Unforgettable (Always Book 2)

by Lexxie Couper

  I hopped on the first flight to the US.

  Almost three hours after touching down in the country and walking into Tanner’s hospital room, I met Chase. For a second I kind of forgot why I was there. She took my breath away.

  When she jumped up and snatched the sock puppet out of my hands, spraying it liberally with disinfectant before giving me permission to “give it to her nephew” I was gone. Just like that.

  Hook. Line. Sinker.

  All over, red rover.

  It wasn’t the electric-blue dreadlocks, the eyebrow piercing, the Iron Man T-shirt that did nothing to hide the fact she had a bloody awesome body that would look even more awesome wrapped around mine. All those things – and more – sank into my consciousness later.

  It was the protective way she guarded her nephew. The fiery, fierce instinct to look out for someone she loved. The unabashed accusation I was fucking things up and she was going to stop me from doing so.

  And before you say, Really? That’s why fell in love with her? remember the reason I was in the States to begin with: my cousin had called and told me he had a sick kid. I could hear how fucked up he was about that – and Brendon Osmond didn’t do fucked up – and I knew I had to go be there for him, regardless of cost or uni lectures or assignments due. He was family; I loved him, and he needed me, whether he said so or not.

  That was me. And I saw that part of me in Chase.

  That’s why I fell in love with her.

  I had a lot of contact with her during the next few months. I was in the States a lot, due to a bone marrow transfer that changed everyone’s world. But even if I didn’t need to keep coming back to San Diego for Tanner and Brendon, I couldn’t have stayed away.

  A little bit about me before I continue, just so you get an idea of who I am. It’s probably good that you get some backstory, because I’m pretty certain you’re going to want to hit me at some point in this tale and tell me to wake up to myself.

  I’m a fourth-year student at Melbourne University studying a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine, with the end goal of opening up my own clinic. As part of my degree, I’m currently working as an intern at Briny Phillips’ vet clinic. Briny Phillips is a celebrity vet with her own television show, and one of the best vets I’ve ever met. I’ve learned a lot from her, particularly how to deal with stressed pet owners. There’s an art to it, a fine line to walk. I haven’t always been able to walk that line, but I’m getting better at it, thanks to Briny.

  I’m an only child, but not a spoilt one. My parents are divorced, not because they grew to despise each other, but because they were grown-up enough to recognize they just weren’t compatible, and when I was twelve they did something about it.

  It was amicable. They didn’t rant and rave at each other. In fact, I never saw them get angry or slam doors and fight during the demise of their marriage. They were calm. Dad joked about it with a relaxed good nature I remember as a kid not understanding, but emulating.

  If my parents were shouting at each other, if they weren’t getting angry with each other, it meant I shouldn’t either.

  So as angry as I was – and I was angry – I joked. Laughed. Made fun at my own expense. Didn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers, including my own. When Dad left and never came back, I joked about the fact I needed to change my deodorant.

  Laughing at life proved to be an effective way to deal with whatever life threw at me, and I’ve lived that way every since. Getting ruffled, angry doesn’t achieve anything. I’ve had girlfriends in the past, hence being dumped for not taking things seriously, but none I’ve fallen in love with. Two had the audacity to tell me to get rid of my beard.

  I love my beard. Don’t ever, ever, ever tell me to shave off my beard.

  I play rugby union on weekends, despite the fact I’m built more like a tennis player.

  I plan to one day own a rescue mutt of indecipherable parentage and call him Puss-Cat, just to mess with people’s heads.

  Every uni break, I fly to San Diego. Originally, this had been to see my cousin, who is like a brother to me, and Tanner, to see how the champion kid was doing, to be a part of his life. Trust me, if you knew Tanner, you’d want to be a part of his life as well.

  That’s about it. At least, that’s all that really matters.

  Which brings us to Chase.

