20. Cooper
CHAPTER TWENTY
cooper
“I knew we wouldn’t make it to the bedroom,” Sam comments as she takes the wine from his outstretched hand. Their fingers brush. Even though he just had her, that single touch is a burning ember landing on an arid autumn plain—enough to spark a fire. “But I have to admit, I thought we’d make it more than ten feet inside the door.”
She’s perched on his kitchen counter wearing nothing but his dark blue flannel with two buttons strategically fastened for coverage. It would almost be easier if she were naked, because he can’t stop staring into those tauntingly deep shadows, fully aware of the bare skin waiting within if he just slipped his hand between the folds.
“What are you talking about?” Cooper forces his gaze away and glances over his shoulder. “It’s at least fifteen feet to the door.”
“Smart-ass.” She slaps him playfully on the bicep. “Are you going to let me go explore?”
He slides his palms up her exposed thighs, unable to keep away. “What exactly are you hoping to find?”
“Your hidden stash of Shania Twain paraphernalia, obviously.”
“Then you’re definitely not leaving.” He digs his fingers into her ass cheeks and pulls her against him. Putting his jeans back on was a stupid idea. It’s been five minutes and he’s already straining against them.
“Hey.” Sam puts her palms to his chest. “You promised me food.”
He leans down to nuzzle her neck. “I know.”
“And Wi-Fi.”
“I know.”
“And a shower.”
“That can be arranged.” He strokes her throat with his tongue.
“Cooper,” she says with a laugh as she pushes him. “I actually do need to pee so at least point me to a bathroom, and then I’m all yours.”
He steps back with a groan and grabs her around the waist to lower her off the counter, taking any excuse to keep touching her. “Second door on the right. I’ll get started on dinner. Steak okay?”
“It’s better than the Easy Mac you’d be getting from me.”
“You don’t like to cook?”
“It’s not that I don’t like to cook as a concept. I just don’t like to cook in my kitchen. It’s the size of a closet. Literally. There are two folding doors to close it off and everything.” She shrugs and runs her hand along his granite countertop, eying his kitchen island with a sigh. “It’s just easier to get takeout, especially since the company pays for it if I’m in the office past nine. Which I am. Every night.” She looks up at him suddenly. “Do you cook a lot?”
“If I want to eat.”
He laughs at the confused expression on her face, then leans back against the fridge and crosses his arms. They spent almost every night for two weeks on the phone with each other. How did this never come up? Actually, he’s sort of happy it didn’t, because now he gets to see the real-time, unfiltered reaction written all over her face.
“The closest restaurant to me is an hour and a half away, Cuj.”
“An hour and a half?”
“Twenty minutes by helicopter.”
“That’s—that’s—” She short-circuits, eyes twitching as her words fail her. Her jaw drops to the floor.
He lifts it gently with his finger. “I mean, my old man has a cook, but then I’d have to go over there and eat with him, so it’s just easier to make it myself. Frozen pizza only gets you so far.”
“Frozen…” She blinks rapidly. “You don’t even have a pizza place?”
“None that deliver.”
“Tacos?”
“In town.”
“Sushi?”
“Never tried it.”
“Ramen?”
He furrows his brow. “Like Cup Noodles?”
“Oh dear god.” She digs her fingers into his arm. “Please tell me there’s at least a Starbucks.”
“About two hours in the other direction.”
She gasps like a dying fish sucking air.
“You all right there, Cuj?”
“Yeah.” She wheezes, then coughs to clear her throat. Before she meets his eyes, she takes a big swill of wine. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this life, Cooper.”
“I can make you a latte, Sam.”
“What about dim sum? Can you make that?”
“Sure.” He shrugs. “As soon as you tell me what the hell it is.”
“Cooper—”
He takes her by the shoulders to spin her toward the bathroom. “Get out of here.”
“But, Cooper—”
“Go.”
She stumbles forward and he shakes his head in amusement as he watches her leave. It’s only as he opens the fridge that what she said registers— I don’t think I’m cut out for this life —with those words and that phrasing, as if there’d been an earlier point in time when she’d thought, even for a moment, that maybe she was.
