Cocksure (The Cochrans of Cocker County)

by Walker, Shiloh

  Panic hit me. “Wait a second...”

  Harley waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. If it can be done, she’ll be doing the heavy work, but she needs to be able to contact you for details, etc. I’m going to get the people on my end here to work. Lenny, don’t you worry, hon. We got this.”

  He looked vaguely bewildered. As he started say something to Harley, her image disappeared. She’d left the talk.

  “I’m glad I’m not the one waking people up right now,” Kelly said. “Since we have something of a plan, I’m going to get a few more hours of sleep. Lenny, we’ll have a busy few days. Wouldn’t hurt you to do the same. Luke, Sabrina, you two, hope everything goes well today.”

  I knew her well enough to read the message in her eyes, but Luke beat me to it. “Thanks, Kelly. I think Sabrina has me down for a Skype interview here in a few minutes, so we better go. Talk to you all later.” He closed out the window on my tablet, ending the call.

  I rubbed my temple. “He’s going to be an asshole about this,” I warned Luke.

  “He’s already being an asshole about this.” Luke cupped my face in his hands. “Good morning.”

  My breath caught as he brushed a kiss against my lips, then tugged me in close for a hug. The simple sweetness of the gesture made my heart roll.

  I wanted to melt.

  I didn’t let myself.

  “You don’t have to make it worse for yourself by barking at him. So what if he’s an asshole to me, Luke? I can handle it.”

  He lifted his head and caught my left hand. The ring he’d bought glittered even in the softly muted lights of the kitchen. Stroking his thumb over the stone, he said in a light tone, “I can’t have him being mean to the girl I’m engaged to, Ina. I just can’t.”

  I opened my mouth to say...something. Anything.

  But he kissed me, cutting off any argument or protest I might have made. “I need to shower real quick and grab some coffee. When’s that interview?”

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE to my son?”

  I eyed Joanne with bemusement. They’d finally gotten her settled in bed and the parade of doctors, specialists and nurses seemed to have ended—for now.

  Chase and Luke were standing at the window, looking outside and talking, while Joanne lay in the bed, her head elevated. She was pale and wan, but still looked a hundred percent better than she had when I’d first seen her the day after she’d had a heart attack during the procedure. Luke had told me that she’d looked even worse when he’d seen her the night before. She hadn’t been awake and not even the gentle beep beep beep of the machines had reassured him.

  “Nothing, Miss Joanne,” I said with a smile. “Even though I’m often tempted to knock him across the head, I haven’t done it.”

  Even as I said the words, I thought back to what he’d told me and felt a little sick inside. Every time I thought I’d come to grips with it, I’d say something, or hear something, or see something, and it would hit me like a ton of bricks all over again. How had he lived with it for so long?

  “Honey.” Joanne took my hand and squeezed. “I know my boys. And my girls.” Her gaze drifted over to Luke and sadness shadowed the gentle blue. “Although sometimes, I have wondered if I really do know Luke. Something...changed him. He got so angry. So sad. I thought I’d lost him for the longest time. He’d never tell me what. When he showed back up in Ulysses, I cried. I had to keep it all locked in.” She fell silent abruptly, a smile spreading across her face. “Stop being nosy, you two. Girl talk.”

  “Girl talk all you want,” Chase said easily. “I was just thinking about grabbing a soft drink. Sabrina, you want one?”

  “Yes.” I smiled at him, then shifted my attention to Luke. I couldn’t tell if he’d heard anything his mom had been saying. “Luke knows what I prefer.”

  The two of them left and I looked back at Joanne. “You could never lose Luke. He always loved you. He just needed...time.”

  “He needed more than time.” She stated it as a simple fact. “I can accept that he won’t tell me what was wrong. What matters now is that he looks...at peace. I haven’t seen him without that shadow around him since he was a boy. So, Sabrina...I’ll ask again. What have you done to my son?”

  I swallowed, not knowing what to say to her.

