The Rebel (The Millionaire Malones Book 3)

by Victoria Purman

  Change the subject, she scolded herself. ‘So, what do you think’s up with Evan? Is he coming down with something?’

  ‘You have to ask? He missed Cooper, of course.’

  Of course he had.

  ‘Maggie darling, I know he’s been a wonderful friend to you. But do you think it confuses Evan when Cooper is here?’

  If only her mother knew that Evan wasn’t the only one who was confused.

  ‘He’s always loved Cooper, Mom, you know that.’

  ‘But what happens when you meet someone else?’

  ‘In that case he’s perfectly safe, Mom. You know I don’t get the chance to meet anybody.’

  Her mother looked at her with concern. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Mom …’

  ‘You know I just want what’s best for you and Evan.’

  ‘I know you do.’ Maggie threw her arms around her mother and held on tight.

  ‘And I want you to be happy, Maggie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. You’ve been through so much on your own. I do hope that one day you’ll get to share your life with somebody.’

  Maggie felt her heart tighten and ache in her chest. ‘Me too, Mom.’

  Her mother was right. This was all getting too confusing. Maggie resolved to talk to Cooper.

  This teasing had to stop. He couldn’t kiss her like that again. Ever.

  Even if she wanted him to.

  *

  Once Serena had left, Maggie thought it might be best for her and Evan to take a little break from Cooper. All that close proximity to him had done strange things to her hormones and her perspective, and she needed a little time out. Only problem was, she couldn’t find Evan. He didn’t come when she’d called him and she searched the backyard and the living room before finally finding him in his room, under his bed. He was clutching his worn brown koala toy, the mysteriously but lovingly named Fizzy, and trying to be invisible.

  She heard him before she saw him, his sweet little boy voice muffled and quiet. She slowly walked across his room and sat down on his bed. This was a new thing, the hiding under the mattress. And it had thrown her. Most of the time, Maggie thought she was a good parent. She’d worked doubly hard to make up for the absence of a father in Evan’s life, which meant that most of the time she was running on empty as she tried to be everything to him. Her little man had always run to her if he was hurt, if he had a question, if he’d heard a new riddle he wanted to tell her to make her laugh. Now, she was feeling a little clueless.

  Because Evan was hiding under the bed. Hiding from her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted movement at the doorway. It was Cooper, his brow knitted with concern. He pointed to the bed, and she knew what he meant. He was wondering if she wanted him to come in.

  She shook her head a little and he moved out of her line of sight, but he didn’t leave. She could see his shadow on the wall opposite.

  Maggie linked her fingers together and gripped on tight. How could she admit to her son—how could she admit to Cooper—that she didn’t have all the answers? That, like most people, she was making it all up as she went along, doing the best she knew how to do? She’d been running a sprint during the past five years, and sometimes the guilt and exhaustion of it was overwhelming. She tried hard not to cry. She could shed tears later tonight when she was in bed. Right now, she had to be strong for Evan. And she couldn’t let Cooper know that she was confused about him.

  ‘I’m not coming out, Mommy.’ He was trying to be a tough little guy but she could hear the catch in his determined voice.

  ‘Okay,’ she said lightly.

  Cooper’s head peaked around the doorway.

  ‘You can’t make me come out,’ Evan declared, louder this time.

  ‘It must be a pretty cool hiding place under there with all your toys.’

  More rustling. When she glanced down, she could see the worn fur of Fizzy’s tummy.

  ‘I don’t want to go to the Farmer’s Market and get stupid vegetables. I want to stay here with Cooper. Why does he get to stay here and I don’t?’

  Maggie could feel Cooper’s gaze but she couldn’t look up at him.

  ‘Sweetie, you know how Cooper’s been staying here with us?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s because he’s got a hurt in his knee. And that hurt means that, at the moment, Cooper has to have lots of naps.’

  ‘Will Cooper stay here with us a long time?’

  Cooper stepped into the room.

  ‘Well … when his knee is better he’ll have to go back to his house. And then he has to get on a plane and go to work.’

