This Time Around

by Stacey Lynn

  But I wasn’t going to pretend like he hadn’t shared a decade of her life with her, either.

  “Yeah, we’d planned on it. Then my parents died and things went skewed and got difficult. We kept saying later, or soon, and then…” She shrugged and her voice trailed off. “I wanted them though.”

  Wanted. Like she thought she couldn’t have any anymore. Didn’t exactly bode well for me, but I’d already put myself in danger of drowning earlier, what was one more leap. “I want them.”

  “Yeah?” I hoped like hell it was hopefulness in her tone and not surprise. Couldn’t exactly tell.

  “Camilla always said later because she didn’t want her body changing. I understood because of her modeling and there’s only a small age range where you can hit it as big as she did, but still. Not wanting a family because you might get a stretch mark or a bigger ass? Should have known then she was a selfish, cold-hearted bitch.”

  So my anger with her hadn’t exactly dissipated. It was shit like this that brought up old demons.

  Rebecca quietly laughed. “While I wouldn’t agree with the name-calling, I see your point.”

  I wasn’t laughing. “Six,” I stated.

  Her brow furrowed. “Six?”

  “Yup.” I nodded. “Six. I always wanted six kids.”

  “Wow.” She looked out toward the barn, quiet with that bottom lip in between her teeth. “Why six?”

  “I don’t know. I have a sister and we’ve never really been close even though we are in age. I wanted brothers, a homemade basketball team where we could throw the ball around or shoot hoops when Dad was always traveling. Had a friend in school who was in the middle of the pack of ten kids and his home was always crazy wild. I could show up there and I swear sometimes, they just thought I was theirs, they were used to so many mouths to feed.”

  “Ten? That’s a lot.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I settled on six.” She laughed and sipped her lemonade.

  “And you say I’m crazy.”

  “You are, in good ways. But, I wanted more than two or three, wanted an even number, six was the best thing I could figure. How many did you want?” She licked her lips. Sipped her drink. What she didn’t do was answer me. I bumped her hip. “Rebecca?”

  When she turned to me, her eyes shined. “Six,” she whispered. “I always wanted six.”

  She rolled to her toes and pressed her lips to mine before I could do the exact same thing to her. This woman. She did it for me. She gave me life and made me think. She taught me things I never realized I wanted to know. She opened her arms and pushed through her grief and she did it all with the sweetest damn smile I wanted smiling at me every morning I woke up.

  “Think anyone would notice if we disappeared for awhile and snuck upstairs to your room?”

  “Probably. Especially since I’ve heard from a half-dozen people who already saw Andrew and Brooke sneak off to the guesthouse.”

  I scanned the yard and didn’t see either of them. “Seriously?”

  “Yup.”

  “Damn. That man has moves.”

  She bumped her hip into mine. “He’s not the only one.”

  I took a long pull from my beer. “I knew I liked him for a reason.”

  Thirty-Four

  Rebecca

  I threw the wet towels from the washer into the dryer and bumped the door closed with my hip. After I started it, I grabbed the basket overflowing with clothes—both mine and Cooper’s—and slammed it onto the kitchen table.

  To say I was in a rotten, rotten mood was putting it much too lightly.

  All because of a damn white envelope delivered here via FedEx an hour ago, shortly after Cooper took off to go to the feed and grocery stores while I stayed back and took care of some chores around the house.

  Rain splattered the windows, the drizzly gray sky a perfect fit for my current mood. The envelope mocked me from its place at the counter. His name, stamped with my address and the return address, Max’s office.

  It could be anything.

  But in a month, Cooper was leaving and heading back to start filming a new movie. My money was on that envelope being a script he needed to read.

  My very vivid reminder he was leaving me.

  And I’d fallen in love with him.

  I just hadn’t been brave enough to tell him, but with the envelope on the counter, practically mocking me while I flipped and folded laundry, I couldn’t decide if it was smart of me to keep that to myself or incredibly stupid.

  In the last month, ever since Cooper dropped the “I love you” bombshell at my feet before the parade, he’d situated himself into every aspect of my life. Two weeks ago, I’d gone so far as to grab all of his clothes from the guesthouse. He barely wore them because he already had a decent stack of clothes in my closet, but I grabbed the rest of them and hung them up.

  Hell, I was folding our laundry together. And neither of us had ever brought up the possibility of him returning to the guesthouse. I didn’t want him sleeping anywhere but next to me and he seemed to want the same.

  Slowly, his clutter, his random shirt or sock or a kicked off shoe made its way around the house and several times I’d caught myself saying our house or our room instead of it being all mine.

  Four months ago, if anyone had told me I could love again, that I could open my heart up to even the possibility of trusting someone enough to love them again, I would have laughed in their face.

  Yet that’s exactly where I was now. Folding another man’s laundry, sleeping next to him at night, smiling as I thought of our similarities both big and small.

  Cooper swept into my life and he didn’t shake it upside down or stir it into a mess. He smoothed out the rough edges, he stitched together the tears and then he stitched himself right in-between everything, making it impossible to ever push him out.

