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  My eyes shifted to the dash and I saw he’d left his coffee cup there.

  I looked to mine, the one he bought me.

  I felt the heat pumping in my car, making it warm and cozy.

  My eyes went back to his coffee cup and my mind decided I really should get that bronzed. And mine (when I was done). And maybe my passenger seat. And possibly my hand that he squeezed.

  Then it hit me all that just happened, Chace showing up with coffee, us talking and it seeming normal if you didn’t count him calling my ass “sweet”, me a “pretty woman”, telling me I was cute and teasing me, that was.

  It was like we were friends.

  Friends that danced at midnight.

  Jeez, I needed to stop hiding and have the girls over for dinner and margaritas as soon as fraking possible.

  That was, after I figured out if I should call Chace in an hour or two and find out what he found out about the boy.

  * * * * *

  Chace

  Chace walked up the street, eyes on the library.

  He’d never really noticed it, even knowing Faye worked there.

  Now, knowing she might lose her job and the town might lose its library, he did.

  An attractive building. Red brick. There was a concrete plaque over the door that stated it was built in 1902. Six steps leading up to the double front doors. Four, large, paned windows on either side. The shrubs and grass in front of it now covered in snow and large tufts of snow covered the four, large urns, two at the top of the steps, two at the bottom that he had vaguely noticed were filled with healthy flowers in the summer months.

  Eyes on the urns, he wondered if, in the previous summers, Faye planted them.

  As he was wondering, her pretty, cute, bossy voice filled his head.

  Don’t start, I know I shouldn’t have added the chocolate but he’s a kid. He should have a treat.

  Chace grinned to himself.

  She’d kitted out that kid with the amount of food and clothes a lot of underprivileged kids would kill for, runaways definitely would. And books. She hadn’t bought him a coat, some bologna, bread and pop and was done with it. She’d gone all out. She then staked out the return bin, still looking out for him.

  Chace’s grin got bigger.

  He was being fucking stupid, he knew it. He should steer well clear. He knew that too.

  But he didn’t give a fuck.

  The minute he saw the anguish in her eyes under the streetlamps and knew she’d been crying, he stopped fighting it. He’d chewed on it over the weekend. He was distracted during his dinner with his Mom in a way she noticed and asked about it, but he carefully skirted the issue and didn’t tell her.

  But he knew, even before he drove by the library that morning and saw her in her Cherokee, something that provided him a golden opportunity to get in there, that he was no longer going to try to fight her pull.

  So he stopped trying.

  He should take better care of her. He should leave her to find a good man who could focus on her, their lives, the family they’d build. A man who didn’t have so much baggage sometimes it was hard to haul his ass out of bed in the morning, it was so fucking heavy. Who wasn’t caked in the filth he swam in for a decade. Who didn’t come from a dysfunctional home that added more baggage to an already crippling load. Who didn’t detest his father. Who didn’t have to put energy into protecting his delicate, oversensitive mother. Who didn’t have a dead wife who he didn’t love but he also didn’t protect and therefore her last experience on this earth was having her mouth raped.

  But he wasn’t going to do that.

  Right now, Faye was worried about this kid. Right now, she had shit on her mind that sent her into the dark night. Shit he now knew meant she might lose her job which meant, for a librarian in a small town, she was fucked. To get a job in her profession, she’d have to move. A move that would take her away from her family and hometown. Or she’d have to find a different occupation. Right now, she had no man to take her back. She had a few friends and a good family but that wasn’t the same as having a man take your back.

  This meant, Chace decided, he was going to be the man who took her back.

  It was a weak decision and it was wrong. It was an excuse and a lame one. And it was highly likely once she found out everything about him it wouldn’t end well.

  But in his mind’s eye he saw her face get adorably angry and heard her musical but irate voice ask, Do you have multiple personalities?

  Seeing it, hearing her voice, he also decided he didn’t give a fuck that he was weak and what he was doing was wrong.

  He was still going to do it.

