There it was again. That thing in her voice that made him nervous. He cleared his throat and decided his mother was right. It was time to lay to rest some of the ghosts from his past. Not all of them, mind you—there were several he had a feeling would haunt him forever. But this one, this one small slice of his life? It was time.
“Do you remember Mrs. Rebuk?”
Isabel frowned for a moment and then nodded. “She was your teacher.” She paused. “Grade three?”
Cooper shook his head. “Five.”
His mother smiled. “Yes. She was a stunning woman. Strawberry blonde with an impeccable wardrobe and an affinity for Italian leather that I adored.”
Cooper chuckled. The woman could have worn burlap for all he remembered, but leave it to his mother to remember the Italian leather.
“I had a big crush on her,” Maverick quipped, settling onto the other side of Isabel. At Cooper’s sideways glance, he laughed. “What? She was hot and smelled nice.”
“This is my story, Rick.”
“Go for it.” His brother slipped an arm around their mother.
“Yes, what is it about Mrs. Rebuk that’s so important?”
Cooper half smiled. “She introduced me to Tom Sawyer and the Black.”
“The Black?” she asked.
“It’s a horse.”
“Oh.”
Cooper saw her confusion. “A book about a boy and an Arabian stallion who were shipwrecked and then rescued. They went on to win the big match race, and I just…” He stopped for a moment. “She read to us every day. One chapter after lunch recess. For me, that became the most important hour of the day. I lived for when she’d open up a book and bring the words to life. It was just after Dad…” He blew out a long breath and caught his brother’s attention.
“After Dad died, I was not in a good place. I was lost and angry, and Mrs. Rebuk and those books centered me. In a world where everything was wrong and dark and sad, the words she read every day in that one hour taught me that there was still beauty and joy and wonder. They took me away from my own dark place, and I was on the racetrack when the Black won.” He paused for a second. “Those books gave me hope, and I grew to love the written word. When I got older, I began to write things down.”
“Like a journal?” His mother’s voice was so low, he barely heard her. Cooper nodded.
“At first. But then I started writing my own stuff, and it kind of took on a life of its own. In my second year of college, I published.”
She jerked her head back. “A book?”
Her surprise made him smile, and he nodded. “Yes. A novel.”
“I had no idea.”
He shrugged. “No one did. Not for a long time. In a world that was crazy, my writing was the one thing that was one hundred percent mine. It was the one thing I could control, and I went to great lengths to do that.”
“And that’s what you do? You write?”
Again he nodded.
“But why would you hide that from me?”
He didn’t really have a good reason for that. “In the beginning, it was about getting to the next level on my own. About not using the Simon name. I wanted to succeed, but on my own merits. And then when the success happened, I just found it easier to keep things on the down low. Our family is always in the news, under the microscope. It was nice to have a part of my life that was all mine. Not for public consumption.”
She frowned, watching him closely. “So you write under a pen name?”
“I do.” A secretive smile played around the corners of his mouth. “Have you heard of a guy named Lee Holloway?” His question was tongue in cheek, because he knew his mother knew about Lee Holloway.
“Of course I have.” Isabel’s frown deepened. And then she whispered. “Oh my God. Lee Holloway. You are…Lee Holloway.”
“Hey,” he said, more than a little uncertain. Her reaction wasn’t at all what he’d expected. “I thought you were a fan.”