Woman on the Run (new version)

  “He already has.” Her voice was quiet and it took a moment for what she said to sink in.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Cooper knew his voice sounded hard as he checked her out, ceiling to basement. The very thought of her being hurt…he clenched his fists.

  Julia lifted her head. Her turquoise eyes were wide and shadowed with sadness. “Santana’s already won, Cooper. He’s already taken my life away from me. My job is probably gone and I haven’t seen my home in almost two months. Who knows when I’ll see it again? All my plants will be dead. And my cat.” She made a stab at a laugh, then angrily wiped at her eyes, promising herself that she wouldn’t cry. “Federico Fellini. I named Fred after him.” At the sound of his name, Fred lifted his muzzle from the floor. He gave a questioning thump of his tail. “Though God knows Fred’s nothing like Federico. No hard feelings, Fred.” As if he understood, Fred dropped his muzzle back onto his paws with a whine.

  Her voice was desolate and empty. “Everything I had. Everything that’s me…it’s all gone. I don’t have a life any more. He’s already taken my life away.”

  It was true. That vivid aliveness that was such a hallmark was gone. She looked as if someone had dimmed the lights inside her. Santana had taken away her core, her very essence.

  Cooper could count the new lines in her face, the dark bruises under her eyes, the brand-new lines of tension bracketing her mouth.

  Goddammit. She’d lit Simpson up, single-handedly. Simpson had been dying for a long time. But now, with the new eatery and Loren branching out, who knew? Maybe Simpson might survive after all.

  Cooper didn’t know too many people who could suffer the loss of a home, a job and a life, find themselves parachuted into a strange town, and yet make friends. He certainly couldn’t have. If the same thing had happened to him, he wouldn’t have had the courage to plunge into the life and soul of a town, make friends, turn people’s lives around. He wouldn’t have had the courage to start a love affair and give as much as she’d given him.

  “Cooper?” He could see her anxiety rise as she watched him. “Are you still mad at me?”

  “No.” He let out his breath slowly and reached out to gather her close, grateful that she was there. Alive and in his arms. “Not mad. Just scared.”

  She clutched his back. “Me, too,” she whispered.

  Cooper pulled away a little. “Then why—” he began, then stopped. He knew why. She’d done all of the planning and a lot of the work in redecorating Carly’s. The “Out to Lunch”, now. Of course she wanted to join in the fun.

  “I…care,” he said finally, the words wrenched out of him from some place deep inside.

  “I know, Cooper.” Her eyes were as soft as her voice as she pulled away. Those wonderful, expressive eyes, sad and tired now, when they should have been sparkling with her triumph. It wasn’t fair that it had been taken away from her. “And I made you worry because of my selfishness. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

  A stone would have been moved. And as often as Melissa had accused him of it, Cooper wasn’t a stone. “Yeah,” he said huskily. “I forgive you. It was my fault anyway. I shouldn’t have been late.”

  “Don’t, Cooper. Don’t blame yourself.” Julia reached up to touch his bristly cheek. He hadn’t had time to shave this morning. “I’m the one to blame. It’s just that I can’t help myself. I can’t live like you want me to. I’d have to be deaf and dumb and…not care about anyone, I guess. I wanted to see how Alice was doing.”

  Cooper drew in a long sigh and his mouth turned up in a half smile. “You wanted a taste of Maisie’s chocolate glop, is more like it,” he grumbled.

  “Mousse,” she smiled. “And, yes, that too. Though as it turns out, I didn’t get my taste. Maisie’ll bring some over to Beth’s tomorrow, anyway, if I ask her. Cooper?”

  “Hmm?” He looked down at her and she put a tentative hand on his arm.

  “We just had our first fight.”

  He sighed. “Yeah.”

  “And we survived it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Though, of course, you were impossibly pigheaded.”

  Cooper’s lips thinned. “And you were unforgivably reckless.”

  “And you forgave me.” She smiled sunnily at him. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Cooper reached out and pulled her into his arms. She lifted her mouth to his. Long moments later, she murmured, “I guess that means you really do care.”

