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I tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously? You decide to be chatty now?” I push to my feet, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms against the sides of my legs. I needed to put some distance between us.
“It’s my revenge for making me run your imaginary errands like a fool.”
I turn around to face him so he can read my lips easily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Chase just crosses his arms over his chest and shoots me hissternest look. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, my palms gripping the wooden railing behind me.
“Why are you still here?”
Is he for real?
“Oh, I don’t know, Chase,” I mutter sarcastically. I was so over everyone sticking their nose into my business. “Maybe because I have a life here? A job? A mother who needs care twenty-four-seven? Two brothers I constantly worry about because one all but locked himself in the house, and the other one never picks up his phone and only checks in via text often enough so I don’t send out a search warrant for him? Take your pick.”
Chase is quiet for a moment, and I finally think he’s going to let it go when he speaks, “She used to write me letters.”
Letters? What does that have to do with anything?
“Who? Mom?”
A dark look appears on my brother’s face. Chase nods, his hand falling on top of Shadow’s head as if seeking comfort only this dog could give him. Shadow licks his hand, and Chase blinks, coming back to the present. He clears his throat. “When I was away, she’d send me letters talking about you and Matthew, and people I knew from home. Mostly random stuff, updates, and funny stories. Then, one day, I opened the letter, and it was about you and Miguel.”
“She wrote about us?”
I knew she talked to Chase. We all did whenever he got a chance to give us a video call from wherever he was stationed at the time, but I didn’t realize she wrote him letters, too.
Chase nods. “She told me you two finally got your heads out of your asses and admitted what she and everybody else around you knew from the very beginning, and that is that you two belong together. And seeing you two look at each other these past few weeks, I know exactly what she meant.”
Chase too? Like seriously, so much for keeping a low profile.
“Even if we remove everything else, we live in two different cities, Chase.”
“It’s not like he lives across the country.” Chase gives me a pointed look. “How many excuses will you find just so you don’t have to take a risk, Rebecca? I didn’t take you for a coward.”
“Says the man who’s been hiding on this ranch since he got home,” I throw right back, not about to pull any punches. The muscle in his jaw ticks. “You know I’m right.”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Of course, you’d get all quiet and broody when the tables are turned.”
This was the most he’d spoken to me since he came home, but the moment I faced him with his misgivings, he closes up tighter than Fort Knox.
Chase gets up, so I rush to finish before he can cut me off completely. “You can’t preach to me about finding happiness when you’re sulking and hiding here forever.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“Of course not.”Infuriating man.“Chase?”
He stops in the doorway, and I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Call that doctor friend of yours so we can see about making the arrangements for Mom.”
Saying the words out loud leaves a bitter taste on my tongue, but this wasn’t about me. It was about making sure Mom got the best possible care. My guilt had no place here.
With a nod, he and Shadow disappear inside the house.
