Head Over Heels

by Susan Andersen

  Hell, he’d even wondered if he was wrong.

  And she acted like they were strangers? They needed to talk.

  Before he could move, though, a group of high school boys sauntered between them and blocked Kody’s line of sight. He shifted to keep Marissa in view, but adolescent boys were built along larger lines these days, and he lost sight of her. When he tried to move around them, he got trapped between a group of boisterous gray-haired ladies and a towering display of calico-topped canning jars full of homemade preserves. He tried to ease around the group of women, murmuring excuse me’s and hanging on to his patience by a thread when they merely chatted on about the unwed status of somebody’s granddaughter, oblivious to his urgent need to get by them. Finally, just when he’d reached the point of snarling and bodily moving a few of them out of his way, they moved on and he squeezed past the boys. He headed purposefully toward where he’d last seen Marissa.

  But she was nowhere in sight.

  “You shoulda seen it, Mom,” Riley said around the huge bite of hot dog in his mouth. “There was pie all over the place! I bet their moms give ’em what-for when they see the laundry basket. Those bibs they wore were useless—there was berry juice and apple filling all over those guys. It was totally phat.”

  “I’d be totally fat, too, if I tried to put away three and a half pies,” Coop said and managed not to grin when Riley rolled his eyes in disgust.

  “Phat, not fa-at. With a ph. Jeez. Don’t you know nuthin’?” Then he suddenly got it that he was being teased and flashed a great big openmouthed grin.

  “Riley, do you mind?” Marissa said. “We’d just as soon not look at your half-masticated hot dog.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” Swallowing audibly, he immediately turned to Coop where they sat side by side on a bench in the food arena, a roped-off area at the back of the exhibition hall that an unimaginative man might merely see as an accumulation of picnic tables. “You’re pullin’ my leg, aren’tcha?” He butted his shoulder into Coop’s biceps. “Did you see the size of that one guy? He was fat! I thought he’d win for sure, ’stead of that skinny guy.”

  “Ah, but it’s those wiry ones with the hundred-mile-an-hour metabolisms you have to watch out for,” Coop said. Then Lizzy claimed his attention, and he tucked into his soup while he listened to her recite a litany of all the wonderful doll clothes she’d left unpurchased, and duly admired the one outfit she’d bought for her Celebration Barbie.

  All the while, he was conscious of Ronnie on his other side and kept hearing her voice saying I love you over and over again in his head. Holy shit. You didn’t just drop that kind of bomb on a man and just sashay away. Pressing his left thigh against her right leg beneath the table, he wished he didn’t have to be so damn circumspect. He wanted to swagger around with her tucked under his arm. He wanted to flex his muscles and win her cheesy prizes from the booths in the game alley. But mostly, he wanted to maneuver her behind the Washington Apple Commission’s twenty-foot plywood Delicious apple over in the corner, steal a few kisses, and demand to hear it again.

  He saw Troy Jacobson and a good-looking blonde he assumed was his wife over by the Junior Achievment stand. Coop had heard from his ex-Marine buddy this afternoon, and Jacobson had definitely been out of town during the dates Ronnie had given him. Though that nailed him as a contender for Crystal’s secret lover, right now Coop didn’t give a damn.

  Bracing the heel of his hand against the bench on the far side of Ronnie’s hip, he turned and looked out over the crowd. To the casual eye he wouldn’t appear to be paying the least bit of attention to the woman at his side. “I love you, too,” he murmured for her ears only, before turning back to the table and tucking into his piece of apple pie.

  Beside him, he felt her stiffen to attention, and smiled between bites. Good. Turn-about was only fair play.

  The man ushered his companion through the exhibition hall toward the main door. “I hope you don’t mind that we’re leaving early.”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “I know you’ve had a busy week.”

  “Yes, I’m worn out.” It wasn’t easy sometimes, being smarter than the average bear. People could be such fools, and mostly that worked in his favor. But occasionally it would be nice to have someone with whom to carry on a sharp-witted conversation. Someone at least within range of his intelligence, who’d be capable of appreciating his brilliance. He got tired of having to reel it in all the time for fear of making those less fortunate nervous.

