by Ava Miles
His body slumped in the scooter as it all washed over him. He was tired, more tired than he’d ever felt. It was like he’d been walking in the desert for a hundred days. “There’s never enough time,” he heard himself say.
“I know,” she said. “Let’s lift all that responsibility off you. No more burdens. No more hard work. You don’t have to carry it all anymore. It’s time to let go.”
Evan came to mind, not the Evan of now, but the nerdy, overgrown kid he’d been. The one who’d wanted to change the world with his inventions.
“You love the man you work with like a brother,” she said. “The scientist? But you don’t want to let him down. You feel your destiny is entwined with his, but you don’t have to entangle yourselves. You can both do what you want to do from a place of pure freedom.”
Another image surfaced in his head. Evan giving his speech about Artemis at the podium at Emmits Merriam.
“It’s time to let him go, Chase,” Ally said. “He doesn’t have to be your responsibility. You don’t have to take care of him anymore.” Then she stopped herself. “Oh, I see. He’s your family. You don’t want to lose him.”
A pain shot through his chest, and he gasped in response.
“Oh, honey,” she said in a gentle tone. “I’m so sorry for everything you lost. Your beautiful home. Goodness, it looks so much like this one, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for the boy you were.”
How did she know he’d lost his home? How did she know any of this? Bonnie hadn’t said she was psychic too. The first tingling of fear raced down his spine, and the relaxation started to dissipate like smoke.
“Don’t be afraid, Chase,” Ally said softly. “It’s okay to remember.”
He saw their ranch burning in the black night. His mother’s arms were around his younger brother, and she was screaming at Chase to stop throwing buckets of water too close to the fire. He could feel the muscles in his maturing arms trembling with exertion as he beat the front porch with a horse blanket. There was no water left, and the fire was engulfing everything in sight. Windows were cracking. The blanket he was holding caught fire, and his dad yanked him back, dragging him forcefully enough that his bare feet left lines in the dirt.
“Stop,” he said, struggling against the heaviness in his body. “I don’t want…to remember.”
“Your father didn’t leave you, Chase,” she said. “He just couldn’t handle his own loss. He’s so sorry you felt so alone when he shot himself.”
Another bolt of pain flashed across his chest. He opened his eyes and shook his head.
“That’s enough.” Barney jumped off his lap and scurried across the floor.
She met his gaze when he looked at her. “It’s okay, Chase.”
“No, it’s not.” He was totally at sea here. How had she known those things about him? About his dad?
“You have so much unprocessed hurt inside you, Chase,” she said softly. “It’s ready to heal. Your body is trying to help you.”
He shook his head again. “Bonnie, I want this to stop. I want this to stop right now.”
Bonnie came over to him and sank down in front of him. “It’s okay, Chase. We’ve all had our hurts. There’s no shame in letting it come out. You can’t heal if you keep it inside.”
When Bonnie touched his good arm, he realized he was trembling. Trembling.
“We’re done here.” His lungs didn’t seem to be working properly. It took two deep breaths to release the crushing tension in his chest. “Ally, I appreciate your help, but this just isn’t for me.”
She gave him a soft smile. “That’s for you to decide, of course, and I honor that. Bonnie, I’ll just grab my purse and head out. Thank you for sharing your journey with me, Chase.”
She was thanking him? He could tell she wasn’t upset. Her demeanor was just as calm as it had been when she’d first sat down. Bonnie, who’d taken a seat at the other end of the couch, stood up and walked over to Ally. Again they shared a long hug.
The kitten pawed at Chase’s leg, and Chase scooped him up into his lap. It was a little weird how intently Barney’s green eyes were staring at him. Some of the animals on the ranch used to look at him like this, like they knew he’d had a bad day.
When Ally opened the door, he had to bite his tongue not to call her back inside. She’d said his dad was sorry for killing himself. If she knew about the fire and the suicide, could she be tuned into something greater? Like his dad’s spirit? Some healers were reputed to have that gift. Channeling, he thought it was called, although he was no expert.
