by Bonnie Vanak
“Sophie!” She clapped her hands three times. “Come!”
The happy dog dashed over and Meg scooped her up. She didn’t set her down until they were inside the inn.
Aimee came bounding down the steps. “There you are!”
As Sophie rushed over to Aimee, Meg gave the girl a pointed look. “Aimee, I warned you to never let Sophie outside without a leash.”
“I didn’t. I thought maybe you or Mom had her. I was on the phone in my room, talking to a boy.” Cheeks pink, she picked up the dog. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep her in my room.”
Meg returned to the kitchen to finish baking.
Shortly before noon she joined Cooper in the truck as Aimee rode in the backseat with their backpacks and the food and blanket Meg had stuffed into hers. They’d invited Fiona, who declined, saying she had the accounts to reconcile.
Freedom Falls wasn’t a long drive away, and the hike was “moderate,” but Cooper promised the view was worth it. When they arrived at the trailhead, there were no other cars in the parking lot. She dragged in a lungful of clear, crisp autumn air.
Shouldering her pack, Meg followed Cooper and Aimee up the moderately steep trail.
“Slow down, Peanut,” Cooper called out. “Trail’s slippery.”
“Come on, old man,” Aimee called back.
“Old man?” he sputtered.
Meg laughed, her legs aching but her heart full. In excellent physical shape, Cooper could easily outrun his sister up the steep trail, but she sensed he slowed down because of her. After months of living in Florida, the altitude made the ascent a bit of a struggle. Leg muscles burned as she climbed up the pathway, skirting rocks and tree roots. It felt wonderful and freeing to be outside with the man she had fallen in love with.
The thought startled her. Did she love Cooper Johnson? Meg stared at the strong curve of his calves as Cooper climbed ahead of her. Unlike her, he wore shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, tying a light jacket around his waist. The man was a furnace.
She’d felt his warmth last night. Meg flushed, remembering exactly how much heat they’d created in his bed.
Cooper was loyal and devoted, and in his arms she felt alive and invigorated and well-loved. She could finally set aside her troubled past and look forward to life because of him. The dark shadow of her past had begun to fade.
All these long months, Meg had steeled herself to be alone. Her family had been overbearing and controlling, and it was better to rely on herself.
And now she finally found someone who broke that resolve.
Smiling, she poked him in his very fine buttocks. “Come on, move it, old man!”
He turned, giving her a mock growl. “You’ll pay for that later.”
“Promise?” she asked sweetly, and laughed.
Through the thick trees, she spotted glimpses of the mountains and isolated pockets of brilliant fall color. When they reached the falls, Meg stood breathless with wonder.
The waterfall plunged down several hundred feet, spraying the chilly air with lacy mist. Puffs of white clouds brushed the jagged, majestic peaks of the Presidential Range. Sunlight dappled the thick oak and hickory trees as shadows danced along the ledge.
Aimee climbed down to investigate the water.
“Watch the rocks,” he warned, a frown denting his forehead.
“She’ll be fine,” Meg assured him.
“If she falls, she could hurt herself.”
“But she won’t fall. Let her have fun, Cooper. Your sister has been on this trail dozens of times. You can’t hover over her every minute.”
He glanced at her, wiped his sweating forehead with the back of one hand. “Yeah, I know. Sometimes I wish I could wrap her in cotton wool, lock her away so nothing bad would ever happen to her. Like what happened to...”
He dragged in a deep breath. “Come here.”
She went into his arms, offering what comfort she could, resting her head against his broad shoulder.
“Feels so good to hold you,” he said in a husky voice. “You make me forget all the bad stuff in the world.”
As Aimee climbed up the rocks from the waterfall, he released her. Cooper removed the sandwiches and cookies from his pack and Meg spread out the blanket on a flat ledge.
Meg sat on a boulder, dangling her feet over the edge, happily munching on a granola bar.
This was peace. This was the life she’d wanted, no one expecting her to play a role as a wife, hostess, perfect daughter.
