“Really?” Laurie ladled so much sarcasm on the word that it dripped off like syrup. “Why don’t you try it on me? Just to be sure you don’t leave out any important points?”
“Fine.” Truthfully, he was a little nervous. A practice run couldn’t hurt. “Brooke, my sister told me our relationship is broken, but there’s no reason we can’t fix it.”
“So far, so good,” Laurie encouraged.
“She said the arm was working fine, but we can’t turn it into a leg. That’s why it broke.”
“Yeah… no,” said Laurie. “Let’s go with something that makes sense.”
“Let me try again.” Cole took a breath. “When we were friends, we got along fine. It’s what I’m good at. We were cruising along until we tried to make our relationship more than a friendship. If we go back to the way things were, we can be friends indefinitely.”
Silence greeted him on the phone.
“Laurie? Are you still there?”
“Cole Miller…” He’d heard that inflection in his mom’s tone when he wrecked her car as a sixteen-year-old. “So help me, if you speak a word of that malarkey to Brooke, I’m going to fly down there and ream you out until you don’t know which way is up.”
He shuddered, particularly glad she had a phobia of flying, though he knew better than to mention it.
“But Mariah said—”
“Forget Mariah,” said Laurie. “You listen to me. If you say any of that to Brooke, she’ll walk out of your life, and you’ll never see her again. Is that what you want?”
“First of all, I think you’re exaggerating her reaction.” He carried the cutting board to the sink, fumes from the jalapeño juice making his eyes water. “But secondly, I’m not capable of committing to a real marriage, if that’s what she’s after. Not until I settle some issues in my head. I need answers from my birth mom.”
“Cole,” her voice softened. “I spent a lot of years wondering why my father made the choices he did, refusing to acknowledge me as his daughter.”
“And you finally got your answer,” Cole muttered. “That’s what I need.”
“So you know what I learned?” She didn’t wait for his response. “I learned that I wasted all those years. I found out my parents were young. They were human. They made mistakes. And none of that stuff I was worried about mattered a bit. God had already provided me with everything I needed to be happy, and I almost threw it away in my search for the truth.”
“But—”
“Do me a favor, and imagine the rest of your life without Brooke in it. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not. But I’m offering her friendship. It’s what I’m good at.”
Brooke’s face appeared around the end wall, and he snapped his mouth shut.
“Who’re you talking to?” she asked.
“No one.” Cole disconnected the call, wondering how much she’d overheard. “It was work related.”
She smiled, seemingly unperturbed. “Thought you might want to know Gus just finished his second bowl of food.”
He sent up a prayer of thanks. It felt silly to pray for a dog, but that hadn’t stopped him from doing it. Gus had been there for him, through thick and thin. He didn’t know how he could go on without him. He’d become dependent on that dog. Easy to do, because dogs love unconditionally.
During dinner, he found himself watching Brooke eat, suddenly fascinated with the way her lips moved. Always proper, she chewed with her mouth closed and dabbed delicately with her napkin. But on occasion, her tongue would dart out and brush her lips, and his stomach would clench in response, remembering the times their lips had touched. He’d held himself at bay for almost five months. But her physical draw was even stronger than before, not diminished in the least by her pregnancy.
“Why are you watching me?” She paused, her hands folded in her lap, her scowl demanding an answer he couldn’t give. “Do you think I’m eating too much? Am I gaining too much weight?”
“Not at all.”
“Then why were you staring?”
“I was… uhm… thinking about your… uhm… your safety.” Whew! He’d come up with that just in time.
“My safety? Is this some excuse for why you’re spying on me?”
Appetite gone, he threw his napkin on the table. “I wasn’t spying, Brooke. I’m watching out for you. Being associated with me means being exposed to all kinds of people. Like a while back, some guy figured out where my ranch was and shot some of my cattle with a rifle.”
He deliberately avoided mentioning the anger that could be aimed directly at her. No use her worrying about something she couldn’t control.
“That’s awful! Who would do something like that?”
“Some folks are crazy, and I seem to attract them like flies to a cow patty. So unless you’re willing to move back in with me, you have to let Mack do his job.”
Her stiff posture crumpled. “Okay. I can’t move back in, so I won’t fight you.”
He had an insane urge to rub his thumb across her forehead, to erase the frown lines marring her perfect face. “That’ll make Mack’s job easier.”
“I don’t like that you’re wasting all that money on me. I’ll never be able to pay you back.”
“Don’t you realize by now that money isn’t a big deal to me?”
“Don’t you realize for me it is a big deal?”
She wiped her mouth and pushed away from the table, shifting her weight awkwardly as she rose to her feet. She picked up her plate and reached for his. “I’ll do the dishes, since you cooked.”
