by Melody Grace
He’d let her down.
Cooper swallowed back the guilt and turned out onto the highway. After stewing in self-loathing all week, he had a to-do list a mile long, so he headed into Provincetown. The hardware store there had plenty he needed, and the longer he could distract himself with work, the less time he’d have to spend thinking about Poppy, and that tentative smile of hers disappearing from sight. The store aisles were busy, and he soon had a couple of carts filled with the AC units he needed, and plenty of pipe for the bathrooms, too. He was halfway down the electrics aisle, when someone studying the shelf stepped back, into his path.
“Excuse me,” he muttered, and the woman turned.
“Cooper!” she exclaimed, and his heart sank another inch. It was Laura, juggling three different boxes in her arms with her stroller right beside her. He braced himself for an awkward pause, but Laura just smiled. “Perfect timing,” she said. “I’m trying to fix the fuse box, and I can’t tell which size I need.”
“You, fixing?” Cooper couldn’t help but remark.
She gave a rueful laugh. “I know, but Steve’s out of town at a conference in Chicago, so I’m fighting this battle alone.”
“What’s the problem?” Cooper asked. Her kid was straining to reach a bin of screws, but before he could say anything, Laura neatly wheeled him back, out of reach.
“No idea,” she said brightly. “All I know is that when I plugged my hairdryer in, all the lights went out, and no amount of flipping them up and down does a thing.”
“Sounds like you blew it out.” He paused, thinking of all the times Laura had tried to fix things when they were dating—and just how badly that worked out. Left to her own devices, she’d probably wind up electrocuting herself. Or worse. “If you want, I can come replace it,” he offered reluctantly.
“Oh, no it’s OK.” Laura looked startled. “I was going to call Hank and see if he could come out—”
“That’ll take until next week,” Cooper interrupted. “You know. Come on, it won’t be five minutes. It’s the least I can do,” he added gruffly.
“Well . . . thank you,” Laura said, still looking awkward. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“None at all. Are you still at Seashore Drive?” he asked, and she nodded. “I can head over now, when all this is loaded. You better get both sizes, until I know what we need.”
“OK,” Laura said. “I’ll see you there.”
Cooper headed to the check-out line and got his purchases stowed away in the back. He knew where Laura lived, backing onto the nature preserve, and when he pulled up in the driveway, she was already home.
She greeted him at the door with Brady on her hip. “Thanks again,” she said, looking frazzled. “I didn’t even realize, but the freezer turned off, too. If I don’t get power back, we’re going to be eating thawed salmon for a week. Come on in,” she stood back, and beckoned him inside.
“It’s no problem.” Cooper wiped his boots on the mat. He couldn’t stop himself from looking around, curious about the life she’d built. The small house was nothing like the one they’d shared together. It was cluttered and homey, with toys on the floor and family photos on every wall.
“The fuse box is in the basement. Sorry about the mess, you’ll need this.” She handed him a flashlight and the fuses, and led him to the stairs.
“I’ll put this one down for his nap. Watch out for the bottom step, it gives way. That’s what you get for an old house, not that I need to tell you that,” she added with a flustered grin.
“They call it charm, I call it dry rot.” Cooper nodded. She was nervous, he could tell, but he didn’t blame her. He hadn’t exactly been on friendly terms since the breakup. Sure, they were polite enough, seeing each other around, but this was the first time he could remember them being alone together in years.
Brady let out a disgruntled sound, tugging at her braid.
Well, almost alone.
“I’ll get to it,” Cooper gestured awkwardly, and then headed down into the basement—taking care on the bottom step. With the torch, the fuse box was easy enough to find, and luckily Laura had bought the right kind. He had the faulty ones switched out in no time, and when he flipped the switch, he saw the lights upstairs turn on.
“Angel,” Laura greeted him when he emerged back up to the kitchen. She’d changed into a fresh T-shirt—not stained with baby drool—and had her hair caught up in a ponytail. “Can I get you a coffee? Tea? Half-thawed filet of salmon?”
