“It’s not something I want to talk about.”
Intrigued, and a little unsettled, Kara unsnapped her own seat belt and shifted in her seat to look at him. “But if there’s something I should know before I meet your family…”
He smiled briefly, the slightest curve of his lips and then it was gone again. “Don’t worry,” he said, opening the car door. “They don’t want to talk about it, either.”
Four
Cooper watched his cousin Sam wink at his new fiancée Maggie and felt a twinge of something suspiciously like envy. Which didn’t really make any sense at all, because he’d never wanted the whole “wife and family” thing anyway. And yet…
Lunch had been awkward, despite Jeremiah’s repeated attempts to keep everyone talking, laughing. Cooper had been uneasy from the moment he’d stepped into his grandfather’s house. For some insane reason, he’d kept waiting for a sixteen-year-old Mac to come running into the room—and when he didn’t, the pain roared through Cooper, as hot and fresh as it had been fifteen years before.
Now that he was outside, sitting in a lawn chair at the back of the house, Cooper at least felt as though he could breathe again. But the memories here were just as thick. Still watching Sam, in the chair beside him, he blurted suddenly, “How can you do it?”
“Do what?” Sam reluctantly tore his gaze from Maggie, hanging damp sheets on the clothesline.
“Be here,” Cooper said, clutching his beer bottle in one tight fist and sweeping his arm out to encompass the ranch. “Live here.”
The smile in Sam’s dark eyes dimmed a bit as he took a sip of his own beer before answering. “Wasn’t easy at first,” he admitted. “So many memories.”
“Exactly.” Cooper sighed with relief. Good to know he wasn’t the only one wrestling with the images of the past. “Just sitting here, I can see us all clearly, playing over the line.”
Sam smiled sadly as he, too, thought about those days. “You remember when Mac hit the home run through Gran’s kitchen window?”
Cooper chuckled. “And it landed in her pot of spaghetti sauce? Who could forget?” The memories took hold of his throat and squeezed. To ease the tension, he added, “By the way, you should have had that ball.”
“Right. It was miles out of my reach.”
“Too lazy to jump for it,” Cooper said, and took another sip of cold, frothy beer.
“Mac always could hit a ball like a bullet.”
“Yeah.” The beer suddenly tasted flat, bitter. “Damn it, Sam, I keep expecting to see him. Hear him.”
“I did, too, at first,” Sam said softly. “Then I realized Mac’s gone. He’s not here, Cooper. He’s not hanging around trying to make us all feel bad about what happened.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Cooper muttered and stood up, because he couldn’t sit still another minute. Knots formed in his guts, his throat tightened and his mouth was suddenly dry. “God. Every day of my life I remember. And I feel bad. Guilty.”
Sam looked up at him, understanding shining in his calm brown eyes. “There’s no reason to.”
“No reason? Mac died.” Cooper kicked at the dirt and watched pebbles skitter. “While we stood there like morons, Mac died.”
“We were kids, too,” Sam reminded him and pushed his hair out of his eyes, when the wind blew it across his face.
“Yeah,” Cooper said stiffly, “but we didn’t die at sixteen.”
And just like that, he was back there. On that long-ago summer day.
Playing one of their favorite games, the four cousins had lined up along the ridge above the ranch lake. One at a time, they ran and jumped in, while the guys on the bank timed them. You got points, not only for how far out you could jump, but for how long you stayed underwater.
Jake always won.
Mac though, had been determined to be the winner this time. He had outjumped Jake by a mile and Jake was seriously pissed. But to win, Mac had to stay underwater longer than he had, too.
Sam had the stopwatch and Cooper and Jake stood on either side of him while he timed Mac’s turn. Jake got madder by the second, sure his best time was going to be beaten. Cooper hooted with glee that one of them had finally taken Jake down.
When Mac was underwater two minutes though, Sam started worrying. Wanted to go in after him. Cooper urged him to give Mac a few more seconds. Make sure Jake lost for a change.
