The One Real Thing (Hart's Boardwalk) (26 page)

And I could see, I could recognize now, that it wasn’t for Dana. It was all for Jack Devlin.

“We were friends since we were kids.” He squeezed my hand so tight it was almost painful. “Closer than that. Brothers. Every shitty thing I ever went through, Jack was there by my side. There after my dad left. There when my mom died. Cried at my fucking side at her funeral,” he muttered.

I wanted to cry for him right now. “I’m sorry.”

His blue eyes pierced through me when he suddenly refocused. “Tonight I was ignoring Dana like I always did because I didn’t want to give her what she wanted—my attention. But threatening you . . . trying to fuck up what we have the way she fucked up my friendship with Jack . . .” He leaned in, his voice thick. “That heat I gave her wasn’t about
her
, Jessica, it was about
you
.”

His words drew me forward until my mouth hovered near his, and just like that the uneasiness that had resurfaced earlier at the
mention of Sarah’s letters was shoved back down by my undeniable attraction to him. “Dana’s threat did the opposite,” I whispered, brushing his lower lip. “It just made me more determined to explore this connection between us . . . to make you happy.”

Cooper groaned and captured my mouth with his. It was a slow, languid kiss, but it was also deep and drugging, pulling my body under a now familiar sexual spell. He gently broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against mine. “You’re doing a great job, Doc.”

“Hmm?” I said, confused and dazed by the lust pumping through my blood.

He smiled knowingly. “Fuck, you’re adorable.”

“I’m doing a great job of what?”

“Of making me happy.”

A thrill zinged through my whole body, a thrill mixed with warmth and tinged with fear. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Oh.”

“You know my vacation officially ends tomorrow,” I said after swallowing a bite of the pancakes Cooper had whipped up along with bacon and scrambled eggs.

Cooper had made me breakfast.

I’d
never
had a guy make me breakfast before.

I’d never stuck around long enough to give a guy time to make me breakfast.

“How do you feel about that?” Cooper said, sitting across from me, sipping his coffee. He’d already finished his food.

I was savoring mine.

Savoring the moment.

“It’s scary,” I said truthfully. “Not the new job. Bailey showed me the ropes and anything I don’t know I can learn as I go along.”

“So what’s still scaring you, Doc?”

“Well, that, for a start.” I gestured to him with my fork. “The not-being-a-doctor part. That is scary.”

“Remember, there’s a position open at Paul Duggan’s office. His daughter used to work for him, but she moved up to New Jersey with her husband. He needs another doctor in there. Some might call that fate.”

I gave him a wry smile. This town and its belief in fate.

Although, to be honest, I was tempted by the offer and tempted by the thought that maybe it was fate. It would make life easier to believe that, because it was a job I did well and one that had meaning
for me, and the money would be better than what I’d make working for Bailey. However, I still wasn’t sure why I’d chosen to become a doctor. I used to think I knew. But everything had flipped on its head since I’d arrived in Hartwell, and I still wasn’t sure that being a doctor wasn’t repentance rather than a dream.

“I just . . . I need some space from it.” I shrugged.

“Sure that’s all it is?” he said.

I tensed at the suspicion in his voice. Looking at my plate, I shrugged again. “Sure.”

Silence fell between us and it didn’t feel as comfortable as usual. I had to fill it before he spoke up with more questions I didn’t want to answer. “What do you want to do today?”

Bailey had told me to enjoy my last day of vacation so I was doing that, and Cooper didn’t work the bar on Sundays. He left the management of it to Ollie on Sunday since it was one of the days he didn’t serve food, and things were a little easier to handle.

Cooper had just opened his mouth to reply when there was a loud bang at the front door two seconds before a tall, pretty brunette strode in with a young boy at her side.

His house was on the north side, a few blocks from Bailey’s small home, and it was very similar in style to hers. Everything was open plan. You walked in off the porch into the main room. There was a staircase in the middle of the space leading up to the second level. To the left of the staircase was a sitting area, to the right a dining area, and at the back of the room was a large kitchen.

We were currently in the dining room being stared at by the brunette and child.

“Oh.” The brunette was visibly confused. “Coop, I’m sorry. It’s . . . just . . . Sunday.”