“It’s fine, I should be going.” Cooper still felt out of place, but she insisted.
“Please, sit down. I’ve been wanting to catch up. It’s been so long since . . . well.” Laura steered him to the kitchen table and moved to make coffee. “How are you doing?”
Cooper slowly exhaled. “I’ve been better,” he said, and immediately regretted it. Laura was the last person in the world he should be talking to like this, after everything he’d put her through.
“I heard,” she said slowly. “About you and Poppy. I’m sorry, she seemed nice.”
“She was. Is,” he corrected himself, then shrugged, trying to be casual. “It didn’t work out. It happens.”
“You know, I was thinking, and you haven’t been with anyone serious since us, have you?” Laura was watching him carefully, and Cooper felt trapped under her gaze. This wasn’t like with Riley, or even Mackenzie, where he could shut down their questions and move on. Laura knew him, or at least, she used to do.
He shrugged again, and looked away. “I don’t know, I’ve dated plenty these past years.”
“But nothing that’s lasted.”
“You should be glad about that,” Cooper tried to joke. “You always said I couldn’t make you happy. The least I can do is save some other poor woman from making the same mistake.”
“Is that what you really think?”
When he looked back, Laura seemed surprised.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Cooper felt a wave of bitter regret. “I couldn’t give you what you wanted, no matter how hard I tried. I’m just not cut out to love anyone, I guess.”
He ached to say it, but there was no avoiding the truth. He’d thought he’d accepted it by now, but Poppy had thrown a wrench in that for good. She’d shown him what he’d been missing out on. What he could have had, in another life maybe.
“It’s OK,” he said to Laura, who was looking at him with what looked like pity in her gaze. “Some of us just aren’t made for all of this.” He nodded around at the photos pinned to the refrigerator door, and the pile of baby clothes, fresh from the dryer. “And if I was . . . well, don’t you think we would have figured it out back when we had the chance?”
Laura looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head with a rueful smile. “Did it ever occur to you that we didn’t work out because we weren’t supposed to?”
He looked away. “You don’t have to say that. I know I screwed us up.”
Laura frowned. She came to sit beside him, reaching over to take his hand. “Seriously, Cooper, have you really been blaming yourself for that all this time? God, you’re even more stubborn than I thought.”
Cooper pulled back. “Hey.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “We were a disaster. Come on, you know that. We were at each other’s throats all the time, over who knows what? Oil and water, that’s what my mom always said, and she was right. There was no saving us, but you just wouldn’t give up the fight. I didn’t understand it, why you wanted to keep putting us both through that misery.”
“I loved you,” he frowned.
“And I loved you, but I couldn’t live with you.” Laura sighed. “It was too hard. Remember, I told you it shouldn’t be that hard.”
“Hard to love me,” he said, with that same damn bitter ache.
“No,” she corrected him gently. “Hard to be together. Admit it, I was no walk in the park either. God, when I think about those fights we had . . .” She shook her head. “You made me crazy.”
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“You would act like you lost your damn mind,” he agreed, and she laughed.
“You see? That’s not good love. That’s not what you can build a future on. Imagine it,” she added. “You and me, at each other’s throats every day, all that resentment and frustration boiling over. You really think that’s the life you should have had? We gave it our best shot,” she continued, “but you weren’t the one for me, and I sure as hell wasn’t the one for you. You were meant for someone else. Someone who can make you happy, without wanting to wring your damn neck every other day.”
Cooper looked at her, trying to wrap his head around what she was saying. All this time he’d been blaming himself, thinking that if his love wasn’t enough to make it work with her then he’d never be enough for anyone else. But now she was saying there had been no saving them.
It wasn’t his fault.
Could it really be that simple?
He shook his head slowly. He wanted so much to believe in what she was telling him, but he felt like a dying man in the desert, so desperate for water he was clinging to the mirage just up ahead.
