Page 46 of Things Good Girls Don't Do (Rock Canyon, Idaho 1)

“So what do you think?” Chase’s voice broke into her fantasy and she blushed.

“It’s a great place,” she said.

He opened his door and jumped out, slamming it behind him. When she opened hers and started to step down, though, she noticed the huge puddle of muddy water under her door.

Great, on top of looking like a drowned, puffy-eyed princess, I’m going to ruin my new heels.

Chase came around the door quickly, ducking his head against the rain, and said, “Need some help?”

“I can’t walk through the mud in these shoes. I can take them off, but then I have to hold the dress up and I’m afraid of falling,” she said.

Wrapping one arm behind her shoulder and the other under her knees, he lifted her up against his chest and said, “You know, if you wanted me to carry you, you could have just said so instead of hinting and hee-hawing.”

Rain pelted her face and she protested, “I wasn’t hee-hawing. I was just talking out loud. I wasn’t trying to get you to carry me, especially after the last time you tossed me in the pool . . .” Her rambling stopped when she felt him start to toss her up a few inches and catch her again. “Chase!”

He looked like a seven-year-old who had been caught pulling a girl’s hair. Mischievous and innocent. When they reached the top of the stairs, Katie said, “Okay, you can put me down now.”

Shaking his head, he rebalanced her so he could reach out to open the screen door. “Uh-uh, Firecracker. I’m carrying you all the way back to my bed, where I plan on doing all kinds of things to you.”

“What kind of things?” she asked.

He pushed the wood door open and said, “The kind of things good girls don’t do. Unless they happen to be at the mercy of a very, very bad boy.”

Carrying her through the kitchen and down a narrow hallway, the look he shot her was intense. Licking her lips, she whispered, “Am I at your mercy?”

“Yes, Firecracker, you’re completely at my mercy.”

A FEW HOURS later, Katie lay across Chase’s chest in the dim light of the bedroom, running her hands over his body. Lightning flashed and the whole room lit up.

“So why did you get this one?” she asked, pointing to the sun tattoo on his chest.

He smiled. “Why does there have to be a reason?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just curious if there was.”

“You want the truth? It’s pretty cheesy.” He grabbed her hand and laid it flat over the tattoo.

Kissing the skin over his heart, she said, “Hit me with your best cheese. I won’t laugh. I promise.”

Chase stroked her face and said, “When I was a kid, my mom used to sing me ‘You Are My Sunshine’ all the time. After my dad left us, she stopped singing. She stopped caring about anything but finding a new man to take care of us. Each guy was just a new tool, and when she got too clingy, they screwed her. One guy actually stole her car when he left. She worked her ass off at the diner up the road from our trailer, sometimes taking double shifts for days just to make rent. Or avoid me.” She could hear the pain in his voice and she wanted to take it away.

He cleared his throat, obviously getting a handle on his emotions, and said, “Anyway, I was drunk and seventeen and I kept thinking about that stupid song, and how my mom used to be. I told you, cheese balls.”

Her eyes were burning with tears when she kissed his palm. “I’m so sorry, Chase.”

Running his thumb under her eye to catch her tear, he chuckled. “Ah, Firecracker, you’re such a softy. Don’t worry about it. I got over it a long time ago and dealt with my demons. I may not have had the most functional parent, but I turned out okay. And she’s got her life together now, been happily married for the last eleven years to an ex-naval officer who thinks the sun rises and sets on her.”

Katie lifted her head. “You don’t know where your dad is? Has he tried to contact you?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Woke up one morning to my mom crying and he was gone. Not a card, letter, or call in twenty-eight years. She never could tell me why he did it, but it doesn’t really matter. He left us. Makes him worth less than nothing to me.”

“Were they married?” she asked.

“No. Yours? Where’s your dad?”

“Yeah, they were married, not that it mattered. My dad left when I was too little to remember him. Mom never told me anything about him, but I found a box in her closet after she died. It was filled with pictures and love notes. I hired someone to find him, just to see if I could meet him, but he had been killed in an accident when I was six. He’d been drinking and taken a curve to fast,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Chase said.

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