The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Cooper gave her a thin smile, as if they’d shared terrible secrets before.

“How . . . how long has he been there?”

“Fifteen years,” Cooper said on a weary sigh. “He’s due to be released in a matter of days. So yeah, I know all about how family can disappoint.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered, and she meant it. She was truly, deeply sorry for him. She wouldn’t want anyone to experience the hurt she’d felt in the last ten years.

Cooper carefully laid his hand over the one Emma had braced against the sink. “Thanks. That’s nice to hear.”

Emma felt something tender curl around them. She held his gaze, wondering if she should say more, worried that if she spoke, it would be the wrong thing. And he waited, as if he expected her to say something. But eventually, his hand fell away and he picked up a box of plastic wrap on the counter to cover what was left of the salad.

Emma watched him, imagining how a felonious brother could change a family. How it would unfairly tip the balance of a family, much like a stepsister sleeping with a father had tipped hers. At least in Emma’s mind, everything in her family would always be measured against that single summer: their shared history that had occurred before Laura slept with Grant, and their fractured history after Laura slept with Grant. In Cooper’s case, she could imagine that demarcation was everything before his brother used a gun to rob, and after.

Emma knew how isolating it could be, how alone it felt to be one of the innocents in the family upheaval. She knew how the trauma hovered like a shadow in one’s peripheral vision. Always there, just beyond the present moment.

She and Cooper were more alike than she ever would have imagined, Emma realized as she turned back to the sink. His admission of a family tragedy made him seem more real to Emma. Flesh and bone and sinew. Brains and thoughts and feelings. A man with hard planes and soft eyes and desire simmering beneath every breath, with the experiences in life to back up his hungers.

All very dangerous territory for Emma.

“Hey! We need another bottle of wine!” Madeline shouted, her declaration followed by laughter. Apparently, they’d been able to move on from Grant.

“I’ll get it,” Emma said, and brushed past Cooper—intentionally—and walked to the laundry room, where they kept a small wine cooler. She was moving in a bit of a fog now, unsure of what she was doing. After years of longing for someone to see her side of things, to understand how she felt, to have someone say they did, made her feel unbalanced. A little seasick. If Cooper understood that about her, how long before he’d understand other, darker things about her?

No, no, she could never let him see that side of her. She had to get this growing infatuation under control.

Emma flipped on the light in the laundry room. She dipped down and studied the wine in the cooler, selected a bottle, and stood. She turned back to the door, intending to leave.

But Cooper blocked the way. He was leaning up against the jamb, his arms crossed over his chest. His cool gray gaze was fixed on her, almost as if he’d already begun to see the darker things about her. Emma’s blood began to swirl. He was not looking at her with casual interest, but with heat.

What was he doing? Did he want to kiss her?

Of course he wanted more. He’d seen through her, seen her hurt, and wanted to exploit it, right? Isn’t that what men like him did? Try it, she thought. Moments like these were where she excelled. The sexual interest of men was her base of operations from which she’d launched her assaults for the last several years. She walked to the door and tilted her head back, staring up into eyes that were now all gray shadows. “What are you doing?”

“Not sure,” he admitted.

Emma shifted the bottle of wine to the crook of her elbow and with her free hand, traced a line down his chest. “What would you like to do?”

He caught her hand and pressed it against his chest—hard. “I’d like to ask you to stop treating me like some poor dumb asshole. What are you so damn afraid of?” he murmured.

The question jolted her awake. She tried to take her hand back, but he held it firmly. “Maybe you should go, Cooper. You know, pack up and get out of town. Don’t you have something to do tomorrow? Some canyon to jump over?”

“I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere tonight,” he said calmly, as his gaze moved down her face, to her mouth. He touched the corner of her lips with his finger. “Snow’s coming down pretty good. So try and lighten up a little, will you?”