  He’d had a few bad moments when Cooper Blackstock had been outed as Eddie’s brother. But the guy turned out to be all flash and no substance. For all that Blackstock was rumored to read tomes the size of a child’s booster seat during his downtime at the Tonk, he was, after all, merely a onetime soldier turned bartender.

  Hardly in his league. He’d seen Blackstock this evening and laughed out loud, then had to come up with an explanation to divert the woman at his side. But, shee-it. Some big-deal Marine he’d turned out to be, ushering around a bunch of children.

  As usual, he had absolutely nothing to worry about.

  20

  “GOOD MORNING, GORGEOUS.”

  Veronica pried one eye open and peered blearily at the owner of the warm, intimate voice murmuring in her ear. Coop’s face swam into focus, his lean cheeks freshly shaved, his pale hair sticking up in wet spikes. Dressed only in a pair of worn sweats that rode low on his hips, he was all hard bone and muscle and smooth, bare skin that smelled deliciously of milled soap.

  Flashing her a crooked smile, he waved a coffee mug beneath her nose—then demonstrated a distinct mean streak by whipping it away as soon as she reached for it. “Give me a kiss,” he said, “and I’ll let you have it.”

  She promptly puckered up.

  Coop laughed. “Makes me wonder what else I could get you to do for your morning coffee.” He kissed her thoroughly, waited for her to sit up, then handed her the mug and watched with patent amusement as she eagerly gulped several scalding sips.

  She gave him a look of disapproval over the rim of her cup. “I bet you’re one of those disgusting people who pop out of bed whistling a happy tune.”

  He delivered a few bars of “Whistle While You Work,” and then had the nerve to grin when she swung a pillow at him. He dodged it effortlessly. “You’ve got lousy aim.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve got great multitasking skills. Not just anyone can pillow fight without spilling a drop of coffee, you know.” She took another swing. “You oughtta see me simultaneously pat my head and rub my stomach.”

  He plucked the pillow out of her fist and tucked it beneath his armpit as he flopped down on the mattress next to her. Then, rolling to his side, he propped his head on his hand and gave her a soft-eyed smile.

  “You seem marginally more awake, so let’s start over. Mornin’, gorgeous.”

  She knocked back the remainder of her coffee, set the mug aside, then launched herself at him, laughing as they rolled. She ended up on top and, shaking her hair out of her eyes, pushed away from his chest to grin down at him. “Mornin’ yourself, handsome.” Hardness nudged her stomach and she raised an eyebrow. “Again?” She wiggled against his erection and watched with delight as his dark eyes lost focus. “You had me up half the night. Doesn’t this thing ever get tired?”

  “Huh-uh.” He worked his sweats down, then locked his long fingers onto her bare bottom and moved her to the position he desired. “Let me in, Princess.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” She felt her eyes cross when his penis slid up and down the slick folds between her legs to hit and then retreat from her sweet spot. But she managed to say in a creditably bored tone, “There’s only so much time before Marissa brings Lizzy home, and I’d planned on painting my toenails.”

  He raised his head to suck one of her nipples into his mouth. Not until she moaned aloud did he release it. “Let me in,” he said persuasively, “and I’ll paint your toenails.”

  “Deal.” As if there’d ever be
en any doubt. Raising her hips, Veronica reached between them to grasp the hard shaft of his sex and held it steady while she sank down on him with one sure, smooth slide.

  Half an hour later, she emerged from the shower, pulled on clean undies, khakis, and a sweater, then followed the scent of freshly brewed coffee down to the kitchen. The room was deserted and she called out Cooper’s name as she refilled her mug.

  “In here.”

  Carrying her coffee, she walked into the living room and saw him sitting at the end of the couch, sorting through an array of nail-polish bottles lined up on the end table. She stopped in her tracks. “Get out! Are you really planning on painting my toenails?”

  “Hey, a deal’s a deal. Never let it be said that one of the few, the proud, would go back on his word.”

  She studied him skeptically. “Have you ever done this before?”

  “Nope. But it ain’t brain surgery, sweetpea—how hard can it be? I happen to have excellent small motor skills.” He crooked a peremptory finger. “Gimme a foot and I’ll show you.”

