Chapter 21 Cochrane Gambit
cochrane gambit
Rowan - five years ago
A soft glow from the interior of the cabin dances through the pines as we traverse the winding gravel road.
At the end of the drive, I crank off the engine and stabilize the bike beneath my feet as Hannah climbs off behind me.
The sudden absence of her warmth at my back has me inclined to ask if she wants to ride a little longer. But I think better of it.
Pops texted while we were at the bar about when I would be coming home. I threw his own words back at him, saying I didn’t need a babysitter. He responded with an eye-roll emoji followed by his signature.
“He knows I’m coming, right?” Hannah asks.
I collect our helmets and hang them on the handlebars. “Yeah, he knows.”
She turns for the porch steps. I stop her with a soft tug on the backpack. “And I should probably warn you…” I flick a glance to the door, sliding the bag off her shoulders. “My grandfather is—”
“Oh boy,” she cuts in. “Is this the part where I find out you’ve brought me to a secluded cabin in the woods to chop me into tiny pieces?
” I quirk a smile. “There’s probably no Pops at all, only a collection of hunting knives and a very suspicious black duffel bag by the back door.
” She looks at the house, then levels her gaze at me.
“Gotta say, soldier, I didn’t see this coming. ”
Her arms fold and she pops a hip. The same joy I saw back at the bar when I asked her to dance, sweeps over her face.
The dingy old room moved along in real time but the air felt like it got sucked into a vacuum.
A time capsule moment I want to remember for the rest of my life.
Me, her, that earth-shattering smile, and the thumping heart in my chest at the sight of it.
I shake off the thoughts I shouldn’t be having about a woman I barely know and flash a smirk.
“Cute,” I quip. “As I was saying, Pops can be a little…withdrawn sometimes.”
“He just lost his wife. I get it.”
“Yeah, that’s partly it, but…he’s not a very talkative man. I don’t want you to take it personally.”
“Alright,” she sighs. “Got any suggestions for helping him open up?”
A shadow moves across the frosted window on the front door. I extend a hand for her to walk ahead of me as I search my mind for an answer. “He loves chess, I guess.”
Hannah spins around so fast I nearly fall off the porch. A set of wild green-gold eyes look down at me from two steps above. “Did you say chess?”
“Yeah?”
She ignores how my reply came out like a question and crosses her arms again. “He any good?”
“He’s”—I ascend one step until our eyes are level—“very good.”
Her palm thumps her chest, her whole face lifting on a delighted grin. “Can we go inside now? I’d really like to meet the man of my dreams.”
“Your funeral,” I taunt as I nudge her forward with a hand on her back.
She gasps, mocking. “I don’t lose, Rowan.”
“You might.”
“I won’t.”
We stop on the welcome mat, bodies positioned like reflections in a mirror.
“Cockiness suits you, runaway.”
She’s so self-assured it’s almost comical. I’d laugh if it weren’t so damn attractive.
“Not cocky. Confident.”
Sweet, naive girl.
“You’re telling me you’ve never lost a game?” I ask incredulously.
Her face falls flat. I arch a brow.
She circles back, rewriting her script from earlier. “If I lose”—her eyes roll like the notion is preposterous—“we play again.”
“In that case,” I say as I push the door open, “after you.”
We run into my grandfather in the tiny kitchen where he stands shamelessly eating cranberry sauce straight from the can. I’d explain his obsession with the canned dessert but Hannah’s comfortable smile is acceptance enough.
“Pops, this is Hannah. Hannah, Pops.”
She offers a shy wave. He doesn’t acknowledge it, just gives her a momentary perusal before tossing the fork in the sink and putting the half-empty can in the fridge.
“Name’s Norm. You in some sort of trouble?” he asks.
An apology presses against the back of my teeth, but I hold it in.
Hannah doesn’t miss a beat. “I wouldn’t say ‘trouble.’ More like I just needed to disappear for a little bit.”
He eyes her without a word and an unruffled expression. I’m used to the silence, but I’m hyper aware she isn’t. So I take the opening to push past the awkwardness by helping Hannah out of my jacket and hanging it on the coat rack along with the backpack.
I’m about to ask if she wants to see the view from the dock when Pops chimes in like there was no break in the conversation at all. “Well, this here is a good place to disappear.”
“Now, Norm, that sounds a lot like what someone with a black duffel bag would say.” Hannah makes a show of looking around the house.
The hand over my mouth covers my chuckle. Pops’ confusion is clear, but he moves along as if he doesn’t care enough to make sense of her comment. He turns to me. Before he can say anything, Hannah speaks up again, serious this time. “I’m sorry for your loss, Norm.”
A single curt nod is his only reply. His eyes ping to me. “Cash?”
Unfazed, Hannah takes the dismissal in stride and heads to the living room.
I pull the envelope from my back pocket. “Still no checkbook?”
Shaking his head, he swipes the money and tosses it in the drawer behind him. “I’m sure Maggie socked it away somewhere at the city house. It’ll turn up. Told the guy I’d pay in cash anyway.”
We had a small service for Nana a couple days ago out by the dock.
