“She could, of course, be stunning if she wanted to be. That bone structure wouldn’t require much enhancement. So obviously, she doesn’t want to be. I find that very telling in a woman.”
Cooper stared at the man, wondering what kind of life he’d led that had made him such a…philosopher.
“Bone structure?” he said, seizing on what had struck him the most in the man’s assessment.
Roger chuckled. “Sorry. Once an engineer, always an engineer, I suppose.”
Cooper couldn’t help it: he smiled at the man. Dinner conversation, he thought, was going to be interesting.
“So, as an engineer,” he said, striving for a casual tone, “would you consider Nell high maintenance?”
The man looked shocked. “Nell? Hardly. She works too hard, six days a week. She doesn’t go anywhere, except to the library, or drives with me to the grocery store on her one day off.”
For some reason that relieved him, that walking a couple of miles laden with bags was a bit much, even for her.
“There’s not even a television in her place. I offered to get one for her, but she said she didn’t miss it. She comes up and watches a movie with me now and then, but otherwise, she does without.”
“Kind of an austere lifestyle,” Cooper said.
“Yes. She deserves so much better. I don’t know why she does that to herself.”
I do, Cooper thought.
“That’s why I invited her to join us tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Cooper said, pleased he wasn’t going to have to make sure she was where she was supposed to be without making the older man wonder what he was up to.
Although, after sitting down to what looked like the great meal she’d promised it would be, Cooper wondered if it would have been much different if she hadn’t been there; she barely said a word. She’d bustled around between the kitchen and the patio, helping, but staying clear of what was obviously Roger’s domain. And when he’d offered to help, she’d rebuffed him with a short shake of her head.
Still mad? He wasn’t sure. But when she came back from one of her runs to the kitchen and seemed startled to find him setting the table with the silverware she’d brought on the last trip, he decided to find out.
“I know you think I’m an insensitive, ill-mannered jerk, but I can set a table. As long as there aren’t more than two forks, anyway,” he added wryly.
Her gaze shot to his face. After a moment, a small smile curved her mouth. And that pretty that had upset her, in that moment, seemed to apply.
“I never thought you were a jerk,” she said.
As she let the insensitive and ill-mannered stand, clearly intentionally, an echoing smile broke out on his own face.
“Point taken,” he said.
Her smile widened, and suddenly they were okay.
She set down the plates she’d brought, then glanced warily at the sky to the west. Clouds were piling up behind the Olympics, dark and ominous. The first real storm of the fall was on its way.
“Roger said it’s getting close to the end of being able to eat outdoors, so he wanted to. But I don’t know,” she said, eyeing the building clouds.
He looked, assessing height, distance, winds. “It’ll hold long enough,” he said.
She looked at him. “How can you be so sure?”
“Years of living with it.”
“So…you grew up here?”
“Yep.” It was the first question she’d ever asked him about himself, and she’d hesitated doing it, so he answered quickly and as cheerfully as he could. “On the other side of the sound, but still close.”
“So maybe you do have roots after all. They’re just wider spread than most.”
He blinked. Opened his mouth. Shut it again. Stared at her. Finally managed to speak. “I never thought of it like that. But you’re right. I love this area. Not that there aren’t problems, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“So how did your mother end up in Spokane?”
“The rain finally got to her. I went to school at Wazoo in Pullman, and she came to visit a few times. Too hot for me, but she loved the warm and dry enough to put up with the colder winter. So she retired there.”
“She never…remarried?”
“No.”
He glanced up as the door opened and Roger came out bearing a huge platter of smoked salmon, three different cheeses, crackers, fried sweet potatoes still warm from the oven, and a large dish of sliced apples and a dipping sauce. Cooper guessed the fruit was fresh from his own trees; the garden was as much orchard as vegetables, and he’d noticed a couple of late-bearing trees among them.
“Maybe I should set her up with Roger. She might come back to the rainy side.”
“Who might?” Roger asked, hearing the last words.
“My mother,” Cooper said. “She’s a strictly meat-and-potatoes cook, because that’s what my dad wanted.”
“This is, in essence, meat and potatoes,” Roger said. “Just with a little more flair.”
Cooper laughed as they sat down. “She’d love to learn to cook like this.”
“Maybe you should teach, Roger,” Nell—Cooper had successfully begun to think of her by that name—said, teasingly but with an undertone of seriousness.
“Oh, nobody’d want to take lessons from an old man who does nothing but putter around in his own kitchen.”
Cooper had taken his first bite, flavor exploding across his tongue. He shook his head. “Feed them first,” he said. “Then anybody with taste buds will sign up.”
Nell gave him a startled look, then shifted back to Roger. “That’s a great idea. Start with the garden club, fix lunch at the next meeting, show them what can be done with their edibles. You’d have a full class in no time.”
Roger looked thoughtful, while Cooper processed how quickly she’d seized on his casual idea and turned it into a workable plan. Jones had told him she’d always been pretty much arm candy for Jeremy’s fancy, fundraising functions, but she’d seen the potential here so fast it was clear she’d learned at least something.
