by Avery Flynn
As quickly as the initial shock erupted, a heat wave of irritation and anger crashed overtop.
He had some nerve coming back here.
Her feelings had nothing to do with the town’s opinion of him; she knew better than most that Andy Banks pushed Cooper to accept a contract with the Cajun Rage. Cooper had loved his dad, and the guilt over possibly leaving him while so sick had almost been too much for her to watch.
No, she was pissed for a whole other reason.
Slowly, Savannah eased down the lid of her laptop. Took several deep breaths as she slid it into her messenger bag.
“Aren’t you going to say hi?” Cooper asked.
He probably thought that charm of his would sweep her back off her feet in negative two seconds. Not this time. Never again.
Savannah stood and hooked her bag over her shoulder. Faced that television-worthy smile head on. It wasn’t unlike facing a firing squad, especially when his intense hazel gaze fell to where she wet her dry lips.
She swallowed deep. She’d grown desensitized to him over the years, hadn’t she? Definitely. That wasn’t nervousness fluttering in her belly…those were honest to god butterflies. She could do this. She would be strong. She would…not be swayed by those broad shoulders and narrow waist. Those devastating good looks.
Cooper tilted his head in the same direction his tan flat cap angled atop his crown. Stupid thing matched his knee length shorts perfectly in color. “I’ve never known you to be speechless a day in your life, Savannah Jane. Gotta say I’m flattered—”
“Not a word,” she clipped out on a harsh breath. More a reaction to the way he still tacked on her middle name. It was too intimate. And she absolutely, positively could not fold to his mastery of charm. “Three years and the most I hear from you is that ridiculously obnoxious after game interview bullshit flirtation you dole out just for your fans.”
He snapped upright, adorable grin slanted. “You watch my games?”
Savannah threw up her hands. Not. The point. She hiked her chin and switched gears to formal. “Goodbye, Cooper Banks. Don’t let the ice shrivel your balls up too high, or they’ll never come back down.”
She started around him, and he swiveled to follow on her heels while fumbling hurriedly for a couple of large duffle bags. “Hold on a second. Are you still mad at me?”
It was like he’d thrown a ten-foot moat in her path, bringing her to a halt. She spun—couldn’t he at least quit smiling at her?—and jabbed a finger into his sternum. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving. That’s one. And two, you never returned my calls. My texts. Or my emails. All things you managed perfectly fine while at Penn State, by the way.”
“Savannah Jane—”
“Don’t you ‘Savannah Jane’ me with those puppy dog eyes and forgive me because I’m cute grin. I felt like a damn celebrity stalker, but I was your girlfriend. Wait. No. It was more than that, wasn’t it? How did you put it? ‘You’re my entire world, Savannah Jane. I’ll love you forever.’ No one told me that forever was only five stinking minutes long.”
At last, the brilliance of his smile faded, and she faced a more real version of Cooper than the cameras ever saw. The light left his eyes for the first time since his arrival, and his Adam’s apple bobbed deeply. He stood there carelessly revealing how painfully sorry he was. She’d seen this side of him all her life. This was the side she’d loved with all her too-young, too-gullible heart.
“I wanted to talk to you at Dad’s funeral,” he said, hazel eyes casting down. He began picking at his nails, blackened with God only knew what. “But I could tell you didn’t want to talk to me, so…”
“You’re right. I didn’t.” Although she’d wanted to desperately. Her first instinct had been to run right to his side and support him through his grief. But he’d made it clear that he hadn’t needed her before that as he started his pro hockey career, leaving everyone and everything he knew behind him.
It was that final thought that gave her the nerve to say the words she wished she meant and hoped she could follow through with. “And I don’t want to talk to you now. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
He let her walk away this time. By the time she reached the street, only a small part of her fought to turn around.
Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, and she groaned. She’d forgotten to reply to her daddy’s text, and he was no doubt letting her know that ignoring him was rude, and he’d raised her to have better manners than that.
