Head Over Heels (19 page)

Veronica set the photo on her nightstand and turned off the lamp. Then she lay in the dark and attempted to woo sleep by imagining her life back in the real world once everything here was all settled. No matter how many tricks she used to relax her mind, however, she couldn't seem to find a comfortable spot to settle her restless body. She turned repeatedly from side to side, then finally kicked off the covers and climbed to her feet.

She couldn't take it any longer. There was only one way she'd get any sleep tonight.

A moment later she paused outside the attic door, wondering if she'd lost her mind entirely. Then she straightened her shoulders. She'd get Cooper Blackstock out of her system once and for all. Maybe
then
she could put some real thought into getting her life back under control.

She was going to be smarter than Mama, though. She'd go about this the way a man would. They'd use each other to slake this need that vibrated between them, but she was keeping her heart inviolate.

She quietly opened the door and tiptoed up the stairs.

Dim, diffused moonlight filtered through the frosty window, and she could see the outline of Coop's big
body beneath the blankets and quilt heaped on the bed. Swiftly, she crossed the room and lifted the covers to slide in beside him.

His still body radiated heat like an energy-efficient furnace, so she nestled up to him and thought of the way he used to seduce her while she was still asleep so she'd awaken fully aroused. And she grinned in the dark.

She could do that.

Snuggling closer, she kissed his chest, then smoothed her hand down the ridges of his abdomen to the hard plane where his pelvis narrowed between his hipbones. Licking her lips, she reached out to wrap her fingers around his penis.

And found it solid as a rock, standing fully erect.

Wait a minute
. She raised her head up off his chest and strained to see his face. “You're not asleep.”

“It's hard to discard thirteen years of training, sweetpea.” His voice was a low rasp in the dark. “Soldiers learn to sleep light, and never allow anyone to sneak up on them.” His hand, broad-palmed and warm, wrapped around hers and demonstrated a rhythm that pleased him. He sucked in a sharp breath when her fingers tightened around him. “Aw, man,” he whispered. “You can sneak up on me anytime you wanna.” Then his hand slid away to cradle the back of Veronica's head, and he twisted around to kiss her.

It was as if her denials of missing him—of missing
this
—were a combustible vapor, and his kiss the spark that blew them to kingdom come. A greedy murmur climbing up the back of her throat, Veronica released her grip on Coop's sex, wrapped both arms around his neck, and kissed him back with everything she had.

For several long moments the only noise in the
room was the damp, suctioning sound of long, slow, deep soul kisses. Finally, Coop raised his head fractionally and stared down at her. “God, I've missed you, Ronnie. Nobody tastes the way you do. No one else has a mouth so sweet.”

His words thrilled her, and a tiny frisson of unease threatened to introduce an icy trickle of reality into the hot passion that encased her. For just a second, she surfaced long enough to remember her vow to protect her heart. But then he brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek and rained kisses all over her face. His other hand slid down the front of her pajamas, leaving unfastened buttons and erect nipples in its wake before sliding beneath the elastic waistband on her bottoms.

His fingers delved between her legs, slipping and sliding, plucking and probing. “Oh, yeah,” he growled when she moaned, and then touched her in ways that finessed escalating sensations out of her. “
More
. I love to hear you having a good time.”

Her breath came in increasingly ragged pants, and she couldn't have prevented the needy sounds that escaped her throat to save her life. She stared up at him, at the flush that was discernible across his sharp cheekbones even in the dark and at the concentration that gathered his eyebrows above his nose as he watched her orgasm build.

And at the very moment he finally drove her over the edge of sanity, when she heard herself whisper, “I love you, Cooper, I love you,” she couldn't for the life of her figure out which was the stronger emotion she felt.

Relief? Or horror?

