Breathe

My breath rushed against his lips.

Then he kissed me.

When he was done, even with the cheering and clapping, he didn’t take his mouth from mine as he whispered, “Bubblemint.”

Against his lips, I smiled.

* * * * *

Ty

One year, five weeks and six days earlier

They should have seen it.

They didn’t see it.

Or maybe they didn’t expect it would happen coming from a man like Keaton.

But they weren’t there like he was, watching Keaton digging her out with his bare hands, jumping into that hole, the agony of relief on his face when he heard her choke, the way he pulled her out, dropped to his ass and curled around her.

Ty was there. Ty had seen it. And Ty had felt that same relief when Lex called him after she’d been kidnapped by Fuller and when he’d seen her at the hospital.

So he knew when they brought the man who kidnapped and buried Faye alive through the Station for whatever f**king reasons they brought him through, Keaton would not keep his seat and just watch.

He didn’t.

Ty had never seen a man move that fast. Not in his life.

But one second Keaton was sitting behind his desk, the next he was across the room, the man against the wall, Keaton in his face, his hand wrapped around the ass**le’s throat.

The officers moved but Ty and Sterling were already in motion and they got there first and flanked Keaton.

Keaton was chest to chest, nose to nose with him and the man was choking.

“How’s it feel not to have any air?” he whispered, face and eyes stone cold.

“Stand down, Detective,” Sterling murmured.

“You left her three hours, not four,” Keaton kept whispering as he kept squeezing the breath out of his captive.

“Chace.” Ty inched closer.

“Three hours of air,” Keaton hissed.

“Man, you are not doin’ Faye any favors with this,” Ty told him quietly. “She needs him to pay. Not you. Stand down.”

Keaton held the man’s eyes.

Ty inched closer.

“Stand down, Chace,” Ty whispered.

A muscle jumped in Keaton’s jaw and he pushed off, stepping back one step as the man lifted both his handcuffed hands to wrap around his throat and choked in air.

“Let’s go outside,” Ty muttered and Keaton, eyes still locked to the kidnapper whose face was battered, bruised and swollen, kept still for a long moment before his body jerked around and he prowled to the door.

Ty gave Sterling a look and slid his eyes through the officers before he followed Keaton. He found him standing at his truck, both hands to its hood, weight leaning into his hands, head bent.

Ty stopped close.

Keaton didn’t delay, asking his question to Ty but the words were aimed at his gut. “How do you live with it?”

He knew what Keaton was asking. How did he live with his woman, the woman he needed in order to breathe, getting kidnapped but more, coming that close to losing her.

“Held my baby girl in my arms yesterday, last night and this morning,” Ty answered, Keaton pushed away from his truck and turned to him.

“That easy?” he whispered.

“No. Every day it burns in me. Every f**kin’ day. And every night she falls asleep beside me. So it’s not easy but I trip over one of her heels on the floor, she brings me a shake, I grab my workout bag in the morning and she’s sorted it, I get a different kind of burn. A better kind of burn. A burn that means I can live with the other. No problem.”

“And her?” Keaton asked.

“Far’s I can tell, she don’t feel it,” Ty answered and Keaton’s brows went up.

“You never see it? Sense it?” he pushed and Ty shook his head.

“Never. Not now. Not after you pulled her through dealin’ with putting holes in Fuller. She’s livin’ in the sunshine, new baby, big house she can fill with shit, me. She’s got all she ever wanted. Lotta people don’t get even a little of what they want. She understands that, appreciates it and doesn’t waste time on shit in the past. Her luck changed when she met me, mine when I met her. She understands that too, doesn’t question it, just looks forward and keeps guiding me to the light.”

Keaton held his eyes.

Then he whispered, “Ella Alexi.”

Ty grinned and whispered back, “Ella Alexi.”

“She beautiful?”

“Only one thing more beautiful I’ve ever seen in my life and that’s her Momma standing beside a Charger outside a prison. But I’ll tell you, man, love my wife but I’ve never felt anything more beautiful than the weight of my baby girl in my arms. So f**kin’ heavy, so f**kin’ light, so f**kin’ tiny, so f**kin’ huge. She’s everything. Everything that’s Lex and me. So she’s f**kin’ everything.”

Keaton brought them full circle, murmuring, “Then it’s that easy.”

Ty held his eyes.

Then he replied, “Yeah.”

Keaton nodded before muttering, “I gotta go get Faye from her folks’, bring her in so she can make her statement.”

“Go,” Ty invited.

“After that, she’ll wanna meet Ella.”

Ty grinned again. “You do, get the bug.”

“Faye?” Keaton asked, his lips twitching.

“No, brother, you,” Ty answered and Keaton shook his head.

“Got it already,” he told Ty and Ty felt his brows go up.

Then he asked, “How many?”

“Three.”

“Faye on board with that?”

“Yep.”

“Lexie wants four.”

Keaton’s lip twitch turned into a grin. “Now I’m thinkin’ I want four.”

“Better get to work, man,” Ty advised.

Keaton’s grin faded before he said quietly, “We got time.”

Ty locked his gaze on Keaton and replied just as quietly, “Yeah, Chace, you got time.”

Keaton lifted his hand Ty’s way, Ty took it but they didn’t shake. Their fingers curled tight and they held on a moment, eyes locked, grip firm and strong.

Then they broke and Chace moved to his truck.

Ty moved into the Station to tell Sterling he was going back to his wife and baby girl at the hospital.

* * * * *

Faye

One week later

“Girl time!” Lauren shouted, moving from the fridge with a bottle of champagne toward me sitting at the island in her kitchen in her house. “You guys were supposed to be gone half an hour ago!”

When I sensed movement, I shifted in my chair and watched Tate sauntering down the hall, all tall, dark, bearded badass. I did this thinking that if Chace had never come to town, I’d still have a major crush on Tate Jackson.