Cathy Gillen - Tangled Web

Hope didn’t understand that, Chase realized. Not that this in itself was surprising. Hope was so soft and feminine, so maternal and kindhearted, she’d be loathe to fight with anyone.

Part of him respected and admired that. He didn’t like to fight unnecessarily, either, but this time Joey’d had no choice. He’d had to stand up for himself. Ever the pragmatist, Edmond would’ve been the first to understand that, and explain it to his gentle-souled wife. But his dad wasn’t here to handle this, Chase was. And he knew instinctively what Edmond would’ve wanted him to do right now—intervene on Joey’s behalf and make Hope stop smothering Joey.

Hope wouldn’t appreciate that. Hell, she probably wouldn’t even listen to anything he had to say. She’d only resent him all the more for butting in at home as well as at the store. If he were smart, he would just grab whatever funding he could for his project and take the nearest plane back to Costa Rica. But that would be self-serving. And Chase had tried very hard to never be the sort of self-centered person his mother was. That left only one option. He’d butt in and give advice where it wasn’t wanted. His father would have approved.

He owed his dad that. Why then was it proving so hard to do? he wondered uncomfortably. Was it because Hope was such a smart, independent, vitally interesting woman who he was privately willing to bet had never tapped in to her own latent sexuality? Or was it because he found himself beginning to fantasize about what it would be like to lead her into that unchartered but luscious territory?

HER TEMPLES THROBBING with the beginnings of a fierce tension headache, Hope headed downstairs. It was Carmelita’s evening off. The kitchen was blissfully quiet and dark and cool. Hope rummaged in a cabinet for a bottle of aspirin, shook out two and downed them with a glass of water, to little immediate relief.

After some moments, her neck was still stiff with tension, as were her shoulders and spine. Her dinner was in the refrigerator, ready to be microwaved. So was Joey’s, but, like him, after the upset of the day, she had little appetite. She fixed herself an icy glass of cola, hoping the mixture of caffeine and aspirin would speed relief to her aching head a little faster than plain water. She headed into the living room, and met Chase, coming in the front door, Joey’s glasses in his hand. Seeing his tall, lean body framed in the doorway gave her heart a little pause. Which was, all things considered, she told herself firmly, quite natural. Any woman in her place would have felt a little on edge, physically and emotionally, at the idea of being alone with him. With her, those feelings were intensified. Still, all she had to do was act normally, get through this, and he would go away.

She smiled gratefully, pretending an inner ease she couldn’t begin to feel as she accepted Joey’s glasses. She felt the brief warm brush of his calloused hand against her softer one. “You found them. Thanks.” He had finished buttoning his jeans and tucked in his shirt. His jeans fit snugly at the waist, defining the male contours of his body very well. Too well, she decided, shifting her peripheral vision away from the apex of his thighs.

“Glad to help.” His hazel eyes held hers, serious now. And again, she felt her heart skip a beat. “Hope, we need to talk.”

No, we don’t, she thought. A ripple of unease swept through her. She had been afraid he’d say that. “Chase—”

“It can’t wait, Hope.”

She knew that tone. Edmond had used it, too, and it wasn’t one to be denied. Obviously Chase had made up his mind. Deciding they might as well get it over with, she nodded briefly toward the living room. Though she had shed her shoes and red blazer earlier and taken down her hair so it fell across her shoulders in tousled, naturally waving strands, she was still dressed rather formally in a white merino wool polo sweater and white wool skirt. Her jewelry consisted of a single strand of pearls and pearl earrings. She was glad for the formality of her clothes. She would have felt far too intimate facing Chase in a warm-up suit or jeans. Just having him here in the house felt, at this precise moment, disloyal somehow. Wrong. Maybe because they were too close in age and far apart in outlook for her to be a proper stepmother to Chase. And maybe because he hadn’t ever looked at her as if she were his stepmother. He looked at her as an equal, a contemporary, one he didn’t particularly like or want to get to know better, but who he was tied to, in a familial sense, just the same. And even though she tried to ignore that, his deliberately remote, vaguely distrustful attitude had hurt her a lot over the years.

Feeling tenser than ever, she sat down on a chair and waited for him to take a seat on the Chesterfield sofa opposite her. “It’s about Joey,” he said as she took a long, cooling sip of her drink. “You’re coddling him unnecessarily in my opinion.”

Hope felt herself becoming defensive but was powerless to prevent it. She hated it when other people presumed to know what was best for her son. Putting her drink aside, she hung onto her soaring temper with effort and met his gaze. “Chase, I know you mean well,” she said tightly, warning him to back off, “but I don’t need your advice on this.” Nor do I want it, she thought.

Chase sighed. Knees spread apart, he leaned forward earnestly and clasped both his hands between his thighs. “In this instance, Hope, I think that you do need my advice.” He saw the flare of temper in her eyes and felt his own interest stir at the unchecked display of passion. Before she could even begin to cut him off, he interjected autocratically, “He is my half brother.”

Now, Hope though, that was rich. Restless and angry at this unexpected intervention, she got up to pace the room. Unable to prevent herself from saying what was on her mind, she pointed out quietly, “With the exception of the last two days, no one would ever have known.”

Dammit, she didn’t need Chase stepping into her life, into her home and workplace, making her continually uncomfortable and aware of herself. She didn’t need him awakening feelings and needs in her she’d forgotten she had. She liked her life simple. She liked being just a mother and a businesswoman. She didn’t want to yearn to be someone’s woman, too. “You’ve never acted like his brother.”

Chase whitened at her comment, but knowing it was the truth, said nothing to combat her remark.

But now that the subject had come up, she found she couldn’t let it go. There had just been too many years of silence on the subject and too much repression of feeling on both their parts. As a consequence, Joey had gotten caught in the crossfire of their withheld resentments. Chase’s disinterest in her son hadn’t mattered so much before. It had even seemed excusable because Chase was never around to get to know Joey, but now he did know his half brother. If Chase went back to ignoring Joey again, Joey would be terribly hurt. She couldn’t let that happen.

Aware he was watching her steadily and unable to bear his relentless scrutiny, she moved to the window. She stared out at the shady tree-lined driveway that led to the street. Not bothering to mask her hurt or resentment, she continued with her blunt assessment of his actions. “In all these years, you never sent him so much as a birthday card or a letter, Chase. Except for when Carmelita brought you over to help tonight, one dinner conversation is the most you’ve ever given Joey in his entire life. And you only did that last night because you were trying to figure out how to talk to me about the store. If you hadn’t needed to do that, you never would have joined us for a meal.” He never would have known what a delightful child Joey was, she thought. “You never would have come back to Houston at all.”