Chapter Fourteen
Cooper came awake slowly, coming to his senses and trying to find his way through the fog.
Why was he in a fog?
He reached out. Kala should be close. She rarely got out of bed unless he was awake. She waited for him to draw her close and make love to her before they rolled out of bed and started the day.
It was kind of his best life.
Fuck, he had a brother. Another brother.
He forced his eyes open. His body felt weighed down. Drugged. He’d been drugged. Zach had shown up and Kala had gotten the truth out of Joyce and he’d been… Fuck, he’d been a dick about it. But damn it, she could have handled it differently.
“Well, good morning sleeping beauty,”
a familiar voice said.
His father. “Where am I?”
“You’re at Big Tag’s cabin. I flew out as soon as Kala called. She thought you would probably wake up before I could get here, but the flight time from Dallas is only two hours. Cooper, I didn’t know.”
He took a long breath, trying to focus. He glanced around and saw he was in a bedroom, laid out on a big bed. The blinds were mostly closed, but he could see a thin stream of light coming through them. “How long was I out?”
That seemingly nice old lady had tranqed him. His aunt. Biological aunt.
Zach was his brother, and he’d yelled at Kala. He’d said some mean things to her, and she sometimes took things far too literally.
“It’s been eight hours,”
his father replied. “Your brother flew me out here. He’s going to fly the other jet back. We need to talk. I know this is a shock, but what did you do to Kala?”
So many things. He forced himself up, swinging his legs over so he was upright. And that felt terrible. He caught sight of a picture on the dresser to his left. Big Tag and Charlotte were in the middle, their arms around their kids. Kala stood to the side, her face solemn while all the others were grinning like mad. “Where is she?”
He should talk to her. He’d been too harsh. Way too harsh.
His father looked tired. He was wearing slacks and a button-down, proving he’d likely come straight from the office, gotten into the private jet, and flew all the way to Colorado. No one ever said Alex McKay didn’t show up for his kids. “She’s out in the kitchen, I think. She’s been on the phone with her father or on her laptop. I don’t know what happened. That’s why I asked. All I know is I haven’t seen her look that hollow in a long time. Hunter offered to fly her back. You know when I was a kid growing up I never thought having two corporate jets would be so necessary to my existence.”
He tried to stand but fell back on his ass on the mattress.
“Go slow. You took a whole lot of sedative,”
his father advised.
“Yeah, from fucking Zach.”
It had been on his orders. He was so angry at Zach he could barely breathe.
“Kala had the doc around these parts come out and check your vitals. He said you were fine,”
his father explained. “I know she was worried about you, but she won’t come back here. She said she was planning on heading home with Hunter. Naturally Hunter needed to go into town for a couple of things before he turned the plane around. I’m glad you’re up because I don’t think I can keep her here much longer. She might try to walk home.”
She wanted to leave him? Damn, had she even blinked when he went down? Or had she been so far in badass operative mode that the fact he was knocked out didn’t even faze her? He’d sat by her hospital bed for hours and hours holding her hand, but she was working?
A bitterness welled, an unfamiliar feeling. He wasn’t this person, but he couldn’t help it right now. He was sick physically and his head was still spinning and she wasn’t with him, wasn’t worried about him. “Well, if she wants to leave, that’s her prerogative. Where’s Zach? Is he being held at the sheriff’s department? Or does Big Tag have a lockup here?”
He wouldn’t put it past the man. Was his dad feeling betrayed? He had a very hard time believing Ian Taggart didn’t know something.
His father shifted, staring at him for a moment as though trying to figure out how to handle him. “I thought the two of you were doing okay.”
“We were.”
He sighed. “And we will be. I’ll calm down and apologize. I said some harsh things, but I was in a bad place. A place she kind of put me in.”
“I assure you she didn’t put any of us in this situation. That apparently was the Reed sisters,”
his father replied. “Kala wasn’t even born when we adopted you. Why would you blame her?”
He understood the logic and yet he still had this feeling. “She figured it out way before I did and instead of letting me in on the secret, she kept going. I was a complete idiot. I sat there while she played detective. I mean, I’ve always known her job came first, but damn it hurt.”
