Breathe Read online

  She didn’t move. Not for long moments.

  Then she leaned slightly into him and said gently, “I don’t think you should be left be. I think you’re dealing with something heavy, you’re obviously doing it alone.” She threw a mitten-covered hand out to indicate the area, “You need to unload it, Chace.”

  Christ.

  Fuck.

  Christ.

  That voice, quiet, gentle, so fucking sweet saying his name, her eyes soft on him.

  Fuck.

  Better than he could have imagined.

  Better than he ever could have dreamed.

  And not his.

  Never to be his.

  Which meant finally hearing her say his name was torture.

  “All right,” he started, “I’ve been trying to be nice –”

  Her head jerked and she cut him off, her tone surprised, and again, Christ, fucking cute, “You have?”

  “Yeah,” he fired back. “I have and you’ll know I have when I say, Miz Goodknight, I do not want your concern. I don’t want your listening ear. I don’t want your company. What I want is for you to walk your fat ass up the trail and leave me the fuck alone.”

  He watched her body lock and her pale face in the moonlight become even paler.

  This lasted less than half a second before she turned on her boot and ran from the clearing. She did it so fast, he could see the midnight shadow of her long hair streaming behind her even after she’d left the clearing and hit the trail.

  Chace Keaton’s eyes didn’t leave the trail for a long while after she’d disappeared.

  Kiss me, Chace.

  He heard it in his head and he closed his eyes.

  You need to unload it, Chace.

  That time he heard Faye and his eyes shot open.

  Just what he did not need.

  Another demon.

  “Fuck,” he growled, his eyes moving through the clearing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.

  Nothing there.

  It wasn’t talking.

  Fuck.

  Like he had, night after night, Chace Keaton strode though the clearing to the trail and went home.

  * * * * *

  Two days later…

  “Would it kill you to come to dinner?”

  Chace watched over the counter as Shambles made his coffee. He felt the muscle jump in his cheek as he held the phone to his ear thinking, yes. It would kill him to go to dinner at his mother and father’s house.

  Or, more to the point, it would drive him to murder if he had to breathe his father’s air.

  “Ma,” he said into the phone, “like I told you, I’m busy.”

  “But I thought you said they were hiring new officers and things were getting back to normal,” she replied.

  “They are but it isn’t normal. Things are busy. Very busy. When they cleaned house, we lost practically everyone. Those new officers have to be trained and after what went down and the time it lasted, the citizens of Carnal aren’t gonna adjust in a few months to a Force they can trust. They got a problem, they still call each other rather than the Police Department. Then, when that goes south, and it usually goes south, we have to clean up the mess. No way I could make dinner this week.”

  “How about next week?” she pushed as Shambles poured frothed milk from the little stainless steel pitcher into his drink.

  “How about the weekend after next, I come to Aspen and take you out to dinner?” Chace suggested.

  Her voice was disappointed when she replied, “But, you know your father always goes to that golf tournament in Florida the third weekend in February.”

  He absolutely did.

  He also absolutely knew his father was not attending a golf tournament in Florida but doing something else that could, conceivably, require sporting equipment but its usages were not something his mother could comprehend.

  Unfortunately, Chace could. He just tried not to.

  Shambles turned, smiling at him and shoving the white lid on top of his coffee.

  Chace jerked up his chin to Shambles but said into his phone, “Is Dad’s attendance required at our dinner?”

  “Chace, you never see your father,” she replied quietly.

  “And, Ma, you know that’s by design,” Chace returned just as quietly, pulling out his wallet, flipping it open and yanking out a bill. He handed it to Shambles, Shambles set his coffee on the counter and turned to the cash register as Chace kept talking. “Now, are we on the weekend after next?”

  She ignored his question and whispered, “I wish you two would heal this breach.”

  That was not going to happen.

  Ever.

  And this was because he and his father did not have a breach that could heal. It used to be just a breach, years ago when Chace just wanted out of the house that he grew up in and out from under his father’s thumb.

