by Susan Meier
Familiar with the streets of Porter, which he noted hadn’t changed much in eight years, Cooper easily found the house and pulled into the driveway. Overwhelmed with memories, he sat in his four-wheel-drive truck, staring at the front porch, remembering other Christmas Eves.
He could hear his parents’ laughter. Remember the gleam in their eyes because there were always Christmas secrets and surprises. Sadness enveloped him. Their parents would be so disappointed in the angry way he and his brothers had parted. They would be even more upset that Cooper, Ty and Seth didn’t speak. If it weren’t for the mortgage, Cooper wouldn’t even be here right now. If it weren’t for Zoe, he most certainly wouldn’t be civil. But Zoe had changed him. If nothing else, he had to acknowledge that.
He walked up the sidewalk and, rather than take the turn that would lead him to the front porch, out of habit, he ended up at the kitchen door.
A gorgeous redhead answered his knock. “Merry Christmas!” she said.
Cooper cleared his throat. “Merry Christmas,” he parroted, if only out of politeness. He felt like an idiot for having waited until he was down to the wire on the deadline, but really hadn’t had much choice because of being stranded. His brothers would simply have to accept that explanation, and, if not, Cooper wasn’t sure it mattered anyway. They had his mortgage, which meant they had his ranch. There wasn’t too much more that could be said about that. “I’m sorry. I think I came at a bad time. Explain to my brothers that I’ll come back to talk about the mortgage the day after tomorrow—”
The redhead’s mouth fell open. She gasped, “Explain to your brothers? Are you Cooper?”
He shuffled his feet. “Yeah. But this looks like a really bad time so I—”
She grabbed his forearm and hauled him into the house. “Oh, no you don’t!” She quickly closed the door behind him. “Ty!”
Embarrassed to the tips of his boot toes, Cooper glanced around. The kitchen was much cleaner than he remembered, but otherwise little else had changed. It was as if Ty had decided to preserve the hub of the house exactly as it was.
“I’m Madelyn, Ty’s fiancée.” She smiled. “I don’t know what the holdup with Ty is, but I do know he wants to see you.”
Cooper smiled wryly. “Right.”
Madelyn put her hand on his forearm again. “No. Really.”
Another minute ticked off the clock and Cooper glanced at the door.
“He probably didn’t hear me,” Madelyn said. “Keep an eye on Sabrina, will you?” she said, pointing at a little girl sitting in a high chair who looked about a year old. “I’ll go check things out.”
Two weeks ago, that request would have filled him with fear. No, two weeks ago the request that he stay with a baby would have sent him running. Today, after having spent almost a week with Daphne, he said, “No problem.”
When Madelyn was gone, the little girl screeched at him, banging her hand on her high chair tray.
Cooper approached the high chair. “What’s the matter, kid? Haven’t they fed you?”
She bellowed, revealing two bottom teeth and one top.
Cooper laughed. “Damn, you’re a cutie—”
“She’s Scotty’s daughter. Scotty and his wife, Misty, were killed this summer in a boating accident. I got custody.”
Cooper spun away from the table to see his brother Ty. Dressed in a forest-green sweater, with the collar of a white shirt exposed, and wearing black trousers, Cooper’s dark-haired, dark-eyed brother looked the picture of wealth and sophistication.
Wishing with all his heart that he hadn’t come, but knowing he had to stay to get Dave’s equity, Cooper quietly said, “Hello, Ty.”
“Cooper,” Ty said, inclining his head. “Seth’s on the way over. I called him when I saw you get out of your truck.”
Cooper raised his eyebrows.
“I heard it pull in. Nothing gets by me anymore.”
Point for Ty. Apparently his cheating fiancée, Anita, had taught him a lesson or two.
“Let’s go back to the den,” Ty said as Madelyn entered the kitchen. “Miss Maddy, would you mind making coffee?” He paused and faced Cooper. “Unless you’d like something else.”
