Damon?
Coincidence that the kid’s name was only one letter off from demon? Though Cooper hated to admit it, his niece had made a valid point. Millie did have a lot on her plate—considering what’d gone down Saturday night, even more than her daughter knew. Besides, since LeeAnn promised not to kiss the kid again, if Cooper did let it slide, then would she maybe cut him some slack and quit avoiding him like he had an infectious disease?
“Please, Uncle Cooper. I pinkie swear I won’t even talk to him again.
Please,
don’t tell Mom.”
“All right,” he said, “but I never want to catch you with that kid again.”
*
B
Y
THE
TIME
all four of them trudged back out to Cooper’s truck, three inches of snow coated the windshield.
Millie hoped the roads would be clear enough by the next afternoon for Peg to make her usual weekend trip to see Clint.
Her evening with Cooper had been alarmingly pleasant, and she looked forward to his sister being around to chaperone, because honestly? As charming as he’d been tonight, she didn’t trust herself to keep her hands off him.
He started the engine, then said to J.J., “Bud, you wanna help me clear windows?”
“I can’t reach.”
“That’s what I’m for...”
“Cool! Piggyback me, Uncle Cooper!”
After her son bounced his way out of the truck, Millie angled on the front seat to get a better view of her daughter. “I’m proud of you. There were a lot of great projects.”
LeeAnn shrugged. “I did okay, but only the first two in each category go to the regional science fair.”
Millie patted LeeAnn’s forearm. “Whenever that’s supposed to be, we’ll go do something fun. Next year, we won’t make just a robotic arm, but a whole robot, okay?”
LeeAnn nodded, but still seemed down.
“Sweetie, don’t sweat it. I’m super impressed by how hard you’ve worked. You should be proud, too.”
J.J. banged on the window.
“Mom! Look at me!”
Cooper had set him on the hood, where he was now standing while brushing snow from the windshield.
“Get him down from there!” Millie waved to get Cooper’s attention, but it wouldn’t have mattered, as he’d already done her bidding, and the two guys were climbing back in the truck.
“That was fun!” J.J. was still bouncing.
“How much cake did you eat?” she asked her son.
“I dunno. I think lots!”
“Sounds about right...”
Because of the snow, they opted to skip going out for dinner in favor of driving straight home. By the time they reached the house, at least another couple of inches of snow had fallen.
J.J. was asleep, so Cooper carried him in.
LeeAnn bounded past Millie to beat all of them to the front door. Once inside, she hollered good-night, then darted up the stairs to her room.
“Poor thing.” Millie hung her coat and hat on the hook by the door. “She’s really taking her loss hard.”
“She’ll get over it.” For him to be the same guy who was angered by the fact that LeeAnn’s project hadn’t placed higher, Cooper didn’t seem all that upset.
“I suppose.”
“Want me to put him to bed?” Cooper kissed J.J.’s temple.
“Yes, please.” His simple, sweet gesture toward her son tightened Millie’s chest, making it hard to breathe. More every day, she cherished Cooper’s connection to her kids. Tonight, he’d even somehow managed to find LeeAnn before her.
“Hey...” Lynette wandered in from the living room. “I was starting to worry about you guys. It’s looking bad out there.”
“We got behind a plow on the main road, so it wasn’t too dicey. You’ll probably want to be in four-wheel-drive for your trip home, though.”
“I figured as much.” She put a bookmark in the paperback she’d been reading.
“Want Cooper to drive you?”
“Thanks, but I’ve been dealing with this crap for a while. I’ll be fine.” Her friend waved off her concern much the way she had when Millie had taken off mad on Valentine’s Day. They’d been friends since grade school, and no matter the tussle, it never took long for them to repair any damage.
Lynette agreed to call when she was safely home, then Millie saw her out the front door.
Cooper strode back down the stairs. “I’m going to check on Dad.”
“Okay. You hungry? I was thinking about scrambling some eggs.”
“Sounds good.” He paused with his hand on the newel post.
“You all right?”
“Sure. Fine.” His dour expression didn’t match his words.
She eyed him for a few long seconds. “Lee’s loss is weighing heavy on you, too, huh?”
He ducked his gaze. “I guess so.”