And God, even now, Cooper could feel the wind in his face, the sun on his back. He heard Jake’s muttered cursing and the note of worry in Sam’s voice. Most of all though, he heard himself saying, “Don’t be such an old woman, Sam. Mac’s fine. He’ll come up in a second.”
Except he never did.
The three of them had—at last—jumped into the icy water after Mac and they’d found him. On the bottom of the lake. They’d dragged him out, tried mouth-to-mouth, but Mac was gone. The doctor said later he’d broken his neck in the fall and unconscious, had drowned.
And nothing since that day had ever been right again.
Cooper had avoided this ranch like the plague ever since. Hell, they all had. Punishing themselves and each other. Now he was here again and damn it, he could hardly draw a breath without strangling on it.
Sam stood up and took a white-knuckled grip on his beer bottle. “Do you really think you have to remind me of what happened? Do you honestly believe that Mac’s death hasn’t chased me through the years as hard as it’s chased you?”
In the cool shade of the old oak where they’d once played on a tire swing, Cooper stared at his cousin and saw the same torment in his eyes that he faced every morning in the mirror.
“No.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t. It’s just…” he looked around, at the yard, the house, the barn, and felt the memories pulling at him as strong as a riptide. “I don’t understand how you got past it. How you can live here and not choke on every breath?”
“I couldn’t at first. Hell, I had my plans all laid out.” He laughed shortly and took another drink of beer. “I was going to stay the summer, since Jeremiah had tricked me into giving my word—”
Cooper nodded wryly, since he, too, was caught by the same wily old man.
“—then,” Sam continued, “I was going to hit the road again. Get as far from Coleville and the memories of Mac that I could.”
“So what happened?” Cooper asked, then held up one hand. “Never mind. I know what happened.” He shot a glance at Maggie, now in a desperate tug-of-war with a golden retriever puppy over a wet pillowcase. “I like her, by the way.”
Sam grinned. “Thanks. Me, too.” His smile faded as he added, “It wasn’t just falling in love with Maggie though. It was finding a way to make peace with Mac.” His gaze locked on the woman he loved as she laughed, dropped to the ground and gathered the tiny dog to her chest. “Maggie helped me do that. Helped me see that Mac wouldn’t want us torturing ourselves forever.”
Cooper didn’t know if he agreed with that or not, but he was willing to admit that the belief had certainly helped Sam. “Special woman.”
“Beyond special,” Sam said quietly. “She’s everything.”
Envy swept through Cooper again and was just as quickly brushed aside. After all, he wasn’t interested in loving anybody. Too much risk came with love. Too high a chance at pain. And he’d already had enough pain to last a lifetime.
No. The only romance he was interested in, was the kind he wrote about. The kind he gave whatever hero and heroine he was dealing with in his latest book. And when he wrote their “happily ever after,” his readers didn’t know or care if he believed in it or not.
But unthinkingly, his gaze drifted to the edge of the field, where Kara walked with Jeremiah.
“It’s good to have Cooper back home,” Jeremiah said as he followed Kara’s gaze to the two men standing beneath the oak tree at the far end of the yard.
“I can’t believe he stayed away so long.”
“They all had reason,” he said on a sigh. “Or so they thought. Which amounts to
the same thing, really.”
Kara turned her gaze on the older man. His skin was leathery from a lifetime spent outdoors. Only a fringe of gray hair remained on his head, but his dark eyes, so much like Cooper’s, sparkled with intensity.
She liked him a lot. Just as she liked Sam and Maggie. Kara had spent most of the afternoon trying not to be jealous of the other woman as she talked excitedly about her wedding plans and her pregnancy. In just a few weeks, Sam and Maggie would be getting married and moving into the main ranch house together.
Sam was taking over the local doctor’s practice and Maggie was finishing school and…Kara’s life felt emptier with every word Maggie had spoken. Terrible, she thought, immediately ashamed of herself. She should be happy for them. And she was. They seemed like perfectly nice people. But wasn’t it only natural that she’d be just a little bit sorry for herself?
