by Raine, Meli
Bill’s eyes narrow. He looks at me. Looks at Chase. Looks back at me. Looks at my arm, then my face.
“Allie,” he asks slowly, “did this guy do that to you?” He points to my burn and to the scars on my face.
Now all the regulars are breathing hard again, and Rita looks like she wants to murder Chase.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Do what?” I ask, confused for a second.
“The burn. The scars,” Joe says, eyes filling with a red rage. He wants to have a reason to hit Chase again. “Did he hit you? Guy with a temper like that could do a lot of damage to a sweet girl.” The group of men in the room make a low, rumbling sound. It’s the sound of justice.
“I would never hurt her,” Chase insists.
That’s not exactly true, but right now, with a restaurant full of guys who could literally beat Chase to a pulp and who are looking for any excuse to do it, I need to answer very, very carefully.
“No. He didn’t do any of this to me. In fact, he’s the person who saved me. I...” My eyes fill with tears and I dip my head.
The tension in the room cuts by a lot.
I sniff. “I...Ch—Tim made it so this wasn’t worse. He rescued me,” I say, catching Chase’s eye.
He’s breathing hard, half the buttons of his fancy shirt popped off, and he has a big coffee stain down the right side of his chest. His eye is red and swelling, and his jaw matches, too. He’s not afraid of any of them. His eyes are blazing and aimed straight at me. He’s fighting for me. Protecting me.
When he smiles there’s blood in his teeth.
I’m breathing hard, too, and I can’t stop. The push of air through my nostrils feels like I’m breathing through stone. My burned skin feels tight and aching. The nerves tingle. Someone walks in the cafe’s front door and takes one look at the overturned chairs, the one table on its side, the splashed coffee on the floor. Do they see the blood on the plates on the counter?
They turn around and leave.
“Allie?” Tito says, his voice carrying a hint of accent from his home country. “Is he really your boyfriend? Just defending you from big mouth Joe?”
Joe looks like he wants to head butt Tito. He opens his mouth to argue, but Rita whaps him on his shoulder with the spatula.
“Yes,” I say. It’s the easiest answer.
The truth is way more complex.
“Then get the man a 2-2-2 and some coffee,” Rita bellows. “And you! All of you!” She points to the men. “Clean this shit up!”
Remarkably, they do.
“And you!” Tito says, coming over to me and putting his arm around my waist. He looks at Chase and says, “You don’t get to hit me for doing this. I’m old enough to be her grandfather.”
I give him a kiss on the cheek. He’s a sweet old man. Chase wipes his mouth with a napkin and winces as he cleans up. He’s sweating and red, still so angry, but he gets Tito’s meaning.
We’re protective of Allie around here. You gotta prove yourself.
I haven’t worked at the Sunrise Cafe for very long. It feels like home already. Having Chase be here—be alive at all—makes my life complete.
He gives me a long, slow look. It says so much. His eyes blaze with passion, then apology. The way his cheeks move up in a look of earnest appreciation makes me warm inside. When he closes his eyes and swallows, I feel his pain and anguish. And when he smiles a half-smile at me and tilts his head, he’s asking me to accept him.
To welcome him back.
To be with him again.
Tito gives me a squeeze. Rita looks at him, then me. Something passes between the two of them. When you’ve been married as long as they have, I think you don’t need words anymore.
“You go with Tim,” Tito tells me.
Who’s Tim? I wonder for a second, and then realize he means Chase.
“I can’t keep ditching my shifts,” I argue.
Tito is already untying my apron from my neck and waist. “Too bad. You go. Boss’s orders. Just come back for the lunch rush.” He pats my cheek gently and bundles up the apron in his hands. Then he turns and shouts a bunch of stuff to Rita in rapid-fire Italian. She says something back and they start to argue.
Maybe you still do need words, after all.
Bill looks at me with his eyebrows high. His hand is on the back of his counter stool. “You sure you’re okay?” He gives Chase a look like he will take any legitimate opportunity to intervene, no matter how flimsy.