His father’s eyes were steady on him. “I don’t think she meant to hurt you. I do think she sometimes gets lost in her own thoughts. You know this. You know her. What did you say?”
Cooper shook his head. “Nothing that wasn’t a normal, natural reaction to finding out I’ve been lied to all my life.”
His father sighed. “That feels dramatic.”
“Really? You’re not mad?”
Cooper asked.
“I’m surprised. I have some questions, but if you’re asking if I’m angry that I adopted you and got to be your father, the answer is no. I can’t be angry about something I love,”
his father said. “From what I understand, the Reed sisters were in a desperate situation and Joyce thought you would be best protected if you were part of a family she knew and loved.”
“She manipulated the system and put you and your wife in a bad situation,”
Cooper countered, unwilling to give up on his anger. It felt good. It felt right to be angry.
His father’s brows cocked up. “My wife? You’re not calling her your mom anymore? It didn’t take much to shake you.”
He was screwing this up. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m only pointing out what happened.”
His father leaned forward, his eyes a steely green. “I’ll tell you what happened. I got the son I always wanted, and if they’d asked me directly if I would take you in, I would have. You know Ian and Charlotte pulled some shady shit to save Tasha. Should she be angry with them that they didn’t go through the most proper of channels?”
His father wasn’t listening to him. “Of course not. Tasha was in real danger.”
“Tasha was in an orphanage,”
his father pointed out. “Your biological mother thought a cartel would take you in order to force her to do their bidding.”
“If she was so worried about it, why didn’t she make a move to protect Zach?”
“They already knew about Zach.”
His father sounded deeply annoyed. “They didn’t know about you. I would bet she was worried about your biological father as well. From what I can tell, she spent time in jail for him. He could have threatened to hurt Zach to get her to do it. Look, we can argue all night about what they did, but all I know is the result. I got my son and I’m happy with it. Like I said, if they’d asked, the result would have been the same. I’m sorry if you feel like you missed out on something. I suppose deep down you’ve always felt that way, and I understand. The unknown can be intriguing, but I’m going to ask you to not talk this way around your brother. I assure you he’s already wondering if his place with you is about to be taken by Zach.”
“The only place I want Zach Reed is in jail, and that’s the only good thing to come out of this day,”
he announced. He was feeling stronger now and got to his feet. “Dad, I’m not saying this the right way. I don’t want to have anything to do with Zach or Shannon Reed. I know Kala is upset that I didn’t react the way she wanted me to, but for fuck’s sake, can’t I have a bad reaction every now and then? I can’t walk on eggshells around her for the rest of our lives. I accommodate her on everything. Every single thing. It can be exhausting. I need her to be okay with this one thing that hurt the hell out of me.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,”
a quiet voice said.
Well, of course, she walked in when he was being an asshole. “Kala.”
She stood in the doorway, her hair up in a ponytail and dressed to fly. She’d changed into leggings and a long shirt, but she hadn’t put on makeup or jewelry. She looked younger than normal, and his father was right. There was a hollowness to her eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel like shit,”
he replied.
“The effects of the sedative should wear off completely soon. The doctor said getting some food into your system might help. I made some soup. It’s in the kitchen. Sorry it was all my dad had here.”
She didn’t walk into the room, merely stood at the door as if she didn’t think she belonged here.
“I don’t want food. Kala, we should talk.”
“I don’t think that would be productive,”
she said, her tone firming. “I think you said everything you needed to say, and I do not have a comeback. I heard you loud and clear, and we should both try to be polite from now on.”
Polite? There was nothing polite about her or their relationship. “Dad, could you give us the room?”
His father stood, but Kala held out a hand. “There’s no need,”
she said. “I was just checking on you. Hunter should be here soon, and we’re going to head to Dallas. You two can stay here for the night so Cooper’s ready to fly tomorrow morning. I’m sure my dad will have a meeting on the schedule for tomorrow afternoon since everyone will be back in Dallas.”
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to sit down and talk this out with me.”
“I think I’ll go see what’s taking Hunter so long,”
his father replied, his discomfort plain.
