Sleep well. Sleep well.

I punched my pillow again and flipped to my other side.

Sleep well. Yeah right. It was the kiss of death when he said that.

Like I could sleep when Cooper was downstairs, spread out all over my couch. I could still feel his lips at my temple. The brush of his thumb over my cheek.

I could still see the heat in his eyes he didn’t bother trying to hide when he leaned in close to me. I saw it coming from a mile away and I still stood there. Let him press his lips to me, and I inhaled the scent of him, the heat of his body so close to mine and still touching me.

And I liked it.

Nothing wrong with trying to find happiness.

Brooke’s message assaulted my brain, mixed with Cooper’s voice telling me practically the same thing.

Earlier conversations I’d had with Brooke and Kelly, another friend, Jordan’s best friend’s wife who’d been at The Tavern the other night, too. One I was surprised hadn’t contacted me yet.

But, both of them had told me the same thing one night, drunk at my house, crying over Joseph and the despair at the mere thought of ever having another man touch me.

Both of them, the traitors, had saucily said, “Get it over with. Sleep with someone when you’re ready, when you want it. Take it for you, who cares about them.”

It was rotten advice.

I wanted to follow it.

Freaking Max and Cooper. And Brooke and Kelly and their perfect happy marriages with children and living everything I had and still so desperately wanted to have back.

It wasn’t possible though, and like Jordan said earlier, I really needed to begin dealing with it.

I knew exactly where to begin.

Shoving off my sheets, I grabbed the lavender robe I always dropped on the floor next to my bed.

Unable to bear it another moment and before I lost my nerve, I stomped to the closet and flung the door open. It slammed against the wall and bounced back toward me. I tossed my hand out, stopping the door before it smacked my shoulder.

We had a small walk-in closet. Clothes were crookedly jammed onto hangers. Shoes were piled and kicked into buckets at the bottom, toppling over — mostly on my side.

Sweaters and sweatshirts and jeans were stacked on shelves so haphazardly that if I pulled the wrong one without having a grip on the right one, the entire tower came tumbling down.

Cooper was right, damn it. I’d known that. I’d just been avoiding it.

Tonight, I wasn’t.

Living in this house with every single freaking inch of it reminding me of Joseph wasn’t helping me a single little bit.

Before I changed my mind, I grabbed a stack of his sweatshirts and flung them all to the floor of my bedroom. I grabbed another pile, and another pile.

With every toss of his clothes I heaved over my shoulder, my cheeks grew wetter and my arms more tired. I didn’t stop.

I cleaned out every damn inch of his side of the closet, swooping down to pick up two shirts from the pile that snagged my attention. His favorite Iowa State Sweatshirt and a Cyclones Football long sleeve shirt he’d worn to every home game he’d attended.

I slept in his shirt sometimes and over the winter I practically lived in his sweatshirt. Unable to let them go, I shoved my face into them, inhaling. They no longer smelled like him.

They were clothes. He was gone.

A sob ripped from my throat and I tossed them into the growing pile and turned back to the closet.

I grabbed armfuls of his clothes on hangers and turned, tossing them out.

And then I went after his shoes.

I threw them all out of the closet. One at a time.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. They hit my bedroom floor as I flung them over my shoulder.

Screw it. I squatted down and grabbed the last remaining bucket, picking it up to throw it out.

I turned to flip it out into the bedroom and screamed.

“What the hell!?” I shouted.

The bucket fell out of my arms and hit the floor.

Cooper stood just outside the doorway. His hands were held out in the air, and his gaze dipped from me to the floor at my feet, to the way too massive pile of clothing at his feet.

In my bedroom.

My bedroom.

“What are you doing here?” I wrapped the robe around my waist, tightened the knot.

Goddamn it! He wasn’t supposed to see this.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

That was what he asked. The urge to scream at him, to unleash holy terror for putting the idea into my head and making me feel, clawed at my throat. “No. Why are you in my room?”

“Because I couldn’t sleep on the couch thinking of you and then I started hearing all this racket like the ceiling was going to cave in on my head and thought I should come check on you.”

My brain must have malfunctioned. I must have skipped some words, rearranged them in the wrong order. He didn’t say what it sounded like.

“What?”

He pinned me with a look. It stole the breath from my lungs. “You heard me.”

Shit.

“Yeah, shit.”

I slammed my mouth closed. If words were slipping out, when I didn’t mean them to, it was best to be quiet.

“Come out of the closet, Rebecca.”

He held out his hand. I ignored it.

I couldn’t breathe or move or focus.

He was standing outside my closet, and he was naked.

Not naked, naked. Mostly naked. He’d taken off the pants and shirt I’d given him and all he had on was a pair of black boxer briefs.

Skin-tight boxer briefs.

That showed every outline of him. And there was a lot of him to see.

My eyes darted to the side of the closet I’d swiped clean. Tomorrow, I’d bleach my eyes to erase that visual.