This was perfection. She stole a sideways glance as Cooper plunked down beside her.
“Courting danger, Ms. Taylor. That’s a long drop.”
Meg peered down. “Not too bad. There are bushes that would break my fall.”
Cooper took the remaining granola bar from her hand, the warmth from his calloused fingers sending sizzling heat shooting through her. Oh, how she remembered the stroke and caress of those fingers against her skin...
He tossed down the bar. It broke into several pieces on the rocks below, before tumbling into the bushes.
At his arch look, she lifted her shoulders. “I’m not a granola bar. I won’t break apart.”
A lick of fire teased her loins as he brushed a kiss against her neck, his tongue lazily caressing her skin. “You broke apart very nicely last night,” he murmured.
He uncapped his water bottle and drank deeply, muscles in his throat working. Fascinated, she watched. Sunlight picked out coppery highlights in his dark brown hair. From the angles and planes of his hard jawline to the bridge of his nose, Cooper Johnson was perfection as well.
He set down the bottle, winked. “Why, Ms. Taylor, I do believe you are staring at me.”
Seeing Aimee feeding a squirrel a short distance away, she whispered, “I’d do more than stare if we were alone.”
Cooper grinned. “This rock would make an excellent place to get horizontal. I’ll have to wait until we’re alone and then watch out.”
His voice became a deep, rumbling timbre. “I can’t wait to get the taste of you under my tongue.”
A tingle raced down her spine, filling her loins with delicious anticipation. Last night he’d made her scream and writhe and claw, bringing out feelings she’d thought were long dead. It wasn’t only the sheer erotic pleasure. It was a sense of bonding, connection that she’d lost hope of ever attaining. Others had seen her as a pampered doll, or a pretty shell to serve their needs. Cooper served her needs, and last night paid exquisite attention to each one.
They polished off the sandwiches and Cooper opened the plastic bin containing the cookies. He sniffed, a look of anticipation on his face. “Smells great.”
“Ladies first.” Aimee snatched up a cookie and bit into it. She frowned.
“This tastes weird.” Aimee set down the cookie.
Meg studied the bin. “I used fresh chocolate chips. I thought chocolate chip was your favorite.”
Cooper bit into the cookie his sister abandoned. His expression turned from curious to horrified.
“There are peanuts in these cookies, Meg. I told you Aimee’s highly allergic to peanuts.”
Alarm shot through her. “I didn’t use any peanuts.”
They turned to Aimee, whose lips were beginning to swell.
“Cooper, I don’t feel good,” Aimee whispered. “My throat feels tight.”
As he raced to his backpack and fumbled in it, Meg coaxed Aimee to calm down. The girl’s face paled even more and suddenly she climbed onto her knees and doubled over, vomiting. Meg held back her hair, trying not to panic as Cooper rushed back with a preloaded cylinder filled with epinephrine. He stabbed the needle into her thigh.
The girl stopped vomiting but kept gasping for breath. Cooper hunted through his backpack and cursed.
“She’s goin
g into anaphylaxis,” he snapped. “I have to get her to the hospital. Can’t find the second shot of epinephrine.”
Cooper pushed her roughly aside and swept his sister into his arms.
Meg’s heart raced. She scrambled over to get the packs.
“Screw it,” he barked as he started down the trail with her.
She hooked his backpack and her own over both arms and raced with him down the pathway. “Call 911,” she screamed at him.
“No time,” he yelled back. “I have to get her to the ER.”
Loose rocks skidded out from beneath his hiking boots as Cooper raced down the trail like a mountain goat, Aimee in his arms. Meg picked her way down, skidding once and banging her knee on a rock. Wincing, she ignored the pain and followed Cooper.
Finally they reached the parking lot and the truck.
Meg hunted through her backpack as Cooper bundled Aimee into the backseat of the truck. “Stay with her,” he snapped.
He tore out of the parking lot, heading down the mountain.
