Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
VIOLET
“ F ocus, Violet,” I scolded myself as I pored over the checklist that needed my attention for tonight’s event. I’d been at work for a solid two hours and I was still stuck on the same simple task. I could make excuses and blame the fact that my kids were with me today for how inefficiently I was working. The truth was, I was fixated on having kissed Chase.
I could still feel the pressure of his lips on mine—could still feel the tingling awareness his touch created everywhere. Could still feel the knowing in my body that everything about it was right. Kissing Chase reminded me how much I loved kissing. It made me wonder how I’d gone without it so long. Chase kissed me so good, I wondered whether I’d ever really been kissed.
Thoughts like that were half of what had me reeling. Some part of me couldn’t comprehend how I could feel so strongly for Chase when I had felt so strongly for Todd. It forced me to face where I’d really set my expectations. In my heart of hearts, I’d never believed I could ever love another man as much as I’d loved Todd. But I’d still held out hope that I’d find contentment. I’d believed I would date or remarry, but hadn’t pinned my hopes on anything better than some romantic half-life.
But that hadn’t been a half kiss.
Chase had me feeling it all, which forced me to admit that this wasn’t some foolish crush, or an infatuation with my protector, and the father figure who loved my kids. This was so much more. I could barely even talk to Tatum and she was one of my best friends. It all added up to an undeniable truth. I was stupid in love with Chase, and he’d figured it out.
A call from Katrina broke me out of thoughts I really needed to stop dwelling on if I wanted to be productive. There were three events this weekend and I needed to be on top of things. Not to mention, I was still juggling work with tending to Bri and Trey. They were feeling better, but not 100%, so I’d brought them with me to the farm. They were watching a movie on their tablet on the daybed while I worked.
“Hey, Katrina,” I said. Our court date was less than two weeks away. We had time on the calendar next week to prepare for the trial. We’d done the same thing the first time around. She’d walked me through how to present myself well in the courtroom, how to be a credible witness on the stand, and generally prepared me for what to expect.
“Morning, Violet. I have some news.”
My body went into high alert. “News” didn’t sound good. I hated the way that anything having to do with the case had the power to send me into a panic. Plus, it was a lot to deal with on top of everything else. Katrina never put too much suspense into what she had to say, a fact I was grateful for. She didn’t make me wait to hear what was going on.
“The insurance company reached out—they’re deadlining the offer. If you don’t accept by end of day, they’ll take it off the table.”
My sense of dread erupted into full-blown panic.
“There are two possibilities here,” Katrina continued. “Either their case just got a lot better and they think they can win at trial, in which case they might be giving you one last chance to take the settlement as a courtesy?—”
I was already on my feet and walking down the stairs. This was not a conversation I wanted to have in front of my kids. I also didn’t want them to see me upset and I was well on my way, probably not to anger, but to tears.
“What’s the other explanation?”
“They want you to take it. And they think applying pressure will move you along. Telling you it’s take it or leave it on a Friday morning and giving you only a matter of hours to decide is designed to intimidate you, and back you into a corner.”
“Mission accomplished.” I felt dazed as I slid open the barn door and stepped outside, the cool fall air a welcome respite to the maelstrom of emotions that had erupted inside my body. I had no idea what to do. Five hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money. There was so much I could do with it for Bri and Trey. Was winning the case even important if the money came through and I could use it on what it had always been meant for?
“I’ll say what I’ve said to you before, Violet. That this has to be your choice. And the way to make that choice is to know what’s important to you. But I would be remiss not to tell you—I think the intel we got through the tip is getting us somewhere. My investigator is on top of it and there are clearly some irregularities to the way things were managed on the day in question. But, at this point in time, we don’t fully know what it means.”
I quieted for a long time. The hand that wasn’t holding my phone crossed in front of my body and I stared out at the sprawling orchards beyond the clearing where I stood. I didn’t realize I was crying until I shut my eyes tightly, as if to ward all of what Katrina had just told me away, and felt the warm slide of a tear down my cheek.
“What time do we have until?” My eyes were still closed as I asked.
“Five p.m.,” she said. “Close of business and then it’s off the table.”
When I opened my eyes again, I felt the wetness of my lashes as they brushed my face. “I might need until four fifty-nine.”
