Chapter Eighteen – Tightrope
Chapter Eighteen
Andie
TIGHTROPE
Performed by Kelly Clarkson
Embarrassment had my throat locked up, leaving me unable to speak after the zinger Eden had sent my way. Humiliation piled on top of the heady desire still pounding through my veins.
Kissing Cooper had been an exquisite kind of torture. A breathtaking delight.
One single kiss and my resolve to keep him at a distance for both his and Luca’s sakes had completely shattered.
Locked in his arms, with his mouth doing startling things to my body, all I’d wanted was to hand over every part of my soul to him.
To hand over all my secrets, all my desires, and beg him to give me that impossible future I’d thought out of reach.
I’d completely lost track of where we were and what I was supposed to be doing.
Misty and Eden finding us in the midst of a heated embrace was mortifying. But my embarrassment was nothing compared to the fury I felt rippling off Cooper.
Just like most of Swift Rivers, I knew Eden Blackwell was Cooper’s ex and Luca’s mother. Their relationship had been front-page news over the years, and when Cooper had moved home, there’d been whispers about what it meant for the actress.
But when Misty had told me yesterday one of Anika’s bridesmaids was in the hospital, so another friend had stepped in at the last minute, no one had told me the name of her replacement.
“Eden wanted a tour of the ranch and a peek at our new venue,” Misty explained. Her eyes zipped between Cooper and me, and the overwhelming curiosity in them seemed invasive.
It was just a kiss…a life-altering kiss, but still just a kiss. It wasn’t like they’d caught us naked and writhing on the dance floor. Except, it might have gone that far if they hadn’t interrupted us, and that knowledge only added to my embarrassment.
“Don’t think that just because you’re here, you’ll get to see Luca. The judge was very clear. The only way you see him is with court-appointed supervision,” Cooper snapped at Eden.
The actress shot a look in Misty’s direction and then at me before she replied to him, her voice holding both anger and warning. “Which you’re not allowed to discuss in any public forum. But I guess PDA is your new modus operandi.”
She said the word wrong, and Cooper snorted. “Your mispronunciation isn’t sweet any longer, Eden. It just makes you sound stupid.”
Rage blazed in her eyes. “And making out with the help only proves just how low-class you really are.”
“Then you’re right there with me, babe, as you couldn’t keep your hands off your personal trainer.”
I stepped between them. “Perhaps you should take the tour elsewhere for now, Misty?”
Misty cleared her throat, turning to Eden. “Shall I show you the barn, Miss Blackwell? We have some beautiful horses. I believe you ride, don’t you? The scene with you and Gavin in Lost Acres was absolutely breathtaking.”
Eden stared at Cooper for another long, furious second and then whirled around and headed out of the marquee. When Misty followed, silence settled over us.
Cooper was practically vibrating with rage, but it no longer scared me because I knew it for the truth it was. His rage came out when he was trying to protect those he loved, not as a means of tearing someone apart.
I closed the distance between us and put a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was Eden who’d stepped in at the last minute. I would have told you she was here if I’d known.”
He dragged his gaze from the doors back to me. “I’m sorry she lashed out at you. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”
“She wasn’t wrong. It was unprofessional of me.”
“Don’t you dare let her take what just happened and reduce it to something less,” he insisted, blue eyes flashing with fire.
I rubbed my arms, the chill of the morning seeping into the marquee. I hadn’t felt cold when I’d been tucked up against Cooper.
He grabbed one of my hands, twined our fingers together, and placed it over his heart. The thud-thud-thud beneath my palm was wild and fast, matching the beat of mine.
“You’re the last thing I wanted or expected to find when I came to Swift Rivers,” he said. “I’ve spent weeks pretending the desire I felt for you was nothing more than pent-up needs. But that kiss…”
He shook his head as if trying to clear his mind or maybe trying to bring the memory back.
“It only proved this isn’t just desire. It’s deeper.
More meaningful.” He looked out the door where Eden had disappeared with Misty before returning his gaze to me.
“In some ways, Eden showing up was a good thing. I realized she’d taken something else from me that I hadn’t even noticed.
Before her, I was never one to back down from things I wanted.
People I wanted. If I felt a connection, I reached for it with both hands.
I refuse to continue to give her power over my life.