L
IZZY
, R
ILEY
,
AND
D
ESSA TUMBLED OUT OF THE CAR
the second Coop brought it to a full stop in the fairground parking lot. They pelted toward the main gate, and Coop grinned at Veronica's and Marissa's rapid-fire warnings about the perils of getting separated, which they shouted at the kids' retreating backs. Filled with the same jazzed feeling of expectancy he used to get just before a mission, he climbed out of the car and locked up.

He couldn't believe he felt this much anticipation at the prospect of attending a small-town winter festival—with two women and three kids, no less. For the space of about ten seconds, he tried to tell himself that his response was simply the pleasure of having his first Saturday night off since rolling into town.

Then he gave it up as a lost cause. Watching Veronica's neat little butt as she hustled in the wake of the kids, he admitted what he'd been trying to deny for the past few days. His contentment, this feeling of anticipation—everything revolved around Ronnie. He didn't give a rat's ass about the festival. It was attending it with her that stoked his anticipation.

He had it bad, and it was long past time he quit dancing around the fact. He'd had sex with a number of women in his life, but they'd simply come and gone—no pun intended—without making so much as a ripple in his routine. And that had been fine with him. A few laughs, some mutually satisfying sex, that's the most he'd ever wanted. Then either the woman had headed down the road or he had.

He'd never burned to know what made a woman tick, much less cared what she thought about…until now. And as for intimacy, until recently he'd never actually believed there was a difference between having sex and making love.

He'd been wrong. And the past few nights, he'd pulled out all the stops. He'd used every trick he'd ever learned and a few he'd invented on the spot when he'd made love to her…all of which had been geared toward getting her to say, “I love you, Cooper,” again.

It was pitiful.

Not to mention unsuccessful. The words hadn't passed her lips since she'd let them slip Thursday morning. He hated admitting the possibility it might have been merely sex talk.

Especially when he had a feeling it was turning out to be the real deal for him. And what was worse, he
didn't even have the good sense to feel uneasy about it. Hell of a note for a guy whose survival instincts were generally honed to a razor-fine edge.

She turned back suddenly and caught him looking at her butt. Giving it a subtle wiggle, she flashed him a grin. “Get a move on, Blackstock! You don't wanna get separated.” She did a Groucho Marx wag of her eyebrows. “Dire things can happen to you.”

“Yeah, the word is out.” Letting go of everything but the prospect of spending an evening with her, he caught up. The crowd began to thicken as it funneled toward the main gate, and Coop used the concealment of the sudden press of bodies to hook his arm around Ronnie's waist and pull her back against him. Lowering his head, he growled in her ear, “I hear tell I'll have to pay my own admittance fee out of my ‘fun' money if I don't stay with the group.”

She shivered, but gave him the elbow to gain her release. She fussed for a moment with the fuzzy green scarf wound around her neck, then turned around to walk backward in front of him. Her cute little fleece hat had a brim that was turned back and pinned in place with a cocky little brooch. With mock gravity she said, “That's right. We moms, whether natural-made or newly elected, gotta impose order.”

“Or what? Chaos will reign?”

She gave him the million-dollar smile again and added a friendly little tap on his chest. “Exactly.”

“Aunt Ronnie, Uncle Coop, will you guys
come on
?”

Coop laughed and picked up his pace. Beating Veronica to the ticket booth, he pulled out his wallet and bought tickets for everyone, then shepherded his little group through the turnstile.

The kids took off like a shot and raced right past the closest exhibition hall. Amused at their single-minded drive to reach their destination, Coop said dryly, “Something's clearly got a bigger draw than whatever's in that building.”

“The ice rink,” Marissa agreed. “Hall A is mostly craft stuff, which the kids don't have heaps of interest in. Although Riley will want to participate in the Cake Walk later on. He never misses an opportunity to score dessert.” She displayed a wan imitation of her usual smile, her dimples nowhere in sight.

He'd heard through the Tonk grapevine last night that she and Kody had broken up, and he saw Ronnie give her a concerned once-over. Marissa was clearly attempting to put a good face on things, but it wasn't difficult to see she was desperately unhappy.

