Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(24)

He was extending a cup.

Automatically, my mittened hand reached out and took it.

He settled in, slammed the door closed and kept being bossy.

“For God’s sake, Faye, it’s twenty degrees out there. Turn on the truck.”

“I’m on a stakeout,” I informed him and his eyes came to me so I finished, “I think it’s against the rules to have the car running during a stakeout. The noise will give you away.”

“Yeah, I guessed that you were on a stakeout. Newsflash, darlin’, since you don’t drive to work and your car is the only one in the lot, your sweet ass is in it and you aren’t hiding, I don’t think our street urchin is gonna miss you. This means he’s gonna get nowhere near this place so you might as well turn on the truck so you don’t freeze that sweet ass off.”

That was two “darlin’s”.

And when did my ass turn sweet?

“Chace –”

“Turn on the truck.”

God, he was bossy and annoying in the morning.

“Chace!”

He leaned into me and said quietly, “Baby, turn on the f**kin’ truck.”

Oh God.

Baby was nicer.

Like, by a lot.

I put my coffee between my knees and turned on the truck.

“What does it take? Around a year for this heap to warm up?” Chace asked before taking a sip from his coffee.

“It’s dependable,” I told him, taking my coffee from between my knees.

“Jeeps are. That being said, this should have been put out of its misery about ten years ago.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s a heap.”

“It’s fine, Chace,” I snapped then kept snapping. “What are you doing here? You’re blowing my cover.”

His eyes came to me and his lips were tipped up at the end.

Oh jeez.

His handsome lips on his handsome face tipped up looked nice.

“Blowing your cover?” he asked.

“I think you’re endowing our street urchin with bigger powers than he has. He’s just a kid.”

“He’s a kid living on the streets which means he’s in survival mode. Since no one, including teachers, knows who he f**kin’ is, that means he’s survived awhile.”

This was news.

“The teachers don’t know him?” I asked.

He shook his head and took another sip of his coffee which reminded me to take a sip of mine.

Hazelnut latte. My favorite.

“Nope,” he answered after he swallowed. “Asked the day after you reported seein’ him banged up, principal approached his staff. Went back with the sketch, no one recognizes him. Fingerprints were a bust too.”

“No one?”

“Nope.”

“How can that be?” I asked.

“He doesn’t go to school?” he asked back but it was an answer.

“Oh,” I whispered, his eyes dropped to my mouth and his lips tipped up again.

I liked that.

Frak.

Before I could get my wits about me, Chace spoke. “What’s in that haul?”

“Pardon?”

He tipped his head to the library, taking another sip of coffee so I took one of mine and looked to the library.

Then I looked back at him when he asked, “Those bags by the return bin. What’s in them?”

“A new coat, hat, scarf, gloves, three pairs of wool socks, two pairs of jeans, two warm sweaters, some underwear, a pint of milk, three bottles of water, bologna, cheese, bread, a box of granola bars, three apples, bananas, a cucumber and a ginormous bar of Hershey’s chocolate,” I shared. Chace stared at me without saying a word and he did this awhile so I finished, “He won’t eat the cucumber but Dad would be disappointed in me if I didn’t add roughage.”

“Christ,” he whispered.

“Don’t start,” I commanded. “I know I shouldn’t have added the chocolate but he’s a kid. He should have a treat.”

He kept staring at me without speaking and he did this another while and he did this in a way that made me weirdly nervous. The weirdly part was that I was nervous in a good way so I did the only think I could think to do.

I kept talking.

“By the way, I’ve been thinking on things, Chace, and you chased him too.”

“What?” he asked quietly.

“Thursday night, or Friday morning… whatever. You chased him. You told me I shouldn’t but you did too.”

I got another lip tip. It made me more weirdly nervous in an even better way and he muttered, “True enough. Though, I started out chasing you.”

I felt my brows go up. “You were chasing me?”

“Yeah, I started to chase you but the way you were goin’ after him, hell bent for leather, it occurred to me you would not be best pleased I caught you and stopped you. I didn’t want to deal with that backbone of yours getting any stronger if you were denied what you wanted. Especially in the middle of the night with you in an emotional state, in the throes of dealing with hearing Dobie Gray’s undeniably kickass but, no offense to you, honey, or Dobie Gray, in my opinion not cry worthy song. It also occurred to me you would be pleased I caught the kid for you so I went after him instead.”