Chase’s gaze lingered on Julia’s flushed face, then moved to the two beautiful women behind her who were staring daggers at him. Interrogation time again. Looked like Suzanne had brought reinforcements. He’d learned long ago to start as he intended to finish.
“Hi, Julia.” Leaning over, he brushed his lips across her cheek, then straightened. Two pairs of assessing brown eyes openly sized him up. He didn’t mind. He was doing the same.
The one in black would be the lobbyist; the other one in pale gray would work for the State Department. Classy and elegant, both women would draw a man’s attention and have enough spunk to cut him to the quick if necessary.
“Hello, Suzanne, Amanda.” He extended his hand. “I’m Chase Braxton.”
Their handshakes, as he had imagined they would be, were firm. “Chase,” they greeted in unison.
Her stomach still doing little flip-flops from Chase’s unexpected kiss in front of her sisters, Julia opened the door wider, hoping they would take the hint. “I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
Neither took her gaze from Chase. Amanda spoke first, “I pulled your photo up on the Internet.”
“That’s what it’s there for.” Chase’s gaze went to Julia. “Where’s the picnic basket?”
Julia frowned at her stubborn sisters. “In the kitchen.”
“Why don’t you get it, and your sisters and I can become better acquainted?” he said easily.
Indecision held Julia still. Because she had been shy, awkward, and insecure growing up, her family, especially her sisters, had always been protective of her. Now that she had grown up, they still thought she needed them to watch out for her.
Chase reached behind him and closed the door. “The Rangers have a motto: ‘One Ranger. One Riot.’ I’ll be fine.”
Julia looked at Chase, jaw-droppingly handsome in a chambray shirt, jeans, and blue jeans jacket, and noticed none of the nervousness her pitiful few dates had suffered when confronted with Suzanne and Amanda while Julia was in high school and college. Chase could hold his own. The kiss should have told her.
She relaxed. “Excuse me; I won’t be but a minute.”
Chase, Suzanne, and Amanda waited for all of ten seconds. Chase got the first volley off. “Julia is a unique young woman who knows her own mind and doesn’t need you or anyone else telling her what to do or looking over her shoulder.”
“Wait a minute, buster,” Suzanne said, stepping forward.
“No, you wait a minute,” Chase replied. “How do you think she feels knowing you’re here to check out her date, as if she is still in high school? She knows what she wants.”
“And I suppose that’s you.”
Chase cut his gaze to Amanda. “Whether it is or not, she has to make the decision. And all you can do is be there for her. Sometimes you have to let go.”
“She’s our baby sister and much too softhearted and trusting.”
“She’s also a grown, intelligent woman, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I hate to interrupt, but here is the basket,” Julia said sweetly, handing it to Chase.
He hefted the weight and grinned. “I see you’ve packed enough.”
“I hope you like it.”
“I will. You better get something to sit on. While you’re at it, grab a pair of walking shoes.”
Julia stopped and turned; the long skirt of the dress swirled around her shapely legs. “These shoes are fine.”
“Not if you decide you want to traipse through monuments again.”
“Chase, I’ll be fine.”
“Indulge me and grab the shoes, and don’t forget your keys.”
She made a face, muttering as she went, clearly not pleased.
He looked at Suzanne and Amanda. “See? She’s no pushover. For that you probably should take some of the credit, but it’s time to back off and let her make her own mistakes, if it comes to that. But I don’t think she will.”
“I was prepared not to like you,” Suzanne said with a sigh. “I’m just realizing that about her myself.”
“Me, too,” Amanda agreed.
“Why did you see it and we didn’t?”
“Because, as you said, you still see her as your baby sister and not the woman she has become.”
“She grew up on us.” Thoughtfully Amanda folded her arms.
“That she did,” Chase said with frank male appreciation. “Does this mean we call a truce?”
“For now,” Amanda said, a slow smile curving her lips.
“Good. I didn’t want to argue with my brother and you.”
“What’s your brother got to do with this?” Suzanne asked, a frown on her beautiful face.
“Absolutely nothing, but he’s as opinionated as they come.” Chase shook his head. “After I told him about our conversation, he thought you were a busybody.”
