22. Cooper
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
cooper
This is a bad idea , Cooper thinks for the hundredth time today. He and Wes are waiting for Sam in the foyer. The fucking Barn.
He sighs again, then scrubs a hand through his hair before resettling his hat on his head.
“Relax.” Wes nudges him with an elbow. The asshole hasn’t been able to wipe that shit-eating grin off his lips all day. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“You need to call her Emily.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Wes.”
“I know.”
“And tell everyone no pictures.”
“Will do, boss.”
“If the truth gets out…”
“Breathe, man,” Wes says with a laugh. “I’ve never seen you wound so tight. You’ve got a stick the size of Nebraska up your ass right now.”
Cooper rolls his shoulders. “I know. I just—”
“Answer me this,” Wes interrupts as he glances around the corner toward the bedroom door to make sure it’s still closed. “You love this girl, right?”
“I think I might.”
“You want her to move here?”
“I think I do.”
“So what does it matter if the truth gets out? Don’t you want it out?”
“ I do.” He resists the urge to run a hand through his hair again. “But she doesn’t. Not yet. And until she does, I can’t break her trust like that.”
“Okay.” Wes nods, then leans closer. “But between you and me, I don’t think she’ll care all that much. In fact, I think she might want the truth out just as much as you do.”
Cooper’s heart skips a beat as he cuts his gaze to the still-closed bedroom door, imagining the woman on the other side. He hears her voice again. I have everything I need right here. Fuck if hearing that didn’t make his entire damn year. He’s been playing that little piece of audio on repeat in the back of his mind all day, trying to decipher just how much of it was true and how much was Sam needing to beat his father. She’s competitive as hell. He knows she’ll say and do whatever it takes to win an argument. But if there was even a small part of her that meant it, a sliver he could work with…he has to know.
He looks at Wes. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a hunch.” Wes shrugs.
Cooper’s mood plummets. “A hunch?”
“Yeah. Plus when I talked to her earlier today, she said she was very much taken . And that sure as shit doesn’t sound casual to me.”
Talk about burying the lede. Cooper’s pulse rockets. “She said that?”
“Yeah, and—”
Wes cuts off as the click of a door reverberates down the hall.
And what? Cooper thinks. AND WHAT?
But the moment Sam walks into the hallway, every thought in his head disappears. She’s wearing a sinfully low-cut black tank top tucked into a pair of skintight black jeans. He runs his gaze over her curves, drinking in every swell, already imagining himself peeling the garments off to reveal inch after inch of that milky skin.
Black , he thinks. I had to tell her black.
His weakness.
When his gaze finally reaches her feet, a small smile plays over his lips. She’s wearing a pair of scuffed tan cowboy boots that couldn’t possibly have been purchased just for this trip. They look lived in, as if she’s been wearing them every day of her life…as if she belongs in them.
As she takes a step closer, completely unaware of the effect she’s having on him, she shrugs into a tan leather jacket with fringe sleeves and sighs.
“Be honest. Is the jacket too much? Winnie is obsessed with it and I promised her I’d bring it, but it feels like, I don’t know, like I’m trying too hard or something.”
“Definitely not too much,” Wes murmurs.
Cooper knows him well enough to recognize that tone. Without even looking he shoves his hand in his friend’s face. “Eyes off.”
The bastard chuckles. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“You know,” Sam says after he’s gone, “you won’t be able to cover everyone’s eyes at the bar.”
“Is that a challenge?”
She grins and slides her hands up his chest. His heart pounds like hooves on the plains as she hooks her fingers behind his neck and meets his eyes, her mouth so close he can’t think of anything but taking it. “So it’s good, then?”
“You look…” He trails off, not sure how to finish.
Like a fucking dream.
Like everything I never knew I needed come to life.
Like you were made for me.
“That good, huh?” she teases.
“Sam—”
She puts a finger to his lips, shutting him up, as if she knows, by the look in his eyes or the sound of his voice, that he’s about to say too much. “Save it, cowboy.”
For when? he desperately thinks, searching those honey eyes for an answer. I’ve only got thirty-six hours left with you. When will you be ready? When will you finally let me in?
“Besides, you should be happy if everyone is looking.”
“Yeah?” he relents. “Why?”
“Because.” She leans in close and stretches onto her tippy toes, pressing completely against him as her lips brush his ear, sending a spike of heat deep into his lower abs. “No matter how much they look, or how much they pine, or how much they try, I’ll be coming home with you, Cooper. Only you.”
