by Nora Roberts
“What happened?”
“He came around the corner, firing. She went down so fast, fell against me. Maybe saved my life because of the way she fell back against me. He caught me in the side, barely caught me. In and out.”
“Shot? You were shot?”
“In and out, not much more than a graze.” He didn’t dismiss it. No, he never dismissed it. A few inches the other way, a whole different story. “She was taking me down with her. People were screaming, scattering, diving for cover. The glass shattered. A bullet hit the window of the restaurant.
“I remember what it sounded like, when the bullets were going into her, into the glass. I got to my weapon. I got to it as we were going down, as she was taking me down with her. She was already dead, and he kept putting bullets into her. I put five into him.”
His eyes met Lil’s now, and they were ice blue in color, in expression. She thought: This is the change. More than anything else, this is what marked him.
“I remember every one of them. Two mid-body as I was falling, three more—right hip, leg, abdomen—after I hit the sidewalk. It all took less than thirty seconds. Some asshole recorded it on his cell phone.”
It had seemed so much longer, eons longer. And the jumpy video hadn’t captured the way Dory’s body had jerked against his, or the feel of her blood flooding over his hands.
“He emptied his clip. Two bullets went through the glass, one went into me. The rest, he put into her.”
Coop paused, drank some water. “So I needed a change.”
Her chest was full to aching as she put her hand over his. She could see it, so clearly. Hear it—the shots, the screams, the breaking glass. “Your grandparents don’t know. They never said anything about this, so they don’t know.”
“No. I wasn’t hurt that bad. Treat and release. A few stitches. They didn’t know Dory, so why tell them? It was a good shoot. I didn’t get any trouble over it, not with Dory dead on the sidewalk, all the witnesses, and that asshole’s phone recording. But I couldn’t be a cop anymore, couldn’t work out of the squad, couldn’t do it. Besides”—he shrugged now—“there’s more money in private.”
She’d said that, hadn’t she? Casually, carelessly when she’d seen him again. How she wished she could take it back. “Did you have someone? When it happened, did you have someone there for you?”
“I didn’t want anyone for a while.”
Because she understood, she nodded, said nothing. Then he turned his hand over, laced his fingers with hers. “And when I did, I thought about calling you.”
Her hand flexed, a little jerk of surprise. “You could have.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe, Coop. I’d have listened. I’d’ve come to New York to listen if you’d needed or wanted it.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s why I didn’t call you.”
“How does that make sense?” she wondered.
“There are a lot of contradictions and twists when it comes to you and me, Lil.” He brushed his thumb, lightly, over the inside of her wrist. “I thought about staying here tonight, talking you into bed.”
“You couldn’t.”
“We both know I could.” He tightened his grip on her hand until she looked at him. “Sooner or later, I will. But tonight, the timing’s off. Timing counts.”
All her softer feelings hardened. “I’m not here for your convenience, Cooper.”
“There’s nothing convenient about you, Lil.” His free hand snaked up, gripped the back of her neck. And his mouth, hot, desperate, familiar, captured hers.
For the moment he held her, panic, excitement, need fought a short and vicious little war inside her.
“There’s nothing convenient about that,” he muttered when he released her.
He rose, took their empty bowls to the sink.
“Lock up after me,” he ordered, and left her.
PART TWO
HEAD
The head is always the dupe of the heart.
—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
11
March bit like a tiger, stalking from the north to spring in a killing leap over the hills and valleys. Snow and ice plunged out of the sky, cracking tree limbs with their weight, downing power lines, and turning roads into treachery.
At the refuge, Lil and any of the staff or volunteers who could make it trudged, plowed, and shoveled while the relentless wind blew mountainous drifts into frigid ranges.
The animals retired to their dens, wandering out when the mood struck them to watch the humans shiver and swear. Bundled to the eyeballs, Lil crossed paths with Tansy.
“How’s our girl?” Lil asked, thinking of the lioness.
