Page 20 of Take Me Now

He handed me the envelope, and our fingers brushed as I took it from him. Little sparks leaped across the surface of my skin from that subtle touch, and I felt breathless.

“Thank you,” I belatedly said.

“Of course.”

I felt flustered and uncertain of what to do. I wanted to invite him in. But I didn’t know if he would want to come in. My hesitation got the best of me. Just then, he gestured beyond my shoulder. “Something’s boiling on your stove.”

“Oh!” I spun around. “Thank you again!” I called over my shoulder.

As I dashed from the door into my kitchen, I heard the door click shut behind me.

I turned back, wanting to call out and ask him to stay. But I didn’t.

ChapterFourteen

COOPER

“Mom, I’m not calling Cindy,” I said, ignoring the frustration rising inside.

I could hear my mother’s soft sigh filter through my phone. “Coop, what would it hurt?”

Very few people called me Coop, but my mother was one of them. Every time she used that shortened version of my name, I experienced a pang in my chest. My father had frequently called me that. I missed him. His loss still hurt, although the sharpness of my grief had softened.

He’d been gone over two years now. While I had adjusted to the loss, sometimes, the pain of missing him came out of nowhere and hit me so hard it sucked the air right out of my lungs. Mostly, I was learning to live with it. I knew I was blessed. I had two parents I loved, and my father and I had been really close. He had made me the man I was. Even though he was gone, I would always have that.

“Cindy just wants to apologize,” my mother pressed.

“Mom, she’s already apologized. I’ve already accepted her apology. Forgiveness doesn’t mean I’m going to be stupid enough to get back together with her. That’s what she wants. You’re not saying it, but I can get the idea.”

My motherreallywanted to fix what had happened. Cindy, my former fiancée, was the daughter of one of my mother’s friends. My mother liked things to be smooth. She claimed to understand why I didn’t want to get back with Cindy, and she’d been understandably upset by Cindy’s and Dan’s actions, but she still wanted to fix it all.

I wasn’t walking around harboring much anger at Cindy. Oh, it still stung. The humiliation was the worst part, but I had let it go. A part of letting it go was knowing that I wasn’t going back.

I might never admit it to anyone, but in an odd way, Dan’s betrayal had hurt worse. I should’ve been surprised at what he did, but sadly, I wasn’t. He had been my friend since elementary school. He’d always been a little less serious than me, a little more casual about everything. He’d been quick to look for any shortcut he could find in life. He’d usually dated casually, declaring he’d settle down only when he felt like it. His lackadaisical approach to life had been amusing, until it wasn’t.

“Mom,” I began, marshaling my thoughts. “I know Cindy feels bad about what happened. I know Brenda wants it all to go back the way it was. It’s not happening, and she’ll have to accept that.”

My mother let out a sigh. “I understand, Cooper. I do. I think her mom believes if you would somehow come back and get back together with Cindy, it would fix the whole mess she made.”

“Mom, Cindy made the mess, and you should stop feeling bad for her about it. She screwed around with Dan. I know she hates that people in town know. But plenty of people knew about her and Dan before I did. I can’t fix that. Eventually, the gossip will burn out, and people will forget about it. In the meantime, I’ve moved on.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

The lilt of Mother’s voice at the end meant she would be more excited about that than me getting back with Cindy. At this point, she just wanted me to fall in love with someone. She’d thought Cindy and I would be like her and my dad—high school sweethearts who made it. She and my dad had been one of those couples—best friends, they’d fallen in love and stayed in love. Until my dad passed away from complications of the heart issues he’d had his whole life.

My mother had been devastated and was still grieving, but she also knew how lucky she’d been. Not everyone got to have the kind of marriage she and my father had. She wanted something like that for me.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I never planned to fall in love. I wasn’t swearing off marriage, but it would not be what my parents had.

“Not at the moment, Mom.”

My mind flashed to the feel of Farrah pressed against me and my fingers buried inside her. My thoughts skipped tracks to overhearing what she said about her stepfather and that sense of protectiveness flared inside yet again.

“Well, I have faith you’ll find someone. In the meantime, I’ll just tell Cindy that she’ll have to live with the apology she’s already made.”

“Mom, to clarify, when I come to visit Stolen Hearts Valley, if I see Cindy, we’ll talk. But I’m not bending to her will and giving her another chance to badger me. It’s exhausting. She made her choices and will have to live with the consequences. Speaking of visits, you said you wanted to come to Alaska. I’m thinking maybe you should try to get here before it gets too cold.”

“I was just looking at flights,” my mother replied. “Rowan’s mother wants to travel with me. We talked the other day and could travel there in two weeks. That’s why I was calling. I got sidetracked. I should be able to stay for two weeks. Rowan’s wife, Mae, arranged for us to stay in a nearby guesthouse, so I won’t even impose on you.”

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