She pushes past him while he melts into a goddamn puddle on the floor.
This is a really bad idea.
Her.
Him.
Them.
The bar.
Everything.
And yet, he follows her out the door like the sad little puppy he’s somehow become, trailing at her heels. Wes already has the truck fired up when he hops in.
“To the Barn?” his friend asks.
Cooper slips his arm around Sam’s shoulders and pulls her into his side. She curls easily into the spot and settles her head against his chest. He lifts one foot onto the dash, drops his head back, and surrenders to just how right this feels. “To the Barn.”
They peel off down the gravel road.
For the first half of the drive, Wes peppers them with an endless stream of questions about everything that happened on the show and in the Maldives to get them to this point. He’s half superfan and half needling-best-friend. By the time he’s done, Cooper is exhausted. But Sam is apparently just getting started because she then spends the second half of the ride demanding to hear every embarrassing story of his youth, starting with, Okay, I’ve been thinking about this all day. What’s the Peak? And who the hell is Caroline? He grins at that one, noting the jealousy in her tone. But the smug attitude is quickly wiped away when Wes abandons all loyalty and tells her everything she wants to hear—that the Peak is a well-known makeout spot at the top of a bluff about forty-five minutes outside of town, that Caroline is the daughter of his father’s best friend, and that a thousand-watt spotlight hit them right about the same time his zipper came undone. Apparently, history means nothing in the face of Sam’s mischievous eyes. By the time they pull into a parking spot, all his dirty laundry from age five to now has been aired.
But he doesn’t mind.
He likes that she keeps asking for more. He wants her to know everything about him.
He wants to know everything about her, too.
“Is that Cooper Fucking Kelley?” a voice shouts the second he steps out of the truck.
“ The Cooper Kelley?” another taunts.
“The six-pack savior?”
He lifts his middle finger high into the air and turns to offer Sam his hand. The moment her auburn hair slips into view, a true murmur rises.
“Is that her?”
“Is that Emily?”
“Why is she here?”
“Do you see that ring?”
“Are they engaged?”
So much for keeping a low profile. Sam looks up at him and grins, the same thought clearly running through her mind. I should have told her to take off the ring.
Except he didn’t want to.
If he’s being honest, he likes seeing it there. He likes knowing there’s some little piece of her that belongs to him, even if it’s fake.
Because he wants it to be real.
Besides, this is a small town with small-town loyalties. No one will blab to the press. He’s more worried about being indoctrinated into the local lore for the rest of his goddamn life. Though, really, it’s already too late for that.
Cooper pulls Sam against his side and mutters into her hair, “You ready for this, Cuj?”
“Honestly?” She laughs, the sound warming him up like a shot of whiskey. “I have no idea. Let’s go.”
They close the distance and step inside the bar to open stares. He’s known practically everyone in this place since birth, so he’s not the one they’re looking at. Sam either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. She gasps and points at a sign on the wall just inside the door that reads Bull Riding Arena .
“Bull riding?” She squeals. “Like actual bull riding?”
“They don’t call it the Barn for nothing.”
“We have to go.”
“Whatever you say.”
This riding is nothing compared to some of the rodeo riders he’s seen, but Sam is mesmerized as they step through the double doors into the arena. It’s Saturday night so the entertainment is already in full swing. The bleachers are full to the brim with half-drunk patrons but he squeezes them into a good spot near the middle.
“I can’t believe there’s actual bull riding in a bar!” She squeezes his hand so hard he just about loses circulation. Before he can answer, the announcer comes on the loudspeaker welcoming the next rider.
Her eyes are glued to the ring.
His eyes are glued to her.
Every gasp, every flinch, every grin—he drinks them in. They watch five, maybe six, riders. He loses count.
“That was incredible!” she says when the show is over.
Yeah , he thinks. You are.
But he doesn’t want to push too hard, doesn’t want to spook her, so he just says, “Drink?”
They head to the main bar. He points out the pool tables, the live music, the line dancing, the mechanical bulls. Sam wants to see it all. They pull Wes and the girl he’s chatting up in for a game of pool. Then she tugs him into the throng of line dancers, diving in headfirst as she stumbles over her feet, laughter spilling through her lips. He loves her enthusiasm. He loves how she doesn’t care that she has no idea what the hell she’s doing. He loves the joy bright in her eyes.
He loves…her.
