Here Comes Trouble (24 page)

“I know you want me, Lacy.” He held her face between his warm palms. His mouth still refused to settle on hers. “Just one more time together.”

She almost gave in. The feel of his much bigger, much harder body against hers had her coming so close to uttering the words he wanted to hear. Memories of them together, him on top of her, tortured her to the point of insanity.

Common sense had her stepping back, out of his embrace. “I meant it when I said I can’t. And we both know it wouldn’t be just one more time.” One time had never been enough for Chase. During their few weeks together, he’d barely given her enough time to remember her own name before taking her again.

He brushed his thumb along her cheek. “Okay.”

She picked the keys up from the ground, inserted them in the lock again and turned. The deadbolt didn’t unlatch with the key. After Dennis’ unwanted appearance, Lacy had been diligent about locking her doors. Before leaving earlier, she’d thrown the deadbolt and now the deadbolt wasn’t in place.

“What’s wrong?” Chase asked, when she froze in the act of opening the door.

The hairs on the back of Lacy’s neck stood. “I locked the door when I left and now it’s not locked.”

“Are you sure?”

She licked her suddenly dry lips. “Positive.”

Chase placed an arm in front of her and moved her back from the door. “Stay here.”

The old wood creaked when he swung it open. Lacy held her breath while he stepped over the threshold and into the house. The interior was inky dark. Why hadn’t she thought to leave a light on? Would Dennis be so bold as to enter her home a second time?

The seconds ticked by unnaturally slowly as Lacy held her breath and waited. Little beads of sweat formed in between her breasts and on her back. If someone was in her house, then Chase was potentially putting himself in danger. Or, more accurately,
she’d
put him in danger by bringing him here. Her teeth stabbed into her lower lip while she waited for him to come back and tell her the coast was clear.

He didn’t. Instead, a series of thumps and curse words came from inside the house. Something loud crashed to the ground, like several pieces of wood had splintered into a thousand pieces. The commotion had Lacy jumping back and squealing. Had someone really broken into her house and Chase had stumbled on them? What if he was hurt back there? Stabbed? Shot? Oh, Lord she’d never forgive herself if something happened to him.

Ignoring his command to wait outside, Lacy went into the house and followed the sounds of a struggle. Just for extra protection, she grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen and gripped it in her sweaty palms. Glass shattered, and more curses came from her bedroom. Her heart thudded up into her throat, but she forced one foot in front of the other until she came to her bedroom door.

The sight before her almost made her drop the frying pan. The old rocking chair which had once sat in the corner of the room was now reduced to toothpicks. Every single drawer in her nightstand, as well as her dresser was open and their contents tossed about the room. Half the knick-knacks from her dresser top were broken and scattered everywhere.

However, those material things didn’t matter to her. What had the breath whooshing out of her were the two men on the floor. Chase had Dennis pinned on his stomach, with Dennis’s head turned to one side at an awkward angle. Dennis tried to wiggle out from underneath Chase, who had his knee buried in the middle of her father’s back. Chase had trapped Dennis’s hand behind his back, locked in his tight grip.

A skinny stream of blood ran down one side of Chase’s face. Lacy dropped the frying pan, and it clattered to the floor as she rushed to his side.

“I told you to wait outside,” he barked.

“I heard a horrible sound. I thought you were hurt.”

Dennis tried to raise his head off the floor. “I know that check is here somewhere. You owe me!” He wiggled, but it was no use. “Just give me a little. I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

“Shut up.” Chase said through gritted teeth. Dennis groaned when Chase dug his knee harder into Dennis’s back. The fierce look on Chase’s face softened slightly. “As long as you’re in here, you might as well call the police. I don’t know how much longer I can sit in this position.”

Lacy sprinted back to the front porch where Chase dropped her purse. She dug her cell phone out with shaky hands and punched nine-one-one. She rattled out the information for the dispatcher in as even a tone as she could manage. Lacy walked back into the bedroom with the cell phone pressed to her ear, while the dispatcher tried to calm her down. Dennis had given up his futile attempts at getting free.

In moments, sirens rang in the distance. Lacy ended the call and stood outside the front door to wait for the police.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she said in a borderline shaky voice to the two officers who approached her.

“Are you all right, ma’am? Can you tell us what happened?” the younger officer asked her.

She led them through the door, while explaining how she’d realized her door had been unlocked and how Chase had captured her father. They followed her down the hallway and the three of them came to a stop outside her bedroom door. Lacy stood aside while the officers relieved Chase and slapped handcuffs on Dennis’s wrists. One officer spoke to Chase in hushed tones while the other one read Dennis his Miranda Rights. Lacy couldn’t bring herself to look at the man who’d fathered her. She shouldn’t be surprised he’d tried to rob. He’d done this very same thing to other people in the past whenever he needed money for a fix. But this was the first time he’d done something like this to her.

What if she’d been home? What if she hadn’t allowed Chase to walk her to the door? Lacy had never been afraid of her father before. She was now.

She stood back while the officer escorted Dennis out of the bedroom.

“You should probably have that cut looked at, sir,” the younger officer said to Chase.

Chase’s eyes lit on hers, and then roamed down her body. “I’m fine.”

The other man turned his kind eyes to her. “Would you like to press charges?”

Lacy walked farther into the room and stopped next to Chase. He grabbed her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Yes,” she replied.

The officer nodded once. “All right. We’ll have to get the suspect processed and we’ll be in touch in a couple of days. In the meantime, I’ll need to get both your statements.”