“Since I’ll be driving back to Texas tonight, coffee would be best.”
Cooper watched Ty and Madelyn exchange a look. Ty appeared lost. Madelyn’s expression egged him on. Go, her eyes seemed to say. Go.
They arrived in the den. Ty directed Cooper to sit on the brown leather sofa. He took a seat on the wing chair, but the doorbell rang and he rose again. “That will be Seth.”
Cooper said nothing. Ty left the room and within seconds, he was back, Seth on his heels. Dressed very similarly to Ty in trousers and a cable-knit sweater, Cooper’s pale-haired, green-eyed brother Seth also looked like a man with money. Cooper glanced down at his worn jeans, his battered boots. He hadn’t deliberately dressed to celebrate his poverty. He hadn’t dressed to make his brothers see the differences in his status. Boots and jeans were who he was now. Ty and Seth might be sweater guys, but Cooper was a boots guy. He raised cattle. He rode fence. He mucked stalls. Luckily, he didn’t do any of those in these boots.
And also, luckily, he remembered some of the things Zoe had told him. That deep down inside he was good. Which meant he didn’t have to apologize to anyone for who he was.
He rose from the sofa and extended his hand to Seth. To hell with it. If they wanted his ranch, they could have it. But he wasn’t begging for Dave’s money. He would demand it. He would go down with his dignity.
“Hello, Seth,” he said, as Seth took his hand.
“Cooper.”
“Let’s sit,” Ty said, his natural leading abilities taking over. Cooper prepared himself for an argument, but no matter what his brothers decided, he would be as Zoe saw him. He would be strong. He would keep his dignity. His pride.
“Cooper, we’re sorry it took the drastic measure of buying your mortgage to get you here.”
“Actually,” Seth cut in, “it wasn’t even our idea. My father-in-law thought of it. He’s…well, he’s more accustomed to persuading people to do his bidding and he knows a few more tricks than we do.”
Cooper looked at his younger brother. “What are you talking about?”
Ty laughed. “Cooper, your idiot brother married a princess. His father-in-law is the king of a small country called Xavier Island. It’s off the coast of Spain.”
Cooper couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Are you kidding?” He glanced from Seth to Ty. “You are kidding, right? This is an icebreaker?”
Seth shook his head. “No. It isn’t an icebreaker. I married Lucy knowing she was a princess, but I hadn’t thought it was a big deal…until I saw her in action, doing her ‘royal duties.’”
“Now, he has to attend royal ceremonies…ride in a carriage…” Ty chuckled, “wave at his subjects.”
Seth growled. “Shut up, Ty. I’ve been to Xavier three times and never once have I waved from a carriage.”
“But it’s in the cards,” Ty said, laughing again.
Cooper glanced from one to the other and suddenly felt eighteen again. The need to tease welled up in his chest so strong and so fierce he couldn’t resist it. “Are they going to make him wear purple tights?”
Ty howled with mirth. Seth scowled. “No one wears purple tights. You guys are remembering something from one of mom’s old storybooks.”
“Right,” Ty said.
Cooper grinned. “Right.”
Ty took a quick breath. “Okay. We can tease Seth anytime. We need to get down to business.”
Cooper’s chest tightened. Dignity, he reminded himself.
Ty reached behind him to retrieve a manila envelope and handed it to Cooper. “Here’s your mortgage. Burn it. Frame it. Shred it. We don’t care. It’s yours. I’m not a hundred percent sure what happened that caused us to break apart, but I want us back together again.”
“And I also want to say I’m sorry,” Seth said, jumping in as if
worried that he would lose courage. “I was a kid. I shouldn’t have said the things I said, and I knew I was wrong two hours after I said them, but by then you were gone.”
Cooper stared at the envelope in his hands.
“You also own one third of our company,” Ty said. “Seth and I both take salaries for the work we do, but we keep that separate from actual ownership and profit sharing at the end of our fiscal year.
