Undeniable (Always Book 3)

by Lexxie Couper

  By the time we made it to Chase’s Volvo, I was furious. I gently placed the dog on the ground on the other side of her car, in a miniscule strip of shade away from the madness of the freeway. I glared up at Chase. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  She blanched. The second she did, something cold punched a hole in my chest.

  “I was thinking,” she answered, her voice ripe with an emotion I couldn’t decipher, “I wanted to help you.”

  “You could have gotten yourself killed,” I yelled back, making sure to emphasize the words and movement of my lips.

  She narrowed her eyes and then signed at me, her movements sharp and jerky: You don’t have to fucking shout at me.

  “Fucking hell, Chase,” I snapped, my voice was getting louder by the syllable. “You make it hard to keep you safe. You weren’t even looking at the cars! What if you didn’t hear the horns? What if you didn’t hear that red car’s horn?”

  At the word hear she grew still. Her face shut down, devoid of emotion.

  That cold sensation punched at my chest again, joined by a sickening knot in my gut.

  “I don’t need to hear everything to understand what’s going on,” she snarled. “And clearly there are things I hear that are not really there. Like you getting me.”

  Fuck. I’d fucked up.

  “I don’t need your protection, O’Dae,” she went on. Pain warred with anger on her face. Pain and betrayal. “And I’m not your little girl to shelter from the world. I can take care of myself.”

  My breath left me in a whoosh. On the ground before me, the dog whined. “Chase,” I began, “I didn’t mean—”

  “You’re not my father,” she said, contempt now in her voice. “Nor are you my boyfriend. You don’t have the right to yell at me and treat me like an helpless baby.” She scrunched up her face and shook her head. “My God. How could I have been so—”

  The unmistakable sound of a police siren whooped into life behind the Volvo, drowning out the rest of her words. The dog whimpered, and writhed under my hands that were gently pressed to his ribcage.

  Chase winced, swinging her glare from me.

  Fuck, could I have fucked up any more? I turned my attention to the dog, my thoughts a wild mess. I needed to concentrate on the animal. I needed to make sure it he was okay.

  I needed to calm down.

  I was ruffled. No good came of being ruffled. None. I laughed at life. Didn’t take it seriously. That’s what I did.

  But shit, was I angry.

  It sounds weird, maybe even wrong, but I used the dog’s injuries as a means of meditation. Meditation is all about centering, and finding a peaceful calm within oneself. My cousin Brendon meditates daily. He sits on the beach at dawn, in the typical Buddha pose, and does nothing but focus on his breathing. He’s one of the most relaxed, positive people I know, regardless of the nightmare that might one day claim his son’s life.

  I meditate daily, but in a completely different way. I meditate via my interaction with animals. There’s nothing as harrowing in my future as Brendon’s, but I was beginning to discover my plan to make Chase acknowledge she was in love with me wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped.

  Especially as I had to open my stupid bloody mouth and shout – shout – at her. My mind was a hot mess.

  Crouching at the dog’s side, I tuned out Chase and focused on the muscles and bones and form of the animal. He was a big dog, a mixed breed. Doberman, definitely, mixed with maybe Great Dane and a bit of German Shepherd. His front right shoulder was shattered. Under his fur – short, smooth and healthy, although long overdue for a wash – the bone structure of his right shoulder was almost as big a mess as my head, and I estimated at least three broken rib bones, maybe four. He had internal injuries that needed to be tended to ASAP. Surgery might save his life. Might. If time was on our side.

  I drew a slow breath, noting the abrasions and wounds in his flesh. Moving my hand down to his rear leg, I gently moved it enough to ascertain the knee joint was dislocated.

  “It’s going to be okay, mate,” I murmured, returning the dog’s leg to a position I knew would be less painful. He whimpered as I tenderly ran my fingers over the injury, his limpid brown eyes watching me with a trust so implicit I could hardly breathe for a second.

