The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

“Really?” Leo asked, his voice full of deserved skepticism. “Because it’s, like, super strange that a guy would come all this way if you hardly know him.”


He’s not a guy, he’s a man. A shiver ran down Emma’s spine. If he’d wanted you, he would have had you. Okay, keep moving. She wasn’t going to let Cooper’s words play with her head.

“You do know him,” Leo said.

“Seriously, will you shut up?”

“That’s no way to talk to the true man of your dreams, but, because you’re ultrasensitive, I will bow to your wishes.”

“I’m not ultrasensitive, Leo.” Emma had a sudden flashback to her mother, ten years ago. Don’t be so sensitive, Emma. It’s not about you. She shivered again. “I’m not even sensitive, doofus. I don’t know Cooper. That’s all there is to it.”

Leo gave her a half-crooked smile. “You look like you’re lying and like you totally want to kiss me right now. Well, don’t. I don’t want that big bruiser trying to fight me for you.”

“Oh my God,” she muttered, and walked around behind the wheelchair. She tipped it back and wheeled it around and began to push. “Sometimes I think you are the greatest guy in the world, you know? And then you’ll be totally obnoxious like you’re being right now, and I think, no, you’re really the biggest jerk in the world.”

“Thank you!” Leo said happily. “I know you may say that now, but you’ll miss my sage advice when I’m gone. But don’t cry for me, Argentina, the truth is I’ll never leave you. You’ll still be thinking about me when you’re gimping around on a cane.”

Emma gasped and gave the chair a hard jerk. “Why do you do that?” she demanded. “Do you think it’s funny? Do you think it’s shocking?”

“Isn’t that our thing?” Leo asked, sounding surprised. “Aren’t we totally honest with each other? I say it because it’s true, and I don’t shy away from the truth. Neither do you, Emma! So don’t get teary-eyed on me. Are you getting teary-eyed?” he demanded.

“No,” she lied.

“That’s what I like about you, Em! You don’t get teary-eyed for anyone or anything.”

“Nope. I’m hard and flinty,” she said, but the tears were burning the backs of her eyes.

“Come on,” Leo said. “If I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry. I only meant to point out an obvious fact.”

“You didn’t hurt my damn feelings.” She slowed her pace a little so that she could wipe away a tear. “It’s impossible to hurt my feelings. But you don’t always have to state the obvious, Leo. It’s obvious already—get it?”

“Okay, well, that’s even more obvious,” Leo said. “But I get it. I won’t state things that are obvious because they are totally obvious already, even though sometimes it seems things are not so obvious to the genius-challenged among us.”

“Jesus, do you ever stop talking?” she cried to the perfect blue sky with breathless irritability.

“I think I have answered this question many times before. No, I never stop talking. You are, like, irrationally irritable, which says to me, there is more to this Cooper thing than you’re willing to tell me,” Leo blithely continued as she moved down the street toward Elm, as if she hadn’t denied it more than once, hadn’t asked him to stop talking one hundred times. “I just want you to get your stuff worked out beforehand so I don’t have to worry about you.”

“What are you talking about now?”

“Your stuff, your stuff!” Leo said impatiently, and paused to catch his breath. “Such as why you showed up in Pine River out of the blue, and why you don’t want to talk about Cooper. That stuff.”

“You know what?” Emma said, slowing her pace as they moved over the Pine River Bridge. “You’re really lucky I don’t push you into the river. Because the thought has crossed my mind about ten times in the last ten minutes.”

“Threatening the totally handicapped. Nice. I knew I liked you.”

On the other end of the bridge, Emma maneuvered Leo over a rough patch of pavement. But there was no access ramp onto the sidewalk, and when Emma tried to tilt Leo’s chair back, she couldn’t get more than one wheel onto the curb.

“What’s happening?” Leo shouted at her.

“It’s okay—” His chair tilted to the right. Emma struggled to keep it from tipping completely over and somehow managed to level it before Leo went spilling out of his chair.

“Go back. Go back across the bridge!” Leo said frantically.

“I can do it,” Emma insisted, and studied the high curb for a way on. She was only vaguely aware of a car slowing. But when she heard the door shut, she whirled around.

Cooper.

“Need some help?”

“Yes!” Leo shouted with his back to the street.

Cooper walked around the front of his car, looking concerned, eyeing her as if he’d caught her stealing Leo. “What’s going on?”

“Who is it?” Leo asked. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Cooper Jessup,” Cooper said, and put his hand on Leo’s arm. “The guy from this morning?”