dreaming of the joy of planning each and every detail of the splendid day she joined her life to someone else’s. She wanted to revel in it for as long as possible. Ten days were barely enough. Five were a joke.
“You can still get started on planning your wedding. You’ll just have to pretend you’re planning mine,” Elizabeth told her.
“No one will buy that I’m planning your wedding to Walker,” Avery pointed out.
“Sure they will. You’re such a pushover. We’ll pretend I bullied you into it.”
Avery looked to Walker for support, but he shrugged. “You’re definitely too nice for your own good.”
“I’ll have you know I steal from SEALs,” she said, thoroughly affronted. She wasn’t… nice.
“Before you know it, I’ll be gone, and Walker will sweep you off your feet and down the aisle,” Elizabeth promised. “You’ll have five wonderful days of preliminaries and a beautiful wedding.”
“But I’ll have to watch you two be all lovey-dovey until then.” They’d explained Elizabeth’s fear that Fulsom would make her leave the show, and Avery had to admit the man was capable of kicking her off. That didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“I’m not going to be lovey-dovey,” Elizabeth said. “People would really wonder what was up if I started acting that way. Anyway, it’s just for a little while. Then you’ll do the big reveal that you and Walker planned to marry all along, and everyone will be shocked and happy, and your wedding will be all people talk about!”
“I guess that will end the show with a bang.” She sent a sideways glance Walker’s way. “You promise you’re actually going to marry me after all this?”
“I promise. Just give me a few more days.”
A trickle of unease threaded through Avery’s veins, although she tried to shrug it off. A few more days. Just one more day. He’d said that before, and he hadn’t come through.
This time he would, she told herself. He had to.
They’d all lose Base Camp if he didn’t.
He’d asked too much of her already, Walker thought as he watched Avery take it in. How could he ask her to trust him when he’d betrayed that trust several times already?
Avery had been so happy when she’d thought he was free to marry her. She’d waited so patiently for so long, then he’d dashed her hopes again, agreeing to help Elizabeth when he should be putting her first and foremost.
“What happens after the hearing?” Avery asked.
“There’ll be a vote on whether to allow the drilling. It’s scheduled for May thirtieth—probably right when you’ll be walking down the aisle. Private interests are pushing hard on legislators to get it done. I’m pretty sure they’re the ones who got the hearing postponed so it’d be a one-two punch. They don’t want people to have much time to digest the information our side is bringing and look into it more before