“But I tried my best, and it wasn’t good enough for you.”
Laura looked stricken. “I’m sorry if I made you think that,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I know we both said some things in the end there, but I never meant for you to hold onto them like this. God, Cooper, you deserve to be happy. You’re a good man, even if we weren’t good for each other.”
Cooper exhaled. He felt off balance, like the world had suddenly tilted off its axis, and everything he was so damn sure he had figured out was now up in the air again, spinning in the wind.
“You really think that?” he asked, and the naked hope in his voice would have made him ashamed if it were anyone else in the room. But for better or worse, Laura knew him from the inside out. She looked at him straight on and smiled.
“I do. And I wouldn’t lie to you. If you were an asshole with no hope of redemption, I’d be the one telling you that.”
He managed a smile. “You and Mackenzie, at least.”
Laura brightened. “How is she?”
“Giving me a hard time.”
“Good.” Laura got up. “You need a kick in the ass sometimes. I had high hopes for that Poppy, it seemed like she had her head screwed on straight.”
“Not so much.” Cooper couldn’t help but smile. “She’s a total romantic. Believes in soulmates and happily-ever-afters.”
Laura arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like your kind of thing.”
“I know.” He nodded. “But she had me believing. For a while, at least.”
He looked away. That was the crazy thing, that for all his bitter memories and stubborn thinking, Poppy really did make a believer out of him. With her, he could see it: why some people just belong together. No judgment, no fights. He’d never felt a peace like the moments where she was curled in his arms—and never known reckless desire like when she fixed those teasing eyes on him with a smile, tempting him to lose himself forever in her touch.
“Aww, hell,” he cursed, as it hit him all over again. “I’ve screwed this up real bad, haven’t I?”
Laura patted him on the shoulder. “I’m sure it’s not too late for fixing.”
“I don’t know about that.” Cooper thought about the way he’d acted over the past week, pushing her away, time and time again. “She’s leaving to go back to New York.”
“So?” Laura challenged him. “Give her a reason to stay.”
Cooper was about to detail all the ways that wouldn’t work, when a loud wail came from the baby monitor. Laura sighed. “Sorry, he’s teething. Won’t give me an hour’s peace.”
“No, it’s OK. I’ve taken up enough of your time.” Cooper got to his feet. “And thank you,” he said awkwardly. He hadn’t been expecting to talk like this—and he definitely hadn’t expected that Laura would be the one to make him see that maybe, just maybe, there was still hope for him, after all.
“Anytime.” Laura smiled. “Don’t be a stranger now. We’re going to be renovating Brady’s room soon, and I love my husband, but the man can’t tell a hammer from a wrench.”
“Give me a call, and I’ll fit you in,” Cooper agreed. He paused. “I’m glad you found it,” he said, giving her a wry smile. “Steve, the baby . . . It seems like a good life.”
Laura smiled. “Tell me that again when I’ve had more than three hours sleep.”
The wailing went up a decibel.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Cooper said quickly. “I can see myself out.”
He closed the front door behind him, listening as baby Brady’s wails quieted. The cool air hit him in a rush, and for the first time since that day at the library, he felt a clarity, some damn direction after all the dark, messy self-doubt.
He wanted Poppy—not just for a night, but for everything. A future, a family, all those things he’d believed were out of reach until she’d come along to show him that some things really were meant to be, after all.
He needed her. He loved her. They belonged together. Now he just had to figure out how to make her see it, too—sometime in the next twelve hours.
Before she closed the book on him for good.
25
It turned out, when Sweetbriar Cove said bon voyage, they went all out. Poppy was expecting a quiet drink at the pub with June and Mackenzie, but when they stepped through the doors, she was met with a loud, “SURPRISE!”
Poppy blinked. It looked like the whole town was crammed inside the building. “You guys!” she exclaimed. “What is all of this?”
“We wanted to give you a proper send-off.” Franny beamed. “It’s been so much fun having you around.”