It turned into a fairly lively meal, now that Nell had relaxed a little and participated. Cooper promised to take a look at the riding mower tomorrow, and get the yard—which was even bigger than he’d imagined—mowed as soon as it dried out from the oncoming storm.
He also picked Roger’s brain about the motor on his little skiff; thanks to her brother, he could maybe afford one after this was over. Really, he’d landed in a patch of clover here. Because he’d happened to find her while her brother was halfway around the world, here he was, just killing time and getting paid for it until Jones could get here from London.
“So how did you end up here?”
He wondered if she’d answer this time. She’d cleverly avoided any discussion of where she’d come from before, but now she was more relaxed, and with a couple of glasses of wine, more loquacious. Especially with Roger here. And it was, after all, a perfectly natural question.
“It’s where the next bus was going,” she said.
“Which is how we met,” Roger said. “The farmer’s market is held in the parking lot of the marine hardware store, where the bus stop is. Lucky day.”
She looked at the older man affectionately. “What he’s not telling you is what a forlorn, helpless mess I was at the time. He took pity on me.”
“Compassion, my dear. And I’ve been paid back tenfold,” Roger added, getting to his feet. “And I think we have just enough time to decamp before the wind starts.”
“You go, I’ll clean up,” Nell said. “And you leave those dishes alone!”
Roger laughed and went inside. Cooper got to his feet and joined her in gathering the dishes and glasses and piling them on the tray Roger had delivered the food with. He whistled lightly as they worked, hoping it would keep him from talking; his dad had always said it kept him out of trouble by keeping him from saying things he shouldn’t. There was no need to probe
, to push. All he had to do was keep an eye on her and wait. That was all he was being paid to do. But the curiosity that made him good at this was raging, and he was having trouble fighting it down.
“So, you like it here?” Good, he thought, it came out just like someone proud of their home, hoping the newcomer felt the same.
“I do,” she said, with just the barest of hesitations. “More than I ever thought I would.”
“You haven’t been through a winter yet, though,” he said. “That could change your mind, make you long for weather down south.”
She dropped a fork. “Down south?”
He’d never expected such a benign comment to cause such a reaction. He quickly said, “Like Roger’s wife. Arizona, wasn’t it?”
“Oh. Yes.” She picked up the escaped utensil.
He didn’t think he was imagining her relief. “It doesn’t seem like safety is an illusion here,” he said, his voice as quiet as he could make it.
She stared at him as he repeated her own words.
“It’s always an illusion,” she whispered. “You think your world is safe. Then it’s shattered. Again and again. Then you know. Illusion.”
She grabbed up the last spoon and dashed for the door. Cooper just stood there looking after her, finding it oddly hard to breathe. He’d never seen or heard anyone so devastated since the day they had buried his father and his mother had held on by a thread to get through the ceremony.
Finally, the first drop of rain hit the back of his neck and prodded him into grabbing up the heavy tray and heading for the house.
Chapter 8
It had just been casual conversation, that was all.
She’d lost track of how many times she’d told herself. She tugged at the comforter, pulling it up over her shoulders and she tried again for sleep. There was a chill in the night air now, promising more to come, but she liked the fresh air, so she left the window open and relied on the down comforter to keep her warm.
It was useless—her mind was still spinning. Out of that whole two hours over dinner, only at the end had he said anything that made her nervous. And that was just her, wasn’t it? It was just her private knowledge that made her so edgy, so wary of the least little thing. His questions would be perfectly ordinary if she was just a person who’d landed here innocently. It was her own fear, her own history, that made them stand out, made them seem nefarious.
She rolled over again, warm enough now but seemingly unable to get comfortable. More than her composure had been rattled tonight. She couldn’t deny the jolt of fear he’d caused in her when the questions had turned personal. When he’d thrown her own words about safety back at her, she’d nearly panicked. And she wasn’t even sure why, just that she didn’t like anybody paying that close attention to what she said. And that comment about down south…had he really meant Arizona? Or someplace farther west? Had he been trying to get her to give something away? Why else would he spend so much time talking to her?
That was the crux of it. Why would this stranger show such an interest in a frumpy, boring waitress? Was there something more to it than simple politeness, trying to draw the third wheel at the table into the conversation?
In other words, was she going to have to pack up her few possessions and move on?
She was surprised at the stab of pain that thought caused. She truly, genuinely, liked it here. She even liked the life she’d built here. She had found things to like about her job, and enjoyed the challenge of being the most efficient she could be at it. She still had to find the balance between friendly openness and secrecy, but she was working on it.
And she adored Roger. He’d taken her under his wing the moment she’d arrived. She’d been wary of him at first, until she’d learned he lived here all his life, as had his father, his father’s father, and so on, for over a century. No chance he would have had any contact with Jeremy.
Jeremy.
Her eyes popped open and she smothered a shiver as she stared into the dark. She sat up sharply, and reached over to flip on the bedside lamp. Light flooded the room, familiar now, a haven, and the urge to burrow deep and stay was strong.
