Mount Vesuvius towered in the background. The scene was all at once chilling, yet intriguing. The place seemed inconceivably far from Brewer’s Falls.
“It was amazing but also sad.” He flipped through more pics, some taken of the former citizens who had turned to stone. “Anyway... LeeAnn, you’re right, I’m not even close to being a volcano expert, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love lending a hand with your project. I wire a mean explosive and between the two of us, we could probably muster some impressive concussive force.”
While both kids stared, Millie pressed her lips tight.
Concussive force? He did realize the science fair was being held in an elementary school gym and not Afghanistan? Still, she appreciated his willingness to at least try helping her daughter. Lord knew, her own volcano-building skills were lacking. “That sounds nice,” she said to her brother-in-law, “only you might scale down the eruption.”
“Gotcha.” He half smiled. “Small eruptions.”
For only an instant, their gazes locked, but that was long enough to leave her knowing he still unnerved her in a womanly way. It’d been three long years since she’d lost her husband, and as much as she’d told herself—and her matchmaking friend, Lynette—she had no interest in dating, something about Cooper had always exuded raw sex appeal. It wasn’t anything deliberate on his part, it just was. Had always been. Because she’d been happy with Jim, she’d studied Cooper’s escapades from afar. But here, now, something about the way his lips stroked the perfectly innocuous word, eruptions, sent her lonely, yearning body straight to the gutter.
Her mind, on the other hand, stayed strong. If she ever decided to start dating, she’d steer far clear of anyone remotely like her brother-in-law!
* * *
“J.J., HON,” the boy’s mother asked an hour later from across the kitchen table, “will you say grace?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bowed his head. “God is great, God is good...”
While the boy finished, Cooper discreetly put down his fork, pretending he hadn’t already nabbed a bite. The last time he’d prayed before a meal had been the last night he’d been in this house.
He looked up just as J.J. muttered Amen, to find Millie staring. Damn, she’d grown into a fine-looking woman. And damn, how he hated even noticing the fact.
Conversation flowed into a river of avoidance, meandering past dangerous topics such as his brother or father. Meatloaf passing and the weather took on inordinate levels of importance.
This suited Cooper just fine. He had no interest in rehashing the past and lacked the courage to wander too far into the future. His only plan was to keep things casual then head back to Virginia ASAP to rejoin his SEAL team.
“Uncle Cooper?” J.J. asked. The kid sported a seriously cute milk mustache.
“Yeah?”
“How come you didn’t visit Grandpa with us tonight while he ate his dinner?”
Whoosh. Just like that, his lazy river turned into a raging waterfall, culminating in a pool of boiling indigestion. He messed with his broccoli. “I, ah, needed to clean up before your mom’s tasty dinner.”
“Okay.” Apparently satisfied with Cooper’s answer, the child reached across the table for a third roll.
His niece wasn’t about to take his answer at face value. “I heard Aunt Peg and Mom talking about how much you hate Grandpa and he hates you.”
“LeeAnn!” Millie set her iced tea glass on the table hard enough to rattle the serving platters. “Apologize to your uncle.”
“Wh-why do you hate Grandpa?” J.J. asked, voice cracking as he looked from his uncle to his mom. “I love him a whole lot.”
Son of a biscuit...
“Millie...” Cooper set his fork by his plate and pushed back his chair. “Thanks for this fine meal, but I’ve got to run into town. Please leave the dishes for me, and I’ll wash ’em later.”
* * *
“WHAT’S HE GONNA do in town?” LeeAnn asked, carrying on with her meal as if nothing had even happened. “Everything’s closed.”
Cooper had already left out the front door.
Millie covered her face with her hands. At this time of night, there was only one thing a man could do in Brewer’s Falls—drink.
“Mom?” J.J. pressed. “What’s Uncle Cooper gonna do? And why does he hate Grandpa?”
At that moment, Millie was the one hating Cooper for running out on her yet again. But then wait—during her initial crisis after she’d first lost Jim, he hadn’t even bothered to show up.
“Mom?”
“J.J., hush!” She never snapped at her kids, but this was one time she needed space to think, breathe. She got up from the table and delivered a hasty apology before running for the stairs.
In her room, she tossed herself across the foot of the bed she and Jim had shared. Never had she needed him more. His quiet strength and logic and calm in the face of any storm.
She wanted—needed—so badly to cry, but tears wouldn’t come.
Frustration for her situation balled in her stomach, punching with pain. If she had a lick of sense, she’d do the adult thing—pull herself together and join her children downstairs. She needed to play a game with them and clean the kitchen. Do research on how to build a science-fair volcano. Play mix and match with which bills she could afford to pay. Check on Clint to see if he needed anything.
While she needed to do all of that, what she wanted was an indulgent soak in the hall bathroom’s claw-foot tub.
* * *
COOPER SAUNTERED INTO the smoky bar, taking a seat on a counter stool. In all the years he’d lived in the one-horse town, he’d never been in the old place. Not much to look at with twenty or so country-type patrons, dim lighting, honky-tonk-blaring jukebox, a few ratty pool tables and neon beer signs decorating the walls. But as long as the liquor bit, that’d get the job of escaping—even for a moment—done. After a few drinks, he probably wouldn’t even mind the yeast scent of a quarter-century’s worth of stale beer that’d sloshed onto the red industrial-style carpet.
He said to the guy behind the bar, “Shot of Jim Beam, please.”
“I’ll be damned... Cooper?”
“Mr. Walker?” Seriously? Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The grizzled cowboy not only happened to be one of his father’s best friends, but owned the land adjoining the Hansen ranch.
He extended his hand for Cooper to shake. “Please, call me Mack. Figure if you’re old enough to drink and serve our country, you’re old enough for us to be on a first-name basis.” He poured Cooper’s shot then one for himself. Raising it, he said, “About time you came home.”
“Only