  Evan sniffed. ‘You don’t get on a plane and go to work.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Cooper is really, really lucky. He gets to work all over the world. In Australia, where there are kangaroos. In Hawaii, where there’s a volcano. In South Africa where there are lions. In Bali where there are elephants and monkeys. He has lots and lots of adventures.’

  ‘Why can’t I have adventures with Cooper?’

  She heard an intake of breath and looked up. Cooper was pushing a frustrated hand through his hair.

  He stepped forward. ‘Hey, mate. Can I ask you a question?’

  Silence from under the bed for a long moment. Then, ‘No.’

  ‘Jeez, that’s disappointing.’ Cooper negotiated a dozen small plastic dinosaurs and a scattering of stray building blocks. ‘You know when I was a kid, my brothers and I had a cubbyhouse in a big, big tree. It was so high up we needed a ladder to get in.’

  ‘Did you have play fights with your brothers?’

  ‘Sure, all the time. And you know what else I used to do?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘I used to hide under my bed, too, when I was a little tacker. You see, sometimes I used to get really, really angry at my brothers, especially my big brother, and I would slide under my bed and no-one would find me for hours.’

  ‘I’m no good at hiding. Mommy found me right away.’

  Cooper smiled at Maggie, and she felt her bottom lip quiver.

  ‘It’s a special mommy super power. They always know where their boys are.’

  And now there were tears in her eyes, too.

  Cooper sat next to Maggie. He found a hand in her lap and wrapped his fingers around hers. Now she really was going to cry.

  A tear rolled down Maggie’s cheek, and she didn’t want to hide it from Cooper. All this hiding from him was exhausting. ‘It’s hard when Cooper goes away, isn’t it?’ she said softly.

  ‘I get lonely when Cooper’s not here. I don’t want him to go away anymore.’

  Maggie squeezed Cooper’s fingers right back. ‘Me neither. But he has to go, Evan. That’s his job.’ Maggie pulled her hand from Cooper’s. She’d hit the nail on the head. It was his job to fly all over the world, no matter how much she and Evan wanted him to stay. He could never stay. He could never be a permanent part of their lives. That was the cold, hard reality.

  She sighed. ‘I really need your help at the market. We need to buy some food so Cooper has something delicious to eat for dinner.’

  She was so aware of Cooper next to her, his hands now clasped together tightly, whitening his knuckles.

  There was a pause. ‘I can’t come out yet. Fizzy’s crying.’

  ‘Poor Fizzy,’ Cooper said. ‘Tell him that it’s okay to cry, that he shouldn’t feel embarrassed about that. Tell him that I cry, too.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Hell yeah.’

  Maggie’s knee nudged his thigh.

  ‘I mean, of course I do. When I hurt my knee, I cried. It hurt real bad.’

  There was a rustle under the bed and they looked down. Evan had slipped his head out and was looking up at them.

  Maggie got up, tugged Cooper’s hand and supported him as he got to his feet. ‘When Fizzy’s stopped crying, sweetie, why don’t you come and find us. Okay?’

  ‘Okay, Mommy,’ whispered Evan’s little voice and Maggie bit her l
ip. She returned to the kitchen to wait for her son.

  *

  Evan finally agreed to walk down to the Farmer’s Market with Maggie so it was just the two of them navigating the crowds down on Del Mar, perusing tables full of fresh produce on a stunning, Southern Californian day. Evan was chomping on a banana and had slipped his little hand in hers as they sauntered along. A surge of familiar love and emotion flooded Maggie. This was how they’d been for so many years. First, with Evan in his stroller and now, walking along at her side. These moments with her son were so precious, and she was acutely aware that one day he would slip away. First, he’d rebelled against being confined in the stroller. Soon, he wouldn’t want to hold her hand in public anymore. Then he would begin walking two steps behind her. And after that, he wouldn’t come at all and he would go off to college and fall in love with someone from the East Coast or Texas or Florida or somewhere else far, far away and never come to see her and she would be all alone.

  And she didn’t even have a cat.

