Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) (4 page)

He left her to it, heading for the kitchen where he made two mugs of coffee—lots of sugar in hers—and wandered over to the windows with his cup, looking down at the city. The streets were wet, the falling rain caught in the arc of light emitted by the street lamp and bouncing in puddles. It looked cold, wet and miserable.

Not weather to be out in.

Frigid fingers wrapped around his heart as he thought about Lacey wandering around out there tonight. He knew she’d behaved recklessly from time to time over the two-plus years since Ethan had charged him with her wellbeing. He’d been the one she’d called to get her out of whatever jam she happened to be in at the time. But this …

What the hell was she thinking?

*     *     *

Lacey stood quietly
at the entrance to the living room, watching Coop’s back. He’d pulled a T-shirt on and she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Not because of the eye candy, although she knew intimately how tasty that was, but because he seemed less imposing without one. Even with his muscles—which she had to admit were pretty damn imposing—on full display, he just seemed less stuffy, less the ex-cop when he wasn’t fully dressed.

More a flesh-and-blood man who was capable of understanding human failings.

She had been such an idiot and somehow that seemed easier to admit to a man in nothing but trackpants.

Sometimes she wished she could erase the last two-and-a-half years and start over with him again. Not have slept with him. Not have been his best friend’s little sister. Not have been such a brat in the intervening years. Just been his friend like she’d always craved but had lacked the finesse to carry off.

“Got one of those for me?” she asked.

Coop turned and the grim look on his face told her what she already knew—he wasn’t going to just let her crash on his couch for the night, like he’d done other times, without some explanation.

“Kitchen bench,” he said as he walked towards her.

Lacey turned to her left, conscious as she walked of the precarious hold his loose cotton boxer briefs had on her hips. She’d rolled the waist band a couple of times but they seemed determined to slip. She wished now as she tried to walk and maintain her dignity that she hadn’t bothered—Coop’s shirt practically came to her knees anyway.

She picked up the mug in her uninjured hand and took a fortifying sip. Sweet and milky.

“Let me fix your hand,” he said from somewhere beyond her shoulder and she turned to find him sitting on the couch.

Lacey complied, conscious of her underwear situation and the kiss of warm air on her shoulder as Coop’s big shirt slipped when she sat opposite him. His gaze brushed and lingered on the exposed flesh, their history large between them.

“It’s fine now,” she said, her voice husky as he briskly took her hand. “It’s stopped bleeding and it’s not very deep.”

He nodded as he inspected the now bloodless gash, stark white and as wrinkled as the rest of her hand from exposure to so much water. “I’ll just cover it,” he said.

Lacey didn’t move as he extracted a bandaid from a small first-aid kit and applied it. “How’d it happen?” he asked.

Lacey contemplated telling him a lie. But it was late and she was tired of playing games. Hadn’t she just been played for the biggest fool on the planet? “I threw a bottle at the lousy, lying scumbag’s head,” she said, her voice steady now. “Then I felt bad about the mess I made and went to clean it up, but I was crying so hard I couldn’t see all that well and I—”

“Cut yourself,” he said finishing her sentence.

Lacey nodded. “Yes.”

He curled her fingers into her palm. “Okay,” he said as she withdrew her hand. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Lacey looked down at her hand. The beginning. Where was that exactly? Was it Jeremy? Or had the seeds of it all been planted a long time before, taking root in the deep well of sadness she’d never been able to fully shake?

“I’ve been seeing a guy for the last two months … one of my lecturers—”

“Isn’t that against the law?” he interrupted.

Coop’s hand, fingers splayed against his bent knee, was in her direct line of sight and Lacey could see the knuckles go white. And if that wasn’t clue enough then the contempt in his voice was enough to tell her what he thought of Jeremy.

“No.”

The angle of his jaw clenched. “Well it’s sure as shit unethical.”

Lacey nodded. She had to concede that one. “But for the first time since I’ve moved to Brisbane I’ve felt … happy. He made me happy.”

“But now he’s a lousy, lying scumbag?”

Lacey shut her eyes against the harshness in Coop’s tone, the erectness of his frame. He wasn’t going to give her an inch. Another wave of emotion rose in her chest but she bit back the tears. “I found out tonight that he’s married. With two teenage children.”

Coop blinked. “You’ve been seeing a guy who’s
married?
”

“Oh go to hell, Cooper!” she snapped, her eyes flashing open. What the hell did he take her for? “Jeremy
told
me he was
divorced
. Should I have run a background check?” she asked, her voice loaded with sarcasm.

“Yes!” he snapped back. “Maybe.”

“How was I supposed to know?” she demanded. “He told me I was special; that he’d never met anyone like me before …” Lacey stopped as the tears gathered again, afraid she’d break down if she didn’t take a breath.

“That’s what they all say, Lacey,” Coop said and she could have tripped over the exasperation in his voice.

She nodded, bowing her head. She was the worst kind of fool. So sad and desperate she was suckered in by the first man who had called her special.

“Are you in love with him?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t sure she even knew how to love a man. There’d been guys, she’d had fun, but none of them seemed to be able to reach inside her. “No. But he was the first guy I really
liked
. I could talk to, you know?”

So many of the guys she knew didn’t talk about anything of any consequence, anything outside their own narrow existence. Jeremy had talked like a man of the world.

