She wouldn’t be much of a loss to the community.

Her sister, on the other hand, was currently enjoying her stay in a hospital for the criminally insane somewhere in Wyoming. I didn’t like this, Chace didn’t either. What she did to those kids, I felt, deserved worse punishment.

But there was no denying she was seriously, fraking ‘round the bend. She’d been deemed unfit to stand trial and pretty much fit for nothing but loads of meds and incarceration amongst a bunch of other folks who were as tripped out as she was.

I didn’t like it but I didn’t dwell. She was locked away, perhaps not the way I’d prefer but she was still locked away and no longer a threat to anyone.

So there it was.

Onward from the slightly bad was further good.

Valerie had spent the weekend before visiting and except for a couple of times where she got nervous and fidgety, these being when she first met my parents when they came over to Chace’s for dinner, it had been a really good weekend.

I liked her. She was cute and funny and, with Chace now far more relaxed with her, the visit had gone well. Except she brought me a pair of earrings, pearls surrounded by diamonds, their expense so obvious it kinda flipped me out but Chace told me to roll with it and, with no other choice, I did. I wore them all weekend even though they were way fancier than my outfits but she seemed delighted I did so it was worth the fashion faux pas.

Trane had not been invited nor did he show. Valerie didn’t mention him. Chace and I didn’t either. I sensed an underlying sadness in Valerie that this was the case but I also saw her determination to enjoy Chace how she could take him so I did what I could to facilitate that.

I felt something lovely seep into me because I could see she saw Chace was happy, more relaxed, a part of my family and I sensed she liked that immensely. So although there was sadness, there was also ease.

Life was good. It had settled into normal. No dramas. No “dark”. No nothing but work, food, family, sex, TV, books… life.

I didn’t want a problem. We’d had enough problems.

I was enjoying good. Like, a frak of a lot.

So I didn’t want bad.

But even so, I turned the burner down on the meat and moved to Chace though I did this on leaded feet. He spread his legs when I got close and I took that as my cue to move between them. When I did, I rested my hands on his thighs and he lifted one to shift my hair over my shoulder as the fingers of his other hand curled around the top of my hip. After he slid my hair away, he wrapped his fingers around the side of my neck, his thumb gliding over my jaw.

“Is it Miah?” I whispered. “Have you heard something?”

“No,” Chace whispered back, his eyes moving over my face in a way I couldn’t quite read.

It wasn’t bad. But I wasn’t sure it was good since it was so intense.

“Becky?” I went on quietly.

“Nope,” he answered immediately and also quietly.

I pulled in a breath then cautiously put out there, “Has something gone down with Misty’s case or, um… anything around that?”

“Nope,” he repeated and his hand left my neck to drop to mine on his thigh and wrap around it.

“Chace –”

His head dropped to watch his thumb move over my fingers as he muttered, “Naked, baby.”

My head twitched at his weird word.

“Pardon?”

His eyes came to mine and he repeated, “Naked.”

I felt my brows draw together and I asked, “Naked?”

He held my gaze even as he moved, his other hand leaving my hip to shove into his jeans pocket then he held my hand as his other moved to it.

My eyes tipped down as my breath stopped coming when I watched a simple but stunning diamond solitaire being slid onto my left ring finger.

“Naked,” he whispered and I sucked breath into my nose as I stared at the diamond now at the base of my finger. “You marry me, I’ll add a band under that, cover you up.”

I blinked as the sting hit my nose, the wet hit my eyes but after I blinked, my gaze didn’t move from that ring and I again stopped breathing.

“Baby,” Chace whispered, his hand holding mine giving me a squeeze, “Breathe.”

I breathed.

His thumb moved over the ring and his beautiful deep voice came back at me, “Will you marry me, Faye?”

“Yes,” I whispered so quietly it was like a breeze.

But I didn’t take my eyes off Chace’s ring.

His hand stayed curled around mine, his thumb firm at the base of his ring but his other hand came to the side of my neck and slid up into my hair behind my ear.

“Will you build a home with me?” he whispered his question.

“Yes.”

“A family?”

“Yes,” I repeated, my breath catching just at the idea of that beauty.

“A life?”

My head tipped back, his beautiful blue eyes locked on mine and everything he felt for me was shining from them, warming me to my soul in a way I knew I’d never, ever be cold.

Not again.

Not in my whole life.

“Yes,” I whispered as the tears slid out of my eyes.

When they did, his hand slid out of my hair so it could cup my jaw and his thumb moved across my cheek to catch them as they fell.

“I love you, Faye Goodknight,” he said quietly, looking deep in my eyes.

I sucked in a breath that broke twice before I replied, “I love you too, Chace Keaton.”

