Do Not Disturb (23 page)

I need your arms around me
.

His fingers tightened on her face for an instant, then they slid to her hands to tug her to her feet. In the next moment he'd pulled her against him in a warm, strong embrace. She leaned into him, reveling in the feel of his heart beating against her cheek.

“What are we doing?” he murmured. “What the hell are we doing?”

It was clear he didn't expect an answer, which was good. Very good. Because Angel had no idea what Cooper was doing—and she could only hope that
she
wasn't falling in love.

The walk back to the retreat didn't smooth out Angel's mood or clear up her confusion. She only knew that her pulse was racing and she couldn't rid herself of that dizzy, breathless feeling. As they came within sight of the Tranquility common building, she spotted a strange group of men at the same instant one of the men spotted them.

“Hey, Coop!” the guy yelled.

Angel nearly jumped from her skin. The surprise of the loud voice in the usual silence shot a burst of adrenaline into her already overloaded system.

“Coop, over here!” The man waved his arms.

Grimacing, Cooper slanted her a glance. “The workers are here to erect the tents for the art show. They'll expect my help.”

She nodded jerkily, relief and disappointment adding to the emotional cocktail inside of her.

He released her hand and cupped his palms around her face again. “Are you going to be all right?”

She nodded again.

“You said you wanted me.”

Her head shook in immediate denial. “I'll be fine. Just fine.” On second thought, she clearly needed something other than Cooper right now. What she needed was to quash the odd idea that she was in danger of falling in love with him.

“I'll see you later, then.” He bent his head and touched his mouth to hers. Soft and tender, the kiss on top of the weird jitters made her woozy. When he ended it and let go of her, she wobbled.

He laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Okay?”

No. Her heart continued to wobble inside her chest. But she managed a carefree smile, slipping straight into her habit of bravado-under-stress. “Of course.”

He strode off, then suddenly spun back.

She wished he hadn't caught her looking after him.

“Was that you whistling?” he asked.

Her eyes widened and she shoved her hands in her pockets. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

She only whistled when she was uncertain or frightened. That wasn't the problem here. Flashing him her best no-worries smile, she made it a point to be the one to turn away first, and hoped she looked dignified and cool as she scurried toward her cottage and her expected return to sanity.

She was halfway there when the silence was interrupted again. “Girl!” an elderly female voice said. “Girl, over here!”

Angel's head turned toward the sound. In the door
of the cottage she'd just passed she recognized one of the retreatants.

“Can I help you, ma'am?” Angel called out, retracing her steps. The white-haired woman beckoned her nearer with one hand, while the other gripped a heavy staff in arthritic-looking fingers.

The lady beckoned Angel closer still.

With an inward shrug, she followed the elderly woman inside her cottage. Maybe the old gal needed help moving or reaching something.

When the door was shut behind them, the lady turned to Angel. “Sit down, girl. Sit down.”

Staying where she was, Angel frowned. “Is there something I can do for you, ma'am?” She wasn't up to a social call.

“I'm Mrs. Withers.” Gesturing to one easy chair, she lowered herself into another. “I heard you're a reporter.”

Not knowing quite what else to do, she nodded and perched on the edge of the indicated seat. “My name is Angel Buchanan. I write for
West Coast
magazine.”

“Well, if you're writing about Tranquility House,” the old woman asserted. “The person you should be talking to is
me
.”

Angel opened her mouth to correct the impression, then hesitated. Was there really some all-fired hurry to leave? The alternative to killing some time with Mrs. Withers was staring at her own four walls and worrying about whether or not she was edging toward being in love with Cooper.

Which she wasn't. She couldn't be. Why would
he
be the one after all these years?

And since that was exactly what she didn't want to
dwell upon, she focused on the older lady. “You know the retreat well?” she asked.

“Know it well! I've been visiting here every September for the past forty years.”

Forty years! Angel's nerves were calming already. That many memories should keep both of them occupied for quite a while. “Tell me about it.”

