Strictly Lonergan's Business

by Maureen Child

  The sight of her tongue, darting across her parted lips enflamed him and Cooper bent to meet it. Then, staring into her eyes, he watched as flames erupted within her. Watched as passion glazed the surface of her deep green eyes and sparkled with the rush of completion.

  He felt the clawing, clamoring ache within and fought to hold it off. He wanted it to last. Wanted this moment to never end. And in fact, the only reason he finally gave into his own release was because the only way to do this over again was to allow the climax to happen.

  Her body erupted beneath his.

  She called his name, her voice breaking.

  And an instant later, Cooper groaned and followed her into the abyss.

  Hours passed as they found each other again and again. Every muscle in Kara’s body ached—and yet, she’d never felt more complete. More satisfied. Cooper had taken her in every way possible, she mused and in return, she’d taken him a couple of times, too.

  And now, with the first streaks of dawn blurring the sky into a slow blossom of rich color, she lay in the circle of Cooper’s arms and fell into an exhausted sleep…and a shared dream.

  Cooper held her hand and Kara felt the warm strength of his fingers curled around hers. They stood in the parlor of the old Victorian—not as it was now, but as it had once been.

  A piano stood in one corner of the room, sunlight streaming through the window to dance across the ivory keys. A paisley shawl was draped across the gleaming top of the piano and atop it, were a dozen or more framed, sepia-toned photographs. A black-and-white cat was curled up in an overstuffed chair and at the wide front window, a woman stood.

  Outlined in gilded light, she stared out the window at the road beyond, as if watching for someone. One hand to her mouth, she wrapped her other arm around her waist as if trying to comfort herself, when there was no comfort to be found.

  Her quiet grief echoed in the room, and her tears looked like diamonds in the light. She kept watch, waiting for the lover who had promised to return. She walked from window to window, hope and fear keeping pace, her steps muffled on the carpets beneath her feet. Somewhere, a clock chimed out the hour and the woman’s shoulders hunched with every soft gong.

  Kara felt the woman’s misery as if it were her own. Even the house itself seemed to throb with the pangs of the woman’s agony. Time stood still, in this one little bubble of memory. For decades, the woman had been trapped—by her own pain and desperation and there didn’t seem to be an end coming.

  Kara looked up at Cooper and saw his eyes flash with pity just before a shutter dropped over them, locking her out.

  She felt, as well as sensed, his withdrawal.

  And in her sleep, Kara clung to him, afraid somehow that he would slip away from her and she would be left—like the crying woman—waiting for a love that would never be.

  Cooper woke up first, half surprised to find that the dream was gone. Kara lay curled against him, her small hand on his chest. He covered it with one of his own, then reluctantly, let her go.

  How had they shared that dream?

  How had they been pulled into the ghost’s pain and made to feel it with her? And how could he have forgotten, even for a second, the lessons he’d learned so long ago? Seeing the ghost as she’d once been, a young, beautiful woman who’d lost everything because she’d ventured to love, had reminded Cooper love meant pain.

  Frowning, he eased out of the bed, stubbed his toe on the drawer, still laying on the floor, and bit back an angry oath. Staring down at the naked woman lying in his bed, something inside him turned over and he almost wished things could be different. But he knew, better than most, that they couldn’t.

  As if she felt his gaze on her, Kara woke up. Stirring languidly, she opened her eyes to meet his and gave him a tentative smile.

  “Did we just—”

  “Dream?” he asked, then nodded tightly, uneasy with the reborn feelings crashing around inside him. “Yeah, we must have.”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know,” he muttered and grabbed up his jeans off a nearby chair. He had to get out of that room. Had to keep from looking at Kara, or he’d slip. He’d forget about lessons learned and ghosts and old pains and lose himself in the arms of the woman who was, he suddenly realized, way too important to him. He couldn’t let that happen, he told himself sternly, because he’d learned at a very early age, that to love only invited disaster.

  “I’m going downstairs. Make some coffee.”

  “Cooper?”