“I’m fine,” I reassure him.
Chase touches my hand gently and says, “I’ll wait outside.”
“No. I’m ready,” I say, and walk out with him. We don’t touch.
As we walk through the door, Chase says very quietly, “Just follow me outside and into the park, near the building where the water fountains are. We don’t want an audience.”
“Right,” I say. “It’s not like we want to make a scene or anything.”
He suppresses a smile but doesn’t speak anymore as we walk around the corner and out of sight of the cafe. The smell of hash browns and bacon lingers on my clothes. The salty ocean air quickly replaces it as we walk further away.
I feel like Chase wants to hold my hand. I look at him through covert glances. He’s a complete mess. Blood and coffee stain his shirt. Most of the buttons are gone. He starts pulling off the business shirt and I see he has a tight, white t-shirt under it. As he strips down his biceps bulge, gleaming with sweat, the muscles corded like rope.
My own anger gets a chance to surface as we walk. I pick up the pace. “You hot-headed, stubborn, foolish, impulsive—”
Chase grabs my arm and pulls me next to the water fountains, pressing my back against the brick wall. Suddenly, he’s kissing me, hands in my hair and lips tasting mine. This isn’t a gentle kiss of hello. It’s frantic and fevered. He’s crushing me. His hips grind into my belly and his tongue plunders, touching and stroking my teeth. He bites my lip and I moan, pushing right back, my own hands touching every part of him.
I’m used to feeling his leather jacket, the soft faded denim of his jeans, and looking at his sandy blonde waves. He doesn’t smell like dirt and wind, but like cologne, a clean scent that makes me want to ask a thousand questions. But only after he kisses me a thousand times.
I feel like I have to catalog every inch of him to make sure he’s really real.
We’re panting as we kiss, the heat we generate making us sweat. He tastes like coffee and mint, like salvation and redemption.
Like second chances.
“Where in the hell have you been?” I hiss through gritted teeth, hitting his chest. I hit him again, then again, and soon I’m a flurry of palms and wrists, of slaps and tears. Why am I hitting him?
But I can’t stop.
“Oh, Allie. Oh, God, just hit me. Go ahead. I deserve it. Do whatever you want to me, baby. Just don’t stop looking at me or touching me. I can’t ever go on without being able to look at your beauty. I just can’t. I know you hate me. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to do it all the way it went down, but it meant you lived. It meant that fucking piece of shit El Brujo never got his hands on you.” Chase’s words come out with so much emotion that I stop hitting him. My ears need to listen. My body feels everything he feels.
And my heart just waits.
Waits for whatever it needs to believe.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“How could you do that, Chase?” I snap, stepping back.
“I never wanted to bring you to El Brujo. I already told you—”
“Not that! I mean just...dying! You’re not allowed to die! I’ll kill you if you pull another crazy stunt like that!” I scream. My eyes can’t stop taking him in. He looks so familiar, yet different. His hair is so short and dark. He’s a little too clean cut. He looks like he’s pretending to be someone else.
He is.
“And why are you suddenly calling yourself Tim?”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Can I start answering
some of these questions?” he asks in a calm voice, then reaches for my hand. He catalogues the burned, waxy skin. I flinch and pull back, cradling my hand.
“Don’t,” I beg.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me. It’s...ugly.” I reach up and pull my hair down over the healing marks along my hairline. Suddenly, I’m absolutely self conscious. It’s like I’m naked again. And not in a good way.
His eyes harden and his nostrils flare. “You’re never, ever ugly. Nothing on you is ugly. Do you hear me, Allie?” His voice is ragged with feeling. “Nothing those bastards did to you could ever make you anything but gorgeous.”
I blink hard, over and over, trying to let his words get past my giant walls. Nope. I’m too closed off. I can’t believe him. I’m still trying to get past believing he’s alive.
How can I believe I’m beautiful, too?
I give a half smile. “Thanks.”