“It’s all right.” Though she knew better than to touch him, she smoothed her hand up and down his back. His wool pea jacket was damp from snow, but this close and personal, she caught a whiff of his leathery aftershave and nearly drowned in contentment. Did he have to be so perfect in darn near every way? “Now that you’re back in the kids’ lives, there will be plenty more science fairs. You’re more than welcome to help with every single one.”
His faint smile faded. “Wish I’d be here, but from Virginia to Colorado is an awfully long ride.”
“True,” she conceded, “but we’re worth it, don’t you think?” The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
The last thing she wanted was for him to for one second believe she wanted him to stay, because knowing Cooper and his newfound sense of family duty, he might just do it out of obligation.
When—
if
—she ever did enter into another committed relationship, she wanted it to be because he loved her, not because he felt sorry for her.
Chapter Fifteen
A week later, Cooper was glad for Zane’s help in raising the walls and putting the roof joists on Millie’s chicken coop. Right now it was just a shell, but he remembered what she’d told him about wanting her birds to live in a fancy abode. Ever since, Cooper had been stuck on the idea of making her wildest chicken coop fantasy come true.
If only I could work on a few of her other fantasies....
It was nice being around his old school friend and rodeo buddy. The two of them had shared good times. Plus, having company helped Cooper’s mind from straying to Millie and the alarming amount of moments he spent wishing they could be together.
By the time they’d installed the fourth and final roof brace, Zane collapsed onto the hard-packed ground. “Are you trying to kill me? How the hell do you have so much energy?”
Cooper laughed. “Clean living, my friend.”
“Bullshit. When we meet up at Mack’s, you put a beer back just as fast as the rest of our old crew. Come on, what’s your secret?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s my workout.”
“Where are you hitting a gym around here?”
Cooper laughed. “You don’t need a gym, man. It’s all in here.” He tapped his temple. “Run, do a few dozen pull-ups from one of the lower barn rafters. No big deal. If you want, meet me in the morning around five. I’ll take you through my drill.”
*
M
ARCH
1, M
ILLIE
sat in the home office, staring at a fresh pile of bills. So much around the place had changed, yet still more hadn’t. She didn’t tell Cooper about their financial problems, not because they were embarrassing, but because she knew once they culled the herd in late May, that they’d make enough to pay almost everything. In the meantime, she’d just have to keep juggling her available funds.
The kids got Jim’s social security check, but that barely covered the basics. Clint also had social security, but his money had all been funneled into paying for his medical costs.
Cooper knocked on the open door. “Are you using the computer?”
“No. Go ahead.” She scooped up her bill pile and set them on a side table across the room. “What are you going to do?”
“Since Dad and J.J. are finally occupied with a movie, I thought I’d answer a few emails and research my project.” He winked. “My iPad’s dead, and on the charger.”
“Sure. Sounds good.” She fought to maintain her composure. Ever since what he now called their
lapse in judgment,
he’d grown faultlessly, disgustingly polite. She missed their sometimes heated banter. Even more, she missed their few stolen kisses.
His project was rebuilding the chicken coop, but he was being so hush-hush about it that he’d gone so far as to string sheets across part of the yard so she couldn’t see the structure from the kitchen sink window. He spent so much time out there, she couldn’t imagine what it would look like. She’d told him about once admiring a fancy coop. Had he listened and was now breathing life into what she’d only meant as a casual statement?
The fact that he’d truly listened to her bit of small talk warmed her through and through. It had to be significant, right?
“Need me to get you anything?” she asked.
“No, thank you.” He’d already opened an email.
“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it.” What was wrong with him? How could he stand them being in the same room and not at least sharing a touch?
In a perfect world, he’d have entered the room and kissed her, maybe given her knotted shoulders a rub. They’d have shared their days and maybe wandered into the kitchen for cocoa and a slice of the cherry pie she’d made for that night’s dessert.
“You all right?” He stopped typing to glance her way. Just the sight of his mossy-green stare was enough to make her knees weak. How did he maintain his composure? Or, like she suspected, was he just not that into her and his polite speech out by the clothesline had been his way of letting her down easy? “You look washed out.”
“Thanks. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”
“Aw, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Just that you look tired. Why don’t you have a nice long soak, then go to bed. I’ll make sure everyone else is tucked in.”