The boy looked just as confused, his blue eyes boring into mine.

Cooper stood up and I found myself doing the same. I’d already guessed who the intruders were and now I had nervous butterflies in my belly. “Cat, Joey, this is Jessica. Jessica, this is my sister and nephew.”

I stumbled against the leg of a chair trying to round the table to get to them. I flushed, wondering why I was acting like such an idiot over meeting his family. I laughed, a little embarrassed, and held my hand out to Cat.

She stared at it with eyes as blue as Cooper’s, and I felt her hesitation. Finally good manners forced her to shake my hand.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, although now I was thinking not so much as she gazed at me with polite coolness.

I turned my attention to the boy and my heart almost melted. Iris was right. Joey was Cooper’s spitting image. I cast a glance back at Cooper, my expression clearly giving away my thoughts because his eyes warmed. When I turned back to Joey I found him studying me.

“Are you Uncle Cooper’s girlfriend?”

“Um . . .” I didn’t know what to say because Cooper and I hadn’t labeled our relationship yet.

“Yes,” Cooper said from behind me.

Okay, then.

Yay!

I grinned. “Yes.”

Joey grinned back at me. “That’s nice. Not for Sadie Thomas, though. She likes my uncle Cooper a lot.”

“Joey.” Cat shot him a look of warning.

His eyes went round. “What? It’s the truth.” He looked at his uncle. “I asked her why she was kissing you and she said it was because she liked you a lot.”

I raised an eyebrow at Cooper and mouthed,
Sadie Thomas?

“That was a while ago,” he assured me. “And Sadie will be fine, Joe.”

“Yeah . . . she seems to like
a lot
of people a lot.” He nodded sagely. “You’re not the only one I’ve seen her kissing.”

“I’ll bet,” Cat murmured, smirking.

Who the heck was Sadie Thomas?

“Okay.” Cooper moved toward his nephew. “Beach today, Joey?”

“Yup!” He started bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I have my drawing in my backpack.” He looked at me and went on to explain, “We’re building the biggest sand castle ever today! We’re going to break our own record.”

I almost melted at the hero worship in the kid’s eyes. He loved Cooper. Seeing that kind of adoration for him only increased my own, in fact. I seriously needed to start finding some imperfections in this man; otherwise, I was going to start to worry that I was merely infatuated rather than actually falling—

I cut that thought off abruptly.

Too soon, Jess; too scary!

“So what do you think?” Cooper slid an arm around my waist, drawing me close. “You up for the beach today?”

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude.”

“Okay, then.” Cat gave me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “We’ll see you some other time.”

Ouch.

Cooper gave her a dirty look. “No. Jessica is coming with us if she wants to.”

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to join them. I’d never really liked hanging out with someone who didn’t want to hang out with me. I didn’t know many people who did like being in that situation.

As if he sensed my thoughts Cooper squeezed my waist. “I want you there. I want you to get to know Joey.”

“Yeah!” Joey cried enthusiastically. “Uncle Coop said you’re a doctor, which means you’re really smart, and engineering a large sand castle isn’t easy.”

Engineering a large sand castle . . . “
I don’t think you need me,” I said, blown away by his vocabulary. “You are clearly wicked smart.”

Joey beamed. “I have an above-average brain, yes.”

I laughed and caught Cat’s eyes and she softened a little. “You must be really proud of him.”

“More than,” she said and then heaved a sigh. “Okay, if we’re all going, let’s get this show on the road.”

“Three weeks?” Cat said.

She was sitting beside me on a towel, staring down the beach to where Cooper and Joey were starting their sand castle.

“Excuse me?”

When she turned to look at me I couldn’t read her expression because she was wearing big black sunglasses. Thankfully she didn’t have me at a disadvantage because I was also able to hide my thoughts and reactions behind my sunglasses.

We’d taken Cooper’s truck to the beach, parking at his bar. The whole drive there and the whole time we set up our towels and picnic area, Cat didn’t say a word to me.

When Joey pulled Cooper away to get to work on the sand castle, Cat asked me to stay just as I was about to follow the boys.

So out of politeness I’d stayed.