For the next thirty minutes, she and Chase retold their story. She described to the officer how she found her front door unlocked. Then Chase explained how he found Dennis rifling through Lacy’s drawers, tossing her clothes all over the bedroom. Lacy immediately suspected drugs when Chase mentioned the “wild look” in Dennis’s eyes. She should have known the man wouldn’t stay off the stuff for long.

Lacy swayed on her feet as the Trouble PD took her father away and the commotion died down. Chase came to her rescue again when he wound his arm around her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked after pulling her close to him.

“Me?” she asked him in disbelief. “You’re the one who’s hurt.” She touched the thin line of blood on his face, which had dried.

“It’s nothing. Just a scratch”

To keep from completely breaking down, Lacy pulled away from him and went to her bathroom. She grabbed the washcloth from the sink and ran it in warm water. “It’s not nothing,” she said after forcing him to sit on the bed. “How did this happen?”

Chase didn’t even flinch when she touched the cloth to his wound. “He pulled a fast one on me and threw something hard at my head. It was dark and I didn’t see it coming until it clocked me in the forehead.”

Lacy furiously blinked back tears at the idea of Chase being hurt. He’d all but stormed into the house on his white horse in an effort to protect her. And she hadn’t even asked him to. He was lucky Dennis hadn’t had a real weapon with him.

“It’s obvious he came here looking for that check,” he said as Lacy blotted away the dried blood. “How did he know about it?”

Lacy had never wanted to drag outsiders into her problems with Dennis, least of all friends.

“He said my mother’s parents told him about the money.” She turned the washcloth over to a clean side.

“He said?” Chase asked sharply. “You mean this is your
second
run-in with him? I thought he was in jail?”

“I’m not sure how long he’s been out. I stopped keeping track of him a long time ago.”

“So what happened?” He pulled out of her reach and looked at her. “He was here, wasn’t he?”

Lacy nodded and Chase stood from the bed, a myriad of expletives flying from his mouth. “Jesus, Lacy. Why didn’t you call the police?” he demanded.

She lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to deal with the headache. I just wanted him gone. Plus, he technically didn’t do anything wrong. I’d left the door unlocked.”

His face turned thunderous. “Didn’t do anything wrong? That’s trespassing.”

Her gaze followed him as he stalked from one side of the bedroom to the other. “I realize now I should have called the police. This incident tonight wouldn’t have happened.” She turned the washcloth over in her hands. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

“Sorry?” he repeated as he gripped her shoulders. “Have you thought about what would have happened if I hadn’t been here?”

Drugs always made Dennis volatile and unpredictable. If she had stumbled across him, what would he have done? Would he have been physically violent with her like he had with Chase? A shudder ran through her at the thought.

“I can see you’re giving it some thought now. I just wish you would have told me about the first time he came here.”

“And what would you have done? Stood guard at my door every night? It’s not your job to protect me.”

The thunderous look on his face softened. One of his hands left her shoulder and brushed over her hair. “It may not be my job, but I want to help you. You can’t do everything alone.”

Why not? I’ve been living like that a long time.

In fact, she’d been taking care of herself for so long that the idea of someone coming to her rescue had never occurred to her. Chase wanted to be that man, but could she let him? She wasn’t used to depending on people.

He dropped his hands from her. “I can see you’re tired.”

“Wait.” She grabbed his hand just as he turned away. “Don’t go yet.”

He lifted a brow in question.

She didn’t have the strength to jump back into bed with him and walk away unscathed. But the thought of sleeping here alone, knowing her father had invaded her privacy, made her skin crawl. Every time she closed her eyes, Chase’s depiction of tonight’s events flashed across her mind. Knowing her father had been digging through her personal belongings had her stomach churning in knots.

“I just–” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want to be alone.”

His thumb glided over the back of her palm. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”

She shook her head.

“In here? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Within seconds, he had her stripped down to her underwear and placed under the covers. There was nothing sexual about it. He didn’t plan on jumping her bones for an all-night sexual marathon. This was his way of showing he wanted to take care of her. Lacy was too tired to protest. Her eyes followed his movements around the room as he picked up her discarded things.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said in a sleepy voice.

“I know.” He picked up a handful of her underwear and placed them back in the drawer. “Just relax.”

Her eyes drifted shut. The sound of his footsteps around the room as he tidied things was an odd sort of comfort. Just knowing he was close by allowed her tension-filled body to relax by slow degrees. She forced thoughts of Dennis and his unpredictable behavior out of her mind. This being-taken-care-of thing wasn’t so bad.

Several minutes later, the mattress dipped under Chase’s weight as he slid under the covers. His body heat surrounded her in a cocoon of masculinity and strength. He brought her to him, and she went willingly, only too eager to feel his bare flesh against hers. She sighed in contentment as his arms went around her and she drifted to sleep.

Thirteen

Lacy had absolutely nothing to show at the art festival. A week since she’d drawn the Trouble Town Hall she’d accumulated probably dozen different versions of the same building. None of them had sparked any sort of “wow” factor that some of her others had; like the one of the tree she’d done a while back. Now
that
was wow. She kept the original for herself, simply because she couldn’t stand to part with it, and had a sixteen-by-twenty copy made, matted and framed. All of which had cost her a pretty penny. She figured if she priced this baby right she could make a small profit. And hopefully catch the eye of a gallery owner who’d love to buy a hundred copies of her work and sell them.

Still wishful thinking, but the festival was a step in the right direction.

Her studio floor was littered with every drawing she’d ever done, hoping to find something else to accompany the tree. A small pile of three possibilities sat on the couch.