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  The ocean breeze lifted London's loose hair from around her face and blew it all about. He watched how she walked, slow and easy, head down, shoulders back, toes in the sand and her thin flip-flops tucked into one of the rear pockets of her shorts.

  She kept walking and he waited, watched. Wondered if he was ready to have the conversation she'd probably expect if she spotted him. The conversation she deserved so she'd know without a doubt that he wasn't the man she needed in her life.

  London must have sensed his gaze on her, because she turned her head in his direction. He knew the moment she saw him sitting on the sand, back in the shadows created by the dunes. She paused on the divide created by sun and dunes, and he felt her stare like a physical touch.

  Would she keep walking? Join him?

  The odds were fifty-fifty in his book.

  After a moment, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and stepped fully into the shadows. Cooper prepared himself as best he could, but the next hour or so wasn't going to be an easy one.

  After the confrontation with Dalton, Cooper had walked home long enough to stash Rocco in the house with Michelle and the twins and grab his keys. He'd forced himself to find another place to work and managed to compartmentalize his mind enough to finish the project that had taken so much of his time. He'd spent two hours testing and reviewing, then scheduled delivery of the package one full day ahead of deadline. Finishing the project didn't bring the sense of satisfaction it usually did, though, and the meeting with Dalton was wholly to blame.

  "Hey."

  Cooper lifted his head and found her bright green eyes studying him closely. She'd shoved her sunglasses atop her head, and now her eyebrows pinched above her nose in an adorable scrunch. "Hey, yourself."

  "Mind if I join you?"

  "Can't say I'm good company."

  "Maybe talking will help."

  Ah, but would it? How could talking to someone like London, with her background and idyllic childhood, do anything but remind him of all reasons they wouldn't work?

  She lowered herself onto the sand beside him, knees to chest, arms looped around her legs, and stared out at the ocean. "I… didn't know Dally was your father."

  Dally. A curse almost left him before he stopped it. "He told you to call him that?"

  She turned her head, cheek resting on her knees.

  "Yeah. That's not his name?"

  "That's what we— what Ash called him as a kid."

  "Your sister?"

  "Yeah. Ashley. She was nine years younger than me and, when she was a baby, kept getting Dalton and Daddy confused. It came out as Dally."

  "I see."

  London shifted on the sand, released her legs, and stretched them out in front of her before propping her hands behind her hips, head turned in his direction and that gaze of hers not letting up the heat.

  "It seems like when we're together, I do all of the talking. I think that's been kind of deliberate on your part. So now I'm asking… Will you tell me about you? Please. I'd like to know more."

  Cooper had braced himself for the questions but he still wasn't prepared. "You don't want to know, London. It's not something anyone wants to know."

  "Tell me anyway."

  Her words were almost carried away by the wind, drowned out by the squawk of the birds, but he heard them and knew even if he hadn't, she wasn't going to let up. The time had come. "Why? Why do you… care?"

  She inhaled and shook her head so that the long braid fell over her shoulder, down her back.

  "It's what friends do. They listen. Try to help if they can."

  "Is that what we are? Friends?"

  "Well, you've made it clear you don't want to be more."

  "That's where you're wrong."

  Her head whipped toward him, one of her eyebrows lifted high. Cooper watched the flashes of expression cross her face, fascinated by the play of muscle and insight. He saw speculation. Inquisitiveness. Doubt. It was the doubt that got him. "It can’t be that surprising, London. You're beautiful, incredibly smart, insanely sexy. Who wouldn't be interested in you and want more?"

  She blinked once, lips parting as though the words had sucked the air out of her lungs.

  "But you've never… I don't understand, Cooper. If you truly feel that way, why haven't you said something? D-done something?"

  "Because you may be curious about me now, but once you know everything there is to know about me, my history, you won't feel the same way."

  "Why don't you let me decide? It’s my choice, isn’t it?"

  Even though it was the last thing he wanted, he resigned himself to cutting the vein. "I guess it is. What do you want to know?"

  "Everything."

  He'd hoped for a little more time. Time to settle in and get into a routine with the twins, maybe pretend to be a normal family before she knew the dirty, dysfunctional details. "You know the basics. Software engineer. Single," he reiterated, earning a smile at the memory his words evoked. "And guardian of the twins. What you don't know is how it all came about. My sister, Ashley, died of an overdose. She tried to stay clean during the pregnancy, which was a miracle in itself, but she didn’t always succeed. Afterwards… whether it was postpartum depression or an addict needing a fix, no one knows, but she… began using and the cycle started all over."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Me, too."

  "Is that when you got custody? Their father…?"

  The dirtier details. Not something he liked thinking about when it came to his baby sister. "I don't think she knew who the father was. She'd… do anything for a fix. But, no. He's not in the picture. When Ash passed away, my mother got custody of them and took care of them until earlier this year. The kids went a long way in helping her get over the pain of losing her only daughter."

  The roar of the ocean faded away as his mind returned to that time, to the run-down house down an old dirt road in rural North Carolina. "But then she got sick. A cough she couldn't shake. She was gone in a matter of months."

  "Oh, Cooper."