He discarded the notion.
Nothing his dad’s spirit said would change the past anyway.
Chapter 17
When Chase texted Moira to say he’d gotten tired from all the appointments and wanted to take a rain check, she wanted to believe him.
But something in her gut told her that he was shoring up his walls some more. His earlier texts had been sweet and flirtatious. Even funny.
This Chase was all business.
I got worn out from all the woo-woo. Can I have a rain check?
That was all he’d written. She knew he wasn’t blowing her off, but after seeing what Kim had gone through emotionally from her work with alternative medicine, she knew it could stir the pot of deep hurts. For a tough guy like him, that could be catastrophic.
Instead of responding directly to his request, she texted: Get some rest.
Then she went to the grocery store and bought their steaks, a bunch of asparagus to steam, and potatoes to roast, and headed to his house. This evening was no date, she told herself. This visit was about showing him that he wasn’t alone. That she wasn’t going to let him wallow.
She knocked on his door out of respect, but since she didn’t expect him to be wheeling around in his scooter naked, she let herself in.
He was sitting on the couch in front of a waning fire. His head immediately swiveled. “Hey! What are you doing here? I thought we’d called tonight off.”
“You tried to,” she said, crossing to the dining room table and putting her grocery bag on it. “I decided you still needed to eat, and since I’m your friend, I’m going to feed you. Then you can tell me what happened today that changed the charming, fun man I was texting with earlier to a bronze statue.”
She heard a meow and looked down to see a tabby kitty racing across the hardwood floors toward her.
“Moira, I just want to be alone. You’re better off going home. Trust me.”
She crouched down, barely listening to his predictable reply. “Where did this kitten come from?”
“I’m surrounded by interfering women,” he growled. “Bonnie ‘forgot’ to bring Barney home.”
While Moira wasn’t a cat person per se, the tabby kitten was adorable. “Hey, there. You don’t look like a Barney to me.” The kitten purred and head-butted her palm.
“Cats have healing power, according to Bonnie,” he said dryly. “The vibrations of their purring have therapeutic effects. I didn’t believe her at first, but there’s scientific evidence that it helps healing bones. Who the hell knew, right?”
Moira had noticed there were plenty of therapy animals around when she’d gone to hospice to visit Kim. When it came to people suffering, she figured, why not try everything that might help alleviate it? “Bonnie is a wise woman. She brought one of her cats to Kim when she wasn’t doing very well. It seemed to calm her.”
He turned his head to stare back at the fire. She gave the kitten another scratch behind the ears and decided to approach the beast. Scooping up Barney, she set the little kitten down in Chase’s lap and leaned down until she was inches away from his face.
“I missed you today,” she said in a quiet voice, feeling the urge to shiver at her own vulnerability. “Mind if I kiss you? Or are you going to bark at me?”
His gray eyes flew to her own. “Moira. I’m really not good company.”
Stubborn man, she decided, but she’d grown u
p around plenty of them. She pressed her mouth to his. He groaned immediately, his good arm coming around her and bringing her closer. She was afraid of leaning on his cast and the kitten, so she angled her body sideways. His mouth opened, and she responded. They dueled, their breathing changing rapidly.
She could feel the turbulent emotions bouncing around in him—anger, desperation, and urgent longing. Tracing his jaw, she slowed him down. His emotions rolled over her, and she fought to take a breath, staying with him.
Then he pressed his forehead to hers, breaking the kiss. In that one gesture, she felt all of his hurt. “Oh, Moira.”
Wrapping her arms around him, she slid sideways into his lap, causing Barney to meow. Bringing the kitten onto her own lap, she rested her head against Chase’s chest.
“You should walk out of here right now,” he said. “I feel like I’m coming apart, and I don’t want you to see it.”
