38

11:37 p.m., United Flight 383, Eastbound

Helluva wake-up call, Coop thought as he sat beside Rhonda on the flight back to Langley late Sunday night.

During the thick of the siege, when he’d thought he was going to lose her, when he’d thought he was going to die, he’d come to terms with something unexpected. And he’d known that if they got out of that mess alive, there were going to be some huge changes in his life.

And all of them started and ended with her.

Beside him, Rhonda thumbed through a Skymall catalog. She’d been quiet since this whole thing finished. Processing, he supposed. Violence was never easy to witness. And killing a man, no matter how bad he was, wasn’t something she’d shake off in a week. Or even a month.

Staying with him at the trauma center while they filled him back up with blood and patched him couldn’t have been easy for her, either. She hated hospitals. And because of him, she’d had to wait in one for hours.

So he knew she needed time. But there’d be plenty of that, he assured himself. Plenty of time to say what he wanted to say to her.

He closed his eyes and drifted, letting the pain medication ease the way. A week ago, he’d have said no way. Denied it like a star goalie denying a line-drive puck. But not anymore. He was ready to admit that with Rhonda, he might just want to have what Mike had with Eva. What Joe Green had with Steph. What any of the other guys had with their wives. They couldn’t all be wrong.

But he’d be dead wrong if he walked away from this woman without letting her know that for the first time in his life, he wanted more.

Though his eyes were heavy, he found himself grinning. He, a confirmed bachelor who’d never met a woman he couldn’t walk away from, had finally taken the fall. If he was being honest, he’d fallen the first time he set eyes on her six months ago. It had just taken him this long to figure it out.

“You doing okay?”

He jerked his eyes open at the sound of her voice. “I think so, yeah.”

She didn’t look convinced. “Are you taking the pain meds the doctor prescribed?”

He smiled over at her. See? She cared.

Luckily, the bullet he’d taken hadn’t done massive damage. It hurt like hell, and healing would take him out of commission for a while, but he’d be back to full speed in a few weeks. Blood loss had been his main problem, and once they’d filled him back up, his strength had returned to about 80 percent.

But right now, he was tired. Really tired.

“Cooper? Are you with me?”

He must have drifted off again. He forced his eyes open and grinned at her.

“Judging from the loopy smile on your face, I’d guess that yes, you’re taking the pain meds.”

“Only because they made me.”

She smiled. “Why don’t you try to sleep? The doctor said rest is the best thing to help you heal.”

“Yeah. Rest.” He yawned; his eyelids weighed a ton. “I’ll probably need a full-time . . . nurse when we get back to McLean. Someone to . . . tuck me in at night.” Another yawn had him closing his eyes again. “Change my dressings. Hold me . . . if I have a bad dream. Any . . . volunteers?”

She mumbled something that didn’t sound like a yes but he refused to believe was a no, and he didn’t have the stamina to figure it out.

And then he fell asleep.

•    •    •

Rhonda had given Nate a full report from the military hospital while the doctors had worked on Cooper’s shoulder. She’d called again before their flight left for home, telling Nate that they’d arrive on the red-eye, so there was no sense in him meeting them at the airport. She’d get Cooper to his apartment and to bed, where the docs had said he needed to be.

Afterward, she second-guessed herself. Maybe she should have let Nate take over with Cooper. But she was half afraid that in his medicated stupor, Cooper might make some grand announcement. Let it slip that they’d “been together.”

She was probably being paranoid, but she wasn’t willing to risk it, so that’s how she’d ended up helping him to bed around 2:00 a.m.

His apartment was neat and clean and tastefully decorated in grays and silvers, with a few pops of red for color. The living room was understated and masculine but not macho, and his bedroom was far from the den of iniquity she’d half-expected to find.

More muted grays, this time accented with black, charcoal, and a stunning shade of steel-blue, all of which she was peripherally aware of as she supported him with his good arm looped over her shoulder and her arm around his waist, while walking him carefully to his bed.