But as the old woman began to reminisce, Angel's mind refused to follow the conversation. She was aware of
hmm
ing and
umm
ing at sufficient intervals, but the busiest of her brain cells remained preoccupied with Cooper.

She
couldn't
be anywhere close to falling in love with him!

She couldn't be in love with anyone. Giving over her heart was something she'd been inoculated against a lifetime ago. When envisioning her future, she'd seen her life running along the lines of her editor's at the magazine. Jane had friends, work, a good, full life without a commitment from a man. That sounded fine to Angel, because nobody knew better than she how falling in love could only lead to disappointment—at the low end of the scale—or actual danger.

In between those extremes was heartache, unfaithfulness, abandonment. Suppressing a little shudder, she tore her attention back to Mrs. Withers.

“And they were such a lovely couple,” the woman was saying. “They married in September, you know, right on the cliffs. I was there.”

Angel blinked. “I'm sorry, who was the lovely couple?”

“Edie and John.”

The names rang a bell, thanks to Cara's piles of research. “Oh,” Angel said, nodding. “His parents.” She felt herself flushing. “I mean the parents of Cooper, Beth, and Lainey.”

“That's right.” The old woman nodded. “They doted on those children.”

Lucky for them.

“But they doted on each other even more. Edie fell apart when John died. I thought that would be the end of Tranquility House.”

“Really?” Angel's mind spun back to Cooper and the beach, of how he'd told her of his father's death in that hard, cool voice. Of how he'd accused her of not wanting to get that personal with him.

Bull's-eye.

No, no! He just didn't understand that she was being
realistic
. What they had was chemistry. Incredible sex. A mutual interest in bad food choices. But nothing more! “Their” song was that ridiculous “Hakuna Matata,” remember?

“…that boy was tireless, though. Nineteen years old, going to college, working a job in town, working on the weekends at Tranquility to keep it running.”

“Mmm.” Angel nodded. So Cooper was hardworking. Smart. She'd known that from the start. There was absolutely no reason for him to be anything more to her than a fond memory of some pleasant sex.

“Edie, though…well…”

Angel snatched at the name to refocus the conversation. “Yes, Edie.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Tell me more about Edie.”

Mrs. Withers sighed. “There are some women who can't make it without a man.”

Angel nodded. “I know just the kind you mean.”
And remember you don't want to be one of them!

“I was married for thirty years myself, and I still miss Charlie, but I was always an independent sort.” There was a lively gleam in her eye. “After he passed on, I enjoyed myself. Still enjoy myself.”

“Good for you,” Angel said, nodding.

But then the old lady clasped both hands on her staff and sighed again. “Not that I haven't been lonely. Very lonely at times.”

Angel's stomach squeezed. She thought about her too-quiet apartment that she filled with the noise of the news channels. She thought of Tom Jones, the neighbor's fickle cat that was often the only living creature she touched in the course of a day. “Well, I'm, uh…”

Mrs. Withers shook herself. “We were talking about Edie, though. She wasn't the same after John was gone. Pined for him, I think. Not many years later, she caught a cold that turned into pneumonia. I heard she hardly tried to fight it off.”

Angel
tsk
ed. “The perils of love.”

“The children were devastated, of course. But again, it was Cooper who stepped in and handled all the details.”

“He's good at those.”

Mrs. Withers nodded. “And more, he gave those girls the support they needed. He was there whenever they wanted a shoulder to cry on or to lean on. Lainey was already married and mother to darling Katie, but
that artist husband of hers was usually locked in his tower with his canvases and his paints. Cooper is the one who has always been there for the women in his family.”

That artist
. Angel picked out those two words and tried forgetting the rest. She should ask Mrs. Withers more about “that artist.” That's why she was at Tranquility, remember? To learn more about Stephen Whitney. To find out the truth.

The truth.

Cooper is the one who has always been there for the women in his family
.

Image after image shuffled through her mind. Cooper coming for Katie at the memorial. Walking with his arm around his sister at the cliffside service. Rushing to Beth's aid when she'd been crying later that day. Sunset dates with his niece. Tending Lainey's garden. Back flips into the pool.