He eased his way around Kala and moved down the hallway.
“Cooper, don’t be difficult about this. I’m trying not to be,”
she said with a sigh.
“You? Not be difficult?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I said I was trying. I didn’t say I was capable. I don’t want to have this fight. I don’t see the point in it. You don’t trust me. I get it. If there’s no trust, we have nothing.”
And she wasn’t trying to be difficult? “How can you say that?”
“You literally accused me of knowing the circumstances of your adoption and not telling you.”
She was forgetting certain parts of this morning’s conversation. “How long did it take to figure it out, and why didn’t you bother to tell me?”
Her shoulders shrugged, a weary motion. “It wasn’t long, Coop. It was a whole fifteen-minute conversation, and I couldn’t be sure until she said it out loud. I’m sorry I didn’t stop down for a session with you. I was trying to figure out what was going on with Zach. It’s the whole damn reason we were in those woods in the first place.”
“Yeah, the mission.”
He wasn’t able to keep the bitterness out of his tone. “The mission always comes first.”
“It does. It has to. And you always knew that about me. Did you think you could change me?”
“I don’t want to change you.”
He didn’t. He just… He wasn’t even sure what he wanted at this point except to have her fucking hold him. Which was stupid.
“You do,”
she said with the saddest look on her face. She moved now, approaching him. She moved into his space, and her hands came up, cupping his cheeks. “I know this thing has been between us for a very long time, but this is the reality, and it didn’t take long to break us. I know it’s my fault. I don’t behave the way I should.”
Damn, but she could break his heart. “I don’t want you to change, Kala, but can I have an emotion, too?”
Her lips curled up slightly, and she was looking at him like she was studying for a test to be held later. Or memorizing him. “You have all the emotions, babe. You are a fully functional human. And for some reason, I’m not, and I don’t think that’s going to change. We’re always going to end up back here, you and I. If you can’t trust me when all logic says I didn’t betray you, how will you handle it when the logic goes against me?”
He sighed, his hands going to her hips. At least she was touching him. “I didn’t honestly think you had anything to do with the adoption. Obviously.”
“But you thought I might have known something and didn’t tell you. You definitely thought my dad knew,”
she pointed out. “If he knows something, I usually do. Mostly because I’m very nosy.”
He needed to calm down. “I don’t blame you.”
“But you did, and deep down there’s still a little bit of you wondering if I didn’t do it on purpose. It’s a good way to throw off Joyce. I couldn’t have known Zach would show up. Or maybe I did, and this was how I threw off Zach.”
She didn’t understand. “I don’t think you’re working with Zach.”
“Can I hug you?”
she asked.
“You can always hug me.”
Even when he was so angry he couldn’t breathe, he wanted her arms around him.
She wrapped him up, laying her head on his shoulder. “You’re going to be all right. This doesn’t change anything for you. Your parents love you.”
“I know.”
He was calming down now that she was close. He could smell her, feel the warmth of her body against his, and somehow it was easier to breathe. “I’m sorry I said those things.”
“I’m sorry, too,”
she whispered. When she pulled back there were tears in her eyes. She stepped away, wiping at them. “And I’m sorry about…all of it, I guess. I don’t mean to be exhausting. But I don’t know another way to be. I’m always going to be difficult, and you’re always going to deserve more.”
“What?”
He wasn’t sure how they’d gone from her comforting him to… “Kala, I apologized. I didn’t mean it.”
He hated how red her eyes were. She was the strongest woman he knew, and he’d brought her to this. He reached out, taking her hand in his. “I’m exhausting, too. Baby, you can’t take every fight and turn it into a breakup.”
“We’ve had plenty of fights, Coop. This is something else. This is me recognizing that it won’t ever work. Deep down you don’t trust me, and I understand. I’ll always be a spy, and you’ll always wonder if I won’t give you up for the mission. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I would. I can be ruthless. I’m a Taggart, after all.”
Fuck. She’d taken everything he said literally.
