Page 17 of This Time Around
Her husband didn’t need to be on standby.He always drove us home when we went out.
“See you soon, Brooke.”
“Can’t wait to see you.”I was smiling at the sweetness in her tone but dropped it when I looked back at Cooper.
“Everything okay?”
“You going out tonight?”
We spoke at the same time and he grinned at me, flipping out one of his hands.“You first.”
“That was Brooke, a relentless, pestering friend I have who’s insisting I meet her out.”
“Ah.I see.So why do you look like you’re going to puke?”
He wasn’t altogether wrong.I ignored that he essentially said I looked like crap.I most likely did after an afternoon spent doing paperwork.It was my nemesis, but I had to get better at staying on top of it.
My fingers drummed on my desktop.“Being in town isn’t easy for me.Everyone knows—”
“About Joseph,” he tried to helpfully supply.
It wasn’t.There was something I didn’t like about my husband’s name coming from Cooper’s lips.I flinched whenever he said Joseph’s name.
Cooper and I rarely talked about either of our spouses and on the rare times we did, my throat tightened when I talked about Joseph.Yet it still felt easier to talk about Joseph to Cooper than to other people.Perhaps because he didn’t know him and didn’t have his own memories or respect for a man I still didn’t know if I still loved or despised.At the very least, I figured it was because we could understand each other’s pain in ways others couldn’t imagine.
And some nights, as I sat by the fire or got ready for bed, I didn’t feel the same cursing grief after I’d talked about my husband.He was there with me, always, but occasionally, I went to bed with a peace surrounding me instead of soul-sucking despair.
I wasn’t sure if I liked the peace and why I had it or hated it.
“And there’s you,” I said.
“Me?”Brows slowly arched and his spine straightened.
“I told Brooke I had someone here helping me at Max’s insistence.I didn’t say who, but it’s just…I can’t lie to her, either.”
He shoved his hat onto his head and adjusted the bill.“I hadn’t realized the position I’d put you in being here, I guess.I’m sorry.”
“It’s not that.Iwouldlie to Brooke if I could.But I literally can’t.She’s a human lie detector.At the least, she’s a Rebecca-style lie detector.”
Cooper grinned.Not for the first time I noticed how tan he was becoming.The pop of his white teeth shone more richly against his olive skin.Nor was it the first time his smile warmed me to the tips of my toes.
I pushed past the unwanted sensation.
“I have to go though.People gossip more when I hide away too long.”It’d been months since I’d been to town for anything more than grocery errands, and I’d even taken to having the animals’ feed and mineral blocks delivered so I didn’t have to set foot into the feed store.
Ranchers talked.A lot.
He lifted his KU hat, swiped his forehead and resettled it.Pushing off the doorway, he walked toward my desk—toward me with a gleam in his eyes I hadn’t yet seen.
“There’s only one solution then.”
“What?”
“I go with you.”
That couldn’t happen.Eighty percent of the people in town or at The Tavern on Main wouldn’t recognize him.That still left too high of a risk someone would.And at least sixty percent would care I was with a man, regardless of who he was.
“You can’t.”My ponytail whipped my neck as I shook my head.“What if—”