Cooper grabs Sam by the hand and spins her into his arms as he leads them to a different area closer to the music. This is all he wants. Her head on his chest. Her fingers playing with the curls at the base of his neck. Her body swaying in time with his. The two of them perfectly in sync, as if alone, despite the looks that have been following them all night.
It could be like this , he realizes. It could be like this for the rest of our lives and I’d never, ever get tired of it. I’d never want to leave.
“Emily, you’re almost up!”
The words don’t register until Wes puts his hand on Cooper’s shoulder. Sam looks up, her lids heavy, her gaze heady. They’re both in a daze, caught in the same spell, until his friend says it again.
“ Emily. You’re next on the bull.”
Sam jolts. “Oh, right! I totally forgot.”
“You don’t—”
“Hold this, will you?” She cuts Wes off and shimmies out of her jacket, carefully avoiding Cooper’s eyes. “Winnie will have my head if anything happens to it.”
He knows her well enough to know exactly what’s happening. She’s running. But it doesn’t make him mad. Quite the opposite, in fact, because her reaction just means that everything he’s feeling, she is too.
Cooper fights a grin as she hands him the jacket. It must be a losing battle because she eyes him strangely.
“You okay there, cowboy?”
“Never better.”
She frowns. “You think I’m going to fall.”
“I never said that.”
“Look at that smug expression on your face. You totally think I’m going to fall. Don’t you?”
No. I know you already have. He keeps that sentiment to himself even as his lips curl higher.
As expected, Sam fumes. “I can’t believe you!”
“I didn’t do anything.” He chuckles.
The operator calls her name. Cooper recognizes him—Ben or Ken, he can’t remember. But he doesn’t have to know the guy’s name to understand the appreciative look in his eyes as Sam steps forward. Cooper’s hackles immediately rise…then rise again when she steps up onto the inflatable ring and half a dozen more heads whip around to watch.
For fuck’s sake. Don’t they see the diamond?
Sam turns around with a smirk. “I think I’ll be needing this.”
She plucks the hat from his head, and he can tell by her expression it’s supposed to be a jibe, but all he can think is, Damn straight she’s got my hat on her head. Back off, assholes.
Cooper’s too distracted by the growing crowd to hear what exactly she’s saying to Ben or Ken or whatever his name is as he helps her onto the bull. The wicked gleam in her eyes as she tosses a quick glance over her shoulder should terrify him, but he’s too focused on the way that jerk’s fingers are lingering to really notice. The music shifts and he still doesn’t understand what’s happening, too absorbed by the slow roll of her body as the bull eases into motion. It’s not until he feels himself twitch against the seam of his pants that reality sets in, and by then it’s too late.
“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” blasts from the loudspeakers. Sam gyrates beneath a spotlight, hips circling, hair whipping, breasts bouncing in that low, low top, as she fights to keep her seat. The speed ramps up as the crowd hollers. But she keeps going. And the song keeps playing. And though he knows the whole thing can’t last more than twenty-five seconds, thirty tops, by the time she flies off, he feels like a middle schooler with a raging hard-on in the middle of biology class.
Three guys rush to offer her a hand, but Cooper shoves them aside. At the sight of his glower, Sam smirks. He takes her by the hips as she swings her legs over the side of the inflatable wall, but instead of lowering her to the ground, he keeps her perched there and steps between her open thighs. She bites her lips to swallow a gleeful laugh as that almost painful source of heat nudges against her. Cooper arches a brow.
“Was that really necessary?”
“No,” she chirps and drapes her arms around his shoulders, looking up at him with a victorious expression. “But it was fun.”
“Remember what I said in the Maldives, Cuj?”
“Great power comes with great responsibility?”
He drops his lips to her ear and whispers, “Don’t start something you’re not prepared to finish.”
“Oh, that,” she teases, then leans back to meet his eyes. “Winnie told me something interesting.”
“To be honest, I don’t really give a damn what Winnie told you right now.”
“She reads a lot of Westerns,” Sam continues, ignoring him. “And she told me about this rule.”
“Rule?”
“Yeah.” She hooks her ankles behind his back, and his pulse jumps so fast he’s afraid he’s having a heart attack. “Whoever wears the hat, rides the cowboy.”
“You know what? I’ve always liked Winnie.”
Sam barks out a laugh. “You’ve never even met her.”
“Remind me to thank her when I do.”
Cooper slides his hands beneath her ass cheeks and lifts her against him. He steps back from the inflatable ring, taking her with him.
“Wes!” he shouts, not breaking contact with Sam and the heat simmering in those gorgeous, glowing eyes. “Find your own ride home!”