by Caroline Lee
His pale blue eyes—bright against his deeply tanned skin—were full of concern as he watched her tear apart her breadstick.
“I’m not nervous about you, Jackie,” he finally confessed. “I like you…a lot. I’m nervous I’m going to do something to screw up.”
She shrugged, dismissing his worry. “I haven’t gone on a date since Kalli was born, Cooper. I’d told myself I wasn’t going to date again, ever. But…I like the time I spend with you. I don’t think you can screw that up.”
His expression had changed—almost close to wonder—at her confession about this being her first date in almost a year, and he grinned.
“So…this is kinda like your first date, huh? Your first date as a mom?”
Was it? That made it sound like she was…starting over or something. Which, Jackie supposed she was. She’d become a new person when she’d run west with Kalli. Not just her identity, but herself. She was a new person, and this was her first date.
She smiled at the realization. “Yeah, I guess.” She met his eyes. “This is my first date as Jackie Novak, mom.”
His hand covered hers on the table. “I’m glad you chose me, Jackie.”
The warmth which spread up her arm from his touch had nothing to do with the food or the restaurant, or even her past experience with men…and had everything to do with Cooper. She’d never had a man make her feel the way Cooper did.
“I don’t think I had a choice,” she managed to say past the thickness in her throat, staring at their linked hands on the table. “Something else chose us.”
“I feel it too,” he whispered.
And the way he was looking at her—like she was something special—made Jackie’s heart drop into her stomach and walls slam shut around it.
No!
No, she wasn’t something special. She was just a girl from the south side of Chicago who’d done some horrible things in her past, and was now trying to run away.
She couldn’t afford to have a man look at her the way Cooper Weston was looking at her now. She didn’t deserve it.
She had to find a way to stop it. “Tell me about yourself,” she blurted out, and used the distraction to pull her hand away from his, to fiddle with her napkin on her lap.
He cocked his head to the side and eyed her strangely. “Like what? We’ve chatted before.”
A lot, actually. She’d enjoyed getting to know him over the last few months, but surely there was something he hadn’t covered. She cast about frantically, trying to think of a topic they hadn’t covered, something to distract him from questioning her about her past.
“How’s your mom doing?” Jackie knew his mother was sick, but hadn’t heard any updates lately.
Cooper sat back in his chair when Lucy brought their food, but as he began cutting his chicken parmesan, he answered. “Not fantastic. The cancer has moved into her brain, the doctors think. She’s been fighting real hard for a few years now, and she’ll keep fighting.” He shrugged as he stabbed a piece with his fork. “It’s hard on Dad, but they’re both tough.”
Gah! Could she have chosen a worse topic? “I’m sorry,” she said, choked up. “That’s hard.”
He shrugged again, not dismissively, but in a it is what it is way. “Thanks. Marybeth and I get out there as much as possible, since we’re close. Kenneth’s business in Boise keeps him pretty busy, but he comes up once a month or so too.”
Grateful for another topic, Jackie latched on to that. “He’s your twin brother, right?” She twisted some of her shrimp alfredo around her fork.
“Yep.” Cooper finished chewing, then swallowed. “Twins are pretty common in our family—you’ve met my cousin Kelsi, yeah? Everyone has. Her and my cousin Dani don’t look like twins, but there’s usually at least one set in every generation. She’s already got twin daughters—cute as buttons, in the toddlers’ class at the Korral.”
Jackie nodded and finished her bite of shrimp. “I’ve met them—Willow and…um…”
“Victoria—Tori,” Cooper supplied. “There’s more twins here at the ranch than you can shake a stick at. But!” He smiled proudly. “They’re all girls— Have you noticed that? My family in particular hasn’t had a set of male twins in generations—me and Kenneth are the first.”
“Is he as handsome as you?”
When he raised a brow at her blatant question, she realized what she’d said, and felt herself blush. Gah!
She hurried to correct the impression. “I just meant, are you identical?”
Cooper was grinning knowingly when he nodded. “Nothing at all alike in personality, thank God. He’s stuffy and always feels like he has to take care of everything. I’m the fun one.”
He said it with a wink, and Jackie felt herself blushing harder. She focused on her noodles. “So just the three of you?”
He grunted, but she didn’t look up to see what had caused it. Finally, he reached for his water.
“We have a little brother, Tripp. No one’s heard from him in years. He packed up and moved away one day, and just…stopped contacting us. We don’t even know if he knows about Mom.”
“I’m—Wow.” She looked up and found he was focused intently on his food. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, thinking how much Tripp’s story sounded like hers. The difference was that no one was missing her, looking for her.
At least, I hope to God not.
He swallowed, then smiled brightly—too brightly to not be hiding some pain—and asked her, “How about you? Any brothers or sisters?”
“Um…no.” She took a deep breath, as she realized this might be the opening she needed to convince him she wasn’t worth whatever this feeling was between them. “My mom dumped me with her grandma when I was born because her own mother was in jail. Grammy raised me, but she was old, you know? I took care of her a lot, and she died when I was sixteen.”
