Chasing Trust: A Small Town Steamy Romance (Harper Family series Book 3)

by Nancy Stopper

  Chapter Nineteen

  Serena stabbed her thumb into the red icon on her screen. Two or three times for good measure. She missed regular telephones right about now, where she could slam the receiver down.

  She knew better than to call Chase. She had made the right decision when she’d told him on Saturday that it would be best if they ended things. But she missed him, his quiet strength that calmed her when she got upset or excited. Like right now. She thought if she’d called him, she could ask about the photo of the woman on the street and he’d have a simple explanation for it. That it was all some huge misunderstanding… and they’d laugh about her being upset. Instead, when she dared to question him, he choked up and failed to answer. And then she’d heard it—the woman’s voice in the background.

  Chase was just like David… and her father. Out of sight, out of mind. She should have never opened her heart to Chase but she’d been swept up in the romance of the man she’d been dreaming of for ten years and had let down her guard.

  Never again.

  A knock sounded at her door. She didn’t want to see anybody right now, but she lived behind the shelter for a reason. If Sylvia or one of the other volunteers needed her, she had to be there for them.

  It wasn’t shelter business she found on the other side of the door.

  Alexis had raised her hand to knock again when Serena swung the door open. She wore dark sunglasses that covered practically half her face and her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail.

  “What do you want, Alexis? I’m not really in the mood.”

  Alexis pushed past Serena. “What I want isn’t important right now. What’s wrong?”

  Serena closed the door and trudged to the couch, throwing herself on the cushion. “I don’t have the energy for this right now.”

  Alexis gestured toward Serena. “That’s what I mean. You’re always up for talking about family. Especially when you think it’s something or someone you can fix. I didn’t expect to find you like this when I got here.”

  “What did you come over for anyway?” Serena huffed out a breath. It wasn’t Alexis’s fault that she was in a pissy mood. Her sister had ventured over here for some reason. She rarely visited Serena at her cottage—it was usually Serena traipsing into town to check on Alexis. It must be big if it brought Alexis out here.

  “That doesn’t matter. I want to talk about you.” She lowered herself onto the couch beside Serena and laid her hand on Serena’s arm. “We used to tell each other everything? I know I haven’t been there for you a lot recently, but I want to be. What’s going on?”

  If Serena couldn’t lean on her family, who could she lean on? She wanted to close herself up in her house and lick her wounds, but what good would that do? “Chase is cheating on me.”

  Alexis reeled. “Impossible. I mean, have you seen the way he looks at you? There is no way he’s cheating on you.”

  If only that were true. It was Chase’s intensity, the way he focused his attention solely on her when they were together that made her fall in love with him in the first place. And how he texted her cute messages or quick updates when they weren’t together. Except for this trip. Another nail in his coffin. “It’s true. He’s with another woman.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I called him.” She held up her hand. “I know, I told myself I wasn’t going to be clingy like that, but I was tired when we talked the other day and I wanted to try and work it out. I thought I was being really calm and reasonable about the photo I saw in The World.”

  “What photo?”

  “The one of Chase with another woman. It was on some city street and he was kissing her.” The image had been burned onto her mind, the one man she thought she could trust. Boy, was she wrong.

  “That could be anything. The World is a trashy tabloid. You can’t trust anything you see in that rag. Did you ask him about it?”

  She tried to tell herself that, but every old feeling of being unworthy of love crept back in and dug in its nails. “I tried. That’s another reason that I called him. I figured there was a reasonable explanation for the photo but I didn’t even get a chance to ask him about it before I heard her.”

  “Heard who?”

  “The woman. She was right there with him.” Serena sucked in a breath and fought back tear. “I heard her laughing in the background. He was probably at a hotel with her and I interrupted them. What in the hell was I thinking calling him in the first place? I was right when I told him on Saturday that it would be better off if we didn’t see each other anymore.”

  A shocked look crossed Alexis’s face. Like Serena was speaking a foreign language her sister didn’t understand. “Why would you tell him that?”

  “Because he didn’t want to stay here. With me. Because he wanted to traipse off around the world taking his photos and sleeping with whoever he wanted.” When she said it out loud like that, it didn’t sound like Chase at all. He’d never given any indication that he slept around with random people. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t really said he’d slept with that many. All of their conversations had been about his work and her shelter and her family, and… “I don’t know, Alexis. I don’t know what to think.”

  “If he’s seeing other women, you’d want to know, right? You don’t want to be oblivious like we thought Mom was all those years.”

  But it turned out Mom wasn’t in the dark. She’d known about Dad’s affairs and had chosen to stay with him. Why? How could she ever trust him after knowing he’d betrayed her?

  Serena wasn’t like that. She couldn’t let it go if Chase wanted to cheat on her. “No, you’re right. I’d want to know. I can’t believe he did this to me. He knows that cheating is the one thing I cannot tolerate.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Alexis had a knack for getting to the point, for acting instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself, which is why her current state was such a concern for Serena. As soon as she dealt with this situation with Chase, she was having a lengthy conversation with Alexis to find out what was going on with her.

