Say You'll Be Nine

Cooper stared at me. “That’s it? Just like that?”

I shrugged. “Just like that.” I moved past him to check out the rest of the RV. As I brushed against his side, I caught a whiff of something medicinal. Suddenly, I remembered my manners. “Shit, how’s your brother. I’m sorry. I didn’t think to ask.”

Cooper turned to me in surprise. “Oh, uh… yeah. He’s doing okay. He got a blood transfusion which will help him get back to work for a little while. Thanks for asking. I would have gotten here sooner if I hadn’t wanted to drive him home from the hospital this morning.”

I nodded and peeked into the bedroom. There was a huge king-sized mattress in the back, and Cooper had already thrown his stuff all over it. I guess I was sleeping on the sofa. “Eli said he’s been sick for a while. Is that why you moved back home from California?” I asked, turning back toward the kitchen area.

His body seemed to tense at my question, and I realized it was really none of my business. When he didn’t answer right away, I muttered, “Sorry. Just trying to make conversation.”

“No, it’s fine. Yeah, um, my mom’s on her own, so…”

I began opening cabinets to see if there was room to store everything we had. There were several bags of groceries in the back of my truck too. “So you planning to go back there after this?”

The space was so tight, I could feel the air move every time he shifted on his feet as he made the sandwiches. Beneath the scent I now suspected was hospital hand soap, a smell I remembered from when my sister gave birth to my nephew last year, I also detected something unexpected. Gardenia. I’d spent the summer of my freshman year in high school planting gardenia bushes all around our house because my mom couldn’t get enough of the smell. She’d gotten a perfume sample at the mall that had the same scent and had decided she wanted the yard filled with it every summer. Why in the world did this man smell like gardenia?

Didn’t matter. What did I care what he smelled like? What a ridiculous thought.

“Don’t know. Hopefully something big will come out of this, and that will determine where I go. But I at least need to be here in Colorado when Jacks has his procedure since I’m the donor.”

I shouldn’t have asked him such personal questions. It really wasn’t any of my business, and I’d sort of decided not liking him was probably for the best. If I learned too much about him being a nice guy, that wouldn’t help all the angry dick problems I was having.

I headed toward the door, intent on checking out the cabin and leaving the man to his lunch when he surprised me.

“Here.” He held out one of the sandwiches partially wrapped in a paper towel. The sandwich was made out of thick wheat bread and had layers and layers of meats and cheeses in it. It looked delicious.

I couldn’t believe he was offering me half his lunch. “For me?”

Cooper’s smile was like the bright beam of the sun bursting out from behind dark clouds. It nearly blinded me. “Yeah, for you. It sure as hell isn’t for Nacho out there. Last time I gave him a sandwich—which wasn’t voluntary, mind you—he nearly killed me with dog farts. I’m not risking a repeat while we’re in close quarters like this.”

I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle as I reached for the sandwich and murmured my thanks.

“He laughs, ladies and gentlemen,” Cooper murmured with a grin. “Imagine that.”

4

Cooper

I was well and truly fucked. Isaac “Nine” Winshed was the sexiest bear of a man I’d ever laid eyes on. The minute he’d stepped out of that truck with his thick, dark beard and overgrown hair flipping up over his ears, my dick had gone straight for him. He wore a soft-looking flannel shirt open over a white undershirt. The button-down was rolled up over muscular forearms that were somehow bronze already even after a winter spent stocking shelves inside Walt’s Hardware.

The jeans hugging his beefy thighs had a job I’d pay big bucks for. They cupped his package like a lover and ran all forty inches down his damned legs to edges frayed over beat-to-hell work boots.

This was not the awkward gangly teenager I’d first met when I’d spent freshman year winter break at the Winshed house. That kid had been awkward and damned near silent. He’d spent more time in the barn than the house. He’d barely made eye contact with the members of his own family, much less me. And when I’d come back again and again through the four years of college, he’d only grown oddly flippant and distant toward me. He’d gone from meek and sweet to full of barely restrained attitude. If he even bothered to talk to me at all, it was to say something passive-aggressive like how beneficial a drama degree was or how helpful my observation of the fence repair was to morale. When I’d pointed out my lack of knowledge of repairing farm fences, he’d smiled sweetly and muttered something about using my drama degree to act like a helpful farmhand.