And how did you mean for her to take it, asshole? You know how her brain works and you still talked to her like that. Don’t tell yourself you’re the only one putting work in. She’s spent days and days taking care of you, opening herself up to you physically and emotionally when it scares the shit out of her.
“I love you, baby.”
He held her hand. “I had a bad reaction to some freaky news, and I put it on you. It doesn’t mean anything. You said it yourself. It doesn’t change anything.”
“It doesn’t change anything for you,”
she replied. “I was talking about your life. This is a blip on your road, and you get to choose how to process it. You can be grateful you had a mother who wanted to protect you. You can ignore it entirely because you’re happy with your life. Or you can turn it into something it’s not.”
“What is it not?”
Cooper asked.
“An offense to you,”
Kala replied with quiet certainty. “Everything these people did was with you in mind. You should accept it even if you don’t agree with how they went about it. There was no malice here. Not from your biological mother. Not from Zach or Joyce. Not from my dad, who did not know what had happened. And not from me, who just can’t be the woman you need me to be. If I can understand that and not be angry with you, can you do the same for me?”
“I’m not angry.”
He wasn’t angry with her. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the rest of it.
“You were.”
“I’m not now.”
She stared at him for a minute, and then her head shook. “But you will be.”
“Kala, I’m not mad.”
He was getting frustrated though, and he needed to tamp it down. “I was, but now I can see you handled it the best way you knew how, so let’s forget the rest of it. I think I’ve earned some grace from you.”
“By putting up with me? Is that what you’re doing? Earning something by tolerating how hard I am to live with? Do you know how that makes me feel?”
She was misunderstanding him. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter because when I tell you what I did, I assure you there won’t be a lot of grace.”
He dropped her hand. A cold suspicion snaked up his spine. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t do this to him. She would know how important it was for Zach to be secure and ready for questioning. “Where is Zach?”
“Probably on his way out of the country,”
she admitted with a deep resignation in her tone. “He’s looking for Huisman, but also for his mother. I’ve already typed up the reports. It’s everything I can remember from the conversation we had, including the fact that he’s promised to contact me again when he can and he’s worried about Devi.”
She let the fucker go? Maybe he was being hasty. “Did he hurt you?”
Her head shook. “No. He didn’t hurt me or threaten me in any way. If you’re looking for some way to make this not my call, you won’t find it. I could have easily gotten Joyce and forced Zach to come with me. I probably could have taken them both, but I chose not to.”
“You chose.”
“Yes,”
she replied simply. “That’s what the job is. Choices. I think we have a better chance of getting to Huisman if Zach is out there. He’s got connections we don’t, and I believe him when he says he’ll come in when he can.”
“Why the hell would you believe him?”
The question came out on a harsh rasp.
“Because he loves you,”
she said with a sigh that felt like resignation. “Because he wants to get to know his brother. Because I think he truly cares about Devi.”
He huffed at the irony. “Now you believe in love. When it’s convenient for you.”
“I never said I didn’t believe, Coop,”
she argued. “Trust me, I do, and I do not in any way think it’s convenient. I simply don’t think there’s any for me.”
How quickly she forgot. “I loved you.”
She was silent for a moment, staring at him with solemn eyes, and he realized his mistake.
He couldn’t seem to stop making them today. “I love you, but you have to understand why I’m upset. You knew I would want Zach brought in. You let that fucker take me down and then what? You sat down and had a sandwich with him over my drugged body?”
“It was a beer,”
she corrected.
Well, of course it was. His girlfriend. Sipping beer over his unconscious body.
“I made sure you had a pillow,”
she offered and sighed when the silence lengthened between them. “What did you want me to do? Should I have killed Zach? Taken out Joyce? I made sure you were okay and then I calmly did what I had to do. I didn’t fall to my knees and scream. I am what I am, and it’s never going to be what you need. I’ve known it for a long time, babe. I love you, too, but I don’t think my love is ever going to be enough for you. I don’t think I can love enough for anyone. It’s not your fault. It’s all me. I don’t have anyone to blame. I was born this way. Kenz got all the gentleness. Sometimes I wish you fell in love with her and she loved you because at least then I would know you were happy.”
