Tangled Web (23 page)

“And you were happy,” Chase said softly, suddenly glad his father and Hope had been blessed with each other.

“Yes,” Hope affirmed. “We were.”

His feelings in turmoil, Chase thought about all she had told him. And the danger still ahead. “Does Russell know about Joey?”

Her face drained of color and she clung to him. “He's just recently figured it out.” Tilting her head back, so she could look deep into his eyes, she confessed honestly, “Chase, I'm scared. I've already paid him one hundred thousand dollars. That's why I sold my jewelry. I was trying so hard to get rid of him, to get him out of my life and Joey's once and for all.”

Chase had figured as much. Still, it was a relief to hear her say it. She was finally telling him everything; she trusted him, after all. “But he still wants more,” Chase ascertained grimly. He was thinking ahead to possible solutions.

Hope nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes darkened and her mouth took on a brave, determined line. “I realized tonight I can't pay him again. If I do, it'll never end.” She hesitated, looking to him for the answers she didn't have, needing him as never before. “What am I going to do?”

He held her close, stroking her hair, glad he was able to be there
for her. As he contemplated the future, his mood was both troubled and thoughtful. He had to find a way to help her out. He wouldn't rest until he did. “We'll figure something out, Hope,” he said, gently reassuring her. “I promise you we will.”

 

R
USSELL WAS WAITING
for Hope when she walked into Maxim's. Seeing Chase by her side, his expression soured. His mouth compressed in a furious line, he looked at Hope for explanation.

“I've told Chase everything,” Hope said simply.

“And I'm here to tell you to back off, pal,” Chase continued. He turned a chair around, slipped into it backward and folded his hands across the top. “The Barrister name wields a lot of influence in this state. Extortion is against the law.”

Russell looked at her, pressuring her to back up his claim. “Hope's just been helping out an old friend,” he said.

Telling Chase the truth had exorcised a lot of demons within her. Hope knew she didn't have to be afraid anymore, not of the truth and not of Russell. She still didn't want Joey to know, but if it came to that, she knew they would find a way to handle it. She smiled at Russell, her eyes carrying the same dangerous glint as Chase's. “I'm calling in my loans,” she informed her nemesis quietly.

Chase fumed like a volcano about to blow as he faced Russell. “We'll give you twenty-four hours to come up with the cash she so kindly ‘loaned' you,” he said. The smoothness in his voice didn't lessen the threat in his eyes one iota. “Then we go to the police and talk extortion.”

“You wouldn't dare,” Russell said smugly. The dots of perspiration on his upper lip belied the put-on confidence in his voice.

“Yes,” Hope said firmly, saying what she had known she should have said from the very first, “I would.” For the first time in weeks she could face Russell without the fear of a migraine coming on.

They stared at one another. Equals now. No longer the defenseless poor girl and the overbearing rich stud.

“Be at our attorney's office tomorrow at ten sharp,” Chase said, passing Russell a piece of paper with the name and address written on it. “And be ready to sign some papers.” He gave him a crocodile grin. “We're going to make sure this never happens again.”

Russell looked outwardly unimpressed, though a muscle was ticking involuntarily in his jaw. “And if I don't show up?” he asked. His low voice was laced with vindictive fury.

“Then be ready to face blackmail and extortion charges,” Hope said flatly, refusing to let him intimidate her. “Because I
will
go to the police, Russell.”

“And this time,” Chase finished smugly, “she'll have the full power of the Barrister name and all our influence behind her and she will win.”

“Exhausted?” Chase asked as he drove Hope home shortly before noon the following day.

“Very,” Hope said. The session with the lawyers had been grueling but productive. Russell Morris had not only returned the money Hope had given him, but he had agreed never to seek custody of Joey. She had, in turn, promised never to ask Russell Morris for any type of financial support, or to divulge to Joey or anyone else who his real father was.

Finally, after all these weeks, Hope was free of the blackmail, the threats and the memories. She should have felt wonderful. And maybe she would've had she not been so on edge about the relationship between herself and Chase.

She still didn't know where she stood with him. She wasn't sure
he
knew where they stood. She didn't want to believe the passion he felt for her was fleeting, but she also knew he wasn't a man who, apart from his one brief, failed engagement, had ever professed a need to be tied down to any one woman or any one place. She was still very tied to Houston and to Barrister's. She also still had a son to raise. Even if she wanted to follow Chase to the ends of the earth, she couldn't.

“Why don't you go up and lie down?” Chase asked as he let them in the front door. “I'll go in and get Carmelita to make you some tea.”

“Thanks. I think I will.”

