Cooper (2 page)

Cooper laughed again. "Look, I'm getting a crick in my neck looking up at you. There's a coffee shop next door. Can I buy you a coffee and tell you everything you need to know…? Did you intentionally not tell me your name? That's cool, if you don't want to tell me. I could be a stalker, I guess."

She smiled down at him. Yes, she was making him look up, and that must be painful after a while. Another choice to make. "Amy Hays. My name is Amy Hays. And coffee would be nice. I didn't really want to go home so early, anyway."

"Yeah, know the feeling. So, Miss Amy Hays, shall we go?" He pressed a button at the doors and they opened automatically.

Amy followed Cooper out into the cold night.

The coffee shop next door obviously serviced the small convention centre, because it had posters up for all the shows happening there. Amy stopped in front of the one for Alejandro Marquez. It was the one that had attracted Cooper's attention when he was browsing the paper over breakfast that morning. There was a picture of Marquez, dressed in white, helping a child out of a wheelchair, while the audience behind them stared in wonder.
Amazing Healer
was emblazoned across the top of the poster.

"Is that what brought you here tonight? That poster?" Cooper asked, pulling up beside her and looking at it too.

"Yes. Stupid really. It just gave me hope…"

"Not stupid; desperate, I’d call it. I saw that kid and thought…
what if he could do that for me?
I know the rep those faith healers have; I know they're almost all con-artists; but I thought,
What if this one's for real?
"

Amy nodded and tried to smile. He’d never met such a sad, insecure girl before. She was too young to be that sad. Something inside him craved happiness for her. It had nothing to do with his natural sympathetic nature. This was far more intense and personal, as if his own happiness depended on hers.

"Why did you come?" he asked, not seeing anything on the surface that needed healing.

She shrugged, turned away from the poster, and appeared to be looking for a table where one of the chairs could easily be removed so his wheelchair could be accommodated. The place had been made wheelchair-friendly, he'd noticed as he came in: a short ramp instead of steps leading up to the door; and the layout of the tables allowed for easy wheelchair access.

After removing one of the chairs, almost without thinking, it seemed to Coop, Amy took the chair across from him. She still hadn't answered and appeared to be trying to ignore the question. So she didn't want to tell him? That was cool. He had enough secrets of his own he had to keep hidden.

The barista wandered over and took their order, which included a plate of brownies, which had caught Cooper's eye as they entered. Brownies were his guilty pleasure.

"I'm tired of being me. I thought he might be able to heal whatever's broken inside, so I can be…different."

It took Cooper a moment to realise that she'd finally answered his question. And it shocked him to the core. How could someone so beautiful and well-dressed, so obviously well-cared for, consider herself broken inside?

"How would you be different if you'd been healed tonight?" He kept his voice gently neutral, but a confusing rage was lighting inside him. It was not directed at the girl, but at whoever had caused her to feel broken.

She shrugged again and twisted her hands together in a gesture he was starting to see as a habitual signal of her distress. He desperately wanted to reach across the table and stop those hands. It hurt to see them writhing, as if in agony.

"I'd be bright and confident and strong. I'd
be strong
." She looked up to check on his reaction.

How did one react to a statement like that? "I think confidence comes when you prove you can do something you've been practising. You know, confidently riding a horse, confidently ordering a meal in a foreign language. You aren't confident when you start, but you are once you've worked at it long enough. And strength… well, I think that comes the same way as physical strength. Pushing yourself to handle harder and harder challenges. People aren't born confident or strong, they work at them."

"And bright?" she asked, seemingly transfixed by his poor imitation of Dr Phil. Surely she'd heard stuff like that before.

"I guess it depends on what you mean by that word. Bright as in bubbly, bright as in intelligent…"

She sighed and placed her twisting hands down on her lap. Maybe she'd seen him staring painfully at them.

"Both, I guess."

"I suppose some people are naturally bubbly; you know, the cock-eyed optimists of the world. But most of us only get that kind of brightness when we're really happy and things are going well. As for the other kind of
bright
, I'm not sure why you'd think you needed fixing in that area. You seem bright enough to me."

