Breathe

by Kristen Ashley

  Thinking all this, it brought to mind my Dad’s comment after Misty Keaton was killed which was, “Used to be, Carnal was quiet. Sure, the bikers could make a ruckus and did. But no one got dead. Maybe stuck with a knife but not dead. Now seems everyone’s gettin’ dead or almost dead or doin’ time for a crime they didn’t commit. Quiet, small town life ain’t all it used to be.”

  This was, unfortunately, true.

  Lexie was the first one who spoke after I told them what happened with Chace Keaton in Harker’s Wood and on the sidewalk the day before. Krystal was the second and forth comment. Laurie was third.

  I watched Lexie turn to Krystal and ask, “How is it not good?”

  “Uh… hello?” Krystal asked back sarcastically. “Did you not hear Faye? That boy is fucked up.”

  “Yes, so, he needs someone to help him get unfucked up,” Lexie shot back.

  “Is unfucked a word?” Laurie asked me.

  As usual when these girls were around, I didn’t get the chance to say much since they were talking all the time but I did get the chance to get a shrug in to Laurie but just barely before Krystal spoke.

  “Well, I had to unfuck one and, I’ll remind you, so did you and Laurie,” Krystal jerked a thumb at Lauren, “and it wasn’t much fun.”

  “Mine was fun,” Laurie whispered to me.

  “Mine was too,” Lexie did not whisper to Krystal. “Mostly because of all the fucking we did while I was unfucking him.” She looked at me, grinning. “And other parts. But the fucking was a highlight.” Then she muttered, “Still is.”

  Krystal turned and rolled her eyes at me before saying, “The pain, it fades. Trust me, it is not fun.”

  I could feel my cheeks burning and knew they were bright red at all this talk about fucking and, well, unfucking (whatever that was).

  This was because I was a virgin and although recently I’d been spending some time with these women as they came into the library with relative frequency. Krystal especially, rarely held any punches (as in, never), I wasn’t used to talk about “fucking”.

  Incidentally, being a virgin was by choice.

  Kind of.

  First, as a starry-eyed adolescent, I’d made it my mission to give it away only after I found the right guy (not that, at the time, I actually knew what “giving it away” meant).

  This was because I’d read romance novels since I was thirteen. Therefore, I decided, just like the heroines in my books, I would only give something that precious to a man who deserved it. The perfect man. The one who would sweep me off my feet, make my heart race, fire my blood and be happy to dance with me all night. The one who was smart, strong, handsome, good. The one who was larger than life. The one who would look after me. The one who would hold me close all night long.

  Then, thirteen years ago, Chace Keaton showed up in town, in uniform, thick dark blond hair, intense dark blue eyes, handsome white smile, tall, straight, lean body and I fell in love.

  I know it sounds crazy but I did it. And I did it because I knew he was all that I needed him to be. A man like that could sweep me off my feet. He was strong, handsome and a cop so he had to be good. He was so beautiful, in uniform or out of it, wearing his jeans and western belt buckle and cowboy boots. Coming from Aspen money (big money, if rumor was true) but leaving all that to be his own man. A good man. A brave man. An officer of the law. He seemed larger than life.

  I was sixteen but I knew he could make my heart race, fire my blood because I didn’t even know him and I was young but he already did.

  And I never let go of that feeling.

  Even when he married Misty, the town slut who no one liked all that much.

  I was shocked and, I’ll admit, hurt when he did it. It wasn’t nice to think but she was the town slut and she didn’t suit him, she didn’t fit him, it didn’t make sense. Especially since everyone in the whole town knew she lied about Ty Walker’s alibi. That made her a slut and a liar and not the little white lie kind of liar but the huge, earth-shattering, life-altering, vicious, nasty kind of liar.

  It didn’t make sense, Misty and Chace. Chace was a good guy. A straight arrow. Well-liked. Trusted. And in our town on the police force at that time, this was practically an unknown commodity.

