Mistletoe Bay

by Marcia Evanick

  “Sorry” seemed so inadequate, but what else was left to say? “I’m sorry Candace broke your heart, Coop.” She handed him the saucepan she had been scrubbing. With a soft smile she said, “She was a fool.”

  Coop surprised her by grinning. “She didn’t break my heart, Jenni. Banged it around a bit, yes; shattered it, no.” He started to dry the pot. “Candace did more damage to my dreams than my heart.”

  “Dreams have a habit of changing, growing in a different direction, or just fading away.” She liked the fact that Coop could smile about Candace’s betrayal now and that he hadn’t turned into some woman-hating grump. “Dreams are fed by life, and life is constantly changing.” She’d learned that one firsthand.

  “That it is.” Coop placed the pot inside the still-warm oven. It was where he stored all his pots and pans because the tiny kitchen was, well, tiny. “What’s one of your dreams?”

  “Opening the Mistletoe Bay Company.” She grinned as she finished with the last pan and pulled the plug in the drain. “With the help of Dorothy and Felicity, I accomplished the first stage of the dream. I never would have been able to do that and take care of the boys.”

  “What’s stage two?” He dried the pan and added to his collection already in the oven.

  “A baby-product line, I think.” She reached for the towel he was using and dried her hands. Coop’s dream of a family was wonderful, and something she had achieved. Now, though she had the boys, it wasn’t a complete family, but she had learned to play with the hand she’d been dealt.

  “You think?”

  “Well I’m working on that, and a line of more natural-ingredient products.” She walked over to his couch and sat. A pile of DVDs was sitting on the coffee table. Coop had explained earlier that he had gone out to rent a movie but couldn’t decide what she would want to watch, so he had gotten an assortment. She picked up the small pile and started to glance through them.

  “You can get more natural than oatmeal cranberry soap?” Coop sat next to her.

  “Sure. I’m working with pine and some sea scents right now. Men are looking for excellent products that wouldn’t leave them smelling like a funeral parlor.” She couldn’t help laughing at the assortment of DVDs in her hand. Coop had rented Casablanca, one of the Lord of the Ring movies, Blazing Saddles, Braveheart, and the current Oscar contender for best picture. “This is quite an assortment.”

  “I told you I couldn’t make up my mind, and I don’t know yours all that well—yet.”

  She smiled. “I like that ‘yet.’” It made it sound like Coop wanted to continue this relationship. She knew whatever developed between her and Coop would never work out in the end. Coop had dreams of starting a family, while she, on the other hand, was raising hers.

  She didn’t come with a cute matching set of baggage, she came with a warehouse stacked to the rafters with worn, torn, and banged-up crates. Coop would come to his senses soon enough, but in the meantime she was going to hoard every memory they had together.

  Coop moved closer. “So which movie did you want me to put on?”

  She could feel his gaze on her mouth. “It doesn’t matter.” She leaned toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I don’t think I’ll be paying much attention to it, or to anything else.” Who cared about a movie when she had Coop all to herself for a couple hours?

  Coop’s mouth skimmed her jaw. “Why not?”

  Strong arms gently wrapped around her. “Because, Cooper Armstrong, I can’t think when you kiss me.”

  Coop grinned and lowered his head. “So stop thinking,” he whispered against her lips.

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time she came up for air from their first kiss, she was in Coop’s bed with over half of her clothes gone. She had no idea how she’d gotten there or where her blouse, bra, and slacks had disappeared to, but it really didn’t matter. She was right where she wanted to be, and Coop’s mouth was hot against her breast.

  Coop Armstrong had the hands of a magician.

  Her eyes crossed as he gave her nipple a gentle bite. “Coop, we have to slow down.” She wanted to savor this moment so she could pull out the memory of it on long, cold winter’s nights.

  Coop’s mouth nuzzled the valley between her breasts as his large, warm hands caressed her thighs. “Name three good reasons why we have to.”