He reaches for my face with both his hands, cupping my jaw. Our eyes are inches apart, just close enough to only be able to look into those swirling circles of color. Chase has so much emotion in his eyes. It’s all directed at me.
“I thought you were going to die, Allie. Because of me.”
“Die because of you? I lived because of you, Chase.” I put my hands on his chest just to feel his heart beating.
He shakes his head. “When Frenchie told me him and my dad were going to get you, I had to leave you in bed here in L.A.” He frowns. “You know how fucking hard that was?”
I just shrug. Tears fill my eyes. I can’t look away, though.
“I knew, by the time I got back, that I had no choice. It was help them bring you to the compound for that sick piece of shit El Brujo and then try to break you out, or...Dad would have me taken care of and then there’d be no one to protect you,” he explains.
“I know. You told me,” I whisper, twisting away from his touch. The thought of El Brujo makes my body go cold. A flash of memory explodes in my brain, like a bomb going off. I’m naked. The ropes dig into my wrists. A spray of hard water like icicles.
“Allie, are you—”
I interrupt him as he reaches for me. “Don’t touch me.”
Chase flinches and inhales sharply. “Okay,” he says quickly, eyes wide. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry. I—”
“No. it’s not that.” I start to shake. “It’s...El Brujo. I’m remembering. I don’t like to remember.”
His shoulders sag and he closes his eyes, inhaling deeply. Then he tenses and his elbow shoots back. He punches the brick wall hard, twice. When he stops, his knuckles are bleeding.
“God damn it, I’m so sorry.” He looks at me with wounded eyes. Apologetic eyes. Eyes that beg me to forgive him.
The words are stuck in my throat. I can’t just let them out.
We’re close enough to the ocean that I can hear seagulls in the distance. A jet ski. Some kids squealing as the surf comes in. The sky is sunny like it always is in L.A. A breeze blows some of my hair across his hands.
My silence unnerves him. My skin is settling down, the haunting images of my captivity floating away, like clouds on a breeze.
“I need to explain, though. All of it,” he says with an urgency I understand. He needs me to know so I can forgive him. That’s what Chase wants.
This isn’t an explanation.
It’s an atonement.
“I want to know,” I tell him. “Start with your brother. Mark.”
He smiles and turns to the water fountain. He runs the cold water over the torn skin at his knuckles. “Yeah. Mark. Boy, that’s a long story.”
“I’ve got until lunch rush. Tito says so,” I say.
He shakes the excess water off his hand and gives me a searching look. “Right. I’ll get started now, then. Mark’s my brother. Half brother.”
“I figured.”
We start to walk, slowly. Our left legs step together. Then the right. We’re not touching, but we get into the same rhythm.
“When I knew what Frenchie and Dad were doing, I got in touch with Mark. You know we have different moms but the same dad. When my mom was alive, she made sure I got to know my brother. He’s eight years older than me. I always looked up to him,” Chase says.
“But he’s a DEA agent and your dad is a major drug dealer,” I say slowly.
Chase laughs and says, “It kinda makes family holidays a little tense.”
I burst out laughing in spite of myself.
“Not that me and Mark spent any holidays together after my mom was killed,” Chase adds, his smile disappearing. “Dad went nuts after that. Completely nuts. Mark was in Afghanistan on a tour. He was a Marine. I didn’t know much about him because Dad dropped all contact with him. I was a teenager, you know? I didn’t have any idea how to keep a relationship going.”
“That really sucks,” I say, trying to be sympathetic.
“Yeah.” Chase sucks on the ragged skin on the back of his hand. “It turns out Mark came back and tried to find me. When he figured out what our dad really was, it was too late. He was already in the training program for the DEA and that’s all I know. He wouldn’t say any more about his life when I got to him. Won’t even tell me what town he’s in.”
“How’d you find him, then?” I ask.
He grins. “Facebook.”
“Geez.” We share a chuckle.
“It turns out he’s been trying to catch El Brujo for a long time. No luck so far. When he found out El Brujo had you he came for two reasons. I didn’t ask him which was more important,” Chase says, giving me a long look. “But he sure did jump at the chance to come and rescue you.”