  Chase has never asked me to shave off my beard. What she has done is told me she doesn’t like it, told me to get the damn thing away from her, used it as a way of throwing me to the floor in a wrestling match that somehow got completely out of hand, spread honey through it while I was dozing after one particularly brutal red-eye flight from Melbourne, and once, during a midnight movie marathon while we were babysitting Tanner, combed her fingers through it, her breath warm on my lips as she studied my face, confusion warring with desire in her eyes.

  That was the night I realized Chase felt for me what I felt for her.

  It was also the night I fully accepted she was going to fight it harder than she’d fought anything in her life. And Chase Sinclair is, if nothing else, a stubborn pain in the butt when it comes to backing down.

  Chase holds the world at bay. At arm’s length. She’s had a lifetime of being treated differently because of her hearing, of being dismissed by people for being dumb or rude, of being cossetted by her father in a misguided attempt to protect her from whatever he thinks might bring her pain, and unfortunately, of being disconnected from normal life by something she has no control over. The first week after meeting her, I could see it bugged the hell out of her. I could also see she hid all her anger and dejection behind a wall of snark, unlike any I’d encountered.

  And there was something else. Something I couldn’t quite figure out. Like a secret in her eyes, that were filled with a pain darker than any I’d experienced.

  What I wanted to do more than anything else from that very first week, was to show her she didn’t need to be defensive with me. That I got her. That I would protect her from whatever crap the world threw at her.

  Not exactly an easy goal to achieve.

  The closest I’d ever come was during that midnight movie marathon in Brendon’s living room almost five months ago, as Simon Pegg dealt with his zombie stepfather Bill Nighy on screen.

  I caught her laughing, really laughing. Before I could stop myself, I flicked her ear so she’d look at me, see my lips, and told her she had an awesome laugh.

  She studied me, silent, and then brushed her fingers through my beard, drawing closer to me, so close my heart tried to smash its way out of my chest via my throat, and . . .

  That’s when Tanner toddled out to us, in perfect three-year-old interception, and asked for a drink of water.

  I’ve never seen a person move so fast as I saw Chase move that night. Up off the sofa and across to the door where her nephew stood, rubbing his eyes, his Transformer PJs as crumpled as his crazy blond Mohawk was messy. She scooped him up, snuggled him against her chest and told him she would get him a drink.

  A quick glance over her shoulder told me she was unsettled. I didn’t realize how unsettled until she didn’t come back from Tanner’s room after putting him back to bed. I found her there thirty minutes later, asleep beside him, a frown on her face.

  She didn’t talk to me the next morning. She kissed her sister on the cheek, muttered something about not being hungry and left before anyone could say a word.

  Brendon had looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “What did you do?”

  True to form, I answered him honestly. “Made her acknowledge she has a thing for me.”

  That was my reason for this trip to San Diego. To make Chase acknowledge she liked me, and that we’d be good together.

  Actually, it was more than just making her acknowledge she had a thing for me, as undeniable as I had for her. I was here to help her see that she didn’t have to face the world alone. That I was more than happy to face it with her. That I was willing. And able. And ready.

  So when I entered the
Arrivals hall of LAX, duffle bag slung over my shoulder, tired and dry-eyed from my thirteen hour flight but full of the upbeat optimism my family is known for, my heart thumping fast as it always did when I knew I was about to see her, and found a man cupping her face with his palm, a man standing so close to her I could barely make out any light or space between their hips, I kinda felt it in my gut.

  Actually, kinda is an understatement.

  I felt it alright.

  Hard.

  A visceral reaction to the sight of Chase interacting with a man clearly older than her, in a way that was clearly beyond platonic.

  I stumbled to a halt, my grip on my bag’s strap loosening. My fingers didn’t seem to have any strength in them. Neither did my legs to move forward. It was taking all my brainpower to process what I was seeing, even as my brain fiercely rebelled against it. A few of my fellow arriving passengers bumped into me, my abrupt stop taking them by surprise as they hurried toward their waiting loved ones.

  I didn’t mumble out an apology as they flicked me exasperated looks. All I could do was stand motionless and watch as Chase looked up at the older dude mauling her mouth with his thumb.

