My One and Only (Ardent Springs Book 3) (5 page)

She tugged on the car door. “Get out of the way, Cooper.”

He squatted down to see her face. “Come on, Hal. Let me get Jessi settled and then I’ll drive you wherever you need to go.”

She shook her head like a stubborn child. “I’m fine. Let me go.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, and had never meant anything so much in his life. “Whatever it is, let me fix it.”

“No,” she said, finally looking him in the eye. “Stop trying to be the hero, Cooper. You can’t fix everything.”

He dropped back on his heels, feeling the weight of her words like a punch. “I’m trying to be a friend,” he said, managing to keep his anger in check. Barely. “You want to get yourself killed, who am I to stop you?” Rising to his full height, Cooper stepped away from the car. “Just try not to take anyone else out when you do.”

Brown eyes closed tight as Haleigh sat frozen, her hand on the door but not moving. “That’s a mean thing to say,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, well,” Cooper replied, “maybe I’m not such a good guy after all.”

Giving her what she wanted took every ounce of willpower Cooper possessed, but he walked away. Before he reached the front door, Haleigh drove off.

On autopilot, Haleigh’s mind paid little attention to the road, too busy wallowing in guilt and regret to focus on incidentals like speed limits and turn signals. She shouldn’t have been so mean to Cooper. He didn’t deserve her insults or her anger. Those were reserved exclusively for herself, but Cooper always seemed to get caught in the crosshairs.

As rows of hickory trees raced by, the past bubbled to the surface. David Stapleton, all-around star athlete and the boy voted most likely to succeed, had cooed all the things Haleigh’s teenage heart wanted to hear. He’d fed her nothing but empty promises, and she’d fallen for every lie that rolled off his tongue up to the moment he’d dumped her outside their senior prom.

I can’t be tied down, Haleigh Rae. I’m going off to State, and I’m gonna be the next great quarterback to come out of Tennessee. A guy like me has to keep his options open.

A guy like him needed to be castrated, Haleigh lamented. He’d even had the nerve to throw the classic cliché in her face.

How do I even know the kid is mine? You gave it up pretty easy, so who knows how many guys there’s been.

Looking back, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t scratched his eyes out in that moment. Especially when he
knew
she’d been a virgin. And there was nothing
pretty easy
about her. David had coaxed and sweet-talked for months before she’d agreed to go all the way. The guilt had nearly suffocated her, and Haleigh hadn’t been able to look at her mother for a week.

She’d been so pathetic in her prom dress, crying behind a dumpster, certain that her life was over. But then Cooper had appeared out of nowhere, offering a handkerchief to dry her eyes. In her weakened state, Haleigh had confessed everything, declaring herself worthless and stupid and leaving a disgusting puddle of snot on Cooper’s rented tuxedo jacket. And he’d known just what to say to make her feel better.

David the Dipshit was never good enough for you, Haleigh Rae. You’re the prettiest and smartest girl at this school. Heck, in the whole county.

She’d laughed through her tears, but couldn’t bear the humiliation of walking back into the dance. After making sure his date was taken care of, Cooper had driven her home, assuring her the whole way that everything would work out. Haleigh didn’t see how that was possible, since her mother was going to kill her when she found out about the baby.

That’s when Cooper had attempted to fall on his sword. The proposal had taken Haleigh by complete surprise. The whole thing was so ridiculous that she couldn’t help but laugh it off, certain that he’d been more than a little relieved by her refusal. Two weeks later, he’d driven her to Nashville, paid more than half of the abortion fee, which he’d insisted on doing regardless of her protests, and driven her back home. All without judgment or condemnation.

When they’d reached her house, Haleigh had once again cried on Cooper’s shoulder. Whether the tears came from sorrow or relief, she’d never figured out—she’d been hit by waves of both. And in his typical way, Cooper had been ready with the handkerchief.

Bright lights snapped Haleigh back to the present. A horn blared as she swerved to the right and skidded to a halt on the shoulder of the road. Heart racing, she looked for markers in order to determine where she was. The sign for Mount Hope Cemetery put her on Tucker Road, several miles outside of town.

Adrenaline pumping, her forehead dropped to the center of the wheel.

Her first thought was,
Thank God I’m alive
. Her second was that she owed Cooper Ridgeway an apology.

Chapter 5

Though he’d been lifting weights for more than an hour, Cooper’s adrenaline continued to run on full throttle. He couldn’t stop picturing Haleigh’s car wrapped around a tree, and the fear that his phone would ring with the sheriff calling for a wrecker kept him on edge.

Why had he gone and said something so stupid? As if he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if she got hurt. He should have gone after her right away, but by the time he’d finished nursing his injured pride, it was anybody’s guess where she’d gone.

Not that he could have left Jessi and the baby alone anyway. The girl was still technically a stranger in Abby’s house. He’d stayed until Abby arrived home from work to take over settling in her new tenants.

Finishing another twenty reps, Cooper shook the fog from his brain. Haleigh had peeled out hours ago, and he hadn’t gotten a call or heard any accident reports over the scanner. She was fine. She didn’t need his help. And he needed to get a freaking grip.

