Breathe (9 page)

I popped my earphones in and since I should be winding down rather than gearing up, which was where my thoughts were taking me, I put on a one of my unwind playlists.

This worked until it came up in the queue.

Ella Mae Bowen’s rendition of “Holding Out for a Hero”.

Lying there like I did all the time, alone, late at night, in my kickass but lonesome apartment, her beautiful voice filled with longing, singing words I’d never really listened to, hit me like a bullet tearing clean through my flesh leaving a raw ache in its wake.

I didn’t even try to control the tears that filled my eyes. I didn’t feel the sting of them in my nose. I just let them fall as the ceiling above me went watery and the longing in Ella Mae’s voice, the beautiful yearning of the words ripped me to shreds.

I’d seen Chace Keaton at sixteen years old, incidentally, Ella Mae’s age when she recorded that song, and I convinced myself I found my hero and he was always there, just out of reach.

But he wasn’t just out of reach and if I kept hoping, kept reaching, eventually his fingers would close warm, strong and firm around mine.

He was just plain out of reach.

He lived in the same town but he was miles and miles and miles away.

When Ella Mae was done, I played her again.

And again.

Then again.

Then, tears in my eyes, I got up, blew out the candle and walked to the distressed, whimsical set of hooks Dad had mounted by my door. I grabbed my long, pastel green scarf and wrapped it around and around my neck, this pressing the chords of the earphones to the skin under it.

I replayed it as I grabbed my pine green wool pea coat, tugged it on, maneuvered the iPod around while I buttoned it up, nabbed my mittens that matched the scarf and pulled them on. Then I grabbed my keys.

I listened to it playing as I pulled open the door and walked out, locked the door, shoved the keys into my pocket and took off down the stairs that led to the back alley and my Cherokee.

I replayed it as I rounded the side alley and walked swiftly, shoulders scrunched, arms held up in front of me, hands clasped, through the fierce, arid cold that dried the tears on my face.

I replayed it when I turned off Main Street and walked through the quiet, dark streets to the elementary school. I listened to the words yet again as I slipped through the opening in the chain link fence and headed to the playground.

I was listening to it when I stopped at the swing set, lifted my mittened hand and rested it on one of the high swing set poles and dropped my head, pressing my forehead against my mitten. Listening and aching and knowing that there was nothing worse in the whole, wide world than the death of hope.

And I was listening to it when a hand wrapped firm and strong around my bicep but I also heard my low, surprised cry ringing in my head if not in my ears when I felt the touch and that hand didn’t hesitate to whip me around.

Then I stared up at Chace Keaton’s angry face.

What the frak?

I blinked up at him and I did this twice before I realized his mouth was moving.

He was talking to me.

“What?” I asked, automatically talking very loudly over music he couldn’t hear.

His head jerked, his eyes narrowed even as they moved all around the vicinity of my head. I felt his hand leave my arm then suddenly Ella Mae was gone because he’d lifted both his hands and pulled out my ear buds.

Then I heard him growl, “Jesus, it’s worse.”

I wasn’t following. I hadn’t gone from denying my lonesomeness to understanding it to the core of my being, letting go a dream, feeling that ache throb through me, beating at me in a way I knew I’d feel it forever to standing in the cold in the elementary school playground staring at an angry Chace Keaton.

“What’s worse?” I whispered.

“You, takin’ a walk alone in the dark of night in a town full of bikers who like to get drunk, rowdy and laid and doin’ it with your ear phones in and music so loud you couldn’t hear someone approach even if he was wearin’ a fuckin’ cowbell.”

He was right, of course. I could actually hear Ella Mae now and the ear buds weren’t even in my ears.

Quickly, with my thumb, I paused my iPod but I replied to Chace, “Bikers are friendly.”

“No, Faye, they’re not.”

“But, I’ve been living here my whole life and so have a bunch of bikers. They are.”

“Yeah, the ones who live here don’t shit where they live. The ones who come here from other places don’t give a fuck where they shit. ‘Course, this would mean that something happened to you, the local bikers would have to throw down, seeing as someone harmed one of their own so wherever they tracked the others to, all hell would break loose. After you created that nightmare, in the meantime, you wouldn’t be doing too fuckin’ good.”

“You curse a lot,” I whispered and his head jerked again just as his eyes narrowed again.

“What?” he clipped.

“Nothing,” I muttered and bit my lip.

His eyes dropped to my lips then sliced back up to mine.

Suddenly my hand was caught in a strong, firm grip and tugged while he stated, “I’m walking you home.”

Since his hand was tugging mine and his body was tall, lean and muscular and it was moving, I had no choice but to follow it.

But I did protest as my feet moved double time to keep up with his long strides, “That’s okay. Really. It isn’t far and I won’t listen to music.”

He stopped abruptly, jerking my hand which made me stop abruptly and he bent his neck so his handsome face was an inch from mine.

His eyes were angry.

No, furious.

I stopped breathing.

“I’m… walking… you… home,” he said low, slow, each word deliberate.

I did the only thing I could do. I nodded.

His face started to move back then his eyes narrowed again and, to the further detriment of my ability to breathe, it got even closer. His eyes moved over my features then they came back to mine.

“You been cryin’?” he asked, his voice low still but now soft.

I stared up at him and it hit me that he’d pulled us closer to the sidewalk where there were streetlamps so he could see me.

“No.”

There it was again!

Another lie!

Chace called me on it and he did it again in that low, soft voice that made his normally deep attractive voice deeper and far, far more attractive.