  “I’m going to break up with him. Although, I think maybe I already did. When I asked about the picture, he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. And then, I hung up on him.”

  “You had a fight. Big deal. Talk to him. Find out what was really going on. There could be a simple explanation for what you heard, and you could be jumping to the wrong conclusions.”

  Serena didn’t think so, but Alexis was right. She owed it to herself to know for sure, didn’t she? But right now, she wasn’t sure Chase wanted to hear from her. Not after the way she’d yelled at him the last time she called.

  * * *

  Chase parked his car in the lot and stepped onto the walkway that wound its way through Presidio Park. Walking through the moss-covered park had always fascinated him when he was young, the history of the space washing over him. He figured it was as good a place as any to find a quiet spot to make what he hoped was one of the most important phone calls of his life.

  He pressed on his screen to dial Serena’s number… and listened to it ring. After four times, the phone clicked over to voice mail. He listened to Serena’s sweet voice asking him to leave a message, and then hung up before the beep. This conversation was too important to have over voice mail or text message.

  He pressed to redial again. Hopefully Serena would see it was important that he talk to her. After three rings, the phone clicked. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Serena. It’s Chase.” He hesitated, waiting to see if she was going to hang up on him again. She’d answered, so that must mean she was willing to listen.

  But she didn’t respond. She didn’t say anything.

  “Serena?”

  “I’m here. I’m just not sure if I want to be.”

  “Please, will you give me a chance to explain? I have a lot to tell you.”

  “You shouldn’t have to explain anything. There shouldn’t be a reason that I have
to doubt you. But I do. I thought that I had made some progress, that I was ready to trust you. Then when I was opening up to the possibility of a future with you, that trust has been blown.”

  This was getting out of hand. He’d left Elizabeth’s office excited about the possibilities of the charity coming together and wanting to share that news with Serena. But all she wanted to do was rehash a tired conversation. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m being convicted of someone else’s crime.”

  “This is not about someone else. This is about you and the fact that I can’t trust you. How do you explain the picture I saw of you?”

  “What picture?”

  “It was on the internet. A picture of you and some woman and you were kissing her on the cheek.”

  He searched his memory for when a picture like that would have been taken. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen a woman other than Serena. He’d worked this photo shoot with Jennifer, but that had been strictly professional. He hadn’t even come close to kissing her on the cheek.

  Oh, shit. Ashley. His trip to New York. That was almost a month ago but he wouldn’t put it past Ashley to find a way to capitalize on his fame when it suited her purpose. That wouldn’t help his situation with Serena, though. “I think I know what you’re talking about. If it’s what I think, that was nothing.”

  “You’re saying that you dole out kisses all the time that mean nothing?”

  “No, what I’m saying is that you’re misinterpreting.”

  “It was pretty plain as day what was going on and then I heard a woman in the background when I called earlier. I’m surprised you interrupted whatever you were doing to answer.”

  “Okay, you’re talking about two different situations here. If you give me a minute, I can clear all of this up.”

  Serena sucked in a breath. “I’m not sure I want to hear an explanation. I made the right decision when I told you on Saturday that we should make a clean break. I can’t spend every minute you’re away wondering who you’re with and what you’re doing.”

  “Now, that’s not fair. You can’t keep thrusting your lack of trust on everyone else in your life. Blame that asshole ex-boyfriend who slept with your friend. Or your father who cheated on your mother. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Your father’s not here for you to yell and scream at for betraying your mother and shattering any concept you had of a positive adult relationship. You can’t keep living your life expecting everyone to betray you the way your father betrayed your mother… and your entire family. What kind of life would that be? I have done nothing to cause you to doubt that I’ve been anything other than completely honest with you.”

  “This is not about my father. This is about you and the fact that you’re unwilling to put down roots anywhere. Maybe you don’t want to be trusted, and your traveling around is how you’ve chosen to live your life. I’ll make it easy for you. We’re through. You don’t need to bother coming back to Cedar Hill. The calendar is finished. There’s nothing left here for you.”

  The phone went dead.

  That conversation didn’t go at all like he’d planned. And while it sounded like she was giving him everything he’d wanted, the thought of living the life he’d led before, and doing so without Serena, didn’t make him happy. Not at all.

  Chapter Twenty

  Serena tugged the blanket over her legs and snuggled into the couch. Roscoe shifted, groaning at the interruption, and then settled back into the steady snore at her feet that had been building for the past thirty minutes. Rascal was sprawled on the chair but lifted his head and turned his sorrowful eyes her way.

  Her dogs had been a great comfort to her in the past three days as she’d been wallowing in her own self-pity. It had done nothing to make her miss Chase any less.

  But she wasn’t only missing Chase, she was also missing the fantasy that she had turned Edward into for all these years. In one stroke, Chase had taken her past… and her future.