  Cooper gave a rueful smile. “I guess it does.”

  “Ooof!” Cooper rolled onto his left shoulder two evenings later. He was grateful for the mats he’d insisted Julia install in the living room for her daily Aikido lesson. Instantly, Julia was on him, straddling his chest.

  “I did it!” Julia crowed. She punched the air in delight. “I did it! I threw you!” She got up and did a little war dance, knocking ferocious punches to imaginary enemies.

  “You sure did,” Cooper grinned as he stood up. He loved watching her happy and triumphant. He loved it when her cheeks turned that luscious pale peach instead of chalk white. When her mouth curved naturally into its normal expression, a smile.

  It wasn’t easy throwing yourself, but it was worth it to see what a boost it gave to her self-confidence.

  She had learned some basic holds, and he was beginning to be confident that she could fend off an untrained attacker. A very weak, untrained attacker. Maybe an eight year-old. But he did want her to have the feel of a throw in her hands, to know what it was like.

  So he’d thrown himself.

  Julia was humming the Rocky theme, jabbing the air like a heavyweight champ. She feinted a jab to his chin. “You’re not so tough, big guy,” she said, and laughed.

  Cooper smiled “Guess not. It’s a humbling thought.”

  “I want a prize for winning.” She shuffled around him, shadowboxing. “Otherwise I’ll clean your clock.”

  “You’ve got me running scared.” He couldn’t resist her when she was in this mood. “Okay. Name it. Anything you want.”

  Julia stopped and looked up at him. “Do you mean it?”

  He smiled at the thought of giving her something. “Sure do. Anything you want. You want a horse?” he asked eagerly. “I’ve got a beautiful little sorrel with the sweetest mouth. You’d love her.”

  Julia shook her head. Okay, horse was out. “Jewelry?”

  She shook her head.

  “Fur coat?” She shook her head again.

  Nope, not that, either. “Well, what do you want?” If it was at all possible for him to get it for her, he would.

  “I want to spend the entire day at Alice’s Thanksgiving blowout. Beginning to end.”

  The smile was wiped from his face instantly. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not. We had a deal.”

  She lost her smile, too. “You said I could have anything I wanted. I want to be there while Alice and Maisie see how successful they’re going to be.”

  “No.” Cooper set his jaw. “Anything but that. You can have diamonds or pearls. You can have my best stud horse. We agreed we’d stop by for Thanksgiving for a few minutes, and I’d have Sandy and Mac with me. But that’s it. I don’t want you in a Thanksgiving crowd.”

  Julia stood very straight and very still. “Nobody knows how long this situation will last, Cooper. Months, maybe years. I can take careful precautions for all that time but I cannot live in lock-down for all that time. I worked hard to help renovate the diner. Alice is my friend.” She swallowed. Her voice was strained. “If I can’t have friends, if I can’t watch a friend’s triumph, if I can’t make plans, then I might as well not exist, Cooper. I might just as well be dead. I’m asking you as a favor. I want to share at least a part of that day with Alice. Okay, not all day. A couple of hours.” Her eyes searched his. “Please, Cooper.”

  “Damn!” Cooper wanted to punch something. A wall. Dominic Santana. Herbert Davis. He knew exactly what she was asking. The danger it represented. It was crazy, foolhardy. An
d he also knew how much she deserved it. How right it would be for her to be in the diner on Thanksgiving. What it would mean to her and to Alice and Maisie. It wasn’t right that she not share in Alice’s moment.

  The hell of it was, she didn’t plead her case any further. She just left it up to his sense of fairness. He held still a moment while the clang of opposing ideas fought it out in his head. It was foolhardy taking any kind of risk. And yet she deserved to be there. Finally, the clanging stopped as he came to a decision.

  I don’t want to do this, he thought. I don’t want to say it. But he did.

  “Okay. One hour.” The words came out reluctantly and he felt a granite boulder press in on his chest.

