For a few seconds he just rested his palms on her shoulders, feeling the heat of her skin. She made the tiniest sound, almost inaudible, at the contact. Moving slowly, he ran his thumbs up either side of her spine and then began a gentle, rolling massage movement over her shoulders which drew out an inadvertent, louder moan. Walker laughed low in his throat.
‘Your muscles are so tight,’ he said softly. ‘I can feel how much you need this.’
He felt Gabi relax under his fingers as he concentrated his energy, his focus, his feeling into his palms. He saw the tic of a pulse at the side of her neck, letting his fingers move over her collarbones, her throat. He wasn’t aware of the bookshop around him. He was just lost in the rhythm, the pressure, the rub and press of his fingers on her skin. Her body seemed to spark under his hands, and it was lighting something within him.
‘Good?’ Walker asked, his mouth bent close to her ear. Her head dropped backwards towards him; her lips fell apart. God, he hoped it was good. Her body was like fire. He couldn’t help but imagine moving down from her shoulders, exploring her body with his hands, his mouth.
The jangle of the doorbell jolted them out of the spell. Rosie stood in the shop doorway, wide-eyed, open-mouthed.
‘Oops,’ Rosie said with a little giggle. ‘I came back to help sort the shop out. Maybe I should have stayed home.’
Gabi recovered quicker than he did. She coughed and straightened, shrugging herself back into her cardigan.
‘Not at all!’ Gabi said. ‘Walker was just relieving my tension.’
‘I bet he was.’ Rosie laughed. Walker found he’d lost the ability to speak. His fingers still tingled with the energy that had forged between them.
‘So that I can help with the clearing up!’ Gabi said.
‘I can’t let you do that!’ Rosie said. ‘You’re our star performer. And you can’t carry anything either. So, I’ll drop you home and then come back and help Walker.’
It was decided. Gabi threw him a look, playful, naughty even, and Walker watched her as she swung through the door. The feel of her under his fingers had started a fire burning.
It was Gabi herself that had told him to enjoy life. To have fun. So, maybe a little distraction with Gabi for the next couple of months was exactly what he needed.
Chapter Fifteen
Gabi
Gabi was feeling good the day after Story Stars. She’d had a surprisingly sexy dream about a masseur with wandering hands and woken up with a huge grin on her face. Walker certainly had a magic touch. She’d been sliding down that chair under his fingers, and God knows what would have happened if Rosie hadn’t come back, but she had a pretty good idea.
For the rest of the week, Gabi found herself chatting to people who had been in the audience at the Lit Lounge. When she took Jayden to the park after school, children ran to her at the park bench to ask questions about stunts. People called her name in the street and waved across the road when they spotted her. She made an effort to remember names and faces, committing them to memory as soon as she heard them. She’d even had an invitation from the local secondary school to go in and give a talk on being a stuntwoman and a call from the local radio station to do an interview on air about her career. It was amazing how quickly her name had got around. She wasn’t used to being known. Not as a local. It was strange.
Gabi’s job usually took her away so much, she didn’t really feel like she belonged where she lived. The only person she knew in her entire building was the doorman, and he wasn’t exactly chatty. He only glanced up from his newspaper long enough to check you were a resident in the building and in the three years she’d lived there, he hadn’t once called her by name.
It was the same when she was away on a shoot. People knew who she was, but she had a part to be played. It was a job. She came in when necessary and performed whatever death-defying stunt she was employed to do, and then she left again. She was on nodding acquaintance with some of the directors as they moved between different jobs. She recognised some of the make-up artists or set builders, but it was a transient community. Nobody stayed still. Everyone was always looking for the next gig. It didn’t lend itself to lasting relationships. Not even deep friendships.
The local coffee shop didn’t know Gabi’s order. In fact, some of the baristas were new every time she went in there. She didn’t have a ‘table’ at the local pub. She didn’t even have a local pub, come to think of it. The last few weeks were beginning to feel like a familiar, pleasant holiday destination she could come back to sometime, although as soon as this boot was off, so was she. Back to reality. Back to her life.
The front door slammed so hard it literally shook the house. She started. Jayden rounded the corner and shot his bag at the hook without looking. His face was thunderous.
‘What is it?’ Gabi asked, throwing her hands up in question. He shook his head, looking so much like Amber when she was fierce.
He threw himself down in the chair, almost knocking over her coffee. He grabbed a pen and leaned over the page. A few seconds later, he held it up. A sentence in spiky writing, almost joined up but not quite.
We have to do a family tree.
He folded his arms, bottom lip protruding. Gabi breathed out, feeling the frustration coming off him in waves.
‘For a project?’ she asked.
He banged the table with his hand and signed something furiously at her. She frowned and pointed at the pen again. He sighed, wrote just two words and held the pad up for her.
It had the wordMumat the top. Then an arrow to the wordMeat the bottom.
He threw his hands up.
She reached over for his chair, surprising herself– and Jayden. She pulled his chair closer until she could put an arm around his shoulder. His ten-year-old body trembled with emotion, and she was struck by the intensity of it. Because she recognised it. She had felt the same. She still did sometimes.
