Page 17 of Broken Heart

I still recalled what it was like to get that call from him. His name had popped up on the display, since I’d saved his number in there after he’d given it to me the day the wood from his truck had flown through my window. Seeing his name there, I felt a shiver run down my spine.

I knew it wasn’t good to have those feelings, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to stop them.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hey, Skye.”

“Hi, Cooper.”

I could hear the satisfaction in his tone when he returned, “You recognize my voice. I’m a bit flattered.”

Cooper had been nothing but kind to me, so doing anything to diminish his good mood didn’t feel good, but I didn’t want him to get the wrong impression. “Um, well, actually, I already had you in my phone from when you gave me your number,” I reminded him.

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot I did that. Wishful thinking on my part, I guess,” he said. “Is now a good time to talk?”

Wishful thinking?

Was that simply an off-handed comment, or had he really been hoping I hadn’t stopped thinking about him since I last saw him and had been unable to forget the sound of his voice? Or did it mean something else? Was it possible his thoughts were consumed by me, and he wanted reassurances he wasn’t alone?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t nearly as confident as Cooper. If I had been, I might have told him the truth—that it felt like he was all I’d been thinking about for days.

“Yes, I have some time to talk now,” I replied.

I didn’t know if Cooper was waiting for me to say something else, but there was a beat of silence before he spoke again. “Great. So, obviously, I wanted to talk to you about getting together sometime before the charity event. I thought about it today and came up with a few ideas, but I realized I didn’t know what your work schedule was like. Do you have any days off or a time that works best for you?”

As someone who hadn’t really been forthcoming with anyone in months, for some strange reason, I didn’t hesitate to open up to Cooper and give him more information than he’d asked for. “Maria used to work at the store with Joan and me, but after I learned the truth in February, she’s obviously no longer employed there. Since then, it’s just been the two of us trying to manage, and it hasn’t been easy. But I’m happy to report I’ve got a new girl starting on Monday, which will help ease the load and free up a couple of evenings a week for me. Since I want to make sure she knows everything that needs to be done throughout the day, I’ll be there until closing every day earlier in the week. I’ll have shorter shifts on Thursday and Friday, though, since Joan will be staying until close with Valerie. I’ll be doing the later shifts this weekend, because I’ll be off early for the benefit next weekend.”

“Okay, so it sounds like the best option is going to be to set something up for either Thursday or Friday next week,” he declared. “What time are you off? Would I be able to pick you up for dinner?”

He wanted to pick me up. Wouldn’t that be taking things a bit too far, considering this was all just a ploy?

“I’ll be leaving work at three-thirty both days, so I’ll be off early enough to go to dinner with you,” I shared. “And I don’t mean to offend you, especially given what you’re doing for me, but I think I’d prefer to meet you wherever you’d like us to go for dinner.”

If there had been any lingering doubt about whether Cooper felt some sort of attraction to me and wanted this to turn into something else, that uncertainty would have vanished when he spoke. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense, all things considered. If you’d feel more comfortable doing that, I’m okay with it. Could you make it to Savor by six-thirty on Thursday?”

Savor.

That didn’t seem like the place two people who weren’t dating or celebrating some special occasion in their lives would go. It certainly wasn’t a place two people who barely knew one another and only planned to get together for the sake of getting to know each other only to prove a point to one person’s ex and former best friend would go.

Then again, I had to take a moment to consider precisely who I was going to be going to dinner with. This was Cooper Westwood. His family was practically royalty in Landing. Going to Savor for dinner was probably just an average day for him.

It wasn’t about the cost of going to the restaurant. I had gone there on occasion before, but there was always a special reason for it.

Unfortunately, since I didn’t want to look like a fool for making assumptions about what Cooper’s intentions were, I decided to ignore the thoughts I had about the spot he chose for dinner and confirmed, “I should easily be able to meet you there at six-thirty.”

“That’s good. Since it’s already late, I won’t keep you. I’ll touch base again before Thursday, though,” he informed me.

With that, we’d said goodbye and disconnected our call.

And later that night, by the time I’d crawled into my bed, I found myself struggling to fall asleep, because I couldn’t stop thinking about the conversations Cooper and I had both in my store and over the phone. More specifically, I couldn’t get the sound of his voice or the way he’d so effortlessly been willing—and determined—to help me out in my situation.

Saturday’s interactions with Cooper were enough to keep me slightly distracted over the days that followed, but I wound up getting much more than a single day of encounters with him to keep my mind occupied.

Ever since he ended that call with me on Saturday evening, he didn’t hold himself back from making contact with me. He reached out via text messages throughout the week, which both helped and exacerbated my nerves.

The first text I received from him came on Sunday evening.

COOPER