His sister must’ve caught him ogling, as she followed his gaze. “Oh, Millie... You look gorgeous!”
“You think?” Millie asked with a twirl. “Are the boots too much?”
“It’s Valentine’s Day. Anything goes as long as it’s red or pink.”
“Oh—well, in that case, maybe I should add a feather boa?” Millie’s laugh did funny things to Cooper’s stomach. He didn’t want Stacie to show up. He wanted to take Millie and her red dress and boots out for a nice steak dinner, then maybe go for a few slow turns with her around a dance floor. She peered down at him and frowned. “Cooper, you haven’t even had a shower? Your date’s going to be here in ten minutes.”
“For the last time,” Cooper said, “she’s not my date.”
Hands on her hips, she gave him a cocked-head sigh. “Whatever you’re calling her, Stacie’s arriving in ten minutes. We’re meeting Lynette and Zane twenty minutes after that.”
“Yes, sir, Master Chief.” Mounting the steps, he saluted her on his way past, wishing she’d skipped the pretty floral perfume that made him crave doing more with her than dancing.
*
“COULD SHE BE any more obvious?” Millie wasn’t normally the judgmental type, but the way Stacie had the audacity to squeeze Cooper’s buns while they were two-stepping made her want to hurl.
“Who?” Lynette was too busy ferreting M&Ms out of the snack mix in a bowl on the table to be bothered with looking up.
“Who do you think? Stacie’s done nothing but grope Cooper ever since she showed up at the front door. And don’t even get me started on her cleavage. J.J. had a friend over, and I felt like locking the two boys in J.J.’s room until Boobs on Parade left the house.”
Lynette laughed hard enough to choke on her beer, which resulted in much coughing and a trek to the crowded restroom. By the time they got back to the table, Mack’s new girlfriend, Wilma, had cleared the dance floor and given the homegrown country band a break.
Wilma wore a red gingham square-dancing dress, and her platinum hair was tall enough that Millie guessed she prescribed to the old adage: the higher a woman wore her hair, the closer she was to the Lord.
“How y’all doin’?” Wilma had hijacked Mack’s party, and sashayed up the two steps leading to the stage as though she owned the place. She took the microphone. “Havin’ fun?”
“Yeah!” the crowd cried in a chorus of raised beers and some hard stuff.
Millie clamped her lips shut.
Stacie had Cooper pinned alongside the jukebox and put on a show of laughing at every little thing he said. Personally, Millie had never found the man to be funny or a particularly scintillating conversationalist.
Liar...
Lynnette set down her third beer and said, “Stare any harder, and you’ll set the poor girl on fire.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Zane returned with a metal bucket filled with more brews. “There’s quite a line at the bar. But never fear, ladies, your prince has returned. Drink up.”
“Quit hamming and kiss me!” Lynette had had just enough to drink that she was apparently feeling frisky.
Millie still nursed her first longneck bottle. She wanted her wits about her to keep tabs on Stacie.
While Wilma rambled on about the upcoming couples-only dance, Millie glanced wistfully at her best friend, currently engaged in a sweet-spirited make-out session that made her jealous clear to her toes. Even in the center of the big crowd, loneliness consumed her. Since Jim’s passing, who had she become? She was still a mom and a daughter-in-law, but no longer fully a woman—not in the way that mattered on this night dedicated to romance.
“Now that y’all know the rules,” Wilma prattled on, “I want only couples out on this dance floor. Midway through the song, my fiancé...” The crowd took a minute to soak in the fact that Wilma wagged her diamond-clad ring finger for all to see.
A cheer broke out, then plenty of congratulations to Mack and his bride-to-be. At least the fact that she seemed to have assumed hostess duties of what was supposed to have been Mack’s party now made sense.
Millie couldn’t have felt lower than a mouse in a snake’s belly. Making matters worse was Stacie, pushing Cooper onto the dance floor already crowded with couples. Apparently, he’d had just enough to drink to go along with her request.
