Head Over Heels (5 page)

A disposition that seemed to rear its ugly head whenever Cooper Blackstock was near.

For as long as she could remember, she'd hankered to see the world beyond Fossil. She'd longed to view beautiful things, to use her mind and make something of herself. But Daddy had teased her mercilessly for her dreams, and since she'd never been particularly good at hiding her feelings, she'd responded, more often than not, with a snappishness it made her wince to remember.

But damned if she was falling back into that pit. She opened her mouth to apologize—which she seemed to be doing way too much of this morning—and to inform him of the reason she needed the key by eleven. Before so much as another “sorry” could pass her lips, however, Coop pushed his chair back from the table with a nerve-twanging screech and stood. On his feet, he took up even more space than he had seated. Or maybe it was his palpable displeasure that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room and take up all the available space. The lazy amusement he'd displayed a moment ago had vanished, and it was all Veronica could do to maintain eye contact beneath the hard-eyed, level look he trained on her.

Hands on his hips, he gave her a clipped nod. “Fine,” he said. “You'll have your damn key by eleven.
But I'll tell you something, Princess: It's a wonder to me that no one's ever wrung that lily-white neck of yours.”

And with a final glower, he turned on his heel and strode from the room.

 

Coop dropped off the newly cut key at ten-thirty and left the house again without exchanging a word with little Miss Veronica. Climbing back into his car, he swore to himself that, come eleven
A
.
M
., he wouldn't be anywhere near the Tonk to see what she'd wanted it for. But at five minutes to the hour, he found himself driving by. Whispering curses for giving a damn when he had far more pressing matters to occupy his free time, he nevertheless found himself making a U-turn down the street and parking where he could keep an eye on the bar's front door like some cut-rate private eye from an old B movie.

He scowled as he peered down the block. What was it about this woman, anyway? Aside from that gorgeous baby skin, he supposed she was attractive enough in an uptight, bossy sort of way. She was a far cry from drop-dead gorgeous, though; she verged on skinny and lacked all but a hint of the lush ass and full breasts he usually went for. So why did she seem to be burrowing her way under his skin?

A disgruntled noise rumbled in the back of his throat and Coop reached for the ignition key to turn the car back on.
Ticks
burrowed under a person's skin, too, and he'd simply have to excise Veronica Davis the same way he would any other parasite: with one swift, efficient jerk. He put the car in gear and glanced over
his shoulder at the oncoming traffic. It was time to get the hell out of here. He had things to do.

He had to wait for a step-van to drive past, and before he could pull out into the street in its wake, the vehicle eased to the curb in front of the Tonk. Coop settled back in his seat. He barely had time to read the logo,
CASCADE AIR
, off the rear panel doors when Veronica came out of the house, hurriedly locked it up behind her, and dodged the light flow of traffic to cross the street to the van.

Storm clouds blocked the sun as she talked with great animation to the driver, an athletically built man in blue overalls who grinned down at her and stood a lot closer than Coop thought necessary for a repairman. A moment later, Veronica let herself and the man into the Tonk.

What's this?
Coop climbed out of his car and strode down the street, determined to find out what she was up to. Nothing was wrong with the heating or cooling systems in the bar, so who
was
this guy—some old high school flame? Was she using the Tonk for a nooner? Now,
there
was an appropriate use of the family biz.

And why is it any skin off your dick if she is, Blackstock? It's her bar
. He paused with his hand on the Tonk's doorknob, then yanked it open and stepped inside. No, dammit, it was Lizzy's bar. And he was merely looking out for his niece's interests.

He thought about the little girl as he paused to let his eyes adjust to the bar's dimness. He hadn't expected to melt inside when he met her, but he'd taken one look at those big, grave eyes, and it had been like his experience with her daddy all over again. He never
had been able to keep his distance from Eddie, no matter how hard he'd tried, and he had a feeling it was going to be the same with Lizzy.

When he'd decided to keep his identity a secret, he'd thought it would be simple to watch his niece from a distance. Not only would it cover his own butt in case Eddie had shown Lizzy pictures or talked about him, but it would also save her from having to deal with a relative who was virtually a stranger in the midst of all the other shit she had going on in her life.