Maybe Haleigh was right. The hero act needed to stop. Not that Cooper went out of his way looking for opportunities to save people. Or that he did it all that often. He sure as heck hadn’t been looking for a pregnant teenager when he’d found Jessi. And that birth thing was not an experience he wanted to repeat. Horror flicks had nothing on that mess.

So how did he stop something that he wasn’t intentionally doing? And did he really
want
to stop? If someone was in trouble, the right thing to do was to help. That’s how his mother had raised him. His father’s philosophy had been to look out for himself and to hell with everyone else. Thankfully, his mother’s influence had won out.

So was he supposed to carry Jessi out of the storage building and drop her at the bus station? Looking out for people was in his DNA, and Cooper wasn’t about to change who he was. Not even for Haleigh Rae Mitchner.

Lost in his own mental pep talk, Cooper barely heard the knock on his front door over the Jason Aldean tune blaring from his speakers. Dropping the thirty-pounders at his feet, he cut the radio on his way to the front door.

“Who the—” he said as he swung the door open to find the last person he expected. “Haleigh Rae?” Cooper’s gut hit the floor as she stared at him with an expression most women reserved for desserts and shoes. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out while brown eyes ogled his bare chest.

“Are you lost?” he asked, proud of himself for not begging her to come in. Though if she kept looking at him like that he’d be tempted to invite her upstairs for a different kind of workout.

“No. Um . . . You’re wet,” she finally managed. “And shirtless.”

“I’m working out and I was hot.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.” The woman looked ready to jump his bones. “I mean, of course you are. Were,” she quickly corrected. “You
were
obviously working out. And I’m sorry to disturb you, but this will only take a minute.”

She hadn’t wanted to talk earlier, so why should he want to talk now?

“It’s already late and I still need a shower. Maybe some other time.”

“Please,” she pressed. “Give me two minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

Against his better judgment, Cooper granted the request. “Fine,” he said, stepping aside for her to pass.

She looked relieved but nervous as she fidgeted at the end of his couch. Cooper resisted the urge to clean up. He shouldn’t care what Haleigh thought of his place.

Cooper closed the door and said, “Your two minutes starts now.”

“Right.” Her eyes dropped to the floor as she rubbed the back of her neck. Shifting from foot to foot, she surprised him by asking, “Could you put on a shirt?”

“A shirt?” He had to dirty another shirt for a two-minute conversation?

“It’s just . . .” She waved a finger in front of him. “That’s a lot of . . . And your shorts are riding kind of . . .” This conversation was going to take more than two minutes if she couldn’t finish a sentence. “Please just put on a shirt.”

Haleigh was clearly uncomfortable, and not because his looks offended her. The temptation to test her restraint tickled at the back of his brain. Dismiss him all she wanted, but Haleigh Rae was not immune to good old Cooper. At least not his body.

“You don’t look like you want me to put on a shirt,” he said, stepping closer.

“No woman in her right mind would
want
you to put on a shirt,” she argued, stepping back. “I’m asking you to do it anyway.”

The compliment made him generous. “All right. I’ll be right back.” When he returned wearing a plain gray tee, he said, “Better?”

“A bit, yes.” Haleigh took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Now. I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

Not what he expected. “An apology for what?”

“For a lot of things, but most of all for taking advantage of you thirteen years ago. And for insulting you earlier tonight. You didn’t deserve that.”

He latched onto the first part. “You took advantage of me?”

“Yes,” Haleigh said. “I’m a crappy person, and my track record goes back pretty far. I doubt I can find the boy I made fun of for flunking first grade, or the transfer student I said horrible things to in third, but I have to start somewhere.”

This had to be a joke. “Hal, you are not a crappy person.”

“But I am,” she argued. “I never should have dumped my problems on you that night at the prom. And I definitely shouldn’t have taken your money.”

“Where is this coming from?” he asked. “You didn’t dump anything, and I didn’t give you a choice about the money. What were you going to do, get it from your mom? I’d have beaten it out of Stapleton, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“He outweighed you by fifty pounds.”

“Ever heard of a tire iron? It’s a great equalizer.”

“Are you crazy?” she squawked. “You could have jeopardized his football scholarship.”

“Please,” Cooper said. “That dipshit drank himself out of school in the first year. He never played in a game, and now he’s selling cars in Chattanooga.”

Haleigh looked less appalled. “Really? I knew he hadn’t become the next great quarterback, but I never bothered to find out what actually happened to him.”

“You dodged a bullet,” he said. “You never told Abby about that summer, did you?”

Haleigh shook her head. “She’d been talking about being a mom since sophomore year. She’d also warned me about David, and I hadn’t listened. I was stupid and weak and I couldn’t bring myself to confess. She’d have been so disappointed in me. As the years went on I committed enough
other
sins that keeping this one to myself got easier.”

Knowing his sister and the bond that she and Haleigh had, Cooper said, “You weren’t stupid, you were young. We all were. But she’d have been there for you.”

“I know. But I don’t want to talk about the past anymore.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I shouldn’t have been so mean to you today. Something else was bothering me, and I took it out on you.”

Cooper nearly asked what that something was, but forced himself to stay out of her business. That didn’t mean if the circumstance happened again, he’d let her go a second time.