Suzanne’s brown eyes flashed. “Opinionated and annoying.”
Chase chuckled. “At times. However, in Colt’s defense, he was only trying to look out for my best interest, just as you and Amanda
were doing for Julia. All of your intentions were good, but unnecessary and unwanted.” Looking over their heads, he saw Julia. He suppressed a smile when he saw the canvas bag in her hand. He took the things from her. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.”
“I suppose,” she admitted.
He took her hand in his, pleased by the slight tremble he felt. “Ladies, would you like to join us?”
Julia shook her head and mouthed, No.
“We can tell when we’re not wanted, can’t we, Amanda?” Suzanne went to the sofa and picked up her oversize black purse and slung the twin straps over her shoulder. “Have fun, you two.”
Amanda’s gray purse was a fourth of the size and bulk of Suzanne’s. She stuck the bag under her arm. “I have a plane to catch. Nice meeting you, Chase.”
Chase’s arm lifted to circle Julia’s shoulders, his eyes direct and sincere. “I’ll do my best to make sure you always feel that way.”
“We believe you.” The door closed softly behind them.
Julia gazed up at him in amazement. “How did you do that?”
“First things first.” His lips settled on hers, his tongue slipping inside her mouth to gently mate with hers. Long seconds later, he lifted his head. “You taste sweeter each time I kiss you.”
“So do you,” Julia breathed, curling her arms and her body closer to his. “You could make me a kissaholic.”
“That …”—he nipped her lower lip—“works both ways.” Stepping back, he opened the door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here while I still have some willpower left.”
The morning was sun-kissed and magical. Julia freely admitted it was because she was with Chase. She selected a sunny spot on the lush grass of the Mall, the popular corridor between the Capitol and the Lincoln Monument, for their picnic. People strolled its length, played baseball, soccer, jogged.
Chase placed the basket on top of the plaid blanket, then helped Julia sit. She came down on her knees and immediately began dragging food from the hamper. “I hope you like chicken salad.”
Propped on his side, Chase watched her economical, graceful movements. “I love food, period.”
Laughing, she looked up at him, felt the familiar pull, and ducked her head. If she wanted him to wait, she had to stop staring at him as if she could eat him with a spoon.
Chase’s hand settled over hers, causing her to jump. “It’s all right to want me. Lord knows I want you.”
Some small part of her wanted to tuck her head and shy away from the words. Another part of her wanted to embrace his words as she wanted to embrace him.
She had overheard Chase talking to her sisters. He saw the woman that she so desperately wanted to be, the woman she hoped she was. Not for anything would she give him cause to think he had been wrong. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said, his eyes and his words tender. “I’ve heard the practiced words too many times in the past. I’ve forgotten them and the women who said them. Your honesty and, although it might annoy you, your vulnerability are much more appealing.”
She made a face and reached into the basket for a Thermos of lemonade. “You make me sound pitifully childish.”
“A childish woman wouldn’t keep me awake at night, and I certainly wouldn’t arrive thirty minutes early for a date.”
“You did?” she questioned, delight and amazement in her animated voice and face. “You arrived at the door on time. Where were you?”
Seeing the joy shining in her brown eyes banished the mild annoyance he had felt with himself. “With Percival. He had a good laugh watching me try to decide if I should go up early or play it cool and wait.”
“He likes to tease.”
“So I found out,” Chase said. “The important thing is that I’m where I want to be.”
“So am I.” That she was sure of. “And next time come on up.”
“I will.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it to rummage in the basket. He came out with the thermal cooler containing chocolate-covered strawberries. He held one up to her lips.
Her eyes locked with his. She bit. Juice ran down one corner of her mouth. Her tongue followed. So did Chase’s hot gaze.
She began to tremble. Leaning toward her, he slowly traced the path her tongue had taken with his tongue, then sat back and bit into the strawberry, chewed, swallowed. He closed the container with hands that were not quite steady. “Why don’t we save them until we get back to your apartment?”
It took a couple of moments for her to speak. “I’d like that.”
A soccer ball rolled onto the blanket, breaking the tension-filled moment. Coming to his feet, Chase expertly shot the ball back to the young man loping toward him.