  And in doing it, he was heading back to the library and not his truck so he could tell her what had happened with the boy, instead of doing what he should do and go to work.

  But as he was jogging across the street to the opposite corner where the library was, his head turned so he could look to her old, beat up Cherokee in the side parking lot and his peripheral vision caught on something. So his head turned further and he saw his burgundy GMC Yukon still where he parked it on the street. He also saw a man he knew, a man he detested only slightly less than his father, leaning against the grill, arms crossed on his chest.

  Shit. Fuck. Jesus.

  This was something he wanted to ignore but couldn’t. It was time to have words, state where he was with this shit in a way that couldn’t be misinterpreted and hopefully, but doubtfully, move on.

  He stopped jogging and started walking, eyes trained to the man, feeling his jaw get hard.

  Clinton Bonar, his father’s associate which meant lackey, kept his eyes trained to Chace as he approached. He was wearing shades but Chace still felt the man’s eyes mostly through the nasty prickle on the back of his neck he always felt when he was around his father, his father’s cronies or their minions.

  He stopped a foot away and looked down the two inches he had on the man.

  Clinton didn’t speak, didn’t even tip up his chin in greeting.

  Chace didn’t tip up his chin but he did speak.

  “Dad back from his sick fuck fest?”

  Clinton didn’t move but asked, “Isn’t it time you got over that, Chace? It’s far from unusual for a man or a woman to have certain penchants.”

  “Wrong, Bonar, I know Dad’s penchants and they are very unusual.”

  “He’s a virile man with a great deal of energy even at his age.”

  “He’s a married man at his current age and was six years ago and for the last thirty-seven years.”

  “A man needs what he needs and if he can’t get it at home, he’ll find a way to get it.”

  Chace jerked up his chin. “Dad certainly does that.”

  Clinton shook his head. “I’m uncertain why we’re talking about this.”

  “Then I’ll do you a favor and fill you in. That would be because I’m remindin’ you that whatever the fuck he sent you here to do, I am not gonna do.”

  “We’ve been getting that impression considering you aren’t answering or returning our calls.”

  “Then you’re getting the right impression. I don’t want to hear from you and I don’t wanna speak to you. Any of you.”

  Clinton pushed away from Chace’s vehicle so he was standing, not leaning, and said quietly, “There’s unfinished business.”

  “Yeah, you’ve told me more than once,” Chace replied. “And I’ve told you, it’s not my unfinished business. It’s yours.”

  “You know that isn’t true.”

  “You’re not catchin’ this, man, but with me not talkin’ to you or any of your buddies, it is true.”

  Chace watched him take a calming breath in through his nose before he continued, “We are aware that Darren Newcomb gave a copy of your father’s tape to Tyrell Walker and Mr. Walker made copies and gave them to a variety of residents of Carnal. We wish for those tapes to be collected.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  Clinton ignored him and kept
going. “Newcomb’s also in possession of a variety of items we need returned.”

  “Good luck with that too.”

  Clinton shook his head. “I don’t think you’re understanding me, Chace. Newcomb has approached all of my colleagues, sharing he has these items and his intentions. He’s received remuneration for their return and has reneged on his part of that deal and asked for more remuneration. This cannot go on.”

  “I can see you got a big problem there, Bonar, and I know you boys are thorough so I know you know this but I’ll tell you all the same. Newcomb lost his job, he’s a disgraced cop, no way in fuck he’s gonna find another position anywhere and his daughter has leukemia. He has no insurance but he does have a strong desire to do whatever the fuck he can to keep her alive. The shit he has to do costs a fuckin’ whack and is never ending unless, God forbid, she dies or she beats that shit. So my advice, settle in because he’s gonna take you for a long ride.”

  “We all agree it’s unfortunate Newcomb’s family is suffering and we hope the outcome is a positive one. That being said, my colleagues feel they should make their own choices as to what charities they’d wish to receive their donations.”

