The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River) (18 page)

Had she really just shouted that? Judging by the number of mouths hanging open, she had. Emma sank back into her chair, curling her hands into tight fists as she sought her footing. She never let her emotions get the best of her. She kept it all at arm’s length. She should never have said it, but Libby
. . . Libby!
Emma just couldn’t listen to Libby defend him one more time.

“That’s not funny, Emma,” Libby said, her voice shaking.

“Wait, wait—who is Laura?” Madeline demanded, frowning at Emma as if she suspected her of intentionally causing trouble.

“My stepsister,” Emma muttered.

“Oh, that’s
right,
” Madeline said, her voice full of surprise, her eyes widening with shock as she slowly sank back in her chair. “Seriously, Emma, is that your idea of a joke? Because she’s, like,
your
age, isn’t she?”

“Seven months older than me,” Emma bit out.

“I don’t believe you!” Libby said angrily, ignoring Sam’s hand on her arm. “I know you didn’t like Dad, but what you said is not
true, Emma! Why the hell would you say something like that?”

“It
is
true, Libby,” Emma said wearily.

“Oh really?” Libby demanded. “So when exactly did this happen? When he was dying of
cancer
?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “No. Obviously
that
wouldn’t have happened. It was a long time ago, when I was seventeen. He’d invited Laura and me to Vegas. She’d just turned eighteen, old enough not to get him arrested, and . . .”
She shrugged. It was impossible to even say it. It was still so goddamn difficult to wrap her mind around.

“And what?” Libby asked, her voice full of hurt now.

Why did Libby always carry so much hope that people would act right? Hadn’t she seen enough in her life to know they rarely did? “They had an affair, Libby. It went on all summer long until I discovered it. Laura and Dad had a sexual affair for an entire summer.”

“Good God,”
Sam muttered. Libby was staring at Emma in shock.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “But I can’t let you convince everyone at this table that Grant was a good guy in spite of the way he treated us. He
wasn’t
a good guy—he was a total
dick.
”

“Oh my God,” Madeline said. “He
was
a dick!”

Emma pointed at Madeline and said to Libby, “See?” realizing, for perhaps the first time, that if there was anyone who would share her outrage about Grant and Laura, it would be Madeline and Libby. Why hadn’t she considered it before this moment?

“You know what I see? I see someone who is hell-bent on ruining everything about this family,” Libby said angrily.

Emma hadn’t intended to ruin the evening. She hadn’t intended . . .

Oh hell, who knew what she intended anymore? That’s what she always told herself, she didn’t intend to do anything, and yet, she somehow managed to do it. Emma stood up and gathered some plates. “I’m not going to apologize for telling you the truth, Libby. But a word of advice—don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it screw you up. God knows I let it get to me, and look at me now. But the man is gone, and he’s not going to come back and right his wrongs.”

Libby shook her head and stared down at her plate.

Emma looked away from her wounded sister—and right into the eyes of Cooper.

He didn’t seem shocked by her admission. He looked almost as if he’d expected it.

“Okay, well, enough of Grant,” Libby said, waving her hands, erasing him from family night as Emma picked up more dishes and headed for the kitchen. “So! The big game is next week, huh, Luke?” she asked, desperately trying to turn the conversation to something else.

Emma walked into the kitchen and stacked the dishes in the sink. She heard someone come in behind her and assumed it was Madeline. She steeled herself for the lecture she was sure she’d get. But when she turned, it wasn’t Madeline who’d followed her, it was Cooper, carrying a lasagna pan and the bowl of salad.

“I insisted on helping,” he said. “Does that make it lucky you or lucky me?”

“
Shit.
You again,” Emma groaned, and turned on the faucet.

Cooper walked up behind her and deliberately reached around her, his body against her back, to put the lasagna pan on the counter. Emma closed her eyes for a moment and let the feeling of him sink into her pores.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft.

She opened her eyes, surprised by that. “No you’re not. You deliberately put the pan there.”

“I mean, I’m sorry about your father. That must have been very hard for you.”

