Millie had left him and now stood at the sink, washing broccoli. “Pardon the clutter. LeeAnn’s volcano is due soon, and J.J. has a math test tomorrow. I heard you all formally met in the barn?”
“Yes, ma’am.” What else should he say? That she’d raised a couple of fine-looking kids? That he was an ass and coward for not meeting them before now? Instead, he glanced back to the table and said the first stupid thing that popped into his head. “That’s supposed to be a volcano?”
The second he asked the question, he regretted it. His few hastily spoken words ruined the bucolic family scene.
His pretty niece leaped up from the table, then dashed from the room.
“It’s an
awesome
volcano!” J.J. declared before throwing his pencil at Cooper, then also leaving the room.
“I realize you’ve probably never been around kids,” Millie said, “but you might try digging around in your big, tough Army Guy head to look for a sensitivity gene. LeeAnn’s worked really hard on her science project. You didn’t have to tear her down.” Having delivered his tongue-lashing, Millie chased after her brood.
From upstairs came the sound of a door slamming, then muffled tears.
Son of a biscuit...
He slapped his hat onto the back-door rack and shrugged out of his brother’s coat, hanging it up, too. Then he just stood there, woefully unsure what to do with his frozen hands or confused heart.
“For the record,” he said under his breath, “I’m a Navy Guy.”
Chapter Three
Millie held her arms around her sobbing daughter, rocking her side to side from where they sat on the edge of the bed. “Honey, he didn’t mean it. You’re going to have the best volcano your school’s ever seen.”
“I’ll help, Lee.” Sweet-tempered J.J. cozied up to his sister’s other side. Since their father died, both kids had grown infinitely more sensitive. Millie knew one of these days she’d need to toughen them to the ways of the world, but not quite yet. They’d already been through enough. She couldn’t even comprehend what would happen if they also lost their grandpa or the only home they’d ever known.
A knock sounded on the door frame.
She glanced in that direction to find Cooper taking up far too much room. He was not only tall, but his shoulders were broad, too. Back when they’d been teens, he’d been a cocky, self-assured hothead who’d never lacked for the company of a blonde, brunette or redhead. When he’d spent weekends calf-roping, rodeo buckle bunnies swarmed him like hummingbirds to nectar. She’d far preferred her even-tempered Jim. Cooper had always been just a little too
wild.
“Make him go away,” LeeAnn mumbled into Millie’s shoulder.
“Look...” Cooper rammed his hands into his jeans pockets. “I’m awfully sorry about hurting your feelings.”
“No, you’re not!”
“LeeAnn...” Millie scolded. While she certainly didn’t agree with her brother-in-law’s ham-handed actions, she didn’t for a moment believe him deliberately cruel. He spent all his time around mercenary types. She honestly wasn’t even sure what a Navy SEAL did. Regardless, she was reasonably certain he hadn’t spent a lot of time around kids.
“I really am sorry.” The farther he ventured into the ultragirly room with its pink-floral walls, brass bed piled with stuffed animals and antique dressing table and bench Millie had picked up for a song at a barn auction, the more out of his element Cooper looked. “Ever heard of Pompeii?”
“I saw a movie on it,” J.J. said.
“Cool.” Cooper’s warm, sad, unsure smile touched Millie’s heart. He was trying to be a good uncle, but that was kind of hard when jumping in this late in the game. He took his phone from his back pocket then a few seconds later, handed it to her son. “This pic is of me and a few friends. We had some downtime and toured through the ruins.”
“Whoa...” J.J.’s eyes widened. “That’s awesome! You really were there.”
“Doesn’t make him like some kind of volcano expert,” LeeAnn noted.
“I’ve always wanted to see Pompeii...” Millie couldn’t help but stare in wonder at the photo. Beyond the three smiling men stretched a weathered street frozen in time. Snow-capped Mount Vesuvius towered in the background. The scene was all at once chilling, yet intriguing. The place seemed inconceivably far from Brewer’s Falls.
“It was amazing but also sad.” He flipped through more pics, some taken of the former citizens who had turned to stone. “Anyway... LeeAnn, you’re right, I’m not even close to being a volcano expert, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love lending a hand with your project. I wire a mean explosive and between the two of us, we could probably muster some impressive concussive force.”
While both kids stared, Millie pressed her lips tight.
Concussive force?
He did realize the science fair was being held in an elementary school gym and not Afghanistan? Still, she appreciated his willingness to at least try helping her daughter. Lord knew, her own volcano-building skills were lacking. “That sounds nice,” she said to her brother-in-law, “only you might scale down the eruption.”
“Gotcha.” He half smiled. “Small eruptions.”
