“No? Well, then, I hope to change your opinion tonight. Not for my sake, but for Libby’s.”
With a glance back at Libby, he planted one hip on the table then swung his legs around so they were hanging over the edge. His back was to her, but the pose made him seem friendly and accessible, one of them. He shrugged out of his black wool sports coat and laid it to one side. His pale blue oxford shirt was just the right degree of casual.
At least he hadn’t opted for flannel or plaid, Libby thought. That would have been too condescending.
“First, let me say that before I came to Sentinel Pass, I had absolutely no understanding of the concept of a hometown. You see, I was born in Hollywood.” A murmur of chatter broke out, but he talked over it. “So when I read Libby’s online ad, offering to trade a share in her family’s mine for a chance to become a mother, the last thing I was thinking about was how her friends and family might be impacted. It didn’t occur to me because I don’t have that kind of history.”
He threw up his hands. “If you’ve read anything about me, you know that I’m a single child born out-of-wedlock to a classic stage mom. I started working while still in diapers. I went to school on the lot. It was a great adventure for a kid. I’m not complaining. I just want you to understand that coming to Sentinel Pass was like landing on a different planet.”
“Yeah, real people are from Earth. Movie stars are from Uranus,” someone muttered, making certain the word came out “your anus.”
Coop roared with laughter. “Good one. Write that down, Shane.” He pointed to a man dressed all in black who was standing near the rear door.
Libby remembered hearing Coop talk about his best friend, who was also a rich producer of some sort.
“Everyone, this is my friend and colleague, Shane Reynard. He’s the guy who took my idea-–which I stole from Libby-–and turned it into a viable proposal that the network snapped up.”
The body of attention turned Shane’s way. Libby gave the man credit for not slipping out the door and running for his life. Instead he took a step forward and casually waved, as if accepting credit for something good.
“Shane and I are here to set the record straight and get your input on how this show is going to morph into something we can all be proud of. But more of that later. First, I want you all to apologize to Libby.”
Libby’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Why should we?” Bobby boldly challenged.
“Because if not for her, Sentinel Pass would be stuck in a time warp, never realizing its true potential.”
Art pounded the gavel to quiet down the crowd. It was obvious very few shared Coop’s assessment that their beloved town was somehow lacking.
“We happen to like our town just the way it is, Mr. Hollywood big shot,” Bobby said. “Who are you--”
“Damn it, Bobby. Shut up and let the man talk,” a new voice cried.
Libby glanced to her left and saw Jenna push her way through the crowd. She squeezed between Libby’s chair and Elana Grace, who was sitting to Libby’s right. The Tidbiscuit owner groused but shifted sideways to make room.
“You were saying, Mr. Lindstrom,” Jenna prompted.
“Thank you, Ms. Murphy. I didn’t mean that to sound disparaging. Sentinel Pass is one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited--and I’ve pretty much been around the world. It’s a unique treasure, but unless you take steps to preserve it, Sentinel Pass will become a has-been. Or, worse, a could-have-been. Believe me, I know what that’s like.”
Libby looked at Jenna, who winked.
“You have the opportunity to decide Sentinel Pass’s future,” Coop told them.
“Didn’t you take that out of our hands when you decided to name a sitcom after us?” Libby asked.
He shifted on one hip and scooted sideways so he could look her in the eye. “I was the catalyst for change, yes. I admit that. And it was wrong of me to do that without being up front with you from the beginning. But what happens next is completely in your hands.”
Her heart stuttered. The subtext of his words came through loud and clear. He wanted another chance with her. Oh, God, she didn’t dare hope… No. He lied to her. He used her. Made a fool of her. She couldn’t forget that.
Chapter 19
Coop saw a flicker of possibility brighten Libby’s eyes, then disappear like a flame on a candle extinguished by someone pinching the wick between their fingers. He understood. He hadn’t expected his path back to be easy.
He faced the crowd again. The citizens were turning out to be an easier sell than Libby.
“Let’s be clear about something. Sentinel Pass is not hip or cool or happenin’. Am I right?”
“No, and we like it that way,” the older woman sitting to the right of Libby said.
“But your taxes go up every year. Your property values are rising modestly. Everything costs more-–the gas to drive to the city for the groceries the outside world produces. But the only money coming into town is what you, its residents, earn outside. You’ve become a sort of bedroom community. And maybe that’s all you want to be. But why can’t you be both--a destination and a bedroom community? Why can’t the coffee shop start selling lattes to people who expect to pay premium? Do you know what the markup is on anything chocolate?” He addressed his question to the woman he remembered seeing behind the counter of the corner cafe.
She shook her head.
“Why can’t the Murphys' Mystery Spot do enough business to actually pay for itself? Jenna will tell you how expensive it is to advertise in travel magazines and on billboards. Free advertisement is like a gift from the gods.”
“I’ll second that,” Jenna murmured loud enough to be heard.
