Chapter Eighteen – Tightrope #3
While Jerry was ranting, my eyes landed on a woman across the island who was watching us. She was elegant and lean, with dark hair styled in an edgy pixie cut. She held a beer in one hand and a phone in the other, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d taken a picture of me…us.
Lydia approached, smacking Jerry with a paper plate. “Jerry Black, I told you—no high-handed negativity tonight. This is a party.”
Grumbling, he grabbed the plate and moved down the line.
“Sorry about him,” Lydia stage-whispered, her smile undimmed.
She took Cooper’s beer and handed it to me before giving two plates to her son. Dale called her name, and she hurried to join him and the woman who’d been staring at us.
“I can serve myself,” I said, reaching for the plate, but Cooper shook his head.
“I got you.”
As we made our way down the buffet, his parents’ laughter filled the air—Lydia’s loud and musical, while Dale’s was a deep boom. The unknown woman gave them a sardonic smile in return.
“Do you know who that is?” I asked. “With your parents?”
Cooper glanced over.
“Muirgen,” Cooper answered. “She’s renting the Morwood mansion at the top of the hill. Deering interviewed her after Jerry’s break-in, but she had nothing to add. She’s gone a lot for work. Why?”
I couldn’t really answer. There was just something about Muirgen’s stare that made my skin prickle.
As we watched the three of them, Dale smiled, wrapped his arms around Lydia, bent her backward, and kissed her with the passion of newlyweds. Once he righted her, Lydia batted his arm playfully, her cheeks flushed with happiness while Muirgen laughed.
Cooper’s face softened with tenderness.
“They’re pretty amazing,” I said.
“They are. I didn’t realize how special their love was growing up. I didn’t understand—until it was too late—that not everyone loves the way they do.”
Underneath his words, I heard pain. The wounds Eden Blackwell had carved into this man went deep.
Trusting someone enough to open his heart up again wouldn’t be easy.
I felt both honored and terrified that he was willing to take a chance on me, inviting me into his world while knowing I carried secrets I couldn’t share with him.
We took our heaping plates outside and found a seat at a picnic table at the far end of the yard near the picket fence. With the last of the strategically placed heat lamps two tables away, the cold air whipped in, which accounted for the table’s emptiness.
“Don’t you want to eat with Luca and your family?” I asked.
Cooper lifted his chin toward a picnic table on the other side of the yard, where Luca sat with Wysteria, two other boys their age, and an adoring Akela who was sprawled happily at the teen’s feet.
Luca was unquestionably the dog’s favorite human.
I was merely an acceptable substitute when left with no other choice.
“I’m glad to see him with other kids,” Cooper said quietly. “He needs his space. And my parents won’t sit down for hours yet.”
As we ate, we talked about nothing. Movies and shows. Places around town Cooper was rediscovering that I’d also grown to love. Small, inconsequential topics that somehow peeled back layers of ourselves anyway. It surprised me how much we had in common, despite how different our lives were.
His dad’s booming laugh pulled our attention back toward the house, where his parents stood talking with the mayor and her husband, the former fire chief.
Most of the town was surprised the Nattinglys were still together, given he was a serial cheater.
But who was I to judge why someone stayed in an unhealthy relationship?
“What were your parents like?” Cooper asked, and my back immediately stiffened.
It was a perfectly reasonable question, one I should have expected in his quest to get to know me better, and yet it was one I hadn’t answered in more years than I could count.
The peaceful lull that had settled over me shattered as memories rushed in.
My parents’ parties had been nothing like this one.
They’d been polished affairs hosted for elections or donors rather than enjoyment.
No paper plates or buffet lines. Only china, expensive wine, and catered five-course meals along with cocktail dresses, perfect hair, and shoes that pinched.
No matter how hard I’d tried, I’d always disappointed them. I’d spilled on the dress. A curl had slipped loose. A run had ruined my tights. And when I’d finally stopped trying, when I’d actually started to rebel, the disappointments had only magnified.
Cooper was right. The love flowing through the Wylee family was rare.
It lived in Lydia and Dale’s easy affection, but also in the way they loved Cooper and Luca—steadfast, unquestioning, and without conditions.
As a teenager, I’d known something essential was missing from my home, but I hadn’t been able to place what it was or identify what a real family should look like. I’d only known what it wasn’t.
So when someone had finally made me the center of their world—when attention turned sharp and all-consuming onto me—I’d believed that intensity meant commitment, that being chosen so completely was the same as being cherished.
And, like Cooper with Eden, I hadn’t understood the price of my error until it was already too late.