Bittersweet emotion began to close Emma’s throat. He was sympathizing with her? She shot him a skeptical look. “Let me guess—next you’ll ask if it’s true, right?”

“No. I feel pretty confident that no one would make that up.”

That much was definitely true.

“You must have been so disappointed in them both. I would have been. I understand how it must have made you feel.”

Emma snorted. “How could you?”

“You know the brother I mentioned? He’s in prison for armed robbery.”

Emma stilled for a moment. She looked at him, waiting for a
but,
or a joke.

“Are you going to ask me if that’s true?” he asked.

Emma blinked. “No
. . .
I feel pretty confident that no one would make that up,” she murmured.

Cooper gave her a thin smile, as if they’d shared terrible secrets before.

“How
. . .
how long has he been there?”

“Fifteen years,” Cooper said on a weary sigh. “He’s due to be released in a matter of days. So yeah, I know all about how family can disappoint.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma whispered, and she meant it. She was truly, deeply sorry for him. She wouldn’t want anyone to experience the hurt she’d felt in the last ten years.

Cooper carefully laid his hand over the one Emma had braced against the sink. “Thanks. That’s nice to hear.”

Emma felt something tender curl around them. She held his gaze, wondering if she should say more, worried that if she spoke, it would be the wrong thing. And he waited, as if he expected her to say something. But eventually, his hand fell away and he picked up a box of plastic wrap on the counter to cover what was left of the salad.

Emma watched him, imagining how a felonious brother could change a family. How it would unfairly tip the balance of a family, much like a stepsister sleeping with a father had tipped hers. At least in Emma’s m
ind, everything in her family would always be measured against that single summer: their shared history that had occurred before Laura slept with Grant, and their fractured history after Laura slept with Grant. In Cooper’s case, she could imagine that demarcation was everything before his brother used a gun to rob, and after.

Emma knew how isolating it could be, how alone it felt to be one of the innocents in the family upheaval. She knew how the trauma hovered like a shadow in one’s peripheral vision. Always there, just beyond the present moment.

She and Cooper were more alike than she ever would have imagined, Emma realized as she turned back to the sink. His admission of a family tragedy made him seem more real to Emma.
Flesh and b
one and sinew. Brains and thoughts and feelings. A man with hard planes and soft eyes and desire simmering beneath every breath, with the experiences in life to back up his hungers.

All very dangerous territory for Emma.

“Hey! We need another bottle of wine!” Madeline shouted, her declaration followed by laughter. Apparently, they’d been able to move on from Grant.

“I’ll get it,” Emma said, and brushed past Cooper—intentionally—and walked to the laundry room, where they kept a small wine cooler. She was moving in a bit of a fog now, unsure of what she was doing. After years of longing for someone to see her side of things, to understand how
she
felt, to have someone say they did, made her feel unbalanced. A little seasick. If Cooper understood that about her, how long before he’d understand other, darker things about her?

No, no, she could never let him see that side of her. She had to get this growing infatuation under control.

Emma flipped on the light in the laundry room. She dipped down and studied the wine in the cooler, selected a bottle, and stood. She turned back to the door, intending to leave.

But Cooper blocked the way. He was leaning up against the jamb, his arms crossed over his chest. His cool gray gaze was fixed on her, almost as if he’d already begun to see the darker things about her. Emma’s blood began to swirl. He was not looking at her with casual interest, but with heat.

What was he doing? Did he want to kiss her?

Of course he wanted more. He’d seen through her, seen her hurt, and wanted to exploit it, right? Isn’t that what men like him did?
Try it,
she thought. Moments like these were where she excelled. The sexual interest of men was her base of operations from which she’d launched her assaults for the last several years. She walked to the door and tilted her head back, staring up into eyes that were now all gray shadows. “What are you doing?”

“Not sure,” he admitted.

Emma shifted the bottle of wine to the crook of her elbow and with her free hand, traced a line down his chest. “What would you
like
to do?”

He caught her hand and pressed it against his chest—hard. “I’d like to ask you to stop treating me like some poor dumb asshole. What are you so damn afraid of?” he murmured.

