Head Over Heels (17 page)

Watching her open her mouth to no doubt blast him anew, his control snapped. He wrapped his hands around her upper arms, pulled her to him, and clamped his mouth over hers in a fiery kiss that was chock-full of aggravated heat. For several heartbeats he lost himself in her unique taste. Then he ripped his mouth free, set her back on her heels, and took a step back, licking his lips to retain her flavor.

“You and me together?” he said. “Man, Ronnie, if that didn't turn out to be more wicked potent than I ever expected. But once I'd got a taste, I wanted to keep
on
tasting it, which I figured would never happen if I told you about my relationship with Eddie. So, yeah, I kept it to myself. I probably shouldn't have, but I didn't want to find myself suddenly locked out of your life.” He gave her a hard look. “Which is exactly what happened the minute you found out.”

“Proving that once again women are inherently unfair. Yes, indeed, we simply revel in making men pay for itty-bitty transgressions like
making time with us under false pretenses
.” Her laugh was harsh, unamused. “Leave it to a guy to turn this all around so it's
my
fault you had to lie to me.” Shooting him a final furious look, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

Coop's first impulse was to chase after her and make her listen to reason. Instead, with a frustrated growl, he threw himself down on the couch. Boo appeared out of nowhere and launched himself onto his lap, promptly sinking needle-sharp claws into Coop's
thigh when his precarious landing caused him to slide.

Grimacing, Coop reached down to unhook the kitten from his leg. Settling him on his lap, he stroked Boo's plush black fur from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, and smiled crookedly when the cat's gravel-truck purr kicked into gear. “So, did you catch any of that?” he asked, scratching him under the chin. Boo craned his neck and gazed through slitted eyes into the distance, his motor rumbling like an overloaded cement mixer. “Looks like I'm in the doghouse.”

The cat slanted him a look, then closed his eyes and jacked up the volume on his purr.

“Yeah, I don't get women, either. They're so friggin' emotional, not cool and logical like us guys.” Coop stared thoughtfully at the empty doorway where he'd watched Ronnie storm out. “Still. Maybe—now, don't go quoting me here—but just
maybe
she has a point. I didn't want to get involved with her in the first place because of our blood ties to my brother and her sister. But you know what, little buddy? Somehow we got involved, anyway. And I'm telling you right now, Boo, if you don't learn anything else during your nine lives, you can take this to the cat food bank.” He pinned the supremely indifferent kitten with an intense look. “Problematic siblings or not, I am not ready to give her up.”

 

He and the cat were still sitting in the same spot a short while later when Lizzy got home from school. At the sound of the back door opening, Boo leaped from his lap and raced into the kitchen to greet his mistress. Coop, however, remained where he was for a moment,
listening to the kitchen door close and the sounds of the fridge opening and closing and the clink of the cookie jar. He couldn't believe how nervous he was. He'd reconnoitered an Iraqi hostage stronghold guarded by men with automatic weapons and felt less trepidation than he did at the prospect of facing his six-year-old niece.

But sitting here acting like a chickenshit would get him absolutely nowhere, and the clock was ticking. As long as his cover was blown anyway, he planned to get some answers he hadn't been able to get by pretending to be someone other than Eddie's brother. Climbing to his feet, he rubbed his hands down the thighs of his jeans.

He found Lizzy sitting at the kitchen table, swinging her legs while she dunked cookies in a glass of milk. Boo prowled the floor, alternately leaping at her swaying foot and staring hopefully at the hand carrying food from glass to mouth. “Hi.”

She looked up and gave him a big, milky smile. “Hi, Coop! I'm having a Lassie dinner.”

“A what?”

“That's what Aunt Ronnie calls milk and cookies: a Lassie dinner. She said some kid named Timmy always got milk and cookies after Lassie rescued him.” She shrugged. “It was some show about a dog that she watched when she was jus' a little kid.”

Coop sat at the table across from her. “How was school today?”

Her narrow little shoulders hitched. “Okay, I guess. It was gym day, and Mr. Pelby made us do squat thrusts before we got to use the balance beam.”

“Squat thrusts'll make you strong.”

“I s'pose.” She shrugged again. “I think they're dumb.”

Okay, so much for chitchat. He leaned forward in his seat. “Listen, Little Bit…I'd like to tell you something.”

She finished draining her glass and replaced it carefully on the table, then looked over at Coop and gave him her solemn, milk-mustachioed attention. “'Kay.”

“I don't know how to pussyfoot around this, so I'm just gonna say it straight out: I'm your uncle.”