Catching the ball, the ponytailed player began rolling the ball in his hand. “Wanna play?”
“No, thanks,” Chase told him, then sat back down.
“I don’t mind if you want to play.” She poured the lemonade into a slender glass.
Chase popped an olive into his mouth and accepted the glass. “I would.”
She paused in unwrapping the thick sandwich loaded with chunky chicken salad, lettuce, tomatoes. She had purposefully left out the sweet onions. “I don’t understand?”
“To play, I’d have to be away from you.”
Her insides went shivery. Her eyes misted. “Chase, you say the most beautiful things to me.”
His knuckles tenderly grazed her cheek. “If you cry I’ll have to kiss the tears away, and one thing might lead to another. It wouldn’t look good on my record or on yours if we were arrested.”
Julia brushed away the tears forming in her eyes. “No, it wouldn’t. So why don’t you tell me why you broke tradition to become a Texas Ranger?”
“I think it was probably after my hundredth or so rerun episode of The Lone Ranger when I was ten,” he began, regaling her with stories as they ate their lunch. He told of playing the Lone Ranger and riding Silver, the kitchen broom, to capture the neighborhood kids playing outlaws. He’d cut holes in his father’s best black socks to make a mask. Although his father had tanned his backside, he’d still gotten the holstered guns and hat set he’d asked for for Christmas.
“What did your mother have to say?” Julia asked, smiling.
His face and body tensed. “She left when I was nine and Colt was twelve. Daddy and his partner answered a domestic dispute that went sour. Daddy’s partner was killed and he was wounded. Mama left as soon as he was released from the doctor. She said she couldn’t take the possibility of Daddy not coming home one night.”
“Chase, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He shrugged broad shoulders and sat up. “It happens.”
“But that doesn’t make it any less painful,” she said, placing her hand over his.
It always amazed him how intuitive and supportive she was. His hand turned, enclosing hers within his. “We did all right.”
“I’d say you did more than all right,” Julia said, wanting to take the shadows from his eyes. “I haven’t met your father or Colt, but from the way you speak about them I know they must be wonderful men, and the three of you must be very close. That took hard work on your father’s part to raise two responsible, honorable, hardworking men.”
“He never missed a day telling or showing us how much he loved us,” Chase said. “I’ve counseled too many kids not to know how it could have turned out. Policemen’s kids or not.”
“It must have been hard at times on all of you.”
“For a long time, Daddy blamed himself.”
“Did you?”
“Oddly enough, Mama helped me to understand. He wouldn’t have been happy doing anything else, and if she had taken his children thousands of miles away it would have killed him. She loved us all enough to sacrifice. Not a week went by that she didn’t call or write. Sometimes both. In the summer, off we’d go to Pittsburgh.”
“It sounds as if she loved you very much.”
“She did. Losing her when I was in high school to a ruptured appendix was hard on all of us.” His gaze bore into Julia. “She never remarried. She fell in love with the wrong man and paid the price the rest of her life.”
Julia listened, her heart growing heavier with every word Chase spoke. He was warning her against falling in love, but it was already too late. “Was your father ever injured again in the line of duty?”
“No.”
“Your mother chose her way to deal with her fear, but another woman might choose to stay and cherish each minute, each second,” Julia said with feeling. “If given the opportunity, another woman might choose to fight to hold onto what she loved most.”
He pulled his hand free. “Maybe. Let’s repack the basket and you can drag me through another museum.”
Sighing, Julia began putting things back in the basket. Chase wasn’t going to give them an opportunity to find out if it was left up to him.
“Chase,” she said softly, waiting until his dark gaze met hers. “What would you say if we skipped the museum and went back to my place and finished the rest of the strawberries?”
“I’d say pack faster.”
His hot, hungry mouth was on hers the instant the door closed behind them. Holding nothing back, she met him with passion and greed, her slim body pressed eagerly against his. He felt the difference immediately. High, firm, unrestrained breasts pushed against
his chest. He groaned and thanked the increasing temperature that had made him leave his jacket in the Jeep.