“Did Mark succeed?”
“He got you out. I’d say he succeeded,” Chase says with a perplexed look on his face.
“No, I mean—did they nab El Brujo?” I gasp, suddenly thinking of it. “And what about Galt! My God, did Mark have to arrest his own father?”
Chase shakes his head. “Atlas was cleaned out by the time Mark could get anyone there. We had a deal. Getting you out alive came before doing any DEA raids.”
“So he failed at his job. He didn’t get El Brujo,” I whisper.
Chase stops. I halt, too. His hand reaches out as if to touch me, but he hesitates. He’s trying to respect me. I can tell.
“Allie, there is no way in hell Mark failed. He got you out. That’s the greatest triumph any man could have, and I’m in his debt for the rest of my life. For you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chase’s words ripple through me. I run my hand through my hair to brush it out of my face and feel the remnants of my wounds. It’s been more than two months but the skin is still a little scarred. Off color. I’ll never heal all the way, even from my bike accident.
And especially not from my injuries at the Atlas compound.
The ones on the inside as well as on the outside.
“Thank you,” I tell him. I can’t put all the emotion into just two words.
“Thank you,” he says back. “For just letting me find you.” He takes a step toward me but stops himself. I want him to touch me but I’m afraid. Afraid that if he does, all I’ll feel is rope and hard wood and ice water and—
Terror.
“You didn’t need my permission to find me, Chase.” I smile as I say it.
His eyebrows lift. He squints a little in the bright sun, and he takes a deep breath. So much tension in that tall, strong body. So many words I know he wants to say.
So many touches he’s desperate to give me.
But I just can’t.
“I do need permission to keep you, though,” he says softly, so slowly, like he’s confessing to something authentic and raw.
My breath hitches. Keep me? What does he mean?
“I’m here for now. Mark says it’s okay, but I can’t follow you home. We can’t spend a lot of time together in case they come looking for me,” Chase says quickly.
“Whoa, whoa. Hold on there. What
does Mark have to do with anything?” I ask. My heart is still dancing in my chest. Chase wants to be with me? He truly wants to try again?
Or is this just all a lie and he’s been sent to take me back to El Brujo?
Chase looks out at the ocean and reaches for my hand. “Can we walk down to the water and talk?” he suggests.
I hesitate. If I touch him again, what will my body and mind trigger?
“You don’t have to hold my hand,” he says sadly, stuffing it in his front pocket. “I get it.”
I reach for his arm. He stops and gives me a hopeful look. “It’s not—I want—oh, damn,” I say with a sigh. “It’s just, when you kissed me back there, I flashed back to everything that happened. It was like I was tied up again, naked, and—”
Savage emotion explodes in his eyes. “Allie, I’m so sorry. Fuck. I didn’t even think about that. I—” This time, he pulls away from my touch. “God, I’ve really screwed everything up, haven’t I?”
He sits at the base of a giant palm tree and puts his head between his knees, hands at the nape of his neck. I see the scraped knuckles, how tense his shoulders are, and I want to tell him it’s fine. It will be okay.
I can’t.
Because I don’t know if everything will ever be fine.
I kneel down in front of him and reach out with a shaking hand. Gently, I touch his forehead. He doesn’t look up. My fingers feel the ridged forehead, the skin folded with stress. Then I stroke down his cheekbone, to his freshly-shaved cheek. He smells like shaving cream and cologne.
My hand continues. He stays motionless, still not looking at me. His breathing is steady, and he’s in no rush. He’s staying put. He’s just there. I have permission to touch him.
He won’t touch back.
Chase is telling me that I can do what I want. That I am in control.
I need this.
His arms are hard heat in muscle form under his thin t-shirt. He’s tied his bloody business shirt around his waist, and it bunches at his hips. My fingers trace the curves his taut tendons make. The relief map of his bulging veins around his forearms. How the veins thread down to the backs of his hands, which are scarred and tanned.
