Breathe (77 page)

When the garage door was going down, he leaned forward and rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

“Shit, fuck, shit,” he whispered.

Then he pulled in a breath, got out of his truck, walked through the garage, opened the door, moved into the back hall and was immediately accosted by Apollo.

He bent and scooped up the cat, walked down the hall while avoiding Starbuck who was chasing his feet and saw Faye at the stove, stirring something.

She turned to him and smiled. “Hey honey, how was swimming?”

He stared at her, her gleaming hair, her crystal blue eyes, her cute outfit, her smiling bubblegum lips and felt his gut release.

Then he smiled back and said, “It was good. What’s for dinner?”

* * * * *

Faye

Two weeks later

I swam up from the fog of sleep and I did this because I heard Chace whispering in my ear, “Wake up, baby.”

I blinked, looked at the alarm clock and saw it was early.

It was Sunday.

I didn’t need to get up early anyway, though these days I did to get up with Chace. But Sundays, we
both
could sleep in.

So I was wondering why he wasn’t doing that.

I shifted and the pile of cats draped over my feet and ankles shifted, Starbuck, with his usual attitude, doing it on an annoyed mew.

“What?” I asked Chace.

“It snowed last night.”

I stared at him.

Then I asked, “So?”

“Come on, baby, get up, wrap up, let’s go drink coffee outside.”

Coffee outside?

Was he fraking nuts?

I didn’t get the chance to ask and had no choice in the matter since he yanked the covers back, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of bed.

I saw he was already wrapped up and he also was sauntering out the door. I considered climbing back into bed but curiosity got the better of me. So I went about brushing my teeth and doing the same, pulling up some leggings under my nightie, one of Chace’s sweatshirts over it and some thick socks on my feet.

I met Chace at the end of the hall and he had two steaming mugs. He gave me one and we wandered out the front door. Chace pulled the rockers up to the railing and we settled into them, both immediately lifting our feet to the railing like we had countless times when we sat out there that summer.

Our breath came out in puffs.

The steam from the hot coffee got steamier.

Mine tasted of hazelnut and went down warm.

The plain was startlingly different with a blanket of snow.

Beautiful.

Peaceful.

Chace didn’t speak.

Still slightly sleepy, I didn’t either. I just sipped my coffee and stared at the snow, the plain, the white covered hills and mountains beyond with their stark breaks of green pine.

“Common miracle,” he muttered and I looked at him.

“Pardon, honey?”

His eyes didn’t leave the plain when he answered, “This. Common miracle. Even common, still miraculous.”

I looked at the plain and the instant I did it settled in me he was right.

It was.

Miraculous.

Not only snowfall on the Rockies but him finding me, me finding him, both of us sitting on our porch, drinking coffee, quiet, content, beauty as far as the eye could see.

Absolutely miraculous.

I pulled in breath and turned my head to look back at Chace, noting his unruly curls resting on the scarf wrapped around his neck.

So of course I had to reach out, grab one and tug.

Then I watched as he grinned into his coffee mug.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Miraculous
.

* * * * *

Two and a half months later

“Jesus, Faye, only so much Spam a man can eat.”

We were in the grocery store and we were bickering.

I looked from the cans in my hands to Chace, “It’s nearly Christmas.”

“Yeah. So?” he asked.

“Even Outlaw Al needs something special for Christmas,” I informed him then threw the two cans of Spam to join the four cans already in our cart which were jockeying for position with a variety of other canned meat, beans and cat food that wouldn’t go to Starbuck and Apollo.

“I should have never told you about him,” Chace muttered, hooking a finger in the end of the cart and firmly pulling it down the aisle.

I made no reply since he was wrong and he’d only disagree with me, put my hands to the handle and followed.

“By the way,” he said over his shoulder, “saw the bags.”

My heart clenched.

“What bags?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t found my present stash for him because that would suck fraking
huge.

He stopped and thus stopped the cart and me.

“She’s not even a year old.”

I felt my brows draw together and asked, “Who?”

“Ella. You got her, like, seven outfits.”

Well, that was good. He found Ella’s presents. Not his. Also good, since I hadn’t hidden Ella’s presents so this meant he wasn’t snooping (I hoped).

It was my turn to say, “Yeah. So?”

“Darlin’, Lexie already outfits her like she’s an American Princess. You do not need to assist in her endeavors.”

“It’s her first Christmas!” I snapped.

“She’s not gonna remember it.”

“So? I like baby clothes and she’s the only baby I know.”

“Jesus,” he muttered, beginning to move us along.

I followed him noting he was going at a good clip through the canned food section.

Oh well, Outlaw Al was going to eat well all the way into the new year with what I’d already nabbed.

Chace turned the corner and guided us up the aisle, my hand darting out whenever we passed something we needed and tossing it into our cart. Since I was actually paying attention to shopping and my man wasn’t, I ran into the cart when he stopped it and I didn’t notice.

He was staring ahead and I looked around him to see a few people in the aisle, no familiar faces so I looked at the back of his head.

“Chace?”

He turned to me.

“You were standing right where you are now. I was at the end of the aisle.”

I quit breathing.

Oh God. Oh
God.