  London's shock was evident in the way she breathed his name, the look of horror on her face.

  "I don't know what to say. I am so sorry."

  He loved his mother. He did. But when he mourned her, it wasn't that he mourned her loss as much as mourned who she could have been. Should have been. "Thank you. She was… She did the best she could."

  London scooted closer, a deep frown marring her beautiful face.

  "What do you mean?"

  "She wasn't always stable herself—at least when it came to Dalton. She was— wasn't," he corrected, "strong. Neither was Ashley. Both were very codependent, both enablers."

  "Keep going," she whispered.

  He inhaled and exhaled and had to break eye contact to focus on the story he told. "No matter how drunk Dalton would stay or how violent it got, Mom would take him back. Years went by but finally Dalton left for good. I was gone by then. I'd gotten that scholarship to college, but Ash was just a kid, watching it all like a bad rerun. I should've stayed or taken her with me—"

  "You were a kid, Cooper. No legal agency would've allowed you to be Ashley's guardian."

  The words brought comfort to a certain extent. Rationally he knew he couldn't have handled Ash, because when Dalton had left for good, Ashley was already acting out. Running with the wrong crowd, getting drunk, having sex. But if taking her could've somehow changed the course of events… "Once Mom got a diagnosis, it was only a matter of time because she'd waited so long. Anyway, she made me promise I wouldn't put the twins in foster care, and I agreed."

  Cooper felt London staring at him, watching him, and he was curious as to her thoughts.

  "It doesn't matter what I think, of course, but you're doing right by them," she said softly.

  It mattered what she thought. More than she could ever know. "Am I?"

  "Of course. You're their uncle. I'm assuming their only immediate relative other than… Dalton?"

  He nodded.
/>   "Do you doubt taking them in was the right thing to do?"

  He stared into her green eyes and battled the ever-present fear he had that he'd screw the twins up as badly as he and Ashley had been screwed up. "I honestly don't know."

  London's gaze narrowed on him and she shifted again, turning to fully face him.

  "I can't imagine losing my mother and my sister and becoming a dad in such a short amount of time. I'm sure it's been overwhelming, but of course the twins are better off with you, Cooper. Why would you think otherwise?"

  For the first time, he realized she hadn't run screaming down the beach at the level of dysfunction in the story, but… only time would tell if the brakes appeared and she began avoiding him or making excuses. "Something my ex-girlfriend said."

  "Well, forget whatever it was," London ordered. "Cooper, I realize we don't know each other very well, but what I do know of you? You're dedicated, hardworking. Kind. I see you with Rocco and Rosie. Not only that, I see how they respond to you. Animals sense the bad in people and that's not something they sense in you."

  "We all have a dark side, London. Maybe you just haven't seen mine yet." He said the words while sliding her a glance. "How do you know?"

  "I don't. That's where trust and faith come in, but you have given me no reason to doubt what discernment tells me about you. One of the many things my dad taught me was to trust my gut and with you…"

  "It's hard for me to understand how someone like you can want to be any part of the dysfunction I come from."

  "Someone like me. Seriously?"

  "Yeah."

  "Cooper, that's a pretty big assumption you're making. Look, I can only imagine how bad things got in your childhood, but you aren't your past. Are you harboring some deep, dark secret?"

  A rough sound left his chest. A laugh, a huff, he wasn't sure which. "No."

  "Okay, then."

  "It's not that simple, London."

  "Of course it isn't. But you've already broken the cycle. When you were that kid, did you want to be like your father, or something more?"

  All of his life—from the moment he knew Dalton's drunkenness and abuse weren't right—he'd focused on getting out. Doing better. Being better. Whereas Ashley had had the mentality that it was a given part of her future no matter what. "More."

  "Exactly. Because that's exactly what I see in you. The past is over, history."

  "Not when Dalton's making a nuisance of himself."

  "Cooper, I'm not taking up for Dally, but the man you're describing isn't the man I know."

  "He's dangerous."

  "Maybe he was. But now? I'm not so sure. There's something going on with him. Every time I see Dally, he looks worse than the time before."

  "Drinking does that, London."

  "Maybe. But today after you left he was adamant about getting to an AA meeting. He's sober."

  "He's tried before. It doesn't stick." How many times had Dalton begged forgiveness, claiming to be clean, only to turn around and go on a bender?

  Too many to count.

  Too many times they’d let down their guard only to pay the price for it.

  "Well, for what it's worth, the chip he carries has a number on it, and from what you've told me, I'm thinking the number is close to how many days it’s been since your sister passed."

  Was it possible? "He showed up at my mother's burial claiming he's been sober since Ash died. That the news had… changed him."

  "You don't believe him?"

  Cooper inhaled. "Given the number of times it's happened in the past, no."

  London moved closer to him, until her knee touched the top of his thigh. Cooper stared at her face, taking in every detail from the light smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks barely visible beneath her makeup to the shine on her lips. "I can't decide if you're real."

  She blinked up at him. "What do you mean?"

  "Do you really think our pasts don't matter?"

  Her expression softened, her beautiful gaze holding his.

