Intervention
Cooper tried to keep up with Quinn’s beeline to his Audi. He lifted Brayden into his car seat while Quinn paced back and forth a few feet away on a silent rampage. “Take it from me, hoss,” he whispered to Brayden. “It’s better not to ask.”
After two minutes of messing with the stupid straps, he leaned back and wiped his brow across his arm. If he could analyze financial markets all day long, he should be able to figure out a stinking car seat.
His incompetence must’ve been some sort of Quinn-magnet. She shimmied her way into the space and managed to fasten the buckles in two point five seconds.
She backed out of the car and held out her hand. “Keys. I’m driving.”
Red flag. Uh-uh. Back up. “I’m sorry, do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Keys!”
He yanked them free from his pocket but held on. “You know the speed limit’s thirty-five, right?”
Her amber eyes answered for her as she snatched the keys and whirled toward the driver’s side.
Cooper looked at Brayden in the mirror. “Just be glad you have a harness.”
With his own seat belt fastened, he waited for a mile to pass before peering her way to gauge the level of heat waves still steaming off her. “Do you want to—?”
“No.”
“But don’t you think we should talk abou—?”
“No.” She snapped on the blinker and whipped onto a side street.
Okay then. No talking it was.
“Seriously, what was that back there?” she rambled off faster than she was driving.
Apparently, talking was back on the docket.
“What was what?”
Quinn flicked a glance at him. “Pretending to be my boyfriend. ‘It was a surprise,’” she mimicked in a sappy voice that sounded nothing like his.
He leaned into the door panel and stared at her. “It’s called an intervention,” he ribbed right back in that same ridiculous voice. “Those were the people you were hoping not to run into while here, I take it?”
Mouth tight, she careened into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, of all places, without responding.
“You had a problem that needed a solution. Simple as that.”
“Simple?” She sped into a parking spot and jerked the gearshift into park. “And who said I had a problem?”
“Your trembling shoulders, for one.” He couldn’t just stand there, watching her hurt like she was. He had to do something. Didn’t she see he was trying to help?
Her demeanor shifted, and a glimpse of a frail girl hiding something unspoken broke through the mayhem.
He tugged his ear. “I’m sorry if I went too far. I was trying to make things a little easier on you.”
“This isn’t simple or easy.” She looked away and massaged her temples. “It’s a disaster.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“Did you just meet my mom and aunt? Or did I imagine that? Because I’m pretty sure if you were actually there, you’d at least halfway understand.”
He strained to hold in his amusement at her frazzled expression. Recounting the little run-in with her family wasn’t helping.
She flung her hand in the air. “See?”
His laugh tumbled out. “Okay, fine. So, you have some country roots. Big deal.”
“Big deal?” With another exasperated shake of her head, she opened her door. “Stay here. I need to shop.”
Didn’t have to tell him twice. He hadn’t come anywhere close to cracking girl-code, but he’d wager ‘need to shop’ translated into ‘don’t come near me unless you want your head bitten off.’ Copy that.
“Women,” he muttered into the quiet car and then twisted around to face the mirror in front of Brayden’s car seat. “You have a lot to learn, hoss. Starting with the fact that women are 100 percent complicated. Don’t try to figure them out. You can’t. Trust me.”
He glanced toward Quinn as she strode into the grocery store. “Save yourself some headaches and just accept that they’re beautiful, mysterious creatures capable of driving you insane and leaving you undone at the same time.”
Brayden twisted a crinkly book, elated at the simple noise it made.
Cooper laughed at the clear disparity. “That’s right. Keep it uncomplicated. It’s how we men roll.”
“Roll!” Brayden waved the book against the seat at the same time a text from Ray Williams popped up on Cooper’s cell.
Call me. The buyers just informed me of a house sale contingency. This could delay our original schedule.
