Page 21 of The Chase
“No. No sorries allowed. Life is short, Greer-Kat. What if it’s not a revenge plot? What if it was just him freaking out because of what he felt for you? I mean, if he’s despised Gene all this time for whatever reason, to fall in love with Gene’s little sister…well, that would seriously freak a person out. I mean, I had enough trouble falling in love with one of Gene’sbest friends.And if you avoid all men who’ve had a problem with Gene at one time or another in this town, you’ll probably die an old maid.”
“Gene does have a bit of a reputation, doesn’t he?” He’d struggled some after his divorce. Gene had figured things out though. And…what had happened when Greer had been nine had really hurt her brother. Down to his soul.
She didn’t remember much about it, but she remembered Gene next to her in the ambulance, begging her to open her eyes and look at him. That she was going to be okay, because her big brother was there to make it okay. Him and Grady. She’d been able to hear them and had known she would be okay. She had known she wassafethen.
Her big brothers had always meant safety to her and always would.
He had been her hero that day. Him, and Grady, who’d been behind those monsters’ car. Trying to save her.
Maybe it was time she told them that? Told them that they reallyweregood men at heart.
Unlike Kurtland Chase.
That man was such a toad inside.
“Admit it, a part of you likes that he’s still calling, don’t you?”
Greer just looked at her big sister and glared. Genny just shrugged. “What? What did I say? Sometimes, thechaseis the most fun part. When Chad was hunting me, it was reallyexciting. I suspected he’d catch me eventually, the anticipation of when was what kept me on my toes.”
Her sister was insane; Greer wasn’t enjoying this at all.
As her phone buzzed with a text sheknewwas from him, she admitted it to herself. Maybe she was…just a little.
16
He needed a better plan.Greer washidingfrom him every time he even got close to her. He’d sent her flowers—she’d pretended to be someone else and the delivery guy had given the flowers to her oldest sister. Who had had a lot to say to Kurt later that night when he’d called. Yikes.
He winced.Thatsister had far morebitethan the little nurse one. And she’d told him in no uncertain terms where he had screwed up and that he wasn’t to even try to do something stupid to her sister now. That she was watching, and knew just how to handle him. Since she was with the county attorney’s office he was a bit afraid of what she meant.
He’d seen her in town before—a very beautiful woman, Greer favored her a great deal, but that woman was beyondscary.He’d tried to tell her that he loved her sister, her sister terrified him, and that he would never do anything to hurt Greer ever again.
And to be honest, he kind of wanted his girls to grow up with avoicelike that woman. She didn’t back down from what mattered to her. He wanted his girls to be like that, too. Fierce.
He just had to convince Greer to actually give him another chance first. Without thinking he was a crazy stalker oranything. He had never had this kind of trouble getting a woman to at leasttalkto him before.
He had one more shot. Greer was going tohaveto at least talk to him about the baby, if nothing else. They’d have details to work out. And it would give him the opportunity to show her he wasn’t the total jackass she thought he was. Kurt was a very determined man. He had built his empire into what it was by sacrifice and sweat equity. He knew when not to give up on something—someone—who mattered the way this woman did.
He just didn’t know how to prove to her he was the kind of man she deserved.
Hell, he knew he wasn’t, but he was the man who would love her forever.
His secretary knocked on the door. Luna was about Greer’s age, with long dark brown hair and big brown eyes. She came from a big family like Greer’s. She’d gone to school with Greer, too, he thought. Her older brothers were friends with Greer’s older brothers. The Sandovals were very established in Value. They fit in.
Kurt had envied them that before. “Hey, what do you need now? Can’t you just leave a man alone to think?”
“A man like you left on his own devices for too long is just bound to get into trouble.” Luna had a big stack of mail—probably invoices and bills and all the things he didn’t want to take time to deal with—in her skinny arms. “I am dealing with this today, whether you like it or not, boss. I have big plans for tomorrow.”
“What are these plans? The boyfriend?”
“Hardly.Notthe boyfriend any longer. He apparently had some not so nice things to say about my brothers behind my back. Total deal-breaker.”
Her older brothers could be difficult, Luna had complained about them to him before. “So that…matters with a guy? What if you were really into him?”
“I can understand a guy having a problem with one of my brothers—I mean, have you met them all? Total buttheads at times—but what he was saying when Luis had a few questions for him were beyond what I was going to tolerate. Especially him running his mouth to his buddies—who were all unemployed, I might add. So…we argued. Anyway, now I can actually enjoy myself at the Hiller Barbecue Saturday without having to referee between him and those lunatics.” She shook her head like she was exasperated or something. Sometimes Kurt was convinced Luna Sandoval had been born eighty-four years old. Beautiful—though she seriously doubted that fact—brilliant, and so scarily organized it terrified him, but she had what he’d once heard described as anold soul.
She took that next level.
Kurt adored her and intended to keep her forever. He made sure to pay his assistant very well. He was well aware that Luna kept him going in the right direction with everything he had to juggle.