Once upstairs in her bedroom, Hope kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She shut her eyes. As she did so, she was confronted with vivid images of Chase and herself in the guest
house, in his bed. Her face burned as she recalled how passionate they had been, how uninhibited. She had never guessed lovemaking could be like that. Never. But with Chase it was.

Chase walked in, tray in hands. “Tea for m'lady.”

Perspiring slightly at the nature of her thoughts, she sat up. He reached behind her to prop up the pillows and noted the moisture on her brow. “Not getting another migraine, are you?”

Hope smiled her relief, glad she was at last able to say, “No, I think they're all gone.”

“Good.” He straightened and looked around awkwardly.

“Chase—” There was so much she wanted to say, but she didn't know where to begin. Or even if now was the time. “You don't have to stay with me,” she said softly.

Gently he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know that. I want to.” Seeing all the questions in her eyes, he confessed in a low, intimate tone that let her know he really did understand her, “I know what it is to handle the hard stuff alone, Hope.”

Hope took in the firm, very masculine line of his mouth. Remembering what it had been like to kiss it, and be kissed by that mouth, the warmth of desire flowed through her. Trying to distract herself into paying attention to the conversation, she asked, “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. If he was entertaining the same type of licentious thoughts, he didn't show it, Hope thought. He traced a pattern lightly on the back of her hand. “Growing up, it seemed my parents were always fighting and I had no one to turn to.” His hand clasped hers tenderly and his eyes met hers. “I don't want that for you, not anymore,” he said, reminding her of all the storms she had previously had to weather alone in her life. “I don't want that for me.”

Hope looked up at him, her heart in her throat. They stared at each other. They both longed to make love again. Only neither was sure what it would mean. Hope wasn't sure she wanted to risk what had been a very pleasant, very wonderful, very giving memory.

Reading her fear, he slowly and deliberately stood, picked up a gift-wrapped box she had failed to notice and brought it forward. “I almost forgot,” he said with care, his hazel eyes calm and searching. “Here. This is for you.”

Aware of his gaze on her, she opened it with trembling fingers.
Inside was all her jewelry. Each piece conjured up a different memory, of life with his father, of life before Chase. Overcome with emotion, she didn't know what to say.

“I knew you didn't want to part with it, so I bought it back for you,” he said.

Only he had waited until now to give it to her. Earlier he hadn't trusted her enough. Now that he did, he found he really didn't want her to have it, not if it meant she became his father's wife again. His unwilling stepmother.

“You really do think of everything,” Hope observed in a shaking voice.

He studied her reaction, finding her not nearly as happy as he would have expected her to be weeks ago, when he had borrowed against the principle on his trust, and arranged to buy the jewelry. “It upsets you to have it back?”

Hope shook her head slowly. No, it upset her to know he was leaving. But knowing how he had hated having burdens put on him—how his father expected him to take over the store and his mother expected him to be a social butterfly—she didn't see how she could put demands on him, too. Not after all he had already done for her and for Joey.

“It's not the jewelry,” she said, finding it hard to speak around the tightness in her throat. She was so afraid they were going to lose everything they'd found, and she didn't think she could bear it if they did.

“What then?” Chase prodded patiently.

With effort, she summoned up all her courage and tried to cope with her feelings. “It's about that night in the guest house.” She didn't want a marriage like she had had before, with him marrying her because he knew she needed someone and wanted to help out. She wanted him there because he wanted to be there. Because he loved her as a man should love a woman.

Chase studied her, looking suddenly as afraid, as wary, as she felt. “Are you angry with me?” he asked simply. “Do you think I took advantage of you, the situation?”

“No,” she said, aghast. She stretched her legs out in front of her, smoothing the crocheted white afghan from knee to waist, as if by making herself more physically comfortable it would be easier to admit something that was emotionally uncomfortable to her.

“No, I wanted that to happen.” She had for a very long time.

“So did I,” Chase said softly, watching as she dipped her fingers restlessly into the intricate white weave of the afghan.

It's now or never, Hope told herself firmly. Be brave and lay it all on the line or die wondering what might have been. She had to find the courage to talk openly and honestly to him today. Right now, right this minute, while their feelings were still fresh. “Where do we go from here?” She lifted her face to his, her eyes telling him she really cared.

He studied her a moment longer, his eyes roving over her slightly mussed hair and unglossed lips. He flashed her a crooked grin and said with simple, heartfelt optimism, “How about forward?”

She looked at him, almost afraid to hope she could have everything.

“I can't promise you what kind of husband I'll make,” he continued honestly, clasping both her hands in his and lifting them to his mouth for tender kisses. “The truth is I don't know.” He squeezed her hand and put his mouth to her palm, planting a warm kiss squarely in the middle. “I never felt I was the marrying kind.” He grinned again at the mixture of shock and happiness on her face. “Until now,” he amended.

