“What does it take?” he whispered.
“All that’s you,” I whispered back and suddenly found myself without a cat, Chace didn’t have one either and I knew this because I was over his shoulder and he was prowling down the hall.
“Chace! We need to go to the store, get cat food, litter boxes, litter –”
“Done.”
God, I loved this man.
But I kept trying.
I mean, I had two scrunch faced, fluffy kitties. Sex was awesome but I had kitties!
“We need to let them out so they can explore.”
What I meant was so I could play with them.
I flew through the air, landed on my back in our bed and Chace landed on me.
“They can wait.”
“They’ll get bored in there.”
“Then hurry and show your gratitude.”
Oo, that sounded fun.
So I rounded him in my arms but planted a foot in the bed and rolled him to his back so I was on top.
Then, with my hair hanging down both sides of our faces, I whispered, “I can do that.”
He grinned up at me, his hands pulling my hair gently away and he whispered back, “So do it.”
I smiled down at him.
Then I did it.
* * * * *
One and a half months later
I hit the button on the television remote and looked down at Chace.
“Admit it, you liked it,” I ordered.
We’d just watched the pilot episode of the new Battlestar Galactica.
“Baby, you sucked me off, rode me, forced my assent to watch the fuckin’ thing right before I came then we watched it with you on me in my tee, no panties and my hand on your bare ass. Of course I liked it but I didn’t see it.”
How could a man be annoying and hot at the same time?
“You think Admiral Adama is the bomb,” I pushed.
“Da bomb,” he corrected my street lingo.
“Whatever,” I muttered, then, “Admit you think he’s awesome.”
“Which one was he?”
I slapped his arm and snapped, “Chace!”
He rolled so I was on my back in the couch and he was on me.
Then he gave in. A little.
“It didn’t suck.”
“You liked it,” I decided.
“Let’s just say, you want me to watch more, you gotta use your mouth on me.”
“I do that all the time anyway,” I reminded him and he grinned.
Then he murmured, “Yeah.”
“So, every time we, uh… you know, you have to watch one of my programs.”
“Deal,” he agreed immediately and surprisingly then I would understand why when he added his part of the deal, “You go down on me, you get geek TV. I go down on you, you watch one of my programs.”
My eyes narrowed. “You know Southland freaks me out.”
“That’s because you get too involved with the characters.”
“Sammy is sweet!” I defended myself.
“But he’s not real,” Chace replied. “He got in that car accident, you stopped breathing.”
“I was surprised.”
“Honey, they were in a high speed chase with a pimp shooting at them. How could this be a surprise?”
This was true.
“Do we have a deal?” he pressed.
“So, breaking this down,” I started breaking it down, “essentially, we both watch each other’s shows because we both regularly go down on each other.”
Chace grinned again. “Essentially.”
My hands slid up his tee at the back and my legs moved restlessly as my eyes dropped to his mouth and I whispered, “Right then, time to earn an episode of Southland.”
I watched his grin turn into his smile.
Then his head dipped and he kissed me.
Then he set about earning another episode of Southland.
When he was done, I didn’t tell him, but he earned two.
* * * * *
Deck
Two months later
“Is it done?”
Deck stared at Trane Keaton standing at his office window, staring out at Aspen.
“Dominoes will fall,” Deck told him, arms crossed on his chest.
“How long?” Trane asked, not looking at him, the dick.
“Wheels in motion, my guess, the first one’ll go down in a week. The rest not long after. It’ll take, at most, three months.”
“And Bonar is neutralized?” Trane kept at it.
“Bonar has confirmed he’s received the message. No blowback on Chace or me. Before you ask, the kidnapper has too. Sterling is clear. They got enough to worry about without havin’ to worry about me. Kidnapper is facing attempted murder charges on top of kidnapping and Bonar and the two boys in your posse conspiracy. Evidence is solid. Case is tight. They’ll all go down. They don’t need me makin’ a hard fall harder.”
Trane turned and finally his eyes came to Deck for the first time since Deck entered the room.
“This can’t be traced back to you or me?”
He meant him.
Deck didn’t call him on it mostly because that would take time and he wanted to get out of there.
“Nope,” he answered.
“I have your assurances on that,” Trane pushed.
“I answered the question once. I did not lie. I won’t answer it again,” Deck replied.
Trane held his gaze and nodded.
Then he moved to his desk, lifted his hand and rested it on the top of his high-backed, leather desk chair.
“You did it as we agreed,” he stated softly.