She shook her head, the curtain of shining red-gold hair swinging elegantly from side to side. Just as his hands had itched to stop her twisting fingers, they also wanted to wrap that glorious hair around them, feeling the silk of it, drawing in more of the sweet rose scent of her that his overly sensitised nose had already identified.

Amy Hays was probably the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. Her pale skin was almost luminous white, broken only by a scattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her features were tiny and fragile, like a porcelain doll’s. Even her lips had that kewpie-doll look, which reminded him oddly of the roaring twenties. The huge, green eyes only added to the impression, and the pale eyebrows and eyelashes made those eyes stand out even more dramatically. Every time her gaze met his, he was reminded of new leaves bursting through on a snow-covered winter branch.

"I'm not bright, I'm stupid." She sighed and looked away.

"Don't tell me you've fallen prey to the male assumption that a woman can't be both beautiful and bright. It's not true you know. I've met many lovely women who were brilliant."

The blush started at her neck and spread like spilled blood over her face. Cooper imagined it was darker than usual because her skin was so pale and fine. Mortified, Amy's hands came up to cover her face.

"Please stop saying things like that. I know you're trying to be kind. You seem a very kind person. But knowing the truth only makes your words sound like lies to me. I prefer honesty. Brutal honesty, if it has to be that way. But honesty all the same."

He frowned. What the hell was she talking about? Was she referring to the assumption that a woman can't be bright and beautiful? What bastard had convinced her she was just a pretty bauble, with nothing between her ears? Sometimes he despised his own gender for what it did to women. His brewing rage suddenly had a focus: some sexist prick trying to keep this amazing girl in
her place
.

"You aren't just a pretty face, Amy. You're an intelligent girl, from what I've seen so far. Anyone who could see through that charlatan is no idiot. I assume that's why you left?"

She nodded and looked up at him again. Her vivid green eyes were filled with such pain it hurt to look into them. God, he wanted to kill the bastard who'd done this to her!

He frowned as he registered the thought. When did he ever have the desire to kill anyone? Even the Guild aroused only the mildest form of loathing in him. When his brothers had headed off for Barbados for a holiday on a Guild yacht he hadn't understood their attitude. Yeah, Guild members were evil, sociopathic aliens, but surely you could ignore that for the pleasure of the cruise? But his brothers were intense, volatile creatures who loved and hated with equal ferocity. Ignoring their companions was impossible for them.

So what had driven Coop to feel this furious urge to kill the man who'd convinced Amy there was nothing more to her than her looks? It made no sense.

"I'm not even a pretty face. Maybe girls in Australia are different. But I don't qualify as even part-way pretty here. And if my school reports and my father's…complaints can be believed, I'm just plain stupid. For instance, only an idiot would've thought that Marquez could fix them." Her hands had reappeared on the table-top so they could continue twisting and turning.

"I'm not an idiot, Amy," Cooper said softly, still somewhat confused by what she was telling him.

The look of horror on her face made him wish he'd kept his mouth shut. "Oh, I didn't mean to imply
you
were. You saw the wheelchair and hoped… That wasn't stupid; as you said before, that was desperation."

Cooper couldn't help it. He had to reach across to still the hands writhing in torture in front of him. Closing both of his hands over the top of hers like a warm humpy, he stopped them from twisting and gave himself what he hadn't known he needed: physical contact. Something primal stirred inside him. Something frightening.

"Neither of us was stupid. If we'd stayed and believed the crap pouring out of that fella's mouth we would have been. But we didn't. That makes us brighter than everyone else there tonight. And schools notoriously make mistakes about students. Maybe you're dyslexic or something."

"I can read. I have no trouble reading. I just… Look, it doesn't matter. I'm coming across as a whinger when your situation is far worse. I have my health; I'm rich, or my parents are; and I can pretty much do anything I want. So what do I do? Focus on what I haven't got. Poor little rich girl, what a cliché I am." Her self-disgust made him tighten his hold on her hands.

