Lost
Carrying Brayden, Livy followed Maddie to the shoreline while Ti headed toward them. Quinn held her breath when Cooper stopped at the end of the pier to let Ti pass.
“Sorry to interrupt.” She cast a piqued glance between her and Cooper, propped an easel against the bench, and lowered a canvas bag to the dock. “We were so focused on the lake, we didn’t notice you two were out here at first.”
“No problem,” Cooper said. “I was just going to find Drew.”
If Quinn interpreted Ti’s half smile right, she seemed to read about a hundred different meanings into that single sentence. “He ran out to the Jeep to grab the rest of our bags. Give him a sec, and you can meet him back inside.”
“Good, good.” Cooper’s gaze strayed toward Quinn for the briefest moment. With his chin down again, he looked like he was pillaging an emotional reserve for a passable smile. But when he looked up, only the ghost of one emerged. “Excuse me.”
“Uncle Coop.” Maddie’s call from the bank stopped him only a few steps across the lawn. “Can we search for turtles today?”
A glance from the house back to her lowered his shoulders. Something in his eyes shifted as he headed toward her. The visible tug-of-war vying for his attention clearly wasn’t a match against his affection for his niece. “We sure can, Freckles.”
At the edge of his property, he drew Maddie into a side hug. She squeezed her skinny arms around his waist in a bear hug anyone could see she didn’t want to release. He kissed the top of her head before stretching over to kiss Brayden’s too, and the feeble stitching across Quinn’s chest unraveled a thread at a time.
She ran her hands up and down her arms. “He’s great with her, isn’t he?”
“With Maddie?” Ti set up her easel at the end of the pier. “She couldn’t ask for a better uncle. Loves him like you wouldn’t believe.”
Quinn knew the feeling. She blinked away from the scene breaking her heart and focused on Ti instead. “You have a special family.”
“They’re a gift, that’s for sure. One I definitely don’t deserve.” Her pensive expression deepened as she withdrew a palette from her bag. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole grace thing.”
Grace. Quinn’s insides hardened at the word. What good was grace if it couldn’t take away pain?
Her phone rang from her pocket. She pulled it out, about to take Ava’s call, when a glimpse of Cooper’s silhouette drifting up the yard caught her eye. Was he going to talk to Drew about Brayden? She kicked herself for not talking to him first.
Maybe he and his brother had their differences, but there was no denying Cooper admired Drew—as a father if nothing else. Surely, if anyone could change Cooper’s mind about giving up his parental rights, it’d be him.
She mindlessly spun her cell in her hands while tapping her Converse against a nail not hammered in all the way. “Can I ask you something?”
“If Cooper’s in love with you?”
Almost tripping, Quinn juggled the phone like a hot potato to keep from dropping it into the lake. “Um, no. That’s not . . .”
“No need to be embarrassed.” Ti squeezed a rich blue colored paint onto her palette and set the tube aside. “It’s obvious in how he interacts with you.”
Quinn swept her bangs off her lashes. “So obvious, your husband’s seen it enough times to be used to it, huh?”
Ti barely let a pause linger before mixing two shades of blue and white with a painter’s knife. “We all have pasts. Things we hide behind, run from. Trust me.” She exchanged her knife for a thin brush and swirled the bristles around her blended color. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have new beginnings.”
Not everyone was so lucky.
Quinn peered over to Maddie, Livy, and Brayden under the canopy of an oak tree. “Is there something so awful in Cooper’s past that he feels like he has to run all the way to Indonesia to get away from it?”
Ti stroked her brush along the blank canvas with the kind of vision only an artist could wield. “Maybe he’s running to something instead of away from it.”
“To what?”
“I think he’s still trying to figure that out.” Ti set the brush and palette down and thumbed through some prints in her bag until she found the one she was looking for. With tangible reverence, she withdrew a piece that obviously held sentimental value to her and turned it around.
An artistic quote painted in water colors shined in the sunlight:
Ti’s eyes held a mixture of affection, gratefulness, and hope. “It’s something their dad used to say. I’m planning to give it to Cooper as a gift before he leaves.” She turned it around again and traced a thumb along its edge. “A reminder of a truth he once shared with me when I needed to hear it most.”