“Weathering this better than I am. I want a hot, tropical beach. I want the smell of sea and sunscreen. I want a mai tai.”
“Will you settle for hot coffee and a cookie?”
“Sold.” As they plodded their way toward Lil’s cabin, Tansy gave her friend a sidelong look. “You don’t smell like sea and sunscreen.”
“Neither would you if you’d been shoveling snow and shit.”
“And we’re the smart girls,” Tansy commented. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Even smart girls shovel shit. It should be a bumper sticker.” Lil stomped and scraped off snow, and felt her muscles quiver in response when the first shot of warmth inside the cabin hit her. “We got through the worst of it,” she said as she and Tansy stripped off gloves, hats, coats, scarves. “We’ll haul the dung over to the farm first chance. Nothing like shit for farming. And I’m going to insist this is the last ice storm of the season. Spring, with its flash flooding and acres of mud, can’t be far off.”
“Joy.”
Lil headed back to the kitchen to start coffee. “You’ve been Miss Cranky Scientist the last few days.”
“I’m tired of winter.” Scowling, Tansy dug a tube of ChapStick out of her pocket and smeared it on.
“I hear that. But I hear something else, too.” Lil opened a cupboard, pulled out her stash of Milano cookies, handed Tansy the bag. “And call me crazy, but I suspect the something else has a penis.”
Tansy gave her a droll look, and took a cookie. “I know a lot of some-things with penises.”
“Me too. They’re freaking everywhere.” Warm, and happy for a cookie break, Lil leaned back while the coffee brewed. “I have this theory. Want to hear it?”
“I’m eating your cookies, so I guess I’m obligated to.”
“Good. The penis is here to stay, so those of us without them must learn to appreciate, exploit, ignore, and/or utilize them, depending on our own needs and goals.”
Tansy poked out her bottom lip as she nodded. “It’s a good theory.”
“It is.” Lil got down mugs, poured the coffee for both of them. “As we’ve elected to work in what is still a male-dominated field, the ratio of us v. them may demand that we appreciate, exploit, ignore, and/or utilize more often than those of our species who have not elected to work in this field.”
“Are you correlating hard data or will you conduct an empirical study?”
“At this point, it’s still in the observation/speculation phase. However, I do have, on some authority, the identity of the penis which is, I believe, playing a part in making you Miss Cranky Scientist.”
“Oh, really?” Tansy got a spoon and dumped three doses of sugar in her coffee. “Who would the authority be?”
“My mom. She misses little. I’m informed that while I was away the spark quotient between you and a certain Farley Pucket increased.”
“Farley’s barely twenty-five.”
“That would make you a cougar,” Lil said and grinned.
“Oh, shut up. I’m not dating him, sleeping with him, encouraging him.”
“Because he’s twenty-five? Actually, I think he’s twenty-six. And that makes him—good God—four years younger than you are.” In wild reaction—and with some theatrics—Lil pressed the back of her hand to her lips. “Horrors! You’
re a cradle robber!”
“It’s not funny.”
Sobering, Lil lifted her eyebrows. She didn’t mind the embarrassed flush on Tansy’s cheeks—what were friends for if not to embarrass friends?—but she did mind, very much, the unhappiness in those big, dark eyes.
“No, apparently it’s not. Tans, you’re seriously unwrapped because you’re a few years older? If the ages were reversed you wouldn’t blink.”
“But they’re not, and I don’t care if it’s not logical. I’m the older woman. The older black woman, for God’s sake, Lil. In South Dakota. It’s not going to happen.”
“So no problem if Farley was thirty-something and black?”
Tansy pointed a finger. “I told you I didn’t care if it was logical.”
Lil pointed a finger right back. “Good thing, because it just isn’t. Let’s put that aside for a minute.”
“It’s key.”
