Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (20 page)

Even if I had to
pound some sense into him.

My lip and jaw were
swelling by the time I walked into Samantha’s kitchen. She
looked over at me with a smile, then back down to her sauce, but her
head whipped up almost immediately. “Chase! What happened?”

She rushed over to
me and gingerly touched my lip with her thumb. It felt good, this
concern of hers.

“Let me get
you some ice.”

“I don’t
need ice right now,” I said, and kissed her. Her mouth was
eager and sweet beneath mine. She wrapped her arms around me. I
kissed her for several minutes, until the door opened and Beth came
in. “There’s no time for hanky-panky,” she
admonished. “We just had two tables of six come in and a table
of eight. Chop-chop.”

I looked down at
Samantha. “She’s way bossy.”

There was a twinkle
in her eyes. “I know. Think I should fire her?”

“Hmm, yeah.”

“Oh, you
couldn’t do without me,” Beth said, her eyes flashing.
“Now,” she pushed at my shoulder. “You’ve got
to go. I need sirloin, mahimahi, and a crawfish étouffée—pronto.”

I sighed and waited
until Beth left and the swinging doors ceased to swing. “I was
hoping for some rollercoaster—”

“Mister, it’s
been a rollercoaster since the minute I set eyes on you.”

“Oh, yeah?
That’s what I like to hear, darlin’. You can’t get
away?”

“Don’t
give me those puppy-dog, little-boy-pleading eyes all wrapped in
sultry. I’m up to my armpits in alligators. Unless you want to
do some wrestling, I’d say you’d better git while the
gittin’s good.”

I sighed. “I’ll
have to see you tomorrow. I’ve got a full day, and I need to
prep bait tonight. Tomorrow for dinner? I was hoping for breakfast.”
I shrugged.

She stared up at me,
and the air between us heated. “You really are a rollercoaster,
tilt-a-whirl, space mountain master,” she murmured. “Dinner.
My beautiful kitchen is in, and I can’t wait to make a meal for
you there.”

With infinite
gentleness, she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed me, whispering
against my mouth. “Chase, you make me crazy.”

“Ditto,”
I said, and caught her by her ponytail to pull her head back as she
opened her mouth beneath mine, and I took all she offered. She gave
me what I wanted, for now, then she pressed her hand against my face
and eased away.

But she wouldn’t
let me go until she gave me some ice in a bag and a couple of
painkillers. I left thinking I’d be willing to take several
more hits from Jake to get more of that tender treatment from her.

I woke up the next
morning with stiff shoulders from handling the bait last night. A
look in the mirror confirmed I had a bruise on my jaw and cheekbone,
and my lip was still puffy and sore.

Jake had been a butt
yesterday, but the real truth was I wanted to reconnect with all my
family again. I wanted a full life, and right now I didn’t have
it.

I cared about
Samantha, and taking steps to work this stuff out brought me a step
closer to a future with her.

I showered and ate
breakfast, pouring some coffee in my travel mug. I needed to get over
to Bayou Berangere for crawfish, and then head out for catfish. I had
a special order of apple snails from The Gardens, an upscale
restaurant in Suttontowne, and that would be a quick hop skip over to
the Gulf.

But before I could
get those snails, I needed to tie some lures for the redfish run I
would make either before or after the snails.

Almost to the truck,
I took a fortifying gulp of coffee and swallowed wrong when I saw my
slashed tires. I coughed as I stared incredulously at the ragged
rubber, deflated, the rims of my truck all but touching the concrete.

“Sonofabitch,
Jake!” He had warned me to stay in the bayou, and this strongly
worded, nonverbal message that was almost as effective as the punch
to my face.

I grabbed my phone
out of my back pocket and dialed Ethan.

“Hey, bro,
what’s up?” he said.

“I need your
help.”

“Yeah, okay,”
I heard the unquestioning support in his voice. “What you
need?”

It took Ethan an
hour to show up with the type of tires I needed.

He took one look at
my truck and said. “Damn, you weren’t kidding. This looks
like one pissed-off dude. Your brother is that angry?”

“Yeah,”
I pointed at my jaw. Ethan looked a little closer. “He did
that? Whoa, Jake packs a wallop, but that kid always knew how to hit,
and hit hard.”

