Walker Revenge (The Walker Family Series Book 5) by Bernadette Marie

training
progress until they’d been displaced. She’d have to start all over
again, but that was okay. But his potty was at the house too.
    “Are you going to eat that?” Russell asked,
and she realized she was only spinning her noodles on her fork, not
actually eating.
    “My mind is in other places.”
    Lucas pushed away his plate and began to
wiggle in her lap as though he were fighting to get down.
    “Oh, no you don’t,” she argued with him.
“You’re a mess, and Mrs. Walker doesn’t need you running around
here like that.”
    She picked him up just as Glenda Walker
walked back into the house with the box she’d taken with her to
feed the others.
    “Well, look who ate dinner.” She moved
toward them and reached her hands out to take Lucas. “That makes me
feel good. Did you like dinner?”
    He nodded and then pointed to Russell. “He
eat my dinner.”
    Russell held his hand in surrender. “It was
a gift.”
    Chelsea laughed. “I’ll get him cleaned up.
You don’t want him right now. He’s a mess.”
    Glenda urged her with a wave. “I’ll take
him, and we’ll get cleaned up. Nothing would make me happier.” She
pulled Lucas to her and gave him a kiss on the head. She then
looked between Chelsea and Russell. “I think he has some pain meds
due soon.”
    “In twenty minutes,” Chelsea assured
her.
    “Good. We’re going to go clean up, and then
play a little if that’s okay with you.”
    A warmth spread through her and Chelsea
smiled. “Of course. Thank you.”
    “Oh, no. Thank you,” Glenda said, as she
carried him away.
    Chelsea watched her carry him off, and a
part of her wanted to cry from the sadness that he loved spending
time with someone other than her. The other half was emotionally
grateful that Lucas had someone like Glenda to love him. Her mother
wasn’t close and Dominic’s mother—well, that thought alone scared
the hell out of her.
    She was a nasty woman whom Chelsea had
hardly known. Even Dominic was afraid of her, and he didn’t fear
anything—obviously. She’d been the mastermind behind Dominic taking
Lucas in the first place. It was her evil plan to keep what she
thought what was hers and hurt Chelsea just as she’d felt her son
had been hurt.
    “You do see what’s going on, don’t you,”
Russell spoke again, snapping her from her trance. “You’re worried
about your ex-husband, but my mother has kidnapped you both,” he
said smiling.
    “Doesn’t seem so bad.” She laughed as she
walked back to the table and picked up her plate and Lucas’s.
    “Why don’t you sit and eat now? You’ve
gotten skinny. I assume this is why. He eats, and you clean.”
    “I should…”
    “You should sit down, finish your dinner,
and we could have a real conversation before you give me those
stupid pills.”
    She contemplated his offer for just a moment
before sitting down next to him and eating the cold plate of
spaghetti.
    She was so consumed with eating that it took
her a while to realize that Russell was sitting there staring at
her.
    “What?” she asked, her mouth full of
spaghetti.
    “I’ve missed this.”
    “Staring at me?” She swallowed, and then
wiped her mouth.
    Russell chuckled. “Yeah, that too. But I
meant I missed us sitting together, being civil.”
    Chelsea moved her food around again,
something she realized she did when she was horribly nervous.
“Russ, I’m sorry again that I…”
    “Don’t,” he said reaching for her hand and
holding it in his.
    She gasped at the feel of his skin on hers.
His thumb brushed her knuckles. It was so very familiar, and yet so
removed that it felt new.
    “I can’t help it,” she continued. “This is
all my fault. All of it. I hurt you. I hurt your family. I hurt my
own heart,” she rambled on. “Now you’re hurt, and I’m hiding. This
is horrible.”
    “Scoot closer,” he said, giving her hand a
tug.
    “Russ…”
    “C’mon. I’m not going to yell at you,” he
promised.
    Chelsea moved her chair,