“I hope you don’t mind, but I took a shower.”

His comment forced her to turn and acknowledge him, but the moment she laid eyes on his damp and masculine form, she froze.

Sweet mercy. He was wearing his shorts, thankfully, but his hair was wet, and he was still shirtless. He walked toward her—barefoot, she assumed, because she couldn’t take her eyes off the muscles rippling in his chest long enough to look. The hair on his upper body formed a soft V that angled down below his waistband.

“Maxine?”

She couldn’t answer. She was too mesmerized by his ripped hard abdomen.

“Maxine?” he said again, and she had to drag her eyes upward. He stepped closer, and she leaned back against the kitchen counter to steady her shaky legs.

“Huh?” she managed to get out.

Cooper was now only inches away. He lifted his hand to her face, his fingers skimming her cheek and setting her skin on fire. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m not going to be able to control myself anymore.”

She didn’t want him to control himself. And she was sure as heck tired of controlling herself. So she raised her lips in invitation.

And that was all it took.

* * *

Sugar Falls, Idaho: Your destination for true love!

A Marine for His Mum

Christy Jeffries

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTY JEFFRIES graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in criminology and received her Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and working in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the dynamic field of mummyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons and one sassy grandmother. Follow her online at www.christyjeffries.com.

To the wise and determined bestselling author, Judy Duarte. When my English teacher told you that I didn’t like to read, you handed me a Danielle Steel book and said, “Try reading a romance novel.” And when I struggled with the decision to leave a rewarding career to become a stay-at-home mom, you signed me up for a workshop and said, “Try writing a romance novel.”

It takes a strong woman to guide an even stronger-willed daughter. But doing it with such grace, diplomacy and unconventional orchestration takes extreme love and dedication.

I love you, Mom.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

September 4

Dear Soldier,

My name is Hunter Walker. I’m a fifth grader in Miss Gregson’s class. I live in Sugar Falls, Idaho, which is the most boringest town you can think of. I love football and baseball, even though my mom won’t let me play. Gram says my dad was the best football player to ever come out of Sugar Falls, but he died when I was a baby and before he made the pros. Since I’m not allowed to play, I never have anything to do when my mom is busy working or with her friends.

My mom is nice but she is way to into her girl stuff. She has a cool bakery that’s famous for cookies and her friends are always trying to find stuff for me to do. Aunt Mia had me in yoga, but I got sick of being the only boy. Aunt Kylie wanted to enter me in one of her glitz pageants last year, but when I saw the glittery pink bow tie, I said no way. Gram tries to talk mom into letting me play football, but my mom says it’ll never happen. Mom says Gram is to pushy and needs to learn to back off. I think Gram is fine except when she buys me clothes that make me feel like a big fat loser. I never get to do any cool boy things. Even though I don’t remember him, I sometimes miss my dad. It would be nice to talk to a guy once in awhile. I don’t really have anything in common with the other boys in my class and they make fun of me a lot.

I put in a picture of me so you would know who your writing to. Can you send me a picture of you? Maybe one of you on an M1A1 tank or in a fighter plane. Any plane or Huey would be cool, but Jake Marconi says his uncle flies a Harrier jet and I saw one when I looked it up online. I think Jake is lying because I met his uncle at Jake’s 8th birthday party and he didn’t look like a fighter pilot. Can you be a fighter pilot when your 18? Do they have fighter pilots in the coast guard?

Its ok if your not a fighter pilot. I’ll still write you back. But you are a man right? I don’t want to have to write to any girls cause I have to be around them enough already. Do you like baseball? Or UFC? I’m not allowed to watch UFC, but my mom lets me watch baseball. The Colorado Rockies are my favorite team and I know every stat about them for the last three years. Anyway, I hope your a boy and that you like baseball and that you write me back.

Sincerely,

Hunter Walker

Chapter One

Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Cooper closed his eyes and clenched the armrests as his plane touched down onto the tarmac in Boise. No matter how many times he’d flown to obscure places around the world, he never got used to the steady decline and the rough bounce of the landing. But this time, he felt as if his entire future was skidding toward the edge of the runway.

A couple of months ago, when he’d stormed out of his commanding officer’s makeshift headquarters with Hunter Walker’s letter crumpled in his hand, he’d been mad as hell. He’d been even more pissed off at Dr. Gregson for suggesting he participate in the ridiculous pen pal program and pairing him up with some goofy kid in Nowheresville, Idaho.

