This didn’t work because Trane Keaton was standing in his door hand on it, firm and strong, holding it open.

Chace’s eyes went to his father.

In the many jokes life had to play on him, it saw fit to make him look like his father. Same height. Same build. Same hair. Same eyes. There was barely any of his mother in him, even though she was blonde and blue-eyed. He got what he got from his father. He’d heard it from his father’s cronies since he could remember.

Spitting image, Trane.

So Chace knew in thirty years, he’d look like his father.

Straight, lean, the strong features and good looks he’d been fortunate to be endowed with hardly faded. He was the kind of man whose looks enhanced with age, then, as that advanced, grew interesting, still retaining the handsome, the strong, the vital.

If Trane Keaton was another man, Chace would look forward to this and appreciate his father gave him good genes.

Instead, he dreaded a lifetime of looking in the mirror and remembering his father.

“You’re not returning my calls,” Trane accused, his voice hard, his face angry. He was pissed he had to make the trek from Aspen. Pissed his son didn’t do his bidding. Pissed to see Chace in jeans, a shirt, sweater, coat and boots with a badge on his belt folding into a Yukon when he should be wearing a five thousand dollar suit folding into a BMW.

“No, I’m not,” Chace confirmed then ordered in a cold voice, “Step back.”

“I need to speak to you privately and immediately.”

“You aren’t gettin’ this, Dad, but that is not gonna happen.”

“You aren’t getting this but that is not going to happen.”

Jesus, he was thirty-five and the man was correcting his f**king English.

“Step back,” Chace growled.

“You live with rednecks, Chace, but you don’t have to sound like them,” Trane returned, voice superior and f**k, but Chace hated that and Trane talked like that all the time.

“Got somethin’ to do, step back.”

“Personally, I blame Jacob Decker. I should have put a stop to you spending time with him when you both were at school. Your mother wouldn’t hear of it. Now I hear he’s back.”

Chace’s body went solid.

He was making a point and not the usual one.

Deck hated Chace’s Dad. Trane Keaton returned the favor.

Deck won a full scholarship to the private school Chace attended but he didn’t come from money. His father was an electrician. A skilled trade but not acceptable in the life of the Aspen Keatons. It didn’t matter that Deck had an IQ of one fifty, a certified f**king genius. He was not good enough for Chace. When Deck didn’t go on to cure cancer or help the government create space age weaponry but used his superior reasoning and higher intellect to do shit that was a little f**king scary, Trane felt this was proof positive he’d been right all along.

But this wasn’t the point Trane was making.

He was telling Chace they were keeping an eye on him.

Not a surprise but an annoyance. Deck could definitely take care of himself. When, in the flash of an eye, you could calculate your height, weight, muscle mass, the poundage behind your swing, aim and connect knowing exactly what kind of damage you’d inflict to wherever you connected, you could seriously f**k someone up. This wasn’t theoretical. When they were in high school and college together, Chace had seen it firsthand. Jacob Decker never got bested, not only because he was freaking tall and seriously strong but because he was f**king smart.

But if Trane and his band of ass**les got impatient, they could aim at anyone to make their point to Chace.

Deck was in that firing line.

He made a mental note to phone Deck on the way to the hospital and repeated, “Step back.”

Trane’s eyes locked to his son.

“And, if you see Faye Goodknight any longer, your mother will want to meet her.”

Trane stepped back then. This was because Chace angled out of the car and he had no choice.

But Trane didn’t retreat, just gave him room so Chace, unfortunately, ended up nose to nose with him.

“You don’t breathe her air,” he whispered.

“You’ll never learn it’s not advantageous to wear your heart on your sleeve,” Trane replied, sounding put out that Chace had not learned one of the many useless lessons he’d tried to drill into him when he was a kid.

“Wore it for Ma. Anyone who wants to get at me knows I’m that kinda man. Got nothin’ left to hide. The thing you don’t get is, that kinda man is the kinda man a real man wants to be so there’s nothin’ to hide.”

“Foolish?” Trane’s voice was snide.

“Protective.” Chace’s was firm.

“If you give it all away, Chace, you’re not protecting yourself.”

“It isn’t me I’m gonna protect.”

“Therein lies your faulty strategy.”

“No, see, the kind of man you are expends his energy to save his own ass. The kind of man I am doesn’t do shit to have to worry about that and instead, he works his ass off to keep those worth his efforts safe. So the message I’m sending is, I give a shit about someone, you do not f**k with them or you f**k with me.”

“And is Faye Goodknight worth those efforts?”

Chace didn’t reply.

Trane kept his eyes locked to his son’s for a while then he muttered, “At least she has a Master’s Degree.”

They’d looked into Faye.

This wasn’t entirely unexpected. It was sooner than he would have guessed. It was also annoying.

“Faye doesn’t exist for you and she’ll exist for Ma when I decide she does,” Chace told him.

“Then I’m sorry to disappoint you further, Chace, since I shared with your mother over breakfast this morning that you’re seeing someone. I thought it wise, since I learned you’d had dinner with her parents at Rosalinda’s last night.”

Chace felt a muscle in his cheek jump.

“Things are progressing swiftly,” Trane noted quietly.

Chace held his gaze and kept his jaw clenched.

“Valerie will give it time. She won’t want to pressure you. My guess, you have about fifteen minutes before you get her call to ask you and Faye to dinner.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

“She’s very excited,” Trane continued then his lips twitched and the piece of shit had the balls to finish, “She never much liked Misty.”

Chace was done. “You gonna move back or am I gonna have to drive over you?”