  What did he, with his fingers tugging on the elastic of the sexiest pair of panties that she owned, want her to think? She rubbed her toe up the back of his jean-clad leg. Somewhere between the living room and the bed she had lost her socks. She knew for a fact she had been wearing them while she had washed the dishes. “You have too many clothes on.” Her fingers were itching to caress his skin.

  Coop raised his head and grinned. “I love how your mind works.” Coop’s hands left her body and immediately started yanking his shirt over his head.

  Her hands skimmed up his chest and marveled at the strength and warmth of his chest. Years of construction work had toned Coop to near perfection. “Protection?” She felt Coop tremble beneath her fingertips and prayed it was because he was excited, and not unprepared.

  Coop leaned away from her and the bed. His one hand fumbled with his belt buckle; the other was rummaging through the drawer in the nightstand. “Check.”

  She softly smiled as Coop stepped out of his pants and yanked off his socks. So much for slowing things down. Coop stood in the pool of light by the side of the bed, totally aroused and unashamed. The man was magnificent, while she had given birth three times. Thankfully, no one had bothered to turn on the bedroom lights, and the only light was coming in from the living room, highlighting Coop and the bottom of the bed.

  “Are you done looking yet?” Coop inquired. “What’s the third reason?”

  Coop chuckled while she blushed. She knew exactly where her gaze had been. She tried to scoot back farther onto the bed, away from the light, but Coop clamped his hand around her calf. “I told you I can’t think when you kiss me.” What was she supposed to say? I have faint stretch marks. That would only call attention to them.

  “I’m not kissing you.” Coop’s fingers trailed up both thighs to hook into the waistband of her silk panties. He slowly started to peel them down.

  The slowness was killing her. She wanted Coop, and she wanted him now. “So hurry up and kiss me.”

  Coop practically tore off the triangle of silk. “I thought you’d never ask.” He grabbed a foil packet and joined her on the bed.

  Before she could tunnel her fingers through the whirling hairs on his chest, his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding. She arched into his kiss and slid her thigh over his hip. It had been over two years since she had been touched. Loved. Wanted.

  Coop’s scorching mouth was everywhere at once. There didn’t seem to be an inch of her he didn’t want to taste or kiss. “Lord, Jenni, you’re beautiful” was breathed against the curve of her hip.

  She felt his finger penetrate her opening and she nearly climaxed. She cried his name as she pushed against his hand, demanding more. Her hands tried to pull him closer as her thighs opened wider.

  Coop positioned himself between her thighs as he cupped her cheeks. His breath was coming fast and furious. “Jenni, I’ll go slower the next time,” his mouth teased hers open as he started to enter her with one long thrust, “promise.”

  The thickness of his arousal slid into her as she locked her ankles behind him, arched her hips, and climaxed.

  Coop joined her in release before she felt the last tremors of her own body fade.

  Somewhere in the distance she thought she had heard a loud cry and hoped like hell it hadn’t been her. She had never cried out in bed before, and she didn’t want to start now. It was pitiful enough that Coop was going to think she was easy, considering this was only their third date.

  It had taken Ken six months to get her into his bed.

  Jenni closed her eyes as Coop eased to his side and tucked her head upon his shoulder. She felt a tear
slide down her cheek. What kind of mother was she? How was she ever going to face Dorothy?

  She was going to go to hell.

  Coop was trying to catch his breath when he felt a tear splash onto his chest. His heart nearly leaped out of his rib cage. “Jenni?” He reached over and turned on the light on the nightstand and watched as she frantically fumbled with the sheets until they were up to her chin.

  His passionate siren from three minutes ago was gone. In her place was a pale, beautiful woman with tears clinging to her impossibly long lashes. With a hand that refused to be steady, he wiped at the tears. “Did I hurt you?” It was his worst fear. Jenni was so tiny and petite, while he wasn’t what anyone would call dainty.

  “Of course not.” Jenni rapidly blinked but didn’t look away.

  He let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. “Why the tears? And don’t tell me they’re tears of joy. I can see they aren’t.” He felt like a heel. He had never made a woman cry in bed before. What in the world was wrong?