  “Oh, Cooper!” It was almost worth that sinking feeling that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life to see her face light up. “Oh, Cooper, thank you.” Julia hugged him, then danced away. “Oh, I’ve been looking forward to it so much, I know how hard Maisie worked on the menu and it’s going to be—” She stopped and eyed him warily. “You did say I wasn’t to be anywhere near strangers.”

  “I know what I said.”

  “I mean, you were freaking out at the thought of the Rupert Ladies’ Association.”

  He set his jaw. “Yeah.”

  “So this is a big concession on your part,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “This is our second fight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you gave in.”

  “Er…”

  “It’ll only be an hour, Cooper,” Julia said coaxingly. “And you’ll be there, too.”

  “Of course I’ll be there.” He’d be there—and armed. As would be Bernie, Sandy, Mac and Chuck. It was going to be as safe as he could make it.

  “Well, I’m glad you changed your mind.” She smiled up at him. He reached out and pulled her firmly back into his arms. She lifted her mouth to his. Long moments later, she murmured, “It’s nice to know that you’re not always pigheaded.”

  “Thanks.” He tried to smile for her. “I think.”

  Like many in the trade, the professional had the gift of invisibility.

  Of average height and weight, the professional could slide in and out of places, probe for information, and afterwards nobody could give a clear-cut description. It went with the territory, so to speak. Part of a good hit was information, and you couldn’t get information if you were going to stand out.

  Julia Devaux was in a pathetic hamlet called Simpson. Even her house was pathetic. It was a small one-story cottage, with fading paint and a tiny, forlorn front garden. One of the columns on the front porch had an inch-wide crack. All in all, a far cry from where she used to live back in Boston. 4677 Larchmont Street was a building of yuppie condos, each condo worth at least $450,000.

  You’ve come down in the world, Julia Devaux, the professional thought.

  But she’d been busy during her time in Simpson. She seemed to be involved with some cowboy, a Sam Cooper. And, annoyingly, she also seemed to be surrounded by people all day long. From the moment she left that little dump of a house in the morning to the time she got back in the evening with Sam Cooper, who stayed the night, Julia Devaux was with someone. If Sam Cooper wasn’t around, three of his hired hands were. The professional had heard the townfolk call them Sandy, Mac, and Bernie.

  There had been a brief window of opportunity during a stupid hen party at the local diner, but then that blasted cowboy had shown up.

  Ordinarily, all of this wouldn’t have presented any difficulties. The professional knew how to handle a sniperscope and one shot from a rooftop as Julia Devaux was crossing the street would have been enough. But there were two problems. Big ones.

  First, the men in Simpson seemed to be a suspicious lot, starting with Sam Cooper, whose eyes swept everything along the horizon as he walked. And the sheriff, too, displayed unusual vigilance, his hand never straying far from the gun in its holster. It was not at all certain that the professional could slip away in the confusion after the hit, and the professional liked certainty.

  But most of all, Santana needed to know exactly who it was who’d taken Julia Devaux out, otherwise the professional could kiss the money goodbye. Julia Devaux dead meant nothing to the professional unless it could be proved to Santana who’d done it, so the professional could pocket the six million.

  It was all so well prepared. Everything was in place, good to go. The small-gauge gun, the camera with timed film…it was really too bad things seemed to be slipping off schedule. The professional had arranged to take possession of the beach house on Sunday the thirtieth and these unexpected difficulties were throwing the schedule off.

  Damn Sam Cooper.

  Bored and annoyed, the professional called up Cooper’s file, expecting to read all the stupid details of a cowboy’s life. The facts concerning Sam Cooper came on the screen. There was a symbol indicating distinguished military service and the professional sat up straight.

  A former soldier. Now this was bad news.

  With a sinking feeling, the professional hacked into the Department of Defense data.

  Very bad news.

