Chapter Eleven
Diana
“Get me out of here!”
Lucas’ growling demand, laced with a mix of hatred and impatience bounced off the cinder block walls of his holding cell, his bloodied knuckles wrapped around the iron bars and he tried to force his head through. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips dry and crusted over.
“Diana.”
I looked over my shoulder to find Chase, in uniform, leaning against the wall. He jerked his head in the opposite direction and, before I moved, I took one more look at my ex.
“Babe, let me out,” he snarled, reaching for me.
I calmly took a step back, savoring the momentary feeling of power the jail cell gave me. He couldn’t touch me.
Never again.
“I’m not your babe,” I said, my voice sharp. “I’m not your woman. I am not your anything , Lucas.”
I gave him my back before the final word left my lips, silently hoping this was the last time I would ever see him. Chase was in the hall, talking with one of his newest officers in a hushed tone. She was young, twenty-five at most, and around the same height as me—but in much better shape. The trousers of her uniform stretched down her long, toned legs, her crisp tan button up tucked in neatly. Her dark auburn hair was twisted back into a tight bun, not a single stray poking out. Freckles dotted the bridge of her nose, and she had a beauty mark on the right side of her upper lip.
Chase had told me about her when she was hired, but that was three months ago. Her first day had been yesterday, and she’d spent all night dealing with my horrid ex.
“Whatever we have to do,” Chase said as I came up to them.
The new officer pulled her eyes from her boss, a smile stretching across her face. “You must be Diana,” she greeted.
“Diana Harper,” I introduced myself, holding out my hand.
“Cassandra Mining,” she replied, shaking my hand. “You can just call me Cass.”
“Lovely to meet you, Cass. Thank you for staying here all night to keep an eye on the shitshow in your holding cell.”
Understanding flashed in her eyes. “Of course, Ms. Harper.”
Chase cleared his throat. “Cass, I need that report on my desk by noon, yeah?”
Her brown eyes swung to him. “Yes, sir,” she answered before giving me a small smile.
Then, she turned around, heading for her desk and it was just the Sheriff and me.
“Did you get home alright?” I found myself asking, looking back at him. He still look exhausted, but better than I saw him last.
Chase’s lips twitched. “Yeah, Di. I made it home alright. Let’s talk in my office.”
My butt wasn’t even in the plush chair across from his desk before he asked the one question I’d hope he wouldn’t. The second it was out in the open, my stomach plummeted to the floor, dragging my heart down with it.
“Why was Mags at your place last night?” Chase shut his office door, and I closed my eyes, my head dropping as I listened to him move to his desk. After a moment, when I didn’t hear the familiar sound of his desk chair being pulled out, I dared myself to look up.
I shouldn’t have done that.
Judging by the look on his face, I really shouldn’t have whispered, “He came for me.”
Chase’s jaw jumped, and he moved in front of my chair, leaning back against his desk, gripping the edge of it. My hands began to shake, and before he could notice, I folded him together in my lap, mirroring the same position I usually took in court. Then, I leaned back, lifted my chin, and waited for his assessment.
“You called him?” he assumed.
“I called Denver.”
His brow raised. “And he sent Mags?”
“Well, no,” I began, clearing my throat as heat began to crawl up my neck, spreading over my jaw and up my cheeks like a dang plague. “I called Denver’s cell because you didn’t answer, and Mags—”
“—I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t,” he said, cutting me off.
I shook my head. “Chase, you’re allowed to be human.”
“Being human doesn’t protect the people I care about,” he returned, his voice low.
God, this man . My next words were gentle. “I only called Denver because I didn’t know what else to do. Lucas wasn’t going to stop, and Denver is the only other man I trust to handle something like this.”
“Do you trust Mags?”
I blinked, taken aback by his question—-his tone. My brows came together slowly. “Do you not trust him?”
