She needed him. She wanted him. She was the only person in his life who loved him. Because she didn’t know who her father really was, or what he’d done, she accepted him as is.
He had a chance to be the man she needed, because at two, she didn’t know there were bad things in the world and he was one of them.
“You need to get your shit together.” Hunt liked to throw out orders like that without any idea how hard that was for Chase after all he’d been through. He expected Chase to snap out of it. He wanted Chase to find a way to undo the past and make everything right.
If Chase could do that, he would.
All he could do now was accept that all the bad shit in his past happened because he’d done the best he could each and every time he’d been faced with impossible decisions. And when it all got to be too much, he’d hidden in a prescription drug haze meant to kill the pain, but all it did was make things worse.
And nearly cost him everything.
Get help, or you will never see Eliza again, Shelby had ordered him, her words and angry voice still ringing in his ears.
The thought of never seeing his little girl had him immediately calling Drake for help before he even left Shelby’s driveway. He’d gone to rehab the next day.
He’d learned his lesson.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
And even though what happened last night left him reeling, he knew the only way to get through it was to feel it, no matter how bad it hurt.
His phone came alive with a series of dings and pings as emails and text messages blew up his phone.
He ignored the emails and tapped Shelby’s text string. She never really said much, but what she sent him was better than anything in this world. Pictures of Eliza started downloading, one after another. Her smiling face stared at him and all the tension went out of his chest. He breathed for the first time in twelve long hours.
When he was serving overseas, he got a picture a day. She’d even hooked up a private web cam in Eliza’s nursery. He could log in with his password anytime and see his little girl in her room. Some days, the pictures and seeing the livestream were all that kept him sane. And Shelby hadn’t stopped now that he was stateside. At some point every day she sent him a picture.
He’d spent every night in rehab watching his baby sleep.
Three pictures popped up today. They went a long way to stitching up his bleeding heart. In the first picture, Eliza stood in front of the fireplace with a piece of paper with an I made out of multicolored buttons glued on it. Above her head on the mantel sat a picture of him. A selfie he’d taken and sent to Shelby to show Eliza while he was overseas. Behind him in the photo, nothing but desert sand spread out as far as the eye could see. The second picture showed Eliza on her swing in the backyard another piece of paper in her hands with the word Love spelled out in animal stickers. And the last, Eliza in the princess chair he sent her for Christmas with her finger pointed at him and another paper with You spelled out in glitter.
His sweet girl liked to stick things on everything. The walls, windows, and doors when her mom wasn’t looking and forcing her to use paper.
Hunt closed in on him. “Chase, put the phone down and pay attention.”
Chase didn’t like being loomed over. At all. “To what? You telling me what you think I did. What you think I am. What you want me to do. Seriously, haven’t I done enough for everyone? Haven’t I paid enough? Lost enough? You guys don’t even want to be here. So why are you? Go home and leave me the hell alone.”
“When you’re left alone, you get high.”
“Not anymore.” It was never about some high. He needed an escape from his thoughts, to turn off his brain, so he didn’t have to remember or feel or do something he couldn’t take back and end it all.
Eliza needed him to be better. So he was going to do better.
“So if you won’t go back to rehab, what are you going to do?” Max asked, sounding genuinely interested, even if Hunt still wanted to kill him for what happened with their mom.
“I’m going home.”
“To the ranch?” Max’s eyes went wide with shock. “Dad’s not going to like that. He’s—”
“As stubborn as you,” Hunt interjected, cutting off whatever else Max intended to say.
Hunt and Max exchanged a look. Hunt pushed harder. “Where exactly do you plan to stay?”
He didn’t know. Somewhere close to his girl since he no longer had his furnished apartment in town. Everything he owned was in the bag next to the hospital bed. “I’ll figure it out.” He hoped he had enough on his credit card to get him a motel room for a few nights so he could go and see Eliza and find a job before he ended up on the streets like so many other vets who struggled to assimilate into society again.
Hunt narrowed his eyes, one side of his mouth drawn back in a derisive frown. “Great plan.”
Before Chase got a chance to tell his brother to fuck off, an officer walked through the door. “Chase Wilde?”
His heart raced. “Yeah.” He had a flashback of Hunt slamming him into the ground, yanking his arms behind his back, and cuffing him. Hunt had taken great joy in arresting him.
“I came to get your statement about what happened last night.” The officer checked out Hunt and Max, then focused on him again.
Of course Hunt couldn’t keep his damn nose out of Chase’s business. “I’m Hunt Wilde. Willow Fork, Wyoming PD. Is my brother under arrest?” Lucky for Chase, they were in Montana, so Hunt had no jurisdiction here, but he could still use his badge to steer the officer into doing what Hunt thought Chase deserved.
When Hunt arrested him back home, that had been rehab. Now, he wondered if Hunt wanted him locked up behind bars. For his own good, Hunt would say, but Chase knew it was revenge, pure and simple.
The officer raised a brow. “For attempting to save a woman’s life?”
Hunt stared at him wide-eyed.
Chase crossed his arms and stared at his lap. “You said it. Attempted. But I didn’t save her.”
“Tell me what happened,” the officer prompted, pulling out a pad and pen to take notes.
Chase glanced at Hunt, who crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at Chase as if to say, “You better not lie.”
Chase told the truth, despite how horrible it was. “My buddy’s girl let me stay in her place above the shop where it happened. She said I could eat whatever I wanted from the kitchen. I headed down to find something when I heard Juliana yelling. She sounded angry and desperate, so I rushed in to see if I could help her. The second I saw her, she collapsed to the floor.” Chase could see it all too clearly in his mind. “She just crumbled. I couldn’t get to her fast enough to stop her fall.” He could still hear the crack of her head hitting the polished cement floor. “When I reached her . . . I knew it was too late. Her eyes . . . She didn’t have a heartbeat. Training kicked in. I started CPR.”
“You gave her mouth-to-mouth,” the officer added.
Chase nodded. “I did, then yelled at the guy—I think he worked there—to call for help, but he was out of his mind, ranting. I tried to help her, but then . . .” It all went black.
“You passed out. You were dosed, just like Juliana,” the officer supplied.