Chapter 17      

When Chase texted Moira to say he’d gotten tired from all the appointments and wanted to take a rain check, she wanted to believe him.

But something in her gut told her that he was shoring up his walls some more. His earlier texts had been sweet and flirtatious. Even funny.

This Chase was all business.

I got worn out from all the woo-woo. Can I have a rain check?

That was all he’d written. She knew he wasn’t blowing her off, but after seeing what Kim had gone through emotionally from her work with alternative medicine, she knew it could stir the pot of deep hurts. For a tough guy like him, that could be catastrophic.

Instead of responding directly to his request, she texted: Get some rest.

Then she went to the grocery store and bought their steaks, a bunch of asparagus to steam, and potatoes to roast, and headed to his house. This evening was no date, she told herself. This visit was about showing him that he wasn’t alone. That she wasn’t going to let him wallow. 

She knocked on his door out of respect, but since she didn’t expect him to be wheeling around in his scooter naked, she let herself in.

He was sitting on the couch in front of a waning fire. His head immediately swiveled. “Hey! What are you doing here? I thought we’d called tonight off.”

“You tried to,” she said, crossing to the dining room table and putting her grocery bag on it. “I decided you still needed to eat, and since I’m your friend, I’m going to feed you. Then you can tell me what happened today that changed the charming, fun man I was texting with earlier to a bronze statue.”

She heard a meow and looked down to see a tabby kitty racing across the hardwood floors toward her.

“Moira, I just want to be alone. You’re better off going home. Trust me.”

She crouched down, barely listening to his predictable reply. “Where did this kitten come from?”

“I’m surrounded by interfering women,” he growled. “Bonnie ‘forgot’ to bring Barney home.”

While Moira wasn’t a cat person per se, the tabby kitten was adorable. “Hey, there. You don’t look like a Barney to me.” The kitten purred and head-butted her palm.

“Cats have healing power, according to Bonnie,” he said dryly. “The vibrations of their purring have therapeutic effects. I didn’t believe her at first, but there’s scientific evidence that it helps healing bones. Who the hell knew, right?”

Moira had noticed there were plenty of therapy animals around when she’d gone to hospice to visit Kim. When it came to people suffering, she figured, why not try everything that might help alleviate it? “Bonnie is a wise woman. She brought one of her cats to Kim when she wasn’t doing very well. It seemed to calm her.”

He turned his head to stare back at the fire. She gave the kitten another scratch behind the ears and decided to approach the beast. Scooping up Barney, she set the little kitten down in Chase’s lap and leaned down until she was inches away from his face.

“I missed you today,” she said in a quiet voice, feeling the urge to shiver at her own vulnerability. “Mind if I kiss you? Or are you going to bark at me?”

His gray eyes flew to her own. “Moira. I’m really not good company.”

Stubborn man, she decided, but she’d grown up around plenty of them. She pressed her mouth to his. He groaned immediately, his good arm coming around her and bringing her closer. She was afraid of leaning on his cast and the kitten, so she angled her body sideways. His mouth opened, and she responded. They dueled, their breathing changing rapidly. 

She could feel the turbulent emotions bouncing around in him—anger, desperation, and urgent longing. Tracing his jaw, she slowed him down. His emotions rolled over her, and she fought to take a breath, staying with him.

Then he pressed his forehead to hers, breaking the kiss. In that one gesture, she felt all of his hurt. “Oh, Moira.”

Wrapping her arms around him, she slid sideways into his lap, causing Barney to meow. Bringing the kitten onto her own lap, she rested her head against Chase’s chest.

“You should walk out of here right now,” he said. “I feel like I’m coming apart, and I don’t want you to see it.”

Her throat clogged, and she felt tears spurt into her eyes. “I’m not leaving. I had a sister who closed me out of her pain. I won’t let you do that to me too.”

“I should ask who that is, but I can’t think of anything right now,” he said, curling his good hand around her waist.

“What happened today, Chase?” she asked.

He sucked in a breath. “Bonnie’s healer somehow knew about the fire. And my dad. She wasn’t just a healer, that’s for damn sure.”

The crisp, biting tone of his voice told her this story was ripe with hurt. She thought back to the burning house they’d seen on the bench the day of his accident. Something clicked. “What fire, Chase?”

He was shaking his head against her. “I don’t want to think about it, but ever since Ally left, my mind has been popping out all these memories—ones I haven’t thought of in decades. I feel like my brain is my enemy.”

Oh, the poor man. She tightened her hold. “Tell me. It will be easier once you let it out. Trust me on this.”