Chase stared at me for a long time, the silence between us deafening. The only thing to be heard in his office was the steady tick of the standard issue clock nailed to the wall. Minutes dragged on, his eyes holding mine, and outside his office door, the police station rumbled. I shifted in my seat, anxiety swirling around me like a tornado, ready and willing to destroy everything in its path.
“Chase,” I whispered, my nails digging into my knees now.
His head tilted to the side, his eyes narrowing. “Why did Mags leave Hallow Ranch last night, Diana?”
A lump formed in my throat. “For me,” I rasped.
“Do you trust him?”
The truth spilled from my lips without a second thought. “Yes.”
Chase bent his head, inhaling a deep breath.
My voice cracked with my next question. “Do you know something I don’t?”
My friend’s eyes met mine again, shimmering with warning. “I’ve been around that man just as long as you have, Di, and after trying to look into him, I’ve found nothing. Mags, according to the US government, doesn’t exist.”
I said nothing.
“Last year, I met a friend of his. Grayson.”
“Grayson?” I parroted.
Chase nodded. “Joseph Grayson is the owner of Red Snake Investigations and served in the Marines with Mags.”
It clicked then. “Grayson is the bounty hunter Denver hired to get a message to Mason,” I said, thinking out loud.
“I looked into Grayson, hoping to find something—anything--on Mags.” My gaze lifted, colliding with his as he gave it to me. “I found something, but I couldn’t confirm if it was Mags. All records around what I found were sealed.”
I twisted my fingers together. “That still doesn’t answer my question, Chase.”
He leaned down. “How am I supposed to trust a man I know nothing about?”
“Mags is a good man,” I murmured.
“Even good men have dark sides, Diana.”
Breaking our gaze, I looked over to the painting on the wall. “Denver is a good man—the best man—and you trust him.” I twisted my head, looking back at Chase. “What makes Mags any different?” He said nothing, folding his arms over his chest. “Mags came to me last night because he thought I was in danger.” I let my words settle for a second before delivering the final blow. “Mags left Hallow Ranch.”
“For you,” he countered. “Which isn’t surprising in the slightest.”
I flinched. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not blind. Denver and everyone else at Hallow Ranch just can’t see it.”
My mouth dropped open. “I—”
“Saw it the second you two were in the same room for the first time, Diana,” he cut me off, his handsome features softening. “I wasn’t blind to it. I just never said anything.”
“You—wait—you know?” I stammered, my chest heaving now.
“Know that he’s head over heels for you? Yeah, I do,” he clarified.
Suddenly, the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart, thundering in my ears, drowning out the world around me.
Mags, head over heels?
For me?
My mind snapped back to last night, the sting of his rejection slamming into me all over again, more painful than before. Shaking my head, I tried to ignore the tears. “You’re wrong about that, Chase. You’re right about a lot of things, but you’re wrong about that,” I rasped, my voice thick.
A muscle in his tanned cheek ticked, his eyes scanning my face. “You wanna tell me why you got tears in your eyes?” he asked slowly.
I pressed my lips together and dropped my head. The first tear fell onto my arm, the warmth of it shocking me as the second soaked into my skirt. He’d come for me, he protected me, he’d held me in his arms. Then, it was shattered—the dream of him. One word from that cowboy, and all my hope disappeared.
No.
I heard Chase shift, and then, I felt him close to me. “Diana, look at me,” he ordered gently.
Shame coated me like slick oil, difficult to wash away, leaving irreversible damage. I lifted my head slowly, my hair hanging down around my face. I found the Sheriff on his haunches in front of me, his hands hanging down between his knees. “Tell me about those tears, Di. Tell me what’s happening right now.”
The pain in my chest made it difficult to breathe, and I braced for the incoming panic attack. Sometimes, they snuck up on me, while others, I felt them coming from a mile away. That was a different form of hell entirely. “I don’t want to talk about this, Chase. I’m here to discuss Lucas.”
“That fucker isn’t worth my energy or yours. He’s being released tonight and escorted to the edge of town. If he comes back again, I’ll shoot him,” he clipped.