  Alright, mauling might be a slight exaggeration, but fuck a duck, was he ever going to move his thumb away from her bottom lip? Was she ever going to make him?

  I narrowed my eyes, watching them through the crowd. My fingers had found their strength again, now curling around the strap of my duffle bag with almost painful force. My pulse smashed in my throat and my ears, a pounding thud-thud thud-thud that drowned out the noise of LAX.

  The dude lowered his head closer to Chase’s. I couldn’t miss how perfectly combed his dark hair was, nor how chiseled his jaw. His clean-shaven jaw. His chiseled, clean-shaven jaw with its square lines and cleft chin. Not a hint of a beard on that chin and jaw.

  I didn’t miss the sprinkling of gray at his temples, nor the impressive width of his shoulders. Nor the clothes so artfully bohemian they must have cost more than my semester uni fees.

  I saw his lips move as they drew closer to Chase’s. I saw him say something but couldn’t make out what. I saw him lower his hand from the side of her face, down the smooth column of her throat, until he was trailing his fingertip down her chest to the beginning of her cleavage.

  My pulse turned to a cannon in my head.

  And then I saw Chase flinch. A little. Barely noticeable, but as you may have figured out by now, when it came to Chase Sinclair, I was almost an expert.

  She flinched, the slightest of frowns pulling at her straight eyebrows. The tiniest of frowns making the piercing in her right eyebrow dip.

  She flinched and turned her head a fraction to the side.

  I moved. Not a run, but a purposeful stride. She wasn’t happy about the situation, and I was going to bring it to an end.

  I’m all about being protective. Brendon reckons that’s why I decided to become a vet: to protect those that need it most. I think it was because animals don’t complain like people do, but hey, maybe he’s got a point?

  Grin in place, I reached Chase’s side just as Mr. Dude was about to do something to her ear with his lips.

  Without hesitation – or contemplation, when it came down to it – I slid my hand over the small of Chase’s back, dumped my duffle bag at my feet and let out a very loud, very exhausted sigh. “Christ, that was a long flight,” I said, louder than even Chase needed me to be.

  Loud enough Mr. Dude and his trendy clothes straightened away from her with a startled hiss, jerking his hand from her throat with the same abrupt speed.

  Chase swung her stare at me and locked on my face. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. “Caden?”

  God, I loved the way she said my name. Even stunned, she made it sound like a promise of something she still refused to admit.

  I smoothed my hand from her back, and with a quick glance at Mr. Dude – a glance that said I have no idea who you are but I’m already bored by you – signed Hello gorgeous. God, I’ve missed you to Chase.

  Her eyes widened until she was gaping at me. She’d achieved maximum gape and she still looked amazing.

  Gorgeous. She truly was gorgeous. I don’t know when she’d cut off her dreadlocks, but her new pixie-short hair only made her more so.

  I like the new hair, I signed. It looks good on you.

  She studied me, her expression unreadable. And then she lifted her hands in front of her chest. You learned to sign?

  “Chase?”

  At Mr. Dude’s confused utterance, both Chase and I swung to face him, me with a wide smile stretching my lips.

  “Donald,” she said, that distinct inflection in her voice unique to people who’d grown up without the luxury of complete hearing. “This is—”

  “What did he say to you?”

  I couldn’t help but smile wider at the agitation in Mr. Dude’s voice. He couldn’t sign. Which meant no matter what he thought he felt for Chase, he wasn’t legit. He might think he was, but he wasn’t.

  Nor could I help but feel a warm buzz of delight at the fact Chase didn’t move away from me when she turned to him, but instead touched my chest with her hand and drew closer to my body.

  Mr. Dude puffed himself up as much as he could. He was as tall as me, and to be honest, probably a little more built. He slid his gaze over me, down to the thongs on my feet – Hey, I’m an Aussie on a long-haul international flight, what else would I be wearing on my feet? – and back up to my face.

  “G’day.” I stuck out my right hand. “I’m Caden. Just flew in from Australia.”