“Thank you, thank you,” Wilma gushed, “but let’s get some other couples in the mood for love. Now, whoever Mack picks as most romantic couple on the dance floor is gonna win a free bucket of beer! Any questions?”
Chet Myers shouted from the bar, “Why can’t us single guys win beer?”
Wilma dismissed Chet’s comment. “Seriously, folks, we’ve got great games coming up for any singles who wanna find romance, but for now, this dance is for our couples. Remember, let’s keep it clean, but most important, get romantic for Valentine’s Day!”
The rowdy crowd erupted in a round of wolf whistles and cheers.
“Here we go...” Wilma signaled the band to start playing, and couples twirled round and round.
Stacie and Cooper stood close enough that a piece of straw wouldn’t have fit between them.
Millie swigged her beer.
The two of them were disgusting. And cheaters! How did they technically qualify as a couple when this was their first date?
The crowd went wild when Mack hammed it up, gesturing for the crowd to choose which couples were their favorites.
Of course, Stacie and Cooper drew a big round of applause.
Millie’s cheeks felt hot enough to be catsup-red.
Could Stacie be any more obvious? What the woman did with her hips was obscene!
The band started in with a nice and slow country love song.
Wilma shouted, “Think we have some lovers in this bunch?”
More drunken hollers raised the roof.
As much as Millie was tempted to run home to hide under her covers, all it took to convince her to stay was one look at Stacie with her hands in Cooper’s hair and him not looking like he minded. Well, she’d show him a thing or two about flirting!
She pasted on her brightest smile before grabbing Buck Evans by his right arm. They’d gone to school together, and he used to be married, but his wife left him to launch her Vegas dancing career. Word had it she was a stripper, but Buck referred to her as a showgirl. “Wanna dance?”
“Ah, sure. I guess.”
“Great. Come on.” She couldn’t get out on that dance floor fast enough. Two could play this game.
“I’m not a very good dancer,” Buck said.
“That’s okay,” she assured him.
“Looks like we have a late entry!” Wilma shouted from the bandstand. “What do you think, y’all? Do they make a good-looking couple?”
Cheers erupted.
After a few more minutes of twirling, the music stopped, and along with it, Millie’s heart.
Cooper stood right next to her, looking so stupid-handsome she could cry. What was it about him that made it impossible for her to even think of any other men? She didn’t want him, but she sure didn’t want Stacie fawning all over him, either.
Mack joined his fiancée on stage.
“Mack, hon,” Wilma said, “who do you think deserves our first free bucket of Valentine’s Day beer?”
Above her pounding pulse, Millie heard expected wolf whistles and few off-color comments.
What she didn’t expect was to feel physically ill when Mack pointed at Stacie and Cooper then said, “Sorry to the rest of you folks, but those two look like they have what it takes to go the distance. Good luck to our happy couple!”
“Sorry we didn’t win,” Buck said. “If you want, I’ll buy you a beer.”
“That’s okay.” She delivered a warm pat to his arm. She shouldn’t have used him like that. It was childish and beneath her. “You go on and have fun.”
“You, too, Millie.” He tipped his cowboy hat. Now, see? Why couldn’t she be attracted to a n
ice, courteous guy like Buck? Why was her taboo brother-in-law the only man since Jim who’d made her heart beat faster?
While accepting their prize, along with a whole lot of smooching, the couple was gifted with cheap plastic crowns proclaiming them Romance King and Queen. When Stacie got a little too excited, dropping her crown onto her cleavage then staring expectantly at Cooper as if he should retrieve it, Millie felt like throwing up. Knowing she couldn’t take too much more, she turned her back on the happy couple and aimed for the bar. Screw beer. She needed tequila!
She’d just downed her second shot when a familiar voice behind her said, “Thank God I found you. Please help.”
Cooper had sidled alongside her—or he could’ve been a tequila-induced mirage. But she didn’t think she’d had that much to drink.
