Illicit acollection, p.105
Illicit: A Contemporary Romance Collection, page 105
I straighten. “What is it? Where are you?”
“I’m in my room. I took the phone from the kitchen.” His breathing’s heavy. “My dad came home this morning.”
My brain kicks into gear as I run the math in my head.
He wasn’t supposed to get out yet.
“And now Chase is coming…”
“What? You’re telling me your brother is going to be in the same house as your dad?”
Tess sticks her head in. “What is it?” she mouths, but I don’t respond because I’m waiting to hear Drew’s confirmation.
“Yeah,” Drew says as if he’s impatient for me to catch up. “I called Chase, and now he’s coming. But when I told Dad, he got this weird look on his face…”
“Don’t hang up.” I put him on hold and try Chase. No answer. “Tess, how quick can we be in Archer?”
“Thirty minutes?”
I put Drew back on. “Still there?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re on our way.”
36
Chase
My mother’s house looks the same when I pull up. I don’t know what I expected to see. Maybe a pentagram in the sky.
Her old Toyota sits in the driveway, and I wonder if he’s been in it. I park behind it and force my legs up the walkway. There’s no sign of anyone, but the lights are on. I open the door, and my pulse beats in my throat as I step inside.
“Chase.” My mother appears from behind the wall that separates the living room from the kitchen. Her face is guarded.
I see the back of his head first. Shiny dark hair that should be turning gray.
When he turns, it’s as if my bones are coming out of my skin. I glance down at my arms, but on the outside, nothing’s changed.
“Look who came to welcome me home.” My father sounds as if he’s always been here. He looks like it too, in jeans and a plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows.
Drew appears in the doorway to his bedroom. His gaze flicks uncertainly between our father and me.
“We have a lot of catching up to do.” There’s an undercurrent to his voice. A vibration that’s inaudible to the average person, but I know it. Like a dog that hears high-pitched noises humans can’t, I’ve learned to listen for that voice.
He knows I took that book. That I’ve been looking for dirt on him.
I’ve spent the last week working through what-ifs. What if I could manage to live life thirty minutes from this man? What if I could stay put somehow instead of running like I’ve always planned? What if I could protect my family, protect Ariel, and have the life I’ve just started to crave?
Face to face with him, the what-ifs collapse. Like the castle drawing in my brother’s room, they were only ever real in my imagination.
Now I’m not naïve enough to believe we’ll all sit around and tell stories. I want him as far away from Drew and my mother as possible.
“Let’s go outside.”
“Chase—” my mother warns, but my father holds up a hand to silence her.
His gaze never leaves mine. “We can talk in here.”
He gestures to the living room, but I back slowly toward the door. “If you want to talk, we’ll do it on the porch.”
He relents, following me outside. He leans a hip on the railing and looks me over, his gaze resting on my knuckles. “Something happen to your hands?”
“Nope.” They’re healing but still raw. I resist the urge to flex them, to do anything other than stand there and draw on the composure that’s threatening to abandon me.
My father’s expression is appraising. He reaches into his pocket, and I tense, my hand itching to reach behind me where the eight-inch knife is nestled in my belt at the back.
He pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Lights one and takes a drag. “It’s good to be free. Prison isn’t good for the soul. It makes men suspicious.” I wonder where this is going. “I forgave you when you hit me. But you’ve taken something that belongs to me.”
I don’t think he’ll kill me. That would be too easy.
He takes his time blowing smoke rings as if he’s the fucking godfather. His expression darkens, any hint of geniality gone. “Now you’ll pay me back. You will make amends because that’s what family does. You’ll pay me back however I see fit, and your mother and your brother will help.”
There’s a finality to his voice I’ve never heard, and that’s when I know it for sure.
We’ll never be free as long as he’s here.
My last shred of hope at getting out of this in one piece twists and burns in my gut.
“Come,” my father commands, pointing at the spot in front of him.
There’s no thought of disobeying, and I need all the time I can get to think of a new plan. The weight in my belt is heavy, and my fingers itch, but I see Drew watching from the window, so I force my hand to stay at my side. Our mother’s nowhere in sight.
I step toward my father, and he slaps me hard enough to make me stumble back. Pinpricks of light form behind my eyelids like stars.
It’s a minute before I can straighten, cracking my neck.
“Feel better?” I mutter when I can speak again.
His voice shakes with rage. “No. You owe me a thousand fucking more like that. You’re my son. And you betrayed me.”
Now that I’m up close, I can see the lines around the corners of his eyes. The place where his hair’s receding. Meeting his black stare, I realize two things:
First, I’ve hurt him. He truly didn’t believe I would turn on him.
Second, I’m not afraid of him anymore. I’m afraid of what he can do to the people I care about. But not of him.
The man standing in front of me is just a man. Not a ghost or some evil spirit. A man who craves control but also belonging. Who’s right and wrong.
Tires screech behind us, but I don’t look until I hear her voice.
“Chase!”