He reached over to touch the sleeve of her royal purple boiled wool jacket. “Kody's an idiot, if you ask me.”

Agony flashed across her face for a moment, and he wished to hell he'd kept his big mouth shut. She was clearly taking the breakup hard, and cluing her to the fact that everyone was discussing it wasn't the brightest thing he'd done today.

But then her chin rose to a regal angle. “Fossil being Fossil, and the Tonk being the Tonk, I guess I shouldn't be surprised the news has already made the rounds.” Resolution fired her eyes and squared her shoulders. “But I appreciate the sentiment, Coop. Kody's idiocy is exactly the reason I had to send him packing.”

Well, hell,
Veronica thought. Wanting to smack herself in the forehead, she sighed in resignation instead. Please—it wasn't temptation enough that Cooper had
a razor-sharp mind and was a treat in bed? How was she supposed to keep her heart from melting into a great big puddle at his feet when he turned out to be sensitive to her best friend's pain, too?

She'd all but ground her molars into dust the past couple of nights, trying to keep from blurting
I love you
over and over again while they'd made love. During the day, she could almost talk herself into thinking that what she felt for him was merely lust. But inevitably night came, Cooper crawled into her bed, and all her defenses began to crumble. It was during the quiet aftermath, when all the heat had died down and
still
she harbored this aching need to simply lie quietly with him, that she began to seriously suspect she was fooling herself. Sex wasn't the only draw. Clearly her heart was very much engaged.

Not that she hadn't continued to fight the good fight. She'd managed to keep the words clamoring for release under lock and key. Now, however, watching the effect of Coop's championing on Marissa, she would've said them out loud without a second's hesitation. Luckily for her, the three of them emerged from the path between Hall A and Hall B just then and came upon Wonderland.

“Oh, my God, Rissa,” she breathed. “This turned out
spectacular
.”

“I simply stole your idea.” Marissa's shrug lacked so much as a vestige of her earlier enthusiasm for the project, and it broke Veronica's heart. Her friend had been so upset Thursday morning that she'd hardly been able to talk. All she would say about her breakup was that Kody didn't want to be involved with a woman with children.

It made Veronica see red. How
dare
he go out with Marissa in the first place if that was his attitude? She'd really, really like to get her hands on that man. It would be a pleasure to wring his neck.

But she merely said, “I disagree. What I gave you was the bare bones of an idea. You expanded it into
this
.” She waved a hand to encompass Marissa's handiwork. “This is like a fairy world.”

Fairground personnel had constructed the annual skating rink in the field where the carnival midway was set up every summer, between the exhibitions halls and the rodeo arena. Benches sat around it, and the decorations committee had ringed everything with a score of realistic-looking papier-mâché trees. Hundreds of tiny white lights shimmered from the bare branches to glitter off the ice, dancing across rosy-cheeked skaters as they circled the rink. Steam rose from two vendors' carts and scented the crisp, cold air with hot dogs, cocoa, and hot cinnamon-laced cider.

The ice rink was a popular attraction, and the degree of skill ran the gamut from a young woman in the center who spun like a seasoned member of the Ice Capades, to a child barely past toddler age whose every wobbly step seemed to land her on her well-padded little bottom. But the level of ability didn't appear to have any bearing on anyone's enjoyment. Veronica recognized the mayor ice-waltzing with his wife. And Eddie's lawyer Neil Peavy sat on the same bench as Darlene Starkey—although they were probably not together. An old schoolmate of Veronica's laughed with her children as they untied their rental skates just one bench over from where Lizzy, Dess, and Riley were donning theirs.

Coop bought her a cup of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and garnished with a candy cane, and she divided her time between smiling at the tortoise-like caution with which Lizzy circled the rink and watching the rowdy teams over by the arena as they worked to convert huge blocks of ice set on nests of hay into recognizable shapes for the ice-sculpting contest. From the raucous laughter that drifted across the field, she suspected their cardboard cups contained something other than hot cider.