Chace kept talking.

“Near on eight years and I’m finally in this aisle, shoppin’ with you.”

Well, actually, we’d been in this aisle together dozens of times over the past months.

Still.

“Honey,” I whispered.

“Don’t know why folks need diamonds and pearls, fur coats, first class tickets, island adventures when simple shit like this is the best thing you could ever do.”

He was absolutely right.

Kind of.

I licked my lips.

Then I asked, “Is it bad that I wouldn’t mind an island adventure with you?”

He studied me, warmth in his face before he said, “No.”

“And it’s not outlandish to think that perhaps your mother will buy me a fur coat for Christmas,” I noted. “So, um, you’ve given me a diamond, she’s given me pearls
and
diamonds so that just leaves first class tickets and I’m okay with coach.”

His lips twitched but I wasn’t joking. Valerie bought me expensive stuff all the time. It was sweet. It was over the top. But she started to get upset when I demurred so I stopped doing that and it was now tradition.

He moved from his end of the cart to my end of the cart, stopped in front of me, lifted a hand to slide the hair off my shoulder and curled his fingers around my neck.

Then he dipped his face close and muttered, “Only my girl says the word ‘outlandish’.”

“It
is
in the English language, Chace. I didn’t make it up. I’m sure others say it too,” I told him, going for tartly but it came out breathily because he was close, his face was still warm but his gaze was intense.

“How embarrassed are you gonna be after I make out with you in the spot where I first saw you?”

Oh my.

“Um… you say that like it’s a given you’re going to do that,” I remarked.

“It is,” he replied.

“Chace –” I started but his hand at my neck pulled me to him and up. His other arm curled around my waist then his mouth was on mine and I had no choice (though I wouldn’t pick another one) but to neck in the grocery store aisle with Chace where he first saw me.

When he was done, he turned me toward the handle of our cart, moved in behind me and put his arms around me, his hands beside mine on the handle. He started us forward and I wasn’t embarrassed even though other patrons were grinning at me.

No, all I could process was thinking grocery shopping was simple. It was every day.

But it was one of the best things you could ever do.

* * * * *

Chace

Five hours later

In his sleep, Chace sensed the light going out.

Faye was done reading.

Before he could hook her around the waist, he felt her shift into him.

He knew what that meant.

Her hand glided up his hip to his waist.

He knew what that meant too.

He grinned, curled his arms around her and rolled to his back, taking her with him.

Her mouth went to his neck.

“Done?” he whispered into her ear.

“Kind of,” she muttered against his neck, her lips gliding down.

His hands slid over the satin of her nightie at her back. “You wanna use me, honey, you gotta do all the work. I’m wiped.”

Her lips slid up as her hand stopped playing with his chest hair and moved up his chest, his neck and her thumb came out to stroke his jaw.

“That’s too bad,” she whispered in his ear. “Because, see, the hero in my book just did all this stuff to the heroine while she was naked and on her knees then –”

She shut up because Chace’s arms closed tight around her, he sat up and cats scattered.

The instant he was up, he growled, “On your knees.”

“You sure?” she asked, her musical voice lilting and playful, cute and fucking hot. “If you’re tired we can sleep.”

He lifted her off him and planted her in the bed on her knees.

Then he shifted to his knees behind her, his hands moved to the hem of her nightie, he yanked it up and off and felt her soft, sweet gasp in his dick.

Then his hands glided from her waist to her belly, one going up, one going down.

“You wanna act it out or wing it?” he asked the skin of her neck.

“Wing it,” she breathed when his hands hit two particular spots.

He grinned then muttered, “Right, baby.”

Then he winged it.

Half an hour later, they came simultaneously, Faye impaled on his cock, her head twisted, forehead pressed into his neck, one of his arms wrapped around her belly, his other hand at her breast, his eyes aimed over her shoulder and down, watching her touch herself while he fucked her.

It was sensational.

Then again, with Faye, from the very beginning, it always was.

* * * * *

Months later, the night before Chace and Faye’s wedding

“Told you, you’d make it legal,” Deck said.

Deck was sitting beside him in a rocker on his front porch, his feet, like Chace’s, up on the railing, legs straight, ankles crossed.

They were both staring at the dark plain, the hazy lights of Carnal the only thing that lit it. He hadn’t even turned the porch light on.

Chace didn’t reply.

“You didn’t waste any time, brother,” Deck continued.

Chace disagreed. After pulling his girl out of that box, he wanted to marry her the next day. A year and six weeks’ wait was way too fucking long. Faye agreed, they’d talked about a Christmas wedding and were both all for that until Liza stuck her nose in. Then their small, intimate Christmas wedding somehow became a huge, summer wedding and that somehow, Chace reckoned, was because his Faye actually wanted that and more, she liked planning her wedding with her sister. They were having a blast. So he let it go.

He also let it go because Liza could be pushy and nosy but she also loved her sister and Faye had an idea of exactly what she wanted. Which was exactly what she was going to get, Liza was making sure of that.

Therefore, at that moment, in his backyard there was a floating deck with an arch sitting on the spot where Faye had been buried and tomorrow they’d stand on it and get married.