  She would be all alone. ‘I’m a lonely child,’ Evan had told Cooper. Although it had been a five year old’s slip of the tongue, was Evan really lonely as well as being on his own? And as for her, was she lonely, too? Maggie couldn’t wallow in those kind of feelings. It seemed like an indulgence to be thinking about being lonely, and she was way too busy for that. If it wasn’t Evan, it was work and the chores and his after-school activities and her clients and precious, precious sleep.

  And now, it was Cooper.

  ‘Mommy?’ Evan tugged at her hand.

  ‘What’s up, sweetie?’

  Evan had mashed banana on his cheek. ‘Can we go home now? Cooper might be waked up from his nap, and he promised me some more Foggy Leghorn.’

  She smiled down at her precious boy and her heart grew just a little bit more with love for him. He had a big heart for a little boy and she hoped, like all mothers do, that it would never be broken.

  *

  The rest of the day passed in a happy blur. Maggie got stuck into the household chores, which flew by so much quicker with Evan ensconced on the sofa with Cooper, happily playing board games. Cooper seemed to have some kind of magic touch. Evan had never wanted to play checkers with her. While she was mopping in the kitchen, Evan had helped Cooper with his physical therapy, holding his hand and walking patiently by the big man’s side while he stepped gingerly up and down the hallway to exercise his leg. The sight of it slammed Maggie so hard she had to duck her head back in the kitchen to wipe away her fast tears.

  For dinner, there was spaghetti and meatballs, Evan’s favourite, and the three of them ate in the living room, like an indoor picnic, while they watched some of the cartoons Evan was beginning to love. Maggie decided that Evan’s delighted giggling was worth every second of it. As the credits rolled, Maggie checked her watch. It was time for a bath and bed for her little man. Cooper pointed the remote at the screen and it went to black. Without a word of complaint, Evan jumped to his feet.

  ‘Time for my bath now, Mommy. C’mon!’

  Maggie and Cooper watched him stride off purposefully. She wondered if it was physically possible for him to have grown up in just forty-eight hours. ‘Did you hypnotise my son or something?’ she asked Cooper distractedly.

  Cooper shrugged. ‘We had a deal. He got cartoons if there were no complaints when it was bed time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Boy, am I going to enjoy having you here at bedtime.’ And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Maggie realised what it must have sounded like. ‘You know what I mean.’

  Cooper’s direct gaze lit the spark on those firecrackers again. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’

  *

  Her little man had been asleep for a good five minutes but Maggie wasn’t ready to leave him just yet. She sat on the edge of his bed, watching him breathe. His room was in darkness, save for the night light plugged into the power socket on the wall by the door, which provided just enough light to keep the dragons away. She loved this quiet time, when Evan was asleep, when she could stroke his hair and watch him sleep, his breathing sweet and regular, like a heartbeat. And there was another reason she found this such a place of solitude: Cooper. Going out there meant facing him and that was becoming more and more difficult the longer he stayed.

  Finally, her bursting bladder made the call for her, and she slipped away from Evan and went to the bathroom. A few minutes later, she found Cooper in the living room, standing by the mantelpiece, leaning on it to take his weight. The overhead light was dimmed and the TV was off. A chilled bottle of wine sat on the coffee table, with a glass for Maggie already poured.

  He noticed her looking at them. ‘Thought you might like a drink.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Maggie took a sip before joining him. She knew that he was going a little stir crazy from sitting so much during the day, so she didn’t want to make him feel awkward by sitting on the sofa by herself. And anyway, standing there, with the photos of Evan, Cooper and her mother in their silver decorative Spanish-style frames, seemed like neutral territory somehow. The sofa would have felt like a date.

  And this was so not a date.

  Cooper looked at the photos then looked at Maggie. ‘Nice shots.’

  ‘Thanks. I got the frames in Mexico.’ She chuckled. ‘In 2008. God, that feels like a million years ago.’ She looked down into her wine.

  His gaze became more direct. ‘I noticed you don’t have a photo of Vance up there.’

  The simple mention of his name made her uncomfortable. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Cooper asked, dipping his chin and moving closer to her.