"Hey, I'm the same. I have my health, except for the use of my legs; I have a loving family and good friends; I have a worthwhile and important job, and all the money I could ever need or want. So what do I do? I focus on the one thing that isn't right in my life: my dead legs. Does that make me a whinger, or does that make me human? I like to see it as just human. We all tend to look at the glass half empty. It takes a lot of focus to look at it as half full."

She smiled a small, sad smile. "You know, if you ever felt like trying your hand at healing you'd do well. What you have to say is genuinely meaningful. And kind. I don't think I've ever met anyone as kind as you." But her hands were drawing out from under his, and he could do nothing but let them.

"Amy, I'm not trying to be kind. I…I like you. I know I'm not every girl's idea of a catch, so I understand if you aren't interested. But
I
am interested in you. There's something about you that… Look, here comes the coffee. It took long enough. Do you like brownies? I've a real thing for them. I'd never had one until I came to this country six years ago. Now I can't get enough of them."

The skinny white guy with dreadlocks placed the coffee cups in front of them and the plate of brownies in the middle of the table. Without thinking, Cooper snaked a hand out and scored a brownie, biting into its chocolaty goodness with a groan of pleasure.

Amy's laugh was like tinkling bells. It made him smile around the mouthful of chocolate.

"I can see that." She reached out and took one for herself. With her eyes closed, she took a bite. The blissful expression on her face was close to orgasmic. Or what he imagined an orgasm on a woman's face would look like. As he'd never dated, he really wouldn't know. Of course, he'd seen pornos, but those women pulling orgasmic faces seemed too exaggerated to be real. But this…this was real.

"Wow, that
is
good." She stared at him in surprise.

"Have you never had a brownie before? I thought they were a staple that all American m
o
ms made for their kids." He emphasised the
o
to clearly delineate between the American m
o
m and the Aussie's m
u
m.

"No, I've never had one. I'm not allowed to eat junk food. I'll break out and my complexion is bad enough without zits. And my mother isn't your normal mom. She leaves all the cooking to our staff. My nurse once gave me a chocolate bar when I was six. I'd seen it advertised on TV and so she bought one for me out of her own money. It was delicious. But when my mother found out, Maria had her pay docked and was threatened with termination. So she never gave me one again. And she ended up having her job terminated anyway, a few years later."

"That's carrying healthy living a bit far. I know sweets are bad for us, but a little as a treat never hurts. My mum used to make the best Anzac biscuits. They had so much golden syrup in them they must have been almost pure sugar. But fuck they were great. Oops, sorry about the language. Comes from hanging around my brothers too much of the time."

"Don't worry about it. I don't find it offensive. It's…liberating. I have to watch every word I say at home. Just once I'd love to say …fuck… and see what happened."

"You just did," he announced with a smile, "Did the world come to an end?"

He took another bite of the soft, chewy chocolate treat. These brownies had bits of nuts and icing sugar sprinkled on top. Heaven!

She grinned. The piece of chocolate stuck to her brilliant white, perfectly-aligned teeth made her look like a child. A sexy, delightfully beautiful child.

Now there was an oxymoron if ever there was one. To him children couldn't be sexy. He knew children could be made to appear sexy, but to him those attempts were offensive. So much more offensive than a word like
fuck
.

"What?" she asked tentatively.

Had his face given away his thoughts? And why did a passing idea suddenly arouse such fury in him? He rarely let things get to him. This didn't make sense. Nothing made sense.

He smiled to cover his confusion.

Something wasn't right with him and he needed to find out what it was. However, the idea of leaving Amy Hays was like contemplating cutting off an arm. But no matter how pleasant this pseudo-date was, he couldn’t risk whatever was happen inside him overflowing onto her. He might never have hurt anyone in his life, but that didn't mean that he didn't have it in him to do so, just as surely as every one of his brothers had it in him to kill with efficiency and stealth.