  Now it was not a breach. It was a chasm he sure as fuck wasn’t going to cross and if his father tried, Chace would shoot him.

  “Ma –”

  “I’m worried about you, what with Misty gone. I mean, who’s taking care of you?”

  His mother didn’t know this, she wasn’t Misty’s biggest fan either, though she tried to hide it just as Chace tried to hide from his mother the fact that he hated his wife, but Misty never took care of him.

  She tried that for a while, after she finally figured out that he was not going to fall head over heels in love with her because she was great at giving head. This was mainly since he wouldn’t allow her to touch him and didn’t sleep in the same bed with her.

  Once she realized that her usual tricks were not going to win his heart, she’d branched out. And her branching out came in the form of her trying to be a good wife. She was a decent housekeeper, a decent cook. All this went to shit when he eventually refused to eat her food, left the house more often than not before she got out of bed, came home late and never commented on her loving care or how she kept their home. Finally, she started to get nervous and fucked everything up.

  He’d been hard on her and, at the time, felt she’d deserved it. She had trapped him into marriage after having whacked, sick-fuck sex with his father, doing this while conspiring with a dirty cop to tape it. Then she’d blackmailed his Dad and forced Chace into servitude not only to his father and his cronies, all of whom were under a local man’s thumb, but also to a crew of dirty cops that were so dirty, they were made of pure filth.

  Yeah, he thought she deserved that.

  Now she was dead and how she got dead, he had that and his treatment of her for their very long, very unhappy, five year marriage living as demons in his head too.

  “I’m thirty-five, Ma. I can take care of myself,” he told his mother while accepting change from Shambles and tossing a dollar in the tip bowl.

  “But I worry about you.” She was back to whispering, this time sad and concerned and, because he loved his mother, it killed.

  He knew she worried. He was an only child. She could have no more. She was lucky to have him and she felt that acutely. She was also flighty, sensitive and nervous by nature. Therefore, she’d smothered him growing up, terrified the very air had it out for him.

  Her tactics for raising her son clashed violently with her husband’s.

  Valerie Keaton was all about protection, love and care.

  Trane Keaton was all about making his son a man.

  This was not conducive to a loving, secure, understanding, supportive home.

  Therefore, as he’d promised himself starting at around age eight, the minute Chace could get out, he did. He worked at it, hard, and he got it.

  And he never went back.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her quietly. “I’m fine. Just busy.” He replaced his wallet, grabbed his drink and gave Shambles another chin lift. He got one of the undeniably talented but definitely a full blown hippie proprietor of the coffee shop’s goofy grins in return and went on, “Though, I’d be better, my mother let me take her out to dinner the wee
kend after next.”

  He turned to the door just as it opened, the bell over it ringing and, her eyes to her eReader, Faye Goodknight wandered in.

  Fuck.

  Chace stopped dead.

  “Okay, Chace, honey, I’d like that,” his mother said in his ear.

  “Good,” he muttered into the phone.

  At his voice sounding, Faye’s head came up, her eyes hit him, she stopped moving and she gave it to him. The expression he couldn’t fully see in the moonlight but he definitely saw in the daylight in La-La Land Coffee.

  Her eyes instantly turned pained, her face paled, her full, pink lips parted.

  And taking in that pain etched into her features hurt like a bitch.

  She was wearing a wool overcoat, the design of it somehow cinched it at her tiny waist which had the effect of throwing her curves into visible relief. It had a shawl collar around the neck and the coat was cream, its color highlighting the dark auburn of her hair. A light blue, knit cap was pulled down to her ears and, with the color of the coat, this accentuated her hair, displaying far more prominently an alluring feature that couldn’t be missed. She had on dark brown leather low-heeled boots and he knew she was wearing a dress or skirt under that coat because that was what she normally wore but also because all he could see on her legs up to the hem of her coat were the boots.

