Chapter Twenty-two – Cover Girl
Chapter Twenty-two
Cooper
COVER GIRL
Performed by Tyler Farr
I’d gotten as far as her porch before my feet had locked up, before the fear on her face as she’d stared at her ransacked dresser had sent me into a frantic pace right outside her front door.
Every moment I’d spent with her up until now had flashed before my eyes. The smiles, the tears, the laughter, the fear. The stunning woman who’d unlocked something inside me only to withhold the final treasure.
I couldn’t have half of someone, or even less, all over again.
If I couldn’t trust Andie, then I couldn’t give her what remained of my heart or soul. I couldn’t ever make her mine.
But, regardless of what happened with us, I did have an obligation to protect her.
That was the line I had to draw.
I turned around, opened the front door, and realized I’d almost left her door unlocked. I’d almost left her exposed, and the terror of something happening to her hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
As I strode down the hall, the murmur of her voice drew me. I didn’t try to be quiet as I didn’t want to scare her, but it was still obvious she didn’t hear me. She didn’t budge from the position she was in—curled into herself, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs.
I despised seeing her like that. I wanted the confident Andie who commanded an entire resort. The laughing Andie I’d seen in her backyard with my son and his friend. The sexy Andie who’d come apart with only my lips on her breast.
Wanting her tore at the very fabric of my being.
The half of me that remembered with agonizing clarity what happened when you loved someone who never fully let you in fought with the other half that wanted to rip her mask away and prove we could be something if she only trusted me enough.
Whoever she was talking to had relaxed her, just like last time.
That caused the green monster of jealousy to rear its head again, and a horrible truth rammed itself home.
I’d never be able to simply protect her and leave it at that.
I wanted to be the one who soothed her. I wanted to be the one who made her gasp and come apart.
I wanted to be the man who gave her not only everything she needed but everything she’d ever dreamed about.
Because when I looked at her, I saw a future together.
It was asinine, considering how little I really knew of her, let alone the lies and secrets that surrounded her.
But it was the truth. I’d seen the possibilities, and I couldn’t let go without calling myself a coward.
What I’d told her this morning at the ranch was the truth.
If I walked away from this, if I let the scars of my past relationship keep me from at least trying with Andie, it would only allow Eden to win one more time, and I’d be damned if I let her triumph.
“What if I tell Cooper and all he sees is a criminal?”
Her words ripped me back to reality.
A criminal. Was she? Over ninety percent of the people in the Witness Protection Program were just that.
I had a pretty good radar for criminals after growing up with a dad in law enforcement and after nearly twenty years on the force myself, but it wasn’t infallible.
Sometimes I got it wrong. Sometimes I trusted a witness or an informant, only to find out they were knee-deep in the shit themselves.
But at the end of the day, I still trusted my instincts first.
And my instincts told me that Andie had been a victim.
I knocked on the doorframe to let her know I was there, and the way she jumped and screeched pissed me off. She shouldn’t have to live a life on the edge like this. No one should.
Unless they’d earned it.
Had she? Was this one of the times my radar was off? Had lust clouded my judgment?
Whoever she was talking to knew about me. Knew my name. Was that a good sign or a bad one? She trusted them with the pieces of her life, but not me. That burned, stung my pride as much as it hurt my soul.
She put her phone down and met my gaze with an uncertain one.
“You running?” I asked.
Her throat bobbed. “I don’t want to.”
My insides seized. Anger. Hurt. Disappointment. Longing. Fucking longing for things I thought I’d given up wanting. Love like my parents. Home. Family that greeted you after a long-ass day.
She took a step toward me, and I saw fear in her eyes again, along with that same uncertainty that came and went whenever I was around.
“I don’t want to.” Her voice was stronger this time. “But some of it depends on you.”
My eyebrows raised.
She made it all the way to me, her sock-clad feet almost touching my boots.
“You wanted the truth. I’ll give it to you. But you have to promise, if you don’t like what you hear… If you think…” She shook her head. “If you don’t like what you hear, you have to give me twenty-four hours to get my things together and leave.”