  “Then they shouldn’t have done stupid, fucked up shit and got caught doin’ it by Fuller and his band of asshole brothers. That’s also their problem and not mine.”

  He leaned slightly forward, Chace’s body went alert so he wisely leaned right back but did it speaking. “I’ll remind you, your father is one of the men who might, if he stops paying, be exposed.”

  “And I’ll remind you I don’t give a fuck.”

  Clinton continued, “He’s exposed then your mother learns about his…” he paused, “inclinations. If you find them unsavory, a man, a police detective, imagine what it would do to Valerie.”

  Chace leaned in this time and even seeing Bonar’s body go alert, he didn’t lean back.

  “You got me with that shit years ago. I swallowed that bitter pill and jacked my life doing it.”

  “If this is true, why did you approach IA and offer yourself to go undercover?”

  “That pill wore off, Bonar, and when it did, I couldn’t live with that shit anymore.”

  “You made a lot of powerful men very vulnerable doing that, Chace. They don’t like to feel vulnerable.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about that either.”

  “You made Valerie vulnerable.”

  Chace successfully fought back the urge to suck in a sharp breath, and the stronger urge to grab the man by his fancy-ass silk tie and slam him to the hood of his car, before he replied, “Then it’s time I had a chat with my Mom. It won’t be pleasant and it’ll fuck her up but it’s better comin’ from me than from the media or one of your goons.”

  “Chace, you are not understanding me and you need to understand me. My colleagues find this situation untenable, they want it to be over and they have the means to see to that in ways you will not like all that much.”

  “Is that a threat?” Chace asked.

  “You know these men don’t make threats.”

  “Then here’s the same, you or they fuck with my mother or me, what I do they won’t like all that much.”

  “Because of Trane, we understand that Valerie and you are off-limits. That said, there are a number of citizens in this town you love so much you’d betray your own father to protect it. These men will not mind doing what they have to do to get what they want and laying waste to this town in the process. Starting with Tyrell and Alexa Walker.”

  Feeling his blood heat and his palms itch, Chace took a step into him, getting chest to chest, nose to nose and forcing Clinton to press himself back into the grill of the SUV.

  “You fuck with Ty or Lexie, you fuck with me. You fuck with anyone in this town, you fuck with me. Those men wanna lay waste to Carnal, they gotta get through me first. Something you forget, Bonar, I may have left home, I may have become a cop but for seventeen years, I was at the hand of Trane Keaton and I learned every trick he has. To protect what’s mine, make no mistake, asshole, I’ll use them.”

  “Calm down, Chace,” he replied placatingly.

  “Fuck calm,” Chace growled. “My father gettin’ off on sick-fuck, jacked up kink made my life a livin’ hell for far too long. I’m clear. I’m stayin’ clear. You tell your boys to stay clear, man up and take whatever’s gonna come to them.”

  “We’re simply asking you to have a conversation with two men. Walker, to get him to collect his tapes, Newcomb, to get him to deliver on his part of the bargain. Very simple.”

  “Gettin’ either of those men to do that is not about havin’ a conversation. It’s about usin’ a strong arm and I’ve done that for you and your boys. I’m done doin’ that too.”

  “As you’ve brought it up, at this juncture, I unfortunately have to remind you that you have, indeed, acted as an enforcer for my colleagues. If this was leaked, you’d find the questions asked by your superiors very uncomfortable and you’d undoubtedly lose your standing in this town as its saving grace hero.”

  “It’s not a role that fits, you know why since you and your colleagues jacked my shit. So leak it. I’ll take it.”

  “It’s conceivable this would make the news. You were held up as the poster boy for bravery against corruption. The media enjoys building a hero. But they enjoy it more, tearing him down. It could destroy your life.”

  “Clue in, asshole, my life’s already in the toilet. Not only would it be a relief but, I don’t think you get this, I know my father’s plays but I am not my father or any of the men you work for. I got a pair. Shit happens, I don’t hide behind my money and men like you. I deal. Dish it out. I want you to. I already live under a cloud. Nothin’ you or those douchebags you work for, who keep you in your expensive suits and shoes and haircuts, could do could make it any worse.”

