The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

“Well, that’s news,” Libby said pertly. “Can’t remember the last time you didn’t have an answer for everything.”


Emma sighed. She signaled the waiter. “Check, please,” she said.

“Madeline, is your mom coming to the wedding?” Libby asked, having turned away from Emma now, her attention on her other, better sister. She and Madeline began to discuss the wedding again, leaving Emma out.

Precisely where she belonged. Out.





TEN

At a quarter past eight, the three sisters emerged from the Stake Out. Emma was tired, ready to retreat to her room at Homecoming Ranch, but as she pointed her key fob at her car and clicked to unlock the doors, Madeline suddenly gasped. “My phone!”

“What about it?” Libby asked, glancing at her watch.

“It’s not in my purse! I must have left it on the table.”

“Okay, well, can you get a ride with Emma?” Libby asked, walking backward and away from them. “I’m supposed to pick Sam up at eight thirty and I’m going to be late.”

“Sure,” Emma said, and waved at Madeline, indicating she should go back and look for her phone.

“Thanks, Emma!” Libby hurried away from them.

A few minutes later, Madeline emerged from the restaurant. “It’s not there. I think I left it with Luke. You can drive me to Elm Street, right?”

Elm Street! Emma suppressed a groan. She did not want to drive to Leo’s, even if it was only a few blocks away and on the way home. She didn’t want to see Cooper again. She glanced at her watch.

“What?” Madeline said to her hesitation. “I’m sorry if I am inconveniencing you, but it’s like a block out of your way.”

“If you were inconveniencing me, I’d say so. Just come on,” Emma said, and stepped off the curb, headed for her car.

Madeline reluctantly followed.

Surely Cooper had left by now, Emma reasoned as Madeline searched her bag, muttering about all the places she might have left her phone. How long did a complete stranger stay at someone’s house?

“Call Luke and ask,” Emma suggested as she backed out of her parking space. “Use my phone.”

“I would, but he keeps his phone in his pocket and never hears it. Do you know how maddening that is? What is the point of having a phone if you can’t hear it and never answer it? Anyway, I’ll just run in and get it.”

When they turned onto Elm Street, Emma’s exasperation swelled at the sight of Cooper’s rental car in front of the Kendrick house. She unthinkingly sighed with displeasure.

Madeline made a sound of impatience and rolled her eyes. “Don’t get your panties in a wad,” she said. “I’ll only be a second.”

Emma pulled up at the fence. “I’ll wait.”

Madeline had hardly stepped out of the car when the front door of the house opened and light spilled out. Figures of two men emerged as Madeline went through the gate and half jogged up the walk.

On the porch, Madeline joined the two men, who Emma could now see were Cooper and Luke. Madeline threw her arms around Luke, then spoke to Cooper. Cooper turned to look at Emma’s car.

Emma groaned and slid a little lower in her seat.

Whatever Madeline was saying went on forever. The three of them kept speaking, a regular conversation in spite of the cold. Like they were old friends, catching up on many past years. Jesus, what could they possibly have to say to each other? How was your dinner? she imagined Madeline asking. It was great, just great—haven’t had Hamburger Helper in years.

At last, at long last, Madeline and Luke went inside, and Cooper strolled down the steps and the walk, his hands shoved in his pockets and his formidable figure slipping in and out of the shadows beneath the mason-jar lights someone had hung up under the big elm tree.

Emma slid deeper into her seat. Way down, with a lot of wishful thinking that quickly evaporated when he tapped on her driver’s window. “Shit,” she muttered. She slowly pushed herself up, rolled down the window, and killed the engine. He’d slid down on his haunches beside the car door, and she looked at his face framed in the window, at how the shadows made him look even sexier than he’d looked at the Stake Out.

“How was the Hamburger Helper?” Emma asked.

“What?” Cooper asked. “You mean the steak?”

Steak! Bob never made anything that didn’t come from a box when she stuck around for dinner. She glared at the house.

Cooper smiled at her funnily. “It was good. How was your dinner? What’d you have, something light but heavy on the conscience?”

“Funny,” Emma said. She really didn’t like the way Cooper could see something in her no one else could see. She did feel guilty. And she didn’t like the way he was looking at her now, like he knew what was going on in her head. Emma abruptly opened the door, intending to topple him over, but Cooper was pretty agile and managed to stand and move before she could. “Sorry,” she said airily, and stepped out of the car.