  Delighted, she sat at the opposite end of the couch and stretched out her leg.

  Coop picked up her right foot, cradled it in his lap, and rubbed his thumbs into the arch, making her groan in sheer, unadulterated pleasure. “What color do you want?” he asked. “I’m sort of leaning toward the Siren Red, myself.”

  “Oh, by all means—Siren Red it is.” She watched his big hands engulf the bottle as he went to untwist the cap. “You need to shake it first.”

  “Sure. I knew that. Like spray paint.” He shook it vigorously, then twisted the cap off. Cupping the arch of her foot in his hand, he raised it and painstakingly applied the first stripe of color to her big toe. He applied another stripe, then a third, blending each into the one before. When the nail was covered, he pulled his head back to study the result. “Looking good.” He dipped the brush back into the bottle, before moving on to the next toe.

  A moment later, as he was about to start on her left foot, he glanced up. “I heard from Rocket yesterday.”

  “Who?”

  “John ‘The Rocket’ Miglionni. My private detective buddy.”

  Veronica stiffened slightly. “What did he say?”

  “Jacobson was definitely out of town during the dates you gave me. Rocket’s digging into his movements during that period. He’s trying to get a copy of the hotel records, but says that even if he can obtain one, it’s probable Crystal and her boyfriend checked in under an assumed name. So the most likely trail to follow is Jacobson’s. Rocket’s going to trace it from Fossil to see where it leads.”

  Veronica watched Coop finish painting the last two toenails before she said carefully, “I know you very much want it to be Troy, but…have you seen him with his wife? He seems genuinely crazy about her.”

  The absurd jealousy Coop experienced whenever he heard Ronnie defend Jacobson swamped him. Forcing cool, rational logic, he took a deep breath, raised her foot, and blew on the wet polish. Then he looked at her over her toes.

  “I don’t deny that,” he said levelly. “But that doesn’t necessarily rule him out. Guys don’t always equate love with fidelity. They figure the sex they have on the side doesn’t count as long as their emotions aren’t involved. So if he slipped up with Crystal just that one time and she threatened to tell the little woman when he wanted to break it off—well, that would give him about as strong a motive as you can get.”

  Ronnie tugged her foot out of his hand. “Is that the rationale you’d use? That sex with another woman wouldn’t count as long as you didn’t love her?”

  “Hell, no.” He was a little pissed that she had to ask—she sure didn’t seem to have any trouble believing Jacobson wouldn’t cheat. “But I lived in a man’s world for a long time, sweetpea, and not all guys are as virtuous as me.” He waited a beat, hoping for a smile. When it didn’t come, he decided to change the subject, since the last thing he was looking for this morning was a fight. “I heard Marissa tell you last night that she saw Kody at the exhibition hall. Is she all right?”

  “Yes. No.” She shook her head impatiently. “She will be—or at least I hope so.” Then she blurted out furiously, “That bastard! I could just smack him for what he’s doing to her.”

  “Yeah, it’s a shame. They always struck me as very happy together, and he seemed like a nice guy.”

  “A nice guy?” She sat a bit straighter on her end of the couch. “Your nice guy just dumped my best friend because she has kids.”

  “That’s rough, but maybe in the long run he’s doing her a favor, Ronnie.”

  She looked at him as if he’d just suggested they sell Lizzy to a white slaver. “Excuse me?”

  “Well, come on. Not everyone is equipped for fatherhood or willing to take on the responsibility of raising another man’s kids. Maybe getting out before even more people got hurt was the kindest thing he could do.”

  “Then he should have made his excuses the day after they met,” she said hotly. “Because that’s when he would’ve learned about them. Marissa’s kids are her life and her heart, and he knew darn good and well going in that she was a package deal. Damn.” She smacked her thigh with the flat of her hand. “How can a man make a woman love him, then turn around and do something so awful? How can he mess with her emotions like that?” She shook her head. “You know, she’d be crazy to take him back, even if he came crawling on his knees begging for forgiveness.”

  “Oh, there’s an attitude. What, are you afraid she might turn into your mother?”

  Veronica stilled. “What?”

