Breathe (Colorado Mountain 4)

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 weekend 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 f**king 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 f**king 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.