As the seat belt light dinged off, Cooper remembered thinking that a Marine Corps base in Afghanistan wasn’t any place for him to be playing nanny-by-mail to some ten-year-old kid with an overprotective mom and no friends. It wasn’t as if Cooper had been some lonely nineteen-year-old infantry grunt who needed a morale boost. He’d been a provost sergeant who’d held some of the deadliest Taliban leaders in custody in the base brig. Before that, he’d been stationed as an MP at bases all over the world. He’d broken up bar fights, investigated assaults and murder, and even gone undercover with NCIS on a few occasions. He had no business being some kid’s babysitter or even worse, male role model.

But now that Cooper’s tour of duty, and possibly his entire military career, was at a sudden end thanks to a random suicide bomber, that same kid and the bond they’d established over emails and letters was the only glimpse of brightness in his dark, lonely future.

As the center aisle of the aircraft filled up with people trying to reclaim their belongings from the overhead bins, Cooper fiddled with his seat belt and longed to stand and stretch out his legs. But his knee was barely being held together with pins and screws, and he would have to wait for the rest of the passengers to disembark the plane before some airline personnel would load him up on a wheelchair and push his useless body out to the baggage claim area.

He hated being weak and was questioning his earlier decision to allow Hunter to see him like this the first time they met. He ached with stiffness, and he was completely exhausted. He’d been traveling on a commercial airline for well over thirty hours now, with layovers in both Tokyo and San Francisco. He’d taken a Vicodin in the Frisco airport an hour before he boarded the last leg of his flight, and now he wondered whether he was in any shape to meet his young pen pal face-to-face.

Or to allow the kid’s mom to drive him to the Shadowview Military Hospital outside of Boise.

Crap. How had he let Hunter talk him into that? Sure, he and the chatty fifth grader had built up quite the steady stream of correspondence when he’d been stationed in Afghanistan, and then later, as he’d been recuperating at the closest base hospital. And although he wasn’t what most people would consider a believer in divine intervention, Cooper had to question the alignment of fate when the doctors in Okinawa told him that the two best options he had to recover the use of his leg would be an intense orthopedic surgery at either Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland or the Shadowview Military Hospital outside of Boise.

Cooper’s distal femur fracture would need to be repaired and healed before they could even think about a total knee replacement. He was looking at a long recovery time and, while he normally didn’t mind his loner lifestyle or the fact that he didn’t have any family to speak of, he figured that if he went to Shadowview, he’d at least be close to Hunter.

How pathetic was that?

He tried to comfort himself with the belief that Hunter needed him. The kid didn’t have any positive male role models, and while the boy’s mom probably loved him, it sounded like Hunter really needed a strong hand to get him in check. What the hell was wrong with the kid’s mother? Putting him in yoga classes and forbidding sports? Who does that to a boy? Guessing by her baking job, she was probably just as out of shape as the kid—if not more so—and too busy working to bother with taking care of her son.

It had been a bone of contention between Cooper and his ex-wife, but one thing Cooper had learned early on in the foster care system was that people shouldn’t be having kids if they were too busy to raise them.

That old familiar pang cramped inside his left rib cage, and he grabbed his backpack from under the seat just to give himself something to do. He winced as the forward movement added pressure to his leg, but the physical pain was at least better than the emotional pain that he’d almost let get the better of him.

There seemed to be some sort of delay exiting the plane because nobody was moving forward. Cooper pulled the printout of one of his past emails from Hunter from his backpack and read it.

To: matthewcooper@usmc.mil

From: hunterlovestherockies@hotmail.net

Re: Surgery

Date: Jan 3

Wow! I can’t believe your actually coming Idaho to have your operation. How long do you have to stay in the hospital? I’ll have my mom and my Gram bring me down every week to visit you. Maybe I can hitchhike rides down the mountain too, when my mom is working. Jake Marconi said he hitchhiked once with his cousin and they went all the way to Winnemucca.

Are you real real worried about your knee? I’d be crazy worried if I were you. They should probably award your dog Helix a purple heart or a navy cross or something for going after that bomber and saving your life like that. Will they let you still be a marine if your knee don’t heal right?

You can still be my pen pal even if they kick you out and you’re not a marine no more. Where will you live when you get out of the hospital?

I went to Hawaii once with Gram. You could live there. Or even better, you could come live HERE. In Sugar Falls. It would be sooooooooo cool if we could hang out all the time. I’d be the only kid in my class to actually meet his real pen pal. I think I’m the only one now to still be getting letters and emails and stuff. Please please please think about living here after you get done at the hospital. I know I said Sugar Falls was dumb and boring, but it’s not really that way if we have each other we can hang out with. We could go fishing and everything.