  “I . . . ummm . . .” Jenni looked confused, embarrassed, and appalled all at the same time.

  He felt his gut clench. Maybe she hadn’t been feeling what he had, but there was no way in hell he was asking her if it had been as good for her as it had been for him. He had felt her climax pulsating around him as he had thrust into her. She couldn’t have faked that. “Jenni, come on, please talk to me.” He slowly reached out and brushed a long strand of her hair behind her ear. He took it as a good sign that she didn’t flinch from his touch. “I didn’t go too fast, did I?” He vaguely remembered her asking him to slow down, but with Jenni lying naked across his bed, that had been an impossibility.

  “No.” Jenni bit her lip. “I’m not the kind of woman who usually does this, Coop.”

  He nodded. “I figured that one out weeks ago, Jen.” He used the pad of his thumb to lightly tug her lower lip out from beneath her teeth. If anything was going to mark that luscious mouth, it was going to be him. “Whatever this is growing between us, Jen, it’s going both ways.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that I haven’t done this sort of thing since Ken died.” Her misty-green eyes locked with his. “Ken was my first and only lover.”

  He refused to acknowledge the spark of jealousy that singed his gut when he thought of Jenni making love to another man. Ken had been her husband and was the father of her three boys. “Two years is a long time for a very beautiful woman to be alone.” His fingers caressed the delicate curve of her jaw and then lightly skimmed her knuckles—her white knuckles, which were still clutching the sheet.

  “I’m a mother, Coop.” Jenni kept trying to read his expression. “Mothers don’t do this.” Jen waved toward the bed and the tangled sheets.

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Go tell that to about a hundred million mothers, Jenni. I’m sure they will disagree with you.” He could tell she was upset, but surely not because they’d made love and she was a mother. “I’ve met the boys, your mother-in-law, Felicity, and half the San Diego zoo in your house.” He reached for the sheet and started to tug. “You’re a woman first, a mother second. A very desirable woman.” He could see that her nipples were hard beneath the sheet. His penis stirred. “I want you again already.”

  Jenni held the sheet firm and glared at the light. “I gave birth to three boys, Coop.”

  “I know.” He wasn’t about to force Jenni to do anything she wasn’t comfortable doing. “Are you worried about the boys?” Maybe she wanted to go home. “Do you want to call and check on them?”

  Jenni shook her head. “Could you turn out the light?”

  “Why?” He wanted to see every incredible inch of her this time when they made love.

  Jenni rolled her eyes. “Coop, childbirth has a way of changing a woman’s body, and it’s not for the better.”

  “Jen, your body is perfect, trust me. If it got any better I’d be embarrassing myself.” He couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. Granted he’d never had a lover who had given birth before, but unless they tattooed an EXIT sign inside of her thighs, there hadn’t been any difference that he’d felt or tasted.

  “Perfect? You’re nuts.”

  “Nuts about you.” He gave the sheet a harder tug, and this time Jen released her grip. Pale, round breasts that had filled his palms perfectly came into view. The only thing wrong with them was they were too far away. He bent forward to place a kiss on one of the pouting nipples. “As I said, perfect.”

  Jenni sighed as her arms reached for him.

  Coop spent the next two hours showing Jenni just how beautiful her body was, and how nuts he was about her.

  Jenni nervously paced at the bottom of the hill as she waited for Corey to make his first solo run on a sled. She could see him standing at the top of the hill in his little red snowsuit with his brothers beside him. All three of her boys held the ropes of their sleds as they not-so-patiently waited their turn.

  “Relax, Jen. He’ll be fine,” Coop said as he came up beside her and rested his gloved hand on the small of her back.

  “I know, but it’s always so scary letting them go. My baby isn’t a baby any longer.” She was half sad about that fact, half elated. She glanced at the small mountain of hay bales covered in snow, effectively blocking the kids from sledding right into the frigid waters of Sunset Cove. The worst that could happen was Corey might crash into that mountain, but he wouldn’t get wet.