  Sam Cooper was not a simple cowboy, after all. He was a former SEAL. A brown belt who was also skilled in several other martial arts. The professional’s eye scrolled down Cooper’s military file, warning signs going off. Not only was the man an ex-commando, he was, according to his file, a gifted military strategist. Several men under his command had followed him to his ranch, including two highly decorated snipers called Harry Sandersen and Mackenzie Boyce. Sandy and Mac. It didn’t take much imagination to put two and two together.

  Very, very bad news.

  There wasn’t a Bernie amongst the men in Cooper’s team, but the professional would take even money that this Bernie knew his way around a gun, too.

  It wasn’t a coincidence, then, that Julia Devaux was never alone.

  The professional suddenly felt a surge of rage. It was supposed to have been so fucking easy. So neat. So precise. It would have been painless—a surgical strike. And now all that planning down the toilet.

  Thanksgiving. It would have to be Thanksgiving, when people were distracted. When everybody would be celebrating by overeating, slowed down by all that food and drink. A well-planned strategy, no false moves. A clean in and out job. Nothing messy.

  The professional detested violence.

  “Cooper, talk to me,” Julia whispered into Cooper’s neck.

  She tightened her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. They’d just spent the past several hours making love.

  Something about her predicament changed Cooper’s lovemaking. Whereas before, it was like a wild wind picked her up and hurled her into orgasm, he now insisted on foreplay so lengthy she ended up shaking and begging him to enter her.

  Nothing could hurt her while Cooper was in her. It was time out of time.

  He was collapsed on her, his heavy weight bearing her into the mattress. She was sticky with sweat and semen.

  She turned her head to kiss his neck. “Talk to me,” she said again.

  Cooper’s eyes suddenly popped open. He’d been falling asleep.

  “That’s not very fair of me is it, Cooper?” Julia said softly. She caressed the back of his head, her body sated and replete, her mind ricocheting off the walls.

  She seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. Her emotions swung wildly from one extreme to the other. Fear so great at times it paralyzed her. Mind-numbing pleasure. Anxiety. Contentment. Sadness. Joy.

  She sighed. “I just can’t get my mind to stop, you know? It just whirrs on and on and I don’t know how to—”

  “I love you.” Cooper’s quiet voice dropped the little bombshell into the still night.

  Julia’s heart stuttered.

  “I don’t—” Her mind flailed about for a response while her body, entirely of its own accord, reacted to Cooper’s large hands holding her hips as his penis surged and lengthened inside her. “I don’t seem to h
ave a response for that.”

  “That’s okay.” His deep voice was even. “I imagine you don’t. You’re all tangled up now with what’s happening to you. And I have no business telling you something like that, especially now, except that I wanted you to know in case—” Cooper hesitated. “Just…in case,” he said finally.

  “Cooper, I…” A long forefinger was placed against her lips.

  “No. You don’t need to answer me. Things are too crazy now for you to know your own feelings. Mine are enough.”

  Unbearably moved, Julia kissed his chin. “When did you get to be so wise?”

  Cooper lifted his head and smiled ruefully. His hips started thrusting gently. “I may not be the most sensitive man in the world, but I’m not made of stone.”

  “No, you’re not. Except for one part of you.” She rubbed her lips over the tendon in his neck and cupped his shoulder. She loved the feel of him, the strength, the sureness.

  Her legs curled around his backside, heels riding him as he thrust in and out. His movements were lazy at first, languid and slow. Her eyes closed as she concentrated everything she was on the spiral of electric pleasure in her loins. Cooper’s tempo gradually increased until she hung, shaking, on the sharpest edge.

  A few short, hard movements and she tipped over. With a wild cry, Julia climaxed in sharp contractions that set him off, too. Cooper held her tightly as his penis swelled inside her and he came in long jets. She was already incredibly wet with his previous climaxes. Every night she slept with him, she had to change the bottom sheet.

  She didn’t mind.

  She held him through the shudders of his climax until he finally stilled, easing his full weight back down on her.

  She loved everything about Cooper’s lovemaking, but this moment was special. When they’d both found intense pleasure but turned quiet, still connected in every way a man and a woman could be connected. Loins and hearts and minds.