Road Trip with the Best Man

by Sophie Pembroke

  Cooper sure as hell was.

  After he’d paid the bill, they’d walked the few blocks back to the hotel, talking about nothing at all. And it wasn’t until they reached her room that Cooper admitted to himself quite how much he didn’t want the night to end.

  ‘So, we’ll meet in the lobby as normal?’ Dawn asked, leaning against her door as she smiled up at him.

  ‘Yeah. Say, nine?’ Cooper hoped he managed to sound normal and unaffected by her presence. He definitely didn’t feel it.

  It wasn’t her clothes, or her hair, make-up or even the soft scent of whatever products she’d been using that filled his lungs and made him want. It wasn’t even the conversation. It was her smile—the easy, happy, optimistic smile that told him that she didn’t want to be anywhere else, that she didn’t need anything from him, that she was just happy to be there.

  That was the part that was going to ruin him.

  ‘Goodnight, Dawn.’ Leaning down, he brushed a swift kiss against her cheek, then turned away, heading back to his own room.

  He needed sleep. And he needed to move past this strange connection he’d forged with his brother’s fiancée.

  Even if he had no idea how to do that.

  And even if he knew he would spend all night dreaming about pink lipstick—and wanting.

  * * *

  ‘So, tell me about this lighthouse of yours,’ Dawn said as Chicago faded away into the background through Claudia’s back window.

  Cooper had beaten her down to the lobby that morning for the first time all week, and had been waiting for her with warm and gooey cheese and ham croissants—always the sign of an excellent day, in her book. Following on from a great evening the night before, as it happened.

  Dawn was glad she had picked out her bright-pink ‘truck stop’ tee shirt to wear again that morning. From the way Cooper’s eyes roamed over the logo on it, she figured it was basically a thank-you in clothing form for the croissant.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it my lighthouse,’ Cooper said with the nonchalance of a man who might actually own a lighthouse somewhere. His family certainly had the money, and Dawn had never been able to keep all their property straight in her head.

  ‘You were the one who wanted to stop there,’ she pointed out. ‘So what’s so great about it?’

  Cooper shrugged, glancing away from the road to look at her. ‘I just saw a picture on the Internet and figured you might like it, was all.’

  A warm feeling flowed through her at his casual words. However bad an idea her crush was, at least after the last day or so she was almost certain that Cooper returned it. Maybe they’d never be able to act on it, but just knowing that he’d picked out a place to visit because he thought she’d like it went a long way to making her feel a little better about the whole situation.

  ‘It’s still a good four hours’ drive, though,’ Cooper added. ‘If you wanted to get some sleep?’

  ‘Are you saying I look tired?’ she asked, eyebrows raised. Admittedly, her night’s rest had been punctuated by more dreams of him than she was willing to admit to, but Dawn didn’t think it was anything her concealer hadn’t hid. But, as she looked at him, she realised that Cooper looked exhausted. As if he hadn’t slept all night.

  As if he’d been as disturbed by dreams and imaginings as she had.

  Huh.

  ‘You look full of the joys of summer, as always,’ Cooper said with a mocking smile that suddenly didn’t seem so mocking.

  ‘Do you want me to drive?’ she asked bluntly. ‘I mean, if you need to sleep, I can drive to the lighthouse. You can take over afterwards.’

  She could see common sense warring with pride in his expression. Clearly he was too exhausted to drive safely, but he was also equally unwilling to admit it.

  So Dawn made the decision for him. ‘Pull over.’

  ‘I don’t need you to—’

  ‘And I don’t plan to die in a car accident before making it to the Hamptons, thanks. So pull over and we can swap seats.’ She stared at him until he did as she asked.

  Dawn climbed out of Claudia’s passenger side first, moving swiftly around to the other side to open Cooper’s door for him. As he got out, he held her arm gently to stop her sliding into his vacated seat.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said softly, his mouth so close to her cheek she could feel his breath. ‘I...didn’t sleep much last night.’

