The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

“I don’t have to think about anything, Cooper. Hang around as long as you want. Get yourself invited to dinner at every house in Pine River for all I care. There is nothing to hand over.”


His smile deepened. “You’re a horrible liar,” he said, and walked off the porch, pausing at the bottom to glance back at her. “I’ll be seeing you around, Emma.” He walked on.

“Ass clown,” she muttered as he strolled casually down to the gate.

“I heard that,” he called out as he went out the gate and got into his ass-clown car.





SIX

Emma Tyler had nerve, Cooper would give her that. Was she crazy? She thought she had rejected him? He hadn’t known whether to laugh outright or put his fist through the wall with that one.

The thing about women that Cooper never seemed to get, had never come close to getting in his thirty-eight years, was how mad they would become for no apparent reason. He was the one who ought to be mad here, not Emma. He was the one who had come all this way, and yet, she acted as if she had somehow been wronged. And she was the one who had done all the wrong things!

Nope, he didn’t get it, and if Eli were here, he’d say the reason Cooper didn’t get it was Cooper’s own fault, that he’d never spent enough time with a woman to learn how to understand them. It’s an art, Jessup. You don’t suddenly just get it after a few weeks of dating. You have to study it. He’d offered this up when Jill had ended it with Cooper for the second and final time. Yeah, well, Eli had never been Mr. Steady, either, but then he’d gone and fallen in love, and the moment he did, he was a goddamn expert.

The one thing Cooper did get after that ridiculous exchange on the Kendrick porch was that Emma had the damn war medal. He might not be an expert on women, but he was an expert on liars, thanks to his older brother, Derek, who had schooled him properly.

Derek was the biggest liar of all. He’d perfected the art of deception—about his addiction, about his whereabouts, about hiding from the law. There wasn’t a single thing that Derek hadn’t lied about in his life. There wasn’t a moment of his life he hadn’t tried to hide from someone. Well, he wasn’t hiding at present, but he was probably still lying while he did his time for armed robbery.

Cooper grimaced to himself as he drove back to the Grizzly Lodge and Café. He’d had a voice mail from his mother, a cheerful message that Derek was being released. “Just in time for Christmas!” she’d happily crowed.

Yeah, great, just in time for Christmas.

Cooper still loved Derek in that way brothers have of loving each other, no matter what. But he didn’t find his brother very good company. He resented the grief Derek had put his parents through, the constant disruption in his family life. Admittedly, Cooper had learned a few things from his brother. In the beginning, Derek had taught him a lot, like how to fish, how to scale cliff faces, and how to blow up old tractor tires and the like. And he’d unwittingly taught Cooper how to read a liar. Early on, even when Derek looked as innocent as a toddler on Christmas morning, Cooper could tell when he was lying.

Eventually, the police could tell, too, and the law had caught up to Derek.

Now, thanks to Derek’s training, Cooper could see the look in Emma’s eye and sense that she wasn’t being exactly truthful, either. He knew it was simply a matter of outwaiting her, and eventually, she’d give in and tell him the truth about the medal. Just like Derek. Because Cooper definitely wasn’t going anywhere now, not after she’d tried to turn it around and make him out to be the guy who was chasing after her.

Women.

Cooper would try not to say “I told you so” when she did finally confess the truth, even if that completely reduced his satisfaction at being right.




Cooper had been in some dives in his life, but nothing had given him the creeps quite like the Beaver Room at the Grizzly Lodge and Café. It was all he could do to sleep in a room that looked like it had been gnawed by giant rodents, much less hang out. When he’d checked in, Ms. Boxer had said it was the only available one. “The Kisslers booked a wedding party here,” she’d said apologetically. “Otherwise, I’d put you in the Peacock Room. But the Beaver Room is one of our most popular.”

Cooper stopped in to clean up after his visit to the Kendricks. He called his mother to pass the time and listened to her talk excitedly about Derek’s release. “I don’t have a firm date yet, but I’ll call you as soon as I know,” she’d said. “You’re coming home, right, honey? You’re going to be here when your brother gets out, aren’t you?”