The two brothers came through the back door and sat at the patio table on the deck. Quinn’s chest hollowed at the torn expression shadowing Cooper’s face.
She’d wanted to use the little time they had together to help him believe in the kind of father he could be if he gave himself a chance. But like so many other times, the clock had run out. Instead of the breakthrough she’d hoped for, disappointment bound her with ties so familiar, they were hemmed into her identity.
Was there nothing she could do to change things?
“Dada.” Brayden must’ve caught sight of Cooper up on the deck. Livy held his hands above his head as he took wobbly strides across the lawn toward a dad he needed in his life.
Ti followed her line of sight. “He made a lot of sacrifices for Maddie when she really needed him. I’m willing to bet he’s trying to do the same for Brayden. Just in different ways.”
Her words joined the entire scene closing in around Quinn, and she somehow knew right then what she needed to do. She breathed a breath of assurance. This wasn’t over yet.
She pointed her cell behind her shoulder. “I’m sorry to cut things short, but I have something to take care of. We’ll talk more later?”
“Of course.” Ti waved her on. “I’ll be up in a bit. As soon as this painting releases me.”
Ti’s connection with her art ignited Quinn’s desire to recharge her own. Once in her bedroom, she locked the door, opened her laptop, and erased everything she’d written for the piece on Cooper so far.
The cursor blinked on the blank page in a call to her heart. For the first time since she’d gotten here, the words flowed without hindrance. It wasn’t about trying to gain Cruella’s respect or impress the bigwigs at Corporate anymore. This was about showcasing the real Cooper Anderson with no assumptions skewing the truth—not even his own. He needed to see himself through the eyes of people who loved him. Including her.
She’d be risking more than just her job, but Cooper wasn’t the only one who thought he’d been acting out of love instead of fear. The only trouble was, choosing real love might cost her the very thing she finally understood was worth running to.
The summer afternoon stretched into early evening like a song transitioning from verse to refrain. Except this was one of the last times Cooper would get to watch the sunset play across the lake’s quiet waters.
Refrain? He shook his head. Ti had hardly been here a day, and her artistic flair was already rubbing off on him. If he started spouting off sonnets next, he was in big trouble.
He hauled his board onto the dock and closed his paddle under the bench seat, tucked away with these random emotional ties to his property sprouting to the surface.
Maddie heaved her board next to his. “It’s a lot easier to paddle out here than in the ocean.” Her brows peaked into her bangs. “Lake life hasn’t turned you soft on me, has it?”
Laughing, Cooper flexed his bicep. “You tell me.”
She gave his arm a good squeeze and shrugged. “Meh.”
“Oh yeah?” He swept her off the pier and flung her over his shoulder. “How’s this for strong?”
She drummed her palms on his back until he let her slide down. Grin as wry as ever, she perched both hands on her hips. “So, you can bench press a whole ninety-two pounds, huh? Impressive.”
He yanked on the hose he’d dragged down earlier to use on their boards and doused her in cold water. Maddie squealed, sidestepping him to hightail it up to the grass.
Man, he missed this. Missed the bond they’d shared every day when he lived with them. Would he lose it completely once in Indonesia?
His amusement drained with the water as he let up on the handle. This wasn’t the time for doubts. Yet the more he tried to suppress them, the more they suffocated him.
Maddie edged back onto the pier once he set the hose down. Though her eyes hadn’t lost their mischief, something deeper shined behind it.
“Freckles, I need to ask you something.” Despite his attempt to keep his tone light, the burden on his mind wore through. “You’re, um, you’re not mad at me for leaving, are you?” He was a grown man able to take on any executive, yet here he was, his voice wavering in front of an eleven-year-old.
A bony shoulder lifted in the air as she shook her head. “You’ll come back.” No hesitation, she spoke with the kind of confidence he should be channeling right now.
The corner of her mouth slanted. “You know you can’t stay away from this face for too long.” She pointed to a cheesy grin and batted her lashes.
“You’re right about that. C’mere.” Chuckling, Cooper hooked an arm around her neck. “I’m gonna miss you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’ll miss you, too, but North Carolina is your home. It’s where your family is. Leaving doesn’t change that.”