“Char’s gift shop has the best chance of making money because it’s on the highway, but the people traveling that highway are always on their way somewhere else – Mount Rushmore, Hill City, or Deadwood. There’s nothing compelling them to stop. But there could be. If they were curious about the place that had a TV show named after it, you could charge admission to the sets after we’re done filming. On weeks that our crews are in town, you can advertise real life celebrity sightings. We all know how exciting that can be,” he said facetiously.
A few chuckles became a few more. Questions came at him, but without the bitter and antagonistic overtones. He had a sense that the tide had turned, until the sound of a chair scratching along the floor made everyone go silent. He turned to see Libby standing.
She gave him a weak but valiant smile and a nod that seemed fairly encouraging. “I’m glad Cooper came back to make his case in person. I think that speaks highly of his sense of integrity. Since I’m no longer on the board and you don’t need my vote, I’m going home now.”
Nobody tried to stop her. He wasn’t sure if that was out of respect because she looked so tired or because they really didn’t care that she was in pain and felt betrayed and rejected by the people who were supposed to love her.
“However,” he said, his voice projecting as he’d been taught, “It’s not too late to call this project Hill City Blues. Or As Rapid City Turns. Or…” He pointed at Shane. “Help me out, Reynard.”
“Um…The Not-So-Scarlet Letter Carrier?”
Coop’s mouth dropped open.
Shane tossed up his hands. “What? You asked.”
“How ‘bout Off Your Rockerville,” Jenna called out. “I heard someone who lives there complaining because Libby wasn’t their postmaster.”
“You could offer this opportunity to Lead,” Jenna’s mother, who was sitting in the front row, suggested. “Maybe call the program Get The Lead Out.” To Coop, she explained, “People always pronounce it wrong. They call it Led, not Lead.”
“Not bad,” Shane said, stepping forward. “I like it. That’s the town with the big gold mine, right?”
“Hey, wait, a minute. This is our show,” the big-mouth idiot who had attacked Libby a few minutes earlier complained. “You can’t just give it away. Libby i
s our postmaster, and it was her idea that started this whole thing.”
“Correct,” Coop said. “And I think you all owe her an apology.”
He turned to see her reaction, but she was gone.
He caught up with her in the parking lot. She seemed to be walking in a daze, which wasn’t like her at all.
“Libby? Lib. Wait up.”
She stopped but didn’t turn to face him.
He dashed between cars, dodging prominent side mirrors and oversize all-terrain tires.
“Lib, are you okay? Something’s wrong, isn’t it? They want you back inside. All’s forgiven. You’re their new hero.”
She lifted her chin and looked at him. Her lips pulled sideways in a rueful smile. “Anybody ever tell you you should be in show business? You could sell ice to Eskimos, as my grandmother used to say.”
“You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?”
She started away. “Don’t, Coop. I’m tired. I’m going home. It’s been a long day. A long month. I… Just don’t.”
“Can we meet for breakfast? Jenna said you have a sub filling in for you tomorrow. We need to talk, Lib.”
She muttered something about her so-called friend selling her down the river, but he was pretty sure she also said to drop by around eight.
“Eight. I’ll be there. Sleep well, my love.”
Her steps faltered at his casual endearment, but she didn’t stop.
That didn’t bode well, he feared, but he refused to admit defeat. She was the love of his life-–even if she could do much, much better.
---
When Libby opened her eyes the next morning, her first thought was she couldn’t believe how well she’d slept. She’d crawled into bed after a brief phone conversation with her brother, expecting to toss and turn all night. Mac had reiterated everything Coop had told her. All was forgiven. The town loved her and wanted her back on the board.
“Tough,” she muttered.
She threw back the covers, got up and looked out the window. Overcast. Perfect. The gray clouds matched her mood exactly.
She got dressed, washed her face, applied her usual sunscreen and flavored lip gloss, ignoring the makeup and mascara on the counter. She was done trying to be someone she wasn’t. She was tired of trying to live up to the town’s expectations of who she should be.
“I make one mistake and they’re ready to rake me over the coals,” she told her reflection. Despite Mac’s reassurances, Libby knew that people would be talking about this for years. The respect she thought she’d earned by sacrifice and duty weren’t worth the ink it took to write the words. “Screw Sentinel Pass. I hope Coop does change his mind and takes the show somewhere else. It would serve them right.”
She walked downstairs and straight into the kitchen. The smell of coffee brewing served as a warning, but she still jumped backward in surprise when she spotted Coop sitting at her table, newspaper spread open.
She grabbed the door frame to steady herself and lend support to her wobbly legs. “What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
He picked up the set of keys she’d given him when he was staying in the cottage. “You never took them back. I made coffee.” He pointed to a pink box partly open to display an assortment of doughnuts. “And brought breakfast.”
She craved caffeine, but even the smell was giving her a bad taste in her mouth. She walked to the counter and flipped the switch on her electric teakettle. “Green tea is better for you,” she said grabbing a box from the cupboard.
She knew her tone was surly, but she wasn’t in the mood to be friendly. Her life was a mess, and this man was almost as much to blame as she was.
“Doughnut?” he offered.