“Rebecca.”

“I’m fine here.”

He laughed low and slow, beautiful and over too quickly. I was not moving.

“You don’t come out, I’m coming in there to get you.”

No way in hell was he touching me. Not dressed like that.

I stepped over the bucket of shoes at my feet and stepped into the room. He moved back, giving me space and crossed his arms over his chest.

It hid nothing. I couldn’t find a place to focus on.

I was losing my mind. It had to be sleep deprivation. I looked to my bed and ruffled covers which made me think of…

Nope. Not going there. I stared at the wall. It was cream and void of any decorations or photos. It was safe.

Finally, I breathed. He stood there, watching me, I felt it like I felt my skin crawling from his inspection.

“Want to talk about this?” he asked.

Nope. I didn’t. I didn’t want to say a single word to Cooper Hawke. The man in underwear in my bedroom.

I crossed my arms over my stomach. Uncrossed them. “No.” My hands went to my hair and I untangled my hair tie, shoving my hands back into my hair and re-fixing the messy knot. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I might be able to help, you know. It’s not like I haven’t stood in a closet, wanting to do the exact same thing you’ve just done.”

“You can’t help me.”

He stepped closer. I shuffled back. He moved again. I retreated. He was getting closer when he needed to move back.

“Cooper,” I said, “Please. I need to be alone.”

“I thought we were friends.”

“What?” My gaze jumped to him, fell. Tight, tanned skin and black boxer briefs. A trail of hair from his bellybutton that disappeared beneath those briefs burned into my retinas. I squeezed my eyes closed. A futile attempt to erase that pretty, pretty sight.

“I thought we were friends,” he repeated.

I forced my eyes open and choked out, “We are.”

His full lips quirked into a grin. I knew that look. He had it downstairs. I did not like that look. Not one little bit. “Friends help each other, don’t they?”

“Friends respect what the other person wants and needs.”

I scooted away from him again and bumped into the wall next to my closet.

He took one more step toward me. Slowly. Like he’d done downstairs, allowing me time to move away, allowing me time to see his intention. My head screamed to move out of the way while my body shouted stay right where you are.

My body sucked.

He was in front of me, not touching me. Far enough away where he was in no danger of touching me.

I still wanted him to touch me.

His hand raised and he settled it on the wall above my shoulder. And I could smell him.

“Cooper. Why are you here?”

He didn’t even blink. “Because I want to help you.”

“You can’t.”

“I can try.”

I shook my head. Words failed me.

He didn’t seem to notice. “I know you’re scared. I bet I even know why you’re scared, but I’m going to lay this out there for you. I like you, Rebecca. I like being around you. I even like working next to you all day. You’re funny and sassy when you forget to be sad. Your eyes and your smile show your love for what you do. I like that you’re smart and you’re determined to keep this land when it might just be easier to pick up and move on and do something easier. I like everything I’ve seen and learned about you since the moment I arrived.”

“Cooper—”

“I also know you’re terrified, and maybe not ready. I’ll be your friend. I could be a really good friend to you. I don’t know if there’s anything more than that to find, not with our lives, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still help you. I want that.”

“I don’t think—”

“Not asking you to think. I’m asking you to consider it. You wanted to kiss me the other night. I want to kiss you now. You can say no. I’ll respect that. I’ll wait until you’re ready if it’s not tonight, but don’t for one second think I won’t be waiting until you are.”

Was that my heart pounding or was that the thunder outside? It was hard to tell. My stomach flipped. An area that had gone unused at the tops of my thighs was pulsing. Hot. Heavy. My knees were knocking together and he was standing so close to me, eyes on me, appearing like he didn’t see the effect his words had on me at all.

“I don’t usually kiss my friends.” It was the lamest excuse I had.

He leaned in, his nose almost brushing against mine. “The kind of friends we’re going to be will.”

“I don’t have a choice?” My throat tightened and I reached up to rub it.

“Always. Choice is always yours. Like right now, you can tell me no.”

My eyes burned. My throat was clogged. I couldn’t kiss him when I could barely breathe. Darn him and his handsomeness and his body. It felt so damn good to have a man looking at me like this, as much as I didn’t want the attention.

His lips brushed against my cheek, back to my ear. The small puff of breath against that area made me shiver. My hands went to his hips and I yanked them back off quickly, flattening them against the wall behind me. God. What was wrong with me?

“You can touch me,” he whispered, and another full body shiver rolled down my spine. “Or you can tell me no. Whatever you want, Rebecca.”

He wasn’t even touching me, yet he consumed me. I closed my eyes, tried to ignore the maelstrom of emotions flooding my body. Sadness. Terror. Desire.

His lips brushed over my cheek again, trailing a path of warm deliciousness toward my mouth. He was right there.

It was time to tell him no.

I opened my mouth to say it. I swear I did.

Instead, I whispered, “Please.”