Her throat clogged, and she felt tears spurt into her eyes. “I’m not leaving. I had a sister who closed me out of her pain. I won’t let you do that to me too.”
“I should ask who that is, but I can’t think of anything right now,” he said, curling his good hand around her waist.
“What happened today, Chase?” she asked.
He sucked in a breath. “Bonnie’s healer somehow knew about the fire. And my dad. She wasn’t just a healer, that’s for damn sure.”
The crisp, biting tone of his voice told her this story was ripe with hurt. She thought back to the burning house they’d seen on the bench the day of his accident. Something clicked. “What fire, Chase?”
He was shaking his head against her. “I don’t want to think about it, but ever since Ally left, my mind has been popping out all these memories—ones I haven’t thought of in decades. I feel like my brain is my enemy.”
Oh, the poor man. She tightened her hold. “Tell me. It will be easier once you let it out. Trust me on this.”
“I don’t want you to think less of me,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t understand why this is happening now. I will not be defeated by the past. I’ve never let it beat me before.”
She could hear the resolve in his voice, but it was trembling in a way that indicated those walls he’d built up all around him were buckling. “It hasn’t beaten you. Look at all you’ve done! It’s just a part of you that needs to get out.”
“My family lost our ranch in a fire,” he said, his voice breaking. “In a matter of hours, everything we’d built was ash. Every toy I’d played with. Every family photo. Every keepsake. Even some of the animals. My horse…”
Her arms squeezed around him as she registered the agony in his voice. “Oh, Chase.” She couldn’t imagine losing her home, everything she’d held dear.
“Six months later the insurance company paid us a pittance. Oh, shit. I hate this part most of all.”
She tightened her grip on him.
“My dad fucking shot himself by the fences we used to ride everyday when we checked on our cattle. Just shot himself. No note. Nothing.”
Tears filled her eyes. His dad had killed himself? She remembered him saying his dad had died when he was twelve. What grade was that? Seventh? When she was twelve, her biggest worries were acne and whether Chris Evans would check the box that he liked her on the note her best friend passed to him in class.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pressing her face into his hot neck. Suddenly he was burning up. “How horrible for you.”
“I’ve been sitting here since Bonnie left—since I all but threw her out—and all I can think about is how much I hate him. He was a gutless coward, leaving us like that.”
Even though she wanted to be strong for him, she felt the first tear fall down her cheek. Now she had a deeper understanding of why he admired FDR so much. He was someone who hadn’t buckled under adversity.
“It’s crazy,” he continued. “This happened twenty-four years ago, and all I want to do is…I don’t know…beat the shit out of him for it. But that’s nuts because he’s dead. And get this. Ally said he was sorry. I practically threw her out too. I…I didn’t believe it. But how could she know any of this shit? I’ve never talked about it publicly.”
Moira got a chill from his words. She knew of Ally, and Andy had told her enough about the healer for her to believe in her gifts. Chase was right. She wasn’t just a healer in a conventional sense.
“I don’t know how she knows things,” she told Chase. “But she did this kind of thing with Kim too. Andy says she’s the full package. It’s weird, but…undeniable. Maybe…I don’t know…maybe this needed to come up. You were upset about the house being on fire the day we went skiing. I could tell.”
“Are you saying seeing that fire caused my accident?” he asked, lifting her chin to look at her.
Suddenly she was afraid, like the answer would determine whether he would push her away or continue to let her see into this vulnerable part of himself. She didn’t want that. “What do you think?”
He chuckled bitterly. “It’s crossed my mind. Shit, I was hoping helping that family—”
“What family?” she asked.
His sigh sounded tortured. “I don’t want you getting all…I don’t know…mushy about it, but I helped the family whose house burned down. I swore them to secrecy. Their little boy was in the hospital.”
And he’d reached out to help? Her throat seemed to close. Yeah, she felt mushy all right. “That was a beautiful thing you did, Chase.”