“I don’t want you to think less of me,” he whispered hoarsely. “I don’t understand why this is happening now. I will not be defeated by the past. I’ve never let it beat me before.”

She could hear the resolve in his voice, but it was trembling in a way that indicated those walls he’d built up all around him were buckling. “It hasn’t beaten you. Look at all you’ve done! It’s just a part of you that needs to get out.”

“My family lost our ranch in a fire,” he said, his voice breaking. “In a matter of hours, everything we’d built was ash. Every toy I’d played with. Every family photo. Every keepsake. Even some of the animals. My horse…”

Her arms squeezed around him as she registered the agony in his voice. “Oh, Chase.” She couldn’t imagine losing her home, everything she’d held dear.

“Six months later the insurance company paid us a pittance. Oh, shit. I hate this part most of all.”

She tightened her grip on him.

“My dad fucking shot himself by the fences we used to ride everyday when we checked on our cattle. Just shot himself. No note. Nothing.”

Tears filled her eyes. His dad had killed himself? She remembered him saying his dad had died when he was twelve. What grade was that? Seventh? When she was twelve, her biggest worries were acne and whether Chris Evans would check the box that he liked her on the note her best friend passed to him in class.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pressing her face into his hot neck. Suddenly he was burning up. “How horrible for you.”

“I’ve been sitting here since Bonnie left—since I all but threw her out—and all I can think about is how much I hate him. He was a gutless coward, leaving us like that.”

Even though she wanted to be strong for him, she felt the first tear fall down her cheek. Now she had a deeper understanding of why he admired FDR so much. He was someone who hadn’t buckled under adversity. 

“It’s crazy,” he continued. “This happened twenty-four years ago, and all I want to do is…I don’t know…beat the shit out of him for it. But that’s nuts because he’s dead. And get this. Ally said he was sorry. I practically threw her out too. I…I didn’t believe it. But how could she know any of this shit? I’ve never talked about it publicly.”

Moira got a chill from his words. She knew of Ally, and Andy had told her enough about the healer for her to believe in her gifts. Chase was right. She wasn’t just a healer in a conventional sense.

“I don’t know how she knows things,” she told Chase. “But she did this kind of thing with Kim too. Andy says she’s the full package. It’s weird, but…undeniable. Maybe…I don’t know…maybe this needed to come up. You were upset about the house being on fire the day we went skiing. I could tell.”

“Are you saying seeing that fire caused my accident?” he asked, lifting her chin to look at her.

Suddenly she was afraid, like the answer would determine whether he would push her away or continue to let her see into this vulnerable part of himself. She didn’t want that. “What do you think?”

He chuckled bitterly. “It’s crossed my mind. Shit, I was hoping helping that family—”

“What family?” she asked.

His sigh sounded tortured. “I don’t want you getting all…I don’t know…mushy about it, but I helped the family whose house burned down. I swore them to secrecy. Their little boy was in the hospital.”

And he’d reached out to help? Her throat seemed to close. Yeah, she felt mushy all right. “That was a beautiful thing you did, Chase.”

“Moira, everything I’ve done in my life since my dad checked out has been about choosing the right road. Evan knows he can depend on me. So does everyone else I work with. I’m not like my father.”

That was the rub, wasn’t it? Her brothers had always worried they’d become like their dad. Dr. Hale had the tendency to get so wrapped up in work he’d forget about his family. “No, you aren’t your father. You would never make the choice he made.”

His expression shifted, like pain was physically washing over his flesh. “I think that too, but when it comes down to it, I never in a million years would have thought my dad would take the cheap way out. He was so strong.”

She bit her lip to keep more tears from falling.

“Moira, he was my hero.”

Then he pressed his face against her neck, his good hand digging into her waist.

The only thing she knew to do was hold him. There was nothing to say, she knew that. How could his dad not be his hero? Her brothers had idolized their father too. That’s why they’d been so disappointed and hurt when Dr. Hale had let their beautiful and funny mom walk away from him without a fight. She was still mad at him for that. She couldn’t imagine how angry she’d be if she was in Chase’s shoes.

The kitten turned over in a half roll, like it was feeling neglected, so she rubbed its belly. Bonnie had been so smart to leave it with Chase. From the way he’d kept it on his lap, she knew he liked the fuzzy tabby.

They stayed that way, holding each other as the fire died out. Barney fell asleep on her lap, nestled between her body and Chase’s.

“Moira,” Chase finally said after eons of silence and comfort.

She kissed his cheek in response.

“Thank you.”

She remembered what she’d said to him after skiing down a death-defying path to get to him, one most wouldn’t have traveled. It was still true. Even more so now.

“I told you I wouldn’t leave you alone.”