Oh, no. “Chase—”
“ Enough. ”
I flinched at his command, the anger in his voice. I knew it wasn’t towards me.
His next question came out quick and sharp. “Why the fuck is my best friend crying over a cowboy?”
“I—”
“Don’t want any damn bullshit. I want the truth.”
I cut my eyes from him, attempting to swallow the lump in my throat.
“He hurt you?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t talk about this with him—or anyone. I felt crazy enough about it already. Speaking about it to a third party would make me look even more foolish.
“Diana, talk to me,” Chase pleaded.
“ I’m in love with him, alright? ” I snapped, my admission bouncing off the walls.
His blue eyes, usually warm and inviting, were now cold.
“Is that what you wanted to hear? Huh?” I shot up from my seat and moved away from him, pacing back and forth in front of the door. “I’m a grown woman who’s been in love with that cowboy for over ten years!” My chest was heaving now, the pain of rejection oozing from me like a bloody wound. Shock flashed in his eyes, but he said nothing, watching me like a hawk as I moved. I opened my mouth, and the confession fumbled out. “I’m a grown woman who, no matter how hard she tries, cannot get him out of her damn head. From the first time I saw him walking out of Denver’s barn, he’s been in my head. There’s a connection between us. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I know it’s crazy.”
“You’re not—”
I whirled to face him, putting a finger to my chest. “You want to know how you can trust a man you don’t know, and I’m still trying to figure out how I can be in love with him.”
“Diana—”
“This isn’t lust. This isn’t a crush. This is love. Soul-crushing love ,” I cried, throwing my arms out.
He opened his mouth, and my hand shot up, my fingers weaving through my hair. “I know nothing about him, Chase. Do you understand how insane that makes me feel? When he’s around me, I can’t breathe, and when I don’t see him, breathing doesn’t seem worth it anymore.” My tears were free falling now. Chase slowly rose to his full height, a shadow looming over his face. “You got it wrong. He doesn’t love me.”
Chase rounded the chair. “Seen it in his eyes, sweetheart,” he whispered.
“Mags rejected me.”
His brow snapped together as he growled, “Excuse me?”
More shame. More embarrassment. God, I was pathetic. I was in my thirties, for crying out loud. This wasn’t some fairytale. This was real life, and I needed to get the hell over it. “It doesn’t matter,” I said after a few stretched moments of tense silence.
“So he did hurt you,” Chase bit off.
“He had every right,” I returned on a sigh, the weight of the last day settling on my shoulders. I was exhausted—mentally, emotionally, and for some reason, physically. But we could just tack that on to everything else. I met Chase’s eyes again, finally feeling some clarity. “Mags doesn’t owe me anything. He rejected me. I must’ve misread all the signs.”
“Don’t downplay this, Di,” Chase warned, moving to me. A second later, his warm hands were on my shoulders.
I pressed my lips together, a final tear rolling down my cheek. “It was all in my head,” I murmured.
“You’re one of the smartest fucking people I know, Diana Harper. Whatever this is, it isn’t in your head. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. This isn’t just one sided. Take it from me, yeah?”
“What do you know about the way he looks at me?”
Then, Chase rocked me to my soul, knocking the breath out of me with a single sentence. “Because, in another life, Diana, that’s how I would look at you.”
I stilled. “Chase,” I breathed.
He gave my shoulders a gentle squeeze, the side of his mouth tipping up. “In another life, Diana, you’d be the woman for me. You’re beautiful, strong, brilliant. You have a big heart and, fuck me, Di, everyone in the damn state can feel the love you give. You’re selfless, brave, strong, but also imperfect. You make mistakes, yes, but you own up to them with your chin held high.”
Slowly, carefully, I wrapped my hands around his strong forearms, my stomach in knots. “Are you—do you—” I sucked in a breath. “Do you have feelings for me?” He shook his head, and a wave of relief washed over me. “Have you ever had feelings for me?” I asked.