Not again. He stared at yet another pressing reminder of why he shouldn’t get involved in Quinn’s problems right now. But as his gaze drifted to the empty driver’s seat, his focus strayed into a replay of what’d just gone down at the ice cream parlor. She’d obviously lied to him about being from here. Was she that embarrassed about her family?
Though, to be fair, he couldn’t exactly fault her for wanting anonymity when he wanted the same. But something about it all felt a little off. If she wanted nothing to do with this place, why come back for a temporary nanny job?
And how was it that she was mad at him for helping her save face in front of her ex-boyfriend, or whoever that Brian guy was? “You were there,” he said to Brayden. “It was perfect, right?”
A plastic keyring set nailed him dead in the face, followed by an all-too-amused coo.
A mirror reflection of his own eyes smiled back at him and caught him low in the gut. His chest tightened at the tender look on Brayden’s face. He’d been so consumed by the shock of finding out Megan had kept their son from him, he hadn’t allowed himself to feel any other response. He’d immediately jumped into troubleshooting mode and defaulted to keeping Brayden an arm’s length away like everyone else.
But Brayden wasn’t just anyone else.
The implications of that truth tore him down the middle, pulling one side from the other. He swallowed hard at the impact of mixed emotions and toyed with the jumbo keys in his lap. Some problem solver he was. Not only had his irresponsibility with Megan ultimately put Brayden in this situation to begin with, he couldn’t see a way to ever make it right. No matter what Cooper did, he’d fail him in some way.
Megan must’ve known it too. If she thought he was suited to be in Brayden’s life, she wouldn’t have kept him out of it until she had no choice.
A car door slammed beside him. Tensing, he reached for his seat belt buckle while turning around. Just a kid getting out of a back seat to follow his mom.
Cooper shook his head. Things with the media might’ve died down the last few days, but that didn’t mean they’d stay that way. How long before they caught wind that he had a son he hadn’t even known about until this week?
He hung his head. Tanya was right. His profile came with a price. Which was exactly why he needed to shield Brayden from it—and anyone else he might end up caring about.
Another glance toward the store ended in a hard exhale. How many more blatant reasons did he need to convince himself he had enough complications overtaking his world without adding Quinn Thompson to the mix?
Except, he already had.
The sorrow in her eyes broke into his thoughts with the same ache that had driven him to rescue her from it back at the parlor. As preoccupied as he was with everything else, he couldn’t ignore she stirred something in him. Maybe he didn’t get her sticky note fetish, coffee snobbery, or grammar fascination, but pain he understood.
He craned his neck and let out a moan. Three more weeks. “Either I’m about to crack girl-code or get a good crack to the skull. You ready to weigh the odds?”
A puzzled look peered back at him from the mirror. He could joke about Quinn being crazy, but he was the one out here having a man-to-man talk with a one-year-old.
He smiled on his way out the door, leaving the sudden onslaught of emotions in the SUV.
With Brayden in one arm, he stood at the trunk, trying to shake open the stroller. He probably should’ve gotten it out first, then put Brayden in it. Real smart, Anderson.
His cell rang from his pocket. Hands full, he shook the annoying stroller even harder. “Hang on a sec,” he said as if the person calling could hear him. But by the time his hands were finally free, his voice mail was already dinging with a message from his realtor.
Cooper raked his damp hair back while peering against the hot sun toward the store. He’d return Ray’s call when they got home. Right now, he had bigger problems to deal with.
“C’mon, hoss.” He pushed the stroller forward. “It’s time to learn how to be the southern gentleman your mom would want you to be.”
A rush of A/C and beeping registers greeted them inside the grocery store. Cooper stopped short on his way to start weaving through the aisles when the sight of Quinn’s yellow shirt up near the checkout lines caught his eye. Huh. Faster than he thought.
“Looks like we might’ve lucked out.” He maneuvered through the line to reach her, took one look at the cram-packed cart, and leaned down to Brayden. “Then again, maybe not. Reinforcement time.”