A minute later, we’d hung up and the hand that held my phone rested listlessly at my side. I was really crying now and I knew why this hit me so hard. Knowing we might actually crack this case had given me something I hadn’t held in a long time—it had given me hope. It had made me want more than justice for myself and my family against an insurance company that was doing all it could to avoid paying out on a policy. It had given me hope that there could be justice for Todd.
“Violet.”
I turned toward the sound of my name being spoken quickly enough to see Chase jogging toward me in utter alarm. He let the canvas bag he was holding slip to the ground, and whatever was in there landed with a clink, as if glass bottles were sliding together. Before I could explain what I was doing standing in front of the events barn, sobbing, he had swallowed me up into his strong arms, engulfing me tightly and completely.
“What happened?” he asked in a voice compassionate enough to show sympathy but firm enough to convey that I’d better go ahead and tell him what was going on. It wasn’t every day that he came upon me like this. But him asking only set me off again. Another wave of overwhelm crashed over me. Next thing I knew, I was crying harder.
“Violet.” His voice was desperate now. “You’ve gotta tell me what happened. I need to know how I can help.”
“You can’t help,” I finally said through deep gasps and sniffles. “There’s nothing you can do.”
From there, it took me a minute; and, when I say a minute, I mean five, to collect myself to explain everything to him—about the deadline for the offer and the fact that Katrina was making progress on the tip.
“What do you think I should do, Chase?”
He had held me close throughout the recounting of my dilemma and he held me close right now, as I gazed up at him, searching his face for guidance.
“I mean, look at me. I’m a hot mess. It’s got me on the worst kind of emotional roller coaster. I don’t even know how I’m going to step into that courtroom again. You remember what it was like—how hard it was for me last time. Now, I need to walk in there, knowing how last time we lost; knowing they think we have something that—as of the day I need to take the offer—hasn’t materialized.”
“Hey.” Chase stopped me gently because I was rambling now. “Come on, now. It’s okay. Just breathe through this, alright?”
He started taking deep breaths himself, silently prodding me to join him. It gave me déjà vu—to remember the grief-stricken panics I had spun myself into early on. How, even then—when Chase had been grief-stricken himself—he had helped me through.
“First of all,” he began once I was a little calmer. “You’re stronger than you think. Even when you don’t feel like it, you are. And you know you won’t have to walk into that courtroom alone. I’ll be there, and so will Forrest. Tatum and Nikki will be there. We’re all standing right behind you, Violet. And not just in the courtroom itself—we’ll be there when you get home. Before, during, and after, you’ve got people. And that’s not going to change.”
Even though I had mostly stopped crying, I let out a loud, involuntary sniffle. It only prompted him to hold on to me more tightly.
“Second of all…” He brought his hand up to cup my cheek. “You’re never a hot mess, Violet LaRue. Even in this moment, you’re beautiful. Going through it like you are—feeling it deeply—doesn’t make you a mess, it makes you human.”
Chase had just called me beautiful. I don’t think he ever had. It was enough to send my mind back to last night—to what it had felt like to sleep in his arms, and breathe in his scent, and press my lips to his. The balance of what I was dealing with should have felt bigger—so much bigger—than a kiss. But it didn’t feel that way in this moment. And soon we were going to have to reckon with that fact. That something big—no, monumental—had happened between us last night.
“What’s the third thing?” Knowing Chase, there would be a third.
“Faith, darlin’. I want you to have faith. I want you to believe that this will all work out. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to decide based on the money.”
I shook my head, not quite believing what I was hearing. “Why wouldn’t me and the kids needing the money factor in?”
The half-repentant expression Chase sported when he was about to tell you something he should have told you before washed over his face. “You and the kids have more money than you think.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath before reopening them and pinning him with a look that told him I meant business. “Chase Greenleaf, don’t play with my emotions today. Now tell me what the hell that means.”
“If you’ll remember…” he began somewhat defensively. “You went absolutely ballistic when I gave you that first bit of money.”
“Fifty thousand dollars is not a ‘bit.’”
“That’s neither here nor there,” he defended. “Point is, you didn’t take it well. It was obvious you weren’t in a place to fully accept and appreciate the generosity around you. But, Vi…so many people love you, and Bri and Trey. So many people loved Todd.”