  But I didn’t let go of the feeling I had deep down inside that Chace was the one because everyone in town was talking about how she trapped him. And Chace himself never acted like he was happy to be wed in holy matrimony to the town slut (and liar). He wasn’t nice to her and he wasn’t faithful to her and he was obvious about both.

  I didn’t know how she could trap him. I mean, I knew they’d been together if not together-together in a girlfriend/boyfriend way. Then again, as the town slut, everyone had been “together” with Misty. So, I thought at first he got her pregnant. But then she never had a baby.

  Although I didn’t like them together (as in, really), either “together” or together in the married way, it didn’t faze me. Everyone knew the hero in any good romance had to have his fair share of experience. If he didn’t, how was he going to be a good teacher, showing his lady love how to give him pleasure at the same time giving her more than she’d ever dreamed? So I didn’t mind that Chace played the field, including with Misty.

  But putting his ring on her finger? Then cheating on her openly?

  No.

  It never made sense.

  And truth be told, I didn’t like it much. It didn’t say nice things about him at all.

  For some reason, though, I never gave up hope. For some reason, even removed, I felt whatever was between them wasn’t right. I knew just looking at him he wasn’t happy. And after a while, I saw the same thing in Misty and by the end, for Misty, it was even worse.

  It wasn’t like they were married. It was like they were enemies legally bound together. This made Chace go about his life as if he wasn’t married. And it wore Misty down. It was strange, it was sad and, in the end, it was tragic.

  There was more talk after she died. Speculation that she was wound up in all the goings-on at the Police Station with dirty cops and corruption. Especially since it was found out to be true what everyone already knew, that she lied about Ty Walker’s alibi. So folks figured that Chace somehow got caught up in all that and Misty somehow got Chace out of the deal. But no one really knew the true story.

  After Misty died and all that stuff at the Station was brought out in the open, Lexie came to the library with the obvious intent to be my friend (for some reason). But even though I knew she knew Chace, like, for real, spending actual time in his presence instead of just seeing him around, she’d never shared. She just counseled me, frequently, to have a go at Chace, telling me she was certain he was into me.

  As often as she informed me of this, he never gave any indication of it. In fact, after his wife was murdered it was the first time he showed that he might care about her. It was clear it disturbed him, not a little, a lot. Of course, anyone being murdered would, even a wife you didn’t much like who may have trapped you into marriage. And now I knew this to be true since now I knew he hung out in the dead of night in the cold at the spot where she was killed.

  Seven months had passed and he wasn’t shaking it off. And he was also hanging out at Harker’s Wood in the middle of the night. So maybe everyone was wrong about Misty and Chace. Maybe, out there in the crazy world where things were messed up and not nice, a world, Chace was right, I didn’t spend a lot of time in for a reason, they had something. Something it couldn’t be denied was twisted. But it clearly was something.

  So, in the end, I’d spent so much time admiring Chace from afar, and living in my books, time just got away from me. And now I was twenty-nine years old and still a virgin.

  And also, I’d finally spoken words directly to the man I fell in love with at sixteen and I’d done it twice.

  The first time he was not nice. And he was definitely no hero.

  The second time, well, the second time, I didn’t get. I’d heard the term “
mixed messages” and now I understood it.

  Boy, did I ever.

  “What were you doin’ up there in Harker’s Wood anyway?” Krystal asked, taking me from my thoughts and I blinked before I focused on her.

  It then occurred to me, belatedly, that I probably shouldn’t have told them that part.

  “Oh God,” Lexie whispered, leaning toward me over the counter, “are you stalking him?”

  Oh no. Now I had to lie.

  I didn’t like lying. I also didn’t like cursing which Chace, I was surprised to discover, did with great frequency. I further didn’t like any kind of cheating, the on tests kind, the in life kind or the in relationships kind, the latter something else Chace did with openness and, again, great frequency.

  At least he wasn’t in on all that dirty stuff at the Station but instead had put himself in grave danger to uncover the corruption and sweep it free from the Carnal Police Department. That bit, I decided, forgave some of his other obvious sins.