“You’d do that?” As much as she cherished bedtime rituals with J.J. and LeeAnn, the thought of letting Cooper assume all of her duties while she essentially pampered herself was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
“Sure. It’s no problem.” He didn’t even look up from reading his letter. But then what had she expected? For him to sweep her into his arms, making her promise to add extra rose oil to her bathwater so her skin smelled nice when he snuggled alongside her in bed?
Her traitorous pulse raced at the possibilities of what else they might do in her bed.
“Go on,” he said. “You’re wasting valuable tub time.”
Mouth dry from holding back all the things she wanted to say to him, but shouldn’t, Millie visually drank him in once more then trudged upstairs to draw her water.
Once she’d submerged herself beneath fragrant bubbles and closed her eyes, she’d anticipated peace.
What she got were memories of their wild night in the kitchen that were hot enough to bring her bath water to a boil!
*
N
EXT
W
EDNESDAY
, C
OOPER
parked at the feed store’s side door, killed the truck’s engine then sighed. Millie sat alongside him. More than anything, he wanted to kiss her, but he fought the temptation.
The sky was gray, snow tumbled in halfhearted flurries and the temperature was a balmy ten degrees. As if checking the herd in this weather hadn’t been enough fun, before she’d left for school, he’d caught LeeAnn on her mom’s cell with that Damon kid—he knew, because he’d redialed the number. What was the protocol on this sort of thing? His niece had promised to never kiss the kid again, but should Cooper have extended that promise to include cutting all contact? But then how was that even possible when they’d see each other at school?
He asked, “Doesn’t this town depress the hell out of you?”
“Wait until spring. Everything will look better.”
“How?” The same planters filled with dead plants still hung from the street’s ornamental light posts, and more storefronts were empty than filled. Weeds grew through sidewalk cracks, and there were more mounds of dirty snow than cars.
“What do you mean? You don’t remember spring? The way everything greens up and the blue sky looks big enough for you to fly right into—” she grinned “—assuming you had wings.”
“Right. There is that.”
Lord, I want to kiss you.
“You know what I mean. Yes, this winter has been especially nasty, but you’ll see. Once May rolls around, this place is going to be looking mighty tempting. So tempting in fact, you might never want to leave.”
He snorted. “You been sniffing J.J.’s school paste?”
The sooner I hit the road, the better.
Being around her was dangerous. She made him want the family he didn’t deserve.
She answered his question with a dirty look. “In all seriousness, before you came, I didn’t hold out much hope for this place. I figured by spring we’d have lost the ranch and moved into a Denver apartment. Now...” Her wide-eyed look of gratitude made up for what the hiding sun couldn’t. “For the first time in forever—knock on wood—I think everything might be okay.”
Cooper wished he shared her optimism, but even if they made a boatload of cash at the cattle auction, he wasn’t naive, and had seen her bills. They could sell the entire herd, and it wouldn’t be enough to put the ranch on the solid foundation he wanted for her, his dad and the kids.
*
“C
OME
OUTSIDE
. A
ND
close your eyes.” Since both kids were still at school, Cooper took Millie’s hand to guide her out to the backyard on the deceptively sunny mid-March day. Though it was bright, the air still held a nip from the previous night’s sleet, meaning the sheet he’d hung to stop Millie from eyeing her surprise through the kitchen window had been frozen to the clothesline. “Oh—and put this on.”
He took her long sweater from the back-door hook, holding it out for her to slip her arms through, wishing that when their arms accidentally brushed, his attraction for her hadn’t felt more like pain. But then what was the point in lying? He honestly wanted her so bad, it hurt.
“How am I going to see?”
He took her hand. “Let me guide you.”
Ever since learning of her wish for a fancy home in which to house her chickens, he’d been consumed with the idea to surprise her. For weeks, he’d toiled to make every part perfect, right down to planting pansies in the wide front porch’s flower boxes.
During their morning workouts, Zane had come straight out and told him he was crazy for putting so much time, money and energy into this kind of nutty venture, but Cooper didn’t care. He was crazy, all right.
Crazy about his brother’s wife.
He’d do damn near anything for her. Anything, but tie her down to a misfit like himself.
“Are we almost there?” She tripped over an exposed tree root, but he caught her. Touching her and not kissing her proved a lesson in restraint.
