“No.” Chase shook his head. “All you guys do is push family away. You started with Mom, then me, and now you won’t even accept Eliza. She’s mine. I don’t need a fucking test to tell me that when I know it all the way to my soul. So fuck all of you.” He turned to her, took her hand, and pulled her toward the house.
Shelby tried to keep up with Chase’s long strides, but finally ended up pulling her hand free so she didn’t stumble. “Slow down. They’re not chasing us.”
They’d actually gotten into the two trucks and left.
“I cannot believe you.” The words didn’t sound like an accusation, but she took it that way.
“What did I do?”
“Saved my life. Again.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
Chase stopped in the middle of the path up to the front door, turned, and moved in close. He smelled like the sun and wind and him. An intoxicating mix that made her want to snuggle up to him.
“Shelby.”
It took her a second to meet his gaze. “Yeah?”
“I don’t deserve you.”
She clasped her hands in front of her so she didn’t reach out and touch him. He wasn’t hers to touch. But she did know one thing. “You’re a good man, Chase.”
“No, I’m not. But I’m trying to be for you and Eliza.” With that, he turned back and headed for the house again, leaving her wondering exactly what he meant by that.
She scolded herself for sprouting dreams about a one-night stand turning into a life with an outcast Wilde that would never be reality.
Chapter Three
Chase stood on the porch of his new house and felt the weight of his family driving back to Split Tree Ranch, a place he’d never be welcome again, crushing down on him. The pain in his chest left by his family’s abandonment ached anew.
But he had a chance to start fresh and build a new life, thanks to Shelby.
Wholly aware of the woman beside him, he tried to ignore the echo of having her pressed up against his body.
Shelby pulled her phone out of her purse. “I need to call the sitter and let her know I’m going to be late.” She tapped the screen and put the phone to her ear. “Hi, Abby, I’m so sorry. I’m going to be about half an hour late picking up Eliza. If you need me to call Tom to pick her up now, I will.”
A shot of jealousy washed through Chase.
Who the hell is Tom?
“Okay, great. Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can, and I have a big surprise for her.” Shelby smiled. “Yes. Her daddy.” Shelby glanced at him. “You can come see her, right? I promised her.”
“I’m all yours.” He meant it. Though he didn’t thinkshy, sweet Shelby believed him. Why would she? His family acted like they hated her. They didn’t even know her. Hell, he was still trying to get to know her. All he really had was the limited video chats with her from overseas, when they mostly talked about Eliza.
Seeing her as a mom to his little girl endeared her to him in a deep and meaningful way, but he knew there was so much more to her.
All those days away, he’d clung to that feeling of connection and understanding she’d left him with after their night together.
And then he came home and found he still wanted her just as bad as the morning they’d said goodbye. He hadn’t seen her in person as often as he wished he could between deployments over the last nearly two and a half years. When he came home for good nine months ago, he’d never had a chance with her when she saw the way he was struggling and relying on the pain meds the doctors gave him after his surgeries to get him through one hour after the next, each and every day, even after his body healed.
He’d given her no choice but to keep him at arm’s length, even though he caught the longing looks and hope in her eyes when he was relatively sober. They had a handful of good times they shared where he felt the friendship and bond between them strengthen. But then he’d ruin it by not showing up for days at a time, forgetting they were supposed to meet up at the park or he was supposed to watch Eliza. He’d wallow in the pain and his misery in his dark apartment, chasing oblivion. The pain he saw in her eyes when she’d laid down the law and ordered him to go to rehab or lose his daughter stilltore him to pieces. It had felt like he’d let her down by not returning from the military and really being able to show her that he’d come back for her.
“We’ll be there soon.” She looked up at him. “Ready to go inside?”
He blurted out the question repeating in his head. “Who the hell is Tom?”
“My next-door neighbor.” She said it matter-of-factly, telling him nothing of consequence. At least to him.