My head jerks around. Ariel’s flying up the driveway toward us, her hair streaming behind her. Tess’s car is parked half on the road and half in the driveway. She’s out of the car too but staying back.
I have no idea why Ariel’s here, but I’m horrified that she is. “Go home!”
She ignores my words, stopping beside me. “No.” I feel the trepidation coming off her in waves, but she refuses to back off.
I nearly had this under control, but I can’t take having her next to me. She doesn’t know what she’s getting in the middle of.
“Please.” My gaze finds hers. Seeing her for the first time in so many days is bittersweet. “Get out of here.”
“Well. This must be the girl.” My father puts out his cigarette and grins an awful smile.
Ariel lifts her chin defiantly. “You stay away from him.”
“She’s pretty, Chase. But she’s got an attitude on her.”
The rest unfolds in slow motion.
Ariel moves forward.
I reach for her, but he gets there first, grabbing her arm and twisting it up behind her.
Her face contorts with pain, and I can feel it too just looking at her.
My hand goes to the back of my jeans, but he surprises me, shoving Ariel toward me.
I can’t catch her in time.
Ariel puts out her hands to break her fall. There’s a sickening crunch when she lands on the hard ground behind me.
Tess shrieks from the car. Everything in my vision goes red.
I crouch beside Ariel, but she’s holding her arm.
“I’ll do more than that to that pretty girl of yours. Maybe she’ll like it.” My father rubs the back of his hand across his mouth and leers.
I stand, shaking, occupying as much space as I can between him and Ariel. I’m already locked on my target, and it’s not fists I’m going to use. If I go to jail, it’ll be with the satisfaction of knowing he’s going to hell.
I grab the knife from behind my back.
“Hey!”
My head snaps around. Ariel’s propped up on her good arm, the other cradled across her stomach. “Don’t you dare. I need you to stay here with me. And Drew. And your mom.”
Emotion wells up in my chest, but I’m too far gone. I turn back, my throat burning at the thought of leaving them.
“We need you. I need you. I fucking love you, Chase Owens.”
They’re the words I never thought I wanted to hear, but suddenly they’re all I want.
My eyes close.
I fucking love you, Chase Owens.
What would that be like, to wake up next to her every day? To stop worrying about the inevitable end of what’s been the best month of my life?
I see myself smile and laugh with her. Celebrate and cry with her.
Every moment of it’s more than I ever thought I’d have.
I hear a dull thud. The knife falling from my hands without permission.
“Chase!”
Ariel’s scream makes me open my eyes.
My father lifts a garden spade that was sitting in the corner of the porch. The metal is dull, bits of dirt still clinging to it. The business end’s pointed, and skin isn’t much thicker than dirt.
The knife’s out of reach by the door.
I have time to lift an arm but not to defend myself any other way. I wait for the pain, wondering darkly where he’s going to put it.
But the pain never comes.
The next thing I know, there’s shouting. Male and female. It takes a minute to realize none of it’s mine.
The spade clatters to the porch. I follow it with my gaze, but my vision is interrupted by a stream of red. The path leads to my father’s tan loafers. My hunting knife is sticking out of his foot.
My mother is crouched in the doorway, her face white as a sheet.
37
Ariel
“Holy shit. Holyshitholyshit.”
“I think she needs to sit down,” I say.
“Over there.” The paramedic who introduced herself as Liz points at a seat in the ambulance.
Tess plunks onto it.
I feel as if a stake has been driven through my wrist. Liz is wrapping my arm from hand to elbow, securing it in a sling so it doesn’t move.
“What the hell just happened?” my roommate asks, dazed.
“I think that’s what they’re trying to figure out.” My gaze cuts to the other emergency vehicles at Chase’s mom’s house, including two police cars and another ambulance.
Chase is hovering by the porch thirty feet away, his brother tucked into his side as Chase talks to the police. As if he senses me watching, his gaze flicks to me for a moment. There’s blood on his pants and some on his hands. Thank God none of it is his.
His mother is sitting on the step, talking to another officer. Even from this distance, I can see she’s in shock.
Liz moves my arm, and pain washes over me like a wave.
“You doing okay?” she asks.
I take a deep breath. “Yeah. Just a little light-headed.” I close my eyes against the feeling of my stomach swimming.
“My guess is it’s a sprain, not a break. But we should get you to the hospital for x-rays just in case,” she says.
My brain’s saying I need to stay and see Chase. We haven’t talked since the sirens roared up. It feels like hours, but I realize it’s been only minutes.
The desire to stay wars with what my body’s telling me.
“Let’s get out of here,” Liz says again in her soothing but no-nonsense tone.
“Wait. Just one—” I throw up over the side of the ambulance.
Tess looks at me sympathetically.
“Okay,” I relent. “We can go.”
With as bad as I feel, I can tell I won’t be much help here. I glance toward the house, toward Chase and his mom and his brother, one last time before the paramedic closes the doors.
The ride to the hospital is a blur. When we get there, I wait an hour after triage before I’m shown to a room. Tess insists on coming.
