There, she thought, not so bad. The first time would be the hardest, and it wasn’t so bad.
A few aches, a few bumps. Nothing fatal.
He did look good, she thought. Older, tougher. Sharper in the face, harder around the eyes. Sexier.
She could live through that. They might be friends again. Not the way they’d been, even before they’d become lovers. But they might be friendly. His grandparents and her parents were good friends, close friends. She and Coop would never be able to avoid each other gracefully, so they’d just have to get along as best they could. Be friendly.
She could do it if he could.
Satisfied, she began to scout around the habitats for signs of trespass-animal or human.
COOP LOOKED INTO the rearview mirror as he drove away, but she didn’t glance back. Just kept going.
That’s the way it was. He wasn’t looking to change it.
He’d caught her off-guard. They’d caught each other off-guard, he corrected, but her surprise had shown on her face, just for a beat or two, but clearly. Surprise, and a shadow of annoyance.
Both gone in a blink.
She’d gotten beautiful.
She’d always been so, to him, but objectively he could look back now and see that she’d been poised for beauty at seventeen. Touched by beauty at the cusp of twenty. But she hadn’t crossed the finish line then, not like now.
For a second there, those big, dark, sultry eyes had taken his breath away.
For a second.
Then she’d smiled, and maybe his heart had twisted, just for another second, over what had been. What was gone.
Everything easy, everything casual between them. That’s the way it should be. He didn’t want anything from her, and had nothing to give back. It was good to know that, since he was back for good.
Oddly enough, he’d been considering coming back for several months. He’d even looked into what steps he’d need to take to sell his private investigator’s business, close his office, sell his apartment. He hadn’t moved on it, had simply continued his work, his life-because not moving was easier.
Then his grandmother had called.
With all the research done and filed in Maybe Someday, it had been a simple matter to make the move. And maybe, if he’d made the damn move earlier, his grandfather wouldn’t have been alone, and in pain after his fall.
And that kind of thinking was useless, he knew it.
Things just happened because they did. He knew that, too.
The point was he was back now. He liked the work-he always had-and God knew he could use a little serenity. Long days, plenty of physical labor, the horses, the routine. And the only real home he’d ever known.
The Maybe Someday might have come before but for Lil. The obstacle, the regret, the uncertainty of Lil. But that was done now, and they could both get back to their lives.
She’d created something so solid and real, so Lil, with her refuge. He hadn’t known how to tell her that, how to tell her that it was a source of pride for him, too. He didn’t know how to tell her he remembered when she’d told him she would build this place, he remembered the look on her face, the light on it, the sound of her voice.
He remembered everything.
Years ago, he thought. A lifetime ago. She’d studied and worked and planned, and made it happen. She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do.
He’d known she would. She wouldn’t have settled for less.
He’d made something. It had taken a lot of time, a lot of mistakes, but he’d made something of himself, and for himself. And he could walk away from that because the point had been to make it.
Now the point was here. He turned onto the farm road. Right here, he thought, right now.
When he went inside, Lucy was in the kitchen, baking.
“Smells good.”
“Thought I’d do a couple of pies.” She offered a smile, strained around the edges. “Everybody get off all right?”
“Group of four. Gull’s got them.” The blacksmith’s son hadn’t followed in his father’s footsteps, but served as trail guide and man-of-work for Wilks’s Stables. “Weather’s clear, and he’s keeping them to a couple of easy rides.” Since it was there, he poured himself some coffee. “I’m going to go out and check on the new foals and their mas.”
She nodded, looked in on her pies, though they both knew she could time them by instinct to the minute. “Maybe, if you don’t mind, you could ask Sam to go out with you. He’s having a mood today.”
“Sure. He upstairs?”
“Last I checked.” She flicked her fingers at the hair she now wore short as a boy’s and had let go a stunning and shining silver. “Checking’s one of the things, I expect, put him in the mood.”
Rather than speak, he just put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
She would’ve checked, Coop thought, several times. Just as he had no doubt she’d been out to the barn to check on the foals. She’d have seen to the chickens and the pigs, getting all the chores done she could manage before Sam could try to do them.
And she’d have fixed his breakfast, just as she’d fixed Coop’s. Seen to the house, the laundry.
She was wearing herself out, even with him there.
He went upstairs.
For the first couple of months after his grandfather had been released from the hospital, he’d stayed in the parlor they’d outfitted as a bedroom. He’d needed a wheelchair and help with the most personal functions.
And he’d hated it.
The minute he’d been able to manage the stairs, however long it took, however hard it had been, he’d insisted on moving back to the room he shared with his wife.
The door was open. Inside Coop saw his grandfather sitting in a chair, scowling at the television and rubbing his leg.
There were lines in his face that hadn’t been there two years before, grooves dug by pain and frustration more than age. And maybe, Coop thought, some fear along with it.
“Hey, Grandpa.”
Sam turned the scowl toward Coop. “Not a damn thing worth looking at on the television. If she sent you up here to check on me, to see if I need something to drink, something to eat, something to read, somebody to burp me like a baby, I don’t.”
“Actually, I’m heading out to check on the horses and thought you could give me a hand. But if you’d rather watch TV…”
“Don’t think that kind of psychology holds water with me. I wasn’t born yesterday. Just get me my damn boots.”
“Yes, sir.”
He got the boots, one of the pairs set neatly on the closet floor. He didn’t offer to help, something his practical and insightful grandmother couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing. But Coop judged that came from fear, too.
Instead he talked about the business, the current trail ride, then his stop at the refuge.
“Lil said she’d stop by and see you today.”
“Be pleased to see her, long as it’s not a sick call.” Sam levered himself up, bracing a hand on the back of the chair as he got his cane. “What did she have to say about running around in those foreign mountains?”
“I didn’t ask. I was only there a couple minutes.”
Sam shook his head. He moved well, Coop thought, for a man who’d busted himself up four short months before. But the stiffness was there, the awkwardness, enough to remind Coop just how easy and economic Sam’s gait had once been.
“Gotta wonder about your brain, boy.”
“Sorry?”
“Pretty girl like that, and one everybody knows you had a hankering for once upon a time, and you can’t spare more than a couple minutes?”
“She was busy,” Coop said as they started toward the stairs. “I was busy. Plus, that was once upon a time. Another plus, she’s involved with someone.”
Sam snorted as he clumped downstairs, with Coop positioned to catch him if he lost balance. “Some foreigner.”
“Have you developed a prejudice against things foreign just recently?”