“Dammit, Chase.” I cursed him because now I was crying again and it had taken me a lot to stop.
“The rest of the money went to trust funds for the kids. Technically they’re meant as college funds but the terms of a 529 plan felt too restrictive. I’m the trustee and I’ve been managing the investment portfolio. But they’re the beneficiaries.”
“Chase,” I whispered. I couldn’t stop saying his name.
His gaze softened as he looked down at me.
“Now might be a good time to let you know there’s also money for you. We only gave you their fifty thousand dollars initially because that was the maximum gift that it made sense for you to receive for tax purposes. Your portfolio is doing well.” Chase seemed to blush a little. “Maybe at our next meeting, I’ll work up a report.”
I’d managed to stop my crying but I had a giant lump in my throat. “Chase,” I choked out again. Because the feels I was feeling right now weren’t about the case or the money. They were about the man standing in front of me—the man who so obviously cared about me and who had given me so much. The man who I’d pined over and who, I was coming to the astonishing realization, had also pined for me.
“Last night—” I began, then cut myself off.
He leaned forward until our foreheads touched.
“What happened last night…it’ll keep. Given all that’s happening, today’s not the day to take it on.”
Neither of us made a move away from each other. We just stood there, eyes closed and bodies intertwined.
“I brought lunch for us and a homemade ginger drink for the kids,” he finally said. “It’s cold out here. Let’s get you inside.”
Rushing around the barn to close things up was not how I liked to end my day. I’d been rushing since my kids recovered from the flu, working until the very last minute every day this week to make up for lost time. Planning my departure had taken its toll on my productivity. It had been a scramble to do final checks on the weekend’s bookings. And I’d had to cram a study session for my midterms into lunch.
It wasn’t a good time for my phone to ring. But “not a good time” was when it always did. Such were the laws of the universe when you were in a hurry. I was so much in danger of being late to pick up my kids from school, I didn’t stop to look. In place of fishing my phone out of my purse to screen the call, I kept on jogging down the stairs. My Bluetooth was still in my ear, so I tapped to pick it up.
“Hello? This is Violet.” I answered in my professional voice just in case it was someone affiliated with the events space at the farm.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
I regretted not having looked at my caller ID. It would have set me back time-wise but that might have been worth avoiding this call.
“Oh, hey, Rodney.”
This was a conversation I wasn’t prepared to have—one I had known was coming. When we’d parted the other night, he was already talking about what we would do the next time we saw each other. Not only did I not want to meet him for a 5 a.m. hunting start, followed by a trip to the butcher and us grilling our lunch, I didn’t want to see him again.
“Had a nice time with you the other night.”
I knew I should have been able to muster some grace. But, increasingly, Rodney’s flattery and our relationship felt tone deaf and odd. Our kiss had been passionless. Pedestrian. Middling at best. It was the least exciting kiss that two people had ever kissed. Yet, here he was, insisting that we do all of this again.
On the bottom floor of the loft now, I stalked toward the sliding door, where I would turn off lights before I left. Rodney’s penchant for talking gave me time to grasp for what I wanted to say. After praising our date, he’d launched into a story about his past foraging mishaps, including some psychedelic mushrooms he’d once unwittingly picked in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I had fully locked up, climbed into the minivan, and tossed my bag into the passenger seat, and Rodney was still talking. He showed no signs of letting up. I ripped out my earpiece as the Bluetooth in my car took over. Now, I was driving down the labyrinthine roads of Chase’s farm en route to the main gate, listening to Rodney through my car speakers, in stereo.
“Rodney,” I finally said, interrupting him before he could go too far off on a tangent about fungi. “I don’t think this is going to work out. I mean, I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
He quieted—went completely silent for seconds. It was the longest silence we had ever sustained. Instead of feeling awkward, it felt…refreshing. Like stopping the chatter had finally, finally , taken us someplace real.
“Things between us…for me, they’re not right. Things don’t feel the way they’re supposed to feel.”
“I thought you wanted to take things slow.”
“I did want that. And I can’t tell you how much I needed you to go at my pace—how much it’s meant to me that you gave me time.”
“Then, why?”
It was the most succinct question he’d ever asked, and the longest he’d ever given me to answer.
“I think I’m in love with someone else.”