Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(9)

Needless to say, Chace factored largely when my time was occupied with this activity.

“I think, now that the ice is broken, you need to give him a sign,” Lexie went on.

“She needs to back off, let that boy sort his shit and, if he’s salvaged something that makes him worth her while, then she can give him a sign,” Krystal advised.

“Life is too short and too precious to wait for that, Krys,” Laurie added in a quiet voice.

Krystal gave her a look that said she was right and Krystal found that annoying.

I had, in getting to know her, learned that Krystal found a lot annoying.

“I…” I started then finished softly, “wouldn’t know how.”

“Kiss him,” Lexie suggested instantly, I blinked, my body locked but I felt my face heat again at the very idea.

“Are you nuts?” Krystal hissed, now leaning in close to Lexie.

“No,” Lexie replied. “Nothing says, ‘I like you’ like your tongue in their mouth.”

One thing could be said for that, it was inarguably true.

“So, did that work for you? Did you kiss Ty and then everything was hearts and flowers?” Krystal asked, leaning back and again crossing her arms on her chest.

“Actually, no,” Lexie returned. “I didn’t. But things were hearts and flowers when I wanted to do it, had an overwhelming urge to do it and I didn’t do it. And it was exactly the time I should have done it. Then things went bad and it would be days before I got another shot. Or, I should say, I did eventually kiss him and it didn’t work out then things went bad and days after that Ty took his shot and that, well,” she looked at me and grinned, “that worked out great.”

As far as I could tell, it certainly did. I saw Lexie a lot because she came around to the library and sometimes sat with me in the diner when we were having lunch. I didn’t see Ty very much but when I did and he was with his wife, it was clear they were close. Very close. Happy, loving close.

It also helped to know this seeing as she was currently six months pregnant.

“Not to put a damper on your enthusiasm, honey,” Laurie entered the conversation at this point, eyes on Lexie, “but I’m uncertain with what Faye told us so far that going for that kind of gusto at this juncture is the right advice.”

Lexie held Lauren’s eyes as she spoke then her gaze swung to me. “Kiss him.”

Krystal threw her hands in the air at the same time she threw her honeyed locks back as she stared up at the ceiling with easy to read exasperation.

Laurie gave me a grin.

As for me, I was not ever, ever going to kiss Chace Keaton.

Not until he kissed me.

If that should ever (please God!) happen.

Lexie kept speaking as that thought gave me a pleasant shiver.

“Now, I’m a girl and you’re a girl, we’re all girls.” She lifted a hand and did a twirl to indicate Krystal and Laurie. “And it’s my sworn duty as a girl not to lead you down the wrong path, especially in matters of the heart. But I’ll tell you again what I’ve been telling you now for months. Chace Keaton is into you. Not just into you. Into you in a hungry heart, longing, soul destroying if you can’t have it, put your life on the line to get it kind of into you.”

My heart skipped a beat at these words but she was not done.

“I know. I felt that for Ty and I still do. He feels it for me and I’ve been seeing it in his eyes since the beginning. At first, I didn’t get it. You need to get it faster than I did. Learn from me. I see it in Chace when he looks at you. He’s got issues. You help him deal and give him a little somethin’ somethin’ while you do, trust me, this is a tried and tested method and it works. I’ve done it and Laurie’s done it. Now it’s your turn. And, if he’s f**ked up, which he is, the shit that has gone down, he can’t help but be it’s going to have to be you who puts yourself out there.”

She took in a breath, leaned across the counter to me and grabbed my hand before she finished.

“And I swear, honey, I would not lead you wrong.”

Again, no way I was ever going to kiss Chace Keaton until he kissed me.

But something else she said captured my attention.

“What’s gone down?” I asked softly and, as she’d been doing for months when this subject was broached, she leaned back, let me go and closed down.

This time, after what Chace said to me in the wood, the fact that he was at the wood at all, the way he was yesterday morning, the mixed messages that he was giving me, making me want to run at the same time I wanted to wrap my arms around him and absorb his pain, for the first time I pushed it.

“You can’t expect me to put myself out there if I don’t know what I’m dealing with,” I informed her.

“That right there is a good point,” Krystal backed me.

“And what she’s dealing with is Chace’s to share,” Lexie returned.

Krystal disagreed. “You gotta give the girl something.”

“She has it,” Lexie retorted. “His wife was murdered. He didn’t like her much but still, he’s a good man and no one deserves that. And that’s coming from me, a woman who intimately knows that Misty Keaton was the worst kind of bitch there is. And he’s been working alongside scum for years. That shit will mark a man.” Her eyes came to me. “And that has marked Chace. Help him heal his wounds then get past the scars. Don’t delay, honey. Neither of you are getting any younger and I promise, you do, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. That lost time, if you take your time. Or if you never do it at all, the loss of something beautiful you never had that was something you yourself let slip through your fingers.”