It took us another
hour and a half to change out the ruined tires, and by then I was
seriously behind schedule. I’d be lucky to make it to
Samantha’s at a decent hour.

Ethan caught my eye
when we were done, and I threw the jack into the back of the truck
bed. “You’re not gonna kick his ass, are you?”

“Not my plan,
as long as he fesses up.” My shoulders slumped.

“I’m
sorry it’s been so hard for you,” he said, clapping me on
the shoulder.

“He’s
not the only one I wronged.”

“Yeah, well,
I’m easy. I told you I was out of touch working for Uncle
Sam…and shit happens.”

“I value our
friendship, and I’m sorry if I hurt you when I left.”

“It was tough.
One minute we were close, and then I didn’t know what had
happened to you, but you better get out of here. You’re already
way behind. We can talk about it later.”

“I just want
him to talk to me. I don’t care about the tires. I just
want—aww, Christ.”

“Give it time,
man. He’ll come around.”

“I’m not
sure he will.”

With the pressure of
lost time dogging me, I pulled up in front of my parents’
house. I knocked and Jake answered the door. He didn’t move.
Didn’t welcome me, and clearly had no intention of saying
anything.

“You slashed
my tires. I get it. You’re pissed, but talking about it would
be a better alternative.”

“What?”
He frowned, his eyes snapping.

“You know
what?”

“I didn’t
slash your tires. I don’t care enough to do that. I’ve
got work to do.”

He tried to shut the
door on me, and I wedged my foot in between the door and the jamb. He
went to shove me, and we tussled right into the foyer. Suddenly I was
inside the house and realizing I hadn’t thought this through,
not completely. I was a little rattled about being here. It had been
such a long time, and my gut clenched with the memory of the day I
found out my life was one big lie. That our lives had been built on
foundations of sand.

“Get the hell
out of here,” he shoved me, and I crashed into the foyer table,
knocking over my momma’s Steuben rendition of a pecan tree,
commissioned to commemorate our family business. The one-of-a-kind
crystal art piece crashed with a loud, shattering, popping noise. We
tussled some more and a fine porcelain vase with pink peonies in it
crashed to mingle with the crystal, water and flowers going
everywhere. I heard shouting, but I was much too busy trying to keep
Jake from pummeling me. He’d gotten in several body blows
before I had a chance to defend myself.

Then someone grabbed
my ear in a familiar, pinching grip. Before I knew it, she had Jake
by the ear as well.

“What in all
that is holy do you two think you’re doing? You’re not
boys anymore.” She punctuated the scold with a savage jerk on
our ears. Both of us cried out, the pain from my ear running down
into my cheekbone and jaw, catching everything on fire.

“He started
it,” Jake said.

“Oh, that’s
nice. That’s just so mature,” she said. “What is
this about?”

Both of us clammed
up, but my momma knew how to get us to talk. She was an ear-twisting
master.

“Ow!” I
shouted when she again used her torture technique on me. “I
just came to talk to him.” My voice subdued and my shoulders
slumped. “I just want to have a conversation.”

She let go of us,
turning to glare at Jake. “Can’t you hear him out?”

Jake stared at me.
There was something so raw, so devastating in his eyes. He realized
that I hadn’t brought up the tire slashing and had protected
him. I could see it in the way he looked at me. “There’s
nothing to talk about.”

“Jake,
please.” He ignored her and silently took the towels from the
maid standing there and began sopping up the water.

“I’m
sorry about the tree, Momma. I’ll replace it.”

“I broke it.
I’ll replace it,” I said.

Her eyes softened as
she looked at me, and before I knew what was happening, she threw her
arms around me. I hugged her back. Squeezing my eyes shut, I could
barely keep my emotions in check. She still looked amazing, so
beautiful and put together. Every inch the Southern lady, and the
love for her welled up from my gut and smashed my protective walls to
smithereens. I had no armor where she was concerned. I think I ran
from here because I was so lost, and it never occurred to me that she
would have the answers. I never took the risk and shared what I had
found. Had that been my way of protecting them? Saving them from the
same pain I had endured, the loss of something so fundamental? Or was
I the gutless coward Jake had accused me of being?

