Chase was confident and savvy. He was giving her time to adjust to being out of the Spatafores’ clutches, which made her love him all the more. Love him? Did she love Chase? Hadn’t that been what she was going to tell him instead of saying she’d used his toothbrush?
Yes, it was. She loved Chase Cooper. From the moment she had laid eyes on him.
Since her return to his ranch, they had kept to themselves. Putting their heads together, they had sorted through all that had happened. Chase gave her the details about knowing she was in trouble when Axel Bisbee, better known as Lester the Investor, had trespassed during branding. Chase said Lester had tried to scare him off with lies about her from Franco. Then Chase told her more about meeting Bill, Carol, and Bella. He said Bill and Katy both had trackers to put on Franco’s cars if the opportunity presented itself. He related what Katy had told him at Acacia Park and said he’d met Finn. Chase showed her the text she’d sent to Katy about him, and she nodded. But to keep the visuals from blasting her, she gave him no hug to go along with her confirmation. Not touching Chase was breaking her heart.
After all she’d put Chase through, how did he feel about her? He’d never said.
It was back to Jade, and she had admitted she didn’t want to leave him but was terribly concerned for his safety if she stayed. Though his safety was Chase’s last concern, they agreed to put the future on hold and concentrate on the present. She recounted to Chase how Franco had stolen her phone, changed the passcode, and planted it for her to ‘find’ in her raincoat pocket. Chase confirmed he was the one who had told her it hadn’t rained for three weeks.
She cried when Chase showed her the text saying not to look for her and that she never wanted to see him again. He admitted the ‘goodbye,’ instead of sooner than later, was a killer. They both knew that text had been sent by Franco well after she’d been drugged; she’d wasted her time locking the bedroom door and hiding her cell under the pillow. Using Chase’s computer, she’d ordered a new phone and disabled the old one. Possibly the most pressing concern in that realm was her car being held hostage. In any event, they had discussed every subject while separated.
Except for the one.
After the enthusiastic passion they had shared, its absence was the elephant in the room. During her initial visit to Chase’s bedroom, Jade remembered wanting him to be the man to whom she gave her innocence. Lying in his bed, she’d urged him to take off his boxers, only to have him hand her the blue-and-red polka-dot panties when she confessed to being a virgin.
At the Foote Avenue house, she had prayed it would not be a one-night stand and decided to take her chances. Gathering up her nerve, she vividly recalled being the one to suggest he spend the night after the Pikes Peak fireworks. So anxious to be with him, she had shed her tube top and overall shorts. He had taken over when she got to her panties. Never would she forget the sweet ecstasy of making love for the very first time, all because it was with Chase. She remembered pushing him into her bed, where they had made love a second time. That next morning, after making love a third time, she would have stayed in bed with him all day. She couldn’t get enough of Chase, and he’d had to pull her out of bed.
Had she mentioned any of this to the Spatafores? All of it? Specifically to Franco?
She didn’t remember doing so. But a whisper in the back of her head told her Franco knew she’d slept with Chase. That only served to heighten her certainty that Franco would retaliate against him. Lying silently at Chase’s side, she balled her hands into fists of fear and pressed them to her teary eyes.
Chase was taking it in his stride. For how long? She should go before he asked her to.
* * *
When she had felt ready,Chase had texted Chloe, and she showed up with some clothes that fit perfectly. Chase had suggested a ride on Valor and Jubilee. With her new belt through the loops of a pair of Chloe’s jeans, Jade wore another one of Chase’s Triple C tee shirts. Setting her cowboy hat on her head, she stepped into her red boots and then into Jubilee’s saddle.
Their first stop was to check on the progress in the branding pen. Chase had given her an idea of what to expect with the constant mooing, lassoing of calves, and hissing of the iron as it met with cowhide. Dust and dirt would fly. There were metal branding pens to hold the herded cattle while being branded. But they were cowboys and also took turns the old-fashioned way by lassoing and pinning the calves down as they were stamped with thecCcbrand.
Coop and Bob were there and welcomed her warmly without questions. Mean Pete and Martyman were all smiles. Red urged Chase to take his place in the corral where they were working. With a wink at Jade, Chase nodded, and she dismounted Jubilee. Safely flanked by Coop and Bob at the corral, Jade looked over the top railing. A new ranch hand, whom Bob identified as Max, politely tipped his hat to Jade. Coop said Max had taken Ragsdale’s place and was also looking after Jubilee.
Max had opened the gate, and Chase, in his brown cowboy hat, long-sleeved Triple C Ranch-Central shirt, blue jeans, and brown boots, had ridden Valor into the pen. Jade’s eyes were glued to Chase as atop the stallion, he’d expertly lassoed a good-sized calf. Hopping off the well-trained Valor, Chase had grabbed a branding iron from Rafe. With ranch hands, Faro and Reno then Mitch and Thatch, holding calves in place, Chase skillfully branded several. Jade listened as Bob told her how Lester Bisbee had run for his life after Chase threatened him with the branding iron. Imagining that, as well as Chase riding with the Sons of Steel and hearing the boom of his Ruger Blackhawk, she agreed with Coop; Chase was wild and ornery when riled.
Chase Cooper was as big and bad a cowboy as they came. Jade burned with longing.
After leaving the branding pen, they rode to the bed-and-breakfast. Chloe and Rachel had fixed sweet tea, talked of anything but the abduction, and sent a picnic basket of fried chicken, hush puppies, and biscuits home with them. They had taken the basket up to Chase’s home theater and eaten while watching a classic John Wayne Western. Later, wearing boxer shorts and Triple C Ranch tee shirts, they had slipped into Chase’s four-poster bed. And slept.
Jade’s last conscious thought was a prayer.Please don’t let me lose Chase.
* * *
Chase instantly wokebefore dawn when he felt Jade jerk awake. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she whimpered, facing away from him, balled up in a fetal position.
“Yes, you do.” Gently, he placed a hand on her trembling shoulder and rolled her to her back. Lying on his side, he said, “We both know something is off between us. We made a deal you would tell me the truth so you wouldn’t get hurt. Remember?”
“I remember it was after you saw me saddle up on Jubilee the first time.”
“Right. So talk to me.”
“Nightmares during the day and now at night.”
“What do you mean?”
“During the day, there have been flashes of a scary incident.” She rolled on her side to face him and swiped at her tears. “They coincided with the pain and started the moment you touched my hands on the Spatafores’ wrought iron gate.”
“What scary incident?”