“I need you to dance with me—you know, pretend we’re an item so Stacie leaves me alone. You might even throw in a kiss for good measure—might look more convincing.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Mr. Romance, why would I want to dance with or kiss you when you’ve clearly found your soul mate?”
He scowled. “Cut the sarcasm. I was playing along with this whole damned thing just to be polite, but now that she’s getting serious, I need an escape route, and pretending to be interested in you is my only logical path. Are you in?”
Gee, that had to be the most romantic proposition she’d ever had—not! Still, if it got Cooper away from Stacie, Millie was all for trying. While Millie didn’t want to be with him romantically, she was certain Stacie was no good. Why, she couldn’t say right at that moment. Regardless, as Cooper’s sister-in-law, she’d be doing not just him, but her entire family, a favor in sheltering him from Stacie’s wicked ways.
“Come on, Mill, give me an answer. She’s headed this way.”
Stacie fluffed her hair as she walked, then adjusted her push-up bra for maximum cleavage. She wore enough lip gloss that if she went in for a kiss, poor Cooper would see his reflection.
His expression turned desperate. “Screw the dance. You know what desperate times call for, and this is one of those occasions.” He slipped his arms loose around Millie’s hips.
“Wh-what’re you doing?” she asked, wishing his touch didn’t feel so darned good.
“Leaning in to kiss you. Please, just go with it.”
Terror struck until Cooper’s warm, yeasty breath melded with hers. At first, his kiss was soft, testing. But then he increased his pressure until lightning bugs took up residence clear from her chest to her toes.
When he stopped, he whispered, “Think it worked?”
Millie peeked around his shoulder to find Stacie with her hands on her hips, looking madder than a racked bull.
In the meantime, Millie’s lips still tingled from Cooper’s kiss—even more alarming was the fact that she craved more. The walls closed in around her. The smoky, too-warm air. All the people. The smells. Cologne and perfume. Beer and whiskey and cheeseburgers.
The band had started playing again, and Stacie was kicking up a fuss about Cooper, and how he was supposed to have been kissing her.
A low, tight knot formed at the back of Millie’s throat, and she feared the only way to find release would be an ugly round of tears. Not only was she embarrassed, but ashamed, too. No matter what the reason, she’d had no business kissing her brother-in-law. Period.
Millie pushed through the crowd, running for the bar’s rear exit.
She pushed open the door only to gulp in fresh night air. The cold came as a welcome relief to the suffocating warmth inside.
When her sobs hit, they weren’t pretty, and she hid between the Dumpster and a couple of old trash barrels.
“Mill? You out here?”
Great. Her Valentine had stepped outside for a visit—no doubt to laugh at her just like everyone else in the crowd. The last person on earth she wanted to see was Cooper. He was smart enough that he should have known she’d want nothing to do with him.
“Go away,” she snapped.
“There you are...” He’d carried his pea jacket and now slipped it over her shoulders.
She welcomed the warmth, but most of all, her body traitorously craved his masculine smell. The leather and musky citrus she’d grown to recognize as being uniquely his. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Mind telling me what you’re doing out here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not entirely...”
She sighed. “To spell it out, I’m mad at you for making a fool out of me in front of damn near the whole town. You never should’ve asked me to kiss you. And I never should’ve agreed. No matter how compelling your excuse may have been, I should’ve been strong enough to deny you. Most of all, I’m mad at myself for ever being goaded into leaving the house in the first pla—”
Before she could finish her rant, he cupped her face between his big, rough hands, silencing her with another kiss. This one slower and sweeter, transforming the cruel February night into a balmy summer in her heart. Only Cooper had no business being anywhere near her heart, which was why she pushed him away. “Stop.”
“Sorry. Must’ve been the beer.”
Just when she thought she couldn’t have sunk lower, he’d had to go and blame kissing her not once, but twice, on being drunk?
Millie raised her hand to slap his damned handsome face, but he caught her wrist on the way up, leaned in to kiss her again then tossed her the truck keys. “Once you’ve sobered up, mind giving Stacie a lift back to the house? I’ll find my own ride.”
