The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

He looked around them and leaned in closer to her. Emma twisted around to face him, so that her knees brushed against his thigh. Cooper found himself staring into a pair of green eyes with gold flecks in them. “No one’s around right now, Emma. It’s only you and me. Hand to God,” he said, pressing his palm against his chest, “whatever you tell me stays with me.”


A smile slowly spread across her lips, illuminating her eyes again. Damn, but she was pretty when she smiled. Why the hell didn’t Emma just smile? She could clear a path in this bar with that smile, could put the world at her feet.

“That’s not a condition. That’s begging.”

“Here’s the condition: you can kiss me like you wanted to do so badly that night in Beverly Hills if you tell me about Carl’s box.”

Emma blinked. And then she laughed. “You’re funny, Cooper Jessup! And weird. Funny in a very weird way.”

“Don’t try and charm me, it won’t work.”

She laughed again and looked at his mouth, as if she was considering the condition. His blood was beginning to race a little.

“You have it all wrong. You wanted to kiss me. I never wanted to kiss you,” she said.

“Not true,” he said, his gaze on her mouth now.

“Totally true. You’re not my type.” She locked her eyes on his. “Not at all.”

Her eyes were glittering with delight. Cooper could see how Carl had been drawn in—he probably fell the moment Emma smiled, probably promised her the moon and stars, because that’s the kind of guy he was. Cooper was teetering, but he wouldn’t fall. He knew when he was being played.

He leaned closer, rested his hand on her knee. “What’s your type, Emma Tyler?”

“Older, fat guys.”

He chuckled.

Emma didn’t.

“Okay, so here’s a new condition. I’ll go back to LA like you want, leave you to mine Pine River for older, fat guys, if you give me that box with the medal in it. I know you have it, and for reasons that don’t make any sense to anyone but you, you’re lying about it. Listen, it’s no skin off my nose, and it’s no big deal to give it back. It will be forgotten by tomorrow, so why drag it out?”

Emma smiled coquettishly at his hand on her knee. She curled her fingers around his palm, and for a moment, Cooper believed she was going to tell him the truth. But when she lifted her gaze, there was a distance there. “Try and listen, cowboy,” she said softly. “I don’t have whatever it is Carl thinks he lost. Now here’s an idea. I’ll walk over to Tag’s with you right now and buy you a trinket for Carl and you can take it back to him. How’s that?”

“Unacceptable.”

She laughed, amused. She picked up her drink, lazily licked a drop of condensation from the side of the glass as she considered him. Cooper languidly imagined those green eyes staring up at him from a bed somewhere. His gaze slipped to her mouth once more, and down, to the vee of her sweater, and the small, pear-shaped diamond that hung there.

He decided to try another tack before he did something stupid. Like touch her. Kiss her. Put his mouth on the hollow of her neck where that necklace hung, where he could feel her pulse. Or the spot where her neck curved into her shoulder. Jesus, what are you doing? “Okay, I give up,” he blurted.

Emma blinked with surprise. “What’s the twist?”

“No twist. I concede that you obviously don’t have it, because no one would work this hard to hide something so meaningless.”

Her lashes fluttered, with guilt or relief, he supposed, or a mix of both. “At last,” she said. “Now may we please return to you being mildly acquainted with me in LA, and me here in Pine River not caring about you?”

“Sure,” Cooper said, ignoring her digs. Maybe that worked on other men, but not on him. He drummed his fingers on the table. “Carl probably moved it and forgot what he did with it anyway,” he said. “He doesn’t strike me as the most observant kind of guy.”

With one long, manicured finger, Emma traced a line around the rim of her glass. “Maybe his wife came and picked it up.”

So she knew that it had belonged to his wife.

Emma swept her hair around and over her shoulder, exposing the nape of her neck to him.

Cooper looked away, took a strong slug of his drink. Stop it. Yeah, okay, she was beautiful, but Cooper was around beautiful women all the time. Beautiful sane women. Maybe Michael was right. Maybe he’d gone too long without a relationship, without regular sex. Too much testosterone was building up and all of that. “Anyway, I’m sick of talking about Carl Freeman,” he said, and signaled the bartender.

“Well, that definitely makes two of us.”

“So let’s talk about something else,” Cooper said. “Like why you took off from LA.”

Emma arched a golden brow. “What makes you think I took off?”

“Because CEM told me you’d quit and left town. Your boss—Melissa, right? She told me that you were probably here in Pine River.”

For the first time, Emma looked uncertain. “Wow. For someone who claims not to be following me, you sure sound like you’ve been following me.”

“I’ve been looking for you.”