For only an instant, their gazes locked, but that was long enough to leave her knowing he still unnerved her in a womanly way. It’d been three long years since she’d lost her husband, and as much as she’d told herself—and her matchmaking friend, Lynette—she had no interest in dating, something about Cooper had always exuded raw sex appeal. It wasn’t anything deliberate on his part, it just
was.
Had always been. Because she’d been happy with Jim, she’d studied Cooper’s escapades from afar. But here, now, something about the way his lips stroked the perfectly innocuous word,
eruptions,
sent her lonely, yearning body straight to the gutter.
Her mind, on the other hand, stayed strong. If she ever decided to start dating, she’d steer far clear of anyone remotely like her brother-in-law!
*
“J.J.,
HON,
” the boy’s mother asked an hour later from across the kitchen table, “will you say grace?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bowed his head. “God is great, God is good...”
While the boy finished, Cooper discreetly put down his fork, pretending he hadn’t already nabbed a bite. The last time he’d prayed before a meal had been the last night he’d been in this house.
He looked up just as J.J. muttered
Amen,
to find Millie staring. Damn, she’d grown into a fine-looking woman. And damn, how he hated even noticing the fact.
Conversation flowed into a river of avoidance, meandering past dangerous topics such as his brother or father. Meatloaf passing and the weather took on inordinate levels of importance.
This suited Cooper just fine. He had no interest in rehashing the past and lacked the courage to wander too far into the future. His only plan was to keep things casual then head back to Virginia ASAP to rejoin his SEAL team.
“Uncle Cooper?” J.J. asked. The kid sported a seriously cute milk mustache.
“Yeah?”
“How come you didn’t visit Grandpa with us tonight while he ate his dinner?”
Whoosh.
Just like that, his lazy river turned into a raging waterfall, culminating in a pool of boiling indigestion. He messed with his broccoli. “I, ah, needed to clean up before your mom’s tasty dinner.”
“Okay.” Apparently satisfied with Cooper’s answer, the child reached across the table for a third roll.
His niece wasn’t about to take his answer at face value. “I heard Aunt Peg and Mom talking about how much you
hate
Grandpa and he
hates
you.”
“LeeAnn!”
Millie set her iced tea glass on the table hard enough to rattle the serving platters. “Apologize to your uncle.”
“Wh-why do you hate Grandpa?” J.J. asked, voice cracking as he looked from his uncle to his mom. “I love him a whole lot.”
Son of a biscuit...
“Millie...” Cooper set his fork by his plate and pushed back his chair. “Thanks for this fine meal, but I’ve got to run into town. Please leave the dishes for me, and I’ll wash ’em later.”
*
“W
HAT
’
S
HE
GONNA
do in town?” LeeAnn asked, carrying on with her meal as if nothing had even happened. “Everything’s closed.”
Cooper had already left out the front door.
Millie covered her face with her hands. At this time of night, there was only one thing a man could do in Brewer’s Falls—drink.
“Mom?” J.J. pressed. “What’s Uncle Cooper gonna do? And why does he hate Grandpa?”
At that moment, Millie was the one hating Cooper for running out on her yet again. But then wait—during her initial crisis after she’d first lost Jim, he hadn’t even bothered to show up.
“Mom?”
“J.J.,
hush!
” She never snapped at her kids, but this was one time she needed space to think, breathe. She got up from the table and delivered a hasty apology before running for the stairs.
In her room, she tossed herself across the foot of the bed she and Jim had shared. Never had she needed him more. His quiet strength and logic and calm in the face of any storm.
She wanted—needed—so badly to cry, but tears wouldn’t come.
Frustration for her situation balled in her stomach, punching with pain. If she had a lick of sense, she’d do the adult thing—pull herself together and join her children downstairs. She needed to play a game with them and clean the kitchen. Do research on how to build a science-fair volcano. Play mix and match with which bills she could afford to pay. Check on Clint to see if he needed anything.
While she
needed
to do all of that, what she
wanted
was an indulgent soak in the hall bathroom’s claw-foot tub.
*
C
OOPER
SAUNTERED
INTO
the smoky bar, taking a seat on a counter stool. In all the years he’d lived in the one-horse town, he’d never been in the old place. Not much to look at with twenty or so country-type patrons, dim lighting, honky-tonk-blaring jukebox, a few ratty pool tables and neon beer signs decorating the walls. But as long as the liquor bit, that’d get the job of escaping—even for a moment—done. After a few drinks, he probably wouldn’t even mind the yeast scent of a quarter-century’s worth of stale beer that’d sloshed onto the red industrial-style carpet.
