Breathe (75 page)

Ty gave Sterling a look and slid his eyes through the officers before he followed Keaton. He found him standing at his truck, both hands to its hood, weight leaning into his hands, head bent.

Ty stopped close.

Keaton didn’t delay, asking his question to Ty but the words were aimed at his gut. “How do you live with it?”

He knew what Keaton was asking. How did he live with his woman, the woman he needed in order to breathe, getting kidnapped but more, coming that close to losing her.

“Held my baby girl in my arms yesterday, last night and this morning,” Ty answered, Keaton pushed away from his truck and turned to him.

“That easy?” he whispered.

“No. Every day it burns in me. Every fuckin’ day. And every night she falls asleep beside me. So it’s not easy but I trip over one of her heels on the floor, she brings me a shake, I grab my workout bag in the morning and she’s sorted it, I get a different kind of burn. A better kind of burn. A burn that means I can live with the other. No problem.”

“And her?” Keaton asked.

“Far’s I can tell, she don’t feel it,” Ty answered and Keaton’s brows went up.

“You never see it? Sense it?” he pushed and Ty shook his head.

“Never. Not now. Not after you pulled her through dealin’ with putting holes in Fuller. She’s livin’ in the sunshine, new baby, big house she can fill with shit, me. She’s got all she ever wanted. Lotta people don’t get even a little of what they want. She understands that, appreciates it and doesn’t waste time on shit in the past. Her luck changed when she met me, mine when I met her. She understands that too, doesn’t question it, just looks forward and keeps guiding me to the light.”

Keaton held his eyes.

Then he whispered, “Ella Alexi.”

Ty grinned and whispered back, “Ella Alexi.”

“She beautiful?”

“Only one thing more beautiful I’ve ever seen in my life and that’s her Momma standing beside a Charger outside a prison. But I’ll tell you, man, love my wife but I’ve never felt anything more beautiful than the weight of my baby girl in my arms. So fuckin’ heavy, so fuckin’ light, so fuckin’ tiny, so fuckin’ huge. She’s everything. Everything that’s Lex and me. So she’s fuckin’ everything.”

Keaton brought them full circle, murmuring, “Then it’s that easy.”

Ty held his eyes.

Then he replied, “Yeah.”

Keaton nodded before muttering, “I gotta go get Faye from her folks’, bring her in so she can make her statement.”

“Go,” Ty invited.

“After that, she’ll wanna meet Ella.”

Ty grinned again. “You do, get the bug.”

“Faye?” Keaton asked, his lips twitching.

“No, brother,
you
,” Ty answered and Keaton shook his head.

“Got it already,” he told Ty and Ty felt his brows go up.

Then he asked, “How many?”

“Three.”

“Faye on board with that?”

“Yep.”

“Lexie wants four.”

Keaton’s lip twitch turned into a grin. “Now I’m thinkin’ I want four.”

“Better get to work, man,” Ty advised.

Keaton’s grin faded before he said quietly, “We got time.”

Ty locked his gaze on Keaton and replied just as quietly, “Yeah, Chace, you got time.”

Keaton lifted his hand Ty’s way, Ty took it but they didn’t shake. Their fingers curled tight and they held on a moment, eyes locked, grip firm and strong.

Then they broke and Chace moved to his truck.

Ty moved into the Station to tell Sterling he was going back to his wife and baby girl at the hospital.

* * * * *

Faye

One week later

“Girl time!” Lauren shouted, moving from the fridge with a bottle of champagne toward me sitting at the island in her kitchen in her house. “You guys were supposed to be gone half an hour ago!”

When I sensed movement, I shifted in my chair and watched Tate sauntering down the hall, all tall, dark, bearded badass. I did this thinking that if Chace had never come to town, I’d still have a major crush on Tate Jackson.

Lucky for me, Chace came to town since Chace was
awesome
and since Tate was
taken.

Tate grinned at me and this solidified the knowledge that if I didn’t have Chace, I’d still have a major crush on him. I smiled back as he rounded me and went directly to the cake on the tall stand on the island in front of me. I watched as he shoved his finger into the creamy, white frosting, scored it through taking a long finger full with it then he lifted his finger to his mouth and sucked it off.

Oh frak.

Yeah, if I didn’t have Chace, I’d
totally
have a crush on Tate Jackson.

“Are you serious?” Laurie asked and, with effort, I tore my eyes off Tate sucking frosting off his finger to look at Laurie who was, shockingly, unaffected by this and instead of looking like she wanted to jump him, she looked pissed.

“Baby, you girls are not gonna eat this entire cake,” Tate replied and I looked back at him to see he was grinning.

“Who says?” Laurie asked.

“I do,” Tate answered.

“Right, that’s a challenge we’re accepting. We’re eating this entire cake,” Laurie shot back, I felt my eyes get big and I looked down at the enormous cake.

It looked delicious.

Okay, maybe we could pull it off though I wish I hadn’t had lunch.

“You manage that, I’ll buy you a piece of Jenna’s jewelry,” Tate muttered.

“He’ll buy one for me anyway,” Laurie told me. “I have so much silver I could open my own store.”

Tate’s brows drew together over narrowed eyes and it was such a scary look, I fought the urge to lean away from him. “You bitchin’ about my silver?”

“No,” Laurie retorted. “I’m just saying you’re generous.”

“Sounded like bitchin’,” Tate returned.

“Well it wasn’t,” Lauren fired back.