“Nuh-uh!” Her leg abruptly stopped swinging and she gave him an indignant stare. “My uncle's name is
James
.”

“Actually, baby, my whole name is James Cooper Blackstock, but I've always gone by Cooper. Only your daddy's mother, who was my mother, too, and your daddy called me James.”

She stared at him, then, abruptly, pushed away from the table and ran from the room.

Coop remained where he was. “Well, that went just fucking swell,” he muttered to Boo, who was chasing down the crumbs that had landed on the floor at Lizzy's abrupt departure from the table. His niece hadn't reviled him for a lying, scum-sucking dog, but she'd probably never speak to him again, either. The prospect bothered him more than he liked to think about, and he didn't have the first idea what he could do to make it right.

When he heard footsteps suddenly clatter back down the stairs, he straightened in his seat. The tread faltered at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, then Lizzy poked her head around the wall, tucked her chin, and shot him a glance from beneath her bangs. A
second later, she eased into the room, a bulky album clutched to her chest.

Coop sat very still while she crossed the room, afraid to make any sudden moves that might scare her off. Pushing her abandoned milk glass aside, she set the album on the table, then climbed onto the chair across the table. Silently she flipped through the pages, then turned the book so he could see. Her soft little finger landed squarely on a photograph. “That's you.”

It was a full-body snapshot of him in his dress blues, the visor of his hat shadowing his face. He remembered the day Zach Taylor had taken it. “Yeah. I was a bit younger then.” Like ten years.

“You sent me a doll from Bennice. That's in Italy.”

His throat went tight, and he nodded. “Venice,” he corrected her softly. “A Fool doll that I got at Carnival. Did you like it?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded solemnly. “Next to Celebration Barbie, it's my fave-rit, but I don't have it right now, 'cuz it's at my daddy's house.” She climbed down from her chair and circled the table to stand in front of him.

She studied him for a couple of moments, then nodded as if making up her mind, and clambered up onto his lap. “So. You gonna bring my daddy home?”

“S
O
, ‘U
NCLE
C
OOP
,'
ALSO KNOWN AS
U
NCLE
J
AMES
, is Lizzy's new best friend,” Veronica glumly informed Marissa over the clatter of crockery in the Dinosaur Café the following Monday. “While
I'm
the Unbeliever—which I'm pretty sure is second cousin to the Antichrist.”

Marissa skooched her chair in to let a burdened waitress squeeze between the tables in the steamy, crowded restaurant. As she returned Veronica's look across the table, her mouth curled up in a lopsided smile. “You don't think you're being just the teeniest bit melodramatic?”

“No. That would be claiming my kinship as first cousin.” The café door opened, letting in a blast of cold air, and Veronica hunched her shoulders against it,
cupping her hands around the heat of her cup of soup. “You should've seen the look on her face when she walked in on a phone conversation I was having with a prospective client. You would've thought I was going to roust her out of bed in the dead of night and drag her from hearth and home.”

“You've got a new job lined up?”

“Not yet. But yesterday I had a message from a woman named Georgia Levinstein. Do you remember the eighteenth century farmhouse I redid in Maryland?”

“Of course. It was your first solo job, and you sent me pictures.”

“Apparently Mrs. Levinstein saw my work on it. She has a Greek Revival house in Boston she wants me to take a look at. It's not like I even agreed to it,” she said defensively, then took a savage bite of her turkey sandwich and chewed furiously. Swallowing, she faced her friend a bit indignantly. “I told Mrs. Levinstein I was engaged elsewhere at the moment and that it might be several months before I'd be free to even submit a proper proposal for a new project. But she agreed to wait, and Lizzy walked in during the part where I was telling her that meanwhile if she wanted to send me photos, I'd be happy to do a little research and put together a preproposal, in which I state my understanding of the client's goals. I do this because it gives the client a rough estimate of what it would take to accomplish those goals—both in time and money—and it ensures us, if both parties are still interested later, that we weren't talking apples and oranges during our original conversation.”

“So Lizzy walked in on this and…?”

“Completely misconstrued it and went running to the solace of Coop's big ole protective arms.” She laughed without humor. “It's ironic, isn't it? He was worried she'd hate his guts, but instead she just loves him to pieces.
I
seem to be the villain in this little melodrama, because Coop believes her daddy is innocent, while I…well, I don't know what the hell I believe anymore.” Then she shrugged and looked around, taking in their surroundings. “But enough about me. Believe it or not, I didn't ask you to lunch to whine. This place is nice. And dinosaurs is a catchy theme, given the name of the town. Who are the proprietors? Anyone I'd know?”

