Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(113)

He’d separated from her a little over two hours ago. After a briefing from the boys that coincided with the two he had from Deck the day before, he’d asked the interns to modify their search to include missing siblings. Then he’d taken care of some business and now he was on his way to the hospital to check in and get Malachi his books.

He was doing this because the kid had nothing. Those books, the way he had them organized, meant something.

So Chace was going to take them to him.

“They said he ate all his breakfast even though they had to help him and he’s been awake all morning,” she told him. “He hasn’t spoken yet but when I walked in he smiled at me.”

She said this like her favorite movie star walked off the red carpet, picked her up in his arms, carried her to his limousine and drove off into the sunset with her.

“Great, honey,” Chace muttered.

“They’re moving him to a normal room now. But they say they’re only keeping him another day,” she stated.

“Karena is meeting with your parents as we speak, Faye.”

“I know, Mom called and said that’s why they’re not here. Is that going to go okay?”

“Yes.”

“Sure?” she pressed.

“Yeah, baby, I –”

He stopped speaking because he felt a nasty prickle on the back of his neck. There was a presence with him. Not a good one.

His head came up and he saw his father walking his way.

No.

Shit. Fuck.

No.

“Chace?” Faye called as Chace stared at his father who was staring at him.

He turned, lifted a hand and slammed the back to his truck, assuring her, “It’ll go fine.”

“Is everything okay?”

She read him instantly even on the phone. He wondered, distractedly, if it was that obvious or if that was how far he’d let her in and he decided it was both.

“Yeah,” he lied, shifting around the side of his SUV. “I’m comin’ to you now. Bringing his books.”

“I don’t think he can hold them yet.”

“Maybe not but he’ll want ‘em.”

She was silent a second then he got a quiet, sweet, “Yeah.”

“Chace,” he heard his father’s terse voice call as he yanked open his door.

“Gotta go,” Chace muttered into the phone.

“Oh, right. Okay, see you soon,” Faye said in his ear.

“Chace!” his father clipped.

“Who’s that?” Faye asked.

“No one. Gotta go, honey,” he whispered, angling up into the truck. “See you soon.”

“Soon,” she whispered back. It was hesitant. She knew he was lying since someone was calling his name. It sucked doing it but he disconnected quickly as he tried to pull the door closed.

This didn’t work because Trane Keaton was standing in his door hand on it, firm and strong, holding it open.

Chace’s eyes went to his father.

In the many jokes life had to play on him, it saw fit to make him look like his father. Same height. Same build. Same hair. Same eyes. There was barely any of his mother in him, even though she was blonde and blue-eyed. He got what he got from his father. He’d heard it from his father’s cronies since he could remember.

Spitting image, Trane.

So Chace knew in thirty years, he’d look like his father.

Straight, lean, the strong features and good looks he’d been fortunate to be endowed with hardly faded. He was the kind of man whose looks enhanced with age, then, as that advanced, grew interesting, still retaining the handsome, the strong, the vital.

If Trane Keaton was another man, Chace would look forward to this and appreciate his father gave him good genes.

Instead, he dreaded a lifetime of looking in the mirror and remembering his father.

“You’re not returning my calls,” Trane accused, his voice hard, his face angry. He was pissed he had to make the trek from Aspen. Pissed his son didn’t do his bidding. Pissed to see Chace in jeans, a shirt, sweater, coat and boots with a badge on his belt folding into a Yukon when he should be wearing a five thousand dollar suit folding into a BMW.

“No, I’m not,” Chace confirmed then ordered in a cold voice, “Step back.”

“I need to speak to you privately and immediately.”

“You aren’t gettin’ this, Dad, but that is not gonna happen.”

“You aren’t getting this but that is not going to happen.”

Jesus, he was thirty-five and the man was correcting his f**king English.

“Step back,” Chace growled.

“You live with rednecks, Chace, but you don’t have to sound like them,” Trane returned, voice superior and f**k, but Chace hated that and Trane talked like that all the time.

“Got somethin’ to do, step back.”

“Personally, I blame Jacob Decker. I should have put a stop to you spending time with him when you both were at school. Your mother wouldn’t hear of it. Now I hear he’s back.”

Chace’s body went solid.

He was making a point and not the usual one.

Deck hated Chace’s Dad. Trane Keaton returned the favor.

Deck won a full scholarship to the private school Chace attended but he didn’t come from money. His father was an electrician. A skilled trade but not acceptable in the life of the Aspen Keatons. It didn’t matter that Deck had an IQ of one fifty, a certified f**king genius. He was not good enough for Chace. When Deck didn’t go on to cure cancer or help the government create space age weaponry but used his superior reasoning and higher intellect to do shit that was a little f**king scary, Trane felt this was proof positive he’d been right all along.