“Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “Not sure I want to know the answer to this, but does your husband know you’ve taken me off guest duty?”
“He’ll be fine with it.”
“Ha.” Cooper smiled for the first time. Decker might be his out. “So he doesn’t know.”
“Not yet.” Kyla raised her clipboard and made a checkmark. “But really, have you met me? He’ll agree.”
His smile fell right off. Dammit. She was right. Decker would totally fold to her. The man was pathetically, hopelessly in love with his wife, and to hear tell, she’d been instrumental in saving this entire ranch from going under, years ago. Everyone at Whisper Creek folded to her.
Yeah, Cooper was screwed.
“So, not that I’m agreeing to this yet, but what do you envision this little buddy system looking like?” He shrugged. “You sure she’s coming alone?”
“She’ll be alone.”
“No security? No simpering entourage?”
“Wow, Cooper.” Kyla put her chin down and eyebrows up at the same time. It was her favorite schoolteacher pose, and he’d seen it work wonders when she wanted something…or wanted somebody to know she had Very Clear Feelings about what had just gotten said.
“Sorry.” He waved off his own comment. “Outta line.”
“How exactly did you get so bitter at such a young age?”
“I’m not bitter. Just—never mind. Let’s just say I’ve met enough of her type—I’ve worked for enough of her type—backstage, private parties, the whole gamut. They’re not my favorite kind of people. We’ll just leave it there.”
“Huh.” She nodded like she’d just figured out a mystery that had been gnawing at her. “You dated somebody famous, didn’t you?”
“What?” Again, his hands went upward. “How did you get that out of what I just said?”
“Don’t know. Decker calls it my eighth sense.” She shrugged. “He doesn’t like it.”
Cooper laughed. “I don’t blame him.”
“So did you? Date somebody famous?”
He looked at her, shaking his head. “You are insufferable.”
“Decker says that, too.”
“No. I didn’t date someone famous.” A quick vision of Martina bolted through his head, complete with sky-high heels, glittery makeup, and mascara streaks on her cheeks. “Just somebody who thought she ought to be.”
“Perfect, then.” Kyla poised her pen over the clipboard. “I knew I’d picked the right guy.”
He paused, tipping his head. “Does Decker ever say, ‘Kyla, I don’t follow?’ ”
“All the time. But he’s learned to go with it.” She tapped him on the bicep with her pen. “You could learn from him.”
“Fantastic.”
“So let’s get you moved into Buttercup this afternoon. That way, you’ll be settled in before she gets here tomorrow. We can work on your cover story and stuff tonight.”
“Why do I need a cover story?”
Kyla giggled at whatever pained expression he was apparently making. “Because for the next month, you’re just an average guy staying here at Whisper Creek.”
“In a honeymoon cabin? All by myself?”
“This is why we need a cover story.”
Cooper closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s clear there’s nothing I can say to save myself here, so please, just tell me where to be, and when.”
“Thatta boy.”
He put up his hands again. “But I’m taking my chair. If you’re moving me to some girlie hearts-and-flowers cabin, you can at least let me take my chair.”
“That chair on the bunkhouse porch?” She cringed. “With the ratty arms and stuffing coming out the back?”
“Yep.”
“No.”
“Then no deal. I’m not moving into that honeymoon cabin without my chair.” He crossed his arms, knowing he looked like a four-year-old. But seriously, she had to give him something here.
He just wished he’d had time to think of something with a little more gravity than the stupid chair.
“Cooper.” She grimaced. “There’s a sweet little porch swing for two already on that porch.”
“Yep, and I’m not sitting in it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Chair or not? How much do you want me to take this job?”
“Dammit.” She sighed, picking up her clipboard and adding a checkbox to the bottom. “But I’m putting one of Ma’s quilts over it. That thing is hideous with a capital H.”
“And I like it that way.” He nodded. “Just one last question—why me? Really.”
There were ten other guys on staff who Kyla could easily have tapped for this duty—guys with cleaner records and friendlier faces than him, by far. And yet…she’d chosen him. He had to know why.
“Because this woman’s young, she’s single, and she’s vulnerable, and I don’t want to turn her loose to the other guys in the bunkhouse, okay?”
He nodded slowly, feeling suddenly old, harmless, and crumbly, even though he’d just crested his thirtieth birthday.
“I trust you, Cooper.” She studied his face, which made him wish he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. “You’re a cop, you’re a horse-whispering god, and bottom line, you’re just a good guy. I want someone’s eyes on her while she’s here, and I want her to feel like someone’s got her back, even though—you know—we’re not telling her that.”
“Thank you…I think.” He sighed, choosing not to correct her ‘you’re a cop’ piece, even though his badge currently sat firmly in his ex-commander’s desk drawer back in Boston.
She smiled as she checked off an item that he’d bet said ‘Coerce Cooper into shadowing Miss Universe,’ then took a deep breath.
“I just want her to get better here, Cooper. It’s what we do best, but we have to do it right. And doing it right means we don’t leave that poor girl to rot in a cabin all by herself for a month.”
“A five-star cabin.”
“Doesn’t matter. Alone isn’t how you get better. Whatever happened that’s sending her here, she needs fresh air, horses, and big skies. She needs trail rides and ice cream from Scoop de Loop, and a draft beer at Salty’s. She needs Ma’s pot roast and donuts from Jenny’s bakery.”
“You trying to make her better? Or make her gain ten pounds?”
Kyla laughed. “You know what I mean. I’d just love it if she could come out here and get to be a normal person for a month, instead of a famous person.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Are we supposed to keep people from knowing she’s here? The other guests?”