Even when I didn’t want to.

Because I could feel a lecture coming on.

“You’ve known each other three weeks.
Three weeks
.”

I was right. Lecture.

“I’m aware.”

“Are you?” She cocked her head to the side. “Because from where I’m sitting you’re not exactly screaming ‘stable, responsible adult.’ You meet my brother on vacation and then you give up your whole life? After three weeks?”

Alright, so I got her point. From the outside looking in, I probably seemed crazy.

“It’s not just about your brother.” I tried to explain what I had discovered about myself since coming there. “I wasn’t happy where I was. This trip and the people I’ve become close to in Hartwell have made me realize what I was missing for so long. Friends, relationships . . . peace.”

“A woman doesn’t start over after three weeks unless she has nothing to lose. And a thirty-something woman who has nothing
to lose concerns me. Because someone like you could easily pick up and leave again, and my brother has lost enough people in his life.”

The bite of pain in her voice actually soothed my ruffled feathers. It reminded me that Cat was a sister who loved her brother and she was just looking out for him. “I’m not going to hurt him, Cat.”

She looked back toward her boys, not saying anything for a while.

My whole body was tense, waiting for her to decide if she was going to accept me in Cooper’s life or not.

Finally she said, “Sadie Thomas was in my year at school. She likes sex and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about that.”

“And Cooper was with her,” I murmured, feeling sick at the thought of him being with someone else. It was ridiculous! It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been with other men.

“One night.” She sighed. “Unfortunately I don’t get the same privilege as other siblings of not knowing anything about my brother’s sex life. We live in a small town. After Dana he went through a lot of women. Mostly tourists who didn’t stay in town for long. I thought for sure you were going to be just another one of those women.” She lowered her sunglasses so I could see her eyes. “You’re not, though. He talks about you a lot.”

Warmth suffused me. “Yeah?”

She smiled reluctantly. “Yeah.”

“I really care about him. I just want . . . I want to give him a little happiness. He deserves it.”

“He deserves someone who will be open and honest with him.” She gave me an assessing look that turned a little sad. “There’s something about you. I can’t put my finger on it . . . but it just doesn’t sit right. I don’t trust you.”

Well, crap.

That stung more than I was expecting.

I blew out a shaky breath. “What can I do to change your mind?”

She shrugged. “Stick around. Only time will tell.”

“So Uncle Cooper says you were a surgeon?” Joey said around a mouthful of sandwich.

He and Cooper had returned from building their sand castle. They had a ton of pictures to capture the moment they broke their sand castle record (it was a pretty epic sand castle), and finally they came back to relieve the tension between me and Coop’s sister.

“I was,” I said in reply to Joey’s statement.

“A head surgeon or a heart surgeon?”

I smiled at his inquisitive question. Was I really talking to an eight-year-old about this? “Neither. I was what you call a general surgeon.”

He scrunched up his cute little face. “What’s that?”

“It’s a surgeon who helps fix problems with the stomach, esophagus”—I pointed to all the places on my body, deciding not to dumb it down for the kid—“small bowel, liver, bile ducts, gallbladder, and pancreas.”

“Huh.” He frowned in thought. “I don’t know what some of those are.” He seemed put out by this. “What’s an eso . . .” He trailed off.

“Esophagus.”

He repeated it until he felt it sounded like what I was saying.

“It’s the tube that connects our throats to our stomachs.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Was it yucky? Being a surgeon?” He made a face at the thought.

Cooper chuckled beside me and I laughed. “For some people it is a little yucky. But it never bothered me.”

Joey shook his head. “I once saw the inside of a dog. I didn’t like it.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Cat gave me a sad look. “Our neighbor’s dog. She got run over last year. Joey found her.”

“Oh no.” I was a dog lover. We’d had a beautiful Lab, Hazel, when I was a kid and I was heartbroken when she died of old age. I hated any sad stories about dogs.

“You like dogs, Doc?” Cooper said softly.

I nodded.

His eyes smiled at me. “Me, too.”

“Why don’t you have one?” I remembered him playing with that woman’s dog on the beach. I could see him with a big dog, accompanying him on his morning runs along the shore.