“Nope. It's a couple who moved into the area a few years ago.”

“Well, it's great place, and the food is excellent. In fact, I noticed this entire part of town seems to be enjoying a resurgence.”

Marissa suddenly laughed. “That reminds me. Guess what the city planners have started calling it?”

“You've got me—give me a hint.”

“Okay, what would you call something that's been designated the
old
est part of town?”

Ronnie considered the emphasis her friend put on the word. “I don't know, historic Fossil? There are a couple of pretty buildings down in this area, but they're not of any real historical value. Come to think of it, there's not a lot of history in this town, period. We're an agriculture region whose hub sprawled out piecemeal every time it grew.” She set her spoon alongside her soup bowl. “I give. What do they call this part of town?”

“Old Fossil.”

“Excuse me?”

“Old Fossil.”

Veronica laughed. “Get outta here. They couldn't possibly have missed the redundancy.”

“Swear to God.” Marissa crossed her heart with her index and fore fingers, then held up her hand as if taking a Girl Scout oath. “Even after it was pointed out to them in a veritable flood of letters to the editor in the
Tribune
that fossils by definition are antiquated or from another geological age, they still insisted it gave the area a certain panache.”

Veronica laughed. “Who's on this committee—your friends Wentworth and Tyler-Jones from the Junior League?”

Marissa grinned. “Nah, but thanks for the I'm-your-bud-therefore-I-hate-who-you-hate moment. You truly are a best friend.”

“Oh, my gosh, that reminds me. If I were such a good friend, I would've asked you right away what Kody had to say for himself when you talked to him about the kids.
Has
he been avoiding meeting them?”

“I don't know yet. We haven't been able to get together. It seems like whenever I have the time, he can't get away. And when he has the time, I'm tied up.” Marissa shrugged, but a tightness around her eyes gave lie to her apparent indifference. “We've made plans to get together Wednesday evening, though. Could the kids stay the night with you? I thought it might be less disruptive than rousting them out of bed in the middle of a school night.”

“Sure. They can come straight from school, if you'd like.”

“No, I'll bring them down after dinner. We won't burden you longer than necessary.”

Veronica made a rude noise. “Big burden. If they get too noisy, I'll give Mrs. M a call and take a walk around the block. Heck, maybe I'll call her to come over and watch TV with me, anyway. I think she misses the kids since I've stopped spending so much time at the Tonk.”

Another eddy of cold air blew across her shoulders as the door behind her once again opened and closed, and Veronica shifted slightly in her seat. “Next time we come here, we're grabbing a table out of the path of that doorway. Either that, or coming on a warmer day.”

“It's sure been colder'n a witch's leftie lately,” Marissa agreed.

“Which is probably not a bad thing for the Winter Festival. I seem to recall bigger, rowdier crowds whenever it snowed or we had a cold snap. Speaking of which, how are the decorations coming along?”

“Great. I've got a crew working over at the fairgrounds as we speak. We took your advice and made papier-mâché trees, and they turned out so well that several of the committee decided to make more for the ice rink. I plan to stop by after we leave here.”

A couple sauntered into Veronica's line of vision and took a table a few yards away. Even from the back, they drew attention as the man assisted the woman in removing an expensive-looking overcoat and ushered her into a seat. Both were blond: The man's hair gleamed as gold as an antique doubloon, while the woman's was a pale honey tousled bob that looked casual and thrown together but had probably cost the
earth to attain. He was tall, and she was tiny, but both looked fit in wool sweaters and jeans that Veronica would be willing to bet sported a designer brand on the hip pocket.

She only knew one man that pulled together, so she wasn't exactly knocked for a loop when, having rounded the table and taken a chair that faced her own, turned out to be Troy Jacobson. “Which must make that his wife, whatzername,” she murmured.

“Have you taken up talking to yourself now?” Marissa inquired. “Who must be whose wife?”

“The pom-pom queen. Golden Boy Jacobson's wife.”

Marissa glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, Nancy, you mean. I didn't know she was back in town.” She gave Veronica a look across the table. “She's actually quite nice.”

“If you say so.” Ronnie shrugged. “I suppose it isn't her fault he was such a jackass back in high school. I'm just having a knee-jerk moment. Give me a second—it'll pass.”

As if realizing he was the subject of their discussion, Troy suddenly glanced up from the menu he'd been perusing and looked straight at Veronica. Without so much as a flicker of recognition, he immediately turned his attention back to his menu.