Aimee still wheezed, her face growing paler by the minute. She’d known Aimee was allergic, and just in case something happened, she didn’t want anything happening to Cooper’s only surviving sister... There!
Her fingers closed around the cylinder. Meg uncapped the pen and injected Aimee. Please, please, be okay. “Breathe, honey,” she whispered, stroking Aimee’s forehead. “Just breathe.”
A few minutes later, her breathing became more normal. Cooper thumbed his phone. “Sam, it’s Coop. I need a police escort to Mount Darby ER. Aimee’s going into anaphylaxis. She ate peanuts that were in a cookie.”
Guilt rushed through Meg. She removed her jacket and placed it around the cold, shivering girl. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t put peanuts into the batter. I didn’t.”
Soon, a police car pulled ahead of them, blue lights flashing and siren blaring. Cooper accelerated, following it.
When they finally reached the ER, Cooper shot out of the truck as medical staff rushed outside with a stretcher and a portable oxygen bottle. Meg opened the door as the orderlies loaded Aimee onto the stretcher.
He ran with them into the emergency room. Miserable, Meg climbed into the driver’s seat and parked the truck.
Then she hovered in the waiting room, her fingers curled tight in her lap.
A clerk came over to inquire about Aimee’s insurance information and birth date. Meg didn’t know. She wasn’t permitted in the room with Aimee, either. Feeling helpless and beyond upset, she methodically went over every single ingredient she’d put into the cookies. Could someone have put peanuts into the batter while she was outside? But she’d been gone only a few minutes. And who would know about Aimee’s peanut allergy?
Richard Kimball had known. He knew it from the night at the bonfire, when Aimee had refused the peanut butter s’mores the English couple made.
It sounded too fantastic to be true. Kimball had already checked out of the inn. And why would he wish to harm a little girl?
Derek and Fiona, followed by Nick, rushed into the emergency room. Meg went to the desk as Derek inquired about Aimee and hugged Fiona.
“They’ll only allow family,” Meg told him. “Cooper is with her now.”
The nurse behind the desk peered over the top of her spectacles at Cooper’s older brother. “Are you all family?”
“I’m her mother,” Fiona burst out. “Please, I must see my daughter.
“And I’m her brother.” Derek jerked a thumb at Cooper’s best friend. “Nick’s family, too.”
He ignored Meg. Cooper’s older brother herded his mother past the security guard as Nick followed. The trio accessed the forbidding doors blocking her from entering the room where doctors treated Aimee.
Nick was family.
She was not.
Meg tried to ignore the little knot of hurt tightening her stomach. Aimee came first, and Nick had been a close family friend for years.
But the part of her that had started to trust again shattered as cleanly as the granola bar Cooper had tossed on the rocks.
* * *
She could have killed his sweet baby sister. Just as her corporation had killed Brie.
Flooded with misgiving, Cooper paced Aimee’s boxlike hospital room. Meg insisted she had blended everything carefully and didn’t even touch the jar of peanuts on the counter. Then how the hell had the peanuts gotten into the cookies?
He’d warned her about the allergies. The entire housekeeping staff had it drilled into them to never give Aimee the food that could kill her. And here they were, his worst fears flashing along with the monitor beeping next to Aimee’s bed. If he hadn’t jabbed her with the epinephrine, and if he hadn’t gotten her to the hospital in time...
Don’t go there.
But the thought played over and over in his mind. Aimee could have died. Meg would have played a role in the deaths of both his sisters.
Maybe it was an accident.
Or maybe she wants to hurt your family. You can’t trust her, a nagging voice whispered inside him.
His mother, sitting by the sleeping Aimee and stroking her hand, glanced up. “Stop pacing. You’re making me nervous.”
Standing by the window, Derek turned. “Is that doctor ever going to get here?”
Nick entered the room, the doctor on his heels. “Found him.”
The physician checked over Aimee as Cooper drew his friend aside. “Good job, Nomad.”