  ‘Bad dreams?’ She stared up into his eyes as she asked and watched his pupils grow wide and black.

  ‘Quite the opposite, actually.’ Cooper’s voice, rough, low and dark, rang through her body until she felt as though every cell of it was vibrating at the sound.

  God, she wanted him. And it looked as though he wanted her every bit as much.

  She swallowed and looked away, fumbling for the steering wheel as she climbed into her seat.

  ‘We should get going,’ she said.

  Cooper nodded, making his way round to the passenger seat. ‘Long way to the lighthouse,’ he agreed.

  And an even longer way to the Hamptons. And her ex-fiancé.

  * * *

  When Cooper awoke again, Dawn was singing along to Elvis on the radio—it seemed to be the only music Claudia would consent to play—and they were just passing a sign for Marblehead Lighthouse State Park. Dawn’s phone was set to the sat nav app, and calling out periodic directions.

  ‘How long was I out?’ He straightened up in his seat, rubbing at the back of his neck to try and ease the ache there.

  ‘Felt like for ever,’ Dawn quipped as she turned onto a smaller road. ‘Any more dreams?’

  The look she gave him told him that she had a pretty good idea what his dreams had been about. Hardly surprising, given the heat that had radiated between them when he’d told her the reason he hadn’t slept.

  Thankfully, he’d been too exhausted to dream during his car nap, because otherwise things could have got very awkward, very fast.

  ‘Totally dreamless,’ he said with relief.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Dawn replied, although her tone said something different.

  Did she want him to dream about her? Had she been dreaming about him?

  Cooper stared out of the window and bit back a curse. Apparently, ignoring the attraction between them wasn’t working any longer—if it ever had.

  Which meant they were going to have to talk about it.

  Damn.

  Dawn parked and together they made their way into the state park, both stretching as they walked to work out the kinks that four-plus hours in a car gave a person.

  On the shores of Lake Erie, the park was strangely peaceful, even in the summer high season. As they followed the trail towards the shore, the red-tipped lighthouse, white except for its cap and the red railings lower down, stood proudly against the water. He’d read something about tours, Cooper thought vaguely, and about climbing the steps to the top of the lighthouse and looking out. But he was content just to look at it from the outside. To soak up the atmosphere and the calm of the lake and park.

  To relax, for once.

  At least, until Dawn said, ‘So, are we going to talk about it?’

  * * *

  It was just like pulling off a sticking plaster, Dawn reasoned. Obviously there was something between them—something distracting, awkward and potentially difficult. The sooner they talked about it, the sooner they could move on.

  Even if her heart was pounding in her chest as she asked.

  ‘Talk about what?’ Cooper asked, his expression blank. Then he sighed. ‘Never mind. I know what.’

  He sank down to sit on a nearby bench, the summer sun glinting off his dark hair, and his legs stretched out in front of him as he stared down at his hands.

  Dawn perched beside him, her own hands clasped too tightly in her lap as she tried to figure out what she wante
d to say.

  Cooper beat her to it. ‘Here’s the thing—I don’t have friends. I never really noticed until this week, but I don’t. I have colleagues and business contacts, maybe even a few acquaintances I know well enough to meet for a drink if I’m in town. But not friends. Not until this week.’

  ‘You think we’re friends?’ Dawn asked, surprised.

  ‘I think we could be.’ Cooper looked up at last, meeting her eyes, and she almost gasped at the sincerity in them. ‘I think that spending this week with you in that stupid car, stopping at ridiculous roadside attractions and eating junk food for every meal, has been the most fun I’ve had in years.’

  ‘You need to get out more. Meet more people,’ Dawn joked, but Cooper didn’t laugh.

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is time to get back out there. Meet people.’ And by ‘people’ Dawn assumed he meant women.

  In fact, he sounded as if the thought was a revelation. As if he’d just realised a universal truth—probably the same one men had been realising all through her life.

