Unspoken: Shadow Falls: After Dark (34 page)

Steve gave the girl his order.

“And you?” the girl asked.

“Nothing,” Della answered, but then her eyes lowered to the bakery stuff under the glass counter. Her heart dropped a few inches.
They tasted like love,
Chase had said.

“Wait,” she said as the lady started to turn. “I’ll take a snickerdoodle cookie.”

“I’ve never seen you eat sweets,” Steve said.

“Is it against the law for me to want one now?” she snapped and wanted to die for being such a bitch.

Ding. Ding. Ding. The awkward bells started ringing again. She was going to have to stop those damn bells. But the only way was to have that talk Steve had been pushing her to have.

Not now.

Really bad timing. How did you tell someone helping you,
Oh, by the way, you know how I said I love you? Well, I don’t really love-love you.

And yeah, that was what she needed to tell him. It didn’t matter what was happening with Chase. The fact was, she didn’t love-love Steve and he deserved someone who did. He was a great guy.

The woman put the cookie in a bag on the counter, and Della reached for some money.

“I got it,” Steve said.

“No, uh, I’m buying it and I’m buying yours, too.”

“No, I can…”

“You’re helping me.” Della threw a twenty-dollar bill on the counter. “Keep the change,” she told the girl. Then she went and found a corner table.

Steve walked over a few minutes later with a steaming cup of good-smelling, bitter-tasting stuff and a slice of cake.

“Thanks,” he said.

She nodded and reached for a napkin, suddenly wishing she had bought a coffee just to have something to keep her hands busy. But then again, she had the cookie. She glanced at it, still in the bag.

She looked up, and his soft brown eyes met hers.
Not now.
She glanced away.

Then Steve reached for her cookie. He had it halfway across the table when she put her hand on top of his and stopped him.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing, I was going to try a bite.”

“No.”

He looked odd. “Okay.”

Ding. Ding. Ding.

She pulled the cookie back to her side of the table.

She glanced up. “I don’t love you,” she blurted out. Oh, friggin’ hell, why had she done that?

Steve had his cup to his lips. Her words must have shocked him because he apparently swallowed wrong. Coffee spewed out of his mouth, and … maybe even his nose. So not pretty.

Then he went from spewing to hacking.

“Shit,” she muttered and handed him her napkin.

He took it and put it to his lips.

“Sorry,” she said as he turned his face away and used the napkin to clean off his face.

When he turned back, he had tears in his eyes. Surely it was from the hacking and not … Let it be from the hacking. Please!

He met her gaze and then … then laughed. Real deep, belly-type of laughing.

She stared at him. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” he said. “Us.”

“I guess I don’t see the humor in it.” She ran her finger over the edge of the table and looked down at the cookie again.

“Hey,” he said, his voice pulling her eyes up.

“I knew what you meant last night. And I also knew you felt weird about saying it.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I did.”

She nodded. And just like that she remembered some of the vibes she’d gotten from Steve since he’d come back. “You don’t love me either, do you?”

That chased away the humor in his eyes.

“Well, I … care, but…” He turned his cup in his hands. “Are we finally having our talk?”

“As long as you aren’t gonna be pissed at me and not help me tonight.” No sooner had she said that, did she wish she could unsay it.

He frowned. “You know me better than that.”

“Sorry. I do. I’m just…” dying inside. “I’m messed up right now.”

“Do you want to go first?” he asked.

“I hate being first.” She looked down at the bag with the cookie and reached in and broke a piece off. “I’m sorry. You can have a piece of you’d like.”

“That’s okay.” He smiled.

She took a bite. The sugar and cinnamon had her taste buds dancing, but then the other stuff, the doughy middle, tasted like paste.

But she forced herself to swallow.

“Okay, I’ll go first.” He took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing. I care about you. A lot. And if … some things didn’t happen, things might be different now.”

“Things?” she asked.

He let go of a deep breath. “Sorry, that’s not what I want to say.” He frowned and looked down at his cup. “I’m sort of messed up too. A little bit. Not so much that I wouldn’t share my cookie with you.” He grinned and she knew it was a joke.