“I’m putting away the key for a minute. Do you have feelings for him? Because I admit I thought it was just a little lusty deal. Long winter, close quarters, healthy, consenting adults. I figured the two of you just had a maybe-we-should-fool-around thing going. Which I was going to rag you about mercilessly because, well, it’s Farley. He’s sort of my honorary lit—brother.”
“See, you were going to say little brother.” Tansy shook her fingers in the air. “Little brother!”
“Key is put away, Tansy. Obviously, this is more than a you’ve-got-a-nice-ass-on-you-cowboy-and-I’m-looking-for-a-little-tussle.”
“I checked out his ass, sure. It’s my inalienable right as a female. But never with the idea of a tussle. What a stupid word.”
“Oh, I see, you never thought about having—insert stupid word—with Farley. Excuse me while I get the fire extinguisher. Your pants are smoking.”
“I may have speculated on stupid wording with Farley, but never with any intent to follow through. It’s another inalienable right.” Exasperated, Tansy tossed up her hands. “We both checked out the ass of Greg the Adonis Grad Student when he volunteered for a month last summer. We didn’t jump that fine ass.”
“It was fine,” Lil said, remembering. “Plus he had that whole six-pack ab thing going. And the shoulders.”
“Yeah. Shoulders.”
They both fell into reverent silence for a moment.
“God, I miss sex,” Lil said with a sigh.
“Tell me.”
“Aha! So why aren’t you having it with Farley?”
“You won’t trap me that way, Dr. Chance.”
“Oh, won’t I? You’re not having it with Farley because he’s not just another hot body like Greg the Adonis Grad Student. You’re not having it with Farley because you have feelings involved.”
“I . . .” Tansy opened her mouth, then hissed. “Damn it. Okay. All right, I do have them. I don’t even know how it started. He’d come around to help out sometimes, and sure I’d think, Cute guy. He is a cute guy, and sweet. Cute and sweet and funny, so we’d talk or he’d give me a hand, and somewhere along the line I started feeling this buzz. He’d come around and, whew, lots of buzzing in there. And . . . well, I’m not stupid, but an experienced woman of thirty years.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I caught the way he’d look at me. So I knew he had the buzz going on, too. I didn’t think much of it at first. Just: What do you know, I’ve got the hots for the cute cowboy. But it wouldn’t go away, and it got buzz ier. Then last week, the bad day,” she said, and Lil nodded, “I was feeling sad and sorry, and he sat with me. He kissed me. I kissed him right back before I realized what I was doing. I stopped, and I told him it wasn’t going to happen again. He just kept grinning at me. He says, and I quote, he’s got ‘a powerful yen’ for me. Who talks like that? It’s put me in a mood.”
She dug for another cookie. “I can’t get that damn grin out of my head.”
“Okay. You’re not going to like what I have to say, but . . .” Lil put her index finger against her thumb, and flicked it sharply dead center of Tansy’s forehead.
“Ow!”
“Stupid. You’re taking the path of stupid, so get off of it. A handful of years and a skin color aren’t reasons to turn away from someone you care about, and who cares about you.”
“People who say skin color doesn’t matter are usually white.”
“Well, ow right back at you.”
“I mean it, Lil. Mixed relationships are still difficult in a lot of the world.”
“News flash. Relationships are still difficult in all of the world.”
“Exactly. So why add layers to the difficulty?”
“Because love’s precious. That part’s simple. It’s getting it and keeping it that’s hard. You’ve never been in a serious relationship.”
“Not fair. I was with Thomas for more than a year.”
“You liked, respected, and lusted for each other. You spoke the same language, but you were never serious, Tansy. Not this-is-the-one sort of serious. I know what it’s like to be with a nice guy you’re comfortable with and never think of him as the one. And I know what it’s like to know the one. I had that with Coop, and he broke my heart. Still, I’d rather have my heart broken than never look and know.”
“You say that, but you’re not the only one with theories. Mine is you’ve never gotten over him.”
“No, I never have.”
Tansy lifted her hands. “How can you handle it?”