My gut sank. A criminal. She was a criminal, asking a cop to let her escape. I’d lived my life putting the bad guys behind bars. Would I let her get away if I found out she’d broken the law? Would I let her shirk the consequences of her actions?
I searched her eyes for some kind of sign of what she was going to tell me, but all I saw was the woman I’d started to fall for. Beautiful and strong but wounded.
I wasn’t sure if it was intuition or the feelings I already had for her that had me nodding in agreement. But I knew it had been the right decision when relief coated her face.
“Can we go to the kitchen?” she asked. “I need…a bit of liquid courage.”
I eased back into the hallway and let her lead the way.
In the kitchen, she went into the pantry and grabbed a bottle of tawny port from an upper shelf.
An expensive bottle that didn’t quite fit her budget.
She pulled two cut crystal glasses from a cabinet and brought everything over to the counter near the barstools.
She poured us each a finger and then sipped at hers.
I spun the glass. “Nice stuff.”
“Fallon. She gave me the bottle and the glasses when I moved in, along with the copper pots out front and half the cookware in the kitchen. I had to stop her from buying more.”
“She likes to spoil the people she cares about.”
Andie nodded. “She does.”
“Does she know this story?”
“No. No one does.”
“Except the man you love.”
For the first time since the panic attack in the bedroom, her lips quirked upward ever so slightly. “I never thought of you as the jealous type.”
“I’m not.” But it was a lie, and we both knew it. “Seems you bring it out in me.”
That wiped the humor away. She took a hefty drink.
“That’s what Eddie said too.”
Fuck. I didn’t want to be compared to the asshole who’d hurt her. But at least I had a goddamn name to put to the faceless bastard.
As if she’d read my reaction, she said quietly, “The man I’ve been talking to is my half-brother, Dawson.”
“Then your name isn’t Andrina Nealy, because she doesn’t have a half-brother.”
“The name I was born with was…” She took another hit of the liquor and then continued, “Ariana Langley. Most people called me Ari. I grew up in Clover Lake in Northern California. My dad was the sheriff there for a long time, but you might know him now as a California state senator.”
What had she said earlier? I’d asked if she was hiding from her parents, and she’d said no and yes. Sheriffs—all politicians, really—held considerable power, especially in small towns.
“My mom wasn’t Dad’s first wife. He liked to trade them for younger versions, until his political ambitions grew outside our community, and he had no choice but to keep Mom, if only to prove he knew how to hold a family together.
He used us to create the image he needed.
In truth, my mom was the same way. She used him too, because all either of them cared about was appearances. ”
“You said you weren’t running from them,” I reminded her.
She ran her crooked finger along the edge of the glass. “I’m not running from Dad, but believe me when I say, he has no desire for me to show up ever again.”
I fought the itch to pull out a legal pad and start taking notes. She wasn’t making sense, but just like any criminal I’d ever had in my interview room, I knew they’d ramble enough for me to put the pieces together. I just had to have the patience to wait them out.
Thing was, I didn’t have that kind of patience with Andie.
I wanted her story. All of it. Right now.
And I wanted her to be innocent more than I’d ever wanted any criminal I’d ever had in custody.
I needed it to be true so I could justify keeping her.
So I could justify dragging her back into my lap, kissing the hell out of her, and making her come apart with just my damn mouth all over again.
“I’ve started this story with my parents because I want you to understand…
I need you to understand…” And this time, when she looked at me, there was a plea in her eyes I wanted to answer.
I wanted to tell her I’d understand anything and everything she told me.
But I didn’t. I held back because I knew better than to give too much too soon.
“I was never physically abused as a kid. I had clothes and food and lived in a fancy house on the lake. But the truth was, Dad hadn’t wanted any more kids.
I was an inconvenience. An expense. A burden.
And Mom was pissed that I’d ruined her size-two proportions.
When I was old enough to walk and talk and participate in family dinners, I became a prop.
Dad used all of us to paint a portrait of himself that was this…
heroic figure. But if any of us disappointed him, let him down, tore the veil back even a hair on the mirage he created, he was savage… only with his words.