Just Let Me Love You (Judge Me Not #3)(17)

When I raise a brow suggestively, she swats my arm.

“Stop,” she says. But she’s smiling the whole time. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

“I know, and you have helped me. You’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know, Kay. Just having you here with me, it makes me see things differently. I realized something when we first arrived here at the cemetery, when we were walking quietly to Dad’s grave.”

“What did you realize?”

I take a breath. “That I don’t view this place the way I used to.”

“What do you mean?”

Her voice is soft, pleading, so I try to explain. “When I look around”—I make a sweeping motion with my hand—“at all of this, I see something new. I used to come here and I would see nothing but grave after grave, a desert wasteland. To me, this place was death on top of more death.”

“Chase…”

“But here’s the thing,” I continue. “Look around, baby.” I point to vibrant desert sage, a big barrel cactus, and a bush with bright yellow blooms. “There is life here, too. There’s life all around us.”

“Even in the desert,” Kay marvels as she glances left and right.

“Even in the desert,” I repeat. “And do you know why?”

She looks at me, her gaze questioning.

“Because these plants, these things that are alive, they adapted. They grew and changed. These living things evolved to how they needed to be in this harsh environment.” Sighing, I add, “Maybe that’s what I need to learn how to do.”

Kay replies, “I think you have been doing that, Chase. Since the day you got out of prison, you’ve been changing and adapting.”

She’s right, but I tell her the truth of it. “It sure as hell hasn’t been easy.”

“Nothing worthwhile ever is.”

She would know.

I rise to my knees and cup her face in my hands. “How’d you end up being so smart, Kay Stanton?”

Shy girl says nothing, but the compliment makes her blush like crazy. And I love it.

“So cute,” I murmur as I rub my thumbs over her pink cheeks.

“Oh, stop,” she says.

Her blush goes from pink to red, and she tries to wiggle away. But I’m not letting her get away. My hands remain, cupping her face. She always feels so breakable beneath my strength. I can’t help but be amazed.

“How can you be so strong, yet feel so fragile?” I ask.

“I’m not so very fragile,” she says with a sly smile.

“No,”—I smile back at her—“I guess you’re not.”

And she’s not. But she’s strong in more than just the sexual ways she’s intimating. Kay has strength and fortitude for the both of us. That’s why I know that beyond today’s first step—and it’s been a good first step, as I finally feel some peace—I will keep making progress.

After all, if I can find signs of life in the Nevada desert, then I can surely find signs of life among my own ruins.





Kay



When Chase and I return to the house, his mom and Greg are home. We step into the entry hall tentatively, where all of us kind of stand around, sizing each other up.

Greg speaks first, uttering a quick, “Hello, nice to meet you.” He shakes both my and Chase’s hand formally, and then declares he is retiring to his study.

“I have paperwork to get caught up on,” he says to Abby.

He’s so much older and more reserved-looking than I expected him to be.

Abby replies “Okay, dear,” and then Greg is gone.

With her husband out of the room, Chase’s mother turns her full attention to her eldest. “Chase,” she exhales dramatically. “Oh, baby, come here.”

Chase doesn’t move an inch, so Abby sighs and goes to him. She encircles him in an awkward hug, clinging to him like she hasn’t seen him in years. But I know Chase’s mother saw him in April, the day he was released from prison.

“Oh, sweetie, sweetie,” Abby coos, her dark-blonde hair tumbling from her loose bun.

Abby Gartner—or rather, Abby Vintner nowadays—is an attractive woman. She’s thin and petite. Her sons apparently inherited their height from their dad. But it’s not all Jack Gartner genetics that have been passed down to his sons. Will definitely has Abby’s green eyes.

“Mom, come on.” Chase pulls away from his mom. “Please. I think that’s enough.”

Abby is far from done, though. In fact, there’s so much fanfare in the next five minutes from his mother that Chase ends up walking away.

“I can’t do this right now,” he says as he heads for the stairs. “I’m going up to take a shower.”

“You’ll be down for dinner, though, right, baby?” Abby sounds like a wounded puppy.

“Yep,” Chase replies, his tone clipped.

And then he’s up the stairs and out of sight, leaving me standing in the entry hall with his overwrought mom.

Wow. Chase may have made peace with his dad today, but I can see there’s much work ahead when it comes to reaching a common ground with his mother.

Abby eyes me appraisingly for a full two minutes. “Hmm,” she says at last. “So, you’re Kay.”