He smiled slyly. Winked. He had done that on purpose.

Sarah started laughing and her entire face lit up, her dark eyes twinkled, her cheeks turned pink. He had known he wanted her from the first second he saw her, when she came to the trailer and tried to pin his ears back for being Landon’s friend. The truth was, fierce or silly, she turned him on. He really didn’t care whether she got emotionally involved. It might be better for her if she managed to avoid that. But he definitely hoped they could get physically involved.

“Well, you’re not getting that, either,” she said.

“Mmm, wait till you taste this,” he said, chewing a piece of calamari. “This is so excellent, you might change your mind!”

“How’d you find this place?” she asked.

“Mac. The man is like a walking Yellow Pages. Anything you need, from mold removal to good restaurant, he’s your man.” He plucked another piece off the plate, but before he put it in his mouth, he asked, “How in the world did you end up flying for the Coast Guard?”

“I didn’t expect to fly, to tell you the truth. I just wanted to be on the water. I had fantasies about rescue swimming, but then I thought, instead of jumping out of the chopper, how about commanding it, flying it. I had no idea whether I’d like it. I did a lot of swimming, diving and sailing growing up, but the highest I’d ever gotten off the ground was a zip-line.”

“When did you change your mind?”

“In college. I joined a USCG scholarship program when I was nineteen. When I looked at the different places I could go as an officer, I got dazzled by the helicopter.”

“Was it the right choice?” he asked.

“It was. We’ve had some real adrenaline-pumping missions. Especially out of the Bering Sea.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think I was ready for that.”

“And?”

“Kodiak was the best experience of my life.” She glowed a little bit when she said that. “It was my first permanent move with the Coast Guard after flight school. I had lost my parents a year before, had a little six-year-old along for the ride, it was one of the most challenging rescue locations in the U.S., and it was awesome. Sometimes a rescue station is as good as its commander, and ours was incredible. That’s where Landon started playing ball with the commander’s youngest son. Commander Titchke took us under his wing. He not only helped us settle in, and his family helped me with Landon, but he trained me in the Bering Sea. I did things—the team did things—I never imagined we’d do. Once we had two ships taking on water on opposite sides of the island in a storm so violent we couldn’t even drop a line. Seven souls on one, four on another, plus injuries. And we brought them in. It took four crews, it took pulling crew members off vacations or days off, but we saved eleven people that day. Risk management for that operation was tight as I’ve ever seen. There was no room for error or we’d not only lose the vessels and injured, we’d lose the rescue crews. I think my heart pounded for a month.” She took a bite. “I have a lot of stories like that from Kodiak. I could bore you for hours.”

He couldn’t help but grin at her. “It sounds scary fun.”

“It gets in your blood, I think. That rush.”

“You like the edge. You’re a wild woman.”

“Nah. I never take unnecessary chances, never. It’s precise and sometimes I can be a perfectionist and...”

“Sometimes?” he asked with a laugh as their salads arrived.

“I let you eat calamari while I bored you with Coast Guard stories. It’s your turn—tell me about your flying. About Iraq and your civilian gigs.”

Even though Cooper had gone to Iraq in a Black Hawk right at the beginning of the war, somehow it just didn’t seem as wildly exciting as what Sarah had done, was doing. But he told her about it. He was six years in the Army, then got out to pursue civilian flying. Since work was hard to find, he worked for civilian contractors hired by the U.S. in foreign countries—an expatriate, a mercenary. Eventually, he ended up working for oil companies.

“Was it good work?” she asked just as their main courses were delivered.

“I’d say so. And the money was good. It was easy work most of the time, good people. And then there was a big oil spill. Major. National news for months, billions of dollars of damage. It made the Valdez look like a dress rehearsal. A couple of the platforms I was flying to shut down—we pulled all the people off. I’ve never seen anything like it. Of course I’d watched news reports of spills before, but there’s nothing like actually seeing it. The company had to downsize and I was more than willing to walk.

“I worked for two more companies after that, flying to offshore wells, but I couldn’t stop seeing what might happen. It wasn’t my business—I was flying—I didn’t compromise safety. My boss, the chief pilot, didn’t compromise safety. But...” He shook his head. “Once you see what a major spill can do to a few towns on the coast and a big piece of ocean, it just gets to you. You know?”

She smiled patiently. “The Coast Guard is the environment’s friend, Cooper. You know that.”

“I know. So I quit that last job and planned to take a few months off, meet Ben and another friend to hunt in the mountains. I was looking for a break long enough to decide where to go and what to do next. Then everything changed with Ben’s death. I’ll get another flying job,” he said. “But I think it’ll have to be a different kind of flying job.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. After Christmas, maybe. After the bar’s looking good and I can sell it. I have to figure out how to deal with that.”

She grinned. “Ray Anne will help you unload it, I’m sure.”

“How did you know?” he asked, because he hadn’t said anything about Ray Anne’s real estate ambitions.

She gave him a slow smile. “I’m just brilliant, that’s all.”

“What about you?” he asked. “How long will you be here?”