  Her makeup, as he noted it normally was, was subtle. There simply to highlight her natural prettiness, not falsify it.

  Her wounded, crystal blue eyes were wide.

  “Do you want me to make a reservation at Reynaldo’s?” his mother asked.

  “Yeah, Ma,” he answered. “That’d be good. Now I gotta go.”

  This time, hearing his voice sound took Faye out of her freeze and she didn’t hesitate to turn right around and hurry out the door.

  “But, Chace –” his mother began.

  Instinctively and definitely stupidly, Chace moved swiftly to the door. “Something just came up, Ma. Really, gotta go.”

  He heard his mother sigh then, “Okay, honey. See you weekend after next.”

  “Weekend after next. Love you, Ma, ‘bye.”

  He heard her good-bye but vaguely. He was out the door and moving quickly down the sidewalk behind a quickly moving Faye Goodknight.

  And he had no idea why.

  Except he still felt the pain of seeing the hurt he’d given her stamped in her features and he had to do something about it.

  He closed on her and called, “Miz Goodknight.”

  She hastened her step.

  Chace went faster.

  “Miz Goodknight.”

  She started run-walking.

  His long strides no match for her, Chace easily caught up to her, wrapped his fingers around her bicep and halted her, turning her to him at the same time he turned his body into her and said softly, “Faye.”

  Her beautiful, injured eyes lifted to him, wounding him as sure as if she’d shoved a knife in his gut.

  But her shoulders straightened. She was calling up the backbone.

  “Good morning, Detective Keaton,” she greeted, voice not cold but her usual quiet and now, unlike that night in Harker’s Wood, definitely distant.

  He kept his hand on her as he murmured distractedly, “Chace.”

  He said no more mostly because he had no fucking clue what to say.

  She didn’t speak.

  This carried on awhile.

  Then she spoke. “As you’re detaining me,” she slightly moved the arm he was holding likely to point out he was still holding it and she didn’t want that, “is there something I can help you with?”

  “Yeah, actually,” he replied, “I’d like to apologize for the other night.”

  “Apology accepted,” she stated instantly. Then, again slightly shifting her arm in his hold, making her point that she wanted him to let her go, she finished, “Now you have a nice day.”

  He didn’t let her go.

  He also didn’t know why he did it, he just did. And what he did was use his hand on her arm to pull her closer until they were inches apart.

  That got him much the same look she gave him at La-La Land Coffee but without the pain. Her pretty pink lips parted, her beautiful blue eyes got wide and her flawless pale skin got paler.

  Without the pain and with only inches between them, that look was fucking spectacular.

  He also noticed she wasn’t breathing.

  Therefore, he bent his head toward hers and whispered, “Breathe, Faye.”

  Her breath left her in a soft whoosh.

  That was cute, the look on her face still magnificent, the effect of both together with her proximity was just plain hot.

  Jesus.

  Making matters worse, she smelled good.

  No, not good.

  Fucking amazing.

  Christ, he wanted to kiss her. Ached to do it.

  “Is there more?” she whispered and he blinked, his eyes shifting from their attention to her mouth to hers.

  “You were right,” he whispered back. “I’m workin’ through some shit.”

  “I can imagine,” she replied, swinging her body back a few inches, coolness washing through her features. No, not cold. Again distant.

  “Doesn’t make it okay to be a dick,” he carried on.

  “This is true,” she agreed.

  “What I said was not nice and it was not acceptable.”

  “I think I got that you felt that way when you apologized, Detective Keaton.”

  He pulled her back the inches she’d shifted away at the same time he curled his body closer to hers, locked his eyes with her blue ones and whispered, “Chace.”

  He watched her swallow, the coolness left her features, a flash of nervousness and uncertainty went through her eyes, but she didn’t reply.

  “I’d really like to know, Faye, that you accept my apology,” he told her quietly.

  “I already said I did.” Her sweet, quiet voice came back at him instantly.

  “Right, then what I’d like to know is that you mean it.”