He grins and grabs the steaks.
By the time she returns from the bathroom, both are seasoned, the potatoes are in the oven, and he’s just about done chopping the vegetables for the salad. “For a second, I was worried you fell in.”
“Ha. Ha,” she replies as she jumps back onto the countertop and plucks a cherry tomato from the bowl. “I got distracted.”
“By…?”
“Everything.”
He rolls his eyes while she tries to hide that mischievous grin behind a sip of wine. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—” She half laughs, half sighs. “You are such a cowboy.”
“You say that like you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t. Not really. I mean, sure, I knew about the hat and the boots and the whole Midwestern drawl. But you’re not just a cowboy, Cooper.” She leans in and lowers her voice. “You’re a cowboy .”
“You lost me, Cuj.”
“There are horns mounted on your wall. There’s a picture on the bookshelf of you wearing chaps at five years old. There’s a rope hanging by the door and it’s too dirty to be decorative. Every piece of upholstery in your house is leather. I mean, you are such a cowboy.”
“I have no idea what to say to that.”
She laughs outright and glances around again. “Were all these photographs taken on the ranch?”
“Yup.”
“I especially love the one over your fireplace.”
“Yeah?” He glances toward the mantel, finding the photograph in question as a lump forms at the back of his throat. “Me too. It’s a bit hard to tell with all of the fog, but that’s actually this view before the house was here. We got an early cold front before the water temperatures dropped. My mom always loved those misty mornings, so I woke her up at dawn and drove out here with her. She was pretty far gone at that point so she mainly stayed in the car. Then right as we were about to leave, she put her hand on my arm and said, The sun’s about to break through. I’m not really sure if she knew who I was at that point. Until she said that, I honestly didn’t even think she knew where she was. I just liked having her there. But then she pointed to the sky with this perfect moment of clarity and gave me a little shove. So I hopped out and, well, she was right, as you can see. I’m not really sure if I believe in God or all that, but for a moment, it really felt like more than the sun was shining down on us out there. I guess that’s why I put that one on the mantel. I like to think she might be that thing shining down on me now.” He clears his throat as his eyes start to sting, suddenly aware he might have said too much. “Anyway—”
“Don’t.”
He cuts his gaze to Sam. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t minimize it.” She takes his hand and threads their fingers together. “Did you take all of these?”
“Some are mine. Some are my mom’s. Why? Who’d you think took them?”
“I don’t know. A professional or something.”
“You saw me walking around with my camera in the Maldives, Cuj. What’d you think I was doing?”
“Taking the same terrible photos as everyone else. But these, Cooper? They’re incredible.”
He’s not a shy person, so he’s not sure why he has to fight the sudden urge to look away from the intensity in her eyes, only that he does. Ants crawl beneath his skin as a spot deep inside his chest reverberates with a resounding pang. It’s pain and heartache, but something else too, something that almost feels like pride. It’s actually sort of nice, until she has to go and ruin it by getting an idea. He’s not sure what the idea is, but he’s positive he won’t like it as a frenetic sort of energy builds behind her growing smile. The cogs practically spin in her eyes.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”
“I don’t have to. No.”
“Hear me out.”
“Sam—”
“This is how you save your ranch.”
He winces. My dad would just love that.
“I know that sounds crazy,” she barrels on. “But it’s not. The people who end up the most successful after doing one of these shows are the ones who can use their fifteen minutes not just for fame, but to launch a sustainable business. You’ve got that fame right now, Cooper. Everyone is talking about you online. I literally get daily alerts from my mom whenever Emily is mentioned on Wake Up, America! But it won’t last. It never does. Not unless you can convert it into something more. This is that something more.”
“They’re just a couple of landscape shots, Sam.”
