Breathe (Colorado Mountain 4)

“Yes, so, he needs someone to help him get unfucked up,” Lexie shot back.

“Is unfucked a word?” Laurie asked me.

As usual when these girls were around, I didn’t get the chance to say much since they were talking all the time but I did get the chance to get a shrug in to Laurie but just barely before Krystal spoke.

“Well, I had to unfuck one and, I’ll remind you, so did you and Laurie,” Krystal jerked a thumb at Lauren, “and it wasn’t much fun.”

“Mine was fun,” Laurie whispered to me.

“Mine was too,” Lexie did not whisper to Krystal. “Mostly because of all the f**king we did while I was unfucking him.” She looked at me, grinning. “And other parts. But the f**king was a highlight.” Then she muttered, “Still is.”

Krystal turned and rolled her eyes at me before saying, “The pain, it fades. Trust me, it is not fun.”

I could feel my cheeks burning and knew they were bright red at all this talk about f**king and, well, unfucking (whatever that was).

This was because I was a virgin and although recently I’d been spending some time with these women as they came into the library with relative frequency. Krystal especially, rarely held any punches (as in, never), I wasn’t used to talk about “fucking”.

Incidentally, being a virgin was by choice.

Kind of.

First, as a starry-eyed adolescent, I’d made it my mission to give it away only after I found the right guy (not that, at the time, I actually knew what “giving it away” meant).

This was because I’d read romance novels since I was thirteen. Therefore, I decided, just like the heroines in my books, I would only give something that precious to a man who deserved it. The perfect man. The one who would sweep me off my feet, make my heart race, fire my blood and be happy to dance with me all night. The one who was smart, strong, handsome, good. The one who was larger than life. The one who would look after me. The one who would hold me close all night long.

Then, thirteen years ago, Chace Keaton showed up in town, in uniform, thick dark blond hair, intense dark blue eyes, handsome white smile, tall, straight, lean body and I fell in love.

I know it sounds crazy but I did it. And I did it because I knew he was all that I needed him to be. A man like that could sweep me off my feet. He was strong, handsome and a cop so he had to be good. He was so beautiful, in uniform or out of it, wearing his jeans and western belt buckle and cowboy boots. Coming from Aspen money (big money, if rumor was true) but leaving all that to be his own man. A good man. A brave man. An officer of the law. He seemed larger than life.

I was sixteen but I knew he could make my heart race, fire my blood because I didn’t even know him and I was young but he already did.

And I never let go of that feeling.

Even when he married Misty, the town slut who no one liked all that much.

I was shocked and, I’ll admit, hurt when he did it. It wasn’t nice to think but she was the town slut and she didn’t suit him, she didn’t fit him, it didn’t make sense. Especially since everyone in the whole town knew she lied about Ty Walker’s alibi. That made her a slut and a liar and not the little white lie kind of liar but the huge, earth-shattering, life-altering, vicious, nasty kind of liar.

It didn’t make sense, Misty and Chace. Chace was a good guy. A straight arrow. Well-liked. Trusted. And in our town on the police force at that time, this was practically an unknown commodity.

But I didn’t let go of the feeling I had deep down inside that Chace was the one because everyone in town was talking about how she trapped him. And Chace himself never acted like he was happy to be wed in holy matrimony to the town slut (and liar). He wasn’t nice to her and he wasn’t faithful to her and he was obvious about both.

I didn’t know how she could trap him. I mean, I knew they’d been together if not together-together in a girlfriend/boyfriend way. Then again, as the town slut, everyone had been “together” with Misty. So, I thought at first he got her pregnant. But then she never had a baby.

Although I didn’t like them together (as in, really), either “together” or together in the married way, it didn’t faze me. Everyone knew the hero in any good romance had to have his fair share of experience. If he didn’t, how was he going to be a good teacher, showing his lady love how to give him pleasure at the same time giving her more than she’d ever dreamed? So I didn’t mind that Chace played the field, including with Misty.

But putting his ring on her finger? Then cheating on her openly?

No.

It never made sense.

And truth be told, I didn’t like it much. It didn’t say nice things about him at all.

For some reason, though, I never gave up hope. For some reason, even removed, I felt whatever was between them wasn’t right. I knew just looking at him he wasn’t happy. And after a while, I saw the same thing in Misty and by the end, for Misty, it was even worse.

It wasn’t like they were married. It was like they were enemies legally bound together. This made Chace go about his life as if he wasn’t married. And it wore Misty down. It was strange, it was sad and, in the end, it was tragic.

There was more talk after she died. Speculation that she was wound up in all the goings-on at the Police Station with dirty cops and corruption. Especially since it was found out to be true what everyone already knew, that she lied about Ty Walker’s alibi. So folks figured that Chace somehow got caught up in all that and Misty somehow got Chace out of the deal. But no one really knew the true story.

After Misty died and all that stuff at the Station was brought out in the open, Lexie came to the library with the obvious intent to be my friend (for some reason). But even though I knew she knew Chace, like, for real, spending actual time in his presence instead of just seeing him around, she’d never shared. She just counseled me, frequently, to have a go at Chace, telling me she was certain he was into me.

As often as she informed me of this, he never gave any indication of it. In fact, after his wife was murdered it was the first time he showed that he might care about her. It was clear it disturbed him, not a little, a lot. Of course, anyone being murdered would, even a wife you didn’t much like who may have trapped you into marriage. And now I knew this to be true since now I knew he hung out in the dead of night in the cold at the spot where she was killed.

Seven months had passed and he wasn’t shaking it off. And he was also hanging out at Harker’s Wood in the middle of the night. So maybe everyone was wrong about Misty and Chace. Maybe, out there in the crazy world where things were messed up and not nice, a world, Chace was right, I didn’t spend a lot of time in for a reason, they had something. Something it couldn’t be denied was twisted. But it clearly was something.