“A little farther.” The phrase also applied to how much he alternately looked forward to and dreaded leaving. His dad grew stronger by the day, which meant Cooper’s time on the ranch was almost done. He led Millie past the clothesline and around the cottonwood. Upon reaching their destination, he forced a deep breath, wishing her reaction to his big reveal didn’t mean so much. “Okay, open your eyes.”
She gasped then covered her mouth with her hands. “Cooper, it’s...” Her eyes welled.
“What’s that mean? Are you happy? Sad?” If she didn’t like what he’d done, though it might sound silly to anyone else, he’d be crushed. He’d poured himself into this project, heart and soul. What emotion he couldn’t give to her, he’d given to the damn chickens. Stupid, but there it was.
“I’m...” She laughed through tears then damn near toppled him with a hug. “I’m so happy! This is stunning—you really did build me the Taj Mahal of chicken coops.”
He sharply exhaled.
She likes it.
Gratitude flowed through him, making him feel like a second-grader basking in his teacher’s approval. But over the past couple of months, Millie had come to mean the world to him. Her opinion mattered.
“I’m in awe...” She gingerly stepped onto the front porch, laughing when she tried out the swing. Every inch of the coop had been covered in Victorian-era swag he’d painted in a half-dozen purple shades, ranging from lavender to deep violet.
“How can I ever thank you?”
You already did with your smile.
“I’m good.”
She opened the door slowly and with reverence. The inside smelled of new lumber, straw and grain. Under the heat lamps’ glow, Millie’s chickens gurgled and clucked in contentment. Golden sun warmed the floor through a skylight.
“This is almost too nice for just the chickens.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “It’s amazing. Better than I’d even imagined.”
“Good. Mission accomplished.” But if that was truly the case, why was he already feeling empty inside? Like he needed another grand gesture to make Millie see how much he cared?
*
M
ARCH
PASSED
,
AND
then somehow it was Easter Sunday in late April. Just as Millie had predicted to Cooper on that frigid day in March, the high prairie had sprung back to life—much like her, only in a way she couldn’t in a million years have predicted.
She was pregnant.
The fact alternately terrified and thrilled her.
On the terror side, right along with wondering how they’d ever financially manage with another mouth to feed and what her friends and neighbors would think of her having an unplanned baby she’d conceived with her brother-in-law, came the bonus worry of when she should tell Cooper her news.
By now, she knew him well enough to guess that once he learned he’d soon be a dad, he’d go all noble cowboy on her, demanding they march down to the courthouse for a wedding. But was that what she really wanted?
Make no mistake, with every part of her being, she wished he’d stay, but not out of a sense of obligation—because he felt trapped. Sure, tongues would wag, but gossips would soon enough find something else to occupy their chatter.
On the bright side, just as she’d never felt more healthy and vibrantly alive than when carrying LeeAnn and J.J., this pregnancy was proving the same. Colors and smells seemed more vivid, and her heart swelled with an overall sense of well-being. This baby was a gift. Her proof that even after suffering through her loss of Jim, life didn’t just have to soldier on, but sometimes it skipped while humming a happy tune.
While putting the finishing touches on the lamb cake she’d made for their annual after-church picnic, Millie allowed herself to daydream of Cooper’s reaction to learning her news. Would he be elated? Confess his love and then pamper her right up to holding her hand through the delivery? Or would he feel bitter and trapped, wishing he’d never set foot back in his hometown?
The last thought made her queasy, so she downed a few saltines and ginger ale.
“You look pretty.”
“Thanks.” She glanced up to find Cooper leaning against the kitchen pass-through. He was so handsome, he took her breath away. If he wasn’t happy about their baby, she wasn’t sure how she’d cope. She guessed the same way she always had, dowsing her dreams with the hard work and even harder realities of living as a single mom on a working ranch.
Tell him,
her heart urged, but her dry mouth strangely failed to work.
“Where is everyone?” His hair was still damp from a shower. Even from ten feet away, she smelled his leathery aftershave and wanted to rest her cheek against his chest, just breathing him in.
“Peg’s outside with the kids, setting up tables in the yard. Thanks to the wheelchair ramp you built, Clint’s with them—no doubt, barking orders.”