“And before that, Faye, I beat a man into givin’ me shit he was holdin’ over a bunch of men who didn’t deserve that effort.”

I felt my flinch and saw his face get harder when he caught it but I powered through.

“You did it for Valerie.”

“I did wrong.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“Yeah, and it… was… wrong.”

But I’d had enough.

And so had Chace.

It was time to break through.

“God!” I threw up my hands, losing it. “Do you not understand that the power behind the love of your actions for your mother and, what you don’t get, Chace, also for your father is a beautiful thing you should be proud of?”

His body locked.

I didn’t catch it. I was on a mission and was already too far gone.

“Do you not think that I don’t think that, if you loved me that much, if you turned your back on everything that was you in order to protect me, that I wouldn’t love you more? Love you more because you loved me so much you’d do everything you could to keep me safe? Even going so far as losing you? But what you don’t get, Chace, is that you never lost you. What they did was wrong. What you did was right.”

Chace didn’t move, not even to twitch and I still didn’t catch it.

I was on a roll.

“If you made another decision because you were all fired up to be the man you had to be, to protect the future you wanted, that would have been selfish. The choice you had was no choice at all. Save someone you love from a breakdown or save a town and your own ass. You’ve lived your whole fraking life protecting her. You’d been conditioned since birth to make that play. But even so, you actually took the harder road to do the right thing even if it meant you were forced to do wrong while you were on that road. It was selfless, it was brave and it was heroic. More so because, God willing, Valerie will never know you had to do the things you did to protect her. So she’s shielded from that too, knowing the way she is that she can’t help meant her son went through that for her. So you did it knowing you’d not even earn her gratitude. You did it knowing all you’d get is shit but she’d have peace of mind.”

Chace just stared at me, unmoving.

I kept ranting.

“If my father knew this, he’d admire you. If my mother knew this, she’d adore you. If the town knew this, they’d revere you more than they already do.”

“Right,” he said softly. “You think you got that figured out then what about Misty?”

“What about her?” I snapped.

“She was my wife. I treated her like shit. I cheated on her and, in the end, I didn’t protect her.”

Not this again!

“Fraking heck, Chace!” I clipped. “She wasn’t your wife, she was your albatross! Your prison warden. Ty spent five years behind bars. You spent six in a different kind of prison. It isn’t even sane what she did to you, thinking you would get over it and fall in love or attempt to find even minimal contentment in that kind of arrangement. I couldn’t wrap my head around what she did to Ty and I really can’t wrap my head around what she did to you. It was the same and yet it was worse. You didn’t like her so you didn’t pretend to like her. You didn’t marry her for love so you carried on with your life like she wasn’t there. She bought that by doing… doing…” I faltered, too beside myself to find words then sallied forth, “what you would call seriously jacked up shit. When she was alive, you didn’t give her a thing she didn’t deserve including what happened to end her life. That is also not on you whether you shoulder it or not. Shouldering it is your decision, not your responsibility, not your curse. Your decision. One you can also decide not to do. No one, but no one who thinks clearly, and they don’t even have to love you like I do, would disagree with me.”

“Baby –” he started on a tortured whisper but I was still gone.

“No!” I snapped, lifting a hand between us. “I’m not done. I know you’re older and more experienced than me but what you need to know is that if you trusted me with that information about your father, as vile as it is, it would have given me the tools to handle tonight a lot differently. I could have avoided his touch so that wouldn’t upset you and I could have smoothed our departure so your mother wouldn’t get distressed. If I was aware of the situation, I could have finessed it. Which I will do in the future if we have a future that doesn’t include me wanting to kick you in the shin or attempt to shake some sense into you even though you’re bigger and stronger than me and if I can control my desire to punch your father in the nose!”

I was working myself up and getting louder as I carried right the frak on.

“I mean, I can’t believe this! This is your dark? This is your big secret that’s going to drive me away? This is what’s eating you? The fact you’re a good man, a fantastic son and when faced with impossible choices that would bring most men to their knees, you carry on being wonderful, taking care of runaway, abused kids, teasing your new girlfriend, making her feel like a princess and giving her amazing orgasms?” I leaned into him, eyes narrowed, “Seriously?”

Then I wasn’t leaning into him anymore because I was over his shoulder, he’d turned and was prowling to the bed.

“Chace!” I snapped at his back. “I’m not done ranting!”

He bumped me on his shoulder. I sucked in breath as I flew through the air, landing on my back in bed and I didn’t get another breath in me before he landed on top of me.

“You’re done,” he growled in my face.

“I am not,” I hissed in his.

Then I was since he was kissing me hard and the fingers of one his hands were pulling down the zip at the back of my dress.

Okay, that kiss was good, better than most and they were all super good so that was saying something. Apparently, heightened emotions made for effective kisses.

Still, when he tore his mouth from mine, I ranted on, if a little breathlessly, “I’m not done straightening you out.”

Chace’s response was nonverbal. His body arced away from mine and whoosh! My dress was pulled over my head, taking my arms with it. When it was gone, Chace’s hand was on my belly, his eyes on my body.

“Knew it, that dress, you sittin’ next to me all night, knew you’d give me this later,” he muttered to himself, his hand gliding down my belly so his fingertips could trail the waistband of my panties.