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“You’re right. I shouldn’t have taken off, but honestly?” Cooper shook his head and his crooked smile further lessened her anger’s hold. “I was scared.”
He removed his battered straw cowboy hat and crossed the room to hang it on the rack by the door. Even with his military haircut, he sported a wicked case of hat head and damn if it didn’t look good.
“Those kids of yours asked tough questions. I don’t even know the answers for myself.”
“I get that, but they’re kids,” Millie replied. “They weren’t even born when your mom died and they took your disappearing act personally.”
“You know damn well I didn’t just disappear.” His gaze met hers and locked.
The intensity in his eyes startled her to the point that she had to look away. Her pulse raced and she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, so she fussed with her robe’s belt, feeling all of thirteen when she realized that Cooper was still the most handsome cowboy in town.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
After college (Go, Hogs!), bestselling, award-winning author LAURA MARIE ALTOM did a brief stint as an interior designer before becoming a stay-at-home mom to boy-girl twins and a bonus son. Always an avid romance reader, she knew it was time to try her hand at writing when she found herself replotting the afternoon soaps.
When not immersed in her next story, Laura teaches art at a local middle school. In her free time, she beats her kids at video games, tackles Mount Laundry and, of course, reads romance!
Laura loves hearing from readers at either PO Box 2074, Tulsa, OK 74101, USA, or by e-mail, balipalm@aol.com.
This story is dedicated to Dr Keith L. Stanley and Dr Brent C. Nossaman, as well as the nurses and staff of Tulsa Bone & Joint.
Thank you for giving me back my hand!
Contents
Cover
Introduction
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Extract
Copyright
Chapter One
“Hey there, cowboy.”
From his stool at Tipsea’s crowded bar, Navy SEAL Cooper Hansen cast a sideways glance at the stacked brunette who’d slipped her arm around his shoulders.
“Buy a lady a drink?”
“Be happy to...” After tipping the brim of his raggedy straw Stetson, he nodded to the bartender. “Only I’m gonna need you to finish it over there.”
When he pointed to the opposite side of the most popular squid hangout in town—her expression morphed from confusion to anger. “I should’ve known better than to chase after a no-good cowboy in a SEAL bar. Obviously, you don’t have a clue what it’s like to be a real man.”
“Guess not.” Rather than watch her go, he swigged his longneck brew, intent on enjoying his few remaining hours of freedom for what he feared could be a good, long while.
His pal and team member, Grady Matthews, took the stool alongside him. Everyone called him Sheikh due to the fact that on any given night of the week, he was surrounded by his own personal harem of beauties. “You do know the object of hitting a bar is to go home with the pretty girl, not to run her off, right?”
After taking another deep pull, Cooper snorted. “Thanks for the advice, but given my current dark-ass mood, the only place any sane woman would want me is far away.”
“There you are, Cowboy!” Another longtime friend and team member, Heath Stone, wandered up. “Everyone’s looking for you. The whole point of this gathering was to give you a night so good, you don’t forget to hurry back.”
“I appreciate it, man—” Cooper patted his friend’s shoulder “—but knowing what’s ahead of me, any hellhole on the planet looks better than where I’m headed.”
“Which is where? Sorry, I only paid attention to the guys’-night portion of the email.” He gave him a wink and an elbow nudge. “Not that I’m complaining, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve been out of the house. Libby keeps me on a tight leash.”
“And if you don’t kiss me, I’ll give that leash a good, hard tug.” Heath’s wife, Libby, snuck up behind him to nuzzle his neck. Cooper was no expert on the whole love thing, but if he was a betting man, he’d say his friend was a goner.
While the two indulged in giggling and good, old-fashioned necking, Cooper discreetly looked away. The bar was dim and Pearl Jam loud. Tipsea’s was a legend in Norfolk, and since another team member’s wife purchased it, SEALs always drank free—a perk Cooper would very much miss. The grunge rock? Not so much. He was more of an old-school Hank Williams kind of guy.