“I wanted to,” he answered, slowly dropping his hands from my shoulders and backing away. He smiled at me then, his usual warmth back. “When I first met you in the bar all those years ago, I was dead set on falling for you.”
The memory flashed in my mind. It was the night after I saw Mags for the first time. I’d gone into town for a celebratory drink after signing a second client. Chase sat at the end of the bar, staring down at his badge. He was still considered “new in town” like me, and that night, we became fast friends. Never once had I suspected anything romantic from him. Then again, my head was filled with the dark, broody cowboy at Hallow Ranch, so I’d probably missed Chase’s signals. My jaw loosened, my chest deflating at his words. “You were what?”
He nodded. “No bullshit?”
“Asking me that in the middle of this conversation isn’t funny, Bowen,” I quipped.
His lips twitched before moving back to his desk, and as he spoke, I followed him, taking my seat. “The night we met, I was in my head about shit. The option of a promotion had been thrown at me earlier that day—a possible election was on the horizon, and while I was grateful, I didn’t know if I had what it took to be Sheriff,” he explained, shooting me a glance before taking his seat behind the massive oak desk.
“You had what it took,” I told him softly. He’d won by a landslide. “You still do.”
He looked to the black and white picture on the wall, the one from his time at the police academy. “You know about my father,” he said. “You know about the shit that went down with him and my brother.” His eyes met mine.
I nodded. Chase’s family past was nasty—nastier than mine.
“I’ve always believed I wasn’t good enough for a family, but still, in the back of my mind, the perfect woman for me lingered,” he said, his voice growing soft. “Spotted you the second you walked into the bar, and fuck, Di, you checked all the boxes.”
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and folded my hands together in my lap once more.
“Then, I got to know you, and our friendship grew…” He trailed off.
“What? Was I too weird for you?” I teased.
He stared at me for a long time before he answered. “You didn’t make me feel anything.”
I had the sudden urge to laugh. “I didn’t make you—what?
“You ground me, sure. But you didn’t—I didn’t—”
“—there was nothing there,” I finished for him on a whisper.
He inhaled deeply and gave me a single nod. “There was nothing there.”
“Just so you know,” I began, “you’re hot.”
Chase blinked.
“Like really, really hot,” I whispered. “There were times, years ago, I wondered if something was wrong with me because my body didn’t have the slightest reaction you, even that one time I walked in on you working out in your garage.”
He blinked again.
“You were in gray sweatpants sans shirt, for crying out loud, and it didn’t phase me. To me you were just Chase.”
“And what does your body do when Mags is around?” he asked carefully. Heat bloomed in my cheeks as his blue eyes scanned my face. “Fuck, but you love him, don’t you?”
My eyes dropped to my lap. “I’d never thought I’d be here,” I confessed.
“Having this conversation with me?” he guessed.
“No, loving someone who doesn’t love me back.”
When I looked back up, his eyes were cold again. “Want me to kick his ass?”
A chill went down my spine then, knowing the truth. “He’d kill you,” I murmured.
“Probably, but I’d still give it my all.” He tipped his head to me. “For you.”
My bottom lip trembled. “Don’t make me cry again,” I pushed out.
“Look, Mags is a mystery. You and I both know that, but as a man—he has feelings for you. For fuck’s sake, he left Hallow Ranch for you ,” Chase assured.
Something tugged at me. “Last night, you didn’t look surprised to see him. Was that because he left—”
“—Mags has never left Hallow Ranch, never crossed the property line, never gone into town. Not once, Di. I wasn’t surprised to see him there because of how he feels for you,” he stated firmly, leaving no room for argument.
“I asked him,” I rasped, “after you hauled Lucas away. I asked him if it was ever going to happen for us.”
Chase was silent, waiting.
Another round of tears formed, falling down my cheeks. “He said no,” I croaked.
My friend moved around his desk again, and, in a flash, his hands were on either side of my head, tipping it back to look up at him as he vowed, “He’s going to regret that moment for the rest of his life, Diana Harper.”