She didn’t want to run. If only because she had no idea where to go from here. East? Lose herself in the vast crowds of New York? Would that even be far enough? And how could she do it without being tracked? Jeremy had many contacts in the moneyed halls of most big cities.
Alaska, she thought grimly. Could she do that? She almost immediately discarded the idea; crossing the border would be a nightmare, and Jeremy had enough pull to have gotten her on some sort of watch list. She’d never make it. Unless she went by boat and avoided that part altogether. But short of hiring on on some fishing boat, as if they’d hire her, or paying some private yacht owner to ferry her up there and keep it quiet.
And just like that she was back to the man with the boat. She couldn’t seem to get Cooper Grant out of her mind. Even when he wasn’t asking her nervous-making questions, she’d found herself studying him throughout dinner. Noticed that he’d talked to Roger just as much as her. She liked that, that he paid attention to the older man, with every evidence of interest.
In that, he was like her brother. Tris had always had a genuine interest in others; he liked to talk to them, find out about them, why they were, where they were, who they were and where they wanted to go.
In fact, she thought, he reminded her of Tris in other ways, too. He had the same demeanor, that carefree attitude about life and responsibility. “Life’s for the living, little girl. If you spend all your days worrying about what might happen, you never enjoy what is happening,” he’d always told her. She, being the serious one, had sometimes despaired of that attitude in her beloved brother.
And sometimes, she had envied it.
Yet when the chips were down, Tris was always there for her. He always came through, he’d been the one she knew would ever and always have her back. He was the only one who’d known the truth, and he’d never, ever so much as doubted her.
Tears threatened, and now, alone in her quiet room, she didn’t try to fight them back. Her brother was gone, dead and cold, and the sooner she accepted that the better off she’d be.
As for accepting that she was responsible for his death, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to do that. Her gut knew it, deep down, but her heart screamed in agony at the thought. And Tris wasn’t here to tell her that even if it hurt now it would be okay later. Because it wouldn’t be. The one man she had been able to rely on completely was gone.
Cooper Grant? Not likely. She didn’t know if there was anything solid beneath the devil-may-care surface. And she wasn’t about to trust him enough to try and find out.
She looked, Cooper thought, as tired as he’d thought she would. She’d answered the door quickly enough that he knew she’d been up and dressed, but he’d seen her light on in the dark hours before dawn.
He’d thought about going to her, telling her that he couldn’t sleep, either, and that they might as well not sleep together. The unintentional double-entendre had made him groan aloud to the chilly night air, and he’d retreated to his stateroom, knowing if he was tired enough to even think stupid things like that, he was tired enough to make some big mistake with her.
“You’re tired,” he said, as she looked up at him a little blearily.
“Thanks for noticing,” she muttered.
She reached a hand up as if to rub at her eyes, then caught herself. He didn’t know much about contacts, but guessed rubbing your eyes with them in wasn’t a good idea.
Without the heavy glasses, she looked quite different. Still not the blonde bombshell from the photograph, but different. This close, and without the dark-rimmed distraction, he could see the very faint edge of the colored contact lenses. He wondered for a moment if she ever left the glasses off, took the contacts out, and looked in a mirror just to see her real eyes again.
“I only meant I saw your light on last night,” he said, wondering why he coul
dn’t seem to even talk to this woman without antagonizing her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I am tired.”
“And it’s your only day off,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed, and he felt a spark of irritation. What the hell was wrong with her? She acted like every little bit of her life was a state secret. Maybe this was what her brother had meant by high maintenance. He was beginning to understand.
“I just wanted to be sure you were awake. I got the mower running, and I was about to start.”
“Oh.” She had the grace to looked chagrinned. “Thanks for checking.”
“Sure. Hope I don’t drive you away.”
She gave him a sideways look, as if she were trying to figure out if he meant that on more than one level. He didn’t help this time, just returned her look steadily, silently. Odd, he thought, he was finding her constant wariness wearing. Especially when he couldn’t figure out the reason for it.
She probably needs a therapist, he told himself. Moving a thousand miles away, changing not just your surroundings but your entire life, was one thing that he could understand; he’d thought about it more than once himself in his own grief. But totally changing your appearance and jumping at every human contact seemed over the top.
When he finally headed toward the garage where he’d left the mower that a new spark plug and belt had fixed, he was no closer to an answer to the puzzle that was Nell Parker/Tanya Jones Brown than he had ever been. But at least she’d said she would be here all day, as usual, so he felt he could go about keeping his promise to Roger.
Once he had the feel and rhythm of the mowing process down, it was oddly soothing. It also didn’t require a lot of thought, which left him too many brain cells to ponder puzzles. It was a good thing, he thought as he made the far turn on the now-purring lawn tractor, that part of this job wasn’t to get Nell to trust him. Because he had no idea how to do it.
He glanced over his shoulder; he was down to one wide swath and he’d be done. He’d never mowed a lawn so big before. It had taken him nearly two hours, with the slopes and trees; he couldn’t imagine what it would take with a push mower. He was thankful Roger didn’t want the cut grass raked and bagged as well, or he’d be at it all day.
Enemy Waters Page 5