His pals meant well by hosting this shindig, but the God’s honest truth was that he’d just as soon get on with things. No amount of beer or pretty women would sugarcoat the fact that what he had waiting for him back home in Brewer’s Falls, Colorado, was good, old-fashioned hell.
* * *
“HOW’S CLINT DOING?” Millie Hansen looked up from the stack of bills she’d been arranging in order of importance. The electric company’s blaze-orange shut-off notice took precedence over the two late-payment credit card notices.
“Finally asleep.” As she was near to sleepwalking herself, Millie’s heart went out to her sister-in-law, Peg.
“I can’t thank you enough for your help. Since Jim died...” She removed her reading glasses, blotting her eyes with her sweater sleeve—who could afford genuine tissues?
“He’s my dad. Where else would I be?” She arched her head back and closed her eyes.
At 10:00 p.m. on a blustery January Monday, the old Queen Anne home shuddered from the force of the Colorado plain’s wind. The desk’s banker’s lamp provided the office’s only light. Both kids were blessedly in their rooms—Millie didn’t fool herself by believing the older one was actually sleeping. Eleven-year-old LeeAnn was probably reading with the aid of a flashlight beneath her covers. J.J.—age seven—had crashed before Millie finished tucking him in.
She set her reading glasses atop her open, ledger-style checkbook. “Hate to bring up a sore subject, but did you ever hear from Cooper?”
Peg sighed. “Left a half-dozen messages. Does hearing his gruff voice mail recording count as contact?”
“What’re we going to do?” During the long days spent cooking and doing the dozens of other daily chores it took to keep the ranch running, Millie didn’t have time to worry, much less spare a thought for her absentee brother-in-law, Cooper. But at night, fears crept in, slithering into every vulnerable part of her soul, reminding her just how bad the past few years had been and how much worse her future could get. If they lost the ranch that’d been in the Hansen family for over a hundred years, she didn’t know what they’d do—where they’d even go.
“I ask myself that question every night when I’m up pacing, because worry won’t let me sleep.”
“Will we make it to spring?”
Shrugging, Peg leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “You know I’d stay if I could, but my savings is dwindling, and I still have a mortgage back in Denver. The hospital won’t give me more leave. Come Monday, I’m expected back.”
Millie swallowed the knot in her throat and nodded. “I understand.”
“Dad’s stable enough that I’ve arranged for a series of nurses and therapists to keep up with his rehabilitation here at home. His speech therapist said Dad’s making all the right sounds, so with work, in between official therapy sessions, you and I should be able to help him make the right connections. Hopefully, a few neighbors will step in to help with his general care during the day.”
And at night? Caring for a stroke victim was an around-the-clock job. Getting the Black Angus herd that would be their salvation come spring through what was feeling like a never-ending winter wasn’t exactly your average nine-to-fiver. Then there were her kids, whom Millie already spent precious little time with. The weight of her responsibilities bore down on her shoulders, making them ache. “Lynette mentioned she’d be willing to come over anytime we need her. I’ll give her a call.” Lynette was Millie’s best friend since kindergarten. She’d been a godsend after Jim died.
“Good. Maybe Wilma could help out some, too? I’ll drive up every weekend.” Wilma was a widowed neighbor who used to be in a quilting circle with the woman who would’ve been Millie’s mother-in-law—that is, if Kay Hansen had lived long enough to see her youngest son marry. Her death was never spoken of. Her passing had launched the beginning of the Hansen family’s unraveling.
* * *
EXHAUSTION FROM THE twenty-seven-hour drive did nothing to ease the acid churning in Cooper’s stomach. The cold, cloudy morning cast a gray pall over his already dreary hometown.
In the twelve years since he’d been gone, nothing about Brewer’s Falls had changed. Same bedraggled downtown with the century-old brick bank that also served as the post office and drugstore. Besides the feed store, Elmer’s Grocery, the diner, bar and community center, no other businesses lined the only road. The few kids were bused the two-hour round trip to attend school in Wilmington.