  Dawn’s spirits took a nose dive. Talk about backsliding. Her last relationship had made it all the way to the altar, even if it hadn’t got any further. This one—if you could even call it a relationship—hadn’t even made it to the first kiss.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t think it’s people,’ Cooper said. ‘I think it’s you.’

  Dawn jerked her head up to stare at him. ‘Me?’ It was never her. That was the point.

  Cooper nodded. ‘Because I meet people every day, Dawn. And I don’t let them in. I don’t want to let them in. I didn’t want to let you in.’

  ‘I kind of got that.’

  ‘But you got there anyway. And maybe that’s just forced proximity in Claudia.’

  ‘You’re making this sound like a sort of Stockholm Syndrome friendship here,’ Dawn pointed out.

  ‘Or maybe it’s just you,’ Cooper finished as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘But the thing is, Dawn, I’m a different person with you. And I like him a lot more than the person I’ve been since Rachel left me.’

  Rachel. So that was his ex-wife’s name.

  ‘So...me and this new you,’ Dawn said cautiously. ‘We’re...friends?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cooper said, but there was something in his voice. A note of uncertainty, maybe. Something she couldn’t quite place until he added, ‘Except I keep dreaming about your pink lipstick.’

  Score two for Flamingo Shimmer.

  ‘My lipstick?’

  When had he got so close? One moment they were sitting beside each other on the bench, a perfectly respectable distance between them, and now...now she could almost feel the warmth of his skin in the sunshine as his arm brushed close to hers and his lips moved closer.

  ‘Uh huh. I keep imagining how it would feel to kiss you. Dreaming of it, in fact.’

  ‘Just...kissing?’ Dawn asked, because apparently she didn’t know when just to go with a good thing.

  ‘No,’ Cooper admitted. ‘Not just kissing.’

  And then, before she could even process that thought, Cooper leant in that extra inch and suddenly his lips were on hers, warm and soft and perfect, just as she’d imagined.

  Until they were gone again, far too soon.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ Cooper pushed away against the floor until he was sat at the far end of the bench.

  ‘I beg to differ.’ Dawn said, her lips still tingling.

  ‘You’re engaged to my brother.’

  ‘He left me at the altar,’ Dawn pointed out. ‘I think that’s a pretty clear sign that it’s over.’

  ‘Then why are we chasing him across the country?’ Cooper raised his eyebrows as he waited for an answer.

  Dawn stared at him in amazement. ‘Oh, my God. You think I’m going to beg Justin to take me back!’

  ‘Well, aren’t you?’

  ‘No!’ Dawn said, but honesty compelled her to add, ‘Maybe I might have wanted to, at first. Just a bit. But that’s not why we’re on this road trip. It’s not what you think.’

  ‘Then explain it to me. Please.’

  It wasn’t a story that Dawn really wanted to tell, but the brief flare of hope that shone in Cooper’s eyes told her she needed to.

  ‘Okay. But not here. Come on, we need to get Claudia back on the road if we want to stop in Cleveland tonight.’

  She stood and held out a hand to Cooper. After a moment, he took it. And somehow, as they walked to the car, he never quite let go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘DO YOU KNOW what my sisters call me?’ Dawn asked as Claudia pulled out of the Marblehead Lighthouse State Park.

  Cooper glanced across at her in surprise. Given their previous conversation, this was not where he’d imagined their talk going next.

  ‘Dawn, I’d assume,’ he said flippantly.

  ‘They call me the Dry Run.’ There was pain in Dawn’s voice—pain he wanted to kiss away, if only he hadn’t been driving. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what the nickname meant.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Every guy I’ve ever dated—and I do mean every single one,’ she clarified, leaving him wondering exactly how many there had been. ‘Every guy I’ve ever been out with has left me then gone on to meet the love of his life and marry them within the next two years.’

  Cooper blinked. Suddenly the number seemed more relevant than just calming his sudden jealous spurt. If it had been one or two guys, that might be put down to coincidence. But more...

