Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(25)

It occurred to me, right then, that he was teasing me. Just a little bit but he still was.

And he said straight out he went after the boy for me, which was super nice.

This made me more nervous, the good kind so, of course, I kept talking.

“Right then. Also, I will point out, when we first saw him, you put your hand to your gun. So it could be me shouting at him that terrified him. But you have to admit it could also be you not only having a gun, but putting your hand to it when you saw him. Then you chasing him and being bigger, stronger and faster than me, and, I’ll repeat, doing this in the possession of a weapon.”

“I’ll give you that too and it’d suck, I freaked the kid out but no way I’m gonna be in an alley in the middle of the night or at any time with a pretty woman, hear a crash, know an unidentified person was in the alley and not go for my gun. So, I get the chance, I’ll apologize to the kid. What I won’t do is apologize to you.”

Holy frak!

Not only was my ass now sweet, I was now a pretty woman.

What was going on?

No, no, I didn’t want to know. Chace could be sweet or quiet or soft and then he’d switch off, go remote, get mean or walk away.

I wasn’t going to go there. Not again.

So I went somewhere else.

“I know you find it hilarious that Dobie Gray moves me but, for your information, life is pretty crazy right now. Not to mention I’m worried about some kid I don’t know, like super worried so even the littlest thing might set me off. Including Dobie Gray.”

This, of course, was me defending my reaction to a lie I’d told him about a song I wasn’t listening to, but I thought it was my best course at that moment.

It was, I would find, not.

His brows drew together and he asked, “Life is pretty crazy?”

Fabulous.

More proof lying got you into trouble in a variety of ways.

“Yes,” I answered, luckily not a lie, and said no more.

“Your life?” he enquired, sounding incredulous. I shifted my booty in my seat and squared my shoulders all while I watched Chace shift slightly up in his. His eyes lit and he muttered, “Christ, here we go. Backbone.”

At his mutter, I got it.

And it irritated me.

Therefore, I snapped, “Is it that surprising I have a backbone?”

“Well… yeah.”

“Why?” I kept snapping.

“Baby,” he said softly and gave me another baby and it was soft so I felt my heart skip, “you live in a book.”

I ignored my reaction to him calling me baby and replied, “I might do that but I still live and to live, walk, talk, breathe, eat, you have to have a backbone.”

“I think, pretty much, of all of that, you need it just to walk,” he returned, lips tipped up again. He was teasing me again, I liked it again but still, I felt myself glaring.

I was uncertain if I’d ever glared at anyone who wasn’t related to me.

But I was certain I was glaring at Chace Keaton right then.

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked sharply.

“No,” he answered, his lips still tipped up.

“Then why are you grinning?”

“’Cause you’re cute and you’re cuter when you get pissed though that’s debatable since you’re cute a lot.”

Now I was cute?

What was going on?

I felt my brows snap together and I asked, “Do you have multiple personalities?”

“Not that I know of,” he answered instantly.

“I suggest you get checked out,” I shot back then watched as he threw back his head and laughed.

I took an angry sip of coffee. Even delicious La-La Land coffee, and Chace looking and sounding gorgeous while laughing, didn’t make me any less peeved so I was glaring at him still when he stopped laughing.

I was also ready for him.

“Why are you here, bringing me coffee?”

He answered immediately, “At first it was ’cause I saw you sittin’ here in the cold so I got you a coffee and came to tell you that you didn’t have to sit here in the cold since I set up cameras.”

He lifted his coffee cup but his long, attractive index finger (yes, he even had an attractive index finger) was extended and pointing through my windshield. I followed it and screwed up my eyes to look and, indeed, there they were. In the upper corner of the library, three cameras pointed in different directions aimed around and at the return bin.

“Feeds go to a tape,” he continued and I looked back at him. “Interns at the Station can scroll through ‘em. They see the kid, they alert me or Frank. We got an image of him, it’s better than the sketch, we might be able to get a hit on missing persons or runaways in a national database. We get a direction coming or going, I can put up more cameras, different places, different angles, find out which direction he heads here from and if he goes back the same way.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“That was why I’m here bringing you coffee until you told me your life is pretty crazy,” he went on. “Now I’m here to listen to why your life is pretty crazy.”

“It’s nothing,” I blew it off.

“It’s something if Dobie Gray sets you into the dark night putting yourself in danger in order to brood.”