  I opened my mouth, then closed it.

  “I’ve just loved him.” The words escaped me before I realized I was going to say them.

  A beautiful smile bloomed across Joanne’s face and she took my hand. “Oh, baby.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Luke

  I’VE JUST LOVED HIM.

  “Luke, man.”

  Chase caught my shoulder and shook me a little.

  I blinked, staring at my older brother, feeling like I was coming out of some weird dream.

  “What?”

  “Did you get your wallet?”

  “My wallet?” I patted my pockets. “No. No, man. I didn’t...”

  Feeling like I’d been hit with a two-by-four, I caught Chase’s wrist and stared at him. “Sabrina just told Mom she loves me.”

  Chase blinked. “So?”

  “She’s in love with me.”

  “You two are engaged, Luke.”

  “I...” Blood rushed to my face. Words burned a hole in me. Without giving myself a chance to think, I caught Chase by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the empty room marked Family Consultation. Hitting the lights, I shut the door behind us and turned to face him. “We lied.”

  Chase blinked, then drew in a deep breath. “What?”

  “I...Mom was talking about how she’s always worrying about me. Not you all. Just me. I’ve always worried her. There she was, in the hospital bed, and I panicked. I told her to stop worrying...I was fine. She gave me that look—you know that look and...I just didn’t think. I told her Sabrina and I were engaged.”

  A hundred little things fell into place, things that made so much sense now. The censuring looks from Kelly. Sabrina’s odd reactions to...well, a lot of things.

  “She’s in love me,” I mumbled again, feeling like an utter ass.

  “When you say you lied...you mean about the engagement. As in...there isn’t an engagement,” Chase said slowly.

  Closing my eyes, I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Son of a...” Chase muttered under his breath.

  I opened my eyes in time to see him turn away. Shoulders taut under the faded blue polo he wore, he lowered his head to stare at the floor. Finally, he spun back around and stared at me. “And you just know heard her tell Mom she was in love with you.”

  “Those weren’t her exact words, but...” I cleared my throat. “I think...I mean...I think that’s what she meant.”

  “Ya think?” Chase said, sarcasm thick in his voice. He groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face before looking back at me. “What I don’t know how this can be a surprise to you. Shit, I’ve suspected as much almost from the get-go.”

  Jerking my head, I stared at him.

  He had a look, torn between frustration and anger, on his face. I braced myself for the barrage—I deserved it and I could handle it. “One thing, before you tear into me. This is my mess. I’m the one who started this. Sabrina went along with it because I asked her. Don’t go after her. She’s innocent.”

  “Shit, kid.” Chase turned away and shoved both hands through his hair. For long, taut moments, he didn’t speak but then he turned back and met my eyes. “I’m not about to go after Sabrina. Or you. You made a dumb-ass move, but it’s not like we haven’t all done that. You better realize that this is going to bother Mom, though—you lied to her. And you’re using Sabrina. But above all that...” Chase shook his head. “You’re lying to yourself if you honestly think she’s the only one invested in this...fucked-up relationship between you two. You practically trip over your own damn feet trying to make her happy and it’s always been like that as far as I can tell.”

  He left then and I stood there standing alone
in an empty room with his final words echoing in my head.

  IT TOOK ME TWENTY MINUTES to drag myself back into Mom’s private room. I paused outside when I heard an unfamiliar voice, not particularly interested in talking to yet another ‘team member involved in my loved one’s road to recovery’. That was how all the people at the facility billed themselves. Sure, I wanted that, but right now, I wanted quiet to process everything in my head.

  And I wanted Sabrina.

  Viciously.

  I’ve just loved him.

  I was eaten up with the need to hear her actually tell me that she loved me. Preferably while I had her wrapped around my dick with my hand in her hair and her mouth swollen from mine. It was a possessive, gut-deep need that was alien and all-encompassing.

  But I couldn’t just go in there and drag her out. It was five o’clock. I wasn’t about to leave my mother here in this place alone just so I could take my fiancée—

  Whoa. Hold up. I needed to get a grip.