  ‘How many boyfriends are we talking here? For statistical reasons only, I promise,’ he added, when she started to object.

  ‘Five,’ Dawn answered. ‘Six if you count Billy Nolan, which I suppose we could.’

  ‘Billy Nolan?’

  ‘We were ten, so the marriage part took a little longer. But the next month a new girl moved to town and they were sweethearts all through secondary school and university, and got married the day after graduation.’

  ‘Six men. Six different men seriously passed you up to marry someone else?’ The words were out before he could think about their implication, but the pink tinge on Dawn’s cheeks told him she didn’t much mind.

  ‘I’m the girl guys date for years, knowing it’s not everything they ever dreamed of but thinking it might be enough—until they find the real thing and they realise I could never compare.’

  Okay, now he understood that pain. The bitter ache he heard in her words. The crushing feeling of never being enough, of not measuring up. Of being a fool for ever thinking you could. He knew exactly how that felt, and he hated that Dawn had ever had to experience it once, let alone six times. It made him wonder how she could possibly keep picking herself back up and trying again. How she could keep that unflagging optimism.

  But the one thing he couldn’t help but notice she hadn’t said was that she didn’t want Justin back. She might not plan to beg, but that wasn’t the same as not wanting.

  He wouldn’t press her. But he wouldn’t ignore it either. And he knew he couldn’t kiss her again, not as he had by the lighthouse anyway, without knowing her intentions towards his brother. Knowing if she still loved him.

  Which meant they were on hold. But they were still friends, and suddenly he wanted to give some of that friendship back to her.

  ‘Rachel cheated on me on our honeymoon,’ he said, without really knowing why. Maybe he just wanted to offer her something of his own pain to balance things out.

  He saw Dawn wince out of the corner of his eye, and kept talking just to stop himself having to hear her inevitable sympathy and pity.

  ‘In fairness, she’d been cheating on me all through our engagement too,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t actually find out until we’d been married a month or so. Turns out that the whole fidelity part of marriage had passed her by entirely.’


  Dawn shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. Why would she do that? How could she?’

  Because all she wanted me for was my name, my lifestyle and, most of all, my money.

  But that truth still hurt too much to share, to know that his entire worth could be numbered in dollars and still be found lacking.

  ‘We had different expectations from marriage, I guess,’ he said instead. ‘She wanted someone who would pay for the lifestyle she wanted—who would get her into the parties and places she thought she belonged in. Someone who could give her prestige and position and the money to do anything she wanted. And I could give her all of that, of course. In return, I just wanted her love, but apparently that part wasn’t for sale.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was years ago now,’ Cooper said, trying to brush her pity aside. He didn’t need it. ‘And at least she taught me an important lesson about people.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You can never know another person fully. Not really.’ Cooper’s realised his knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel, and tried to loosen his hold. ‘The best you can try and do is know yourself.’

  ‘And do you?’ Dawn asked. ‘Know yourself, I mean?’

  Cooper looked across at her. ‘I always thought I did,’ he said, softly. ‘Until I met you.’

  * * *

  ‘We still need to talk about that kiss,’ Dawn reminded Cooper as they stopped outside their adjoining motel rooms in Cleveland that night. She’d had a text from her credit card provider with the news that her limit increase had been approved, so she’d insisted on paying again. Of course, that meant they were in a cheap motel on the edge of the city with doors that faced out onto the car park and a cheap porch covering overhead—because the increase wasn’t that much—but she still felt better for being able to pay her way.

  Even if the walls were so thin she’d probably be able to hear Cooper snoring that night. Or if he called out anything in his sleep.

  Like maybe her name...

  ‘We do.’ Cooper sounded exhausted and he leant against the wooden doorframe as he spoke. The second part of the day’s driving—which should have only taken another hour or so—had ended up taking three, thanks to a pile-up on the interstate. They’d stopped and eaten a silent, exhausted dinner on the way into town so they wouldn’t have to leave the motel again once they were checked in.