He said to the guy behind the bar, “Shot of Jim Beam, please.”
“I’ll be damned... Cooper?”
“Mr. Walker?”
Seriously?
Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The grizzled cowboy not only happened to be one of his father’s best friends, but owned the land adjoining the Hansen ranch.
He extended his hand for Cooper to shake. “Please, call me Mack. Figure if you’re old enough to drink and serve our country, you’re old enough for us to be on a first-name basis.” He poured Cooper’s shot then one for himself. Raising it, he said, “About time you came home.”
“Only temporarily...” Cooper downed the fiery elixir. “I’ll head back to my base just as soon as things get settled.”
“By
things,
I assume you’re talking about your father? Damn shame. Everyone’s just sick about the run of bad luck your family’s been having.”
In no mood to hash over the past or present, Cooper wagged his glass. “Another.”
Mack obligingly poured. “Things that bad out there, huh?”
Cooper winced from the liquor’s bite.
“I told your father he was a damned fool for running you off. What happened with your momma... Straight-up accident that could’ve happened to any one of us. I know deep in his heart Clint agrees, but he’s too damned stubborn to tell anyone—let alone his firstborn—any different.”
The tears stinging Cooper’s eyes hurt worse than the liquor burning his throat.
“He needs you. Millie needs you. Hell, even those ragtag kids of hers need you. Yep...” He smacked the wood counter. “’Bout damned time you came home.”
Nice sentiment, but for his own sanity, Cooper knew he was only passing through. A long time ago he’d lost his home, his way, and for a messed-up guy like him, there was no such thing as second chances.
*
“W
HERE
’
VE
YOU
BEEN
?” Millie warmed her hands in front of the living room’s woodstove, wishing she hadn’t been on edge ever since Cooper had run off, vowing she wouldn’t lower herself to even turn around and look at him. She thought her lazy, twenty-minute soak would make her feel better, but all it had done was given her the privacy needed to think—not good for a woman in her condition. Hot water, plus loneliness, plus closing her eyes to envision the first handsome face she’d seen in years had proven anything but relaxing. Especially when that face belonged to her dead husband’s brother!
“Where do you think?”
She knew exactly where he’d been. She shouldn’t have wasted the breath needed to ask. “It was a serious dick move for you to walk out like that. You owe your niece and nephew an explanation.”
“
Dick move?
Talk to your momma with that mouth?”
She spun around to face him, only to find him unnervingly close. “You know better than most anyone I don’t even have a mom, so you can put that sass back in your pocket.”
“Sorry.” He held up his hands in surrender, and her stupid, confused heart skipped a beat. The only reason she even found him attractive was the endearing similarities he’d shared with his brother. Mossy-green eyes and the faint rise in the bridge of his nose. The way his lips looked pouty when he said his m’s. The way he made her wistful and achy and irrationally mad about how perfect her life had once been and no longer was. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have taken off, but honestly?” He shook his head, and his crooked smile further lessened her anger’s hold. “I was scared.” He removed his battered straw cowboy hat, crossing the room to hang it on the rack by the door. Even with his buzz cut, he sported a wicked case of hat hair and damn if it didn’t look good. “Those kids of yours asked tough questions. I don’t even know the answers for myself.”
“I get that, but they’re kids. They weren’t even born when your mom died, and they take it personally when their only uncle never even had the decency to send them a birthday card. They’re smart, Coop. Their little ears pick up more than I’d like, and as much as Peg loves you, she’s also that exasperated by your disappearing act.”
“I didn’t just—”
“Shh!”
she admonished when he’d gotten too loud. “Do you want to wake J.J. and LeeAnn? Even worse—your dad?”
“Sorry,” he said in a softer tone. He sat hard on the sofa, cradling his forehead in his hands. “But you know damn well I didn’t just
disappear
. When you run down your mother with a truck, then your father tells you to, and I quote—
Get the hell out of my house and don’t
ever
come back
—it tends to linger on a man’s soul.” When he looked up, even by the light of the room’s only lamp, she could tell his eyes had welled. She hated to see him hurting, but she’d hurt, too. They all had. They all were, still. He didn’t own the rights to pain.
“Look...” With every part of her being, she wanted to go to him. Sit beside him and slip her arm around his shoulders, but she physically couldn’t. Her feet literally wouldn’t move. Outside, sleet pelted century-old windows. The weatherman out of Denver said they could have six inches of snow by morning. “I smoothed things over with the kids by giving them an abridged version of what happened with their grandmother. But for your own well-being, you have to once and for all get it through your thick head that the only one who blames you for the accident is your father—well, aside from yourself. Why did your mom even go out there? She knew better.”