His lips tipped up and his eyes grew super warm.

“Want you movin’ in, baby,” he murmured.

“Okay,” I agreed immediately.

“Next weekend,” he went on.

“Okay,” I agreed, again immediately.

“We start buildin’ our home, our life now so we can give it to our kids after that band joins your diamond.”

My breath hitched again and I repeated, “Okay.”

His eyes lit with a different light, one I loved just as much when he asked, “You gonna jump on-line and tell your geek squad you landed me?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Kiss me and I’ll finish the tacos so you can do that.”

“Okay,” I said yet again but stayed where I was and didn’t move.

“Baby, kiss me,” Chace prompted when this lasted a long time.

“In a second, honey, I’m memorizing this moment.”

Raw flooded his features but this time, it wasn’t pain.

It was beauty.

Then Chace’s hand drove back into my hair, he pulled me to him and kissed me.

Ten minutes later, Chace finished the tacos and I got on-line to give the news to Benji and Serenity.

* * * * *

Krys didn’t miss my ring when we wandered into Bubba’s an hour later.

Therefore, Chace didn’t have to hit the ATM. Any time he tried to pass a bill to her, she refused and Chace could be bossy but if Krys was in the mood to refuse, you had no hope of winning.

There were a lot of hoots, hollers, claps on the shoulder for Chace, hugs for me as Krys and Twyla shared the news around the bar then told anyone who came in. One or the other of them got on the phone which meant Tate and Laurie came in. Then Deke. Wood and Maggie came a little later. Deck wasn’t far behind them. Sunny and Shambles hit the bar not long after. The flow continued as did the hugs and claps on the back and news spread so fast, I took a call from my father whose voice was thick when he told me we’d have a family celebration soon and he’d try to keep the news from Liza so she wouldn’t do something dramatic to steal my thunder.

Although I would have liked to share the news with my family, I was too happy to care someone took away my shot and I was happier hearing Dad was happy.

Bubba jacked the stereo up and after a few songs, Krys took over the control of the iPod attached to it. She clearly was in a romantic mood and Chace was definitely in a romantic mood because even though no one was dancing, the minute Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You” came on, he led me to an open space by the window, pulled me into his arms and we started swaying.

Before Chace, this would have mortified me.

In Chace’s arms with his ring on my finger, the world faded away as I faded into him.

Krys followed this with Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”, Bruce Springsteen’s “Leah”, the Cowboy Junkies singing The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” then back to Bad Company for “She Brings Me Love”.

Through all this, Chace held me close in his arms, I kept mine locked around him, our friends were close, part of our town looking on but there was no one who could penetrate our moment. We were in a sea of happy people celebrating love and babies and a town free to just be. But for me it was just Chace and for Chace it was just me.

And through it, holding me in a way I knew he’d be happy never to let me go, Chace proved he could hold me close and dance until the morning light.

Then she played it. Whether she remembered me telling her about it or whether it just came up, Krys played it.

Ella Mae Bowen singing “Holding Out for a Hero”.

And when she played it, I decided it was time he knew.

So I pressed even closer so I could lift my lips to his ear.

“That night, it wasn’t Dobie Gray,” I whispered. “It was this song. It was Ella Mae singing this to me when I thought you weren’t all I knew you to be, which is all the words to this song. Twenty-nine years, I held out for this. Then, half an hour later, you proved every one of these words true and every moment since then, you kept doing it. I’ll take you thinking I’m your angel but you need to know you’re my hero. Twenty-nine, honey, I held out for this. Twenty-nine years, I held out for you.”

His face, already in my neck, burrowed deeper. His arms, already holding me tight, pulled me closer.

He said nothing.

But as he swayed me to Ella Mae, I sang with her in his ear.

And that moment in that bar in Chace’s arms with me whispering his song into his ear telling him all he was and all he was to me, no matter the beauty that lay before us, no matter the beauty we created, I knew there would never be a moment more beautiful than that for me.

At the end of the song, Chace sealed that beauty by sliding his lips to mine then sliding his tongue into my mouth, sweet, gentle, soft, giving, letting me give.

Everything that was him.

Everything that was me.

Chapter Twenty-One

Holding out for a Hero

There was movement at the other end of the bar and Chace watched a brunette leave the back hall and enter the common area from where the bathrooms were.

Faye had disappeared back there fifteen minutes ago and it was time to go home. It was time to go to bed. It was time to make love to his woman for the first time while she was wearing his ring on her finger.

Fifteen minutes was a long time for her to be gone. He was impatient. He wanted her alone. He wanted to keep dancing with her. He intended to dance with her until dawn but in a different way.