The half-block stretch of sidewalks was weed-choked and cracked, and the few trees were bare. Hanging baskets filled with the brown ghosts of summer’s bounty swung from the diner’s porch.
In all of a minute’s time, he’d left town to turn onto the dirt road leading to his family’s ranch. He’d forgotten the plain’s stark beauty, and yet he’d joined the Navy with the express purpose of finding that same beauty at sea.
The ugly-ass town with its homely jumble of buildings had no redeeming qualities other than, he supposed, the good people who lived there. A few old-timers. His little brother’s widow and her kids—the nephew and niece that due to his father’s hatred, Cooper had never even met.
If anything, the lonely town served as a blight upon the otherwise beautiful land. Hell, Brewer’s Falls didn’t even have a waterfall. The town’s founder—Hawthorne Brewer—thought the idyllic name might draw in folks wanting a quieter way of life.
The road was in even worse shape than he remembered, which served his purpose well, considering the rock-strewn surface forced him to slow his pace.
The school bus passed.
Were his niece and nephew on board?
For a moment, the passing vehicle’s dust cloud impeded his view, but when the dust settled, the life he’d spent years trying to forget came roaring into view.
At first, the two-story home, outbuildings and the cottonwoods his grandparents had planted were a distant speck. As they grew, so did his dread.
You’re not my son, but a murderer....
Bile rose in his throat while his palms sweat and his pulse uncomfortably raced.
The Black Angus cattle that, for as long as Cooper could remember had been the ranch’s lifeblood, huddled near the south pasture feeding station. The livestock’s breath fogged in the cold morning air. How many mornings just like this had he ridden out at dawn to check on them?
It seemed inconceivable that he’d once felt more at ease on the back of his horse than he now did at a depth of a hundred feet.
The closer the house loomed, the more evident it became that the ranch and its occupants had fallen on hard times. His big sister, Peg—an ICU nurse who’d long since moved to Denver—was the only family he talked to. She’d told him that after his brother’s death, his father had for all practical purposes shut down. Cooper had offered to return then, but Peg reported having broached the topic with their dad only to find him not just unreceptive, but downright hostile.
And so Cooper had continued his exile.
He pulled onto the house’s dirt drive, holding his breath when passing the spot where basically, his life had ended. Sure, he’d worked hard and made a new family with his SEAL team, but it was his old one he mourned.
The one he’d literally and figuratively killed.
He put his truck in park, letting it idle for a minute before cutting the engine. He braced his forearms against the wheel, resting his chin atop them, staring at the house that in his mind’s eye had once been the most wondrous place on earth. Now the front porch gutter sagged and over a decade’s worth of summer sun had faded his mother’s favorite shade of yellow paint to dirty white. Weeds choked her flower garden, and the branch holding his childhood tire swing had broken.
A dozen memories knotted his throat—cruel reminders that this was no longer his home. Per his sister’s repeated requests, he’d help until his dad got back on his feet, but after that, Cooper would retreat to the haven the Navy had become.
Forcing a deep breath, he knew he could no longer put off the inevitable. From the sounds of it, his dad was in such bad shape, he wouldn’t even realize his son had stepped foot in the house. By the time he did, Cooper would’ve worked up his courage enough to face him.
Out of his ride, he grabbed his ditty bag from the truck bed, slinging it over his shoulder.
Feet leaden, heart heavier still, he crossed the mostly dirt yard to mount steps he’d last tread upon when he’d essentially been a boy. The Navy had honed him into a man, but confronting his past eroded his training like ocean waves ripping apart a fragile shore.
It all came rushing back.
That god-awful night when he’d done the unthinkable. His sister’s screams. His brother’s and father’s stoic stares. The funeral. The guilt that clung tight to this day.
“Cooper?”
He looked up to find his sister-in-law, his little brother’s high school sweetheart, clutching her tattered blue robe closed at the throat.
He removed his hat, pinning it to his chest. “Hey...”
“What’re you doing here? I thought— I’m sorry. Where are my manners?” She held open the front door. “Get in here before you catch your death of cold.”