  Setting my jaw, I rapped my knuckles on the door and strode inside. The curtain had been partially pulled and I nudged it over a few inches, peering around it. Chase sat in the chair by the window, eying the woman by the bed with idly curiosity while Sabrina sat in the chair closest to Mom, holding her hand.

  The woman, a petite blonde, turned her head at my intrusion.

  The sound of her clipboard hitting the floor echoed through the room like a gunshot.

  Sabrina jolted.

  Mom grimaced and rubbed her temple.

  Chase lifted a brow and slanted his attention toward me.

  And the blonde focused wide-set green eyes on my face—green eyes that were oddly familiar.

  “Oh. Wow. You’re here,” she said, pressing her fingers to her lips. “Wow.”

  I fixed a smile in place but before I could say anything, she rushed forward.

  Sabrina was already on her feet but the blonde stopped halfway across the floor. “Man, I’m sorry. You probably don’t even remember me. I was like twelve when you saw me last. It’s Mindy.” Her smile wobbled a little. “You know me, right? I’m Mark’s little sister.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sabrina

  LUKE RETREATED.

  In the span of two seconds, a mask fell over his face, his eyes shuttered and his movie-star smile appeared—settled into place. I hated that smile, the one he presented to the world when he didn’t want anybody to know what was going on inside his head.

  “Sure, Mindy.” He nodded and thrust out his hand. She rushed forward to shake it. It usually worked to keep people at a distance so they couldn’t hug him, but I wasn’t taking chances.

  Placing myself at his side, I smoothed a hand down his back. “She was just telling me that she knew the family, Luke.”

  He turned his face toward mine, gaze blank. “Yeah. It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah.” Mindy’s voice took on a strained note. “I...well, I didn’t even see you at Mark’s funeral.”

  I gripped the back of his shirt.

  I was vaguely aware of Chase shifting in his chair, leaning forward. He’d cued in on the change in the air, too. Which meant that if Joanne hadn’t yet, she would. Cutting between them, I nudged Luke over to his mom’s side. “Why don’t you sit for a while, baby? You’ve been up since before dawn and you’ve got to be tired.”

  As if he was on autopilot, he did just that while Mindy continued to talk. “I mean, I looked for you, but there were so many people there...”

  “I didn’t come,” Luke said, staring out the window.

  His tone was flat.

  “Funerals aren’t for everybody,” Chase said. “Mom and I went, but Luke stayed home to watch the rest of the kids, I think. Mom, you okay over there? You’re looking pretty tired.”

  I caught the ball and shifted my attention to Joanne. She had her head on the pillow, lashes drifting down but she stirred at the sound of Chase’s voice. “I’m am tired, Chase. I could use a nap.”

  “Oh...I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cochran...”

  As she fell back into what was probably her professional mode, I moved closer to Luke and put my hand on his shoulder. He reached up, covering mine with his own.

  But he continued to stare out the window, trancelike.

  “YOU GOING TO TELL ME what that was about?”

  I rounded Chase’s SUV just in time to hear the low-voiced question and I narrowed my eyes to see him squared off in front of Luke, arms crossed over his chest, a flat look on his face.

  Chris had arrived just as we were leaving and I’d lingered a few minutes to give him updates about the day so far, otherwise I would have been out here.

  Now, kicking myself, I strode forward and wedged between the two brothers. “Back off,” I warned Chase.

  He dropped his gaze to me.

  Luke smoothed his hands down my arms. “It’s okay, Ina. Chase, there’s nothing to tell. It was just a surprise seeing her. You know what happened that day.”

  Chase flicked his gaze from me back to his brother, still speculative.

  I slid my arm around Luke’s waist, gripping the back of his T-shirt. If Chase said one more thing—

  “Yeah,” the older brother said, his voice a rumble. “I guess it was rough. I mean, Mark and I were friends, but I knew you two were close.” His mouth kicked up at the corner. “You practically idolized him for a while there.”