  I was moving on. And I was doing it with a man who gave me patience and moved at my pace and trusted me, and more than that, he never once hesitated to tell me he loved me.

  Our tasks on the ranch had somehow found an easy rhythm. I did the paperwork and focused on the goats we still needed to sell. Our calves were growing and every morning and evening, together, we drove around the land, making sure they were all moving. We spent weekends together repairing fences and hauling hay to the cattle feeding rings, Cooper now able to maneuver the awkward tractor by himself. I’d jump out of it, cut the twine and he’d move the bale.

  It took us hours, and we had nothing else to do but sing along to music through the tractor’s speakers connected to the Bluetooth on my phone, and spend it together.

  We went out for dinners in town, and once we’d driven the hour into Kansas City where he’d forced me into one of my few, little black dresses and heels. I threw on jewelry and did my hair up, almost wishing Cooper’s sister lived closer so she could have done my hair in some fancy updo.

  He took me to 801 Chop House, an incredible steakhouse with prices that made my heart race, but he brushed away my concerns with his easy, typical smile and a wave of his hand. The food had been worth every single moment of my panic. Then he whisked me away to a horse-drawn carriage ride, where we rode through the Plaza and afterward, wandered through the stores.

  He’d planned the most romantic evening for us, and it wasn’t until the end of the night, after we’d made love slowly, but no less passionately than any other night (or morning, or afternoon—Cooper was ambitious in his pursuit of me) when he’d whispered in my ear that he loved me, holding me in his arms as we drifted off to sleep, where I’d seen that first true glimmer of disappointment in his eyes when I didn’t return it.

  But damn it. I wanted to. I did love him, but what sense did it make to tell him only to have him leave in a month?

  The last four weeks had been perfect. They were everything I dreamed of. We learned and worked together and somehow we seamlessly fit together like he was the one who had been born with the love of the land in his blood.

  It scared me a
nd thrilled me…because what if?

  What if there was a possibility we could stay together? Where he could shoot his movies and return to me in between them?

  A flash of my gray Chevy truck caught my attention and I worked quicker, trying to finish the laundry before he came inside. I flipped the last pair of Cooper’s folded socks into the basket right as the back door opened.

  “It’s going to be a nasty day,” Cooper said. The thud of his boots hitting the rug was quickly followed by his footsteps padding toward me. His arms wrapped around my stomach and his lips pressed to that sweet spot on my neck.

  I wiggled in his arms. “You’re all wet.”

  “Hmm.”

  That hum of his sent delightful little shivers down my back and I twisted in his hold, my hands sliding down his arms. “Hmm?”

  “Yeah…I can think of other things I’d like to have wet, though.”

  My fingers landed on his biceps and pressed in. They were wet from the rain, and my grip slipped. Cooper was never hesitant, never shy to share exactly how much he wanted me or enjoyed me. He pressed against me and my butt hit the table. Then his hands were on my hips, and I was on the table, legs spreading as he kept advancing.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, already seeing his intent clear in the sharp line of his jaw, the gleam in his eyes. My hands slid up to his neck and I pulled him toward me.

  Screw the questions and the fear and the three-inch thick envelope on the counter in my peripheral vision.

  “If you have to ask,” he said, “I must be doing something wrong.”

  My fingers dug into the back of his neck and I brought him closer, his lips to mine. “No. You’re doing everything right.”

  “Yeah?” His brows arched, the lust-filled expression on his face softened to something else so much more beautiful…so sweet…my heart ached.

  “Yeah.” I sighed against his mouth and pressed mine to his. And then there were no more words, but clothes flying every which way, my naked back against the wood table.

  The feel of him inside of me.

  The groans from our pleasure and the release of our climaxes as we reached them simultaneously. Then there was the labored breathing, his chest against mine, his coarse hair tickling my nipples, the weight of his body pressing against me. My hands drifting languidly up and down his back, over every bunch of his muscles, the dip down his spine.

  “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.

  And there was the envelope. Still visible.

  A heavy weight lodged in my throat. “I know you do.”

  His forehead pressed to mine, the warmth of his breath fell across my cheek. “Right.”

  All the warmth of my release, our connection, and the feel of his body left me.

  He pushed off me and bent, snagged his jeans. He walked away from me naked, jeans in one hand and shoulders slumped with the weight of my rejection.

  Naked and still lying on the table, I slapped my hands over my face as tears dripped down my cheeks. “Shit.”

  I was at the kitchen counter when he returned to the kitchen. His presence, the feel of him, the knowing he was watching me while I washed dishes sent a thrill through me. I’d hurt him deeply. He hadn’t hidden that from me before he left the room and any courage I had to tell him what I’d been thinking earlier evaporated.

  Love didn’t have to be so hard. Falling in love with him had been easy, a gentle roll that tumbled me upside down until it was too late to stop it. But keeping that love alive…that was when the work began. That was what I couldn’t find the strength to gather in my hands and reach for. I’d loved and lost and been burned and hurt to depths I didn’t think I’d ever be able to drag myself out of. Willingly risking it again sent a flash of panic racing through me.

