Cathy Gillen - Tangled Web

Hope noted with satisfaction that he didn’t try to deny anything she had said. “I admit I haven’t been the best sibling,” Chase began, visibly embarrassed. Restless now, too, he got up to pace the room.

“You haven’t been anything to him,” she corrected quietly, with no malice. That was the way they had all figured was best, while Edmond was alive, anyway. “That’s why I resent your advice now,” she continued calmly.

Chase knew she had a point. Nevertheless, cossetting was not what his father would have wanted for his second child. As difficult as it was, Chase had to do what his father would have expected him to do and make Hope see she was in the wrong here. She was as wrong as he had been in previously denying any and all ties to Joey and Hope. Like it or not, they were family, just like his mother was family. Maybe in the past this hadn’t felt like home to him. With his mother gone and Hope living here, he hadn’t had much desire to come home. And if he were honest with himself, he still didn’t. Given his choice, he would be back in the rain forest right now, instead of leaving everything to his partner to finish up. But he was here. He was involved. And they both had to deal with that fact as best they could.

Moving to stand beside her, he spoke urgently, “I’m trying to right that now—”

Hope shook her head, a defiant light in her dark blue eyes. “It’s too late. I know how you feel about me and about him, Chase.” Her voice choked and she shook her head in helpless misery. “How you’ve felt all along—” Her jaw set as her eyes filled with tears. “Why don’t you just go ahead and say it, Chase? You think I married your father for his money.”

Chase could take a lot of things, but not her playing the victim—not now. “Are you telling me that you didn’t?” Chase asked in cool disbelief, his temper rising. “That all this—” he gestured at the Louis XV chairs and the Aubusson rug “—played no part in it?”

Hope wanted to say that was so, but she knew in her heart it wasn’t true. Edmond’s power and wealth and this River Oaks fortress he had built had been a big part of the attraction when they had first met. She had needed to be taken in and protected at that point in her life. Because of the situation she had been running from, only someone like Edmond had possessed what it had taken to make her feel secure.

Realizing Chase was still waiting for an answer and that she couldn’t explain any of her actions without revealing the ugliness and pain in her past, she revealed only the part of the truth she felt she could tell him. “I loved your father, Chase. I loved him with all my heart and soul.”

Remembering the way she had broken down at Edmond’s funeral, Chase didn’t doubt that. Neither could he forget how they’d come together in the first place. “He was old enough to be your father, Hope.”

Hope’s slender shoulders stiffened defensively. “He was also gentle and good.”

Frowning, Chase studied her. “Gentle and good” were only a small part of what Hope needed in a man, whether she realized it or not. There was a hell of a lot more to a fulfilling relationship between a man and a woman than mutual kindness. They needed to be able to turn to one another physically as well and know they’d get a lot more than a lukewarm roll in the hay. “You’re telling me there was this great passion between you, that the two of you just couldn’t stay out of each other’s arms?” He didn’t know why, he just didn’t buy it. Not with any rich old man and pretty young chick in general and certainly not with Hope and his father. They just hadn’t given off those vibes.

Hope turned away, looking angry and upset and uncomfortable. “That,” she said flatly, offended by his presumption, “is none of your business, Chase.”

Chase supposed she was right about that, too. Nonetheless, her evasion made him all the more certain. Even though Hope clearly had loved his father and had made Edmond very happy, she hadn’t loved him in the beginning. Not the way a new bride was supposed to love her husband. And that he couldn’t condone. Marriage should be more than a business deal or convenient arrangement. Especially for nineteen-year-old girls, even pregnant ones.

Hope ran a hand through her hair, looking even more distressed. She took a drink of her cola. Her back to him, she took a lengthy swallow. “We shouldn’t be talking about this, Chase,” she continued in a voice that was thick with suppressed emotion. “You obviously resent me and—”

“Can you blame me?” Chase countered incredulously. She was acting like it was all his fault, and it wasn’t. “You broke up my parents’ marriage, Hope.” And not because she hadn’t been able to keep her hands off his father, either, but because she had clearly wanted all this and to inherit the store someday.

“You’re wrong about that. I never—and I repeat never—came between them!”

His own temper flaring dangerously, he stalked closer. If he got nothing else out of this, he wanted the truth. “Then tell me how it happened,” he continued gruffly. “How you started working for Barrister’s and six months later my parents’ marriage is in a shambles, my father’s insisting on a quicky divorce and an even quicker settlement so he can go off and marry you in some tacky Las Vegas chapel. Six months after that you present him with a son.”

Hope turned white, then red, then white again, but as Chase had expected, she said nothing to defend herself. Chase continued, “Yes, I’ve resented you all these years. Just as my mother has resented you. But for the sake of everyone, including Joey, I’m trying to do the decent thing now and get past it. Move forward. I know it’s what my father would have wanted.” And although Chase had let Edmond down in the past, many times, he wasn’t going to do so now.

And for his father’s sake he had to fight his deep attraction to Hope. God knew he didn’t want it, hadn’t planned for it, but there it was. He wanted his father’s wife in a distinctly man-woman way. And though he felt guilty as hell about it, his feelings weren’t going to magically go away. His only choice was to try to work through them, to get to know Hope and perhaps demystify her and diffuse his desire in the process.

He faced Hope earnestly, trying hard not to notice the tears sparkling in her eyes, or think about what an uphill battle this was bound to be. “The least you could do is help me out here.”

Her chin took on a stubborn tilt. “I don’t want your charity or your sense of obligation, not with the store or with Joey,” she specified flatly.

Chase sighed heavily. His motivations were as pure and chivalrous as he could make them right now, but she was within her rights to resent his presence. Just trying to talk to each other with anything resembling intimacy put them both on edge. If she had anyone else to turn to for help—but she didn’t. That meant he had to forge ahead and do his best to be “family” to her now. He hoped like hell that in the long run everything would turn out for the best.

“About Joey,” Chase continued doggedly, ignoring her stormy glare. “I know he has asthma. I know he is small for his age. But he’s scrappy and smart and he needs to lead the most normal life possible if you don’t want him to become a sissy or an invalid. That includes playing Little League and learning to fight his own battles. You can’t call the coach and complain every time he has a disagreement with another child.”

Her shoulders took on a stiff, unwieldy look. “I don’t.”

“But you want to,” he supposed confidently.

Fighting a guilty flush, she said, “Look, I want Joey to be a man every bit as much as you and Edmond did, but I draw the line at endangering his health.” She held up a hand, stop-sign fashion, staving off the refuting comment Chase was about to make. “Because I know how much this means to Joey, however, I’ve already decided I’ll let him continue to play ball, providing he doesn’t get beat up again. If he does, all promises are off.”