It seemed naive in retrospect, but he'd actually thought staying detached would be a piece of cake, even when Veronica had finally shown up and he'd discovered they'd be living in the same house. He hadn't factored in the enticement of Lizzy, though. There was just something about her that drew him every bit as strongly as Eddie ever had.

Voices from the back room snapped him out of his reverie, and he pushed away from the door. A moment later Veronica and her repairman walked into the bar, and ignoring the voice that snidely suggested Aunt Ronnie had some enticements of her own, Coop squared his shoulders and sauntered over to meet her.

V
ERONICA WATCHED
C
OOP WALK ACROSS THE BAR AS
if he owned the joint and felt her back stiffen. “What are you doing here?”

“I stopped by to see if you needed help with anything.” A pleasant smile curved his lips, but the dark eyes inspecting Kody, the installer from Cascade Air, showed a vigilant sort of curiosity.

Her instinctive reaction was to decline his offer in no uncertain terms, and, in truth, there wasn't anything he could do. She bit back the urge to snap out a knee-jerk no, however. As long as he was the Tonk's manager, she didn't have to be, and as holder of that position, he had a right to know what she planned to do with the bar. So, with a sigh, she excused herself to Kody and, grasping Coop's forearm, led him out of earshot.

She immediately regretted touching him. The layer of velvet-soft pinwale corduroy that kept their flesh from touching didn't do a thing to prevent his body heat from radiating through the plaid fabric, and she was highly aware of the corded strength of his arm beneath her hand.

She was highly aware of him, period.
Too
aware. That had been the problem with this guy from the beginning. And she didn't understand it. She'd never gone for the sulky-mouthed, hard-bodied type—her usual kind of man was cultured and favored Brooks Brothers suits with complementing power ties. Coop probably thought culture was pouring a beer into a stein instead of glugging it straight from the can.

The snideness of that thought produced a twinge of shame. Not only was it amazingly snobbish for someone who'd grown up in a bar, she also had a flash of the
New York Times
on the kitchen table this morning.

Then she shrugged the feeling aside. So, big deal; he read newspapers—and more widely than she did, she'd concede. It didn't make him any more likely to pass up a sporting event for a stroll through a museum. And it was the museumgoers, not the jock types, who had always been the kind of man to rev her motor.

She was still grateful when they reached the bar and she could drop her hand without appearing too anxious. “Okay, here's the deal,” she said. “I can't stand the smoke in this place, and I'm having an air purification system put in to suck it out of the air.”

“And you didn't think that, as manager, I might be interested in knowing this?” His tone was neutral, and his expression gave nothing away. But his body lan
guage as he loomed over her with his arms folded across his chest said,
Explain yourself, missy
. “You haven't even gone over the books yet. What makes you assume the bar can afford it?”

She felt her temper rise, but slapped a lid on it. “You're absolutely correct,” she said with hard-won mildness. “I should have told you what I planned to do this morning, and I apologize for my failure to do so. But I'm telling you now. And if the bar can't afford it, then I guess I'll just have to pay for it myself.” She almost smiled when he blinked warily, then narrowed his gaze as if trying to ferret out the catch. “I should probably tell you, too, that I'm going over to Franklin's Realty today to put the bar on the market, and I frankly hope the new air system will increase its value. But even if it doesn't, I can't stand the way everything from my hair to my underwear stinks to high heaven when I leave here. And I don't like the idea of Lizzy smelling it on me. It seems hypocritical to try to teach her not to smoke herself, then come home every night smelling like the bottom of an ashtray.”

Coop examined her statement from every conceivable angle, but couldn't find fault with it. Which was not to say he trusted her any farther than he could lob her. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Gonna take the money and run, sugarplum?”

“No,
stud-biscuit,
I'm going to take the money and stick it in a trust account for my niece. But you've got the second part right. The instant this place sells, I'm packing up Lizzy and making a break for it. And I'm not looking back until we hit the city limits. Not that
that'll
take more than five minutes.”

He wasn't crazy about the idea of her uprooting
Lizzy, since his niece would simply have to turn right around and come back once Eddie was exonerated. But since he was hardly in a position to say so, he gave her a clipped nod. “Fair enough. So long as you don't shirk your obligation to the Tonk in the mean-time.”