Savannah pulled her phone out and lit up the screen. The incoming text said: Can I get a ride? Not her daddy after all. She didn’t recognize the number, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
Cooper approached carefully as if trying not to spook a wild horse. He lifted one of his bag straps over his head and hooked it to his opposite shoulder, then shoved the bulk of the bag behind his back. The second bag he kicked forward with his foot.
That sheepish grin was back but resembled the more genuine side of him. “Took a chance you never changed your number.”
“You remembered it?”
He laughed. “I’m terrible at remembering numbers. It’s programmed. See?”
He turned the screen toward her so she could see her contact card, complete with her daddy’s home phone number, address, cell, and a three-year-old photograph.
Savannah frowned. “I don’t live with Daddy anymore.”
“Where do you live?”
“I only tell my friends that. Not jerk ex-boyfriends.”
God did she ever hate herself at that moment. Sarcastic humor was tantamount to cracking open the door and letting him in.
He laughed again, and his smile met his eyes in a way it didn’t for the cameras he was always preening for. “But can this jerk ex-boyfriend at least get a ride? I’m sort of stranded. Josh is being Josh.”
“Josh hates you. Josh is being sensible.”
The corners of his mouth turned down, and his eyes turned pleading. “Please?”
She sighed. Looked his pathetic self over. Underneath all that perfection he looked like he’d been dragged around by the scruff. Eyes red from lack of sleep. Bedraggled and in need of a shave. And then there was the black gook on his hands.
He must have caught her looking at his stained fingers again because he lifted them for a better view. “Betty stalled out over there.” He kicked his chin across the street at the row of parking places. “I tried to get her started again, but I think the long drive from New Orleans did her in. Had to have her towed.”
For half a second, she mourned its possible death. The two of them spent many a night parked in the dark inside that car. She hoped whatever was wrong with it was fixable. Its owner on the other hand? He was a goner.
She sighed. “All right, fine. I’ll help you out this once. But never again. After I drop you off, we’re back on the outs, you hear?”
“Scout’s honor.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “You may as well have just admitted to having your fingers crossed behind your back, Cooper Banks.”
Cooper surprised her by planting a kiss on her cheek, moving cobra-strike fast. “And my toes.”
2
Cooper couldn’t care less that he was squished in Savannah’s Mini. He was awash in her fruity scent and angelic glow. She was mad, yes, but even with her jaw set tight the way it did when she refused to speak to him, he couldn’t stop staring at her. Tiny little nose. Peachy, smooth skin. High arches to her narrow brows. The most incredible cheekbones known to man. And the memory of her sharp blue eyes glaring up at him at the docks. Fiery and passionate and god damned beautiful.
“Thanks for this,” he said. “Saved me from a very long walk.”
"No, I didn't." She kept her eyes on the road but twisted her grip forward on the steering wheel. "I know that you know that we have a taxi service. The town isn’t that small.”
“Caught me. I saw you walk by earlier and wanted to see you. In fact, I was hoping to spend some time with you while I
’m here.”
“You are a piece of work, Cooper Banks.”
The sharp statement was half a sigh of annoyance, but just about everything she’d said since they got in the car was meant to make him uncomfortable. So he focused on the good things. Like how insanely beautiful she was; far better than his imagination gave her credit for. Or how she still used full names when addressing people, which he’d always found adorably unique to her. Then there was the fact that she hadn’t sliced him open yet.
“Why, exactly, am I a piece of work?” he asked.
She finally glanced his way, knifing him with blue irises behind slitted eyelids. “I know why you’re really home. Your day with the Cup is in a few days. You’ll have your photo op and interviews and whatever else to give the world the impression that you’re just a sweet ol’ Georgia boy, then you’ll be on your way again. Back to wherever it is you spend your real days. Back to your real life. And if I’m not mistaken, with your revolving bedroom door.”
