A deadness there that was chilling, heartbreaking, even frightening. This man, Deacon Gates, had not been broken.

More, it felt like Chace would give his all to keep himself together…for Faye. Meeting Faye, I knew she was the one keeping him together. It was something I’d never experienced.Ĭhace, I sensed, had been broken. The first time I’d met him my poet’s soul had started keening. He was definitely of the gorgeous variety of mountain man. “Right,” Deacon’s rough voice came at me and I focused on him in the ample glow provided by the outside lights at the door to my house. But mostly, after the boys had come, he let Deke take care of managing them, showing only when inspectors came to sign off on things.īut now Deacon had just completed the final inspection, an inspection I’d trailed him through and just signed off on. He’d been around occasionally, helping out sometimes the week after I’d been attacked. Standing in the chill outside by his SUV, I handed the clipboard with the paperwork that I’d just signed back to Max’s foreman, a guy named Deacon Gates. I just smiled at my awesome dress tangled in his kickass shirt, remembered how both pieces got where they were and kept walking to the bathroom. I had it when I didn’t have Deke and that had not changed like it most likely would have with another man. I felt no anxiety around this train of thought, a train I hadn’t taken in a long time. This being that I had found the man who breathed easiest on the road, something that was in my blood, something that was a part of me, something that could mean something deeper again someday without me having to worry about where the man in my life would fit if I took to that road. This was the understanding that Deke had found the woman who could handle the road, the only place he could breathe easy.īut it was also something I hadn’t thought about. Staring at our tangled clothing, something slithered over me, every inch of my skin, like a protective sheen.

Deacon gates kristen ashley