LITMIR.BIZ

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just hadn’t given off those vibes.

      Hope turned away, looking angry and upset and uncomfortable. “That,” she said flatly, offended by his presumption, “is none of your business, Chase.”

      Chase supposed she was right about that, too. Nonetheless, her evasion made him all the more certain. Even though Hope clearly had loved his father and had made Edmond very happy, she hadn’t loved him in the beginning. Not the way a new bride was supposed to love her husband. And that he couldn’t condone. Marriage should be more than a business deal or convenient arrangement. Especially for nineteen-year-old girls, even pregnant ones.

      Hope ran a hand through her hair, looking even more distressed. She took a drink of her cola. Her back to him, she took a lengthy swallow. “We shouldn’t be talking about this, Chase,” she continued in a voice that was thick with suppressed emotion. “You obviously resent me and—”

      “Can you blame me?” Chase countered incredulously. She was acting like it was all his fault, and it wasn’t. “You broke up my parents’ marriage, Hope.” And not because she hadn’t been able to keep her hands off his father, either, but because she had clearly wanted all this and to inherit the store someday.

      “You’re wrong about that. I never—and I repeat never—came between them!”

      His own temper flaring dangerously, he stalked closer. If he got nothing else out of this, he wanted the truth. “Then tell me how it happened,” he continued gruffly. “How you started working for Barrister’s and six months later my parents’ marriage is in a shambles, my father’s insisting on a quicky divorce and an even quicker settlement so he can go off and marry you in some tacky Las Vegas chapel. Six months after that you present him with a son.”

      Hope turned white, then red, then white again, but as Chase had expected, she said nothing to defend herself. Chase continued, “Yes, I’ve resented you all these years. Just as my mother has resented you. But for the sake of everyone, including Joey, I’m trying to do the decent thing now and get past it. Move forward. I know it’s what my father would have wanted.” And although Chase had let Edmond down in the past, many times, he wasn’t going to do so now.

      And for his father’s sake he had to fight his deep attraction to Hope. God knew he didn’t want it, hadn’t planned for it, but there it was. He wanted his father’s wife in a distinctly man-woman way. And though he felt guilty as hell about it, his feelings weren’t going to magically go away. His only choice was to try to work through them, to get to know Hope and perhaps demystify her and diffuse his desire in the process.

      He faced Hope earnestly, trying hard not to notice the tears sparkling in her eyes, or think about what an uphill battle this was bound to be. “The least you could do is help me out here.”

      Her chin took on a stubborn tilt. “I don’t want your charity or your sense of obligation, not with the store or with Joey,” she specified flatly.

      Chase sighed heavily. His motivations were as pure and chivalrous as he could make them right now, but she was within her rights to resent his presence. Just trying to talk to each other with anything resembling intimacy put them both on edge. If she had anyone else to turn to for help—but she didn’t. That meant he had to forge ahead and do his best to be “family” to her now. He hoped like hell that in the long run everything would turn out for the best.

      “About Joey,” Chase continued doggedly, ignoring her stormy glare. “I know he has asthma. I know he is small for his age. But he’s scrappy and smart and he needs to lead the most normal life possible if you don’t want him to become a sissy or an invalid. That includes playing Little League and learning to fight his own battles. You can’t call the coach and complain every time he has a disagreement with another child.”

      Her shoulders took on a stiff, unwieldy look. “I don’t.”

      “But you want to,” he supposed confidently.

      Fighting a guilty flush, she said, “Look, I want Joey to be a man every bit as much as you and Edmond did, but I draw the line at endangering his health.” She held up a hand, stop-sign fashion, staving off the refuting comment Chase was about to make. “Because I know how much this means to Joey, however, I’ve already decided I’ll let him continue to play ball, providing he doesn’t get beat up again. If he does, all promises are off.”

      Chase was glad to see she was being reasonable. “If he gets slugged again,” Chase vowed, “I’ll go talk to the coach myself.” An occasional scuffle was to be expected. Habitual brawling was not.

      Hope nodded acquiescently, looking grateful for his help now. Like Chase, she seemed to know there were times when Joey missed his father and needed a man. “Fair enough,” she conceded reluctantly, accepting his subtle offer of truce.

      The silence strung out between them. Chase regarded her flushed, upturned face silently. Strangely and unexpectedly, he was reluctant to leave just yet. Looking at her in the dimming light, he was aware once again of how beautiful she was, how vulnerable. While he admired her boundless love for her son and her strength of purpose in managing the store, he did not like the fact that she always seemed to withhold much, much more than she ever said. He never knew what she was thinking. Only that he was excluded.

      Because he had no reason to linger, Chase said a neutral goodbye and headed back to the guest house. Walking across the lawn, he thought about how much he liked women who dealt directly, who weren’t afraid to speak their minds. Hope’s secretiveness simultaneously disappointed him and made him all the more curious. Was she really the deceiving home wrecker Rosemary claimed? Or the loving angel his father had depicted? Her actions regarding her son seemed to point to the latter, but if that were the case and she indeed had nothing to hide about her relationship with Edmond, then why was she so afraid of divulging more about herself? Was she like his ex-fiancé, Lucy, just incapable of disclosing intimate details about herself? Or was it something else?

      Dammit, he thought on a new burst of frustration and pique. Why wouldn’t Hope just tell him how, why, when and where she and his dad had gotten involved? Instead, she simply stated over and over that she had loved Edmond. Did she think him hard-hearted and judgmental? Or was there more going on?

      Having been around Hope, Chase’s heart was telling him to ignore his mother’s strident accusations against her, to ignore the facts, and trust in Hope’s inherent goodness exactly the way his father had. He didn’t know whether that made him a fool, but one way or another he was going to find out the whole truth before he left again. It was the only way he’d ever have any peace.

      If Hope wouldn’t voluntarily vindicate herself in his eyes, he’d just have to do it for her.

      HOURS LATER, Hope stood at her bedroom window looking down at the pool. Chase was swimming laps as intensely as if he were training for the next Olympics. Watching his sturdy body slice through the glistening blue water, she thought she knew precisely how he felt. Their “little talk” about Joey and her marriage had her still strung up tighter than a bow. Had he not been down there swimming off his tension in the pool, she would’ve been. Going into the adjoining sitting room, she climbed purposefully onto her exercise bike and began to work out. And once again, her thoughts turned back to Chase.

      They’d never meant to say even half of what they had. Considering how many years and at what cost they’d been steadfastly avoiding each other, it wasn’t surprising that they had finally spoken their minds.

      Like almost everyone else in Houston, Chase considered her a gold digger because she’d married a wealthy man twice her age. Unfortunately, no matter how much it grated on her nerves, it was an erroneous assumption she was going to have to let stand. To tell him the truth about her and his father’s desperate personal situations at the time of their marriage was unthinkable. She had promised Edmond that no one would ever know the shame and humiliation he had suffered. And that was a promise she was determined to keep for herself and her son, as well as for her late husband. Joey had been devastated by his father’s death. He couldn’t be expected to weather a scandal as well.

      She pedaled harder,

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