Holding up a slim cell phone, the other man shrugged. “Cakewalk. All I had to do was take this away from him.”
Finished with his exam, the doctor turned to them. “She’s going to be fine.”
Cooper finally released the breath he’d been holding.
“She’s a smart little girl, enough to recognize the peanut taste. Good thing she received the second injection,” he said. “It helped stabilize her until you arrived. We’ll keep her overnight, just to be certain.”
Fiona closed her eyes. “Thank God you had the foresight to pack all the pens.”
Cooper raked a hand through his mussed hair. “It wasn’t me. Meg had an extra in her pack.”
Guilt raced through him. Hell, he’d always been prepared when hiking with Aimee. But this time he’d forgotten and packed only one pen.
Meg might have accidentally put peanuts in the cookies, but he was the one who’d failed his baby sis.
The doctor went to Nick, who handed him back the cell phone. Glaring at the other SEAL, the physician left the room.
“Where is Meg?” Fiona asked.
Cooper started. “Aw hell, I left her in the waiting room. I thought she’d come in with all of you.”
“They said only family. And this is all her fault.” Derek went to Aimee’s other side, stroked her forehead. “Coop, stop thinking about her. Your first duty is to family, not that woman.”
“Derek,” Fiona warned.
“She was the one who made the cookies, but give the lady a break, Derek, until you have the facts,” Nick broke in. “Why would she want to hurt Aimee?”
“I’m not saying it’s deliberate, but she’s not one of us. She’s a stranger,” Derek argued.
Ignoring them, Cooper headed for the waiting room. Meg sat on a chair by the window, looking small and lost. One leg of her jeans had been cut off and a large white bandage wrapped around her knee.
Cooper sat next to her. He didn’t even know she’d been hurt. “What happened?”
“It’s nothing.” Meg’s fingers curled around the edges of her pack. “Just a scrape when I banged my knee going down the mountain. How’s Aimee?”
“She’s going to be fine.”
“Good.”
Awkward silence descended between them. Cooper sensed she wanted to see her, but wit
h Derek’s hostility, that wasn’t a good idea.
“I’ll take you home now,” he finally said.
She shook her head and dug a set of keys out of her jeans pocket, handing them to him. “I parked your truck. I was going to call for a taxi. I only waited to see how she was, to make sure she was going to be okay.”
Her voice cracked. Meg stood, holding on to the pack like a life preserver. “Tell Aimee I’m sorry.”
Coop caught her arm with one hand, herding her out of the waiting room to his truck.
Then, while Meg was climbing into his truck, he called Nick.
“I’m driving Meg back to the inn and then returning to spend the night in the hospital,” he told Nick. “Need you to stay at the cottage, keep an eye on Meg.”
“Sure thing, Coop.” A pause. “Keep an eye on her because you don’t trust her?”
“Just watch her,” he snapped.
In the truck, Meg stared out the window as he pulled out.
Had to know. “Meg, you’re absolutely certain you didn’t put peanuts in the cookie batter?”
“I told you. I made the batter fresh and didn’t use any nuts.”
“Is there a chance you could have used something that had peanuts in it? Peanut oil instead of corn oil?”
A heavy sigh eased from her. “I was so careful soon as I found out about Aimee’s allergy. I know how to read labels, Cooper. Why can’t you believe me that I didn’t do it?”
“My baby sis is lying in a hospital bed right now. I could have lost her.”
Meg gripped her pack tighter. “I know.”
“If not for you. You gave her the second injection, and the doctor said that helped to stabilize her. Thanks.”
A jerky nod and she turned away from him, shutting him out. Cooper concentrated on his driving. Torn in two, he tried not to think of Aimee’s graying face and how little she appeared in that big hospital bed.
Or how lost and abandoned Meg looked in the waiting room. But Meg was an adult. And Aimee was his only remaining sister.
Maybe Derek was right. Duty to family did come first. He’d already lost one sister, and wasn’t about to lose another. Family mattered more than anything else.