  Okay, that was probably a tactical error. But still. “I don’t get you, Ronnie. No one gets to make a mistake? Forgiving and moving on doesn’t mean you have to subjugate your will to another person, like you seem to think your mother did with your dad. It just means you’ve forgiven and moved on.”

  “You don’t get me? I can’t believe you’d bring my mother into this. And why the big defense, anyway? Is this one of those boys-will-be-boys-so-let’s-all-stick-together male code things?”

  The question brought him up short. Why was he defending Kody? It wasn’t like he had some big vested interest in the outcome. The more he’d gotten to know Marissa, in fact, the more he’d come to admire and respect her, and Ronnie was right—Kody’s breakup with her could’ve been handled a lot more intelligently than it had been.

  Shit. Coop rolled his shoulders. He must still be smarting more than he realized over Ronnie’s defense of Jacobson.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” He looked her in the eye. “What can I tell you, it’s a knee-jerk reaction.” He tried out a smile on her. “And a pretty dumb one, when I don’t even disagree with you. I sure don’t want to spend our time together fighting about Kody. I’ll concede he’s a jerk, okay?” He reached for her foot and tugged it toward him to inspect her pretty, red-tipped toes. “How about this paint job, hey? Have you ever seen such fine workmanship?”

  For a minute he thought she was going to stay irritated with him. But then she smiled, too. “I think I can honestly say it’s the grandest I’ve ever had.” Then she tilted her head to one side to inspect his face. “So. About your friend Rocket. How on earth did he ever come by a nickname like that?”

  “Well, every Marine has a handle. And Rocket, he always swore that that was what he had in his pants for the ladies.”

  “Because he was so fast?”

  Coop snorted. “No, you little witch. Because of his size—and what he fancied he could do with it.”

  “Ah. How very…boastful of him.”

  “Not without reason, as it turns out. Spending a lot of time on ships and in barracks, you see a lot of naked guys. Now, Rocket’s one of those lean, spare types. But his…missile was anything but. We’re talking a sixty-millimeter mortar, at the very least.” Coop shrugged. “He had the goods. So a handle was born.”

  The Travitses’ doorbell rang, and Marissa heard, “I’ll get it,” shouted from two separate quarters. Footst
eps reverberated like a herd of spooked buffalo as Dessa raced down the staircase and Riley pounded toward the front entrance from the great room. Marissa shook her head and went back to folding the whites in the living room, feeling sorry for the poor slob on the other side of the door. The only people who came to the front entry were generally there to sell something or collect donations. In either event, her kids were better than a junkyard dog for discouraging unwanted solicitations—it was a rare day, indeed, that a salesman didn’t remove the Travitses’ name from his list.

  She heard the grunts and cut-off exclamations that meant her babies were jockeying for possession of the door handle. A second later, Riley shouted in triumph and the flames in the living room fireplace flared higher from a sudden influx of oxygen as the front door was yanked open.

  A man’s voice rumbled pleasantly for a few moments, then the kids yammered ninety miles an hour. He spoke again, only to have Dessa and Riley immediately pipe back up. Marissa had intimate knowledge of their ability to talk a person right into the numb zone, so she listened with only half an ear as she finished rolling the last pair of socks, expecting at any moment to hear the door slam.

  Instead, Riley’s voice called, “Ma-awm! Some guy wants to talk to ya!”

  She set aside the pile of whites in her lap and rose to her feet. This should be good; not many salesmen got past the Dynamic Duo. She was smiling as she walked into the foyer, but the smile congealed on her lips at the sight of the man standing in the open doorway. She stopped dead. “Kody.”

  “You know him, Mom?” Dessa demanded. “He said you did, but we’ve never met him, so I didn’t believe him. I guess you can come in, then,” she informed Kody and stepped back to allow him entrance. When she closed the door behind him, the foyer immediately warmed several degrees. Dessa skipped back to stare up at Kody, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Marissa. “Mom always says don’t invite strangers into the house, but if she knows you, I guess you aren’t a stranger. How come we don’t know you? We know all of Mom’s friends. Her best friend is Veronica Davis. Veronica’s niece Lizzy is my best friend. Maybe you know them? They’re—”