Nibbling her lower lip, he slid his hand from her waist to close possessively over the soft mound of her breast, felt the nipple harden instantly. The pleasure pulsating through him doubled as she pressed against him. Her eyelids drifted shut for all of five seconds before they flew upward. Eyes wide, she blushed and stumbled back.
“Julia, what is it?”
She shook her head and backed up a step.
Worried, Chase matched her step for step. “Honey, what’s the matter?”
Somehow the endearment only made her predicament worse. Her mouth opened, then closed. Several seconds passed before she stammered, “I don’t have on … I forgot … I mean I didn’t have time.” She swallowed. “Y-you were at the door and Suzanne and Amanda were going to answer it. I didn’t have time.”
A slow smile of understanding spread across Chase’s handsome face. He reached out, his hands gently settling on her shoulders to keep her from backing up farther. “You weren’t thinking of leaving your guest, were you?”
“I—”
His lips brushed across hers. She swayed closer, her mouth lifting to his. “Because I’d be very disappointed if you did.”
“But—”
He kissed her again, scattering her thoughts and sending heat and desire racing through her bloodstream. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes. It’s me I don’t trust.”
For some odd reason her words disturbed him. “Never say anything like that to any man.”
“I wasn’t saying them to any man.”
His hands on her shoulders tightened a fraction. He stared into her wide eyes and felt the floor shift beneath his feet. “I told you when I leave, this is over.”
“I know.”
“Then stop looking at me as if you expect this to continue.”
Biting her lower lip, she tucked her head. So much for good intentions and maturity, for believing she could enjoy what they had, then let him go. It wasn’t what she wanted or what she could accept. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, angry at the impossible situation. “I can’t give you what you want.”
“How do you know? You haven’t tried,” she told him tightly.
“And I won’t,” he shot back.
She recoiled from the harshness of his voice. “I see.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t have time for anything but the job,” he riled. “When I leave D.C. and go back to Austin I’ll have to catch up on six weeks of work that was already behind six months. I’m on call twenty-four/seven. I can’t remember the last time I had a full day off.”
“I’m sure other single men in the Rangers find time to date.”
A muscle leaped in Chase’s jaw. Why was she being so stubborn? “The women they’re dating aren’t four hours away by plane, nor is there the likelihood that they run their own successful businesses. Both of us have too many obligations for this to continue.”
“I don’t mind the trip, and as you’ve seen, I make time for the things that are important to me,” Julia told him, hoping it didn’t sound as if she were begging and afraid it did.
Chase’s mouth flattened into a narrow line. “What about when you open your second shop?”
Doubt that Julia was unable to hide flickered in her eyes. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
Wearily he shook his head. One of the things he admired about Julia was her dogged determination. He just wished she wasn’t now using it against him. “Both of us have too many responsibilities. It couldn’t work.”
She met his hard gaze with more courage than she had imagined. “How can you be so positive? You won’t even try.”
“No, I won’t.” His hands dropped to his sides. “When I leave in two weeks, I won’t be back.”
Her small hands clenched. She hadn’t imagined the pain, the immense sense of loss, could be so intense. “I thought I could be very modern and adult about this, but I can’t. Making love should mean something between a man and a woman, not just passing time.”
“I never lied to you, Julia.”
“No, you didn’t. I lied to myself.” She lifted her hand, extending it as though she expected nothing more from him than a perfunctory businesslike handshake. “Good-bye, Chase.”
He stared at the delicate hand with narrowed eyes; then his gaze glanced up to her. “So this is it?”
Her hand and voice wavered. “Yes.”
With a curt nod, he turned to leave.
Pain and disbelief rushed through Julia as Chase opened the door. How could he just walk away without trying? She knew he cared.
“I thought Texas Rangers were fearless,” she tossed out, then rushed on when he whirled back toward her, his eyes sharp and cutting. “You’re not giving either of us enough credit. We both go after and fight for what we want. Make no mistake, you’re what I want, but not for just a brief interlude. If you ever find you feel the same way, you know where to find me.”
For a long moment, he simply stared. Hope leaped in Julia’s heart; then he opened the door, walked through it, and closed it softly behind him.
“Oh, Chase!” Julia cried, finally letting the tears fall.