She kissed his cheek and turned and walked out of the room.
He felt his fists clench at the irony. Now she told him? Now? When she’d utterly betrayed him? Now she used the words he’d longed to hear.
He felt like she’d kicked him in the gut. There was a part of him that wanted to chase after her, to force her to fight with him.
He was too dramatic? He loved her. Of course he was going to lose his shit when he thought she was dead. The fact that she wouldn’t meant… What did it mean? Did she have to love him the exact way he loved her? Would her quiet mourning mean less than his histrionic one?
What the fuck was he doing? He needed to chill this thing out. His father was right, and he was behaving in an overly emotional fashion.
Wasn’t this exactly what his mother had warned him about? That he would try to mold her into something she wasn’t. That he’d decided he loved her a very long time before, and he’d been chasing her ever since without truly knowing who she was and accepting her.
Accepting Kala meant embracing all of her, including the parts that sometimes felt remote. She wasn’t. She often seemed standoffish when she was thinking, but she didn’t want to be alone. Well, she did, but she rarely didn’t want him around. He was the one who could soothe her. What did he get in return?
He got a part of her absolutely no one else got. He got her softness.
His heart clenched. She was more fragile than anyone thought. She hid it, and she would never complain, never treat him like shit even when he’d done the same to her.
A laugh huffed from his chest. Nope. His girl would keep it all inside. She would show her love in different ways, including protecting him like he was something precious. Even when they weren’t together.
She was exactly the woman who would see her boyfriend get his dumb ass tranqed because he couldn’t keep his shit together in a potentially dangerous situation, put a pillow under his head, probably kiss him on the forehead and then sit down and get the damn job done.
If it had been him being carried out by someone, she would have died inside but not given up the op. She would have sat by his bedside and held his hand—unless she needed to stab someone.
She was never going to be some swoony, romantic heroine who needed him to save her from the bad guy.
But she did need him to save her from the black hole that sometimes threatened to swallow her whole. She needed him to pull her back to the real world and remind her how much her love was worth.
He sat there for a moment and realized that while he’d thought he’d made a decision before, this was really it. She’d done something he never would have done—allowed Zach to go free. She’d handled things in a way that hurt his feelings. She hadn’t chosen to scrap a mission to save his pride.
What the fuck was his pride worth?
It certainly wasn’t worth the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He stood, glancing at the clock and realizing how much time had gone by while he’d sat here.
Nothing was more important than Kala. Nothing. If she didn’t want to work with him anymore, he would take it. He would support her. It would be her choice.
Although he would try to sway her because he loved working with her. He wanted to work with her at the Agency until she was ready to embark on something else.
If she wanted him to hear Zach out, well, he was already rethinking that, too.
What the hell would he have done had he been the one in Zach’s position? While he certainly wouldn’t have ended up leaving his team, he might have found a way to put himself on it so he could get to know his brother.
He should have done his job, sat beside her and worked it out. He might have been able to talk her into bringing him in, but no, he’d gotten his butt hurt because she hadn’t wailed and cried and made an already dramatic situation worse.
He was going to have to buy so many chocolate croissants and give a million foot rubs and probably agree to another dog because he was pretty sure Kenzie would try to keep Bud 2 and Kala had never not had a dog in her life.
But the most important thing he could do was put his arms around her and ask her for forgiveness.
He walked out into the hallway and into the big living room where his father was sitting in Big Tag’s lounge chair, a serious expression on his face. He looked up. “Are you feeling okay?”
“No. I feel like an asshole.”
He glanced into the kitchen. “Where’s Kala? I need to grovel.”
His father’s expression grew even more grim. “She left half an hour ago. She told Hunter if he wouldn’t take her, she would find her own way back. He did it because… Well, I don’t think he’s ever seen her cry.”
He’d brought his gorgeous girl so low. He pulled out his cell.
I’m going to be back not long after you, baby. We need to talk. I love you. Love you. I’m so sorry for the way I behaved. Please meet with me. Tell Hunter he better keep you safe. You are everything to me.
He sent the text and looked to his father.
“We need to get back to Dallas. I have to get my girl.”