  “You are very wrong, Chace.”

  “Try it and see.”

  Clinton held his eyes and Chace let him.

  Then he said quietly, “There could come a time when Trane can’t protect you.”

  “Let that time be now,” Chace invited. “I don’t want that piece of shit’s protection.”

  “This is the wrong decision,” Clinton whispered.

  “No,” Chace did not whisper. “Your boys are runnin’ so scared at the same time thinkin’ their money and position can buy them anything, they haven’t been payin’ attention. Your first move is against Ty and Lexie, you’ll create a shit storm so extreme it’ll never blow over. Not only is Ty Walker a man who has taken enough and is not about to take any more and will do what he’s gotta do to protect himself, his wife and the family they’re makin’, he’s a man who’s got some serious power at his back. He stubs his toe and it looks suspect, the full force of the media, Samuel Sterling and whoever Sterling can round up will be all over your asses. I got their back and I’ll have it any way I have to have it even if it means throwin’ myself on my sword. Think of that in your strategy sessions. And since I’m handin’ out advice, Darren Newcomb is a racist asswipe, dirty cop who beat his wife so badly, the only play he gave her was for her to leave him and her kids. But he loves his daughter. He’ll go down for her. You fuck with him and any chance he has to help his daughter beat that shit eatin’ away at her, he’ll make it ugly. So counsel your boys to take on a new charity and learn to hope Newcomb doesn’t get greedy. You see his daughter through that shit, deal with him after. He deserves it. His daughter does not.”

  “I’ll take this under advisement and share it with my colleagues.”

  “Good call.”

  “But you haven’t addressed the matter of your mother.”

  Chace couldn’t beat it back this time and sucked in breath.

  If his mother knew about his father, it’d kill her.

  She’d been a beauty her whole life, even now, at age sixty. She came from money, had been spoiled but it didn’t make her like Misty, grasping and entitled. Nothing could beat his mother’s sweet. It was
how she was because it was who she was.

  She loved and adored her son.

  She loved and worshiped her husband.

  Trane Keaton was a lot of things and not one of them was good. Except the fact that in his sick way, he felt the same about his wife. Like Chace, he handled her with care, like she was exactly what she was, a delicate, fragile thing who gave nothing to the world but beauty.

  But she wasn’t perfect precisely because she was fragile. The kind of fragile it took medication to strengthen or it would come flying apart. The kind of fragile that, before the meds and even sometimes after them, led to episodes that were at best unpleasant and at worst, especially when he was a kid, terrifying.

  Fuck, she’d had a bad break that put her into treatment after reading an article about a little girl who’d been kidnapped, molested and murdered. As terrible as that shit was, she totally couldn’t deal.

  Finding out her husband was unfaithful to her repeatedly throughout their marriage and how would end her.

  Chace knew that. His father knew that. But it was Chace knowing it that bought them his cooperation, until he couldn’t stomach cooperating anymore because he couldn’t even look in his own eyes in the mirror.

  His threat to tell her had been a bluff at the time and Clinton knew it. But now, as he had when he made the decision to approach Internal Affairs and offer to assist in exposing the corruption in Carnal, Chace had to weigh his mother’s mental health against the well-being of an entire town.

  And he loved her a fuckuva lot.

  But Ty and Lexie Walker had been through enough in their lives and they had a baby on the way.

  Just they tipped the scales.

  The rest sent them crashing.

  “You force my hand, I’ll do what I have to do. I do what I have to do, I’ll deal with the fallout but you will deal with my father,” Chace replied.

  Again, Clinton’s shades stayed locked to Chace’s eyes.

  Then he murmured, “Please step away.”

  “I will, I get your assurances I don’t see you again or hear from any of your crew of assholes.”

  “I cannot guarantee that, Chace.”