Friends, new and old, took turns speaking of the woman who never met a stranger.
Friends from the decades she spent working as a civilian nurse at the military hospital on Fort Carson where Pops was stationed when they were younger, and then Boulder, where they settled after he left the service and she took a position at a local dialysis clinic.
New friends she’d made over the past almost eighteen years since her retirement when she swapped nursing for spending time at the VFW in the name of dragging Pops along with her.
All of their sentiments had one thing in common: Nana carried love wherever she went.
I shared a few of my favorite memories before Pops and I scattered her ashes in the water.
While guests lingered outside after the memorial, I found Pops rummaging around the cabin for the checkbook, claiming he needed to pay the cremation service. The payment wasn’t due for a few days, but I suspect he wanted to avoid all the tiresome platitudes.
If it weren’t for the missing checkbook, I wouldn’t have made a trip to the bank earlier. Never would have been on that sidewalk. The showstopper currently eyeing the flag above the mantle never would have barreled into my life.
“If she needs to stay the night, she can use the camper,” Pops says quiet enough for only me to hear.
Hannah has no intention of returning to the hotel or wherever the hell else tonight, she’s made that abundantly clear. But I can’t imagine she envisioned sleeping in a rundown hitch trailer. And yet, here we are.
I reluctantly nod along as my grandfather prattles on. “Keys are hanging by the door. Generator should have enough fuel to last till morning.” He pats my shoulder and heads for the bedroom.
He doesn’t get far before Hannah stops him. “Rumor has it you’re something of a chess pro, Norm.” She dips her head toward the chessboard on the table beside her. “Care to play?”
Pops holds her stare. Hannah lifts her brows. He folds his arms.
For long seconds, it’s just one stubborn will colliding with another in an intellectual game of chicken until…“Let me get my glasses.”
Pops retreats to his room, and I divide a look between his back and the elated smile on Hannah’s face. Hands clasped under her chin, she buzzes with excitement. The eyes, the curve of her mouth, the scrunch of her nose—all of it, infectious.
I help her get the board ready while we wait for Pops. This board has seen better days, but it’s been a witness to my grandparents’ entire life together. He’ll never get rid of it and neither will I.
“It worked,” she whispers, voice jubilant as she sets the white pieces and I set the black ones.
“You asked for it,” I retort playfully. When I try to meet her gaze, I find her subdued stare pinned over my shoulder.
Propped next to Nana and Pops’ 1960’s wedding photo, the folded flag above the fireplace hasn’t moved since it was placed there eighteen years ago.
“My dad,” I say.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was eight. It was a long time ago.”
Pops returns and the questions floating around in that beautiful head of hers get put on hold. My grandfather shuffles over in his plaid pajamas, loafer-style slippers, old-man robe, and older old-man bifocals.
He drops into the chair, motioning for Hannah to do the same.
“Alright, Norm. Let’s see what ya got.” She cracks her knuckles, ready for a battle, then pulls the cuffs of her long sleeves down around her hands.
“You cold?” I ask.
She waves me off as Pops says, “Your move.”
A glint flashes in her eyes.
White pawn E4.
Her shoulders slump deeper into her chair and she folds her arms, body curling inward. Stubborn woman. I grab my gray Army hoodie off the back of the couch and hand it over. She doesn’t put up an argument this time as she slides it on.
Black pawn E5.
White knight F3.
Black knight F6.
White knight takes E5.
Black pawn D6.
White knight takes F7.
My grandfather and I recognize it at the same time. His expression falters when he takes it in. “Cochrane gambit.” The statement is a breath, reverent.
Hannah doesn’t hear him. She’s too proud of her handiwork, sitting there all cool as a cucumber and looking hot as sin in my sweatshirt.
Pops’ mouth tips up. I notice the instant Hannah clocks the barely there grin because she glances at me, eyes delighted.
Black king takes F7.
Despite her aggressive opening, Pops still squeaks out a victory—though it was harder fought than I’d anticipated. Hannah concedes with grace and reaches a hand across the table. She may have lost the game, but in every way that matters to me, she won.
Pops closes himself in the bedroom for the night, leaving Hannah and I alone. Dread presses in—that weight that exists between what could and what should come next.
I don’t want her to leave.
Her chair scrapes beneath her as she stands up. “Well…” she begins, reaching for her phone. “I should probably—”
“Wanna sit on the dock with me?” I ask, jolting to my feet. Our bodies are only a breath apart like this. Close enough to count her eyelashes.
She looks up at me, arms lost in the sleeves of my hoodie. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, Rowan, but you’ve got a lot going on here with your grandpa, and I don’t wanna intrude more than I already have.”
“I promise you’re not.”
A smirk and an eye roll might as well be called The Hannah Special.
“Please. Stay,” I add.
“Soldier, are you begging?”
“Pleading.”
Her gaze is a tease, tempting. “It’s like you’re obsessed with me or something.”
“Or something,” I murmur, fighting the urge to fist that sweatshirt and pull her closer.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?”
I bet that bottom lip between her teeth tastes like a fix I’d never get enough of. But, God, I’d like to try.
Hannah smiles. “I’ll stay.”