Which was king-sized, covered in a plush cream and blue duvet, with a soft black throw tossed over the foot of it.

“You’re an angel,” he muttered as she helped him slip his arm out of his jacket—the other one was in a sling—and eased him down. “A Buttercup Bombshell Angel. You know that, don’t you? You know that—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She cut him off, not wanting to be swayed by the gentle affection in his voice. “Exactly how many of those pain pills did you take?”

She gently helped him lie back, carefully squaring a pillow under his head, but he still winced when his shoulder met the mattress. “How many did I take?”

“Um . . . that’s what I asked you.”

“I don’t do well with narcotics. Did I mention that? Don’t usually . . . take them. Sometimes they make me a little stupid.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Imagine that. Let’s get your boots off.”

“You’re so good to me. I love you for that.”

She froze, his left boot in her hand, then told herself to chalk the L word up to the medication and started on the laces.

“Was gonna wait. Was gonna give you time, but life . . . life’s short, right? Didn’t we just learn . . . firsthand . . . that life is . . . short?”

Her heart did a little stutter kick, and she knew she wasn’t going to want to hear what was about to come out of his mouth. Medication talking or not. “Shush, Cooper. You need to sleep.”

“There never was a man—me being the man. You understand?” he asked, then kept on rambling as his eyes drifted shut. “Never was a man more aware . . . of how short life can be. I almost . . . lost you. My beautiful Buttercup Bombshell. You saved my life. Do you know . . . how much my . . . mother is gonna love you . . . for that alone?”

“Go to sleep, Cooper,” she insisted, and covered him with the soft woven throw.

“Almost . . . lost you,” he repeated, reaching blindly for her hand.

His words were slurred from the meds, and his mind wasn’t filtering them the way it normally would, but there was an intensity in his tone that cut a little too close to the heart.

“I love you, Rhonda. I . . . I think I should . . . marry . . . me. Wait. No.” He cracked open an eye. “That was wrong, wasn’t it?”

Everything about this was wrong. “Shut up, Cooper,” she said, but she couldn’t make herself pull her hand away from his.

“Don’t go. Please sit by me,” he pleaded, with so much need she felt she had no choice but to sit beside him. “I need to say this right.” His eyes drifted closed again, but he snapped them open, fighting to stay conscious. “Me . . . marry . . . me. No. Damn. Not me marry me. You. You marry . . . you. Oh, God. I can do this. You. Marry. Me.” He heaved a weary, relieved sigh. “That’s it. Can you? Will . . . you . . .”

His eyes finally closed for good this time—and thank God, so did his mouth.

Because she didn’t want to hear that question from him. She didn’t want to believe he meant to ask it. It was the meds. The trauma. The full moon. Whatever.

She didn’t want to hear it. Yet her heart beat with something that felt very much like longing. And very deep regret.

He’d forget about it in the morning.

He’d have to. Because what he thought he wanted could never happen.

Saddened, and angry with herself because she’d let him get to her, she turned on a bedside light in case he needed to get up in the night, then turned off the overhead light and closed his bedroom door behind her.

Then she made a phone call. “Hi, Bobby. It’s Rhonda. Yeah. We’re back. Thanks,” she said when he told her he’d be over in five minutes to spend the night with Coop.

Because she just couldn’t stay here. Not now.

A quick trip to the kitchen assured her that someone had stocked the fridge with fresh fruit, milk, and a couple of takeout meals to tide him over for a day or so.

Then she checked in on him one last time, made sure his pain pills and a glass of water were within reach, and resisted the urge to crawl into his bed and sleep beside him.

After she let herself out of his apartment, she ignored the burning tears in her eyes as she got into the cab that she’d asked to wait for her.

She’d known for years that happily ever after would never be a part of her life. Even though Cooper had turned out to be so much more than he was supposed to be.

Because she could never be the woman a man like him needed.