  “No, he’s now officially a kid.” Coop chuckled as one kid tried to ride his sled down the hill on his knees. The kid didn’t make it very far before sliding down the rest of the way on his back. “Before you know it, Corey will be dating.”

  She scrunched up her nose at the thought. “Hush your mouth.” She didn’t want to think about her boys getting any older. She wanted them young, sweet, and full of mischief. Okay, the mischief part she could do without, but she loved being the one to tuck them in at night, the one they ran to when they got a scrape and needed a bandage and a kiss to make it all better, and the one they made mushy Valentine’s Day cards for.

  Right now she loved being the most important woman in their lives.

  Corey’s turn was next. She watched as Chase got on his sled to one side of Corey; Tucker had the other side. His big brothers were going to protect Corey. It did her heart proud to know that she had raised them right, at least in one regard.

  Tucker’s nursery school teacher, Mrs. Audun, had called her Friday afternoon with a concern. Tucker and the Higgins twin girls had been whispering and planning something all week long. Kate Audun wanted Jenni to find out what it was and when it would be happening so she could have the fire department and an ambulance crew on standby. Jenni thought the teacher was overreacting, but just in case, she was planning on having a talk with Tucker tonight before he went to bed.

  With the boys in school and day care for the past couple of weeks, they were finally getting a routine down. Dorothy finally had some time to herself, which she spent handling the renovations of her bathroom, cooking up a storm, and smiling. She had never seen Dorothy so happy, and it wasn’t all due to the boys’ being in day care. Eli Fischer and his daughters were becoming regular fixtures around the house.

  The best thing about day care was the fact that the boys were making friends, and Jenni wasn’t being distracted a couple dozen times a day with catastrophes, chaos, and confusion. For seven blissful hours a day she could concentrate on the business, and it showed. For the past two weeks, she had accomplished more work than during the entire month of October. And she was spending more time with the boys without having her mind preoccupied on all the work she still needed to do out in the shop.

  It was a win-win situation that Tucker would ruin if he got expelled.

  She watched as Corey took his position on the sled, then raised his head and waved down to her and Coop. She grinned, even knowing he would never see it, and waved back. Coop was waving beside her.

  All three boys started down the hil
l at the same time. It wasn’t a sharply steep hill, but it was long. On the far right-hand side of the hill was a natural bump that gave the more experienced sledders some air time. She had warned the boys not to go near the jump.

  It appeared that every kid in Misty Harbor had the same idea as Coop had last night when he told the boys they would be going sledding come the afternoon. A foot of freshly fallen snow made for a great start to the sledding season, and because they had waited till lunch time, the roads had all been cleared and the sun was now shining.

  They couldn’t have asked for a better day. Or better company. She glanced at Coop standing beside her and saw the anxiety on his face as he watched the boys. She immediately returned her attention to the hill. Corey was doing wonderfully, heading straight down the hill, like she had shown him half a dozen times. Chase was right beside him. It was Tucker, as usual, heading straight for trouble. She knew allowing the boys to rub the runners of their sleds with an old candle had been a bad idea. Tucker was going way too fast and he was heading straight for the jump.

  In horrible slow motion she watched as her son’s sled hit the bump and both went airborne. She could see Tucker’s body leave the wooden sled, but his hands still gripped the steering bar. Someone screamed, and it might have been her. She took a step forward, only to be brought up short by Coop, who had encircled her waist with his strong arms.

  Tucker’s sled landed back down on the snowy hill. She blinked, and Tucker was still on his sled, skidding into the mountain of hay. Cheers erupted from every teenager standing around the jump. Her knees went weak, and she would have fallen if Coop hadn’t had such a tight grip on her.

  “He’s okay, Jen.” Coop’s voice was low and hoarse against her ear. “Tucker’s fine.”

  She blinked and then swung her head a couple of yards to the left, where Chase and Corey were tumbling out of the hay, laughing their butts off. Her heart started to beat again. She let out a sigh of relief.