Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(130)

His hand fisted gently in my hair, his fingers dug into the flesh of my bottom and he replied, “Works for me.”

It worked for him.

Touched by an angel.

I sighed. After a while, my thumb running back and forth under his jaw in a mindless caress stopped, this telling Chace I was asleep.

* * * * *

Chace

Chace stared at the ceiling, Faye curled into him, asleep after he’d rolled into her and took her to his side to turn out her light, taking her with him when he twisted to turn off his.

The Elite.

A good nickname.

This meant her friends knew who these people were.

What they didn’t know was that these people made it their business to know everything.

Everything.

Most especially everything that might make them vulnerable.

“Fuck,” he whispered, Faye stirred and he forced his body to relax.

She settled.

Chace didn’t.

Chapter Sixteen

Perfect

I was in a dither.

A fraking dither!

It was a multi-faceted dither starting with the fact that Chace would be at my place in fifteen minutes to drive me to Aspen to have dinner with his mother. It was Saturday night and I’d again left the library early, leaving it in the hands of a volunteer so I would have time to come home and get ready.

It also had to do with the fact that it had been nearly three weeks since Malachi got out of the hospital and even though in every way he was a normal kid, so far as interacting with Jarot and Robbie in a (somewhat) healthy way, he still hadn’t spoken a word (this being the unhealthy part of how he interacted with Jarot and Robie).

Now even the psychologist was concerned. Everyone was. Even Chace couldn’t hide his concern. Malachi was communicating a lot more, this being writing things down on a notepad. But he wasn’t talking.

My dither further had to do with the fact that Chace and I had been together over six weeks and even though all that was good, no, fraking great, he hadn’t shared his “dark” with me. We were cool. We were awesome. But that bomb was always below the surface and I never knew when the fuse would be lit and it would blow.

And my dither had to do with the fact that last week, Chace’s temper boiled over again. But this time, luckily, it wasn’t directed at me.

It had to do with the fact that he finally tracked down and confronted the President of the City Council, Cesar Moreno about what was going on at the library and why Moreno was avoiding him.

I knew Cesar and his family, we weren’t great friends but everyone in town knew him. He was a good guy. His wife Isabella was one of those ladies who was a lady, all class, soft spoken but still sweet and approachable. Both his boys were fantastic baseball players. He was a great City Council President. Even my Dad liked and respected him.

But when Chace found him, unfortunately, he didn’t hand Chace any bull.

What he told Chace was that he was avoiding him, and thus me since everyone in town knew I was with Chace, as he dealt with the issue “in-house”. This issue was that there was a member of the Council who wanted to close the library not because of funding issues. This was just what they were telling me to prime me just in case things got out of hand. But because there were books in the library that she deemed “inappropriate” including the Twilight series, Harry Potter (due to them having such “heathen” topics as vampires and magic) and a variety of art books what Cesar told Chace she described as having “nudie boobies”.

Cesar did not share who she was.

This did not mean Chace didn’t blow his stack to Cesar and me.

“We don’t need a f**kin’ powder keg like this one on top of all the other shit happening in this town,” he’d growled, prowling through his family room, his phone in his hand while I sat on his sectional, drinking wine, keeping my mouth shut and watching him.

He’d made this statement in between calls to who I surmised from his side of the conversation were Tate, Wood, Krys, Ty and my Dad.

In other words, lighting the match on that powder keg his own danged self.

But it was the call to my Dad that alarmed me. Dad would lose his mind if he knew the library was in danger of being closed down and why. Not only because his daughter would lose her job but because he abhorred censorship.

I was not wrong about Dad losing his mind. Chace got off the phone with him and my phone immediately rang.

It said, “Dad Calling,” and his greeting was a shouted, “I didn’t do two tours with the Marines only for my hometown to close down the library because of nudie boobies!”

I tried not to laugh anytime anyone said the words “nudie boobies” but I didn’t succeed at this and thus often got scowls from Chace whenever it came up seeing as Chace didn’t think anything was funny about this situation.

Needless to say, Dad was angry but Mom was quietly angry which was way worse. Therefore, Cesar Moreno got a visit from her the next day. Also Krys and Laurie created petitions and they were now all over town.

Cesar was not pleased. The bulk of the work cleaning up the Police Department was done but he needed a break and not another huge drama on his hands (this he told Dad). But also, he had hope that he could nip this in the bud without it blowing up into a huge deal. That said, considering the fact that whoever this woman was had not backed down in weeks, that hope was dwindling.

So now it was a huge deal and it was also on the docket for discussion at the next public town council meeting.