Hope went into his arms. “Oh, Chase,” she sighed, feeling as though all her dreams were finally coming true.

He hugged her back tightly. “Is that a yes or a no?”

Grinning from ear to ear, she hugged him back, just as confidently. “What do you think?”

“Joey, have you seen the canteens?” Chase asked, from a corner of the garage.

“No. Aren't they with the rest of the camping gear?” fifteen-year-old Joey asked, a perplexed expression on his face.

Hope looked up from the sleeping bags she was shaking out. Beside her, three-year-old Kevin played contentedly with three Sesame Street figures. He repeatedly dropped Bert, Ernie and Big Bird in an empty cooler, then rescued them all moments later. “I think the canteens are in the supply cabinet next to the freezer.”

Chase opened it. “Right again, as usual.”

Hope smiled at her husband and oldest son, then consulted her list of Things To Do. The list was never more important than when she was trying to organize their family of four for any group activity. Without a master plan, she would be lost, she knew, and so would her circle of three loving “men.” She checked off dinnerware and went to the next item. “Are the tents all ready?”

“Yep.” Joey answered for Chase. He looked at Hope importantly. “I took care of that myself.”

“We're going camping!” Kevin cried excitedly, running over to embrace his daddy around the knees. “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” he cheered.

Chase picked Kevin up and embraced him in a warm bear hug. “Yes, we are. Think you can handle it, big guy?”

“Yes!” Kevin cried. “But I get to sleep next to Joey!”

Joey moaned in mock aggravation. “Oh, no,” he said, pretending to be in great pain. He pointed a teasing finger at his three-year-old brother. “You snore!”

“I do not,” Kevin said indignantly. “You snore, Joey!”

“Do not!” Joey teased, and they were off, laughing and exchanging loving insults.

Watching them, Hope thought back to the changes the last five years had wrought. She had a solid marriage to a man she loved very much. Joey had a brother twelve years his junior, Chase two sons and a wife to take camping. Chase still left for the rain forests, spending several months a year total there, but because he only left for two weeks at a time Hope didn't mind.

The store had slowly become profitable again, with the changes Hope had implemented becoming chain-wide. And Hope was still president. Chase had tried to get Rosemary to sell her shares to him, to no avail. However, she was not as vocal about the running of it as she had been. And Hope appreciated that.

Joey's asthma was better. He still couldn't have a pet, but he liked having a younger brother better. Or so he said. Strong and fit, he had shed his glasses and was now wearing contacts and playing on his high-school baseball team. These days, if anyone teased him, it was usually about the girls who were chasing him.

It would have been better had Chase's mother approved of their marriage, Hope supposed, but she was also realistic enough to know that Rosemary would always harbor some resentment against her. However, things were better now than they had been five years ago, when she and Chase had first married, largely due to the reconciling event of Kevin's birth. Hope had every reason to expect things would continue to improve, very gradually, over time. Currently, Rosemary was living in Europe but she did visit them in Houston from time to time.

“Well,” Chase said, looking around at the gear they had scattered all over the garage. “I guess it's about time we start loading up the Jeep.”

“I'm ready.” Hoisting one of the rolled-up tents over his shoulder, Joey stalked to the Suburban parked in the driveway.

Chase handed Kevin to Hope. “You can be in charge of our budding frontiersman,” he said.

Hope happily accepted her son's thirty-pound weight, balancing him on her hip. For the next few minutes, they all were busy loading the car, Hope admittedly doing more supervising than carrying. Finally Chase shut the rear compartment. Joey held out his
hands to Kevin. “Okay, big guy, we're going to take a last look around and see if there're any other toys you want to bring.”

Chase looked at the crammed rear compartment of the Jeep. “Just so long as it's not too big,” he cautioned practically.

“Got ya,” Joey said, sauntering off, Kevin in his arms.

Feeling incredibly content, Hope watched the boys walk inside then laced her arms around her husband's neck and stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss. “Days like today,” she confided in a tender whisper, her eyes meeting his affectionately, “I feel like I have everything.”

Chase smiled down at her, contentment radiating from him. “I know what you mean,” he confessed softly, ardently tightening his grip. “Except one thing.”

Hope's brow furrowed and she flushed warmly. She couldn't think of a thing. “What?” she prompted curiously, her pulse beginning to race at the close proximity of her body to his.

“A daughter.” He paused, eyes twinkling, his strong body radiating resolve. “Kevin's three now. Maybe when we get back, we can get started on that.”

Hope grinned in anticipation, easily reading the desire and love in his eyes. Two qualities that were emanating from her own. “Now that,” she said standing on tiptoe and kissing him soundly once again, “sounds like a very worthwhile project indeed.”