Unspoken (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3)(94)

“But that doesn’t mean you have to make it so hard on him. I know you. When someone gets a little too close, you start pushing them back. Stop it. I know you’ve been hurt, but other people, people who care about you, shouldn’t have to pay for the mistakes some idiots made in the past.”

Emotion tightened her throat. Had she run Chase off? She recalled telling him she didn’t love him, but hadn’t he told her he’d wait?

Maybe waiting didn’t include thinking she was snuggling up with Steve. Maybe she should have tried to explain right away. But if Chase was able to just walk away after a little misunderstanding, was she that important to him?

“Thanks for the advice,” she said, and for some crazy reason she reached over and took another bite of the cookie. Then another. It didn’t taste any better, but it didn’t stop her.

She wanted to like it.

She also wanted to know what love tasted like.





Chapter Thirty-nine

Chase parked in front of his cabin. He got out and stood by the open door waiting for Baxter to get out.

“Come on,” Chase said when the dog just plopped back down in the seat as if to say he planned on sleeping in the car.

“We’re gonna sleep inside tonight. I promise.” Baxter hadn’t found the porch all that comfortable. Neither had Chase, but what did that matter? He’d barely slept these last few nights. He’d spent his eight hours working with Burnett, then took off and worked another twelve combing Houston searching for Stone. He still didn’t have a friggin’ clue what he was going to do when he caught the bastard.

Kill the man before he took him in, knowing it might prevent Della’s dad from getting off, or take him in, and let Stone take down the council and Eddie?

“Come on, get out,” Chase told the dog. Baxter had been depressed since he’d brought him here. Probably pissed at Chase’s long hours, or maybe the dog missed Della.

Chase did too.

He was friggin’ miserable, too miserable to deal with a depressed dog.

Damn, Chase missed her. But he’d promised her he wouldn’t lie. And if she questioned him about what went down with Kirk, he’d have to lie.

“Come on, Baxter. Let’s go.”

The dog did as requested.

Chase walked around the back and got out his two purchases in separate bags.

He’d gone to a store to buy air spray—so he could sleep in the house. But when he passed the diner inside the grocery store he saw their sign announcing the sale of their French onion soup. So he picked that up too.

Della said she liked it. Maybe he would too.

He walked inside, Baxter at his heels. He pulled the Lysol out of the plastic bag. “You might want to go back outside,” he told the dog. This stuff stinks, but he’d rather smell it than the alternative.

The dog dropped down, so Chase commenced with spraying. First one room and then the other. He practically emptied the can in the bedroom.

He just hoped the stuff got rid of the smell.

The place smelled like pheromones. Happy, happy pheromones. Liam and Natasha must have done it like rabbits. Oh, they’d washed the sheets and even lit a candle. But he could still smell it.

Normally, the smell wouldn’t have bothered him. Chase liked sex. Especially if he was having it. But all it did was make him miss Della even more. Want Della even more. Want to have sex with Della even more.

Not that he would pressure her. Never. He figured it would happen sooner or later. He’d been hoping for sooner, but hey, he always was an optimist.

He loved her. And he was keeping his damn promise, not lying to her even if it meant he couldn’t see her until all this was over.

But then that smell would also take him back to finding Steve’s scent all over Della. They hadn’t had sex—he would have smelled that—but thinking about her in Steve’s arms pissed him off.

The one thing Chase was really good at when he was pissed off was acting like an ass. And he had. He’d out-assed himself.

He should have given her a chance to explain. He should have apologized. But he hadn’t, because walking away mad had been an easy out. From the moment she’d seen him, she’d started asking questions about his visit with Kirk. If he’d stayed there, even a few minutes longer, she’d hit a question he couldn’t dance around and he’d have ended up lying to her. And nope. He wasn’t doing that.

He’d promised her.

And Chase may occasionally be an ass, but he didn’t break promises. Which was why he didn’t make them very often. Why he’d refused to give Kirk his promise.

Walking into the kitchen, he dropped the can in the garbage. Then he grabbed a spoon and slid his bag with his soup over and dropped down in the chair. The chair Della had sat in the other night.

Kirk’s words echoed in his head. Besides, you don’t even know they will convict her father. The lawyers can get him off. We know the FRU are on it.

Could he take that risk? Was he planning on purposely killing the man? Could he commit murder? And yes, no matter how Chase looked at it, that was what it was.

Murder.

He dropped the spoon, then pulled out the piece of paper Kirk had given him from his black coat pocket. Six out of ten places were crossed off. After a couple of hours of sleep, he’d go back out.

He pulled the Styrofoam cup of soup out and opened the top. It was still hot, steam billowing out of the top. But the cheese he’d seen the woman put on top was stuck to the lid.