He jumped right in unloading the shopping cart onto the conveyor belt. Chocolate ice cream, dark chocolate bars, chocolate sauce. Yeah, definitely not out of danger territory yet.
He’d never seen someone binge shop before, but from the looks of the tower of butter, sugar, and spices, he was pretty sure that’s what just happened. If the etched lines still creasing Quinn’s face were any indication, a binge eating session was probably about to follow.
At least she didn’t argue about him coming in after her. He set a three pack of mac and cheese on the belt. “I know you’re worried about going to your parents’, but it’s gonna be fine.”
When she didn’t tear her focus off her arsenal of coping supplies, Cooper leaned an arm into hers. “If you want to use Brayden as a diversion to keep the conversation off you, I won’t judge. I mean, it is almost as bad as using him as a chick magnet, but I’ll let it slide.”
The faintest smile graced her lips, but whatever tangle of thoughts were keeping her shoulders looking that tense clearly hadn’t released her yet.
As the pepper-haired woman behind the register ran each item past the scanner, Quinn stared at the magazine rack like she was silently rewriting the headlines on each cover.
Cooper glanced at Brayden, who’d already passed out. Way to have my back.
He wheeled the stroller around Quinn. “Listen,” he half whispered. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about your roots. And you never know, things might’ve changed since you were last here.”
He ran his hand up and down the back of his hair when she still didn’t respond. Okay, complicated was obviously just the start of it. If she had the same caffeine headache he did right now, it’d be hard to blame her.
He withdrew his wallet when the cashier finished up checking them out. “How you doing, ma’am?”
“I’ll be more better as soon as my shift ends, honey.”
A twitch pulsed above Quinn’s eye. “I’m sorry, did you just say more—?”
“I bet it’s hard standing on your feet all day.” Cooper scooted Quinn to the side before her grammar twitch turned into convulsions.
“It was them beans and rice I ate at lunch.” The woman shifted on her feet and circled a hand around her stomach. “Ooh-wee, they sure enough went straight to my backside. Yes, they did.” She made a strained face the way Brayden did when he was about to pass gas.
Cooper paused with his Visa pulled halfway out of his wallet, mouth slack. Without moving a muscle, he cut a glance at Quinn.
Her blank expression transitioned from stunned to delirious. An airy laugh shook her shoulders, almost folding her in half the louder it grew. She swung a finger between the woman and him. “Things might’ve changed,” she squeaked out like he’d made the punch line of the year. She strode away with Brayden’s stroller, mumbling something about living in a walking cliché.
Cooper offered the cashier an apologetic smile and his credit card. “Long morning.”
“Don’t I know it, honey.”
All paid up, he pushed the cart full of Quinn’s nervous breakdown remedy over to the front of the store where the wall was holding her up.
She picked at the rubber coating on the stroller’s handles. A rueful expression tinged with sadness looked up at him when he approached. “She’s having his baby.”
He made a face. “The kid probably won’t even be cute, and it wasn’t like she was glowing or anything. Did you see how swollen her ankles were?”
Quinn gave in to a smile. “She did have kankles, didn’t she?”
“Hideous.”
She cracked up then, and the sound lit something off inside him.
Wiping her cheeks, she met his gaze again. “You’re kind of sweet, Cooper Anderson. A terrible liar, but sweet.” She dragged her fingers back and forth along the top of the stroller. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about all this.”
He raised a shoulder. “It’s none of my business.”
“I still should’ve told you.”
“I understand.”
She curled her bottom lip in, looking torn about whether to say more.
Cooper jutted his chin toward the exit. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll make you some coffee.”
“Does that come with a tall glass of wine?”
“I don’t know.” The corner of his mouth sloped sideways as they walked. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with all those peach cobblers you’re gonna make me.”
Wide-eyed and adorably appalled, Quinn gave him a solid shove across the lane. “You just wait. You have no idea what you’re walking into.”
Finally, something they could actually agree on.