The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

He cared about her? That seemed so . . . impossible. But at that moment, Emma’s heart was racing so badly she was in danger of taking flight. She didn’t believe him. She was afraid to believe him. But those words, I care about you, banged around in her head with such a clatter that she couldn’t ignore them.

She had no idea what to say to that, and she wasn’t going to risk speaking and saying something completely wrong. So Emma dipped down and retrieved her bucket, then clomped up the steps, brushing past him without making eye contact. She was afraid to look at him, afraid he’d laugh or disappear if she did. She walked to the door and opened it, then held it open. Only then did she dare to look back at him.

Cooper was quick to grab the door and follow her inside.

Emma dumped the bucket and her boots and stalked into the living room. She was on edge—no one ever said they cared about her, and she was alarmed by how ill-equipped she was to even believe it, much less accept it.

She yanked the mittens from her hands and the knit cap from her head and tossed them down, then unzipped her down coat. She shrugged out of that and threw it onto the couch, too, and turned around to face Cooper. “Okay. You’ve got five minutes. Start before I change my mind.” She punched her hands to her waist and lifted her chin, as if she was preparing for a fight.

Cooper sighed a little. “Does it really make you so uncomfortable for someone to say they care?”

How did he know that? “I just find this all a little suspicious.” Emma unthinkingly folded her arms again—until she realized what she was doing and dropped them. “I mean, what, you just woke up this morning after being furious and thought, ‘Yeah, I care about her’? No way.”

“No, it wasn’t like that.” Cooper shook his head. “Look, I’ll be honest—I was intrigued by you at the bat mitzvah,” he said, looking at her pointedly. “You weren’t wrong about my interest in you that night.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “So you really did follow me here like Carl’s lap dog!”

“Wrong,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t follow you, I looked for you. I didn’t come because of the bat mitzvah. I came because Carl paid me a lot of money to find and retrieve that medal.”

“And now you have it. So I’m guessing you’re no longer intrigued. Which makes you what? Disgusted? Repulsed? Did you come back out here to get a really good look at this train wreck”—she gestured to herself—“so you can go back and tell your friends?”

He recoiled a little as he took her in. “Are you always so hard on yourself?”

“Yes! Does that bother you?”

“What bothers me,” he said, “is that I can’t wrap my head around why you would take things from men.” He threw up a hand before she could cut him off. “I know it’s not my business, I know I’m prying. But I want to know. I want to understand why. Because I’m still intrigued with you. Even more so now that I know you’re not just another pretty face.”

“Oh my God! I don’t believe you!”

“Here’s the thing—if no one asks, if no one challenges you, then you end up going down a path so far that I don’t know if you can come back. I would hate to see that happen, Emma. So I am asking you as a friend.”

He looked sincere, but Emma was shaking, mortified to her core. “Don’t waste your time,” she said low. “There is nothing to figure out.”

“That’s not true,” he said quietly.

She felt her entire body sag with the weight of her dysfunction. How could she ever explain it? “Don’t, Cooper,” she pleaded. “Don’t try and get involved. I am begging you. Because I will probably let you, and you’ll end up disappointed. Whatever is going on with me is really messed up.”

His gaze did not waver from her. “I happen to be pretty good at messed up.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said weakly. “Even your brother can’t prepare you for someone like me. You should go back to LA and forget about this.”

Cooper shifted closer. “I did want to go back to LA yesterday. I wanted to get as far from you as I could possibly get.”

Yes, she had seen that in his face yesterday, and it was painful to remember. She winced and glanced down.

“I thought that I had known women like you all my life, women who will take from and use men without batting an eye.”

Who knew truth could sting so bad when it mattered most? No wonder everyone hated Emma’s truthfulness. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she admitted weakly. “I take and I use.”

Cooper shook his head and stepped closer. He was just before her now, his presence strong and confident, while she felt like a jumbled mess of nerves. “But then I cooled down and I thought about it, and I don’t believe it. I don’t know why you do . . . that,” he said, gesturing to space, apparently unable to find a word for what she did, “but I don’t believe that you are really the kind of woman you present to the world.”

“Yes, I am. I am exactly what you thought I was yesterday,” she said, and poked him hard in the chest. “Don’t try and romanticize me.”