“No. Yes.” Her mouth started watering again. She couldn’t tell if this was in expectation of a maple bar-–her favorite-–or because she was going to throw up.
She stepped close enough to grab one, then scuttled back out of reach. His sandy eyebrow arched questioningly, no doubt interpreting her avoidance all too correctly. She decided to be blunt. “I don’t want you to touch me. There’s no point. But we do need to talk, so you stay there and I’ll sit across from you once my tea is ready.”
“There’s no point? What does that mean?”
“Don’t be obtuse.”
“Is that a fancy way of saying don’t be dumb? Because I am, you know. Dumb. You have to spell things out for me.”
An undercurrent of anger in his tone made her swallow her overly sweet bite of maple-flavored calories without chewing completely. She choked slightly.
He was on his feet in a blink. He quickly filled a glass of water from the tap and handed it to her. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes were blurry with tears and her nose was starting to run, but she could breathe again. She nodded, handing him back the glass. “Chew first. Then swallow. Talk about dumb.”
He set the glass on the counter at the same moment the bell chimed on her kettle telling her the water had reached boiling point. He filled the mug she’d prepared and carried it to the table. “Come sit down. Are you sure your throat is okay?”
She followed him. “I’m fine.”
He gave her plenty of room to settle in her chair, then he returned to his place. “I’m sorry if I surprised you by being here early. Usually you’re up at dawn. When you weren’t, I thought you might appreciate having the coffee made when you came downstairs.”
She would have if…things were different. Which they weren’t. “You should give me the key.”
He wiggled it off the ring and nudged it across the table.
Libby dunked her tea bag a few times, stalling. When she looked up, he was watching her, a bemused expression on his handsome face. “What?”
“You do that as if you’re trying to drown the tea bag-–or someone you wish was a tea bag.”
She gave him a stern look. “I’m not happy. My life is a mess. Everything is wrong and mixed up and there’s nothing to smile about, so quit trying to make me smile.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You have no idea how much I regret screwing up what could have been the best thing that ever happened to me.”
His words sounded heartfelt and real, but she reminded herself that he was an actor. “How long did you practice that line?”
He frowned and started to deny it, but then stopped. “I can see why you’d think that. And the fact is, I’ve said those words a dozen times or more in my head. Not to memorize them so they’d sound truthful and sincere but because that’s all I think about anymore. You. Me. What could have been.”
“We never had a could-have-been, Coop. We come from different worlds, with different values. There’s no common middle ground. I put my heart on the line and you turned my story into a sitcom. What does that tell you?”
“It’s my story, too, Libby. I’m the jerk who answered your ad and saw a way to profit from it. There’s no way to make me look heroic. I was a greedy opportunist with only my own needs in mind when I typed in a reply to your email. I suck.”
His bluntness robbed her of any reply.
He jumped to his feet and started pacing. “But something happened when I got here. Shane tried to explain this to me in the airplane. Something about the hero’s journey. Your ad was my call to adventure, and I thought I was answering it for one reason-–the gold mine, but it turns out I really came here for another.”
“What?”
“Redemption. You saved me, Libby. I was drowning in a sea of debt and denial, loss and fear. For the first time in my life I was calling the shots. I didn’t have anyone else to blame when something went wrong. And something was bound to go wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m…not the brightest bulb in the pack.”
Her expression went from confusion to dismay. “Why do you believe that?”
He shrugged. “Mom never used those words, of course, but th
ere was no denying I had certain learning challenges. She had to help me with my lines when I was younger because I’m a slow reader. And I’ve never had a head for figures-–although I did balance my check book for the first time last week.” He’d been surprised to find the task wasn’t as difficult as his mother had led him to believe. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’d suggest something and Mom would point out all the reasons why my idea sucked. A smart person would have known better than to think that in the first place, right?”
She didn’t answer but he could tell by her frown that she was troubled.
“Mom liked to say she was the brains of our outfit. She was smart, clever, and resourceful. Like you.”
She made a face. “You’re comparing me to your mother?”
“You’re all of those things, along with kind, generous, patient, humble, fair and nurturing. Mom was none of those. I loved her, but in the months since her death I’ve come to see that she was also petty, self-involved, greedy, deceitful, and above all else…afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of being poor, I think. I heard from two of my aunts after the article about me and Mom’s gambling addiction came out. I’d never met them.”
“That’s too bad.”
“That was Mom. She used her beauty as currency. It wasn’t enough to buy her a husband, but I’m sure whoever my father was, he had wealth and power. The money he gave her to get lost–-or get an abortion...she always dodged that question-–gave us a start. Once I was born, she became the CEO of Cooper Lindstrom.”
“But you don’t hate her, do you?”
“Dumb, huh? I supposed I should. Shane does on my behalf. But despite her mistakes and lack of parenting skills, deep down she loved me. I know that.”
She sat back in her chair and folded her hands across her belly. “Wow. It just hit me that the decisions I make now are going to have lasting repercussions in my child’s life. Someday he or she might be having this same discussion.”
“The hypothetical child you and I were going to make together before you told me to take my sperm and leave?”
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