Kiss me, Chace.
He heard it in his head and he closed his eyes.
You need to unload it, Chace.
That time he heard Faye and his eyes shot open.
Just what he did not need.
Another demon.
“Fuck,” he growled, his eyes moving through the clearing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.
Nothing there.
It wasn’t talking.
Fuck.
Like he had, night after night, Chace Keaton strode though the clearing to the trail and went home.
* * * * *
Two days later…
“Would it kill you to come to dinner?”
Chace watched over the counter as Shambles made his coffee. He felt the muscle jump in his cheek as he held the phone to his ear thinking, yes. It would kill him to go to dinner at his mother and father’s house.
Or, more to the point, it would drive him to murder if he had to breathe his father’s air.
“Ma,” he said into the phone, “like I told you, I’m busy.”
“But I thought you said they were hiring new officers and things were getting back to normal,” she replied.
“They are but it isn’t normal. Things are busy. Very busy. When they cleaned house, we lost practically everyone. Those new officers have to be trained and after what went down and the time it lasted, the citizens of Carnal aren’t gonna adjust in a few months to a Force they can trust. They got a problem, they still call each other rather than the Police Department. Then, when that goes south, and it usually goes south, we have to clean up the mess. No way I could make dinner this week.”
“How about next week?” she pushed as Shambles poured frothed milk from the little stainless steel pitcher into his drink.
“How about the weekend after next, I come to Aspen and take you out to dinner?” Chace suggested.
Her voice was disappointed when she replied, “But, you know your father always goes to that golf tournament in Florida the third weekend in February.”
He absolutely did.
He also absolutely knew his father was not attending a golf tournament in Florida but doing something else that could, conceivably, require sporting equipment but its usages were not something his mother could comprehend.
Unfortunately, Chace could. He just tried not to.
Shambles turned, smiling at him and shoving the white lid on top of his coffee.
Chace jerked up his chin to Shambles but said into his phone, “Is Dad’s attendance required at our dinner?”
“Chace, you never see your father,” she replied quietly.
“And, Ma, you know that’s by design,” Chace returned just as quietly, pulling out his wallet, flipping it open and yanking out a bill. He handed it to Shambles, Shambles set his coffee on the counter and turned to the cash register as Chace kept talking. “Now, are we on the weekend after next?”
She ignored his question and whispered, “I wish you two would heal this breach.”