“Actually, that brings up another point.” She stood ramrod straight in front of him, her shoulders back and the elegant curve of her chin elevated. “It occurs to me that I never got around to setting up a work schedule with you last night. Now, I'm perfectly willing to have you dictate my days off, but don't plan on me starting work any night before nine o'clock.”

Christ Almighty. He'd had drill instructors who weren't half the control freak this woman was, and gazing down at her determined little jaw and cool green eyes, he had the strongest urge to muss her up a little, if only to drive that bossy look from her face. She was so friggin' tidy. Her glossy black hair was obviously the product of a pricey cut, for it fell sleekly into place without so much as a strand out of order. He got a quick image of the way it had been this morning, though—all rumpled from sleep and looking as if she'd just rolled out of bed after a hot bout of down-and-dirty sex.

Well, give him twenty minutes and he could make her look like that for real.

That straightened him up in a hurry. Damn, where had
that
come from? It was probably just one of those guy responses to a woman trying to dictate terms. If you can't beat 'em, roll 'em around under the covers until they understand who's boss.

He didn't need to establish his jurisdiction through sex, though, tempting as the notion might be. He was
the manager of this joint, and that was all the authority he needed.

“You're a regular little four-star general, aren't you?” Reaching out, he pulled a tendril of her hair out of place and rearranged it against her cheek, his lips curving upward in amusement when she smacked his hand aside and impatiently brushed the strand back in place. Shoving his hands deep into his pockets in an attempt to ignore the way his fingertips seemed to retain the feel of that sleek, satiny texture, he fixed his best don't-screw-with-me expression on his face. “But
I
make the schedule around here, sugar, not you. And if I need you at the Tonk before nine, you'll damn well make yourself available.”

“You think so?” Facing off with him, she drew herself up. “Well, I've got news for you, Blackstock. You can beat your hairy chest until the dogs come home—”

“Cows,” Coop corrected. When Veronica gave him a blank look, he elucidated, “The expression is ‘until the
cows
come home.'”

“Dogs, cows—whatever. Unless it's an emergency, I still don't plan on being there before nine.” Then she surprised him by sagging slightly and shoving her fingers through her hair. The action revealed a pucker of worry between her slender black eyebrows. “More than anything else right now,” she said, “Lizzy needs stability in her life. With Crystal d-dead and her dad a fugitive, I'm all the family she's got left. Well, except for a stepbrother or half-brother, or some such shirttail relation of Eddie's. But I don't even know the man's name, let alone how to get hold of him, and he's obviously not all that worried about Lizzy's welfare, or he'd have called to see how she's doing.”

Coop winced, but Veronica waved the statement aside as if it were of no consequence. “The point is: I admit I don't know beans about parenting, but it seems to me that the most important thing I can do is be there for her as much as possible during her waking hours. I wanted to find a professional to help her deal with the fact that her father's been accused of murdering her mother, but Fossil isn't exactly a hotbed for child psychologists. So I'm not leaving for work until she's tucked in and settled for the night.” Her chin racheted up in determination as she gave him a level look. “Work around it, Cooper. The bar rarely gets busy before nine, anyhow.”

“All right.”

Veronica blinked, then narrowed her eyes. “That was almost too easy. So why does it make me suspicious as all get-out?”

“Beats the hell outta me, sweetpea. But if it makes you feel better, I agreed because you made a valid argument. As long as it's for the kid, you'll get no argument from me. Start tossing your weight around just because you can, though, and you'll find yourself looking for a new bartender faster than you can say Sex On The Beach.”

“Why would I want to say that? Oh! That's a drink, right?”

Coop merely gave her a heavy-lidded look, a smile of satisfaction tugging up the corners of his mouth when he saw her immediately bristle.

Then she brandished a smile so sweet it raised all sorts of warning flags. “And as long as you're being such a reasonable guy, I should probably also inform you that I plan to run a background check on you.”

He'd actually been thinking he might have misjudged her, but her little bombshell exploded that fantasy in a hurry. “As in a
police
check?” he demanded. “The hell you say!” He stepped forward, looming over her.

