Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(91)

Cesar knew Chace enough to understand.

Misty had been devastated. She liked a good party, a chance to dress up and a further chance to strut around on Chace’s arm. This was why he very rarely gave her those opportunities. That and he couldn’t stomach spending time with her.

Cesar had also kicked in the instant shit went down at CPD. His hands were tied when Arnie was at his zenith of power and he didn’t like it. But he was smart enough to keep quiet about it in order to protect himself and his family from being targeted and he did what he could within the Council and as an advisor and leader in the town.

Therefore, the moment he could begin clean up, he did. Openly, honestly, quickly, no red tape and a great deal of communication. The goal was to communicate to the town that the storm had passed and it was a dawn of a new day. Chace knew he threw himself into this including spending countless hours engaged in reorganizing the Department, searching for replacement personnel, hiring and working with consultants and holding town meetings to gather feedback and keep citizens informed.

So his non-response to Chace was a surprise Chace didn’t like and further didn’t get. From what he knew of Cesar, he was a civic leader, a cultural leader, a respected businessman and a decent family man. He was honest, direct and approachable.

This was not his MO at all.

And Chace didn’t like it.

“Please don’t curse.”

Faye’s voice took him out of his thoughts and he asked, “What?”

He felt her eyes on him so he glanced at her before looking back at the road as she repeated, “Please don’t curse in front of my family.”

“Faye –”

Her hand gave his a squeeze and he felt her body lean toward him as she went on, “You should be you, of course, but Dad’s a deacon at church. He mows their lawn and trims their shrubs in the summer. Mom designs the Sunday programs. And Mom gets mad at me when I say ‘frak’ and that isn’t even a real curse word. But she feels the meaning behind it is enough. I’m twenty-nine but she still hands me guff without hesitation.”

He gave her hand a squeeze back and replied, “First of all, meetin’ your family, I’m not gonna swear. Second, there’ll be kids there so I’m not gonna swear. And last, when your Dad came for his talk, he swore. Repeatedly. One thing your kid doin’ it, she’s a girl, a pretty one at that, as a parent, you feel you can tell her off for it no matter what her age. But a man talkin’ to a man, they’ll say what they like.”

“Dad cursed when he talked to you?”

Her tone was cute, breathy, disbelieving and Chace grinned through the windshield.

“Yep.”

“Really?” she whispered.

“From memory, he said ‘*’ more than once, ‘shit’ more than once and if you count ‘piss-ant’, he said that more than once too. There might be others and I don’t recall him droppin’ the f-bomb but he sure as f**k didn’t shy away from colorful language.”

“Holy frak,” she breathed and at that Chace smiled through the windshield.

Then he quit smiling and dropped his voice low to assure her, “Baby, it’s all gonna be good.”

“Well, you got Mom. I’ve never seen a bouquet of flowers this big.”

She was not wrong.

Chace hadn’t ever bought flowers for a woman and seen the results so he didn’t know a fifty dollar bouquet was that huge. He frequently sent flowers to his mother. But he called in the order and rarely saw the result since he rarely went home. Further, he spent seventy-five dollars on his mother’s flowers. Which, from the arrangement currently lying across Faye’s lap that Holly at the flower shop made up, with a gleam in her eye after he told her how much he was wanted to pay, meant his mother’s were likely enormous.

So it was no wonder his Ma always called, beside herself with joy when she got them. He thought she was just being sweet.

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her as he turned down the road northwest of town that led to the Goodknight house, a road nearly directly opposite where Chace’s house was located at the south.

“Liza will probably be inappropriate one way or another,” Faye stated which meant she either ignored him or was so deep in her anxiety, she hadn’t heard him.

“Faye,” he squeezed her hand, “it’s gonna be all right.”

“And she might have a drama or… you know, just so you know, she isn’t adverse to fighting with Boyd in front of people. Even the kids. If it gets rip-roarin’, she’ll tell the boys to go to another room but she doesn’t care who else witnesses it.”

“Faye,” he gave her hand a gentle jerk then held it tight and strong, “I want this to go well for you but, no offense to your family, I do not give a shit about it. I don’t go to sleep with your family. I don’t wake up to your family. I give a shit about you. But honey, that said, honest to God, I’ll like them. I know this because I’ve lived in the same town as them for thirteen years and I already like them. Gettin’ to know them better means I’m just gonna like ‘em more. That goes south for some f**ked up reason, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be goin’ to sleep with you and I’ll be wakin’ up with you and the rest of it, we’ll deal. Yeah?”