“I don’t know for sure.” Kyla shrugged. “I guess we’ll leave that up to her. That’s why I gave her the Periwinkle cabin. If she does want to stay invisible for an entire month, that’s certainly the best place here to do it.”
Cooper rubbed his hands together, more than a little uncomfortable with Kyla’s plan. As much as he was honored by her trust—something that’d been in damn short supply for the past year—this assignment gave him a wagonload of nerves, at the same time.
He liked what he already did at Whisper Creek—the trail rides, the guest lessons, the time to himself, when he could ride for hours without seeing another human. Axing all of that for the next month was going to hurt. His head had been spinning when he’d arrived, and the horses and skies had helped heal him, but he still had a hell of a long road ahead. And sitting on his ass waiting for Miss Hollywood to need something was exactly the wrong medicine.
The demons of his near past liked idle time best. They liked to creep in and assault when he least expected it, when he wasn’t moving in ten directions at once. He needed to be moving in ten directions at once. It was just one of the reasons Whisper Creek had been the perfect medicine so far.
Kyla sighed quietly. “I don’t know what she’s used to. I only know what I want her to have when she gets here. So just be around, introduce yourself, and maybe give her a few days to settle in. Then play it by ear. See if she wants to ride, take he
r into town, whatever. You read people better than anyone I’ve ever met, Cooper.”
She set down her clipboard on a saddlehorse. “Just help her get better, okay? However you think it needs to happen. I trust you to figure that out.”
“But no pressure?”
“Oh, all the pressure. But you’ll be fine. I’m sure she’ll be fabulous. Thank you!” She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, just as her husband came through the huge sliding door at the end of the barn.
Decker reached out a hand to shake Cooper’s. “She’s kissing you. This mean you said yes to watching over our VIP guest?”
“Actually, I said no. She has terrible hearing.”
“I’m familiar with that problem.” Decker laughed, clapping him on the back as he turned toward Kyla. “When’s she getting here, sweetheart?”
“Tomorrow. Three o’clock, if all goes as planned.” Kyla flipped a page, scribbling a note to herself. “I want her to arrive at this gorgeous place, settle into her stunning little cottage, and fall in love with Whisper Creek. And with Cooper’s help, I want her to get better.”
“Of course you do.” Decker cringed. “Just please tell me there won’t be any matchmaking in your get-her-better plan.”
“I don’t even know her, Decker.”
“Which is hardly a deterrent for you, and you know it.”
She elbowed him. “I want people to be happy. It’s not a crime.”
“Kyla?” Decker lifted her chin, his eyebrows firmly raised.
“Fine. No matchmaking.” She rolled her eyes, then gave him a peck on the cheek before turning to Cooper. “Thank you for helping.”
Thirty seconds later, she was gone, but Decker remained, checking out the med schedule for one of the horses.
“You okay with all this?” he asked, not looking at Cooper.
“Yep.” Cooper kept it short.
“You can say no to her, you know.”
“Right. Have you tried that lately?”
Decker laughed. “I didn’t say I could do it, but you could.” His face grew serious. “I mean it. I know things happened back in Boston, whether you’re ready to talk about them or not. Nobody just leaves the force at age thirty without a damn good reason. I assume you have one. I also assume you’ll share it when you’re ready. If you’re ready.”
Cooper stayed silent.
“But in the meantime, don’t let my tiny wife with her big ideas bully you into playing buddy tag if the thought of it has you itching to take off on Bandit and never come back.”
Cooper swallowed. Now there was an idea. But no. Kyla and Decker had been nothing but good to him since he’d arrived at their ranch. He owed it to them to make this work. He hadn’t been here long, but he knew nobody at Whisper Creek was living the high life. This VIP guest—and the money she brought with her—wasn’t something they could do without, he was sure.
“I’ll give it a shot. If it totally sucks, I’ll cry uncle and turn Miss Hollywood over to you.”
“No, thank you. We’ll give her to Cole.”
Cooper laughed as Decker prepared to throw his own brother under the bus. “That works.”
“Bet you never thought a dart in a map would have you prepping to hang out with some celebrity on the lam, huh?”
“No. Can’t say as I did.”
Cooper thought back to the night in Dunleavey’s Tavern—the one after he’d come from his childhood home, where the door had slammed behind his ass…after opening only an inch. Dunleavey kept a U.S. map on the wall, sometimes to settle arguments, but usually to test how drunk his regulars were before they left.
Name ten state capitals and I’ll give you your keys, he’d say.
That night, with Cooper on his fourth shot, Dunleavey had handed him a dart. Here. Before you’re drunk enough to put out somebody’s eye with the thing, take a shot at the map. Wherever it lands, go. Take a year. Get your shit together.
Cooper had been just drunk enough to toss the damn dart, and when it had landed on Scranton, Pennsylvania, he’d heard a maniacal laugh erupt, then realized it’d come from him.
Throw again, Dunleavey had said, plucking the dart and handing it back to Cooper. Nobody picks Scranton for a fresh start.
This time, Cooper had studied the map through an enveloping fog, looking westward. He’d never been west. Never been to the Grand Canyon. Never seen the Pacific Ocean. Never seen the Rockies. So he’d aimed. Shot. Landed on a tiny town in Montana, just east of the northern Rockies.
Perfect. Dunleavey had pulled a tube of Krazy Glue out of his pocket and squirted it on the damn dart, leaving it stuck to the paper and wall. Good country for a fresh start. Good place to figure out who a man is…especially when everybody’s been so damn busy lately trying to convince him he’s somebody else.
And here he was, three months in…but a far cry from figuring it out yet.
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Unlucky in Love Page 25