He brushed past her, hyperaware of the light floral fragrance she’d worn since her sixteenth birthday when his brother had gifted it to her, declaring her to be the prettiest girl he knew. Millie was no longer pretty, but beautiful. Her hair a deep chestnut, and her haunted gaze as blue as a spring sky, despite dark circles shadowing her eyes. He couldn’t help but stare. Catching himself, hating that his face grew warm, he sharply looked away.
The contrast of the front room’s warmth to the outside chill caused him to shiver. He’d forgotten a real winter’s bite.
“I—I can’t believe you’re here.” She’d backed onto the sofa arm—the same sofa he used to catch her and Jim making out on. She fussed with her hair, looking at him, then away. “Peg tried calling so many times....”
“Sorry.” He set his ditty bag on the wood floor, then shrugged out of his Navy-issued pea jacket to hang it on the rack near the door. He’d have felt a damn sight better with his hat back on, but his mother had never allowed hats in the house, so he hung it alongside his coat. “I’ve been out of town.” Syria had been lovely this time of year. “Guess I should’ve called, but...”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
Did she? Did she have a clue what it had been like for him to one day belong to a loving, complete family and the next to have accidentally committed an act so heinous, his own father never spoke to him again?
“You’re here now, and that’s what matters.”
“Yeah...” Unsure what to do with his hands, he crammed them into his pockets.
“I imagine you want to see your dad?”
He sharply exhaled. “No. Hell, no.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Peg said you need me.”
She chewed on that for a moment, then shook her head. “I needed you when Jim died, too. Where were you then?”
“Aw, come on, Mill... You know this is complicated.” Skimming his hands over his buzz-cut hair, he turned away from her and sighed. “Got any coffee?”
“Sure.”
He followed her into the kitchen, momentarily distracted by the womanly sway of her hips. Two kids had changed her body, but for the better. He liked her with a little meat on her bones—not that it was his place to assess such a thing. She’d always been—would always be—his brother’s girl.
She handed him a steaming mug.
He took a sip, only to blanch. “You always did make awful coffee. Good to see that hasn’t changed.”
Her faint smile didn’t reach blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
“In the flesh.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Long as you need me.” Or at least until his dad regained his faculties enough to kick him out again. To this day, his father’s hatred still burned, but the worst part of all was that Cooper didn’t blame him. Hell, the whole reason he worked himself so damned hard during the day was so exhaustion granted some small measure of peace at night.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she noted from behind her own mug. “I always could see the gears working in your mind.”
“Yeah?” He dumped his coffee down the drain then started making a fresh pot. “Tell me, swami, what am I thinking?”
“About her.” She crept up behind him, killing him when she slipped her arms around his waist for a desperately needed, but undeserved hug. Her kindness made it impossible to breathe, to think, to understand that after all this time, why he was even here. “It’s okay, Coop.” She rested her forehead between his shoulder blades. Her warm exhalations sent shock waves through his T-shirt then radiating across his back. “I mean, obviously it’s not okay, but you have to let it go. Your mom was so kind. She’d hate seeing you this way.”
A dozen years’ grief and anger and heartache balled inside him, threatening to shatter. Why was Millie being nice? Why didn’t she yell or condemn him for staying away? Why didn’t she do anything other than give him the comfort he’d so desperately craved?
“Coop, look at me....” Her small hands tugged him around to face her, and when she used those hands to cup his cheeks while her gaze locked with his, he couldn’t for a second longer hold in his pain. What was he doing here? No matter what Peg said, he never should’ve come. “Honey, yes, what happened was awful, but it was an accident. Everyone knows that. No one blames you.”
A sarcastic laugh escaped him. “Have you met my father?”
“When your mom died, he was out of his mind with grief. He didn’t know what he was saying or doing. I’ll bet if you two talked now, then—”
“How are we going to do that? The man suffered a stroke.”
“That doesn’t mean he can’t listen. At least give it a try. You owe yourself that much.”