“Yeesh, only these two could fight about Dad buyin’ Laurie gifts,” Jonas, Tate’s teenaged son, muttered, wandering in, looking like mini-Tate, giving me the understanding that in a few years, me and every woman over twenty-five years of age in Carnal would be moved to become a cougar.

Then
he
went directly to the cake, shoved his finger in, swiped off a load of frosting then shoved his finger in his mouth.

“Jonas!” Lauren snapped.

“What?” he asked, eyes big, mouth full of frosting.

Lauren looked to the ceiling before she aimed her eyes at her boys.

“Get out before I throw the cake at you,” she threatened.

“Waste of cake,” Jonas muttered.

“Out!” Lauren semi-shouted, her arm coming up, out straight, finger pointed to the back hall.

Tate grinned at Lauren then at Jonas who was grinning at Lauren then his grin went to his Dad.

“We better go before her head explodes,” Jonas muttered to his Dad.

“Right,” Tate muttered back and they made a move, saying their good-byes to me. But I watched as they left, Tate hooking Lauren around her belly, he leaned down, kissed her neck and said low but loud enough for me to hear, “Cool it, Ace. I like your head where it is.”

She rolled her eyes but I didn’t catch the full roll because Tate moved his mouth from her ear to hers and he gave her a short kiss.

When he was done, I heard her say softly, “Later, Captain,” which got her another short kiss though I looked away because I noted this one, albeit short, included tongue.

I looked back when I sensed him moving, he gave me a hot guy, bearded, badass finger flick and he was gone.

I was still watching where he disappeared into the hall and therefore jumped when a champagne cork popped.

I looked to Laurie and grinned a happy, champagne cork popping grin.

Lauren grinned back, poured the champagne and brought the glasses to me.

She handed me one then lifted hers whereupon she toasted, “To you and Chace and the time when you’ll bicker over stupid shit and love every second of it.”

Call me weird but that was the best toast I’d ever heard
in my life.

I lifted my glass. “To me, Chace and bickering.”

We grinned at each other like idiots before we downed half the glass.

Laurie cut the cake.

As we gabbed, we managed to get through a third of it.

So her boys got a treat when they got home.

Which, I suspected, was her intention all along.

* * * * *

Three days later

I idled in my Cherokee as Chace’s garage door went up.

No, strike that,
our
garage door went up since I was now living there.

I loved my apartment. I made every inch of it mine and I thought it was awesome. Further, my stuff didn’t really fit with Chace’s décor.

When we moved me in and I fretfully shared this with him, he pulled me loosely in his arms, dipped his face close and told me, “This décor isn’t mine either. It’s Ma’s. Do what you want. Anything you want. I don’t give a fuck. Just as long as you’re happy here.”

I’d be happy on a deserted island that had nothing but a palm tree and a lifetime supply of sunscreen as long as Chace was there. And it was because of statements just like that I would.

I didn’t tell him that.

I just whispered, “Okay.”

The door went up, I drove in, parked, hit the garage door opener to set the door closing and hauled my booty out kind of hoping that Chace felt like pizza since I didn’t want to cook. It had been a taxing day at the library. In fact, it had been taxing since the City Council had its meeting, thus reminding folks they had a library, and it got more taxing after I’d been buried alive, thus making me an object of interest.

I knew it would die down and I was happily anticipating that day.

I moved through the back hall into the kitchen and as I was planting my purse on the island, I called, “Chace! I’m home.”

“Just out of the shower!” he called back. “Be right out!”

Hmm. Chace just out of the shower.

Why was I suddenly not tired anymore?

I started to move through the hall, my mind on Chace and his shower when my eyes hit a big box sitting on the sectional.

Then I stopped dead when the box moved.

What the frak?

“Chace!” I called. “There’s a box on the couch!”

“Yeah!” he shouted back.

It moved again and I took a step back.

“It’s moving!” I yelled.

“Yeah!” he yelled back and I blinked because he didn’t sound surprised.

My head tilted to the side and I moved to the box cautiously.

Then I heard the noise coming from the box and I moved to it swiftly, threw open the loose flaps and stared down at two scrunch faced, fluffy haired, tiny Persian kitties, one chocolate point, one lilac.

“Holy frak,” I whispered.

“Mew,” the lilac point mewed up at me.

“Holy frak!” I shouted, reached in and nabbed the lilac point.

“You opened it,” Chace said from behind me and I whirled to see him standing several feet away in a t-shirt that was tight across his chest and loose running shorts.

“Kitties,” I whispered, pressing the squirming Persian to my face.

“You said you wanted a cat,” he reminded me of something I didn’t think he remembered then went on to inform me, “Pets are like kids. One is not enough. So you got two.”

God, he was fraking
awesome.

I didn’t have it in me to say this.

Instead, I repeated in a whisper, “Kitties.”

Chace grinned then asked, “You like ‘em?”

“They’re fluffy.” Yep, still whispering.

“Yeah,” he replied, still grinning and now moving toward me. “But do you like them?”

“Their faces are all scrunchy.”

You got it, I was still whispering.

He stopped toe to toe with me. “I’ll take that as an indication you like them.”

I nodded as I swallowed down happy tears.

Chace leaned into me but around me. He came back with the chocolate point and lifted it up close so they were kitty face to hot guy face.

My heart melted.

“You got no choice but to be friendly,” he told it, being Chace bossy but the heretofore unknown cute kind.

My heart melted more.

The kitty lifted a paw and pressed it to Chace’s nose.

Chace grinned at him.

The rest of me melted.

Chace pulled him down, tucked him feet up in the crook of his arm, other hand scratching his belly and his eyes came to me.