His eyes had gone wide. At the news her mother had been a druggie and her grandmother had been in jail?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “What happened then?”
She shrugged. “I drifted. I knew people, friends of my mom’s. I called in a few favors. I did a few favors.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask what kind of favors.
Apparently, he didn’t need to. “You were just a kid,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“I grew up fast. It was a long time ago.” She’d spent almost ten years living like that—floating around, not really having any place of her own—before she’d met Ivan. That’s when her life had really taken a bad turn. “Then I met a guy.” She shrugged and focused on her noodles. “When you live like that, anyone noticing you and thinking you’re special—or at least pretending to—is enough to turn your head. I wanted to be special, you know?”
He made an incoherent noise, but she didn’t look up to see his expression. Was he revolted? Pitying?
She focused on twirling as many noodles as possible on her fork, then scraping them off and trying again. She didn’t want to see his expression as she ruined whatever opinion he might’ve had about her.
It was for the best.
She took a deep breath. “I did a lot of stuff for him I shouldn’t have. I didn’t care though, because I was doing it for someone who loved me, finally.” She shrugged again. The things she’d had to do had been minor compared to what Ivan had been doing for the Brotherhood. She’d known about them, which is why she’d called the cops before she’d left town, telling them where they could find Ivan’s latest operation and who was funding it.
“Did you love him?” Cooper asked quietly.
“Ivan? No.” She shook her head, her attention still on her noodles. “I figured out real quick that he didn’t love me either. If he had, he wouldn’t have—”
Hit me. Slapped me. Broken my arm that one time. Thrown me up against the wall. Let his buddies “borrow” me.
Sometimes the memories—the shame of her old life—threatened to overwhelm her. But Cooper startled her when he reached across the table and touched her hand, the
one still aimlessly spinning pasta. She jerked away from him instinctively, away from the warmth he offered her, but looked up to meet his eyes.
The look in his eyes wasn’t pity. It wasn’t revulsion. It was…sadness? Maybe a hint of anger?
“Did he hurt you?” Cooper asked quietly, intently.
She snorted slightly, then exhaled. “Yeah. A lot. But I stuck around because I was naive, and I didn’t have any place else, and he…”
“He made you feel special,” Cooper finished the thought.
She nodded, then glanced back at her food. “Then I got pregnant. Ivan was livid because it didn’t fit his plans. But I was done caring about his plans, because I started living for Kalli. I got clean— You know what that means?”
She glanced up at Cooper, and when he nodded solemnly, she decided she didn’t need to give any more details. “It was the hardest thing I ever did, walking away from that lifestyle. And then, with some help from a priest, I walked away even farther—well, I took a train—all the way out here.”
“Where you started over.”
It hadn’t been a question, but she answered it. “Yeah. Yeah. I started over, I got a new name, I got a new life, and I did it for Kalli.”
And instead of asking her what her name had been, or asking more about what her life had been, Cooper Weston said the most perfect thing she could ever have imagined.
He took her hand again—fork and all—and looked into her eyes. The sincerity in those pale blue orbs was almost spine-tingling.
“She was worth it.”
That was it.
She was worth it.
In that one sentence, Cooper Weston proved he not only understood her choices, but he admired them too.
He proved that she was right about him…he was a danger.
Because she could feel herself falling in love with him, and that couldn’t happen.
Not for the sake of the future she already had planned out.
“So how’s work going?” she asked brightly, with a smile, hoping against hope he’d pick up on the hint she wanted to change the subject.
And bless him, he did. Cooper nodded, took a big gulp from his drink, cleared his throat, and launched into a discussion about the ranch’s latest building project. Jackie prepared to force herself to look interested, but it wasn’t necessary. His passion for his work was endearing, and it was pretty cool that he was building auxiliary sets for a TV show.
“When does that start?” was all she had to ask to set him off on an explanation of the show’s timeline, and she was soon smiling.
Towards the end of their meal, Cooper said, “I think they’re putting the show on hold for the Fourth of July celebrations. I’m really looking forward to that.”
“Will there be fireworks?” Jackie wondered if Kalli would like the pretty lights enough to put up with the loud noises.
He grinned that charming grin of his. “Not only that, but I get to set them up!”
“You do? Do you, uh…” She waved her fork around. “Have experience?”
“Blowing stuff up? You betcha!”
He looked so much like an excited little kid, she had to chuckle. “I meant with fireworks.”
“Yeah.” He smirked a little. “I’m that guy in the family, the one everyone goes to when they need something exploded or some fireworks set off.”
“And is that common? In your family, I mean? Needing ‘something exploded’?”
He winked. “More than you’d guess. I don’t ask questions, just start explodin’.”
She broke into laughter at his earnest expression.
“Not only that” —he waggled his eyebrows— “but I’ve also got a set of ear protection for Kalli, so she can watch the show.”
“Ear protection?”
“Yeah, like the heavy ear muffs we wear when we’re blowing stuff up. But they’re a ladies’ size small—smallest I could find. They’re still going to be huge on her, but we can make ‘em fit.”