  Animals do that to me: rock me to my core. I know almost everything there is to know about animals: their anatomy, their behavior, their psychology. I’ve studied them to a clinical level beyond what was expected in my degree. I’ve operated on them in my internship, reconstructed their insides, saved them from dying by car and cancer and carelessness. I’ve rehabilitated animals so callously mistreated by their owners I’ve contemplated taking the law into my own hands and showing them what it feels like to be kicked, starved, burned, tortured. I’ve made my life about animals, but they still surprise me with their trust.

  An animal will trust you when it knows it can. That simple. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mixed-breed dog like my friend on the road before me, or an elephant caught in a poacher’s trap in South Africa, or a tiger caged by a cruel circus owner, an animal will trust you when it knows you are trustworthy. It may be only for a fleeting second, before the opportunity to flee presents itself, but in that fleeting second, you make a connection with that animal that will change you on a level I’ve yet to find a word to describe.

  I wasn’t prepared for the sudden feel of a firm grip on my shoulder.

  “Sir, step away from the animal, please.”

  All the calm I’d found tending to the dog evaporated at the brusque tone of the police officer. The dog whimpered, twisting beneath my hands in an instinctive need to escape. I looked up straight into a pair of mirrored sunglasses, and saw myself and the dog in their reflection. Chase stood in my peripheral vision.

  “Are you aware that it’s illegal to obstruct the flow of traffic?” the cop asked, his grip on my shoulder loosening. Loosening. Not releasing.

  “Are you aware this dog would have died on the road if I hadn’t?” I answered. It wasn’t until later I accepted that antagonizing a California Highway Patrol Officer probably wasn’t a good idea. “If not from his injuries, than from having his internal organs crushed by the tires of another car running over him? Are you aware how painful it would be to have your intestines compressed like a balloon before rupturing in a spew of—”

  “Caden.”

  Chase’s admonishment stopped me before I could continue. Suffice to say, that was a good idea. By the look on the cop’s face, I was already in enough trouble to get me deported. Or imprisoned.

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  Still crouching beside the dog, I smoothed my hand over its neck. I needed to find my calm again. I’d destroyed any ground I’d made with Chase by shouting at her and being worried for her safety – something that clearly pissed her off – and now I was about to go ballistic on a cop more worried about traffic flow than an animal in pain. “Caden O’Dae,” I answered, hoping to hell my face didn’t show my impatience and irritation.

  “Where are you from, Mr. O’Dae?”

  Frustration flared through me. “Melbourne, Australia. Look, this dog needs urgent medical attention. Are you going to get it, or am I going to have to do it myself?”

  The cop’s grip on my shoulder released. Yay.

  He raised his hand to the mic attached to the front of his shirt and turned his head a little, mirrored lenses still trained on me. “Dispatch, this is Gibson. I’ve got a situation on southbound Highway 1 near Dana Point.”

  Not yay. So not yay.

  I shot Chase a quick look. She stood in the space between me and the cop, her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip, worry eating up her face. God, I hated seeing that. Hated it even more that I was responsible for it. I should have protected her better, regardless of what she’d said about not needing it. I should have made sure she was safe and out of any harm before running to the dog.

  I’d been foolish, and she’d almost paid the co
st.

  It’s going to be okay, I signed. I don’t know why I did. I could have said the words aloud, but at this point, I was not in a . . . let’s go with stable headspace. But if I’m arrested, can you bring me a cake with a jar of Vegemite baked into the middle, please?

  It took her a while to put together the letters I’d signed for Vegemite – there’s no American sign-language shortcut for the iconic Australian spread – but when she did, she did exactly as I hoped she would.

  She rolled her eyes and let out a snort that was so close to a laugh it made my heart thump faster.

  Dropping my attention to the dog, I stroked its neck gently. “It’s going to be okay, mate,” I reassured him. I wasn’t just talking about its injuries.

  “Okay, Mr. O’Dae?”

  I jerked my head up to discover the cop was now crouched opposite me, mirrored lenses gone. Compassion and concern filled his eyes.