She opened her mouth to say something scathing about it to Marissa, but then kept the comment to herself. She recalled Darlene Starkey's reference to an affair Troy was supposedly having and his less-than-happy retort that his wife had heard the same rumor—which was the reason she'd still been out of town. If appearances were anything to go by, the
couple had resolved their differences, and Veronica had to admit that in his place, she probably wouldn't point out the sister of his onetime lover, either.

A little devil nevertheless nudged her to go over and introduce herself, but she reined in the impulse and concentrated on her visit with Marissa. And after they paid their check a short while later and rose to go their separate ways, she managed to pass within greeting range of the Jacobsons' table without uttering a word.

 

The minute he heard sounds coming from downstairs, Coop saved the file of his current chapter and shut down his computer. It was too soon for Lizzy to be out of school, which meant Ronnie had to be home. For the past several days, she'd managed to avoid him or had given him the bum's rush when she couldn't avoid him, so this was too golden an opportunity to let pass. Coop pushed back from the little table he used as a desk and headed for the stairs.

He found her putting her coat in the living room closet. Stopping in the doorway, he propped his shoulder against the jamb to observe her for a moment. She moved with economical grace, and watching her as she reached out to hook the hanger over the rod, he couldn't believe how much he'd missed her these past several days.

The really scary part was that it wasn't only the sex that he missed. He missed her conversation and her way of looking at things. He missed the warmth of her laugh.

He hadn't thought he'd been particularly quiet
when he entered the room, but when Veronica turned and saw him standing there, she jumped. “Hey,” he said softly, pushing away from the jamb. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“Then stop prowling around like a damn cat!” she snapped.

With an inward sigh, he approached her. “Are you going to stay mad at me forever, Ronnie?” He looked down at her clear skin, flushed with ire, and at her soft mouth set in such hard lines against him, and stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out to touch. “I'm
sorry
I didn't tell you who I was, okay? I didn't set out to hide my relationship with my brother, but when Marissa assumed I was answering the bartender ad, it occurred to me that I'd probably have better luck clearing Eddie's name if no one knew who I was.”

Her mouth twisted, and he expected her to lambast him again for the opportunities he'd had to tell her the truth once they'd made love. She surprised him, however, when she merely said, “I understand what makes Lizzy believe in Eddie's innocence. She's a child and he's her father. But what about you? What makes you so all-fired sure, against every bit of evidence, that Eddie didn't do what the entire judicial system is sure he's done?”

“I don't believe the entire system does believe in his guilt. His lawyer couldn't understand why he ran—he claims the case against Eddie wasn't all that strong. But I don't need a lawyer to tell me my brother's innocent. I know Eddie. And you must have spent enough time talking to him and seeing him with Lizzy to have formed an opinion of the kind of man he is. Can you
honestly say you don't have a single doubt he's guilty?”

“I don't know,” she finally admitted. “I want to say yes, because the evidence all seems to point that way, and why else would he run, if he weren't guilty?”

“But?”

“But…my first reaction, when I heard that Crystal was dead, was sheer disbelief. Not only because she'd been
murdered,
but because Eddie stood accused of it.”

“He didn't do it, Ronnie.”

She studied him in silence for a moment, then finally said, “I can see you honestly believe that.”

“I more than believe it—I know it in my gut.”

“And your gut's never wrong?”

“Rarely.”

Again she considered him, before saying slowly, “That man David said you were in the Marines.”

“Yes. For thirteen years. My friend Zach and I were point men for a recon unit.”

She walked over to the couch and sat. Coop felt encouraged, even though she was perched on the edge as if she might get up and leave at any moment. He took a seat at the opposite end.

“So when you told me you'd been a travel bum for thirteen years,” she said, “that was—”

“Courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

“I was going to say a lie, but since we really didn't know each other then, I suppose it was none of my business. So, what's a recon unit?”

“Reconnaissance—a unit of soldiers who survey a region to obtain information. Usually about an enemy.”

“And the point men…?”

“Scope out potential enemy territory ahead of the rest of the unit.”

She gazed at him for a moment, then blinked and said, “Sounds dangerous.”

Coop shrugged.

“Lizzy seems to think Eddie will come back for her. Is that what you believe, too?”

“Knowing the way Eddie feels about her? Yes.”

She stiffened. “I won't let him take her, Cooper. Unless he gets his life straightened out, I'll fight you, I'll fight him—I'll even fight Lizzy herself before I'll allow Eddie to ruin her life by taking her on the run.”

She leaned forward to study him intently. “I admit, though, that you seem to have a decent grasp on people's characters. So, if I agree to have an open mind about Eddie's guilt in my sister's death, will you agree to keep him away from Lizzy if he shows up?”