  “Are you?” Laurie asked, also leaning toward me. “Stalking him, that is?”

  I wasn’t. I had no idea he was out there. I was out there for something else. Something I’d gone out there several times to do. Something I couldn’t share.

  So I had to lie.

  “Actually, Harker’s Wood is kind of my place,” I told them. “I go out there a lot. Always did.”

  Lie!

  Lexie’s brows drew together and her head twitched. “Really?”

  “Uh… yeah,” I replied.

  Another lie.

  “At two in the morning?” Krystal asked and my eyes moved to her. Her arms were crossed on her large bosoms and her brows were drawn together too. Though hers were a bit scarier.

  “Sometimes. If I can’t sleep,” I answered.

  “You can’t sleep?” Laurie queried quietly and I bit my lip because this wasn’t true either. I slept like a baby. Dropped off, usually with a book in my hand, and was out until the alarm clock went.

  I stopped biting my lip and whispered another lie, “Yeah.”

  There it was. One lie led to another then another and another and then you were drowning in them.

  “I had trouble sleeping all my life,” Laurie told me then grinned. “Tate fixed that.”

  “I bet,” Krystal muttered.

  “And I bet Chace would find ways to keep you from driving up the mountain to Harker’s Wood in the middle of the night if you had trouble sleeping,” Lexie put in.

  I didn’t want to think about that.

  No, that wasn’t strictly true. I didn’t want to think about that now, when I was at work. I wanted to think about it later, when I usually did. When I was in bed with the vibrator that it took me three months to psych myself up to buy on the internet. Something I used often considering I was a twenty-nine year old virgin with a thirteen year old crush on a man who, until a few of nights ago, I didn’t think knew I existed.

  Needless to say, Chace factored largely when my time was occupied with this activity.

  “I think, now that the ice is broken, you need to give him a sign,” Lexie went on.

  “She needs to back off, let that boy sort his shit and, if he’s salvaged something that makes him worth her while, then she can give him a sign,” Krystal advised.

  “Life is too short and too precious to wait for that, Krys,” Laurie added in a quiet voice.

  Krystal gave her a look that said she was right and Krystal found that annoying.

  I had, in getting to know her, learned that Krystal found a lot annoying.

  “I…” I started then finished softly, “wouldn’t know how.”

  “Kiss him,” Lexie suggested instantly, I blinked, my body locked but I felt my face heat again at the very idea.

  “Are you nuts?” Krystal hissed, now leaning in close to Lexie.

  “No,” Lexie replied. “Nothing says, ‘I like you’ like your tongue in their mouth.”

  One thing could be said for that, it was inarguably true.

  “So, did that work for you? Did you kiss Ty and then everything was hearts and flowers?” Krystal asked, leaning back and again crossing her arms on her chest.

  “Actually, no,” Lexie returned. “I didn’t. But things were hearts and flowers when I wanted to do it, had an overwhelming urge to do it and I didn’t do it. And it was exactly the time I should have done it. Then things went bad and it would be days before I got another shot. Or, I should say, I did eventually kiss him and it didn’t work out then things went bad and days after that Ty took his shot and that, well,” she looked at me and grinned, “that worked out great.”

  As far as I could tell, it certainly did. I saw Lexie a lot because she came around to the library and sometimes sat with me in the diner when we were having lunch. I didn’t see Ty very much but when I did and he was with his wife, it was clear they were close. Very close. Happy, loving close.

  It also helped to know this seeing as she was currently six months pregnant.

  “Not to put a damper on your enthusiasm, honey,” Laurie entered the conversation at this point, eyes on Lexie, “but I’m uncertain with what Faye told us so far that going for that kind of gusto at this juncture is the right advice.”

  Lexie held Lauren’s eyes as she spoke then her gaze swung to me. “Kiss him.”