She also knew that sometimes Steve joked when he was nervous.

They stared at each other for several minutes.

“Here’s the truth,” he said. “There’s a part of me that is still pissed about Chase. But something you said to me before I left has stuck with me.”

She bit down on her lip. “I said a lot of things.” She wasn’t even sure she remembered them. She’d been really pissed.

He smiled, his sad smile. “You asked me why I had made you care when I knew I was leaving.”

She nodded and the hurt from before whispered over her heart.

“You were right. I was planning on leaving. I didn’t know for sure if I would get the Paris gig, but I was hoping I would. And I think I just sort of thought you’d understand because it was about my career. I want to be a doctor. I want it more than anything.”

“If you’d told me—”

He held up his hand. “Let me finish, please. I think I didn’t tell you because that would have made me realize how my fantasy future—the one I dreamed I’d get—didn’t really match my … Della future. The one I was kind of hoping I’d get too. I knew that if I got the Paris gig there was a slight chance that I might get chosen for the International Training Academy … and I was.” His eyes sparkled with pride.

“Congratulations,” Della said.

He nodded. “After I graduate from Shadow Falls, I’ll be moving to France for a year to train under one doctor, then for the next four years I’ll be moving to Germany, Japan, and then Switzerland.”

He picked up his coffee. “So while it ticked me off that you sort of chose Chase over me, I—”

“But—”

He held up his hand and silenced her. “I finally realized that I sort of chose my career over you. Or I was going to if it happened.”

Nodding, but still needing something to do with her hands, she pulled her phone out and ran her finger around the case.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,” Steve continued. “As crazy as this sounds, I still kind of love you. And I’m still kind of pissed about Chase, but…”

“I understand.” She looked up, trying to think of something to say that would make him feel better. “You just love your career more.”

He frowned again and she realized that might not have been the right thing to say. “And you love Chase more. And maybe even your career.”

She looked down at the cookie. “I don’t know … Chase and I … I don’t know if it’s love.”
He’s already left me.
“I mean, the bond just—”

“Stop,” he said. “And look at me,” he insisted.

When her gaze raised, he continued, “I don’t know what or how the blood transfusion affected you two. But Della, you had eyes for him when he first showed up. You were halfway in love with him before you got his blood.”

She didn’t deny it. “It’s still complicated. He deceived me and now…”

“And now he’s working for the FRU, helping you get your father off, and … and he loves you. He told me, Della. And he’s not going to give up on you.”

He already did.

“But that doesn’t mean you have to make it so hard on him. I know you. When someone gets a little too close, you start pushing them back. Stop it. I know you’ve been hurt, but other people, people who care about you, shouldn’t have to pay for the mistakes some idiots made in the past.”

Emotion tightened her throat. Had she run Chase off? She recalled telling him she didn’t love him, but hadn’t he told her he’d wait?

Maybe waiting didn’t include thinking she was snuggling up with Steve. Maybe she should have tried to explain right away. But if Chase was able to just walk away after a little misunderstanding, was she that important to him?

“Thanks for the advice,” she said, and for some crazy reason she reached over and took another bite of the cookie. Then another. It didn’t taste any better, but it didn’t stop her.

She wanted to like it.

She also wanted to know what love tasted like.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chase parked in front of his cabin. He got out and stood by the open door waiting for Baxter to get out.

“Come on,” Chase said when the dog just plopped back down in the seat as if to say he planned on sleeping in the car.

“We’re gonna sleep inside tonight. I promise.” Baxter hadn’t found the porch all that comfortable. Neither had Chase, but what did that matter? He’d barely slept these last few nights. He’d spent his eight hours working with Burnett, then took off and worked another twelve combing Houston searching for Stone. He still didn’t have a friggin’ clue what he was going to do when he caught the bastard.

Kill the man before he took him in, knowing it might prevent Della’s dad from getting off, or take him in, and let Stone take down the council and Eddie?