  She held his eyes and he not only sensed but saw her breath escalating.

  Cute and hot.

  Fuck him.

  Fuck him.

  Then she whispered, “I mean it.”

  “You mean it what?” Chace returned immediately, going for it. Shit, even so much as needing it.

  Her head gave a slight jerk as she blinked and that was also unbelievably cute.

  “I mean it what um… what?” she whispered.

  He pulled her closer using her arm at the same time he lifted his other hand with the coffee cup, touched it to her waist and whispered back, “You mean it, Chace.”

  Then, Christ, Christ, he watched the tip of her pink tongue move out to wet the fullness of her bottom lip. Her little, even white teeth sunk into that lip and that was off the charts cute and so fucking hot, he felt it in his dick.

  She let her lip go and she whispered, “I mean it, Chace.”

  He felt that in his dick too.

  Jesus, what the fuck was he doing?

  Abruptly, he let her go and stepped away. He regretted it immediately for she wasn’t ready for it and visibly teetered without his hold on her, his body close. She steadied herself but he didn’t like to see her teeter. However he did like the knowledge that she was as absorbed in him as he was in her.

  That didn’t mean he shouldn’t shut it down. He should.

  And he did.

  “Thank you, Faye,” he said, his voice more formal. Not cold. Like hers, distant.

  She blinked.

  Then she pulled in breath.

  Then she said, strangely, “Lexie.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Lexie,” she repeated, leaned in almost the instant she leaned right back and then she squared her shoulders again and said in a firmer tone. “I bet Lexie Walker would be a good listener and I know she likes you. I’ve seen you two have lunch together at the diner and you make her laugh. I me
an, everyone makes Lexie laugh. She’s a laugher. But you do too. You should talk to her. She’d help.”

  And without another word, she turned and moved quickly down the sidewalk.

  Everything that was Chace Keaton urged him to follow her. To ask her to dinner. To get to know her. To find the right time to taste her mouth. To find the right time to taste her body. To take the time to teach her how to pleasure his. To lay his burden on her.

  Everything that Chace Keaton had done, seen and heard for near on a decade stopped him.

  So he turned in the opposite direction and walked to his truck.

  Chapter Two

  Bubblemint

  “This is good.”

  “This is not good.”

  “I think it’s good.”

  “It is definitely not good.”

  I was standing behind the checkout desk in the library and in front of me were Lexie Walker, Krystal Briggs and Lauren Jackson.

  Lexie was married to Ty Walker. She was a beautiful brunette and her husband was a gorgeous half African American, half white man who’d recently made national news when it was uncovered he was framed and went to prison for a murder he did not commit.

  Krystal Briggs was a petite, buxom woman who, today (but it could be different tomorrow), had a mass of golden, honeyed locks akin to Farrah Fawcett’s hair in Charlie’s Angels. She was married to Jonas “Bubba” Briggs who had, for years, partied hearty and he did this without her while she worked at their bar called Bubba’s. She’d kicked him out and then about a year and a half later, for some reason, she married him. I didn’t get that and in the past few months, as Lexie introduced me to her posse, Krystal hadn’t shared. Then again, Krystal kind of scared me so I didn’t ask. What I did notice was that Bubba wasn’t partying hearty anymore and instead seemed pretty devoted. So I guessed things were going all right.

  Lauren Jackson was married to Tatum Jackson who I’d had a crush on for forever (or, until Chace Keaton moved to town). Growing up, anytime I saw him, my heart would skip a beat. This was because he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen (until Chace Keaton moved to town). He was a little rough around the edges but he made it beyond attractive. He was also a nice man, well-liked, if a little messed up seeing as his on-again, off-again girlfriend was more than a little crazy. Now he was with Laurie and he was no longer messed up. Of course, this was after his on-again, off-again girlfriend was murdered by a serial killer and Laurie was almost murdered by the same guy. But now for Tate, and for Laurie, everything seemed cool.