A Precious Inheritance

by Paula Roe

  He took the bowl and turned to the table and despite where she was, despite why she was here, a part of her still wanted to rip his clothes off.

  That was the powerful pull of Chase Harrington—not his money or influence or even his whip-smart mind. And amazingly, he had no idea of his own attraction. If he did…damn, the man was the most brilliant actor ever.

  And you’ve fallen for him, haven’t you? Despite all that nonanalyzing, the “ooh, a no-strings fling,” she’d gone and fallen for Chase Harrington. She’d already committed by accepting his non-date and since then, everything she’d learned about him had only sucked her in deeper. Today had been the final step.

  She sighed, watching him take the iced tea from the fridge and place it on the table.

  So she just needed to get through this weekend without doing something dumb, like deciding she could fix him. Her experience with Dunbar had taught her quite definitively that relationships built on that were not only stupid but self-destructive. And anyway, who was she to say Chase needed to be fixed? He seemed perfectly happy with the person he was. Who was she to judge his deeply held beliefs on relationships and marriage and how that impacted his life? However skewed she thought those beliefs were, they had shaped his life, given him the passion and drive to make him into the success he was today.

  Yet for all their similarities, their blossoming trust and the obvious chemistry, could she ignore the fact that pursuing something further with Chase would ultimately end in heartbreak?

  Ten

  After dinner Mitch went to check on Sam while Chase made coffee. When everything was prepared, he gestured to the door. “Want to go outside?”

  Vanessa nodded and they took their coffee out on the patio, settling on the front steps as the sun displayed a glorious sunset over the mountains.

  They sipped in silence, enjoying the view and the still evening, punctuated by the occasional lowing of cattle.

  “I have to say, Mitch’s handling this really well,” Vanessa finally said. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for him.”

  Chase gave a brief, grim smile. “Oh, there’ve been bad days. But he’s also had a few years to process it. And Mitch has always been an unflappable guy. Give him a problem and he jumps right on in to fix it.”

  But he couldn’t. They both fell silent, each thinking the same thing.

  “There’s no other family around to help?” Vanessa queried.

  “His dad died when he was two, and his mom retired and moved to Nevada. His father-in-law died a few years back. And his brothers and sisters are all out of state. Anyway, there’s not much they can do. The ranch runs like clockwork and Mitch has all the help he needs.”

  She took a sip of coffee. “How did you two meet? Mitch told me a bit about—”

  Chase mumbled something under his breath.

  “Sorry?” Vanessa frowned.

  “I said, Mitch never did learn to shut his mouth.”

  “What’s wrong with talking to me?”

  “Because my private life isn’t a conversation piece.”

  She took exception to his snippy tone. “Who do you think I’m going to tell?”

  Their gazes clashed until Chase broke away to stare off into the rapidly darkening night. He scowled into his hands, absently rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. “Fine. You want to know? I met Mitch at the Jasper County library.” He glanced over his shoulder, through the huge patio doors to the kitchen table where Mitch was frowning over the mail. “His mom was the librarian and he went to another school. We just clicked.” His expression suddenly softened with a small memory-laden smile. “Man, we were inseparable. After school, summer vacation…” He gave a small huff of amusement. “I practically lived at his place. It was crowded, always full of kids, and his mother was awesome. I loved it.”

  “What about your parents? Did they mind that you spent so much time away from home?”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared at his feet. “They didn’t care.”

  “But surely—”

  His face tightened. “If I wasn’t around, they had nothing to bargain with.”

  That did it. Despite her stern talking-to earlier, she couldn’t shake this desperate need to understand why Chase was the way he was, to help him smooth over those old scars. It was the very least she could do, when he’d invited her into his world.

  But she had to exercise caution, otherwise he’d shut her down.

  “Did you guys go to college together?”

  Chase nodded. “Until Mitch dropped out.”

  Before she could ask, he continued. “Jess got pregnant. So he did the right thing, got married then came back here to run her dad’s ranch.”

  It was telling, the choice Mitch had made. It meant he was an honorable guy, accepting his responsibilities no matter what the personal consequence. It said a lot about Chase’s character, too, as Mitch’s best friend.

  She suspected they were similar in that respect: it took a strong man, one with a lot of integrity, to take such a major life detour.

  Chase was nothing like his awful upbringing. He was definitely not a guy who’d walk out on his pregnant girlfriend.

  She sighed.

  The dark evening enveloped them and they shared it in silence, each wrapped in their own private memories as they sat, side by side, separated on the porch steps by a foot of cold night. Vanessa suppressed a shiver beneath her sheepskin jacket, wrapping her hands around the rapidly cooling coffee. Chase had been more open with her in the last few hours than he had the entire time she’d known him. To say she was hopefully optimistic was an understatement.

  After a while of silence, she said softly, “Our history is not that different, you know. We were both forced to grow up quickly because of bad parents.”

  Chase frowned, marring the perfect line of his profile, before he shot her a sideways glance. “Your mother didn’t drag you downtown to your father’s store, then stand in the middle of the street screaming at him.”

  Her heart lurched. “Is that what happened?”