I sit on the examining table, my legs dangling off the side, while an older man in a white coat inspects my wrist. I try to pay attention to what he’s doing.
“What happened to you, young lady?”
“Knife fight,” Tess offers from her chair.
The doctor looks between us, startled, before resuming his work.
Soon after he leaves, the pain recedes thanks to some pain meds. My wrist is sporting a new bandage.
“Let me go get us some coffee,” Tess suggests, pushing out of the chair.
“Thanks.”
Almost the moment she’s gone, I regret not going with her. Sitting makes me agitated. I wonder what’s happened since we left. I want to text Chase but realize I must have left my phone in Tess’s car.
The curtain moves, and I glance up. “Chase!”
I’ve never seen anything as welcome as the sight of him even though he looks as if he’s been through hell. His gray track pants are stained copper down one leg, and a bruise is forming on one side of his face. His eyes are the same though, and the familiar green takes the edge off my anxiety.
I slide off the table, but he’s already in front of me. “Hey.”
“Are you all right? Is Drew—?”
He nods. “He’s gonna be fine, just getting some rest down the hall. The police will need me back for some more questions, but they let me leave to check on you. My mom’s at the station talking to them now.”
I swallow, thinking about the expression on her face right before she stabbed her husband in the foot. The panic and the fierce protectiveness. I might not be her biggest fan, but she was there when it mattered. “How is she?”
“She’s holding up.”
“What happened with your father?”
Chase’s face darkens. “Right now he’s in surgery. But when he wakes up, he won’t be walking far. James figured I might do something stupid, so he got there fast.”
Relief washes over me.
Chase peers down at me, intent. “What I still can’t figure out is, why were you there?”
“Drew called me. He was worried.”
“My brother called you,” he echoes inanely, shaking his head. “Crazy kid.”
“I’m so glad he did,” I say emphatically.
His eyes roam my face. “I got you hurt.” Chase nods toward my bandage, his face coloring with regret.
“It’s a sprained wrist. Not the end of the world. Doctor said a couple of weeks rest, but I’ll give it one before I run again.”
We’re silent for a minute. It’s so good to see him that I should just enjoy it, but I can’t ignore everything that’s happened.
“So, how far did you get?” I ask quietly. “At least to the state line?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “I had it all figured out. Mapped out my route, what I’d say to Drew. Where I’d go if he wanted to come with me and if he didn’t. I had everything packed in a damn suitcase in the truck before I realized I couldn’t do it. I wanted to stay, to try, because I didn’t want to run anymore.”
I swallow, my gaze moving back and forth on his. “You dropped off the team.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know I was still here, least of all you. I couldn’t see you and not be with you. I didn’t want to face the possibility that I might fail and have to leave anyway.”
My brain is racing to keep up with everything he’s saying. “But… I saw a sign at your townhouse that your room was for rent.”
He frowns before his expression relaxes again. “Spence has been meaning to rent the basement. He finally contracted some guys to finish the bathroom down there, so he figured he’d get a tenant lined up.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, Ariel. I was afraid of letting you down. Letting us down. I didn’t think I could control myself with my father around, but now…”
“Now he’s out of the way.”
He shakes his head and cups my face in his hands. My lips part as I realize just how much I’ve been aching for his touch. How good it feels to have his thumbs stroke my cheeks.
“I was going to say, ‘Now I know I’ll never let anything come between you and me.’”
The fierce look in his eyes makes this entire day—hell, this entire month—worthwhile. My tight chest is loosening by degrees every second.
I wrap my fingers around his wrists and sigh. “It took me about a week to realize I should’ve fought to keep you here. By the time I came around, I was terrified it might be too late, that you were long gone. Part of me was glad when Drew called. It’s a horrible thing to say, given all that’s happened, but I needed to see you.”
He closes the last step between us and wraps his arms around me. I want to lose myself in him.
“I needed to see you too,” he murmurs. “You were amazing today.”
I pull back just far enough to look him in the eye. “You mean the way I almost got you killed?”
“No. The way you saved me.” Uncertainty crosses his expression. “Did you really say what I thought you said?”
I know what he’s asking. Today was a blur, but those words come back to me as fresh as the moment I said them.
I nod slowly.
“Did you mean it?”
I’ve never heard him sound so serious. Now that he’s close, I can see the bags under his eyes. His dark hair’s falling across his face as if he hasn’t had it cut in weeks. Somehow he’s still as handsome as ever.
“Yes.”
Chase’s eyes fall closed, and he relaxes against me as he blows out a long breath. “I can’t believe it took me two months to get you to say ‘fuck.’”
I try to slap his shoulder with my good hand but wince as my wrist complains. “Chase!”
He grins, moving closer. “Kidding.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, and his lips follow. Suddenly I’m dizzy again, but this time it’s not from shock. When he pulls back, it’s to look at the bandage. A cocky grin spans his face.
“So, do you want me to sign it or what?”
Epilogue