  Krystal threw her hands in the air at the same time she threw her honeyed locks back as she stared up at the ceiling with easy to read exasperation.

  Laurie gave me a grin.

  As for me, I was not ever, ever going to kiss Chace Keaton.

  Not until he kissed me.

  If that should ever (please God!) happen.

  Lexie kept speaking as that thought gave me a pleasant shiver.

  “Now, I’m a girl and you’re a girl, we’re all girls.” She lifted a hand and did a twirl to indicate Krystal and Laurie. “And it’s my sworn duty as a girl not to lead you down the wrong path, especially in matters of the heart. But I’ll tell you again what I’ve been telling you now for months. Chace Keaton is into you. Not just into you. Into you in a hungry heart, longing, soul destroying if you can’t have it, put your life on the line to get it kind of into you.”

  My heart skipped a beat at these words but she was not done.

  “I know. I felt that for Ty and I still do. He feels it for me and I’ve been seeing it in his eyes since the beginning. At first, I didn’t get it. You need to get it faster than I did. Learn from me. I see it in Chace when he looks at you. He’s got issues. You help him deal and give him a little somethin’ somethin’ while you do, trust me, this is a tried and tested method and it works. I’ve done it and Laurie’s done it. Now it’s your turn. And, if he’s fucked up, which he is, the shit that has gone down, he can’t help but be it’s going to have to be you who puts yourself out there.”

  She took in a breath, leaned across the counter to me and grabbed my hand before she finished.

  “And I swear, honey, I would not lead you wrong.”

  Again, no way I was ever going to kiss Chace Keaton until he kissed me.

  But something else she said captured my attention.

  “What’s gone down?” I asked softly and, as she’d been doing for months when this subject was broached, she leaned back, let me go and closed down.

  This time, after what Chace said to me in the wood, the fact that he was at the wood at all, the way he was yesterday morning, the mixed messages that he was giving me, making me want to run at the same time I wanted to wrap my arms around him and absorb his pain, for the first time I pushed it.

  “You can’t expect me to put myself out there if I don’t know what I’m dealing with,” I informed her.

  “That right there is a good point,” Krystal backed me.

  “And what she’s dealing with is Chace’s to share,” Lexie returned.

  Krystal disagreed. “You gotta give the girl something.”

  “She has it,” Lexie retorted. “His wife was murdered. He didn’t like her much but still,
he’s a good man and no one deserves that. And that’s coming from me, a woman who intimately knows that Misty Keaton was the worst kind of bitch there is. And he’s been working alongside scum for years. That shit will mark a man.” Her eyes came to me. “And that has marked Chace. Help him heal his wounds then get past the scars. Don’t delay, honey. Neither of you are getting any younger and I promise, you do, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. That lost time, if you take your time. Or if you never do it at all, the loss of something beautiful you never had that was something you yourself let slip through your fingers.”

  It must be said, she made a case for throwing myself at Chace Keaton.

  Still, I was never going to do it.

  Nevertheless, I was forced to lie again just so we could stop talking about this.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Lexie smiled huge.

  Krystal closed her eyes.

  Laurie made an “eek!” face that she quickly hid when my eyes hit her and she gave me a reassuring grin.

  They left shortly after and when they did, they left me with visions of throwing myself in Chace Keaton’s arms and kissing him.

  This did not make it easy to focus on the work I had to do.

  But I still saw him when he came in.

  Sandy blond hair but this was at a guess seeing as it was dirty. Not dirty, greasy. It wasn’t a day or two of missing the shampoo bottle. It was a whole lot more.

  His clothes weren’t any cleaner. And they hung on him. This was not hard to do considering he was skin and bones.

  His pallor was marked, too. It was February in the Colorado Mountains therefore cold and there was always snow on the ground. Even so, the sun shown regularly so the cold gave you rosy cheeks but the sun still could kiss your skin if you spent any amount of time outside. And most of the citizens of Carnal had been there awhile. The cold and snow didn’t stop them from doing much, inside or out.