“I missed you
every day. I’m so proud of you and what you’ve
accomplished.” She said, her face beaming with a joy only a
mother could exude.

I opened my eyes to
find my brother standing there, an anguished look on his face, before
he masked it and accepted the broom to begin sweeping up.

Had I lost my chance
with him? Was it too late to make amends and forgive? I had hurt him
deeply, and now he was making sure I never did so again. His hurt had
turned to bitterness and anger. His reaction to what I had done was
his own to handle and come to terms with. Mine was to make amends.
But I couldn’t make Jake talk to me or forgive me. He needed to
figure out how to handle me being back in his life in his own time.

After he’d
cleaned up the flower and water mess, he left the foyer without
saying a thing. Regret weighing me down, I was left standing with my
momma, whom I hadn’t seen since Brax was shot. “Chase,
I’m so happy to see you. I got your RSVP, and your daddy and I
are thrilled. Your plus one will be a charming addition. I knew you
had your eye on Samantha Wharton.”

I smiled and shook
my head. “Momma, you were shameless when you got Aunt Evie to
work up a scenario to ambush her,” I said. “We are just
starting a relationship. Give her a break.”

“All right.
I’ll try, but I like her very much, and she cooks like a dream.
Even though she does have an affiliation with the North, I think I
can overlook that after what she has done to revitalize that
beautiful landmark.”

I left my momma with
a kiss to her cheek. She noticed the bruises, but didn’t say
anything. I suspect she’d guessed Jake gave me the bruises, but
she was smart enough to know she couldn’t coerce my
strong-willed brother into doing anything he didn’t want to do.

Somehow I had lost
my phone in Bayou Berangere, and I felt like slime that I couldn’t
let Samantha know I was going to be late. When I got to Samantha’s,
I knocked, but there was no answer, so I felt even worse, thinking
our dinner date was ruined.

Then I heard the
noise and it sounded like…a gunshot. I took off to try to
chase down where it came from, and found Samantha with a very
deadly-looking handgun. She was in a shooting stance, both hands
around the grip, and focusing on tin cans in the distance.

As soon as she
emptied the clip and shot all the cans off the wall, I cleared my
throat. She turned around and smiled.

“I’m
sorry I’m late.”

She thumbed the
safety and set the gun into a case that lay open on an old stump,
like a pro. It hit me. She’d been a cop, put her life on the
line every day. Damn, that impressed the hell out of me. Two years
ago she’d suffered terrible loss, and now she was thriving.

She ran over and
hugged me. “You could have called,” she groused. “I
was worried. You’re never late.”

“I lost my
cell somewhere in Bayou Berangere. It’s been a bitch of a day.”

“Oh, I’m
sorry. What happened?”

I ran my fingers
through her hair. “Someone slashed my tires. All four of them.”

Her gaze was riveted
to mine, her eyes registered her alarm. “What? Oh, God, Chase.
Did you call the sheriff?”

“It was
probably my brother, Samantha. He’d already told me to stay in
the bayou.”

“Your brother?
He would do something like that?”

I shrugged and
looked away. “I don’t know. I really don’t know him
anymore. I’d like to think I’m way off base. Speaking of
surprises, what’s with the gun?”

“No one’s
going to take anything else away from me, Chase. I don’t care
who it is. I know how to handle myself with a firearm.”

“Yeah, that’s
pretty clear to me. You’re sure not the shy, retiring type.
Can’t even imagine you as a damsel in distress.”

“No. I’m
not, but I think you already realized that about me. I was a cop, a
good one.” Her voice softened. “I couldn’t bear it
if anything happened to you because of me.”

“I’m no
damsel in distress,” I said.

She smiled. “I
know that. I have no doubt you can take care of yourself. Look at
these guns.”

“What? These
biceps?” I said, flexing them, and she sighed.

“I’m a
sucker for powerful, sinewy arms.”

“Thank you
kindly. I think you have well-formed…everything.” She
pushed up on her toes and kissed me.

“Thank you
kindly.”

“So, what’s
for dinner?”

She gave me a wry
look. “Men, it’s either about your stomach or even
farther below your belt.”

“Speaking of
which…”

She laughed. I liked
the way she held my gaze, liked the intimacy of the smile in her
eyes. I could come home to her, to this, every night.