What did she have to show for her life?
A nicely balanced checkbook? A good apartment and a tidy savings account? She was nearly thirty and beyond her mother, who made a point of calling at least once a week to remind her that she wasn’t getting any younger, Kara had no one to care about. Or to care about her.
Something was definitely wrong with this picture.
She walked alongside Jeremiah, but only half listened as he talked about the ranch and what he and Sam were planning for it. Instead, her brain raced and though she didn’t much like the decisions it was reaching, she had to admit that they were the right ones.
She’d put off quitting when she knew Cooper was having a hard time getting his latest book going. But she wasn’t doing herself any favors by stretching this out. Better to just suck it up and make the move.
Her gaze shot to Cooper again, standing in the shade, laughing at something Sam had just said. And while her heart broke a little, she filled her mind with these pictures of him. Etched them into her brain so that years from now, she’d always be able to see him as he was today.
Then mentally, she started packing.
“Man, you’re a great cook,” Cooper said, leaning back in his chair at the kitchen table and grinning at Kara.
“Thanks, but steaks? They don’t exactly require gourmet training.”
“I’ve burned enough of ’em in my time to know that it takes a knack.”
Kara shook her head. “Cooper, you are the only human being I know who could actually burn water.”
“Sad, but true,” he admitted and didn’t look the least bit ashamed of himself. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kara,” he said and stood up to carry both plates to the sink. “Seriously,” he went on when she didn’t say anything, “you’re the best.”
“That’s nice Cooper, but—”
He set the plates into the sink with a clatter. “You know though, you don’t have to cook while we’re here. You could hire someone locally to come in and do the cooking and cleaning.”
All she had to do now was work up the nerve to tell him he was going to need not only a cook and a maid—but a new assistant. “Now that you mention it—”
A knock on the back door interrupted Kara and Cooper paused in clearing the table to go and open it. His grandfather stood on the porch, holding a foil covered plate.
Cooper grinned at the older man. “Didn’t we just see you a few hours ago?”
“Sure did,” Jeremiah said and pushed past his grandson without waiting for an invitation. Right on his heels came the puppy, its claws scrambling for traction on the old wood floor. It shot across the room, then put on the brakes and slid into the underside of the cabinet.
Jeremiah chuckled. “Told Maggie I’d take Sheba there for a walk and she loaded me down with a plate of her chocolate chip cookies to bring you two.”
“Cookies? Always welcome,” Cooper said, already reaching for the plate. “Oh, you can come in too, Jeremiah.”
The older man laughed and stepped inside, taking a seat at the kitchen table. He reached out to pat Kara’s hand and whispered, “Don’t suppose you could spare an old man a cup of coffee? Maggie’s got me drinking that decaffeinated stuff at night. Like to kill me.”
“You bet,” Kara said, pathetically grateful for the interruption and the chance to stall a few more minutes. Why couldn’t she tell Cooper she was quitting? Why couldn’t she bring herself to leave him? It was the right thing to do and she knew it. So why was it so hard?
In a few seconds, Cooper had the rest of the table cleared and Kara poured three cups of coffee.
The puppy lay under the table, contentedly chewing on the laces of Cooper’s sneakers.
“So,” Jeremiah said after a hearty sigh with his first sip of coffee, “you two see any ghosts yet?”
Cooper laughed and took a cookie for himself. “Haven’t seen anything, but did hear something last night. Crying.”
“More like sobbing,” Kara corrected and cradled her own cup of coffee between her palms as if to ward off a chill she knew was coming.
“Yeah?”
Cooper laughed at his grandfather’s eager expression. “Don’t get excited. It’s more likely somebody’s playing a trick on us than it is for there to be a ghost in this house.”
“Hell, boy,” Jeremiah scoffed, “you write scary stories for a living and you don’t believe in ghosts?”
Cooper’s expression hardened. “Not the kind who make noises in old houses.”