The question jolted her awake. She tried to take her hand back, but he held it firmly. “Maybe you should go, Cooper. You know, pack up and get out of town. Don’t you have something to do tomorrow? Some canyon to jump over?”

“I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere tonight,” he said calmly, as his gaze moved down her face, to her mouth. He touched the corner of her lips with his finger. “Snow’s coming down pretty good. So try and lighten up a little, will you?”

Her blood stirred more.
Kryptonite.
It was happening; her body was betraying her, responding to this gorgeous, overly confident, and damn it, too masculine
man.
“What’s a little snow? Maybe you should go now, before it gets too deep.”

A smile slowly curved his lips. “You’re a funny girl, you know that?” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Sometimes I think you want a friend, and in the next moment, I think you don’t. Sometimes I think you want me to make love to you. But then you talk and ruin the moment. I’m not sure what to make of you.”

“I’m wishy-washy,” she agreed. “But why do you care? Do you want to be my friend? Or do you just want to fuck me?”

Cooper arched a brow with surprise. He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Honestly? I don’t know.” He touched her lip with his thumb again, resting it there.

How startling that Emma hoped it was some of both. She had just skated right out of her rink, and it panicked her. She lightly bit his thumb, hard enough to startle him. When he withdrew his hand, she dipped beneath his arm, putting some space between them, getting away from that heat. She left him standing there and walked back into the dining room with the wine, hoping like hell she wasn’t glowing.

No one looked at her—they were involved in a lively discussion about some work at the ranch Madeline wanted done.

A moment later, Cooper followed, his gaze still firmly fixed on Emma as he took his seat across from her. That man had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if he could see every one of her thoughts. And the more he looked, the more lascivious thoughts she seemed to have. There were several strong desires floating around in her head now, thanks to him and those eyes.
Damn it,
why did he have to come to Pine River? Why
him
of all the candidates that stupid jackass Carl could have sent? Emma tried not to squirm, but she could feel the schoolgirl flush in her face.

Cooper saw it, too, judging by the hint of the smile on his lips.

Emma tried to concentrate on the talk of Madeline and Luke’s wedding, and then about the current drought’s effect on the ski industry as they finished another bottle of wine. She was grateful when Libby mentioned a movie she had seen.

“I know the director of that film,” Emma said, grateful to have something to talk about. “He’s married to a woman with three kids. But he’s gay.”

“No way,” Libby said, wide-eyed.

“Actually,” Cooper said, “he’s separated. He’s planning on coming out this fall before his next film is released.”

Emma looked curiously at Cooper. “You know Trevor?” she asked incredulously.

“Know him well,” Cooper said. “How about you?”

“Same here,” she said. “I’ve worked a few of his events.” What was that feathery, slightly nauseating swirl Emma was feeling now? That she and Cooper knew more people in common than just Carl and Jill? Emma didn’t have many friends, but those whom she considered to be among her closest circle were people who didn’t judge her. If Cooper knew them, too—knew at least one well, as he’d just said—didn’t that mean in some strange way he must know a little of her, too?

“I just think it’s so cool that we have
two people
here who know a famous director,” Libby said excitedly. “Emma knows Val Kilmer, too!”

“Met him,” Emma clarified, ignoring Libby’s look of confusion. In Libby’s world, copulation equaled near commitment.

The mention of Val Kilmer prompted a discussion of that actor’s films. Safe ground, especially for Emma, who spent much time in movie theaters hiding from the truth of her life.

It was Libby who returned from the powder room with the news that the snow was falling heavily. They all stood up to have a look, and in doing so, realized the amount of time that had passed since they’d sat down for dinner. It was twenty past eleven.

There began a final clearing of the table, everyone pitching in to carry things into the kitchen, Libby overseeing the dishwashing. Emma volunteered to clean the dining room, and by the time she’d finished and returned to the kitchen, she found it deserted, save Cooper. He was sitting on a stool at the bar, a coin or something in his fingers, which he mindlessly turned over, again and again.