  “Yeah. My mother wasn’t big on trust—any time a woman smiled at my dad she thought he was having an affair. Sure, the guy was always chatting up the women but as far as I knew that was it. And of course, my mom was always tarting herself up and flirting with the customers. So they’d yell at each other for ages, unable to prove anything, dragging up the same old arguments over and over, while I died of embarrassment and tried to disappear against the brickwork.”

  “That’s awful.”

  His face twisted into a half grimace. “‘Chase,’ she always used to say, ‘men are pigs. You can’t trust them.’ Yet she stayed with my father because ‘he provides for me,’” he air quoted with a scowl.

  Oh, boy. No wonder Chase’s perception of marriage and relationships was so distorted. She’d have trouble trusting people too, with an upbringing like that.

  “Mine were always working,” Vanessa said now. “I must’ve been about six when we had a parents’ day at school. I automatically asked the nanny.” Her soft laugh felt dry in her throat. “We had the standard nanny, then a housekeeper for ages, ferrying us to requisite music lessons, tennis, ballet. Every day it was school, then extracurricular activities. On the weekends, study and educational excursions. Like keeping busy was a competitive sport or something. We always had to be productive, have a purpose. I’ve always known their careers took first priority. Juliet, my sister, came second.” She smiled faintly. “She was the charming one, the socialite, the budding lawyer-to-be. Dad had her pegged for his practice, but she went and became a divorce lawyer. And until recently, she’d been a major disappointment, apparently. Although—” her grin faded “—not as much as I am.”

  He snorted, shaking his head. “I just don’t get that. You have a good job, two happy, healthy babies…”

  “Ah, but it infuriates my father that I’m not ‘living up to my potential,’” she quoted. “After everything they put into my educa
tion and my upbringing, all the strings they pulled, I’m now wasting it in a low-paid job. And let’s not forget, no worthy man would want a wife who already had kids with a secret lover.”

  “Is that what they told you?”

  “In more colorful language, but yes.” After nearly two years she still couldn’t recall her parents’ fury and disappointment without her chest tightening. Her father’s displeasure had been explosively palpable, but it was her mother who’d thrown the barb that had stuck, planting insidious seeds of doubt. “Apparently I’m damaged goods now and will never find a man.”

  Chase shook his head. “That’s crazy.”

  “No, that’s my parents.”

  “God, spare us from our parents’ bizarre expectations.”

  She shot him a glance. “What did yours want you to do?”

  “Besides stay out of jail? Oh, I thought about doing it just to piss them off,” he added with a thin smile. “But no. They told me I’d take over the family business. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

  “So you went to Harvard.”

  “On a scholarship. They refused to pay.”

  The elite Sterling Scholarship with only ten recipients in the entire world. “I can’t picture you being satisfied with an average life in a small town.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You seem much more ambitious than that.” She turned her hips so she was now facing him, placing her now-cold cup to one side before giving him her full attention. “There’s this buzz about you, an energy. I’ve seen the way people are around you—the men all want your opinion, and they actually listen when you talk. And the women…”

  A skeptical half smile curved his lips. “What about the women?”

  “They just want to take your clothes off.”

  His sudden shot of laughter frosted in the cold air, surprising them both. It just went to show that in the most desperate of times, there could still be moments of relief, she realized. But it still felt sort of wrong how much she enjoyed watching his eyes crease, the way that throaty sexy laugh warmed all her cold places.

  “And what about you, Vanessa?” When he leaned in, his breath charging the space between them, the moment turned deadly serious.

  She sucked in air, the cold a welcome shock to her senses. “Don’t ask me a question you don’t want to know the answer to.”

  “I never make assumptions.”

  “Okay.” With her heart hammering in her throat, she leaned in a little bit more, until their mouths were barely even a breath apart, until she could feel his heat on the curve of her bottom lip. “I want to take your clothes off, too.”

  Surprise, amusement, then arousal—all three flashed across Chase’s face, until the shadowed depths of his eyes seemed to burn her inside. “I want you to kiss me, Chase.”

  She needn’t have asked—his mouth was already there.

  It was just how a kiss should have been: all soft and full of uncertainty. Her eyes fluttered closed as the moment flowed over her, building a gentle swell of warmth in her blood, firing her belly. His lips tentatively explored hers, at first tender, then as she kissed him back, with greater force.

  He tasted of coffee, heat and pure maleness. He smelled of soap, home and desire.

  Her mouth parted, welcoming him in and with a groan he accepted her invitation, his tongue tasting, tangling. She could hear his breath as it quickened, knowing hers matched and thrilling at the sudden knowledge that she was the cause of his excitement.

  He excited her, too, in ways she’d never thought she could be. Just talking to him, being with him, wasn’t enough. She wanted to touch and kiss him, have him do the same, then get naked and share herself.

  So what if there were still so many facets to Chase Harrington she’d yet to uncover? There were obviously things he wanted to keep private and she could understand that. The important thing right now was she wanted him and he wanted her. And frankly, she was sick of living like a nun. She needed passion in her life. She missed it.