  He shook his head and chanced a quick look at her. Instantly, he realized his mistake. Love shone in her eyes and that terrified him. His heart went hard and cold in his chest and his throat tightened until he wasn’t sure he’d be able to breathe.

  He turned his back on her, because he couldn’t look at her and not want her. Heading for the door, he grabbed hold of the brass knob, turned it and paused, door partially opened. “I’ll bring you some coffee and maybe some eggs. I think you’re well enough now to have some solid food.”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice filled with questions he couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer. “But Cooper, we have to talk about—”

  He shook his head and stepped out of the room. “Nothing to talk about, Kara. Dream’s over. Time to wake up.”

  Ten

  Two days later, things were still strained between Kara and Cooper. But actually, she thought, strained wasn’t the right word. After all, he’d only reverted to normal.

  He was back to being the closed off boss she knew so well. Distracted, preoccupied, Cooper spent most of his time locked away in his makeshift office. She heard the tapping of his fingers at the keyboard, but rarely saw him all day.

  They still had dinner together in the kitchen, but there was no lighthearted chitchat. No teasing, no laughter. Nor was there any hint that their night of lovemaking was still haunting him as it was her.

  The long nights passed slowly, Kara’s only company, a ghost with whom she was beginning to think she had far too much in common.

  “Serious thoughts?”

  Kara looked up as Maggie approached and found a half-hearted smile to offer. “Very,” she admitted and shifted her gaze to Cooper, standing on the opposite side of his grandfather’s yard, talking to Jeremiah and Sam.

  If he felt her gaze on him, he didn’t let her know. He stood slightly apart from the other two men, as if keeping a careful distance even from his family. It broke Kara’s heart, but she didn’t have a clue how to fight it.

  Maggie eased down onto the chair beside Kara’s and stretched her long tanned legs out in front of her. She cupped her right hand over her still flat abdomen as if stroking the tiny child nestled within. “Oh, the shade feels great. I swear it’s at least ten degrees cooler under this tree.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Kara was only half listening. Most of her focus was on Cooper. The heat rippled the air and made his image waver slightly as if he were already no more substantial than a dream. She squelched a sigh as she realized she couldn’t even imagine her life without Cooper in it. But she would have to find a way to move on. Still, she couldn’t look away from him. She’d made up her mind to finally leave him and now, all she had left were these unguarded times when she could look at him and store up as many mental snapshots as she could.

  “You haven’t told him that you love him, have you?”

  Kara shot Maggie a glance, then shook her head. “No. There’s no point. Trust me, it’s not something he wants to hear.”

  “Maybe it’s something he needs to hear, though,” Maggie insisted, lifting her hair off her neck and then twisting it into a ponytail with a rubber band she tore off her wrist.

  Kara would like to think so, but even knowing that Maggie meant well, the other woman didn’t know Cooper as well as Kara did.

  “Sam was the same way,” Maggie continued, her voice softening as she shifted her gaze to where the three men stood talking. Sam and his grandfather were laughing at something and Cooper, aloof and alone, s
tood watching.

  “What do you mean?” Kara asked, more to be polite than from real interest.

  “I think what happened to Mac affected all of the cousins,” Maggie said. “I know it’s haunted Sam all these years, so I’m sure Cooper and Jake feel the same way. I mean, if you think about it, they were all only kids. And to have your cousin die like that…right in front of you…it must have been terrible for all of them.”

  Something cold slithered through Kara as she slowly swiveled her head to look at the woman sitting beside her.

  Maggie caught her expression and read it correctly. She winced. “You didn’t know any of this, did you?”

  “No.” God, it hurt to admit that. She’d been closer to Cooper than anyone else in his life for the last five years and he’d never said a word. Never let her in. Never gave a hint that there was something so horribly traumatic in his past. Here then was the reason for his withdrawal from life. For his refusal to let anyone past the walls he’d erected around his heart.