“Honey, I got eyes.”

I really liked it when he called me honey. He’d done it twice now and both times felt like gifts.

Of course, he probably called everyone honey if they were female. So it wasn’t a gift. It was throwaway. Meaningless.

I pulled in breath and straightened my shoulders.

“Okay then, Chace. I have been crying. But the fact I have and the reasons why I was are none of your business. So if you’re fired up to do your duty as an officer of the law and make sure I’m safe then walk me home. But, if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll pass on the interrogation.”

“There’s the backbone,” he muttered.

“What?” I snapped.

“Nothin’.” He was still muttering as he moved away, yanked on my hand and we started walking again.

I wanted to ask what he was doing roaming the streets in the middle of the night but I didn’t. I wanted to ask where his SUV was since I scanned for it as we walked through town in the cold and didn’t see it but I didn’t do that either. I wanted to ask him to let go of my hand but I didn’t do that either.

I just walked at his side with my hand held firm in his big, warm one and I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything stupid and dramatic. Like let my emotions and a beautiful, soul-wrenching song send me out into the night on an ill-advised walk. Which did nothing to clear my head seeing as I listened to the song that was wrenching my soul repeatedly while I did it.

In fact, I was deciding (dramatically, of course) from then on in, as we rounded the side alley to get to the back alley that led to my apartment, that I was listening to nothing but upbeat music for the rest of forever. I was so intent on deciding this that it didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t leading Chace to the alley where I lived.

He was leading me.

We’d turned into the back alley and got four steps in when we heard a crash.

Chace’s arm instantly jerked mine, pulling me back. He stepped forward and in front of me as he let go of my hand and his went to the gun at his hip.

But I saw, peering around him, a head pop up from the other side of the dumpster that was behind the Italian restaurant.

I knew that head.

“Holy frak!” I shouted. “That’s him!”

The boy from the library took off at my voice and I didn’t hesitate to take off after him.

“
Jesus, Faye!
” Chace roared from behind me but I kept right on going, arms pumping, feet sprinting.

I heard the beat of Chace’s boots then I saw him pass me and keep after the kid who darted around the corner of the side street. I watched Chace make the turn after him then I turned after them and saw Chace make another turn down Main Street.

I followed and saw Chace, well, chasing the kid down Main Street.

“You’re not in trouble!” I yelled. “We just want to help! It’s okay!” I kept yelling as the kid made a quick dash up a side street and disappeared, Chace still after him thus, seconds later, turning and disappearing too.

I made the dash as well and saw them racing up the side street.

Two blocks up, Chace was nearly on him when the kid put his hands to a fence, catapulted himself over and dashed through someone’s yard.

Chace didn’t delay in following him and disappearing into the yard.

Once I made it there, it took me four tries to get over that fence and I eventually had to heft my ass on it and swing my legs over. I had a feeling I tore the seat of my jeans when I did but I dropped to the other side and took off after them.

I lost them in the dark backyard, stopped and tried to listen over my labored breathing, hoping I’d hear a noise that told me which direction they’d gone.

I heard nothing.

I stayed there a long time.

I still heard nothing.

Frak!

It hit me I was in someone’s backyard after midnight and I shouldn’t be. It also hit me that Chace was chasing after some kid and not only had I lost him but he’d lost me. Therefore it hit me I had no idea what to do.

I gave it some time just in case Chace came back, hopefully with the kid so we could get him warm, fed (he was dumpster diving!) and talk to him but Chace didn’t come back.

So I quickly retraced our steps (avoiding the fence and belatedly noticing it opened at the drive and taking that route which I should have taken earlier). I went back jogging just in case Chace had the same thought as me and was headed the same way. I also did it scanning, hoping I’d catch sight of one, the other or better yet, both.

I didn’t.

What I did was go to the bottom of the stairs that led up to my apartment in the back alley, paced and waited.

I did this for about ten minutes. I had my iPod and my earphones detangled from my clothing and shoved in the back pocket of my jeans by the time I saw Chace round the corner of the side alley and prowl toward me.

Believe it or not, men could prowl. I knew this by the way he was doing it.

He was five feet away when he ordered low, angry and confusingly, “Ass up the stairs.”

“What?” I asked.

“Get your ass up the stairs, open your door, in your apartment.”

That seemed like a good idea since it would be warm up there so I turned, raced up the stairs, dug out my keys, yanked off my mittens and opened the door.

I went in and Chace followed me.

He also slammed my door.

I tossed my mittens across the room to a chair, turned to him and my first thought when I took him in fully was,
Uh-oh.

“You chased him again,” he remarked quietly.

“I, uh… didn’t think.”

“Kid’s terrified outta his mind and not only did you chase him, you shouted at him.”

I pressed my lips together.

“In the dark,” Chace went on.

I shrugged my shoulders up and kept them there.

“In an alley,” Chace continued.

I made no move or noise.

“In the cold,” Chace kept going.

I dropped my shoulders and unpressed my lips but slid the bottom one slightly to the side so I could bite the end.

“After midnight,” Chace (hopefully) finished.

“Uh…” I mumbled but had no idea what to say. All that was true and, looking back, seemed more than slightly ridiculous.

“Kid like that knows this town like the back of his hand. Kid like that, fear that huge, he’ll fight and scratch and die before anyone he doesn’t know lays a hand on him. Kid like that needs care and communication. He needs to feel safe. He does not need anyone chasing him and shouting at him. He won’t hear your words, just your tone. And he’ll know what chasing means and he’ll do everything in his power not to get caught.”