So, I’ll repeat what I said before. I want to explore this—us. ”
My heart rate spiked, an alarm leaking in behind the passion and sweet words.
Cooper’s face gentled, just as it had when he’d seen me on my kitchen floor.
“Don’t let panic make you run, Andie. Stick it out.
Test whatever this is with me. If it turns into nothing, I promise I won’t make things awkward, and I’ll always ensure you’re safe from whatever you’re running from.
But if this becomes more, if it turns into everything…
” He drifted off, as if he was afraid to name the possibilities.
Did he understand how much it would hurt to explore something only to have it turn to dust and ash? My gaze flickered to the doorway where Eden had disappeared. Maybe he did. Maybe he understood all too painfully well what a failed relationship could do to the human soul.
But I doubted he had a clue about living with the guilt of knowing someone you cared about, someone you thought could be more, had ended up dead because of you.
“Cooper…I may not have a choice but to leave. You understand that, right? What happens if you and I… What happens if we all grow more attached to each other, and then I’m forced to rip out our hearts by leaving?”
“My son already cares about you. You leave, and he’s already going to be sad. You leave, and I’m already going to feel an ache right here.” He tapped our joined hands to his chest once more. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you can stay.”
Frustrated, I pulled away from him. “We’ve shared a single kiss. One kiss and you’re acting like it’s already…” I couldn’t say more. I just let it die away.
“I know,” he said. “But you and I both know what we felt just now was a hell of a lot more than sexual attraction. It’s too late to simply ignore it.”
The deep timbre of his voice wove a spell around me. One I wanted to lean into. It was terrifying because every time I tied myself to someone, they died. While Eddie had certainly earned the shot to his heart, Ben hadn’t deserved what had happened to him.
My phone rang, breaking the spell Cooper had woven.
I spun around, returning to where I’d left my things at the bar.
Fallon’s face flashed across the screen. With Parker on a training mission, she’d been trapped in the house with three sick kids this week. She’d kept everyone away so they wouldn’t spread their germs to more of the staff, but it meant she was going stir-crazy.
I let it go to voicemail. I’d call her back when I was safely tucked away in my office.
“I have work to do,” I told Cooper. I picked up my clipboard, eyed the tables waiting to be decorated, and then headed for the marquee’s door.
Cooper joined me, keeping pace as I strode toward the hotel.
“Tell me you’ll go with me tonight, and I’ll leave you alone to finish your day,” he said.
It was a mistake. Going with him was a mistake. I knew it. It was why I hadn’t responded to his invitation in the weeks since he’d issued it.
I longed to go. Not only because of what I’d felt in his arms today but because I wanted to surround myself with the feeling of family I’d witnessed at Halloween.
That sense of togetherness, of people who would go to the ends of the earth for each other, was one of the most beautiful parts of hanging out with Fallon and Maisey and the family they’d created here.
But even though they included me in that family, I still felt like an outsider.
The extra person. The one who didn’t quite fit.
Could I find a way to truly belong to the Wylees? Could I claim a spot in a new family?
Was it safe to do so? Nothing else had happened at my house since Halloween, which made me wonder whether it had really been kids playing a prank or casing the house.
In Idaho, once the incidents had started, they’d never stopped. Every day, they’d escalated, until Ben’s accident. I’d been issued a command to comply to their demands or face the same fate as him.
I had run then, calling Dawson from the road.
But there’d been weeks between anything happening here in Rivers. And I’d never been sure the towel hadn’t just been me.
Maybe I was still safe in Rivers. Maybe Cooper and Luca would be safe too.
But I shouldn’t risk them to satisfy my hunger to be part of a family.
At the castle door, I turned to face him, intending to tell him I couldn’t come, intending to close this door for good.
Instead, the wrong word burst from my throat. “Okay.”
And when his face broke into one of his rare and breathtaking smiles, I couldn’t take it back. Knowing I’d given him that moment of joy, it only made me want to give him more. To give him so many happy moments that his beautiful smile became his norm instead of his broody frown.
Nothing had ever felt so right, even as my subconscious screamed that it was wrong, which was what caused me to backpedal ever so slightly, giving me an out if I decided I needed one. “I’ll go, unless something comes up that Misty can’t handle.”
He didn’t seem worried. He was still smiling as he said, “Fair enough. There’s always the chance I’ll get called into work too.”