“Moira, everything I’ve done in my life since my dad checked out has been about choosing the right road. Evan knows he can depend on me. So does everyone else I work with. I’m not like my father.”
That was the rub, wasn’t it? Her brothers had always worried they’d become like their dad. Dr. Hale had the tendency to get so wrapped up in work he’d forget about his family. “No, you aren’t your father. You would never make the choice he made.”
His expression shifted, like pain was physically washing over his flesh. “I think that too, but when it comes down to it, I never in a million years would have thought my dad would take the cheap way out. He was so strong.”
She bit her lip to keep more tears from falling.
“Moira, he was my hero.”
Then he pressed his face against her neck, his good hand digging into her waist.
The only thing she knew to do was hold him. There was nothing to say, she knew that. How could his dad not be his hero? Her brothers had idolized their father too. That’s why they’d been so disappointed and hurt when Dr. Hale had let their beautiful and funny mom walk away from him without a fight. She was still mad at him for that. She couldn’t imagine how angry she’d be if she was in Chase’s shoes.
The kitten turned over in a half roll, like it was feeling neglected, so she rubbed its belly. Bonnie had been so smart to leave it with Chase. From the way he’d kept it on his lap, she knew he liked the fuzzy tabby.
They stayed that way, holding each other as the fire died out. Barney fell asleep on her lap, nestled between her body and Chase’s.
“Moira,” Chase finally said after eons of silence and comfort.
She kissed his cheek in response.
“Thank you.”
She remembered what she’d said to him after skiing down a death-defying path to get to him, one most wouldn’t have traveled. It was still true. Even more so now.
“I told you I wouldn’t leave you alone.”
Chapter 18
Chase wasn’t sure how he’d gotten lucky enough to wake up with Moira lying on his chest, the kitten tucked between them. He certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Last night, he’d been raw. More raw than he’d been in years. He blamed it on Dr. Sarah and Ally—maybe Carl had been part of the conspiracy too. Regardless, he’d felt more emotional than he had in decades.
Moira hadn’t seemed to mind. Not even Bonnie’s Helga persona was as tough as the Viking woman Moira had inside her. But she w
as tender too. She hadn’t chided him for his weakness. Nor had she tried to placate him with Pollyannaisms. She’d just held him. Showed him that he wasn’t alone. And the storm of emotions plaguing him had subsided while she was curled around him. He’d fallen asleep.
Clearly she’d meant it when she’d said she wasn’t going to leave him.
It was weird how much that phrase had affected him. No one had ever said it to him but Moira. Certainly not his mom, who’d withdrawn into herself after his dad’s suicide. Not even Evan.
He savored Moira’s warmth. Sure, his leg was throbbing with swelling after not being elevated overnight, but he could take it. He could handle anything if it meant he got to keep Moira in his arms.
Barney was purring against his chest, nestled between him and Moira.
Dammit if Bonnie hadn’t been right. The cat was a comfort. Purr vibrations and healing frequencies not withstanding.
Moira’s brown hair had a slight frizz to it in the morning light. If you asked him, it was adorable. Like the rest of her. She was the most incredible woman he’d ever met, hands down, and he’d met some of the most lauded bachelorettes in the U.S. and Europe.
Chase decided to savor the feeling of holding her. He had no idea what time it was and realized he didn’t care—a certifiable thought for a man who usually lived according to his calendar.
He was hungry, sure, and in physical pain, but he also felt a deep, abiding sense of peace. They hadn’t ended up eating any of the meal she’d brought. The grocery bags were still on the table where she’d left them last night.
Barney stirred suddenly and stood up on Moira’s tummy, looking directly at him. Chase met those oddly intent green eyes until the kitten jumped off the couch, likely heading to the kitty litter station Bonnie had set up in the kitchen yesterday.
Moira made a noise and rubbed her face into his chest, creating a stirring of desire in him. She was curling around him like a cat in her own way, and he loved it.