How could she say that after what he’d done? The world—let alone his father—didn’t owe him shit. “Coming here—it was a mistake. I never should’ve—”
“You’re wrong, Cooper. Your dad may not admit it, but he needs you. I need you.” She stepped back to gesture to the dilapidated kitchen with its outdated appliances, faded wallpaper and torn linoleum floor. “This place needs you.”
He slammed the filter drawer shut on the ancient Mr. Coffee. “More than you could ever know, I appreciate your kind words, Mill, but seriously? What does anyone need with a guy who killed his own mother?”
Chapter Two
Millie’s mind still reeled from the fact that her husband’s brother was even in the room, let alone the fact that he was here to stay awhile. His mere presence was a godsend. While she considered the tragedy that’d caused his mother’s death to be ancient history, for him it seemed time had stood still. Had he even begun to process the fact Jim was gone, too?
Before the coffee finished brewing, he pulled out the glass pot, replacing it with his mug. With it only half-full, he replaced the pot.
“Better?” she found the wherewithal to ask after he’d downed a good portion of the brew.
“Much.” His faint smile reminded her so much of her lost love that her heart skipped a beat. It’d been three years since she’d lost Jim, and while she thought of him often—would never forget him—in the time he’d been gone, more urgent matters occupied the space grief had once filled in her heart.
“Hungry?” she asked. “The kids got oatmeal, but if you want, I’ll cook you up something more substantial.” Busying her flighty hands, she rummaged through the fridge. “There’s a little bacon. We always have plenty of eggs. Pancakes? Do you still like them?”
“Coffee’s fine,” he said with a wag of his mug. He looked her up and down, then politely aimed his stare out the kitchen window. “Judging by your outfit, you haven’t done any of the outside chores?”
She reddened, clutching the robe close at her throat.
“I assume the routine hasn’t changed?”
“No, but you’re probably tired from your drive. Why don’t you nap for a bit, and after I check on your dad, I’ll head outside.”
“No need. Fresh air will do me good.”
“You do know you’re eventually going to have to see him.”
“Dad?”
“The Easter Bunny...”
He finished his coffee then put the mug in the sink. “Not if I can help it.” He nodded to the tan Carhartt hanging on a hook by the back door. “Mind if I borrow that?”
“Help yourself.” The duster-style coat had belonged to Jim. Sometimes when she felt particularly overwhelmed, she wore it to remind her of him. It used to smell of him—the trace of the tobacco he’d chewed. How many times had she scolded him to quit, afraid of losing him to cancer when instead he’d passed from a hunting accident?
“Was this my brother’s?”
Swallowing the knot in her throat, she nodded.
She wanted to rail on him for not having had the common decency—the respect—to attend Jim’s funeral, but she lacked the strength to argue.
“About that...”
“J-just go, Cooper.” She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, because no mere explanation would ever be good enough. No matter what, a man didn’t miss his own brother’s funeral. Just didn’t happen.
The set of his stubbled square jaw was grim, but then so was the inside of her battered heart. Peg might’ve told him what the past few years without her husband had been like for Millie, but he didn’t really know. Beyond the financial toll Jim’s death had taken, emotionally, she felt as if a spring twister had uprooted every aspect of her and her kids’ lives. And speaking of her kids, they’d never even had the pleasure of meeting their uncle Cooper.
“Okay...” he mumbled.
Never-ending seconds stretched between them. Her watering eyes refused to quit stinging, and her frayed nerves itched for a fight.
“Thanks for the coffee. Guess I’ll head outside.”
Only after he’d gone, leaving her with just the wall of brutal January air to prove he’d ever even been in the room, did Millie dare exhale.
From a workload standpoint, having Cooper back on the ranch might be a godsend, but would it be worth the emotional toll?
* * *
“HEY, GIRL...” COOPER approached Sassy, the sorrel mare he’d been given for his eighteenth birthday. At the time, working this ranch, finding a good woman, having kids, had been all he’d ever wanted from life. Strange how even though he’d accomplished and seen more than he ever could’ve dreamed, he still felt like that kid who’d been run off in shame. “Long time, no see, huh?”