  His eyes slitted. He looked at my hand, and then back at Chase, touching her cheek with the tip of his index finger. To say I wanted to smack his hand away was an understatement. I bit the inside of my mouth instead, refusing to be ruffled.

  “I’ll call you later, babe,” he said, the last word louder than all the others.

  My gut clenched. Babe?

  Chase nodded, a strange little up-and-down of her head I’d never seen her make before. “Okay,” she said, the single word almost a mumble.

  With that, Donald the Dude gave me an oily smirk, ran another inspection over me – this one very clearly designed to make me feel insignificant – and then pivoted on his heel and took off through the thinning crowd.

  I watched him walk away, my heart thumping a crazy beat in my throat. Of course he’d be one of those guys that didn’t wear socks. I was surprised he didn’t whip out a Trilby and plonk it on his head before draping a cashmere scarf around his neck.

  You know what else would have looked good around his neck? My—

  “When did you learn to sign?”

  At Chase’s question, I turned a relaxed smile on her. Relaxed. Not Ruffled. “On the flight over.”

  She rolled her eyes, stepping away from me a little. I wanted to snag her wrist and bring her back to my side. In fact, I didn’t just want to do that, the craving to do it was almost painful, a fierce tugging on something deep in my body. My soul? Was that possible?

  “You still think you’re funny, I see?”

  I preened. “Hell yeah.”

  She opened her mouth, an acerbic gleam in her eyes, but closed it again when I held up my finger and shook my head.

  Hell. Yeah. I signed, finishing with a flourish of my wrist my signing teacher had called a “quirky accent”.

  Chase pulled a face, closed her fingers around my wrists and held my hands still, her stare fixed on my face. “Why?”

  “Why did I learn to sign?”

  She nodded.

  I grinned. “So I could scare off creeps in international airports.”

  I’d intended the smart-arsed remark to make her chuckle. Instead, the slight smile on her lips faded. She dropped my hands and stepped back from me. “Come on,” she said, her eyes sliding away from my face. “Let’s get going.”

  As she turned I stopped her with a gentle grip on her wrist. This was seriously overstepping our unspoken interaction rules. As much a
s I hungered to hold her, touch her – and hungered isn’t hyperbole, trust me – the only time Chase and I touched without her initiating it was the night I flicked her ear during Shaun of the Dead.

  But I couldn’t help myself. Not now. I’d just flown halfway around the world on the pretense of seeing Brendon and his family when what I was really here for was to make Chase see what I already knew – that she liked me. Like, liked me liked me – and the guarded sadness on her face before she’d turned away ripped at my heart.

  She held my gaze now for a heartbeat before she let out a ragged sigh. “You can let go of me any time you like,” she said. “And I don’t need you to protect me against creeps in international airports. Or against anything else, for that matter.”

  I shook my head. “Not until you tell me who Donald the Dude is.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. She let out a wry snort – almost but not quite a laugh.

  “Well?” I asked.

  Until that point I can honestly say jealousy wasn’t something I felt often. In fact, I think the last time I was jealous about something was when my best friend at uni managed to drop the last can of Red Bull in the dispensing machine when we were both pulling a pre-exam all-nighter. Man, I’d really needed that hit of extra-leaded caffeine.

  What was twisting and threading through me right now though left that feeling for dead. Cold and hot and tight all at once, it filled me with a dark sensation I didn’t like at all.

  Chase studied my face, her gaze searching my eyes. I didn’t move. Nor did I drop her wrist.

  “Chase,” I finally said, “you know why I’m really here. You do. And you know it has nothing to do with Brendon and Amanda and Tanner. So you’ve gotta tell me, who’s Donald the Dude?”

  A shaky breath left her and, with an expression the very definition of ambiguous, she looked away. “Donald is – was – my Art History professor at college.”

  My gut clenched. I knew where this was going and I liked it even less than the unexpected jealousy snaking through me. He was a snake. I could see that after barely a minute in his company. How could she even give him the time of day? Why?