  “I’m so sorry.” Maggie reached out and laid her hand on Kara’s. “I never would have said anything, but I assumed you knew.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Kara said, fighting the swell of regret and disappointment rising inside her.

  “God, I’m an idiot.”

  “Tell me,” Kara urged quietly.

  “I don’t know…” Maggie shook her head and looked as though she wished she were anywhere but there at the moment.

  “Maggie, I have to know.”

  The other woman sighed, glanced at the men across the yard, then back to Kara. “Yes, I think you do.”

  While she talked, Kara’s heart sank further. With every word she heard, the connection she’d felt to Cooper unraveled just a bit more. Like an old tapestry being torn apart, the fragile threads of their years together disintegrated. Tears filled her eyes, not only for the boy Cooper had once been and the tragedy of that long-ago summer day…but for the man he was now because of it. For chances lost, dreams crushed.

  And Kara finally admitted the hard truth that she’d resisted for so long.

  Cooper would never allow himself to love her.

  Cooper watched Maggie and Kara, sitting in the shade of the old oak tree and wondered what the two women were talking about. Meanwhile, Jeremiah’s and Sam’s voices rattled in his ears, but he wasn’t really listening. It was as if he was standing behind a glass wall. He could see them, but he was apart from them.

  Hell, he’d been apart from everything for days now. Since he and Kara had shared that dream. Memories clouded his brain all the time. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Mac’s face. He remembered that summer day fifteen years ago and how he’d vowed that he would never lose someone he loved again.

  And the secret to that was to never love.

  Caring too much was simply an invitation to pain.

  That was why he’d cut himself off from his grandfather and his cousins. Losing Mac had hit him hard. As a kid, you think yourself immortal. Invulnerable. Learning differently had cut him nearly in two. Then his parents had died not long after that summer, reinforcing his decision to keep himself separate from any kind of closeness.

  All he cared about now were his books. The imaginary people he interacted with on a daily basis. When one of them died, it didn’t tear him up. Didn’t rip out his heart and soul and leave it battered and bloody on the ground.

  But then there was Kara. The feelings she pulled from him terrified him, plain and simple. A humbling thing for a man to admit, but there it was. He didn’t want to care, damn it. And he resented like hell that she’d awakened something in him that had been long—and safely—dead.

  And as much as he wanted to stalk across the yard, pull Kara from her chair and drag her home to bed…he knew that road could only end in pain.

  So he stayed where he was. On the outside, looking in. Every night, he lay awake in his bed, afraid to sleep for fear of seeing Mac die again. And he couldn’t lose himself in Kara because he knew he couldn’t give her what she wanted and this way, though it cost him, he was able to spare Kara any more pain than was necessary.

  He wasn’t a complete idiot. He’d seen that happy little glow in her eyes the morning after they’d loved each other half to death. The shine of joy and pleasure and the dream of tomorrow had all been written there in her expression.

  And he knew damn well that ignoring her now was hurting her. But how much better to be hurt now than devastated later? If he let her believe that there could be a future for them only to back away? No. It was better this way.

  Not easier.

  Better.

  “What do you think?” Sam asked, snapping his fingers in front of Cooper’s face.

  “What?” He scowled at his cousin.

  “Jeremiah and I were talking about re-doing Gran’s old sewing room as a nursery,” Sam said, and the tone of his voice said that this wasn’t the first time he’d said it. “I asked what you thought.”

  “I think it’s none of my business,” Cooper pointed out and looked away from the slow head shake of disapproval his grandfather sent him.

  “You’re a big help,” Sam muttered. “What the hell’s wrong with you, anyway?”

  “Not a damn thing,” he said, disgusted that he’d let his own feelings be seen so easily. Starting for the house, he asked, “I’m going for a beer. You two want one?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said.

  “Not for me.” Jeremiah lifted his still half-full bottle in explanation.

  “Fine.” Cooper stalked across the grassy yard and headed for the house as a dying man in the desert aimed for the only oasis for miles. He just needed a little space. Some time alone. Some time to get away from everyone who was watching him in either hope or disappointment.