  Maggie gripped her glass. They’d never had this conversation before, about his best friend and what he’d done—or not done—for Evan and Maggie. She always figured Cooper didn’t want to take sides and she understood that. She’d only contacted Vance that one time; he’d told her he wasn’t interested in being a father, ‘But I’ll send you some money and we’ll be good, right?’ She’d torn up the cheque when it arrived six months later.

  ‘I decided a long time ago that it would only confuse Evan. He’s never met his father. I’ll leave it up to him to decide if he ever wants to, when he’s older. He’ll be curious I guess. But I don’t want him to be disappointed either. It’s not like Vance has ever shown any interest, so …’

  She heard Cooper’s sharp intake of breath. ‘No.’ And then he turned away and muttered something under his breath, which she could just make out. Something that sounded like stupid bastard.

  ‘Look, I know he’s your friend and everything—’

  Cooper’s head shot back around. ‘He’s no friend of mine, Maggie.’

  ‘But I thought … that night we all met.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him in about five years.’

  Maggie was confused. She remembered, clear as a bell, the way they’d been with each other in Bali. Like brothers. What had happened to their friendship? Cooper didn’t seem inclined to discuss it any further and she didn’t want to talk about Vance anymore, so she moved to the sofa and sat down among the throw pillows, hoping it would help steer the conversation in another direction.

  ‘How’s the leg tonight?’ she finally asked, glancing at his knee. Well, okay, she skimmed down his tight T-shirt, past the bulge in his baggy shorts, over his muscular thigh and then she found his knee. She was a born-again virgin, not a saint.

  ‘It’s been better today.’ He wasn’t looking at his knee and she knew it.

  ‘When are you seeing your doctor to get things checked out?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Wednesday morning.’

  ‘Do you want me to take you to the appointment?’

  ‘No. Thanks. Alfie’s coming by to pick me up. We’ve got some business to discuss so we’ll be having lunch after I see the doc.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘Your manager is buying you lunch? There must be a big deal in the wings for Alfie to open his wallet.’

  Cooper chuckled. ‘Yeah, I fo
rgot you know that about him. But, you know, the guy’s always got my back, so I don’t mind.’ He smiled and she tried not to melt, tried not to wish it were for her. ‘And he can afford it, you know. I am one of the world’s highest paid surfers. I even have surfboards with my name on them.’

  She could hear he was mocking himself, in that laconic Australian way she’d grown used to, and smiled up at him. ‘And don’t forget the wetsuits.’

  ‘Yeah, those too.’

  Maggie dropped her eyes to her wine, stared into her glass as she swirled the honey-coloured liquid around in a circle. The conversation had reminded her that they knew a lot about each other, as friends did. As good friends did. She knew that he worked the laid-back surfer image to the media and to the surfing community, but away from the competitions and the trophies and the success he’d been investing in start-ups and had created jobs in the apparel and surf industries, both here in San Clemente and back home in Australia. He’d long been working on a plan for what would come after his career in the water was at an end.

  ‘Which will all be great if you can’t—’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Maggie Mac.’ He shook his head slightly, to shake her off. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  She got it. Big man with a sore paw does not want to discuss it.

  Cooper hobbled over to her, standing in front of her, his legs brushing against her knees. He reached for her glass, took it from her hand and set it on the coffee table behind him. ‘Now. There’s something I need to say.’

  Maggie swallowed. ‘There’s something I need to say, too. But you go first.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever properly thanked you for having me here. For looking after me.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me. It’s what friends do, right?’

  ‘Friends?’ His eyebrow quirked.

  ‘Yeah, Cooper. Friends.’ If she repeated the word she might start to believe that’s all she had ever wanted from the handsome and damn sexy Cooper Malone.

  ‘I think I’ve worked out a way to repay you.’

  ‘You don’t have to repay me anything,’ Maggie replied, shaking her head adamantly.

  ‘Oh yeah, I do.’ Cooper looked into her eyes and he seemed to get taller with a full intake of breath. He held out a hand to her. ‘I think we should have sex.’