“Except it wasn’t over,” he pointed out.
“We didn’t know that. You were going back to base. I went back to my life, such as it was.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying that it’s nice your dad wants to make amends with you somehow and that he’s dropped this whole Eliza-isn’t-yours thing.”
“He said he’s sorry in more ways than one.” Chase pulled the check out of his back pocket and slid it across the table to her.
She leaned back and stared at him. “What is that?”
“The money you paid for the house and land you bought me.”
“Did you take out a loan? You shouldn’t have done that. That was your money I spent.” She pushed the check back to him.
He shoved it back in front of her. “No loan. My dad paid me back what I put into the ranch, plus my share of the profits over the last seven years I was gone. He admitted that without the money I put into the ranch and the plan I left him and Max with, they’d have lost everything.”
Her whole expression softened. “I guess seeing your battle scars really got through to him.”
“And he hasn’t seen the rest of them.”
Her eyes went wide. “There are more?”
“Want to see them?” he teased, even if he hoped she’d say yes.
“Oh, Chase.” Her eyes glassed over.
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Hey, I’m okay. Really, the other scars aren’t that bad. I’m mostly healed up.”
“Mostly?”
He gave her the truth again. “My head’s a little out of sorts. My back is still killing me most of the time. And when it’s cold, my bum hip and knee ache like a son of a—” He cut the last word off for Eliza’s sake. “It’s hell getting old.”
Her lips pressed into a tight line. “Your age has nothing to do with what the war did to you.”
He sighed. “It’s hard to accept that I left the war but it hasn’t left me.”
Opening up like this didn’t come easy, but she made him feel like he could say anything to her.
They let the moment stretch, both of them looking at the other. He didn’t know if she realized she’d linked her fingers with his, but it felt so good to be connected to her again, even in this small way. Her hand fit his to perfection. Her skin was soft, and the warmth in her spread up his arm and washed over the rest of him. He could sit here all night holding her hand.
He flinched when a blob of spaghetti smacked him in the chest.
Eliza giggled beside them.
Shelby gasped, covered her mouth with her free hand, and hid a laugh that filled her eyes.
He glanced down at his black T-shirt, then pretend-glared at Eliza. “Not cool, baby.” He grabbed his napkin and wiped the mess from his shirt, then made a silly face at Eliza, who laughed again. Shelby joined in.
And for the first time in a long time, his heart felt light.
It tripped when Shelby squeezed his hand and her gaze met his again. “You look good laughing. That might be the first real smile I’ve seen on your face.”
“That’s because it was dark in our room that night.”
She tried to slip her hand free as that same shyness that drew him to her came back, but he tightened his hold to stop her.
“Every time I think about you or see you, I smile. Maybe not always on the outside, but definitely on the inside. When I was overseas and things were going downhill fast, I’d think about you, what we shared, howgreat I felt that night, and everything didn’t seem so bad. I’d think about coming home, hopefully getting a chance to see you again, and I’d have something amazing to look forward to. Then you called and told me about Eliza, and I knew that no matter what happened over there, I had to get back here. To you.”