“We always love an excuse for a party,” Debra added, with a twinkle in her eye.
And this was definitely a party. There were balloons, and streamers, and—
“Is that a cake?” Poppy moved closer, her mouth already watering as she took in the towering chocolate layers.
“I called Summer and had her whip one up, emergency delivery.” Her aunt gave her a hug. “We’ll be sorry to see you go.”
“I’ll just be a few hours away!” Poppy protested, but Ellie from book group gave her a look.
“You know it doesn’t work like that. You stop writing, you don’t call . . .” She mimed wiping away tears.
Poppy laughed. “I’ll put you guys in the acknowledgements of my new book, how about that?”
“Deal!”
She was ushered to the bar, and soon plied with food and drink—on the house. There was music and laughter, and as Poppy looked around, she was struck by just how quickly this town had come to feel like home.
“What’s wrong?” Mackenzie asked, nudging her gently.
“Nothing. Just thinking . . . I’ve lived in New York for years now, and I don’t think I could tell you the name of anyone living on my block. Aside from the guy at the coffee shop,” she added.
Mackenzie laughed. “It does have its charm,” she agreed, looking around. “We don’t do this for everyone though. You’re family.”
Poppy had to swallow. “You’re going to make me cry!” she protested. “And it’s way too early for that.”
The doors swung open, and her head turned. She couldn’t help it, she’d been checking new arrivals all night, wondering if he would show.
“Still no word?” Mackenzie asked quietly.
Poppy shook her head. “It’s just as well,” she said, trying to convince herself. “I don’t even know what I’d say to him if he turned up now.”
“That he’s been an ass, but you love him, and you’ll give him one last chance to make it right?”
Mackenzie looked optimistic, and Poppy knew she was just hoping for the best, but it still hurt her to think of even laying eyes on Cooper again. She turned to the bar and flagged down Riley. “We’re going to need some shots,” she declared. “Tequila.”
He whistled. “You don’t play around.”
“It’s a party, isn’t it?” Poppy forced a smile. “I may as well go out with a bang.”
Two shots later, and she was beginning to regret her reckless streak. Riley had brought out the karaoke machine, and any other time, Poppy would have been hiding in the back. But somehow with that pesky tequila warm in her blood, it seemed like a good idea to take center stage for a song with Mackenzie and Ellie.
“One way, or another,” she sang, happily out of tune. It was an easy audience, at least: clapping along and politely ignoring just how tone-deaf her warbling was. Poppy swayed in time with the beat, just about ready to launch into the final chorus, when the pub doors opened again, and this time—God, this time, finally—it was Cooper walking in.
The song died on her lips.
How did he do this to her, every time? Just the sight of those blue eyes sent her spinning, from clear across the room. She fumbled, barely miming along as Ellie and Mackenzie finished the song, all the while feeling his gaze on her. Inscrutable. Remote. Or was that a hint of regret she spied in their depths?
No, she was reading too much into it. He probably only stopped by to say an awkward goodbye and pretend like nothing had ever happened between them.
Poppy’s heart clenched at the thought. She needed another shot of tequila.
The moment the music cut, she headed for the bar and collapsed on a stool. “Another round, please,” she told Riley, pointing to her glass, but instead of pouring, he fetched her a slice of cake.
“I’m cutting you off,” he said, and passed her a fork.
“I’m not drunk.” Poppy frowned, but she still took a bite. Summer’s cake was always too delicious to resist.
“I know,” Riley smiled. “But I think you’re going to want to be sober for this.” He nodded behind her, and Poppy swiveled around to look.
Cooper was taking his place at the front of the room, a microphone in his hand.
Cooper. Doing karaoke.
What?
“Just so you know.” Riley leaned in. “That man hates the spotlight. So if he’s doing this now, there’s a damn good reason for it.” He winked and wandered away, leaving Poppy with her heart in her throat as the music started.