Those damn gossip rags just piled crap on top of shit. Yes, he’d been on dates. Yes, they’d been beautiful women. But none of them matched him wit for wit like Savannah had their entire lives. She knew Cooper like nobody else in the world, and that included his family. What remained of it.
“You’ve got me all wrong,” he told her. “That’s what I’ve come home to tell you.”
Her knuckles grew white on the wheel. “Then consider your mission accomplished.”
Coop wondered briefly why she hadn’t yet asked why he left the way he did. Not that he would look a gift horse in the mouth. He needed time to reveal that bit of information. That and deciding to come out with the truth and actually telling it were very different things.
She was too wound up to accept any explanation from him at this point anyway, so he chose to keep it light instead. Maybe reminding her how easy things could be between them she’d loosen up. “Tell me about yourself, Savannah Jane. How do you fill your time these days?”
That just seemed to annoy her more. He wondered if this was what it felt like to score for the wrong team.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “We aren’t doing this.”
She wouldn’t shut him down that easy.
“What’s with the laptop?”
“Laptop?” Savannah glanced over, and some of the tension had disappeared from around her eyes.
“You were working on something. Or are you a social media butterfly these days?”
A small, nervous laugh tumbled past her lips. Damn, he loved that sound. "No. I'm, um, writing song lyrics."
Now that…he hadn’t expected. His Savannah was a devoted daddy's girl, with all the tools to be the perfect wife and stay at home mom. Not that she ever intended to use them. Her father, William Scott, had always been a lot old school. According to him, southern women came with certain expectations, and Savannah wasn't raised to be any different. From the looks of it, she was continuing the fight against her father's will. Good for her.
"I know what you're thinking," Savannah said. "Daddy hates the idea of my song writing. Or hated it. He doesn't know I'm still trying. As far as he knows, I'm just an executive assistant for a contractor on the base with all the great benefits that go along with a government position. He's content with that until I get married, at least."
Cooper's stomach dropped to his ankles as a thought occurred to him. One he hadn't considered, but clearly, should have. "Are you"—he swallowed hard—"getting married?” He glanced to her ringless finger and back, mentally crossing all ten fingers and all ten toes. This wouldn’t suit his plans at all. She was his girl.
“No. God no. You know very well I don’t have many options around here, and only a small fraction of them would be Daddy Approved.”
It took all his will not to exhale audibly. “So you’re working on the naval base by day, and writing songs by night. Didn’t even know you were interested in anything like that.”
In fact, he didn't know she'd been interested in anything at all. She'd gone to college—Savannah State—for an accounting degree. She'd hated every second of it and only seemed happy to hear what was happening with him.
At least that’s what he’d told himself.
"That's because until the day you dropped off the face of the earth, I was only interested in you," she told him matter-of-factly. "You leaving was the best thing that every happened to me."
That statement couldn't have cut him any deeper and left him utterly speechless. He hadn't actually believed she disliked him that much. Not until that very moment.
Savannah took a slow turn into a long driveway that led to one of Dove Harbor's historic antebellum mansions. The Banks family home had been falling down around his ears when he left, but that didn't seem to be the case anymore. Porches wrapped around the first and second floors of the white house and colorful flowers capped the broad staircase to the front door. Cyprus trees and moss-draped oaks shaded a good quarter of the impeccably trimmed, and expansive lawn.
She parked behind a blue pickup truck with a poor paint job and looked up at the house. "Josh has been restoring it. Isn't it beautiful?"
Cooper's throat tightened. His dad would have loved to see this. In the few conversations Coop had managed to have with Josh, he knew his brother was doing "some work" on the homestead but had no idea that meant a complete overhaul. No wonder Josh was so pissy about Cooper refusing to sell his half of the property.
Savannah released a sigh and looked over at him. "This is the point where you actually need to get out."
