her from exiting the barn. He held out his hands, kept his body relaxed and loose.
“Don’t go because I’m an ass. Stay. You came here to find a safe place and I promise, you will be safe here.”
She watched him with narrowed eyes, and he could read the doubt in her expression.
Spreading out his hands, he wriggled his fingers. “Look at me. I’m not armed, and I will listen to you. If I say something stupid again, you can go ahead and do what my mom always does when I’m being dumb.”
Meg’s mouth twitched in a ghost of a smile. “And what’s that? Send you to bed without supper? Is that what I should do?”
Sending me to bed with you would be a most pleasant punishment. Desire surged through him, and his grin tightened as he struggled to maintain a grip on his emotions. There was something about this woman that scrambled his senses and made all his tightly held control go southward.
Straight to his groin, in fact.
He wasn’t the charming type like his teammate Stephen, or a ladies’ magnet like LT before LT had married Lacey. He’d always been quieter, more drawn to animals than people, and relationships were brief because of his time downrange with the teams. When he did have leave, it was always spent with family, not partying and impressing women.
But something about Meg drew him like a lodestone. Oh yeah, she was a beauty, but it was more than that. He’d had his share of beautiful women, some of whom were vapid as an air bag. Maybe it was the wounded look in her eyes he wanted to erase, or her sheer pluck, or the fact that she refused to cower.
That “no retreat” attitude he both admired and recognized.
But she’d fled a bad marriage and a man who treated her like a punching bag. Last thing Meg needed was unwanted male attention. Coop cocked his head.
“What you should do with me is tell me what drove you in here, in this storm, ’cause you had something you wanted to tell me before I went all ape on you. What happened?”
Her gaze darted away, a sure sign she was nervous. “It was nothing.”
Suspecting he wouldn’t get much more out of her, Coop opted for a different approach. He crouched down to Sophie and spoke in a low, soothing voice, the kind that coaxed women into his bed and animals to his hand. “C’mon, pretty girl. Did something scare you? Because if it did, I need to know so I can make it right. I want you to feel comfortable here in my home, and I sure do want you to stick around because my mom makes the best breakfast this side of the Mississippi. You can’t run off before you taste her cranberry-orange-nut muffins with honey butter.”
Sophie’s tail waved ever so slightly. She bent her head and sniffed in his direction. Then she cautiously approached him and smelled the hand he held out.
Meg watched as her man-hating dog licked Cooper’s hand. He glanced at her and winked. “She wants me to tell you. See?”
“I don’t understand. Sophie doesn’t like men.”
Scratching behind Sophie’s ears, he nodded. “She’s been burned, but animals are smart. They know which people will hurt them and which ones to trust.”
At his meaningful look, Meg sighed. “You’re not going to let this go.”
“Nope. I can be real stubborn that way.”
“There was a crash outside. I think it was the wind.” She looked away. “Or not. I had this feeling of being watched.”
Immediately he assessed the situation. She’d been alone in a strange place, all sorts of noises outside in the storm where anything could sound like a threat. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have left you alone like that. I’ll come back with you now.”
“What about Betsy?”
Much as he wanted to remain in the barn, he couldn’t leave Meg alone. The horse seemed to be over the worst of the colic. “She’ll do fine. Come on.”
“It was nothing,” Meg repeated. “Just the wind knocking something over.”
Straightening, he turned toward the door. “Show me.”
The wind had died down, and the clouds had scudded across the night sky, showing a pale full moon as they made their way back to the cottage. The path was only a few hundred feet away, but he thought of Meg making her way to the barn in the dark with only a thin pencil beam from the flashlight to illuminate the way, and his guts churned.
He should never have left her alone.
At the porch steps, she gestured to the broken clay pot. Brie had planted marigolds in the three pots on the steps, and when they’d died, he simply hadn’t had the heart to do anything with them. Same reason he hadn’t cleaned out Brie’s closet or, against his mother’s wishes, gone through any of her personal things.
Cooper saw Meg’s trim boot prints in the newly fallen snow, and a set of paw prints leading from the front steps.
Nothing obvious. But he’d check the entire cottage to make sure.
“Go inside, get warm. I’ll be in shortly.”
His no-nonsense tone indicated business. Meg bit her lower lip again and then held out the flashlight. He shook his head. “Don’t need it.”
“It’s dark out here.”
“Yeah, and it’s how I roll. Go inside. Lock the door behind you.”
He was relieved to see her unlock the door and head into the cottage, the dog on her heels. Soon as he heard the lock click, he began a perimeter check. The new snow made it easy to spot any disturbances. And using a flashlight would be like a neon sign if there was anyone, or anything, lurking outside.
Cooper made his way around the cottage, using the light of the moon as illumination. Nothing. Maybe it was the wind. But he didn’t like it. Took a mighty strong wind to knock over a pot that heavy.
As he walked to the east, hooked around the house and examined the grounds, he got a prickly feeling on the back of his neck. Gut instinct saved his butt more than once in the field, so he paid attention to the night sounds, the quietness, the smells...
He inched toward the living room window that was parallel to the sunporch. And then his blood ran cold.
Another set of prints in the snow, these much larger.
As if a man had been standing outside the window, trying to peer past the curtains at Meg...
Using the spare key, Cooper let himself into the house. Meg sat at the kitchen table. “Did you find anything?”
“Maybe.” Coop headed to the closet and opened the gun safe where he’d stashed Brie’s .38 special. After loading it, he returned to the kitchen and showed her the gun. “Ever use one of these?”
Meg’s eyes widened to dinner plates. “No. Is it necessary?”
“Not as long as I’m around. It’s for when I can’t be at your side.” He showed her the safety. “Click