Why would Angel be in danger of falling in love with a man like that?

Hah. Hah hah hah.

The joke was on her. She wasn't in danger of falling in love with Cooper after all.

She already
was
in love with him.

 

As it neared sunset, Cooper's arms and shoulders ached from the unfamiliar lifting and holding required to erect the two huge tents. Though the crew had welcomed his help, he could have left them to the job hours before.

Instead, he'd used the work as an excuse to avoid
Angel and as an opportunity to kick his own ass to hell and back.

When he'd woken that morning and found her gone again, he
had
flashed on her floating toward the bottom of the pool. The idea ripping at him, he'd run from the cottage with a panicked need to make sure she was safe.

Judd had told him he'd seen her head toward the cove, but even in the short time it took to locate her, Cooper had worked himself into a state. A stupid, stupid state that was a potent combination of anxiety and anger.

So he'd attacked Angel for finding it so easy to walk away from him, when walking away from him was the very thing he wanted her to be able to do.

Damn it! Damn him.

Checking his watch, he decided he had another good excuse to stall before facing her again. It was almost time for his usual evening meet with Katie. Maybe the sunset would provide the solution to how he could cool things off with Angel.

But when he arrived at his and Katie's special spot, there was a blond head beside the dark one of his niece. They sat side by side, the soft breeze lifting their hair away from their shoulders and mingling the curly yellow and straight brown strands.

He was going to lose them both.

The weight of it slammed heavily into him. He stumbled on a rock, sending dirt and pebbles tumbling. Katie's and Angel's heads jerked around.

He tried to smile. “Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”

The corners of Angel's mouth lifted and fell and she started to rise. “I…I was just leaving.”

“Don't go.” Why did the wrong words keep coming out of his mouth? “I…uh…uh…” Hell, he sounded as nervous as she looked.

She bit her bottom lip. “I don't want to intrude.”

Cooper took his place on the other side of his niece. “We don't mind, do we, Katydid?” He wrapped his arm around the girl's shoulders and made himself look at Angel over her head. “After all, this is…what? Your second-to-the-last Big Sur sunset? We'll share it with you.”

Angel hesitated a long moment, then she nodded, her eyes cooling, her expression now composed. Not a single nerve showing. “That's right. I'll be leaving right after the art show.”

If she'd expected to do any different after his earlier demand for her to get “personal” with him, if she'd expected he'd ask her to stay longer, there was not a hint of it in her manner. Relieved, he took the bottle of sparkling water Katie held toward him and swallowed half in one gulp.

Then he looked down at his niece. “And how was your day, miss?”

“Fine.”

Her wooden expression was an uncomfortable echo of Angel's. He
knew
there was a wealth of emotion beneath Katie's emotionless face. Did that mean there was trouble brewing behind Angel's calm eyes too?

Disquieted again, Cooper stared out at the fiery orange sun sliding inexorably down the slope of the af
ternoon sky. It was moving so quickly now, he thought, the day passing so fast. Like his life.

“I was just telling Katie about San Francisco,” Angel put in. “That I can't wait to get back.”

San Francisco. Maybe he should have returned to his firm after recovering from the surgery. Maybe he should have gone back to the city and burned out like a candle, doing what he loved best. But instead, he'd come here, hoping to secure the future of Tranquility House and his family as well as he could.

Watch out for your mother and sisters,
his father had said that night in the mountains. Cooper was holding himself to that promise as long as possible.

Closing his eyes, he reminded himself that it had seemed like a fine idea to die in the Sur. Here, compared to the permanence of the mountains, the unceasing movement of the Pacific, the infinite horizon, his life was nothing.

He'd hoped that would make the idea of his dying feel like nothing too. He'd hoped to find acceptance.

He was still hoping, damn it.

“Uncle Cooper?”

Startled, he opened his eyes and looked down at Katie. “What is it?”

“The sun's gone. And you're cold, Uncle Cooper. You're shivering.”

The wind had kicked up, and Katie's and Angel's hair was swirling around their heads, twining yellow and brown in a pretty dance that had him staring.