Chapter Thirteen
“He did what?” Peg whispered so as not to wake the boys, who’d made a fort in J.J.’s room. Half of it hung out in the hall, so they couldn’t shut J.J.’s door. Cheetah seemed fascinated by it, and sat under the ragged sheet canopy. “Start over from the beginning.”
She and Millie sat cross-legged on Millie’s bed, holding the bag of Oreos between them. Millie told her about the dance contest, and how Cooper wanted her to serve as a dating decoy for Stacie, but left out the part about him kissing her again behind the bar. “You can’t imagine how awkward it was when I had to tell Stacie he’d taken off—God only knows where. Plus, I had his coat. For all I know, he could be frozen in a ditch.”
Peg snorted. “He’s a Navy SEAL. Pretty sure he’d find a way to survive in Antarctica with tooth floss and a napkin.”
“Still...” Millie sniffed. “It was a horrible night. Lynette’s mad at me for leaving. Zane’s mad at me because I got Lynette upset—the whole thing was a start-to-finish disaster.”
“Okay, wait—go back to the part about the kiss.” She took another cookie from the bag. “Out of morbid curiosity, how was it?”
Millie’s eyes widened in panic. She couldn’t very well say it’d been as sweet as downing a hundred bags of Oreos, so she forced a deep breath, crossed her fingers and lied. “The kiss? Um, it was okay.”
“Just okay, huh? Show me your hands.”
The heat in Millie’s traitorous cheeks rose twenty degrees. “Why?”
“Because I have a feeling that behind your back, you’re crossing your fingers. It’s okay if you liked kissing him. I know you loved Jim, but sweetie, it’s been a long time since he passed. He wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life pining.”
“True, but he also would never want me to forge a new life with his brother of all people—not that such an option is even on the table.”
“I can see that....” Peg fussed with the cookie bag’s Ziploc. “But this morning, when he gave Lee and J.J. their gifts, I saw the way you looked at him—the way J.J. looked at him. You feel something. J.J. clearly thinks Cooper hung the moon.”
Millie interjected with, “LeeAnn can’t stand him.”
Peg laughed. “Lee can’t stand anyone. Goes with the age.”
“True.” Millie couldn’t help but laugh, too. But then her throat knotted. She had enjoyed Cooper’s kiss. Too much. She could have kissed him all night and deep into th
e next morning, but at what cost? She was already financially broken. When Cooper left for Virginia, was she emotionally stable enough to suffer a second broken heart, as well? Of course, she didn’t officially feel anything romantic toward him now, but as much as she’d already grown to crave his company, she had a sneaking suspicion that he’d be all too easy to love.
*
COOPER JOGGED THE first ten miles to the house then cut across the pasture once he’d reached family land. Anyone outside of his SEAL team would probably think him nuts, but the run felt good. He was used to driving his body hard, and he’d run greater distances, in far colder temps while soaking wet. As he was dressed in a T-shirt, chunky sweater, jeans and deck shoes, this trek was a cakewalk. Hell, he didn’t even have his heavy-ass backpack to worry about.
Unfortunately, by the time he reached the barn—he wasn’t yet ready to go in the house and face his sister or Millie—he realized that while he may not have physical worries, he did have a fair amount of explaining to do.
Truth was, all night long he’d secretly hoped to kiss Millie. He didn’t give a shit that it’d been in front of practically everyone he’d ever known outside of the Navy. Maybe deep down he’d wanted it that way? Just to get everything out on the table in a one-stop, efficient manner. But had that been fair to her?
Moreover, what was the point in declaring his intentions toward her when he wouldn’t even be sticking around?
He groaned.
Sassy released a soft snort.
“How’s it going, girl?” When he rubbed the horse’s nose, she leaned into his touch. “What I wouldn’t give if all women were as uncomplicated as you.”
The calf and chickens were down for the night, content beneath their respective heat lamps.
The Cowboy SEAL Page 12