Jackie stared, her fork and food forgotten. He’d done that? He’d considered her daughter’s possible reactions to the fireworks and had anticipated her fear? And he’d gone out of his way to fix it?
How could she not love a man like that?
No.
She cleared her throat. “Well then, I guess we’ll both be there to enjoy the fireworks.”
“Awesome,” he said quietly. “Awesome.”
And for the rest of the meal, the rest of the date, she managed to refrain from falling in love with him any further.
It was…difficult.
CHAPTER FIVE
Coop parked in the lot, then he and Jackie walked together towards Old Town and the Kids’ Korral. The second time their hands accidentally brushed against one another, Coop took that as a sign, and cautiously twined his fingers through hers.
Jackie kept her attention straight ahead, but she didn’t pull away. In fact, she tightened her hold on his hand, and they were soon walking in tandem, chatting about nothing much at all.
It had been the best date of Coop’s life.
Not only had it been with Jackie Novak, the woman he’d been itching to get to know for months, but it had worked. He’d gotten to know her, and it had been incredible. She was smart and tenacious and determined, and when she’d shared all that she had about her past…well, Coop’s admiration of her had gone up tenfold.
He figured she’d been trying to scare him away, telling him all about her past the way she had. But if anything, it made him admire her even more.
She’d come out of one of the worst situations he could imagine; orphaned, desperate, addicted, abused, alone. And through her own strength, her own willpower, she’d turned her life completely around. She’d done it for the best of reasons—sweet little Kalli. How could he not admire her for that? She’d seen what was important in life, and had decided to work towards that goal.
And now she was here in Riston, with him.
Coop considered himself blessed to be able to know her, and he found himself practically vibrating with the need to see her again soon.
But she was still here and still laughing about their drive home from the restaurant. “I can’t believe you managed not to hit a single one of those groundhogs! They were everywhere.”
Coop sighed dejectedly as they climbed up the steps to the boardwalk through Old West Town. “I know. I think they were mocking me.”
“You were swerving and juking and braking like a pro.”
“And I still managed to miss every single one of them.” He sighed again.
She glanced at him with a raised brow. “Which was the point, right?”
“Heck no!” His scowl was as fierce as it was fake. “I keep a personal tally of how many of those suckers I manage to plow down!”
She pulled him to a stop, her expression half-horrified, half-suspicious. “You’re not serious.”
“Very serious.” He nodded seriously, just to prove it. “One of ‘em killed my cousin Clem. Me an’ my family have a vendetta against them.”
“You don’t have a cousin named Clem, at least not on the Weston side.”
“Not anymore,” he answered solemnly, then swiped at his eyes, as if he were still pained over his “cousin’s” death by rodent.
She narrowed her eyes. “Wait a minute, you and your family have a vendetta against woodchucks?”
He nodded seriously again, loving teasing her like this. “Clem was taken out by one of those big shaggy ones. With the dark brown fur that’s all matted.” He lifted his free hand to his head and pointed his index finger out from his temple. “And horns. Big ones. Plowed him right over. Definitely vendetta material.”
She burst into laughter. “I think you’re thinking about a buffalo.”
Hoooweee, but he loved listening to her laugh. He vowed to make her do it as often as possible.
Pretending to think about it, he hummed. “Buffalo, huh? You might be right. I guess they’ll be harder to run over with my pickup, though.�
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“Definitely.” She was still smiling. “But now you can leave those harmless groundhogs alone.”
Coop, who’d never purposefully hurt an animal in his life, placed his hand over his heart. “On my honor, I swear to switch the recipient of my vendetta to buffalo.”
She laughed again, a throaty chuckle this time. “I don’t think your cousin Clem would have wanted that. If there even was such a person.”
“Well, you say ‘person’, but Clem was really more of a… Well, let’s put it this way, he spent a lot of time out in the corral.”
“Clem was a horse,” she stated blandly.
“No! No, not a horse, not at all.” He pretended to think. “No, he was…well, I guess he was kinda like a horse, now that you mention it.”
“A cow? A donkey?”
Coop snapped his fingers and pointed. “Donkey. That was it.”
“I don’t believe you!” She was chuckling again.
He joined in. “Thank goodness, because I don’t either.”
With her head thrown back in laughter like that, her neck looked entirely too kissable in the sunset. Coop resisted the urge and grabbed her other hand instead. They were standing in front of the Kids’ Korral now, and since it was a Friday night, there were plenty of tourists strolling up and down the street. But he didn’t care.
“Will you go on another date with me, Jackie?”
Her laughter immediately stopped, and she eyed him suspiciously. He hated the way she seemed to close in on herself, her expression becoming hesitant. He tightened his hold on her hands and prayed she wouldn’t run away.
“When?” she asked.
His heart leaped for joy, because she hadn’t outright rejected him. “Are you free on Sunday? I don’t know what hours you work.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s my day off, along with Tuesdays.”
Things were looking good. Coop found himself holding his breath when he asked, “Would you like to come to church with me? We could do a picnic after with Kalli, if you don’t mind me being involved with her.”