“Okay then,” he said with a nod. “Apology accepted.”

Haleigh wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Really?” she asked. “Just like that?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just like that. I’m getting a beer. You want one?”

Cooper really was a breed all his own. Few men would so readily forgive, and though he’d flashed a hint of temper that had surprised her, in the end, the good guy won out. Haleigh once again lamented her poor taste in men. Whatever girl ended up with Cooper Ridgeway was going to be a very lucky woman.

“I’d better not,” she said, loading up her go-to refusal line. “I’m not a fan of alcohol.” Which couldn’t be more true. Being addicted to the stuff didn’t mean she liked it. Quite the opposite, in fact. “And I’ve bothered you long enough anyway.”

“You don’t have to go,” Cooper said. “I was just being a dick about the two-minute thing.”

Haleigh shook her head. “You couldn’t be a dick if you tried, Cooper. Trust me. I’m an expert on the breed.”

“So what’s that about anyway?” he asked as he loomed above her, practically blocking the light from the lamp behind him.

She still couldn’t believe he was so . . . big. His shoulders seemed to go on forever, and that had definitely been a solid six-pack that had greeted her at the door. She’d never been one to melt at the sight of a hot body, but then she’d rarely encountered a body like Cooper’s. Odd to think that she’d occasionally slept one wall away from him during their high school days, but back then he hadn’t looked anything like the man standing before her now.

“I don’t know,” she said. And she really didn’t. David had been the first in a long line of guys who’d fallen squarely into the bad boyfriend category. “If I dig deep enough, I’m sure it has to do with like attracting like.”

Cooper strolled into an adjoining room that Haleigh assumed to be the kitchen, giving her a prime shot of his killer ass. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked over his shoulder before returning with a sweating longneck and a bottle of water that he passed her way. “If you’re going back to that crappy person thing, I’m calling bullshit.”

“Do you know why I became a doctor?” she asked him.

“Nope,” he said, taking a draw off his beer. The action drew attention to his full lips pressed against the mouth of the bottle.

She wondered what they’d feel like pressed to her.

Sensation prickled up her neck at the images flashing through her mind. Vivid, detailed images that sent heat pulsing to her core.

What the hell was wrong with her today? She’d just apologized for using the man thirteen years ago, and here she was, treating him like a side of beef in her mind.

“I am so messed up,” she said.

“You became a doctor because you’re messed up?”

“Um . . .” she hedged. “No. I just . . . My mind wandered for a minute.” Haleigh cleared her throat to buy time. “I became a doctor because my mother had high expectations and I was determined to meet them. Med school was my version of go big or go home. I liked the prestige of the occupation and thought for once I could make my mother happy.”

Cooper studied her with a tilt of his head as if searching for some deeper motivation at the back of her skull. She hated to tell him, but there was nothing deep about it. Simply put, Haleigh was a shallow people-pleaser. And a sucky one at that.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

“I’m not surprised, but facts are facts. The act of becoming a doctor was nothing more than me chasing the shiniest brass ring I could find.”

The confession, something she’d long feared but never spoken aloud, scraped another layer off her fragile ego, making Haleigh feel as if her skin had been flipped inside out, leaving her exposed and raw.

Though uncomfortable, the experience was also oddly liberating.

“No way,” Cooper said, dropping into the chair he’d been standing next to. “I watched you deliver that baby last night. Nothing that happened in that room was about some brass ring.”

Haleigh took a seat on the black leather couch.

“Just because I had selfish motivations for becoming a doctor doesn’t mean I’m not good at my job. I bring babies into the world, making sure they and their mothers come through the ordeal healthy and happy. The point is that what I do doesn’t change who I am.”

“Wrong,” he argued. “If you were a crappy person, healthy and happy patients wouldn’t be a priority.”

“Believe what you want.” She spun the top off the water bottle. “I think I know me better than you do.”

“Could you make more money doing your job someplace else?” he asked.

That one was easy. “Of course I could.”

“Do you know your patients’ names?”

“Do you know how long it takes to grow a baby? I spend months getting to know them, Cooper. I couldn’t
not
know their names.”

“So they aren’t just a means to an end? There to give you something to do that makes you feel better about yourself?”

These rapid-fire questions proved nothing.

“What’s your point?”

“You, Haleigh Rae, are a good person,” he said, pointing the beer bottle at her chest. “In fact, you’re a better person than I am. A superhero almost.”

Now he’d gone way off the deep end. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m right on this one,” he said with a wide grin that deepened the dimple in his chin. “Who refused to let Jessi leave the hospital without a safe place to go?”

“She’s a homeless girl with a new baby to take care of.”

“And you took care of both of them,” he pointed out. “You made sure she got the applications she needed to get insurance for both of them, and even when you figured out that they might be invading your life, you were more concerned about Abby’s feelings than your own. Does that sound like a horrible person to you?”

Though she hated to admit as much, the man had a point. Her actions did
appear
to be those of a somewhat generous person.

“Maybe I’m just trying to make up for being such a crummy person all these years,” she mumbled.

Cooper leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You keep telling yourself that, doc. And I’ll keep setting you straight.”