She laughed.
“No, seriously, Vi. I mean it. My name is Chase. I stopped answering to anything else when I was four. Chase Alvarado-Callihan, to be exact. Lenoir is going to be so much easier to spell.”
“You’re so damn cute,” she said helplessly.
A little smugness settled in his body. It was good to be cute. “Now you have to love me to the moon and back,” he said. “You said the name was all that was stopping you.”
She rested her hand against his cheek, splint and touch of callused fingers. Her face softened. The humor slid away, but all the happiness stayed, and it was the most radiant, warming thing. “I’m pretty sure I will.”
Chapter 18
Bold, squarish letters:
How about April for a date? The bluebonnets in Texas are beautiful then.
Under it, a drawing of two entwined wedding rings, and the signature, Chase.
A cell phone number under his name.
Vi looked up at Chase. Who was actually blushing a little bit. “You wrote that the first night?”
They had just been released from the hospital, their first evening back in her apartment. Police security protected the door to the building. Chase’s identity had been kept out of the papers, but Vi’s was all over the place, and it turned out being a national hero drew an overwhelming amount of attention.
“It was three in the morning,” he said defensively. “And you have no idea how hot you are. I was sexually depleted and possibly sappy.”
“And right after that, you went and had my restaurant shut down without even warning me?”
His shoulders sank. “To keep you safe,” he said.
She glared at him.
“To keep the world safe,” he corrected. “And all your staff. And all your guests.”
She held up a finger. “You still should have told me about it. Keeping the staff and guests safe is my responsibility.”
He nodded resolutely. And then added, “Going on top-secret missions that affect multiple lives is mine.”
They gazed at each other a long, stubborn moment. Impossible really to tell who was the first one to start to smile just enough to encourage the other to smile, too. “I’m not giving in on this one,” Vi warned.
“I know. Of course, I’m not either.”
They both broke into bigger smiles. “You know it’s really kind of fun to box with someone who is up to your weight,” Vi said. “It doesn’t happen that often.”
Chase grinned at her and flexed one arm to make his biceps pop.
She laughed and returned her gaze to the phone number he had left her from the very first, and the drawing of wedding rings. He had left that note as he left her bed to go take over her career choices with macho conviction, hadn’t he? She shook her head at the impossible tangle of emotions he evoked. “It’s a good thing you have such good survival skills.”
“Five months and seven days left,” Chase said brightly.
She gave him a querying look.
“Until January 1. If I survive until then, you said. I was going to do little tally marks on the wall behind your bed like they do in prison movies or ones where people are stranded on a desert island. I get hot sex still, though, right? I mean, you’re not going to deny a man basic sustenance.”
She laughed and shook her head at him and turned the page in her journal.
Damn, you’re beautiful.
XO.
Chase.
She looked back at him.
He arched his head to try to see the page, and blushed some more. “That was the night you fell asleep. I was thinking I should probably go, but then…I didn’t.”
Her cheeks felt a little heated, too. Damn, you’re beautiful. She wanted to frame the words, to keep them for years and years and years.
She turned the page.
Got to make a quick trip out of town. Don’t mention it to anyone, okay?
A heart symbol this time, and Chase.
And:
P.S. Call me maybe?
A funny stick figure holding a phone, giant tears arching out of his eyes and over his head an image of his heart breaking.
A smile trembled on her lips. Funny, demanding, arrogant Chase, who apparently had never once just walked out on her without making sure she knew he’d be back.
“I put it in a very obvious spot!” he said. “Pinned open by your alarm clock. How could you not have seen it?”
She leaned back on the pillows, demonstrating flinging her arm out to fumble and knock an alarm clock to the floor. She still couldn’t stretch her arm out far, the movement pulled too much at her torso.
“Fine,” he said. “Next time I’ll write it in Sharpie on your forehead so you can see it when you look in the bathroom mirror.”
“Or, alternatively, if you want to survive, you could try the bathroom mirror itself. Or a note on the door. Pretty nearly impossible for me to leave the apartment without seeing a note on the door.”
“I sometimes go out the window,” Chase confided. “Just to keep life interesting.”
Vi had to grin. “You do keep life interesting, all right.”