“In about a year, I’ll be looking at assignments. Landon will be a senior. If it goes the way we’ve planned, Landon will know where he wants to go to college by then. With any luck, he’ll have an early acceptance. I can manage to sit tight until he graduates. And I’ll try my best not to be too far away.” She looked down at her pasta. “He’ll need family close enough to visit while he’s in college. It’s different when it’s just two of us.”

He could only smile at her, give her a nod. She was a remarkable woman. She did a difficult and demanding job, but it didn’t change her first priority—her brother.

He admired her. That hadn’t happened to him in a long while.

* * *

On her second glass of wine, Sarah forgot to be afraid of her feelings toward Cooper. She experienced a lift in her spirits that she hadn’t felt in too long. She’d been so hurt and angry she’d forgotten how wonderful it was to laugh, to have something in common with a date, to feel friendship growing. To lust, because she was feeling that, too. Her evening with Cooper was perfect. They listened to each other’s work and flying stories intensely, they laughed over foibles and family issues—Cooper had a fairly large extended family and while she had no one to speak of, raising Landon had been worth a laugh or two. They growled in unison when the conversation turned to Jag Morrison and his family. She enjoyed him. He was intelligent, funny and, oh, mama, was he handsome. Although he was mostly flirtatiousness and wit, there was a warmth about him that embraced her.

And he’d be moving away soon. Perfect.

The food was delicious, the small restaurant perfect. Sarah realized this was the thing she’d been missing. A companion.

As they walked out to his truck, she said, “Thank you, Cooper. I enjoyed that.”

“Good. We’ll do it again.”

She laughed softly. “My first date since...well, since my ex moved out. Over a year ago.”

He threaded his fingers through hers. “My first date in a while, too.”

“Who was your last date?” she asked.

He stopped walking. “I have to think. It was probably Judy, a woman I met in Corpus Christi. About a year ago. Interesting woman. But it was one date. I don’t know how to explain why. It just didn’t click.”

“Well,” she said with a laugh, “I was pretty pissed at our first meeting. And I take this to mean you think we clicked. Or maybe you like angry women? Either that or there aren’t any other women in this town you’ll take a chance on.”

“There are plenty of women around,” he said. He touched her cheek with a gentle finger. “It’s early.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Come back to my place for a while. It’s not much, but it’s comfortable. Your house is vulnerable—could be teenagers there, taking advantage of the fact that you’re out for the evening. I could make you a cup of coffee. Or a drink.” He shrugged. He grinned. “I’m flexible.”

Sarah thought, We both know what we want.

He leaned down to put a soft kiss on her mouth. “Take a chance on me, Sarah. I can play by your rules.”

It had been so long since a man seemed to know her, know what she needed, wanted. She nodded. “I think a cup of coffee at your place would be all right.”

Fourteen

Cooper opened the door to his RV and let Sarah step inside first. He’d left a dim light on over the stove. It cast a gentle glow on the room and when he closed the door, he slipped an arm around her and pulled her close. He placed a soft kiss on her lips. “Just let me get my arms around you for a second and then I’ll make some—”

She put her hands on his cheeks and pulled his mouth down to hers, cutting him off. Lips touched lips for a mere second before his arms tightened around her and he took her mouth by storm, opening his mouth over hers. A growl came from deep inside him as he went after her. She purred and he groaned. Then he turned with her in his arms and pressed her against the wall just inside the door. Her arms were locked around his neck and he ran a hand over her butt, down the back of her thigh and lifted her leg from behind the knee to his hip, pushing himself against her.

He was hard that fast. No big surprise. He’d been having hard thoughts all the way home, even though they’d talked and laughed like old friends. This was still completely unplanned, but he thrust his pelvis against hers. And she pushed back.

“Jesus, Sarah...” he murmured against her mouth.

Her fingers threaded into the short hair over his ears and she clung to him, kissing him deeply, welcoming his tongue. And she whispered, “Uh-huh...”

His hand found a breast, then slipped under her sweater and found more of a breast, though still covered by a lacy bra. He ran a finger around the lace, found her neck with his mouth and kissed, sucked, ran a thumb over her erect nipple. “God,” he whispered. “Jesus. God.”

She chuckled softly. “Are you praying?”

“Oh, God, yes,” he whispered, grinding against her. “Or begging...maybe that’s just begging....”

He made a study of her neck, ear, temple and chin with his lips, with his tongue, going back to her mouth again and again, growing breathless and crazy. He pushed up her sweater and found that nipple with his lips. And then she slid her arms from around his neck to his waist, from his waist to his butt, pulling him against her. And she hummed.

He ran that hand over her bottom and down her thigh to that raised knee again, but this time he went all the way to her heel and slid off her boot. Those delicious tight jeans wouldn’t come off over the boot.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

His fingers found the waist of her jeans, the snap, the zipper. He slid a hand inside, lower and lower, until he was feeling a soft tuft of hair and then the damp softness of her. God, she was at least as turned-on as he. Ready, so ready. That’s all it took to have him praying again. But he said, “This is crazy. Good crazy. So good...”