“Um… sure.”

Still hesitant, no enthusiasm, worried.

“Baby,” he tried gentle this time, “we’re not gonna swoop down on him, cuff him and throw him in a cage. Ask him what his favorite meal is. Promise him you’ll make it. You make it, the way you cook, him livin’ rough, he’ll love it. We broke through. Now we push the advantage.”

“Get to him through his stomach,” she whispered.

“It’s worked so far,” he replied and heard her soft, melodic giggle.

“Okay, Chace,” she agreed more firmly.

“Okay,” he said through a smile.

“I’m bringing champagne over tonight to celebrate,” she declared.

“I’ll pick some up today, you just bring you.”

A pause, this one slightly annoyed then, “Chace, I can afford champagne.”

She was right and she was wrong. She had a junker car, lived on the cheap in a rental that was kickass but mostly because she made it that way and, until recently, she walked pretty much everywhere she needed to go unless it was to the mall, her parents’ or her sister’s.

He’d been looking into the shit with the library and her salary was a matter of public record. She had a Master’s Degree and got paid just above half of his salary. It wasn’t poverty line but it also wasn’t what you’d expect someone with that level of education and increasing experience to get. She ran the library. Her job description was three pages long. Budgets, accounting, acquisitions, promotion, programs and managing a volunteer staff that Faye had told him numbered at five. She was a one-woman show. Her salary was peanuts for that level of responsibility.

Chace had found this disturbing, especially with the threat of closure. He didn’t know a lot about it but he was looking into it and it didn’t look good, particularly with the cutbacks at CPD. In fact, it hinted at further corruption in the City Council which would surprise him and annoy him. They didn’t need any more of that shit and he didn’t want to have to deal with it. He just hadn’t had the chance to dig deeper.

So she could afford champagne but not only would he rather she spend her money on the kid, dresses and boots like she wore to The Rooster, he was the kind of man who took care of his woman. Furthermore, he was going to the grocery store. He wanted her at his place to eat and then do other things, not making stops before she got there.

“Faye, I’m goin’ to the store in about ten minutes. No need for us both to go,” he pointed out. “I’ll get champagne.”

That bought him a quiet, sweet, “Oh. Right. Of course.”

Chace grinned at the window again.

“Well, I suppose I should climb down from cloud nine and get to work,” she remarked and he heard it as he often did. Even when she was cute, sleepy and hot on the phone in the morning, she didn’t like to let him go. She didn’t say it flat out, even tried to hide it, but it was there.

Chace liked that.

“Get to work and I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay, honey. See you tonight.”

“Later, Faye.”

“’Bye Chace and…” she paused then whispered, “Malachi. Yay.”

She wasn’t cute. She was f**king cute.

Through his grin, he muttered, “Bye, baby.”

He disconnected, turned and his body gave an involuntary start, a reaction he showed and couldn’t bury, an unusual occurrence.

This was because, first, he’d forgotten Silas Goodknight was even there.

And second, Silas Goodknight was smiling at him huge.

“Right!” Silas stated smartly and put his mug on the island with more force than needed. “That’s that. I’ll expect you and Faye over for dinner next Saturday night. Be there at six. Sondra likes flowers, pink ones. Just tell Holly, Holly’ll know what to do. Or tell Faye, she’ll know what to do too. Other than that, bring you and a big appetite. Sondra may bitch about me takin’ care of myself but that don’t mean when company comes, she don’t like to show off.”

As Chace processed going from Silas’s surprise visit the reason for which was to tell him he didn’t want Chace dating his daughter to Silas asking Chace and Faye to dinner, Silas moved toward the front door.

With no other choice, Chace followed him.

They were outside, Chace at the top of the steps opening his mouth to give his farewell or say something else altogether, Silas at the bottom when Silas turned, locked eyes with Chace and beat him to speaking.

“Don’t know the path you’re on to the man you want to be. Do know that in any man’s life, the journey includes dark places we find ourselves in where we don’t wanna be. I get that you were in a dark place. I get you were there for a good while. I also know you made your way out. I don’t understand why you don’t think you’ve found the light and I won’t ask. You already told me you won’t share. I get that too. I probably wouldn’t either. But I know from the way you spoke about my daughter, the look on her face when she was talkin’ to me and Sondra about you last weekend, what she told us you were doin’ for that boy she took to lookin’ after and what I heard just now on the phone, you’ve already found that man. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

As Chace stood in the cold in his jeans, shirt, sweater and socks staring down the stairs, Silas lifted a hand and finished, “See you next weekend.”

Then he sauntered down Chace’s walk to his Wrangler.

Chace watched him give another short wave through the windshield before he did a three-point turn and drove down Chace’s lane.

Chace continued to stare after him as the Wrangler turned left and motored toward Carnal.

Then he grinned and muttered, “Fuck me,” before he turned on his foot and walked back into his house.

* * * * *

As Chace drove up the drive to Tate Jackson’s house in the hills, he noted Tate had the company that Chace suggested he have. Deke’s beat up pickup truck. Wood’s Ford F-150. Ty’s Landcruiser. And a Cherokee Chace couldn’t place but he suspected it was Holden Maxwell’s considering Chace suggested Max get a call.

Deke Hightower was a drifter but he had a strict path that he drifted between. Carnal to Sturgis. He lived simple. Beat up pickup. Harley. Roof over his head. Jeans on his ass. Food in his belly. And beer at Bubba’s or the All American Roadhouse in Sturgis, whisky if he felt like living it up. He took odd jobs along the way in order to facilitate this life. The man was rough, monosyllabic and enormous in height and breadth. This hid the fact that he was smart as a whip. But he didn’t try to hide the fact that he was loyal. He had Tate’s back when Tate and Laurie were getting to know each other and all that went down with that. He had Ty’s back during his drama.