Page 110 of This Time Around
Thirty-Four
Rebecca
I threw the wet towels from the washer into the dryer and bumped the door closed with my hip.After I started it, I grabbed the basket overflowing with clothes—both mine and Cooper’s—and slammed it onto the kitchen table.
To say I was in a rotten, rotten mood was putting it much too lightly.
All because of a damn white envelope delivered here via FedEx an hour ago, shortly after Cooper took off to go to the feed and grocery stores while I stayed back and took care of some chores around the house.
Rain splattered the windows, the drizzly gray sky a perfect fit for my current mood.The envelope mocked me from its place at the counter.His name, stamped with my address and the return address, Max’s office.
It could be anything.
But in a month, Cooper was leaving and heading back to start filming a new movie.My money was on that envelope being a script he needed to read.
My very vivid reminder he was leaving me.
And I’d fallen in love with him.
I just hadn’t been brave enough to tell him, but with the envelope on the counter, practically mocking me while I flipped and folded laundry, I couldn’t decide if it was smart of me to keep that to myself or incredibly stupid.
In the last month, ever since Cooper dropped the “I love you” bombshell at my feet before the parade, he’d situated himself into every aspect of my life.Two weeks ago, I’d gone so far as to grab all of his clothes from the guesthouse.He barely wore them because he already had a decent stack of clothes in my closet, but I grabbed the rest of them and hung them up.
Hell, I was folding our laundry together.And neither of us had ever brought up the possibility of him returning to the guesthouse.I didn’t want him sleeping anywhere but next to me and he seemed to want the same.
Slowly, his clutter, his random shirt or sock or a kicked off shoe made its way around the house and several times I’d caught myself sayingourhouse orourroom instead of it being all mine.
Four months ago, if anyone had told me I could love again, that I could open my heart up to even the possibility of trusting someone enough to love them again, I would have laughed in their face.
Yet that’s exactly where I was now.Folding another man’s laundry, sleeping next to him at night, smiling as I thought of our similarities both big and small.
Cooper swept into my life and he didn’t shake it upside down or stir it into a mess.He smoothed out the rough edges, he stitched together the tears and then he stitched himself right in-between everything, making it impossible to ever push him out.
I was moving on.And I was doing it with a man who gave me patience and moved at my pace and trusted me, and more than that, he never once hesitated to tell me he loved me.
Our tasks on the ranch had somehow found an easy rhythm.I did the paperwork and focused on the goats we still needed to sell.Our calves were growing and every morning and evening, together, we drove around the land, making sure they were all moving.We spent weekends together repairing fences and hauling hay to the cattle feeding rings, Cooper now able to maneuver the awkward tractor by himself.I’d jump out of it, cut the twine and he’d move the bale.
It took us hours, and we had nothing else to do but sing along to music through the tractor’s speakers connected to the Bluetooth on my phone, and spend it together.
We went out for dinners in town, and once we’d driven the hour into Kansas City where he’d forced me into one of my few, little black dresses and heels.I threw on jewelry and did my hair up, almost wishing Cooper’s sister lived closer so she could have done my hair in some fancy updo.
He took me to 801 Chop House, an incredible steakhouse with prices that made my heart race, but he brushed away my concerns with his easy, typical smile and a wave of his hand.The food had been worth every single moment of my panic.Then he whisked me away to a horse-drawn carriage ride, where we rode through the Plaza and afterward, wandered through the stores.
He’d planned the most romantic evening for us, and it wasn’t until the end of the night, after we’d made love slowly, but no less passionately than any other night (or morning, or afternoon—Cooper was ambitious in his pursuit of me) when he’d whispered in my ear that he loved me, holding me in his arms as we drifted off to sleep, where I’d seen that first true glimmer of disappointment in his eyes when I didn’t return it.
But damn it.I wanted to.I did love him, but what sense did it make to tell him only to have him leave in a month?
The last four weeks had been perfect.They were everything I dreamed of.We learned and worked together and somehow we seamlessly fit together like he was the one who had been born with the love of the land in his blood.
It scared me and thrilled me…because what if?
What if there was a possibility we could stay together?Where he could shoot his movies and return to me in between them?
A flash of my gray Chevy truck caught my attention and I worked quicker, trying to finish the laundry before he came inside.I flipped the last pair of Cooper’s folded socks into the basket right as the back door opened.
“It’s going to be a nasty day,” Cooper said.The thud of his boots hitting the rug was quickly followed by his footsteps padding toward me.His arms wrapped around my stomach and his lips pressed to that sweet spot on my neck.
I wiggled in his arms.“You’re all wet.”