  She knew better than to trust him. She’d gotten caught up in the whirlwind that their relationship had been and had lost her perspective, but her eyes had been opened and she was now firmly grounded in the reality that the type of relationship she dreamed of didn’t really exist.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  She pulled the blanket over her head. Maybe if she ignored it, whoever was there would go away.

  Another knock, this time louder and more insistent.

  “Oh, all right.” She flung the blanket aside and marched to the door, determine to tell off her guest, and get back to wallowing in peace. When she opened the door, she didn’t expect to be confronted by her entire family.

  “Surprise.” A chorus of yells rang in her ears. Before she could protest, Alexis pushed past her, Bandit by her side. And that started a flood of family, Izzy with both Blue and Freddie and Justin dragging a reluctant Pepper behind him. She crouched down and accepted doggy kisses and love from each of her former animals, happy to see them thriving with her brother and sisters.

  Roscoe and Rascal jumped down from where they had been observing the entrance, joining in the melee. After another minute of laughter and greeting, Alexis whistled, and all of the dogs’ heads snapped to attention. “Okay, all of you of the four-legged variety, follow me.”

  She waved her arm and headed to the back of the house. A minute later, the back door clicked shut and the room was blessedly quieter. Serena loved her animals, but even she had her breaking points and six dogs at once was pushing her limit.

  Now that was over, she poured herself back onto the couch and tucked the blanket over her feet. One of her black cats, Pippin she thought but could never be one hundred percent sure, curled up on her feet and started his motor.

  All the while, her siblings stood over her, staring.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  Alexis shoved her aside and squeezed on the couch beside her, her arm around Serena. “We’re your cheer-up committee.”

  Izzy climbed into the arm chair beside the couch and curled her feet beneath her, like she wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Justin relaxed against the fireplace mantle, always the big brother watching over his little sisters, like he’d been doing for Serena’s entire life.

  “I don’t need cheering up.” Even as she said the words, the sentiment fell flat. “I just need to get over Chase.”

  “Serena,” Izzy said. “Do you know what I see when I see you? I don’t see a woman that needs rescuing or soothing, I see a strong woman. The most caring person that I know. Look how you take in strays so they will have someone to love. Someone they can trust. And don’t think we don’t know what you’re doing when you drop off your so-called “fosters” at our houses. We know that you hand-picked that animal for each of us and they aren’t going anywhere.”

  Justin and Alexis laughed, both being the “victims” of her intentional foster placement in the past.

  Alexis joined in. “What happened with Chase? When I left here last time, I thought you were going to make up with him. I mean, that man is H-O-T. I wouldn’t be kicking him out of my bed.”

  Serena laughed at Alexis. The one thing she knew for sure is that Alexis would never do anything to betray her.

  Serena thought back to the first day she saw Chase, when he startled her in the shelter. When she felt that first inkling of attraction, an attraction that intensified every time she saw him. How quickly her feelings grew from there, how she flashed back to that day more than ten years ago when she met the boy who would become the man of her dreams. She remembered every moment with him, every time he made love to her, how he opened himself up about the horrors he’d seen. She knew him. And now it was over.

  “I believed him when he said he wasn’t like those other guys. But I was wrong.”

  Izzy’s sympathetic eyes turned her way. “What happened?”

  “He said the photo was innocent. A misunderstanding. But I saw him. The way he looked at her. And then I heard her in
the background.”

  Justin straightened from his perch by the fireplace. “He cheated on you?”

  Alexis glared at him and then turned back to Serena. “Do you actually know he cheated on you? Have you talked to him and actually given him a chance to explain?”

  “Well, uh…” She sat up straighter. Each time she spoke to him, she intended to keep an open mind, to give him a chance to explain what was going on. He had even said he had a lot to tell her when he called. Then memories would sneak in.

  But Chase had never given her a reason not to trust him.

  Izzy leaned in and placed her hand on Serena’s arm. “I know it feels like it sometimes, but not all men cheat. There are good men in this world. Look at Tanner. He has practically raised his daughter alone and he doesn’t have a deceptive bone in his body.”

  Alexis gestured to Justin, who had leaned against the wall. “And then there’s Justin. You would think, with everything he put up with growing up, that he’d be the first one to stray.”

  “Hey!” Justin’s objection might have been more believable if he didn’t have a huge smile on his face.

  “I love you, too, big brother.” Alexis blew him a kiss. “As I was saying. Justin was even separated earlier this year. It would have been easy enough for him to explore other relationships, especially when his marriage was so hard, but he didn’t. He worked and fought for his marriage.”

  “And Maddie and I are stronger than ever.” Justin crossed the room and crouched in front of Serena. “I don’t believe for one minute that you would let someone into your life that would cheat on you. Chase is not the type. I saw the way he looked at you last weekend. That man is in love with you. There are good men in the world and you found one. That is, if you can let go of your tightly-held and justifiable trust issues and open your heart. There’s probably a good explanation for everything you’ve seen and heard. But if you approached it in typical Serena fashion, with all your energy focused on what you believed, then he probably didn’t have a chance to get a word in edgewise. Am I right?”