  "I think we carry it with us always, but the key is using it for the lessons it teaches us, not as a punishment. That's how we become us, the person we're supposed to be."

  "I don't want to be him, London. Ever."

  London leaned toward him and placed her head on his bicep. He inhaled the scent of her hair and rested his chin atop her head. "That man destroyed anything good we ever had in our lives. He broke it, stole it, pawned it. He physically and verbally abused my mother until she wasn't a person, just a shell who tried to eat herself into oblivion to dull the pain. And Ash… she never stood a chance."

  "That's where I disagree. You made choices to get where you are today. Just like Ashley made choices. She chose wrong."

  "My ex said I was crazy for taking on the twins. For letting them drag me back into the mess I’d finally gotten out of. She… gave me an ultimatum. She told me to let them go to foster care or she'd leave." It was the first time he'd mentioned his ex in detail to London, and he felt her tense at his side.

  "Any woman who'd say that wasn't worthy of them—or you."

  "She had a background like mine. That… history. She knew the potential for trouble. Addiction. She knows the statistics and odds are—"

  "Cooper, stop. Don't borrow trouble or put something on the twins that may never happen. Have they had health issues? From the drugs their mother used beforehand?"

  "Weight and growth-wise, they're small for their age, but so far everything checks out. I've been told that it could be years before cognitive and developmental issues appear, if they appear."

  "Okay, then. If they appear, you'll deal with it. But right now, we claim victory over addiction and pray they never have any issues from that time in their lives."

  London voiced the prayer without reservation or hesitation, and he stared at her in awe, both admiring her admission of faith and shocked at the same time by the trusting, carefree, and unreserved way she'd stated it, believed it, and pronounced it as a done deal. Thanks to friends' parents dragging him to church as a child, he knew the power of prayer, but he'd be lying if he said his life hadn’t shaken that faith to the core.

  But what good could come from the past? Dalton, his mother, Ashley's addiction. London was right. Maybe it was time to focus on the present and let the future play out however it was meant to. He wanted that prayer for the twins—and for himself. "Amen."

  The barely audible whisper must've carried to her ears because London met his gaze. She nodded once, as if in satisfaction, and leaned back against his side.

  They stared at the waves rolling in, the people—families—playing along the shore as though addiction and abuse and neglect weren't a thought, much less a reality. "I finished the project today."

  London lifted her head, a smile on her beautiful, kissable lips.

  "That's wonderful! We should celebrate."

  There it was. An opening. His chance. Should he decide to follow through and claim that freedom and promise for himself. "We should," he said, thinking there was no time like the present to take that next step. "Maybe we could go out."

  "Maybe," London said, lashes lowering over her beautiful eyes. "Another thank-you dinner?"

  He waited until she made eye contact again before shaking his head. "No. This time we go because we want to see each other again. That is, if you're interested after everything you just learned about me."

  Her expression softened, and a flush of color filled her cheeks that had nothing to do with the setting sun and everything to do with the chemistry firing between them. He wanted to kiss her, sensed she felt the same, but he didn't want to rush the moment.

  No, he wanted to savor this. Her. Because this was different. London was different. And in that moment, he was very grateful for the painful lesson of his ex walking away, because he wouldn't be here otherwise.

  "I'd like that very much."

  "Tomorrow? Maybe we can rent a couple of Jet Skis or get a charter? You could show me around?"
/>
  "Actually," she said with a smile lifting the corners of her mouth, "that's totally doable because Carolina is already scheduled to work. I'm in."

  Cooper stared down at her sweet face and couldn't help but think the same.

  He was in… and free-falling fast.

  Chapter 10

  They stayed at the beach for quite a while, just sitting there watching the water and talking. He didn't say much more about Dalton. Truth be told, he wasn't sure what was left to say. He got the feeling London had a pretty good idea now that the blinders had come off. He hoped so anyway.

  The shadows lengthened and darkness set in, but still they stayed. Cuddled and listened to the music being played at the pavilion as they sat on one of the many swings and gobbled up ice cream from the pier as their dinner to avoid having to be surrounded by people in one of the nearby restaurants.

  Cooper walked London home and once again faced the challenge of leaving her at her door without a kiss. But considering they'd yet to have their first official date, he managed. Barely. But he reminded himself of his intent to savor the experience, all too aware that London was a woman worth the extra effort to romance.

  Given the late hour, Cooper entered the house as quietly as possible and let Rocco into the yard for one last go, knowing the dog's escape launch had been moved to a better location. While he waited on Rocco to return, Cooper moved through the house, entering the kitchen upstairs since the fridge tended to be better stocked than the one in the apartment below. He opened the cabinet to grab a bowl, intent on some cereal to fill the void, when he saw a bottle of kids’ liquid allergy medicine. Definitely not where that was supposed to be stored.

  He shoved it into his pocket for safekeeping but then decided to forego the snack in order to check on the twins. Both were asleep, looking surprisingly peaceful. The sight tugged at his heartstrings and he moved closer to them. Both looked like Ash in some way. The way they’d tilt their heads or smile or laugh. It was easy to see Ashley every day just by watching them.