No matter what, she always believed the best in him. Her unconditional love expanded the lump seizing his throat, and he held her a little tighter.
His cell rang from the bench where’d he left it while on the water. “Sorry, Freckles. I need to grab this.” He answered his client’s call. “How’s it going, Barry?”
“All’s well, man. I just wanted to say thanks for talking me into sticking things out with my portfolio. I’m back up by twenty-two percent.”
“Didn’t I tell you it’d rebound?”
“Yeah, yeah. But you know how I get.”
Like a lunatic? Yeah, he knew. Cooper laughed to himself. Barry might drive him crazy sometimes, but he was a good guy.
“Are you sure you gotta move to India?”
“It’s Indonesia.”
“Whatever, man. I’m just saying. It’s not going to be the same.”
Cooper held the phone with his shoulder and dragged his paddle board up to the grass to wash it off. “The internet works all over the world, Barry. I’ll be able to manage your portfolio from anywhere. It’ll be fine.”
Barry’s wife called something in the background at the same time an incoming text chimed in Cooper’s ear.
“I’m asking. Just give me a minute, will ya?” Barry said away from the phone. “Listen, Cooper, the Mrs. and I want to have you over for dinner before you go. You know, as a thank-you for putting up with us.”
Cooper laid his board down and had to smile. Yet as quickly as it came, it retreated behind the same gravity that’d been weighing on him all day. “Be sure to tell JoAnn I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I won’t have a chance before I go.” The days were running out.
“Next time you’re back in town, then.”
“Sure thing. We’ll be in touch. You two take it easy, all right?” Though he’d tried to keep the conversation upbeat, the words sank in his stomach like a bowling ball. And when hanging up brought a missed text from his realtor into view, the weight only compounded.
I’ll be by at six with the prospects. Don’t forget this time. If all goes well, we’ll be signing contracts in the a.m.
Cooper looked up from his phone just in time to see his brother stepping into his path.
Drew patted Cooper’s arm. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah.” He pocketed his phone and made another attempt at neutralizing the thoughts turning his head into a pinball machine. “But unfortunately, I have some people coming by to look at the house tonight.”
“No worries.” Drew called Maddie over and lolled an arm across her back. “My little adventurer has talked me into taking us camping tonight.”
“Camping?”
“Just up at Camp Willow Run. We’ll be back in the morning, if that’s cool.”
“Sure.” Cooper rubbed out the back of his hair, feeling like he was missing something. “Tomorrow’s fine. Have fun.”
“You and Quinn too,” Maddie said with a little too much lilt in her voice. “And be sure to change,” she added right before tugging her dad up to the deck.
Ah, there it was. Nothing like a spontaneous camping trip with an agenda.
Cooper’s focus drifted to the dock and into moments he’d accumulated with Quinn over such a short time: seeing her come to life on the WaveRunner, almost tossing her off the pier, kissing her under that lamppost. The boards might be new, but the grooves in the wood already held memories that’d stay with him forever.
The brick in his gut steered his gaze to the speedboat that’d been docked all summer. Quinn was right. Though he couldn’t fully identify why, he’d been avoiding the boat and its connection to Dad. Maybe even to the move itself.
He crossed whatever barrier had been holding him back, boarded the boat, and ran a hand along the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
A flicker of light from the house showed a glimpse of Quinn in the window, lifting Brayden from his crib. She stood there with his son in her arms, and his heart caught up in an image he doubted would ever release him.
Forcing his eyes away and his heart back where it belonged, he withdrew his phone and called his lawyer.
“Jim, hey, just wanted to let you know I spoke with Drew today about the adoption.”
“And he’s on board?”
Cooper paused, swallowed. “Yep.”
“That’s great news. I’ll draw up the papers in the morning.”
The window’s gravitational pull lured Cooper back to what he was forfeiting. He rubbed his jaw but couldn’t force a response. Everything was set in motion. The fact of the matter was, he’d be on the road in four days as he’d planned.
“Cooper?” Jim prompted.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he managed.
“Look, if you’re still unsure—”
“I’ve made up my mind.” He pressed his shoulders against the seat and craned his head to the darkening sky. As much as it’d kill him, the only heart he was willing to break was his own.