You could stay with me and my mom. You’ll meet her when we pick you up at the airport to take you to the hospital. She’ll tell you that it’ll be so awesome. Please say yes!

Please.

Hunter

Cooper folded up the paper, and then looked at the standard issue class picture Hunter had sent in his original letter. He almost winced at the chubbiness of the kid’s face. The boy’s mom needed to get him off the cookies and onto a physical regimen, stat. Cooper may have had it rough growing up in a one-bedroom apartment in the slums of Detroit, but at least he’d been in shape and hadn’t taken any crap from the kids on the playground. Of course, taking crap from his stepdad was another thing.

Don’t think about the past. Think about the next step. The old adage he’d learned from his drill instructor had helped him to get past his crappy home life and rise up in the ranks. Even after his injury, he’d repeated the mantra dozens of times and knew that no matter how jacked up his leg was, he was a fighter and would get through this.

Once the surgeries were done, the physical therapy would be intense if Cooper wanted to regain full use of his leg. Maybe he could encourage Hunter to do some exercises with him. Heck, maybe Ms. Walker would be willing to get in shape with them.

The past few weeks, he’d found himself wondering about the boy’s mom more frequently. And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that he’d lost his own mom at the age of twelve and had fantasized about what it would be like to have a real home. And loving parents.

So he’d talked to Hunter to make sure that the mother was okay with their pen pal relationship. He’d never written to the woman directly, nor had Hunter ever sent a picture of her, but Cooper had her pegged all the same. As an MP, he could read between the lines.

He didn’t want to overstep his boundaries or cause problems for the Walkers. But the woman’s world most likely revolved around cookies and not much else. By the time she got around to noticing he was even in her son’s life, Cooper would be long gone.

* * *

“Mom, can’t you make this thing go any faster? Jake Marconi’s dad got a new Porsche, and Jake said it can go like a hundred and sixty miles an hour.”

Maxine Walker shot a glance across the seat at her impressionable son, yet her mind was focused on how quickly she and Hunter could greet his soldier friend at the airport and make it back up to Sugar Falls before dark. She could care less about Jake Marconi’s dad’s latest midlife cry for attention. Besides, they’d gotten another couple inches of snow last night, and she didn’t like this two-lane stretch of highway down the mountain, even in optimal weather.

“Hunter, explain to me why we have to pick this guy up, again? Doesn’t the military provide him transportation to the hospital?”

“I told you. I promised him I’d meet him in person. How would you like to be blown up in a war zone and then fly all the way around the world to some random hospital where you don’t know anybody? He’s a war hero, Mom. It’s our patriotic duty.”

Maxine blew a blond curl out of her eye as she finally turned her SUV off the highway and toward the interstate that would take them toward the Boise Airport. She didn’t need her ten-year-old son to preach to her about patriotic duties. Maxine had grown up on Uncle Sam’s rhetoric. Both of her parents were career Army and had bounced her and her six siblings around from base to base until she finally left for Boise State at eighteen.

“I think you’ve boosted enough troop morale for all of us these past few months, Hunter. Isn’t it enough that I let you keep writing letters to this guy, even though we don’t know anything about him?”

“What are you talking about? I know everything about Cooper. He’s my best friend.”

And that, in a nutshell, explained why Maxine had allowed this unorthodox pen pal relationship to continue. Her heart broke for her son. Back when Hunter was in preschool, and even in kindergarten, all the kids seemed to be on equal ground. But it didn’t take long for social awareness and parental attitudes to filter into the classroom. And, by third grade, Hunter suddenly didn’t mesh very well with the other kids anymore.

At first Maxine had thought it was because of her. The other moms had always seemed to be a little threatened because she’d once been a college cheerleader and still looked the part. Plus, since she was single, she had the feeling that the other women went out of their way to make sure that she never spoke to their husbands alone—or even when under their direct supervision. So she and Hunter were rarely invited to any evening or family activities.

Then, when Maxine launched her cookie shop, she became so busy that she had very little time for playdates or other after-school events that kept all the other kids socially relevant.

She only wished she could keep Hunter as productive as the Sugar Falls Cookie Company. But her once-happy little boy had become increasingly introverted. And, as a result, he’d turned his attention more toward his computer and less toward the natural, outdoorsy life that their small-town community had to offer.

Luckily, she had her best girlfriends and her mother-in-law to help keep her son busy. And recently, she’d hired more employees to help out in the shop, which gave her a little more time for Hunter, although he didn’t seem to want to do anything. But this pen pal business certainly had him perked up, so Maxine jumped on the chance to nurture his enthusiasm.