“I’m still figuring that out. The bad day was, apparently, a day for a shift in status. He brought me chicken and dumplings. And he kissed me. It’s not a buzz with me, Tansy. It’s a flood, that pours in and fills me up.” She laid a hand on her heart, rubbed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. If I sleep with him again, will it help me tread water until I can finally get to solid ground? Or will it just take me under? I don’t know, but I’m not going to pretend the odds aren’t strong that I’ll be finding out.”
Steadier for having said it out loud, Lil set her mug down, smiled. “I’ve got a powerful yen for him.”
“You’re—what was your word? Unwrapped. You’re unwrapped over the man who walked away from you and broke your heart. And I’m unwrapped over a farmhand with a rubber-band grin.”
“And we’re the smart girls.”
“Yeah. We’re the smart girls,” Tansy agreed. “Even when we’re idiots.”
COOP WORKED WITH the pretty buckskin mare he’d trained over the winter. She had, in his estimation, a sweet heart, a strong back, and a lazy disposition. She’d be happy to snooze in the stall, paddock, or field most of the day. She’d go if you insisted, if she was sure you really meant it.
She didn’t nip, she didn’t kick, and she would eat an apple out of your hand with a polite delicacy that was undeniably female.
He thought she’d do well with children. He named her Little Sis.
Business was slow in these last stubborn weeks of bitter winter. It gave him time—too much of it—to catch up on paperwork, clean the stalls, organize his new home.
And think about Lil.
He knew she had her hands full. Word got back to him through his grandparents—from her parents, from Farley, from Gull.
She’d come by once, he’d heard, to return his grandmother’s dish, and visit awhile. And she’d come by when he’d been in town, doing a stint in the storefront office.
He wondered if that had been accident or design on her part.
He’d given her space, but he was about done with that now. Those loose ends were still dangling. The time was coming to knot them off.
He started to walk Little Sis toward the barn. “You worked good today,” he told her. “We’ll get you brushed down, and maybe there’ll be an apple in it for you.”
He’d have sworn her ears twitched at the word “apple.” Just as he’d have sworn he heard her sigh when he changed direction and steered her toward the house when he saw the county sheriff step out of the back door.
“That’s a pretty g
irl.”
“She is.”
Standing, legs spread, Willy squinted up at the sky. “The way the weather’s clearing up, you’ll have her and the rest under the tourists and on the trails before long.”
Coop had to smile. “This is one of the few places I know where eighteen inches of snowpack and drifts taller than me would be considered clearing up, weather-wise.”
“Yeah, haven’t gotten anything falling since the last storm. Clearing up. Spare me a minute, Coop?”
“Sure.” Coop dismounted, looped the mare’s reins around the porch rail. Hardly necessary, he thought. She wouldn’t go anywhere she wasn’t told to go.
“I’ve just come from seeing Lil over at the refuge, and figured I owed you a stop-by.”
Coop could see it clearly enough in the man’s face. “To tell me you’re hitting dead ends.”
“To tell you that. Fact is, what we got is a dead cougar, a thirty-two slug, a buncha tracks in the snow, and a vague description of someone you saw in the dark. We’ve been giving it a push, but there’s not much to move along.”
“You got copies of her threat file?”
“Yeah, and we’ve been following up on that. I rode out and spoke personal to a couple of men who went by the refuge a few months back and gave them some trouble. Don’t fit the physical, either of them. One’s got a wife swears he was home that night, and through the morning—and he was at work nine on the dot in Sturgis. That’s verified. The other runs damn near three hundred pounds. I don’t think you’d’ve mistaken him.”
“No.”
“I talked to a couple rangers I know, and they’ll be keeping an eye out at the park, spreading the word. But I’m going to tell you like I had to tell Lil, we’re going to need a serious run of luck to tie this up. I gotta figure whoever it was is gone. Nobody with a lick of sense would’ve stayed up there when that storm came in. We’ll keep doing what we can do, but I wanted to tell her straight. And you, too.”