  “For a while.” Luke’s mouth barely moved as he forced the words out.

  I shoved between them, feeling like a piece of glass—whisper-thin and ready to crack at any second. Giving Chase a sharp-edged smile, I said, “Chase, I hope I’m not coming off as bitchy, but I’m tired and whether Luke likes it or not, he’s taking me back to the condo. See you tomorrow?”

  He inclined his head in my direction.

  Despite the easy smile he gave me, I couldn’t help but wonder at the way he watched us as we climbed in, me on the passenger side, and Luke on the driver’s side, the way he watched his brother as he circled around his SUV, then slid into the driver’s seat.

  Instinctively, I reached over and covered Luke’s hand with mine.

  Once we hit the 265, he turned his hand over and linked our fingers, clutching my hand tightly.

  “He knows something isn’t right,” I said quietly.

  “Yeah.” Luke blew out a harsh breath, then drew in another, equally jagged. “But for now...fuck it.”

  I wasn’t surprised by his response.

  I looked down at my phone, considered all the business the two of us had to discuss, then blew out a sigh. It could wait for a little bit, right?

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked softly.

  “We’ve got work to talk about.” I rolled my head on the padded, plush headrest to look at him.

  He was staring at the interstate, focused on the road. Or at least, that was how it appeared. “Yeah.” His jaw went tight. “Got to focus on the fucking job.”

  “It could be worse,” I said lightly. “You could have nothing to focus on. Then what would you do?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, his attention narrowed to the road as he cut around a semi, then glided back into the fast lane. We were coming up on the exchange we needed to head back toward downtown, and unless there was a hang-up in the traffic, we’d be at the condo complex in under twenty minutes.

  “If I had nothing else to focus on,” Luke said after a few more seconds, clearly having taken the time to consider the question. “I’d focus on nothing but you, Sabrina. I’m having a hard time focusing on anything else as it is anyway.”

  My breath gusted out of me.

  Heat rushed to my cheeks.

  His hand tightened ever so slightly on mine as I pressed my knees together.

  “No response to that?” he said softly.

  “I...” Swallowing, I forced my eyes to remain open as I stared at the dashboard of his mom’s car. He’d been leaving the rental parked back at the condo more and more. I had more room to spr
ead out and get work done in the SUV, although I’d never told him that. “There are a lot of things we should both be focusing on at the moment, Luke.”

  “I know all about what I should be focusing on, Sabrina,” he replied, his tone as level and practical as mine had been. “I’m just not having a lot of luck doing that. Like I said, I want to focus on you.”

  His thumb swept over the back of my hand.

  How could such a simple touch feel so, so good?

  I didn’t know.

  But it did.

  It felt impossibly good and I found myself pressing my knees together as he did it a second, then a third time.

  “Sabrina?”

  He’d already taken the exchange for I-71 and now downtown lay in the distance. He swept his thumb over the back of my hand, and again blood roared in my ears.

  I told myself to think about the woman from earlier. Mindy. Mark’s little sister. Little sister to the man who’d hurt Luke so terribly.

  But it didn’t work.

  He’d hurt the boy Luke had been, and while I hurt for that boy, Luke was no longer that child.

  I told myself to focus on my job.

  To focus on Joanne.

  “Are you ignoring me, Sabrina?” he teased.

  “I’m trying to think,” I said in a sharp voice. I wasn’t. Not really. I just wanted to not think about how the crazy, torrid tension had somehow exploded between us. I needed a distraction.

  Instead of a distraction, Luke brought my hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it, softly.

  My breath hitched in my throat.

  And I knew I was a goner.

  TO LUKE’S CREDIT, SAVE for the way he brushed his lips over the back of my hand, he didn’t even touch me while we were in the car.

  Not even while we were in the elevator.

  But once the door shut behind us, it was like I heard a literal snap—the threads of his control breaking.