  “What do we need to do?”

  I blinked at his question. Having already decided I was going to be arrested and thrown into a US prison, my mind was having difficulty dealing with this sudden shift.

  He smiled. “Thought you were being arrested?”

  I frowned.

  His smile turned to a grin. She told me, he signed, nodding his head toward Chase.

  A gust of air left me in what I hoped sounded like a laugh but was probably more a relieved gasp.

  “You sign?”

  “Deaf sister,” he answered. “It would come in handy when she’d bring boys home I didn’t like. I’d tell her exactly what I thought of them, and most of the time they were clueless about what I was saying.”

  “Know how that works,” I said, remembering Donald the Dude’s reaction to my signing to Chase in the airport terminal. I did not like that guy. Have I mentioned that yet? But I wasn’t going to let Chase see that. Better to not let her know I was ruffled.

  Rubbing at my face with one hand, I returned my attention to the dog and the police officer opposite me. “Okay, we need to get him to an emergency vet ASAP. Do you know of one?”

  The cop stroked the dog and frowned. “The closest is in Laguna Niguel, back toward LA. From here, it’s safest to keep going south, then get on the 5 North.”

  I nodded. “Let’s get him there, pronto. Do you mind if I sit in the back with him? That way I can monitor his breathing and heart rate. There’s not much more I can do in the car, but hopefully it’ll keep him less stressed at least.”

  “Do I mind?” The cop shook his head. “Hell no. I was going to ask you to. Your girl okay with meeting us there?”

  My girl.

  I lifted my gaze to Chase, a disquieting sense of anticipation unfurling through me at her reaction to the cop’s mistaken term. She stood watching us from the Volvo’s tailgate, too far away for her to hear his question, and not at the right angle to see his lips.

  “We have to get to a vet. Back toward LA,” I said, loud enough for my voice to travel to her over the busy freeway noise.

  She nodded. “Figured as much.”

  “You okay to follow us back? Meet me at the animal hospital?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t know if I like you that much.”

  The cop chuckled.

  My chest tightened. She did like me that much. I just had to make her admit it.

  Of course, almost getting her killed on the busy freeway and then shouting at her about her hearing probably wasn’t the best way to go about it.

  Oh man, things were not going the way I’d hoped.

  Fuck a bloody duck.

  Three

  “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”

  ~ Anatole France

  Chase

  Flashbacks can knock you off your feet.

  The second Caden had yelled at me on the side of the road back on the freeway, the second he’d shouted that I hadn’t heard the red car’s horn, I’d been flung back to the moment when my father had yanked me off my new bike – the bike I’d been so excited about receiving – and yelled at me on our driveway about almost being struck by a car.

  I was six.

  He’d shouted at me for so long that morning. I can still feel the heat in my cheeks, not just from the baking summer sun, but from my shame. My daddy was yelling at me. Outside. About being deaf and almost dying and making him need to run after me.

  I remember crying. I remember Mom coming out and yelling at Dad. I remember Amanda scooping me up and taking me inside as Dad continued to yell. I was too far away to hear the words clearly, to know what he was shouting at Mom, but by the way Amanda was shaking, they weren’t happy words. Or relieved words that his little girl hadn’t be struck by a car.

  They were angry words.

  Amanda had taken me to her room and hugged me on her bed. She’d done her best to make me smile. She’d wiped the tears streaming down my cheeks. She’d even wiped away my snot with the cuff of her shirt. I remember that so clearly.

  The tears had started to slow down by the time Dad entered her room.

  He’d stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, the light from outside reflecting in his glasses. I couldn’t see his eyes. But I could see his lips. His lips formed words like “dangerous” and “irresponsible”. His lips formed sentences like “Don’t you know you can’t be normal, Chastity?”

  I cried all over again. Sobs that tore at my heart and my tummy. Amanda held me and finally shouted at Dad to stop. Mom came in and dragged Dad out of the room.