Kara watched as Cooper, in a heartbeat, distanced himself, even though he hadn’t budged from his chair. It was as if he’d taken an emotional step back and she was clueless about what had caused it. But as she always did, she stepped in to help him out.
“Do you know anything about this house?” Kara asked, dissolving the taut silence and shifting his grandfather’s attention from Cooper to her.
The older man sighed heavily, then gave her a small smile, as if to say he knew she was trying to smooth things over and he appreciated it. He gave her hand another friendly pat, took a sip of his coffee and said, “Everyone around here knows the story of this old house.”
Cooper didn’t say a word, so Kara urged, “Tell me.”
Jeremiah nodded. “It was back during the gold rush era,” he said, his deep voice slipping into storytelling mode as if he were born to it.
As he painted a vivid picture of the times, Kara realized that Cooper had inherited his gift with words from his grandfather.
“Weren’t many ranches here then. Most of the land was still owned by Spanish dons who weren’t real happy about the yankees streaming into California by the boatload.” He looked around the kitchen, took a sip of coffee and continued. “This house was built by one of the first to find gold. Bought the land from the local don, built this place and brought his wife out from back east. They had one daughter and when he died, he left the house to her—who, as young women will, fell in love with a scoundrel of a man.”
“Oh, this doesn’t have a happy ending, does it?” Kara murmured.
“If it did, it wouldn’t be a ghost story, now would it?” Cooper took a drink of coffee and leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on his grandfather, sitting across from him.
Jeremiah ignored him and focused instead on Kara. “Oh, the young man loved her, but he was ambitious. He wanted to make his fortune more than he wanted to settle down. He left for the gold fields, promising to come back for her.”
“He didn’t?” Kara’s heart hurt for the long-dead woman.
“She waited here for him,” Jeremiah said, “for two long, lonely years. Desolate, she stood at the parlor window, crying for her lost love while she watched the road, hoping for a sign of him.”
Pain swelled inside Kara and she could almost feel that poor woman’s misery shivering in the air around her. Outside, the wind kicked up, spattering the window panes with dust and pebbles. A frigid puff of air scuttled through the kitchen and beneath the table, little Sheba growled, low in her throat.
“She died,” Jeremiah said softly, almost reverently, “of a broken heart.”
Kara glared at him.
Jeremiah ignored him completely. “Without the love of her life, she simply couldn’t go on.”
Kara felt, rather than heard, a sigh.
“Every tenant since then never stays long in this place. It’s not a happy house. Shame, really,” Jeremiah said.
“What happened to her young man?”
The older man looked at her. “He finally did come for her, a few weeks after she died. But he was too late.”
A shutter slapped against the side of the house and Kara jumped, startled.
Cooper laughed. “God, Kara, you should see your face. Jeremiah really got you going on that story, didn’t he?”
His grandfather scowled at him, gray brows beetling. “Boy,” he growled, sounding a lot like the puppy still restive beneath the table, “don’t you think love is worth dying for?”
Cooper shook his head, got up and went for the coffeepot over on the counter. He refilled everyone’s cup, then returned the pot before answering. “Jeremiah, the moral to that story is simple. Love isn’t worth it.”
“You got it all wrong, Coop,” his grandfather said with a slow shake of his head. “Love is the only worthwhile thing there is.”
Kara’s heart sunk as she listened to the two men argue over the value of love. Emptiness opened up inside her and she felt a cold that went down deep into her bones. Her instincts had been right. Cooper would never love her. Never see her as anything more than an uber-efficient assistant and a pretty good cook.
It didn’t matter how long she put off her decision, nothing was going to change. So what was the point of hanging around and torturing herself?
None.
An hour later, Jeremiah and the puppy were gone and the two of them were alone in the kitchen again. Working together, Kara dried the dishes as Cooper washed them. The silence was companionable, the task ordinary, and she knew there would never be a better time to say what she had to say.
“Cooper?”
“Yeah?” He turned to hand her another plate.
“I quit.”
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