Page 63 of Stay for Me

“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 bein lovewith 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 ofthisconversation 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.

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