“They’re not. They’re evocative and moody and captivating, Cooper. Honestly. I’m not even your target audience and something in these photographs made me want to keep looking. But more importantly than all of that, they’re a way for the people at home to connect with you, to get a little piece of you to keep for themselves. Set up a shop on your website. Sell prints. Sell canvases. See if you can partner with a frame manufacturer. Post your photographs online for people to see. Add stories in the captions like the one you just told me. And yes, slip a few thirst traps in there to keep people’s attention. Lose the shirt if you’re okay with it. Because a business like that? If you do it right? It can lead to so much more. Book deals. Licensing. Longevity. Not just for you, but for this place you love.”
“I’m not a businessman, Sam. I’m a cowboy.”
“Who said you can’t be both?”
“My dad won’t even let me open us up for horseback riding tours.”
“So?”
“It’s his ranch.”
She rears back in confusion, then cocks her head to the side. “But isn’t that the whole point?”
“What?” he asks, clueless to what she’s implying.
“It’ll be yours,” she says, as if that’s the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it is. But it feels brand new. Not the idea that he’ll inherit the ranch one day. He knows that. He’s always known it. But that when he does, it won’t be his father’s ranch anymore, or his father’s, or his father’s before him.
It’ll be mine.
“Someday, hopefully in the very distant future, it will be yours, Cooper,” she says, as if she can read on his face how her words are resonating. “Your father won’t always be the one making the decisions, and an opportunity like this might not come around again. There’s a saying my old boss used to like. Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If you start bringing in money, if you show him your way can work, he won’t be able to say no.”
Isn’t that why he went on the show in the first place?
Isn’t that why he risked so much?
To make something of himself.
To make something for himself.
To prove his father wrong.
Or had his father been right all along? Had he just wanted an excuse to run away again, to gallivant around the world instead of putting in the real work here?
“You can do it, Cooper.” She slides her palm over his cheek to stroke his skin, drawing him out of himself and back to her. “You can make it yours.”
All he wants to do is taste the confidence on her lips, as if her kiss might be able to infuse that belief into his soul.
But he can’t.
So he does the next best thing and fists her hair. As he lays her back on the counter, he tugs her head to the side, gaining access to her throat.
“The food—”
“Can wait.” He undoes those two taunting buttons. “I want an appetizer first.”
Lips pressed against her skin, he feels her pulse pound as he spreads her knees wide. With a grin, he sinks lower.
Eventually, they make it to the food.
And after that, the bedroom.
At some point, they must fall asleep, because when he opens his eyes the first strains of daylight filter through the window. And this time, Sam is still there with him, nuzzled against his side with their legs entwined. It’s heaven, just pure bliss, to wake with her warmth still seeping into his skin, to feel the gentle brush of her breath on his chest, to know she didn’t vanish in the middle of the night. The absolute last thing he wants to do is extricate himself.
But the ranch waits for no one.
So he’s careful not to jostle her as he gently rolls free. He’s quiet as he grabs a set of clothes from the closet and brushes his teeth in the bathroom before slipping away. He puts a pot of coffee on, lays out one of the croissants he picked up from the bakery in town, and pens a quick note to let her know he should be back after lunch.
An odd feeling washes over him as he fires up his truck and eases down the dirt driveway toward the main house. His gaze keeps drifting to the rearview mirror as the house grows smaller and smaller, a sinking feeling in his chest at the thought of Sam being farther and farther away. It’s only when he slams on the brakes after having almost run into a deer that the truth smacks him in the face.
For the first time in his life, he’s looking back.
Not ahead.
Not at the horizon.
Not at whatever waits beyond.
But behind.
At his house.
At her.
In a sudden rush, he finally understands why his father constantly used to look over his shoulder, why he always went to the main house first instead of the stables, even if it added an extra twenty minutes to his day, why he now seems so lost. It’s the same reason his mother sat out on the porch every night waiting for her husband to return. Cooper gets it in a way he never has before. He gets it the way his mother always said he would.
She was right.
He was searching for all the wrong things in all the wrong places. Looking for an escape, for a thrill, for another life, for anything and everything that would free him from the binds of his birthright for even a moment. But he sees the truth with perfect clarity now. It was never freedom that he needed.
It was an anchor.
A person.
Someone who would turn this place from a jail cell into a home.