A frown marred her smooth forehead. “Excuse me?”
“You know, the one about being sprung from jail to become some babe’s cabana boy?”
She blinked, then her eyes widened and splotches of red spread over her high cheekbones. On any other day he would have tried for a full-body blush.
On any other day he would have sworn this day would never come.
He looked back down at the inarguably official letter. Adrenaline surged and his heart started to pound. He hadn’t had a clue how to deal with the news of Marcus’s death when he’d first heard of it on the news a few days ago. Now he did. “Though an altogether different fantasy of mine is about to come true.”
“I can imagine.”
Something in her tone, a wistfulness, made him look back up, but her smile implied he’d simply reassured her. She probably wasn’t the only person in town who’d think that suddenly becoming a part of the McCoy family would be a dream come true. But for a very different reason from his. Appearances could be so deceiving.
He eyed her glossy brown hair, cut so the ends flipped up just as it reached her slender shoulders, her subtle makeup, her lack of jewelry other than a tiny gold anchor on a necklace and her business-casual outfit. Her appearance, though extremely attractive, screamed corporate drone. He seriously doubted anything deceptive was going on with her.
He nodded at the letter. “So you are aware of what this says?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes, actually, I am.” She folded her hands in front of her, all professional-like, but her discomfort sneaked through in the way she held her neck stiff and her gaze darted from his to the letter and back.
A strong sense of kinship stirred in him. He knew all too well what it felt like to be caught after doing something he shouldn’t have. “I admire your honesty.” But since he’d yet to completely shake the habit of acting how he was expected to in this town, he once again let his interest roam over the conservative sweater and slacks that failed to hide the curves underneath. “Among other things.”
She made a soft, strangled sound that brought his attention to her wide eyes. She must not get out much.
He kicked up a corner of his mouth and shrugged. “I suppose you can’t be blamed for taking a peek, since they didn’t bother to seal the envelope. And I doubt the vaunted McCoys bail people out of the slammer on a regular basis. That would get anyone’s curiosity up.”
Her sculpted dark eyebrows came down and she shook her head. Her nicely formed lips, accented with a subtle brownish lipstick, opened to protest.
He raised his hand to stop her. “No big deal. Really.” Though a very big part of him would have just as soon kissed her. She was so his type. Great eyes, hair, shapely, and roughly his age. A woman who’d know how and still consider it fun. ’Cause fun was all he was ever after, thanks to what his mother had experienced.
“But you don’t understand—”
“Unfortunately, I understand perfectly.” He stopped her once more, and gestured at her with the letter. “The McCoys send a pretty piece of fluff—a secretary with an eye on moving up, I bet—to be sure I’d realize just how lucky I am, on the off chance that being told out of the blue that I’m a member of one of the richest families in the country isn’t enough.” He winked and smiled tightly. “No offense, of course.”
Obviously offended, anyway, she pulled her chin back and her frown deepened into a scowl. “First of all, please don’t interrupt me. Second, I beg your pardon.” Her tone confirmed it.
While he’d never purposefully ticked off a woman before, finding many more benefits to having them like him, the bitterness that had festered far too long deep inside him gurgled to life and kept him from apologizing.
But since she had saved him the embarrassment of having to call his business partner, Ted, to bail him out of jail, the least he could do was explain. He lifted the letter held in his tightening grip. “The thing is, I already knew about my paternity.”
Her jaw went slack.
He leaned toward her, and despite his surging resentment, the sweet floral scent of her perfume went straight to his head after the bleach-laced stink of the jail and the bar scum he’d tangled with the night before.
“You see, when I was thirteen years old my mother told me—on her deathbed, mind you—that I was a Real McCoy, that Marcus McCoy, the only man she’d ever loved, was my father.” Cooper straightened and grappled for control over emotions that had always been at least an inch beyond his reach. Emotions that had led him to test any and all boundaries placed on him by those who didn’t understand his torment. “And all that time I’d thought I was just another kid whose dad hadn’t cared enough to give him his name. But mine had paid to keep it a secret.”
He pasted on a stiff smile. “Funny how no one would believe me. But my mom didn’t have the best reputation for credibility.”
Shock, empathy—no, make that pity—flared in her eyes, and she opened her mouth as if to say something, but snapped it shut.
He clenched his back teeth against the old, cankered hurt. Only years of practice allowed him to loosen his jaw enough to continue. “And oh, how they tried to talk me out of it.”
He puffed up his chest beneath his light blue denim shirt, mimicking Grandpa Ned’s gravelly voice. “‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, boy. This town wouldn’t be what it is without the McCoys.’”
Cooper gestured to the large building he’d just exited, built in the colonial style, with lots of brick and white shutters and emblazoned with the words Joseph McCoy Municipal Building. Pretty much all the public buildings in the modest town of ten thousand souls had that name attached to them somewhere. “‘We’d have nuthin’ if it weren’t for the McCoys, so you’d best shut your yap and keep it shut.’” Joseph McCoy had taken a Podunk town with very little going for it but a symbolic name and built it into a heartland postcard.
She blinked several times, obviously unsure what to make of his outburst. Finally, she asked, “Who said that to you?”
“Ned Anders, my mom’s dad. Had the joy of spending five years under his roof.” Cooper looked back at the jail, a place he’d finally grown smart enough to avoid once he’d squeaked his way past high school. Mostly. “That is, when he wasn’t rightly kicking me out for acting up. Something hurt, angry teenagers tend to do.”
Pushing memories of the cause of his hurt and anger aside, he slapped the letter against his jeans, met her stunned gaze and smiled mirthlessly. “I have a sneaking suspicion Marcus didn’t plan on the truth coming out so soon. Though why it did at all is beyond me. To think I owe it all to a hungry grizzly bear. That’s the sort of cosmic justice I really like.”
At the mention of justice, determination surged through him. Cooper turned and started down the steps.
The tap of low-heeled pumps on concrete chased him as she hurried to catch up. “Mr. Anders, please. I’m sure everyone was simply acting for your own benefit.” Her tone was so lacking in conviction Cooper didn’t bother to argue the point. Apparently, she was one of the rare few who “got” where he was coming from. A real pity she was from the enemy camp.
She jumped down a step ahead of him and faced him, blocking his descent. The late-morning sun caught in her hair and set the deep, chestnut-brown strands aglow. Damn, she was a pretty piece of fluff. But nothing was going to distract him from making the most of this little revelation she’d delivered to him.
Regret seared his lungs. His mom hadn’t been lying after all. She hadn’t illegally earned the money they’d lived on as they’d bounced from place to place throughout Missouri, then used to pay for her medical treatment—something he’d secretly feared, thanks to Ned’s implications.
Pointing to the letter in his grip, she said, “Marcus did acknowledge