The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

“Coop, honey, I’m so glad you called,” she said. “Derek called this morning. He said he’s due to be released on the twenty-third to a halfway house, and then three months after that, he can come home! After all this time, I’m going to get him back!”


Cooper resisted the urge to rain on her parade. God knew his mom had long been the stalwart, making the twelve-hour round-trip between the oil fields of West Texas to the penitentiary near Houston to see Derek four times a year. She’d watched the prison tattoos bloom on Derek’s arms, had watched the lines in his face deepen, the features harden, and still, she had that mother’s eagerness to have her boy home.

Cooper’s mother was not the least bit prepared for the kind of man who was coming back to her, and coming back only because he had no other place to go.

“Aren’t you excited?” she asked.

“It’s great, Mom.”

“We can spend Christmas with him,” she said, her voice bubbling with an enthusiasm he’d not heard for Christmas in years. “You’re coming home for that, aren’t you? You have to, Coop. This will be our first time together in years.”

“Of course,” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

But he was filled with dread. Derek wasn’t the fun-loving older brother Cooper’s dusty memory could conjure up on occasion. When Cooper thought back to their life, he could honestly believe that Derek had tried to be something other than a thug and a thief. But there was something in Derek, a compulsion he could not overcome to get high and push the limits of the law.

Cooper promised his mom again he’d be home in time, then hung up. His next call was to Carl Freeman.

“It’s Cooper,” he said when Carl answered.

“I was about to send a posse after you,” Carl said. “What news do you have for me?”

“I have it,” Cooper said, and balanced the phone between his ear and shoulder as he opened the box.

“No shit!” Carl said happily, and then laughed loud and long. “Boo-yah!” he shouted. “She’s got that gleam in her eye, Coop. She thinks she’s getting the whole thing. Just wait till I show up with that fucking box.”

“I’m looking at it right now,” Cooper said. “Red-and-silver ribbon with an eagle in the middle.” He pulled at the little tab of the velvet shelf the medal sat on and lifted it up, expecting to see a diamond ring beneath it.

There was no ring. No ring. Cooper put the medal aside and felt inside the box for a false bottom, and when he found none, his heart sank. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have. Emma, no.

“ . . . stupid shit.”

“What?” Cooper hadn’t heard anything that Carl had just said.

“I said, it’s not red and silver with a big eagle! It’s a star, a fucking star! And it has blue ribbons! What the hell, Coop? What medal are you looking at? What’d she do, go and buy one at the drug store? I can not believe this! Do you even get what I’m trying to do here? What’s at stake for me? You tell that bitch if she doesn’t hand over what’s mine today, I’m filing charges!”

As Carl continued to rant, Cooper stared down at the medal. Nothing made sense. Emma had given him the medal. She’d made a big show of it, handing it over, asking him to leave. Why in hell would she give him a fake one? She had to know that he’d figure it out very quickly, that he’d be back. And where had she gotten another one, anyway?

He looked closer at the medal. It didn’t look fake. Cooper was no expert, but this one looked like a very real military medal. Could she have taken it from the ranch? There were vets out there, so it was possible. No, no, he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe Emma Tyler would walk down to the bunkhouse and steal from a vet. But what other explanation could there be? Who else could this medal belong to? And moreover, why did Emma have more than one medal? Was it possible she was really just batshit crazy and went around stealing medals?

He sank down on the edge of the bed, his thoughts swirling and skipping around each other as Carl continued to rant about incompetence in general.

Emma had more than one medal. What else did she have? Did she only steal medals, or did she take other things, too?

What the hell was the matter with her?

“Yeah, all right, I’ve been played,” Cooper said crossly into the phone when Carl screamed what a loser he was. “But she’s got that goddamn medal. Give me one more day, Carl. I will get it if it’s the last thing I do,” he said, and clicked off the phone before Carl could shout at him again.

And then Cooper hurled his phone across the bed, hitting the pelt-covered headboard.

He was livid. He was absolutely, illogically, and undeniably furious.





FIFTEEN

It would have been a very bleak morning were it not for the pristine layer of snow that dusted the mountain peaks and weighed the boughs of the pines outside of Emma’s window. All that new snow helped her believe the grit left from the night before would rub off.