“Yep,” Deck confirmed.
“Painful,” Trane went on.
“They’ll lose everything.”
Trane nodded.
Then he declared, “Chace can’t know.”
Deck’s back went straight at his surprising words.
“What?” he asked.
“You will not tell Chace.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Deck growled.
“You won’t tell him.”
Deck uncrossed his arms from his chest and planted his hands on his hips. “Man, you just paid me to arrange for every man who had anything to do with his woman gettin’ buried alive to lose everything they hold precious. It’s the only fuckin’ thing you’ve ever done that even hints at bein’ for Chace. They’re plannin’ a wedding. You did this, he knows, you can get in there and you don’t want him to know?”
“I lost my son years ago. I’ll not get in there, as you put it, no matter what I do.”
“You’re wrong. This’ll help,” Deck told him.
“Was what you did legal?” Trane asked.
“Not by a long fuckin’ shot but these men colluded in a scheme to bury his woman alive. I’m not thinkin’ my boy’s gonna quibble.”
Trane shook his head. “He won’t know. You won’t tell him.”
“Don’t keep shit from my boy,” Deck growled.
“I’ll add an additional one hundred thousand dollars to your final pay,” Trane told him.
“Again, I do not keep shit from my boy.”
Trane’s head shifted to the side. “Do you want him to know so you can receive his gratitude for doing what he cannot to make those men pay?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then why would you need to tell him?”
Deck leaned into him and said quietly, “So he can believe, even if it’s for a second, one second his whole goddamned life, that his Dad has his back. I got a Dad who loves me. I got a Dad who’s proud of me. I got a Dad who’d bleed and die for me. I know how it feels. Chace has never had that. So if I could give him that for even one second, I’d give it to him. You doin’ this shit for him, for Faye, will give him that. So that’s why I need to tell him.”
Trane held his gaze.
Then he flipped his hand out, moved to sit in his chair and muttered, “Do what you must.”
“Would d
o that anyway,” Deck muttered back, making his own move and this was to get the fuck out of there.
“Jacob,” Trane called, Deck sucked air in through his nose and turned back. “I’m proud of him,” he whispered.
“Tell him not me.” Deck did not whisper.
“I love him,” Trane went on.
“Man, you’re talkin’ to the wrong guy.”
“He thinks I’m filth. If he knows I paid you to engage in illegal activities –”
“Keaton, fuck, man, he dug her out with his bare hands. Trust me on this, he… will not… quibble.”
He’d caught Trane’s flinch at his “dug her out with his bare hands” even though the man quickly wiped it from his face.
Fuck, was there a heart under all that dick?
Trane looked to his desk and repeated, “Do what you must.”
Deck stared at him a second.
Then he got the fuck out of there.
* * * * *
Chace
Four hours later
He listened to the phone ringing in his ear.
Then he heard, “Chace.”
“Make a reservation at Reynaldo’s. This weekend. Sunday night. For four.”
“Chace,” his father whispered, and fuck him, he heard that whisper tremble.
Chace’s gut got tight.
“We’ll meet you there at seven.”
There was nothing then, “Right. Seven.”
“Tell Ma I said hi.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
“I’m almost home,” Chace told him, seeing the white picket fence up ahead. “I gotta go.”
“Of course.”
“Later.”
“Chace?”
Shit.
Chace gave him something, he was going for more.
“Dad, how ‘bout we take this slow,” he suggested.
“I like her.”
Shit, fuck, shit.
“Good.”
“She suits you.”
Chace sucked in breath.
His father went on. “A good woman for a good man.”
Shit, fuck, shit!
“Right.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t fucking done.
“I heard what you did for that boy and his sister. I’m proud of you.”
Shit, fuck, shit!
“Dad –”
“I just wanted you to know.”
Chace turned into his drive then hit the garage door opener and into the phone he said, “All right, you wanted me to know. I know.”
“All right,” Trane replied quietly. “Your mother and I’ll look forward to Sunday.”
“Great. Later.”
“Have a good evening, Chace.”
“You too,” he returned then disconnected.
He drove into his garage and parked. He was in his new blue Yukon. His old one was parked next to him. When he’d bought the new one, he’d given the old one to Faye and her Cherokee was gracing someone else’s garage. She accepted this without much discussion much like he suspected Sondra did when her ride was phased out and Silas’s new one phased in. Faye didn’t really care what she drove and since he did and his old Yukon was better than her Cherokee, she went with it without giving him any lip.
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.”
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