The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

She found the right box and clamored to her feet and thrust it at him. “Here,” she said, her voice shaking.

Cooper hesitantly took it from her and opened it. The medal was a star with blue ribbons. Cooper pulled the tab of the cardboard bed and lifted it up. With forefinger and thumb, he lifted out a diamond ring.

Emma gasped. How could she have missed it? The answer was simple, really—she’d missed it because the box meant nothing to her. She’d thrown it into this tote with the rest of the things and never looked back.

Cooper was frowning as he returned the ring to the bottom of the little box, the cardboard bed with the medal fastened to it on top. He didn’t look at Emma as he tucked it all back in and shut the lid. He didn’t look at her as he put it in his pocket. He withdrew the other box from his pocket and held it out to her, his gaze on her bed.

The heat of her shame flooded Emma’s cheeks. She took the box from him and began the humiliating process of returning it, along with everything else, to her bag. Cooper watched, studying each item as she stoically put them inside. He didn’t lift his gaze until she’d zipped the bag.

She could scarcely look at him as she dropped her bag to the floor and, with her boot, nudged it back under her bed. What he must think of her! Emma pushed her hair out of her face and folded her arms tightly around herself. Why didn’t he go? He had the medal; he’d seen her brought as low as she could possibly go. Why wouldn’t he just leave?

She couldn’t bear his silence and looked up. Cooper was studying her as if he were trying to figure out how the pieces of her fit together. They don’t fit, obviously! There are pieces of me all over Los Angeles, don’t you get that? She couldn’t bear the silence, the scrutiny. “Jesus, Cooper, can we go now?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice low and soft. Ambivalent.

She moved, brushing past him as she fled her room and the evidence of how deplorable she was. She strode down the hallway, down the stairs, gaining speed as she moved.

“Hey!” Madeline said happily as Emma barreled down the stairs, Cooper right behind her. “It’s just about happy hour—”

“No,” Emma said curtly. “Cooper has a plane to catch.”

“Oh.” Madeline’s voice was full of disappointment. “Well, Cooper, I hope we see you again.”

“Not likely!” Emma shouted, and pushed through the screen door, bounding down the steps to the car, ignoring the dogs that were jumping around her, demanding attention she would not give them. They may as well learn it now, too, Emma thought. She had an amazing capacity to turn off, to disengage.

She had already turned the engine when Cooper slid into the passenger seat. He said nothing, just stared straight ahead. Disgusted with her, obviously, but the joke was on Cooper. He couldn’t possibly be more disgusted with Emma than she was with herself.

In fact, Cooper didn’t speak at all until they were pulling into the parking lot of the park. And then he asked a very simple question, for which there were no simple answers.

He looked at her, covered her hand with his. Gently. Tenderly. “Why?”

“Don’t try and understand,” she said roughly, her gaze on the trees in front of her. She owed him no explanation, no matter how much she wanted to give him one. No matter how much she wished she had one. She couldn’t make sense of it, much less try and explain it. The humiliations ran together, overlapping, until there was no beginning and no end to them.

Cooper opened the passenger door and put one leg out. But then he turned his head and fixed those gray eyes on her.

Kryptonite, she warned herself. Don’t speak, don’t speak.

“Emma—”

“Get out,” she said. “Get out.”

He didn’t argue.

He’d scarcely closed the door before she sped off. She drove blindly, tears filling her eyes. She’d never felt so debased, not even the day she’d found Laura in her father’s bed. At least that indignity had faded with time, the edges of it fraying. This was heartbreaking and, she was fairly certain, the pain of it would never fade.

Emma had never felt so low.

When she reached the ranch, she ran up the stairs, past Libby and Madeline’s chatter in the kitchen. She took a hot shower, scalding hot, and tried to get that thing, that humiliation, off of her. It wouldn’t come off, of course, because there was no way she could possibly scrub her own essence from her skin. Leo could say it was okay all he wanted, but Emma had seen the truth on Cooper’s face and in his eyes.

It was not okay. It was not okay.





SIXTEEN

Sleep was impossible for Cooper in the bizarre Beaver Room. He tossed and turned, wanting desperately to hit something besides a feather pillow.