  And Chase needed something else to focus on than the harsh reality of his visit, even if it was something as simple as a kiss.

  She felt his hand come up to cup her cheek, the palm searing her skin, branding her before the kiss became deeper.

  Did she say simple? Everything blurred—the cold, the night, where they were. Nothing existed except him and the crazy things he was doing to her—forcing her breath from her lungs, sending her blood pounding. Making every inch ache with desire.

  “Vanessa,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Mmm.”

  “I want you.” He came in for another kiss, this time taking her bottom lip between his and sucking gently. All she could do was groan her consent as his fingers dived into her hair and angled her head for better access.

  This was…excruciatingly, mind-numbingly good. Damn, she would combust right there on the spot if he kept on going. But there was no way she wanted him to stop.

  “What…are…we—” she managed to get out between breaths and kisses, until the porch door slid open and they both nearly jumped out of their skin.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but Sam’s awake,” Mitch said from the doorway, his nonchalance hiding a barely suppressed grin. “And he’s asking for you both.”

  Reality came crashing in, slamming her back down to earth. With a tight breath, Vanessa nodded and got to her feet before finally glancing at Chase.

  Everything plummeted.

  He’d accused her of wearing a mask, but that was exactly what he had on right now. Worse, it was that awful, tight “I have total control of my emotions” expression, one she’d only caught glimpses of but had grown to hate nonetheless. It looked so secure that she wondered if she really did know him at all.

  As she followed him down the hall, his rigid shoulders and straight back a painful thing to follow, an awful thought occurred. What if, after they finished reading the book, Chase chose to stay with that lonely, “nothing can touch me” mask? That just like his past, he let this tragedy scar him?

  Some people let it take over, living only half a life with the pain a festering wound just below the surface.

  It’d break her heart if he did.

  * * *

  They finished reading The Last Ninja on Saturday night, just as the first cold drops of rain began to fall.

  After Sam had fallen asleep, Vanessa had excused herself to her room, desperate to be alone with her confusing thoughts.

  Dunbar’s familiar scrawl revealed way more than he’d ever admitted to her. It was strange, having his vulnerability written down for anyone to see. Apparently, he had been wracked with a multitude of doubts about the direction of his characters – were they too dark? Too vengeful? What kind of message was he sending to kids? And then the big one that affected her most of all: every time he changed his characters to “Erin” or “Heather” he’d put in a question mark. At the end of the story, it had been explained in the notes summary.

  Ask V.

  Is this what he’d wanted to talk to her about—to get her approval? And would she have given it?

  She sighed and rolled to her side, punching the pillow as she recalled their breakup, his last phone call and her anger following that.

  And now she at least had an answer of sorts. Dylan had walked out but this proved he’d been thinking about his children, honoring them by writing two strong, fearless characters in his final book. It was a wonderful yet ultimately sad moment and not for the first time, Vanessa wished things could have turned out different.

  Yet if they had, she’d never have met Chase.

  With another sigh, she pushed the past from her mind and refocused on the present.

  Chase.

  They hadn’t revisited that kiss and even though Vanessa remained awake for two more excruciatingly slow hours, wondering, hoping, Chase had remained absent from her bed.

  Which is how it should be, she chastised herself in the morning, her face warm with shame. She was there f
or Sam, not to have convenient sex with Chase.

  On Sunday morning Vanessa said her goodbyes to the O’Connors, torn between wanting to stay and support Chase yet aching for her reality, having her girls in her arms, touching their chubby faces and breathing in their clean, baby scent.

  Thick loaded silence accompanied their drive to the airport, both she and Chase wrapped up in the significance of her departure.

  I love you.

  She wanted to say the words, fill the car with hope instead of loss, dispel that pain hovering behind Chase’s controlled expression and tight mouth. She wanted to make it all okay for him.

  No, she couldn’t throw that out there right now, not when his troubled blue eyes gave her pause, a vast and terrifying sadness that stopped her breath. She could see the toll it took on him to hide it all.

  After Chase put her on the plane with his lingering kiss still burning on her cheek, her heart felt as if someone had cut it out and stomped all over it.

  She buckled up, sucked in a deep breath and let the takeoff throw her back into the plush first-class seat.

  Even now, she missed him. She wanted him.

  Heaven help her, she loved him. She loved that he was so tender, so sweet with Sam. She loved that he’d brought joy into the boy’s life without a thought to the material cost. Watching him listen, rapt and wide-eyed as they read the story made her heart contract all over again. She loved that Chase gave of himself, choosing to be with Sam and Mitch even though it was obviously a deeply private time for them. Sam’s mother may have walked out, but Chase was there for them, not just as moral support but to ease the financial burden, too.

  She loved him so furiously that it damn well scared her to death. Because she just knew he would break her heart. And she’d never recover from it.

  Yet what choice did she have but to willingly follow that stubborn heart of hers?

  The clouds outside her window thinned and soon they were gliding in the bright, blue sky, high above everything.

  She’d refused to let her experience with Dylan color her opinions of love, romance and the male species. Yet she’d not gone out of her way to pursue those things, preferring to stay at home with her girls.