She tilted her head back and looked him straight in the eye. “I'll tell you the truth, Cooper: I don't honestly believe you'd ever harm Lizzy. But you're a strange man living in the same house with a six-year-old girl, and I'll be damned if I'll risk her safety on a gut feeling. My gut's been wrong before. So I'm telling you straight out, I'm going to make certain you don't have an arrest record. And if I find out you do, you're going to find yourself out on the street so fast your head will spin—and the lease be damned.”

He couldn't fault her reasoning, but that didn't stop him from feeling insulted right down to the bone. He was an honest man. Hell, he was an ex-Marine—he'd spent thirteen years of his life keeping this country safe for people like her. He didn't take kindly to her thinking he might be some pervert who'd prey on little girls.

With a sound of disgust, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

Veronica's heart tried to climb into her throat as she watched him go. It was her obligation to protect Lizzy, and running a background check on Coop was just good sense.

“Veronica?”

She turned to see Kody walking up with his clipboard.

“I've got your estimate ready,” he said. “You have a minute to sit down with me and go over it?”

She thought of the offended anger she'd seen in Coop's eyes and—more unnerving yet—a glimpse of something that had almost looked like…hurt.

Then she shook her head and turned her attention back to Kody.
Don't be an idiot. A Sherman tank couldn't hurt that guy
. “Yes, sure,” she said. “Let's grab a seat over here and you can tell me what the damage is going to be.”

 

A red mist hazed Coop's usual cool and logical reasoning process while he stalked down the street, and he all but ripped the driver's door off its hinges getting into his car. He slammed it shut behind him, started the car, then peeled away from the curb. Heading out of town, he picked up the interstate just beyond the Big K, stomping the accelerator to the floor the instant his car's back wheels cleared the freeway on-ramp. He punched on the CD player, cranked up the volume, and blasted down the highway, speakers wailing and engine screaming.

The car roared through dun-colored, snow-dusted hills and brown flatlands, past apple orchards that hosted row after row of skeletal trees. He blew past nondescript little burgs of cinder-block buildings, and didn't slow down until the skies suddenly opened up about fifteen miles out of town. Then, turning the windshield wipers onto their highest setting and the defroster to full blast to dissipate the rapidly fogging glass, he took the next exit, got back on the freeway heading north, and put the pedal to the metal once again.

The rain poured down in sheets, and a few miles
south of Fossil the car hit a patch of standing water and hydroplaned along its surface. The back end fish-tailed as Coop fought to gain purchase on the road beneath, and easing up on the gas, he wrested back control of the car and immediately slowed down. No sense killing himself because Veronica Davis had a suspicious mind.

He didn't know why it bugged him so much—in a faraway corner of his mind, he actually applauded her caution. She seemed to be doing whatever she could to protect Lizzy, and who could argue with that? Except…

He'd worked damn hard to command a measure of respect in his life. God knew his own mother had never thought he'd amount to anything, and he'd worked his ass off to prove her wrong and become the type of man he could be proud of. He sure as hell didn't appreciate being lumped in with pedophiles and who the hell knew what else.

But there was no sense brooding over it. It was high time, in fact, that he quit thinking about little Miz Davis entirely. During his brief sojourn at the Tonk, he'd gleaned bits and pieces of information on Crystal's murder. He'd also heard some of the popularly believed reasons why Eddie fit the bill as prime suspect. But he hadn't learned nearly as much as he'd hoped to, and he sure hadn't learned anything that would clear Eddie's name. It was time to step up his efforts.

Coop drove to Fossil's small downtown business section and pulled into a neatly paved lot. Then he simply sat for a moment, listening to the rain bounce with a tinny patter against the car roof as he stared up
at the cantilevered angles of a fifties-style redwood structure. A discreet sign above the entrance read
FOSSIL PROFESSIONAL BUILDING
.

Exhaling vigorously to settle the sudden tension that twanged warnings along the nerve endings down his spine, he collected his checkbook from the glove compartment and climbed out of the car. He quickly locked up and dashed through the pounding rain. Damn, it was cold! He should have worn a coat.