  “I’m going to take care of the stuff I picked up earlier,” Cooper said. His voice was deep and rough, strained and tight. “I forgot about the food.”

  He huffed a laugh, but it wasn’t exactly thrilled. More sad than anything. Still, my cheeks heated. He’d lost control because of me, and I still couldn’t give him what he needed or wanted from me.

  I scrubbed a bowl even though I’d been scrubbing it since I felt him enter. I was also pretty sure the bowl had been clean before I even started. “Okay.”

  His heavy sigh practically echoed in the kitchen and he moved toward the door. I twisted, my eyes on him as he bent and tugged on boots. He was wearing the jeans he had on earlier, but he’d thrown on a clean, light blue T-shirt. It set off his tan and his dark features in the most appealing way.

  “Cooper,” I said and his chin tilted. That clog in my throat thickened again and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “I know, Rebecca. I know.”

  And, God. If those two words hurt him even as half as much as that hurt me when I said it to him, I had to have absolutely gutted him.

  It certainly felt like I’d just been slashed from throat to belly with a filet knife.

  I was still staring at the spot where he stood, long after he closed the door and headed to the truck.

  Defeat stamped all over him.

  Thirty-Five

  Cooper

  Last night was the first night in over a month where I’d debated about heading back to the guesthouse to sleep, or give the couch another try. Instead, I slept next to Rebeca, an ice block of unspoken conversations we had to have between us, chilling the room. In the morning, I woke to find the spot where Rebecca slept empty, and the coffeepot missing at least one cup of coffee.

  She’d taken off early, and I didn’t bother searching for her even though it was my first inclination. The first time I told Rebecca I loved her, it was dropping a bomb onto burning asphalt. At the time, I not only meant it, I meant every word that followed.

  I didn’t tell her I loved her because I needed her to but because I couldn’t keep it inside any longer. As days turned to weeks, I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed that returned from her until yesterday, when I was still inside of her, chest heaving from the glorious feel of her and the way she wrung orgasms from me like she could never need anything more.

  Perhaps that was the problem—maybe it really was all she needed from me. She’d made it clear what she was after months ago before I ever touched her. I was the one who went and changed the rules, but that didn’t mean she had ever planned on changing the game.

  I hadn’t even bothered to open the package Max overnighted me. We’d spoken at length over the last couple of weeks and he knew my plans. Now, those were all up in the air. I also couldn’t put it off any longer.

  Setting down my coffee mug, I ripped open the thin strip of cardboard and pulled out a stack of paper.

  “What the hell?”

  Dropping the stack of papers I hadn’t requested and didn’t want on the counter, I grabbed my phone and pulled up Max’s number. I didn’t care it was before five o’clock his time.

  The phone rang once, twice, then three times. By the time the fourth ring started, my jaw ached from clenching it.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” Max’s groggy voice asked as he answered. “Some of us don’t wake to the squawk of roosters, Coop.”

  “Some of us don’t get a package with a script he was clear he wanted to back out of this early in the morning either. What gives?”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d call me last night when you saw it. Don’t even want to know why it took so long.”

  I waited for him to keep going and took a large drink of my coffee while he groaned and stretched.

  “Max—” I all but growled when it took him too damn long. Rarely did he go specifically against my wishes. I flipped through the stack of papers and stopped when I saw what I was looking for.

  The contract to back out of the movie. The cost it’d set me back to do so on such short notice.

  He had sent me what I requested.

  “Just saw the contract,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, sent you both.”

  “So why
the script.”

  “Because it starts filming in a month. If you change your mind, you need to be ready, and I’m not entirely convinced you backing out is best for your career.”

  “I know what I want,” I stated, lips pressed together, my words came out almost as a sneer.

  “I know you think you do, but this movie isn’t just Golden Globe worthy, Cooper. We’re talking Oscars. Leading man. This catapults your career to the next level, and frankly, it’s my job to tell you when you’re being an idiot.”

  A strange warmth flooded my chest. An Oscar. I’d known that about this movie from the moment the director approached Max. This wasn’t the typical romantic comedy or action or drama. This film was epic, the journey of a soldier who fought for Germany and escaped during World War II when he refused to participate in murdering innocent women and men. He then entered America illegally, and it cataloged the rest of his life in his new country, fighting for a place and belonging to a community who knew he came straight from an evil empire.

  Max was absolutely right, it would change the entire trajectory of my career. It put me in the upper echelon of actors and actresses where I’d have my choice of starring roles for possibly the entirety of my lifetime.

  Until twelve hours ago, I didn’t have a single doubt in my head that walking away from all of it would be worth it.

  With Rebecca avoiding me last night, and clearly still avoiding me this morning, now there was the smallest whisper in my head, telling me walking away from this role and refusing to do it would be sabotage.

  “Read it, Cooper. It’s irresponsible not to, and I sent the contract in case you still want to walk away. Do what you want. I’ll be at your back regardless of what choice you make, but before you throw this role away, you have to have all the information to make this decision. That’s all I sent it for.”