  He couldn’t give any of them what they wanted. Didn’t they see that?

  As he hit the front step, he paused to listen. The low growl of a motorcycle engine cut through the air and halted Jeremiah and Sam’s conversation. The deep rumble of power rolled toward them, heralding the approach of a man who could only be Jake, the last Lonergan cousin.

  Beer forgotten for the moment, Cooper stood stock-still and waited.

  Sheba, the puppy who thought of herself as a Great Dane, set up a barking, howling discord to alert everyone just in case they hadn’t heard the same noise she had. Then the little dog ran to Jeremiah and cowered behind his overall-clad legs as a huge motorcycle, chrome gleaming, prowled into the yard.

  Sam and Jeremiah were there in seconds, leaving Cooper to study the situation from a safe distance. Jake turned off the engine and climbed off the bike, one hand extended to Sam. Jake’s long black hair fell down the middle of his back in a ponytail. He wore a white T-shirt, black jeans and scuffed black boots that looked as though they’d walked to hell and back. A United States Marine Corps tattoo colored Jake’s right bicep and two days’ worth of beard shadowed his jaws. He yanked off wraparound sunglasses as he grinned at Sam.

  “Good to see you, man.”

  “You, too. Nice bike.”

  “It rides,” Jake said with a shrug, then turned to grin at his grandfather. “Jeremiah. You’re looking a lot less dead than I expected.”

  “Good to have you home, boy,” the older man said and swept his last remaining grandson into a fierce embrace.

  Maggie and Kara were headed across the yard toward the commotion when Jake turned to look at Cooper. “There’s the World Famous Author,” he said, his tone putting the words in capital letters. “Read the last one. Scared the hell outta me.”

  Cooper smiled and walked the few steps toward his cousin. “Thanks.” Then he held out one hand and as his cousin grabbed it, he said, “It’s good to see you, Jake.”

  The Lonergan boys were together again.

  Was he the only one feeling Mac’s absence so intensely?

  “Same here.” Then Jake’s dark eyes lit up as he spotted the women. “And who are the gorgeous ladies?” he asked, a well-practiced sm
ile on his face.

  “Cut your engines,” Sam said, laughing, as he grabbed Maggie into a tight hug. “This one’s mine.”

  “Well then,” Jake continued, not even missing a beat as he stepped up to Kara and gave her a wink, “That leaves you and me. Unless…” he turned to look at Cooper, a question in his eyes.

  Everything in Cooper yearned to knock Jake back a step. To drape one arm around Kara’s shoulder and announce that she was his. But he couldn’t do it. Not to her. Not to himself.

  Instead, he forced himself to shrug and said, “Jake, this is Kara. My…” Did she take a breath and hold it? Waiting to see how he would introduce her? Could anyone else in the yard feel that near tangible tension that suddenly sprang up between them? Or was he imagining more than was there? “…assistant,” he finally finished and then he watched as the expectant light in Kara’s eyes flickered out.

  Coolly then, as if she and Cooper hadn’t just shared a knowing look, she gave her hand to Jake and smiled up at him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Cooper’s told me nothing about you.”

  Jake took her hand and threaded it through the curve of his arm. “I can take care of that,” he said and gave her another wink. “As soon as I get some food in me. It’s been a long ride.”

  “Hell, yes,” Jeremiah shouted enthusiastically, as if trying to fill the sudden, yawning void that had opened up in front of them. “We’ve got steaks in the fridge. Sam, fire up the grill and Maggie, how about you and Kara do up some potatoes?”

  “No problem,” Maggie retorted and slipped out of Sam’s grasp with a quick kiss. Then as she passed Kara, she asked, “Mind helping me out?”

  “Not a bit,” Kara said smoothly and stepped away from Jake.

  As she walked past Cooper, he caught her scent on the air and inhaled deeply. He whispered her name, not sure what it was he wanted to say—or even if there was anything he could say that would make things less awkward between them. All he knew was, he had to try.