Cooper came out of his head and worked up a smile he didn’t feel. His homecoming had been laden in nothing but potholes so far. “Yeah. Yes. Well.” He stuck a hand across the space. “Thank you very much for the ride. I appreciate it.”
She took his hand for the awkward handshake. “Tell Josh I said hello, and take care of yourself.”
He stared at her for another long moment. Unless he was mistaken, she didn’t seem quite as ready to get rid of him as he thought. Was there still hope? Only one way to find out.
“I want to see you again, Savannah Jane.”
Savannah slid her hand out of his and curled toward her door. She looked almost pained. “No. I can’t, Coop. We can’t. Those days are over.” Her blue eyes turned toward the windshield. “Please go.”
Wordlessly, he did, but standing near the back end of the pickup truck, watching her car rush toward the street, he vowed to do whatever it took to change her mind. Starting tonight.
Head swimming in confusion, Savannah entered her childhood home, another antebellum within a mile of the Banks' property, and was met immediately by the butler Kirk. He was nearly the same age as William Scott and had been employed by the family going on twenty of her twenty-five years.
She pushed up on her toes to kiss one of his powder soft cheeks. “Where’s Daddy?”
Kirk nodded toward the sitting room. “He’s only just begun his first martini. Shall I prepare one for you as well?”
“How about an iced tea instead?”
“Coming right up.”
Savannah took a beat to gaze up the staircase of dark polished wood winding up to the second floor. Somewhere behind the ornate balustrade, inside a room with the curtains drawn tight, Helena Scott was well into a drunken state. Savannah didn’t even need to inquire after her mother to know that.
Inside the sitting room, William stood while folding the evening paper to greet his only child. He was a commanding presence that offered both protection and instilled fear. Always had. Always would. She could only imagine what it would be like to face him in a courtroom, gavel at the ready, black robes adding a layer of defense those steely eyes didn't need.
“There’s my baby girl,” he said in his deep baritone. His smile welcomed her into his open arms, while his eyes did their best to shame her for the lack of response to his text message. “I wondered if I was going to hear from you.”
Code for: you never answered my text. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I
meant to respond, but something happened and I couldn’t. I came right over as soon as I was free. Am I too late?”
“We’ll make do.” He took a seat, thick salt-and-pepper brows furrowed. “What did you need to free yourself from?”
All at once she regretted making mention of her run-in. It’d been too long since she’d had to dart these subjects; she was out of practice. But what did it matter? It wasn’t as if she and Cooper had anything to hide. Not anymore.
The Banks’ name, Cooper’s especially, wasn’t a welcome one in this house. Her daddy had hated his and vice versa, and Cooper had suffered in his father’s place for most of their lives. Andrew Banks had actually been very kind to her, which worked out; dealing with her daddy had been hard enough.
Savannah sank onto the settee beside William. “Cooper. I ran into him.”
Three years. That was how long it had been since she’d seen her daddy’s expression fall as if every muscle in his face just gave out all at once. And just as quickly as that happened, and only seconds later, his cheeks flushed cherry red.
She reached out and clasped his knee. “Daddy, you have nothing to worry about. He’s here for a publicity thing. Then he’s gone.”
“What did he want? What did he tell you?”
It wasn't often, if ever that she'd heard nervousness enter her daddy's tone. There'd been some holiday parties in which he'd had to manage his wife's alcohol intake; always unsuccessfully. Those instances gave him cause to be nervous. The last thing he wanted was a stain on the Scott name because Helena couldn't control herself.
Cautiously, Savannah studied her daddy as she said, “He didn’t tell me anything.”
William’s shoulders sank every so slightly, prickling the nerves on the back of her neck.
“Is there something to tell?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
His gray gaze darted past her to where Kirk entered carrying a tray with a single glass of iced tea. Kirk must have sensed the tension in the room because a tiny line drew between his eyebrows as he glanced at Savannah. She gave him a minute shake of her head as if to say nothing was wrong, but the fact was that she was as confused as he.