  I remember being glad I couldn’t hear the fight continue out in the living room. I knew it had though. I could see it in Amanda’s eyes, in the way she flinched and hugged me tighter.

  The next day, when I went out into the garage, determined to show my father I could be a “responsible” girl, a “careful normal girl” my bike was gone. I never got it back. I’ve never ridden a bike since.

  That moment hit me hard when Caden yelled at me about not hearing the car. I was that little girl again, being yelled at about needing to be protected, about being “irresponsible”. Caden didn’t mean all those things, but it still hit me. Hurt me.

  It was a good thing Officer Gibson was so lovely. If he hadn’t been, who knows what would have happened between Caden and me on the side of the road. Who knows what I would have said.

  I’m not a believer in Fate, but some higher power had a hand in placing a highway patrol cop who could sign on the road that day. Whatever higher power that was, they/it saved me from doing something embarrassing in front of Caden: cry.

  To the best of my knowledge, only two people have seen me cry since I was that little girl. Brendon, when it looked like Tanner’s body was going to reject Caden’s bone marrow, and Mom, but I was only fourteen at the time, and it was over a boy who was so not worth it.

  On a side note, if you ever in your travels meet a guy called Crick Wallace, punch him for me, okay? He was the first boy to break my stupid heart. Promised to take me to the Homecoming dance and then was a complete no-show on the night. I sat on the bottom step of Mom and Dad’s house, dressed up fancier than I ever had in my young life, watching our road for any sign of his folks’ car. As it turns out, he went with Taisy Benington, the most popular girl in our year. The same girl who used to walk up to me at school and pretend to talk to me, all the while just mouthing the words without making a sound while her friends giggled behind her.

  Taisy was the reason for my first real trip to the Principal’s office. There are only so many times a girl who’s Hard of Hearing can watch someone poke fun at her before she decides to grab said someone by the exquisitely braided ponytail, yank her head down so her ear is level with her mouth, and shout “What? I can’t hear you!”

  I was angry that day in the school hallway. I was angrier now.

  That hot fury had simmered for the entire drive back to Laguna Niguel.

  I want to say I was angry at Caden, but it was more than that. I was angry at being that six-year-old little girl ag
ain.

  I was angry I’d allowed myself to be her again.

  I’d refused to be that little girl for sixteen years. I didn’t need to be protected. I could look after myself, damn it. I knew I had limitations and I worked with them. Hell, a person walking the street wearing earbuds stood a higher chance of getting themselves run over than I did. I wasn’t an idiot, I was hearing impaired. I knew how to be careful and how to keep myself safe. But I also knew how to live.

  In fact, when I got back to San Diego, I was going to buy a bike and ride it. Ride it. And after I finished riding it, I was going to find the busiest street around and run across it. Over and over. Screw it.

  Who was going to stop me? Caden? Huh. No. I wasn’t going to let him.

  It was a good thing he was in the car with Officer Gibson and the dog or I’d tell him that. And then tell him he was going to stand on the side of that busy road and watch me do it. And he wasn’t allowed to say a word.

  Yes, I was being childish, but what six-year-old isn’t?

  Pulling into the animal hospital parking lot, I sat behind the wheel, staring hard at the place. I felt churned up. Unsettled. I didn’t like being unsettled. I was detached and disinterested Chase Sinclair.

  I was also Chase Caden-Doesn’t-Mean-Anything-To-Me Sinclair. I needed to remember that.

  I’d just got myself settled and calm when my cell pinged and vibrated in my pocket.

  I flinched, my heart jumping into my throat.

  Pulling it free, I read the incoming message: I’m looking forward to tonight. D.

  My heart tried to hammer its way farther out my body. Donald. Damn it, why was he suddenly texting again? Nothing for three months and then BAM, he’s bumping into me at the airport and calling me babe and inviting me to his house . . .

  The thought he was jealous about Caden scraped at my unsettled mind, followed by an equally unsettled notion that I had no idea how I felt about it if he was.