“Come on, get out,” Chase told the dog. Baxter had been depressed since he’d brought him here. Probably pissed at Chase’s long hours, or maybe the dog missed Della.

Chase did too.

He was friggin’ miserable, too miserable to deal with a depressed dog.

Damn, Chase missed her. But he’d promised her he wouldn’t lie. And if she questioned him about what went down with Kirk, he’d have to lie.

“Come on, Baxter. Let’s go.”

The dog did as requested.

Chase walked around the back and got out his two purchases in separate bags.

He’d gone to a store to buy air spray—so he could sleep in the house. But when he passed the diner inside the grocery store he saw their sign announcing the sale of their French onion soup. So he picked that up too.

Della said she liked it. Maybe he would too.

He walked inside, Baxter at his heels. He pulled the Lysol out of the plastic bag. “You might want to go back outside,” he told the dog. This stuff stinks, but he’d rather smell it than the alternative.

The dog dropped down, so Chase commenced with spraying. First one room and then the other. He practically emptied the can in the bedroom.

He just hoped the stuff got rid of the smell.

The place smelled like pheromones. Happy, happy pheromones. Liam and Natasha must have done it like rabbits. Oh, they’d washed the sheets and even lit a candle. But he could still smell it.

Normally, the smell wouldn’t have bothered him. Chase liked sex. Especially if he was having it. But all it did was make him miss Della even more. Want Della even more. Want to have sex with Della even more.

Not that he would pressure her. Never. He figured it would happen sooner or later. He’d been hoping for sooner, but hey, he always was an optimist.

He loved her. And he was keeping his damn promise, not lying to her even if it meant he couldn’t see her until all this was over.

But then that smell would also take him back to finding Steve’s scent all over Della. They hadn’t had sex—he would have smelled that—but thinking about her in Steve’s arms pissed him off.

The one thing Chase was really good at when he was pissed off was acting like an ass. And he had. He’d out-assed himself.

He should have given her a chance to explain. He should have apologized. But he hadn’t, because walking away mad had been an easy out. From the moment she’d seen him, she’d started asking questions about his visit with Kirk. If he’d stayed there, even a few minutes longer, she’d hit a question he couldn’t dance around and he’d have ended up lying to her. And nope. He wasn’t doing that.

He’d promised her.

And Chase may occasionally be an ass, but he didn’t break promises. Which was why he didn’t make them very often. Why he’d refused to give Kirk his promise.

Walking into the kitchen, he dropped the can in the garbage. Then he grabbed a spoon and slid his bag with his soup over and dropped down in the chair. The chair Della had sat in the other night.

Kirk’s words echoed in his head.
Besides, you don’t even know they will convict her father. The lawyers can get him off. We know the FRU are on it.

Could he take that risk? Was he planning on purposely killing the man? Could he commit murder? And yes, no matter how Chase looked at it, that was what it was.

Murder.

He dropped the spoon, then pulled out the piece of paper Kirk had given him from his black coat pocket. Six out of ten places were crossed off. After a couple of hours of sleep, he’d go back out.

He pulled the Styrofoam cup of soup out and opened the top. It was still hot, steam billowing out of the top. But the cheese he’d seen the woman put on top was stuck to the lid.

He tried scraping it off, but it wouldn’t come. He gave up and grabbed the spoon.

Chase took his first bite. And looked at the lid. Maybe the cheese was what made it good, because without it, it tasted bad. Really, really bad.

He spooned himself another bite. Logically, he knew that just because he loved Della didn’t mean he had to like everything she liked.

He still didn’t stop eating. Because … because … Hell, he didn’t know why. Other than that Della liked it.

Nope, he never stopped. He finished the whole damn thing. Every disgusting spoonful.

*   *   *

Steve and Della walked out of the coffee shop. The sky was dark. The moon still hung big in the sky, only a sliver of its fullness missing. But it was probably the safest night to be out, because the weres were all hung over from their monthly shift.

The wind was cold, but not deadly cold. It reminded her that she hadn’t seen a ghost in a while.

When they cut around to the back of the hospital, the darkness became denser. Only their footsteps echoed in the night.