Page 42 of Lead Me On
She snapped her mouth shut and listened to him take a deep breath.
“Please don’t say it again, Jane. I just…” The last word broke a little, as if he were getting choked up.
Jane squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he wouldn’t cry.
“Just think about me, all right?” he rasped. “You can’t just walk away from me like this.”
When she didn’t answer, the line went dead. Hating herself, Jane set the receiver down. She hadn’t accomplished anything and now she felt worse than ever.
* * *
JANE SAT NEXT TOCHASEin the passenger seat of his truck. The same seat they’d had sex in last night. Good Lord. Chase felt a fluttering in his chest. The weakness was back again.
“Okay,” she said. “Any ground rules?”
“With my dad?”
She offered a reassuring smile.
Chase glanced toward the trailer. “No, he’s easy enough. He’s a happy drunk. Just do me a favor and don’t offer to run out for beer.”
She nodded, but neither of them made a move to leave. “When did he start to drink?”
“A while ago. He was a detective in Grand Junction when I was a kid. He always drank to unwind, but then my mom died, and…”
“I’m so sorry, Chase. I didn’t know.”
“It was, uh, kind of horrible.” He gave a nervous laugh, avoiding her eyes. “It was just a routine surgery. An appendectomy. She had a bad reaction to the anesthesia…and then she was gone.”
“Oh, no! How old were you?”
“Nine. He started drinking more, but it was all right for a while until he lost his job, and then…” He dared a look and found Jane with her hand pressed to her mouth and tears shimmering in her eyes. “Don’t cry!”
“But it’s so sad.”
“Oh, come on.” He pulled her into his arms and listened to her sniff against his shirt, trying not to give in to the tightness in his own throat. Even twenty-five years later, he still missed his mom so much. “Don’t make me cry, all right? You only like me because I’m a big slab of meat. I can’t show any weakness if I want a chance to sleep with you again.”
“Oh, stop it. It’s sad.”
“It was sad. Yeah.” He kissed the top of her head before he realized what he was doing, but Jane didn’t pull away at the show of affection, so he tucked her tighter beneath his chin. If he had to use his pitiful past as a lure, that was fine. He wasn’t above it. He wanted to touch her, constantly. And there was so much of her he hadn’t touched.
“Chase?”
“Hmm?” The skin of her neck was so soft under his fingers.
“Are you using the story of your broken childhood to make a move on me?”
“Maybe.”
She shoved him away, her mouth fighting a smile.
“Hey, I didn’t plan it, but I’m sure my mom would want me to be happy, right?”
“You’re horrible!” she cried, slapping his arm, but she was laughing now instead of crying, and the tightness was gone from his throat. And for the first time in this long week, Jane looked peaceful.
He ran the back of his knuckles over her cheek just to feel the way the muscles bunched there when she smiled. “Are you ready? We should get in there before he makes it through his first six-pack.”
The smile faded and she reached to move his hand, but her fingers lingered against his for a long while. “I’m ready. Are you?”
