“There,” she declared, setting the gun aside on a ragged dishtowel. She held the glass up cautiously between thumb and forefinger, her torso straightening and she asked, “What do you think?”

Walker had no response, he just stared at it.

“Is it too cutesy?” she asked and he noted out of the corner of his eyes her head had turned and he felt her gaze on him but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the heart. “I mean a heart… that isn’t me. It also isn’t you. But I was thinking I could etch some squiggles and shit in the glass at the corners and on the inside of the heart I could write, ‘Ty and Lexie, Las Vegas,’ and maybe the date of our wedding. I’ll solder a hanger on top. I got a blush colored ribbon and a sucker thing for the window and I’ll hang it in the window over the kitchen sink.” She stopped talking and when he still made no reply, she muttered, “Maybe that’s too much. Not sure a heart made of rose petals goes with the black counters and cream cabinets of your kitchen…”

She was talking but he wasn’t hearing her.

He was thinking, Ty and Lexie.

That sharp thing again pierced the left side of his chest.

“Your kitchen,” he found his mouth saying.

“What?” she asked quietly and his eyes moved from her hand to hers.

“Your kitchen, babe. It’s your kitchen; you made that so it works.”

He watched surprise flare in her eyes then he watched her beautiful face grow soft and he liked both but he liked the second better.

“Those are from your bouquet,” he noted quietly and she nodded.

Then she admitted, “I was pissed at you but not pissed enough not to keep a few of the roses.” She paused then, “As in, eight.”

He felt the tightness in the left side of chest ease.

Then he wrapped his fingers around the side of her neck and slid them up and back so they were in her hair, hair he’d felt gliding over his skin, hair he felt all around while she’d worked his cock. Hair that felt better during those times then he imagined it would and he imagined it would feel really f**king good.

Fuck, but he loved her hair.

He didn’t tell her that. He also didn’t tell her that the thing she made was beautiful and not just because of what it was, what it said and that she’d made it with flowers from her bouquet.

Instead, he bent and gave her a light kiss.

Then he muttered, “Gotta get a shower and change and then we’ll go.”

Then he let her go and walked to the stairs, thinking, As in, eight.

She’d given up on him when he was an ass**le but she’d never let him go.

She’d never let him go.

He made it to the top floor feeling that squeeze return in the left side of his chest.

But taking a shower knowing Lexie was in her kitchen downstairs, ready to go out with him for dinner, he let it go.

* * * * *

Walker was on his back, head to the pillows, his wife’s na**d body using his as her mattress.

Her finger was gliding along the thick swirls and slashes of the design of the tat that inked his left arm from the top of his forearm up his upper arm around his shoulder partially up his neck and across his left upper chest and pectoral. The position of her body did not allow her fingers to roam down along the part that inked across the left side of his abs and middle, curving around his side to his move across his back, meeting the ink that coiled over his shoulder, the design continuing down nearly to his groin at the front, on the top of his hip at the side and along the small of his back.

“This is a lot of ink,” she whispered, her eyes on her finger.

“Yeah,” he agreed because it was. It took five visits to get that work done and cost a f**kload of cash.

She looked to his face. “What is it?”

“Maori,” he told her and she blinked.

“What?”

“Maori,” he repeated. “Indigenous people of New Zealand,” he explained.

“I know who they are but why do you have Maori ink? Do you have Maori in you?”

He shook his head. “Not by blood.”

When he said no more, Lexie asked, “What does that mean?”

He had an arm wrapped low at her waist, his fingers trailing aimlessly on the soft skin of her hip.

When he spoke, he stopped trailing and curled them around.

“When I was growin’ up, there was a Maori mountain man, lived a fifteen minute bike ride away in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. He was an old f**ker, bad attitude but mostly he had a bad attitude ‘cause the kids in town knew he lived up there, alone, didn’t come into town often, wasn’t social and those kids thought it was a kick to f**k with him. I was one of those kids. Was up there doin’ shit to f**k with him when he caught me, dragged me to his cabin and laid me out. I was eight. He looked about eight hundred. He still laid me out, no hesitation, smacked me down.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, her finger stopping its trailing too so all of them could curl into his shoulder.

“No, Lex, once he got done layin’ me out, he talked to me. Never had that. Did have a Dad who didn’t hesitate smackin’ me down but didn’t take the time to talk to me after about the shit I was doin’ wrong and how to pull it together. Had the time to take his hand to me but not the time to teach me lessons. Tuku was not like that.”

“Tuku?”

“Yeah, Tuku. That was his name. After that, found myself peddling my bike up there not to f**k with him but because he demonstrated he gave a shit and I didn’t have that. I wasn’t wrong. He gave a shit. Didn’t make a big deal about it but the next time I came he gave me his time, he gave me his company and when I kept coming he gave me his wisdom. So I peddled up there a lot. He was in this country because he married a white woman, an American, came here to be with her so she could be with her people. Got here, she lived long enough to get pregnant and die havin’ their baby. Baby died too. He loved her, that f**ked with his head, he checked out, stayed in his cabin, lived and breathed and ate and worked but other than that, life yanked away the only good thing he had in it at the same time takin’ the beauty they created together. He couldn’t deal so he didn’t.”

“That’s awful,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Walker agreed because it was and knowing Tuku for fourteen years it was worse because he was a man who didn’t deserve that. Not even close.

“So he took you under his wing?”

Walker nodded. “I went up there a lot, any time I could. I did my homework up there because, when he knew I was gonna keep coming, he made me bring it with me. He taught me how to hold a hammer. He taught me how to use a drill. He taught me how to change oil, fix brakes and switch out a clutch. He taught me that any man worth anything works hard and he does it usin’ his hands. He creates shit. He fixes it. Although the folks who could afford his stuff were lawyers, stock brokers, he had no respect for them. That was just his way, his opinion and he taught me a man should form opinions, do it for a reason, stick by them but keep an open mind. He was an artist both in New Zealand and here. That’s how he made his living. He gave me a pen and ink. This,” he lifted his left arm then dropped it back to the bed. “After he died, I had it inked on me. Took what he gave me to a tattoo parlor right after the funeral and got it started.”