“Profits aren’t always high,” Ty continued, “because we pour a lot of money back into the company. We’ve expanded several times so your company shares are worth more than the profits, but you’ve gotten anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to close to a million every year.”
Cooper felt his eyes widen. “Close to a million?”
“You’re rich,” Seth said simply. “You shouldn’t have a mortgage. When King Alfredo was investigating me he discovered you, and your mortgage. He forgot about it until he found out from Lucy that we wanted to talk to you. Then, he bought the mortgage and gave it to me as a wedding present, suggesting we use it to lure you here so we could tell you about the money you have so you can fix up that ranch of yours.”
“Unless you want to move back and work with us,” Ty quickly interjected.
Stunned, Cooper looked at him. “Work with you?”
Seth raised his hands. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine, too.”
“But you have a degree in business,” Ty reminded him. “And you would fit in perfectly.” He paused. “And this company is your heritage as much as it is ours.”
“This is it?” Cooper asked, waving his mortgage and looking from brother to brother. “This is why you brought me home?”
Ty and Seth exchanged a glance. “Yes.”
“You’re not kicking me off my ranch?”
Seth laughed. “No. My God, if King Alfredo dies, Lucy and I are literally responsible for a country until our son Owen is old enough to take over. We don’t want any more land, thank you very much!”
“And I have my hands full. So full,” Ty said, “that I could use some help.”
Cooper stared at him. “Just like that?”
“Just like what?” Ty asked.
“You would take me into your company, give me an upper echelon job, without even knowing me.”
“We know you,” Ty said. “You’re one of us. You’re family. We all had things to work out, but that’s over now. From today we accept each other as we are and work as a team.”
And that was that. Ty told Cooper he had as long as he wanted to make up his mind about working for Bryant Development. A job would always await him. But if he wanted to join the company sooner that would be great since Ty wanted to take an extended honeymoon with Madelyn the following summer. Seth said his wife and his son had come with him when he’d driven over, and they were in the kitchen waiting to meet Cooper. And Ty said that Cooper really hadn’t been properly introduced to Madelyn.
The next thing Cooper knew he was in the kitchen. Madelyn’s parents had arrived with a baked ham and plates filled with Christmas cookies. He met Prince Owen, Seth’s baby son and future king of Xavier Island, and stunning Princess Lucy, and understood why Seth had married her before he’d really thought about the whole purple tights issue. He met Madelyn’s two brothers and sister, and so many neighbors arrived that the kitchen rapidly filled with people and the party spilled over into the family room.
For the first time in eight years Cooper was in a house with a Christmas tree. A ham. Cookies. Eggnog. For the first time in eight years he heard carols sung, by family, simply for the joy of it, and he leaned against the doorframe between the family room and kitchen, taking it all in.
He now had everything Zoe wanted.
Chapter Eleven
Cooper stood on the porch of Zoe’s small house, not quite sure what he was doing in freezing cold Pennsylvania again. He knocked on the door then blew on his hands before he stuffed them into his pockets.
Zoe opened the door, holding Daphne, who was dressed in red reindeer pajamas. Zoe’s glorious blond hair was rumpled. Her jeans were threadbare. Her sweatshirt appeared to have seen more washings than all of Cooper’s clothes put together.
She looked wonderful.
“I hope you’ve come for your check, because I didn’t cash it.”
“Actually, I didn’t.” He paused and glanced at the toe of his boot. He knew he was using her and he knew that wasn’t right, but he had nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to. “Zoe, I need somebody to talk to.”
He raised his head and caught her gaze in time to see her eyes soften with compassion. “What happened?”
“My brothers put a provision in their letter that if I couldn’t pay off my mortgage I had to meet face-to-face with them. I thought it was a good idea since I intended to get my partner’s equity, but—”
Zoe grabbed his arm and yanked him inside. “Don’t stand there on the porch freezing, Arkansas boy. Come in.”
He grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Don’t mind the mess,” she said, kicking Christmas wrapping paper out of the way and Cooper suddenly realized he’d interrupted their celebration.
“I’m sorry,” he said, backing away. “I should have thought a little bit about what day it is.”
She batted her hand in dismissal. “My celebration is over. My mother called. My dad and his new wife sent a plant.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even know he was getting married. Hell, I didn’t even know he was dating someone. Anyway, Daphne has opened her gifts. For me Christmas is over.”
Cooper’s heart squeezed with pain. The night before he’d been welcomed with open arms into his family. He’d had an elaborate dinner. He’d eaten homemade cookies, met relatives, been invited to parties. A private plane had brought him to Pennsylvania. “I met a prince.”
She turned and smiled. “What?”
“A prince. My younger brother is married to a princess.”
Zoe’s face lit with happy confusion. “A princess?”
“Her father is the king of an island country.”
“Wow!”
“Zoe, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Little Owen may someday be a king, but Ty’s already the head of an empire. When I left, the development company was booming but my two brothers have turned it into something that I never envisioned.”
“Well, you knew they were rich to be able to buy your mortgage.”
“Actually, the king bought that for Seth as a wedding gift.”
Zoe grinned, sliding Daphne into a high chair. “What a hoot.”
Cooper shook his head. “Ty is marrying a woman who is the public relations director for his company. Her parents and half the neighbors are fixtures in my brother’s home.”
Zoe sat at the table. She braced her elbows on the place mat in front of her and her chin on her fists and smiled at him. Nobody had ever looked so good to her, or so sad. He had absolutely no idea of what he wanted out of life, because he’d never been allowed to keep anything. His parents had been killed. His brothers had more or less kicked him out of their lives.
“Lots of family.”
He nodded. “Lots of family.”
“Does that scare you?”
He shrugged. “I was treated as if I had never gone away.”
“As if it never happened?”
“No,” Cooper quickly said. “Ty and Seth both apologized.” He smiled ruefully. “Then they handed me my mortgage, told me to burn it if I want.” He shook his head. “I was the one who made the trouble and they apologized to me.”
“And…”
“And I wanted to tell them I was at fault, too, but I couldn’t. I didn’t get time. Before I knew it, we left the den and they introduced me to the rest of the family and suddenly I had a beer in my hand and people were opening gifts and shoving cookies at me.” He paused, swallowed. “I never realized how lonely I was.”
“Ah.”
“Or how empty my life was.”
; “You filled your time with work. Running a ranch and driving truck.” She smiled. “Two jobs. Not much free time.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Cooper, you just need a few months to adjust.”
He looked at her hopefully. “Really? You think that’s it?”
Unfortunately, she did. She had wanted to believe in her heart of hearts that Cooper was here because he finally realized he had fallen in love with her the way she had with him, but there were so many other things going on in his life that she knew he hadn’t. When they’d met he was preoccupied with the fear that if he didn’t get his money to Arkansas he would lose the one thing he had worked his whole life for: his ranch. Instead his brothers had handed him his mortgage. Welcomed him with open arms. Given him a family.
Now, he really had no reason to want her in his life. She was as good as out. Her throat tightened from wanting to cry, but she wouldn’t. She refused.
“And they offered me a job.”
“Really?”
“I think I could do anything I want at Bryant Development since I own one-third of the company. They’ve been putting away my share of the profits ever since I left.”
And he’s rich, too. Great. Now he was really out of her league.
“That’s wonderful.” She paused, then said, “So why are you here?”
“I’m here because I realized last night that I now have everything you wanted.”
“And you feel sorry for me?”
“No! Hell no!” The truth was he had no idea what he felt for her. But whatever it was, it had made his chest ache the night before. When he thought of her, he got hot and cold. He hated that she suffered. He believed she belonged on a pedestal. He knew she could fit in with his family. He believed his family should be hers.
He would give her the moon if he could, and though he knew that financially he could buy her just about anything, personally he had nothing to offer.
