Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(92)
She didn’t reply.
Chace had to let her hand go to make the turn into her folks’ drive and he did both as he prompted again, “Yeah?”
He got no reply until he halted behind a silver Toyota 4Runner.
When he did that, she blurted, “You come from money and you handle elegant champagne glasses that had to cost a mint like they’re plastic.”
His head turned to her to see her face was pale and plainly anxious in the dash lights.
Fuck.
This was a surprise.
Fuck.
He put the truck in park, switched off the ignition and lights and turned to her.
“Come here,” he ordered quietly.
“I’m right here, Chace.”
“Come here,” he repeated.
“But, I’m –”
“Baby, come here.”
She leaned deep into him, stretching across the cab of his truck and resting a hand on his thigh.
He lifted a hand to the side of her neck, slid it back and up into her silken hair and he pulled her two inches closer.
Then he said softly, “I make almost double what you do and live in a ranch-style, four bedroom house on fifteen acres south of town. I got a manageable mortgage because my Ma’s folks left me a trust. That trust isn’t a fortune but it’s a whack. I dipped into it to get the house I wanted to live in and build a family in. I will not touch it again until I get married and have kids. Only then will it be used to make my house a home and to give my kids an education. It will be used for nothin’ else unless, God forbid, there’s an emergency.”
He pulled her an inch closer even as he moved an inch closer to her and kept talking.
“I got a small nest egg that I do what I can to make bigger just because it’s smart. I invest in a retirement plan that will augment my pension because when I’m done and livin’ the good life, I’d like that good to be better. I take two vacations a year, both to bodies of water where I can fish ‘cause I got ski slopes all around and I can go boardin’ whenever the f**k I want. I wear jeans and cowboy boots and I’ll trade up this truck this year because it’s four years old so it’s time. I’ll eat at The Rooster for a special occasion but even though that food is the shit, I’m just as happy with Rosalinda’s and that is no joke.”
He moved his other hand to curl around hers on his thigh and kept quietly going.
“My mother bought me those glasses, darlin’. That was the first time they were ever taken out of the cupboard she put ‘em in. There is other shit in that house Ma got me she thought I had to have and probably all of it is expensive because she can afford it and that’s her way. There is absolutely no shit in that house that belonged to or was purchased by Misty. What those glasses say was my life. I walked away from it when I was seventeen, I never went back, I’ll never go back and I don’t miss it. I don’t give a f**k about champagne glasses. They could be plastic for all I care. They break, they break. You broke, I’d care. Champagne glasses, no. Now you got it all so are you with me on this shit?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes peering deep into his.
She was with him so he gave her the rest of it.
“I already know that family in there is better than the one I grew up in, honey,” he whispered back. “Money and status don’t mean shit. It’s character that means somethin’. My father doesn’t have that. Your father does, he married a woman who has it and together they built a family that has it. You’re nervous and twistin’ shit in that pretty head of yours to make you more nervous. Stop it. This is gonna be fine.”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Now you got a job ahead of you and that’s to try real hard not to be cute. When you’re cute, it makes me wanna kiss you in a way a deacon at a church, who still curses just not in front of his daughter, will not like. Since you’re cute all the time, this is gonna be hard for you. But I’m askin’ you to try.”
Her bubblegum lips twitched then she replied softly, “I’ll try.”
Staring at her mouth, he muttered, “And you’ll fail.”
“Chace –” she breathed and his eyes shot back to hers.
“You’re bein’ cute,” he warned.
Her ear dipped to her shoulder and her brows inched together.
Cute.
“I just said your name.”
“All it takes.”
Her head righted, her eyes went hooded, her lips parted and she gave him her look.
Then she gave him more cute and he was f**king thrilled to take it.
“Seriously,” she whispered, near reverent, beyond adorable, “you’re fraking awesome.”
He loved it that she felt that way.
And he hoped to Christ she always would.
Chace grinned before he used his hand to pull her close and dip her down so he could kiss her nose. They could have an audience but she was chewing gum. He tasted her, especially with the additional element of bubblemint, they wouldn’t head inside for fifteen minutes.
Then he pulled her back and stated, “Let’s go in.”
She nodded, started to move away and he let her go.
He waited for her to round the truck before he took her hand and guided her to the lit front door.
He’d been out this way on numerous occasions when he was in a cruiser on patrol and for a variety of business during his tenure at CPD. The road that led to the Goodknight house did not dead end at the hills west of town but meandered up them and through the mountains. There were ranches off that road, a couple of units of rental condos for residents and for vacationers and, higher up the mountain, a few large homes owned by wealthy residents or kept as second houses to wealthier non-residents. He’d long since known where the Goodknights lived mostly because, after he’d spotted Faye, he put that one with the one of their name on the mailbox on the street and got two so that house hit his radar.