“Veronica?”

She turned at the questioning voice and saw the classmate she'd noticed standing next to her.
“Deb?”

“Yes.” The woman laughed. “Oh, good, I was afraid I'd get one of those blank, who-the-heck-are-you looks, since we didn't know each other particularly well in high school. I just wanted to stop by to say welcome back.”

Veronica smiled. “Why, thank you.”

“These are my daughters, Megan and Rachel.” After greetings were exchanged, Deb said, “Megan's in Lizzy's class. We'll probably be running into each other at school events, and I wondered if you'd like to get together to have a cup of coffee some afternoon. If you're not too busy.”

“I'd like that very much. Thanks.” They traded phone numbers and warmth stole through Ronnie as she watched the other woman walk away with her daughters. She turned her attention back to the rink, but couldn't help but smile at the unexpected feeling of acceptance Deb's gesture gave her.

She jumped when Coop suddenly murmured in her ear, “That Lizzy, she's a speed demon.” A cold breeze
blew up her back as her jacket and the hem of the sweater beneath it were suddenly displaced. Then the draft was plugged, and warmth radiated out from the point where Coop's hand spread against the bare skin of her back. “Good thing it'll be years before anyone has to worry about her getting behind the wheel of a car.”

He stood behind her and a little to one side, and Veronica knew he probably wore that neutral expression he so often assumed. She tilted her chin up to catch a glimpse of him from the corner of her eye and discovered that, to the contrary, he was smiling fondly at Lizzy as she skated at a snail's pace around the periphery of the rink.

Veronica looked front and center again in time to see Riley zoom past like Harry Potter after the Golden Snitch, and assured herself that the casual observer would never guess Coop's long fingers were stroking heat down the shallow groove of her spine.

Left up to him, he'd no doubt touch her openly and not care who saw them. He certainly wouldn't give a flying flick about the gossip. But because it mattered to her, he remained the soul of discretion.

And suddenly, she was filled to the brim with a love so fierce and all-consuming it should have frightened her straight into an early grave.

He was so much more than a man with a way about him in bed. Though he looked like the kind of guy who could break a person's neck with a single wrench of his strong hands, he'd been unfailingly gentle with her and Lizzy. He had a good heart. She cranked her head around fully this time and smiled up at him. “I love you,” she murmured when she caught his eye,
and smiled when his body stilled and his eyes went hot. She marvelled that saying the words aloud didn't frighten her a bit. The futility of a lasting relationship would probably hit her all over again tomorrow, but for tonight she'd go with the flow.

Because emotions like this didn't come along every day of the week. And for this one evening, at least, she was going to simply luxuriate in feeling so wonderful.

 

Except for that black period right after Denny died, Marissa couldn't recall a time in her life when she'd felt so awful. She was trying hard to act normal—for the kids' sake and for Ronnie and Coop—but it was tough.

God, it was tough. All she really wanted to do was beat her breast and howl.

She'd been looking forward to this night ever since Ronnie had pointed her in the right direction and the decorations had finally begun to take shape. She'd daydreamed about it, anticipated the triumph of seeing all her hard work pay off. Now she wanted only to go home, crawl into bed, and pull the covers up over her head.

For the children's sake, she was determined to get through the evening without falling apart. She could do that later, once they were in bed and she was alone.

Again.

That thought straightened her backbone faster than ten strong, self-issued lectures ever would. The man who could turn Marissa Travits into a self-pitying whiner had yet to be born. She firmed up her chin and
turned to Coop and Veronica. “Are you two getting as cold as I am just standing around here?”

“Colder,” Ronnie said. “I quit feeling my feet about five minutes ago.”

As they called the kids off the ice, Marissa noticed a hint of movement from the corner of her eye and caught Cooper sliding his hand out the back of Veronica's coat. Well, well. When had
this
recommenced? And here she'd thought Ronnie was being civil to him tonight strictly for Lizzy's sake.