Coop sighed. “How’d you find out?”

Lacey was encouraged by the sigh. She peeked up to find his gaze a little warmer now. “She turned up on his doorstep tonight as a
surprise
. She lives in Sydney, apparently. Jeremy splits his time between the design college here and the one in Sydney.”

Coop shook his head. “Well that’s just perfect for him, isn’t it?”

Lacey nodded, her nose sniffling as the pressure of tears built again. “I suppose.”

“How
old
is this … Jeremy.”

It didn’t even occur to Lacey to lie but she did drop her gaze, knowing how sensitive Coop was to age gaps. “Thirty-eight.”

She could feel his disapproval bouncing off her downcast head. “Jesus, Lace …” he rubbed his hands through his hair and she looked up in time for their gazes to meet and lock. “You have a daddy complex a mile wide, you know that right?”

Lacey opened her mouth to deny his attempts at amateur psychology but something stopped her. Maybe he was right. Maybe she
had
been sub-consciously seeking out a father figure all along. Maybe that had been why she’d felt so instantly attracted to Coop.

“So, what happened then?” he asked eventually, the silence stretched to the limit between them. “After the wife turned up?”

“There was a lot of yelling and crying from both of us. I threw the bottle at him and then she told me to go, ‘
just go
,’ she said and she looked at me like … like I was this home wrecker. Like I was beneath contempt. So I did. I just walked out.”

“Why didn’t you ring? I would have come and picked you up.”

Lacey shook her head. “I didn’t have my phone. I walked out without my bag and my jacket, I just … left. I couldn’t stand being there for another second. I was crying and shaking, in total shock. I had no idea where I was going or anything. I don’t even think I realised it was raining or how cold it was until you dragged me inside just now.”

Just thinking about the confrontation made Lacey want to cry all over again. “I feel like such an idiot,” she said, feeling desperately fragile and craving the warmth of his arms around her but determined not to ask.

“Well it’s over now, right?” he said, his voice gruff.

Lacey nodded but the finality of it all was depressing as hell. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, but it was growing bigger, choking her.

“I don’t know what to do now,” she said on a sob.

“No,” Coop said, his voice brooking no argument as he wagged his finger in her face. “You do not cry over lousy, cheating scumbags, okay? Just no.”

Lacey squeezed her eyes shut and nodded, his words bolstering her.

“Unless there’s something more you’re not telling me?”

He grasped her chin lightly between his thumb and forefinger and her lids fluttered open. She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Okay.” His eyes searched her face for a bit longer but he seemed satisfied with her denial. “Now, you are going to bed, you are going to sleep. You’re exhausted. And in the morning you can decide the rest. Okay?”

Lacey nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” He helped her up and accompanied her into his bedroom. “I can sleep on the lounge, Coop,” she protested as he pulled the sheets back. “It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

“Yeah well, the other times were self-inflicted and deserved the heinous torture of my awful couch. This one wasn’t, so I’m being nice.” He fluffed his pillow. “In,” he ordered.

Lacey didn’t protest. She sank onto the mattress and snuggled into the sheets. The aroma of Coop surrounded her and the urge to cry again at his kindness and the warm, solid familiarity of him gripped her throat hard.

“Night,” he said as he turned to leave.

“Night,” she returned, her eyes burning, her throat aching from holding back the well of emotion.

*     *     *

Coop was still
wide awake twenty minutes later when the sound of a soft sob floated towards him. What the hell? He’d thought she was asleep. He rolled over on the world’s most uncomfortable couch trying to ignore it, but her crying yanked hard at invisible strings.

There were a helluva lot of tears for a guy she didn’t even love. He sat up, swinging his feet onto the floor, his head in his hands, a battle waging on the inside.

Go to her.
Don’t go to her.

Coop hauled his shirt off over his head, hot and bothered in the artificially warm environment, tossing it aside as he flopped back down annoyed at himself for his weakness and indecision. But a few minutes later he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Lacey may have been a major pain in his butt but she was hurting and it didn’t seem right to ignore that.

He wouldn’t ignore an animal whimpering in pain, would he? He sure as shit couldn’t ignore his best friend’s sister alone and hurting not ten metres and a wall away.

And what Ethan didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Coop rose from the lounge, threw his shirt back on and stalked to his bedroom with determined strides, lecturing himself as he drew closer. He was an adult man in control of his body
and
his impulses. She was a mess.
She was sobbing over another man for fuck’s sake
. A lying, cheating scumbag who didn’t deserve a single bloody tear.

Although he suspected Lacey was crying over a lot more than some lousy prick that had done her wrong. The death of ideals was often harder to bear.

He paused momentarily in his open doorway. He could just make out her outline on his bed with his night vision. Her back was to him, his spare pillow over her head, an arm anchoring it in place. He hesitated briefly again before letting compassion win out over common sense.

“Don’t cry, Lacey,” he murmured as he stopped beside the bed.

She pulled the pillow away and looked up at him with a wet face and swollen eyes and he wished, not for the first time, he had some superpower that allowed him to go back in time and fix bad shit before it happened.

They both could have done with a bit of that.

“I’m sorry,” she said looking at him like her entire world had ended and it grabbed a big handful of his gut and squeezed hard.