It was tough enough raising her son alone. Even if Bo hadn’t wrapped his car around a tree in an overinflated exhibition of masculine pride, he probably wouldn’t have stayed around long enough to help her raise Hunter anyway. But still, having to meet her son’s pen pal face-to-face and playing chauffeur to some soldier they’d never met was one of those things no single-mom handbook had ever addressed.

So now she was winging it.

Back in September, she’d glanced at some of their earlier correspondence, if only to make sure this Cooper guy wasn’t some predator or an otherwise bad influence on her sweet-but-naive son. The marine seemed on the up-and-up and she figured the relationship would run its course and fizzle out eventually. She wasn’t happy about this unexpected shift in proximity or the significance Gunnery Sergeant Cooper was now having on both their lives.

Had she really let her son leave school early today for this?

“Did you print out that email with his itinerary?” she asked, wishing she had given this whole airport to hospital run a little more consideration.

“Yeah, here it is.” Hunter’s growing fingers held it under her nose, and she remembered the way she used to kiss those little hands when he was a baby.

She almost missed the exit for the airport.

“Hunter, I’m driving. I can’t read it right this second.”

“Then why’d you ask me for it?”

“I wanted to know the exact flight details.”

“He gets in at one forty-seven.”

“Yeah, you told me that part already when you were practically shoving me out the door. But what airline is he coming in on, and are we supposed to take him straight to the hospital or what?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Maxine leaned her head against the leather headrest and slowly took three deep breaths. What she really wanted to ask was, How do I keep forgetting that you’re only ten and don’t understand the ways of the world? And how do I let you talk me into these kinds of things? But she saw the excitement on her son’s face as he looked at the prized email again. “Just read me what it says.”

To: hunterlovestherockies@hotmail.net

From: matthewcooper@usmc.mil

Re: Itinerary

Date: Jan 6

So my plane gets in on Thursday at 1:47pm. Don’t worry about picking me up or anything. Boise Airport is both a civilian and a military airfield. It has military facilities on-site, so I can arrange for someone from the reserves unit there to take me to Shadowview.

I don’t know what I plan to do after the surgeries are over, but I doubt I’ll get all the way up to Sugar Falls. We’ll just see how my physical therapy goes. I’ll look into getting a stateside cell phone when I arrive, so maybe hold off on calling the hospital for constant updates on my status.

Also, there’s really no need to get me a Boise State T-shirt. Contrary to what you told me, I’m sure I’ll manage to find appropriate Idaho clothes so that I won’t “stick out like boobs on a bowling ball.” You really need to stop repeating the dumb stuff you hear that Jake Marconi kid saying. You don’t want to get your butt kicked by offending someone’s girlfriend.

See you in a few days,

Cooper

“Hunter, that doesn’t tell us anything. We should have checked his flight info. Do we even know if he’s flying on a commercial airline? What if the plane is late? What if the hospital sent an ambulance to pick him up?”

“Then I’ll ride to the hospital in the ambulance with him and you can pick me up there.”

What world was her son living in that he thought she would ever approve of that harebrained idea?

But they had just pulled into the short-term parking area, so she was fully invested at this point and needed to keep her frustration in check.

“Here’s the deal, Hunter. You can meet him. We’ll say hi. But you’re not spending any time alone with him.”

“Mom, c’mon. Miss Gregson’s brother is the military psychologist and personally screened all the marines before they were allowed to write to kids. They’re fighting for our freedom. They’re not weirdos or anything.”

Her sweet son wouldn’t know a weirdo if it jumped out of the Star Wars cantina scene and landed directly in his bed—right next to the wiener dog stuffed animal he still slept with every night.

She turned off the engine and shot him one last look, but he was already climbing into the backseat to retrieve the Welcome Home sign he’d worked on all last night. Then he was out the door and heading toward the arrivals terminal before she thought to ask him to show her a picture of what his pen pal looked like.

* * *

Cooper had barely hoisted the olive-green canvas duffel off the baggage claim conveyor belt and onto the floor beside him when he heard his name being shouted from behind the security guard checking luggage tags. All sound drowned out as a chubby ten-year-old waving a hand-painted poster board sign that said “Welcome Home, Cooper” ran at him.

If he hadn’t set the wheel lock on the wheelchair when the airport personnel had parked him, he suspected the way Hunter launched his thick little body at him would’ve toppled them both over, chair and all. As it was, Cooper’s injured leg screamed in protest at the sudden impact, but his heart leaped in joy at the way the kid’s arms tightened around his neck.

He clung to the short boy dressed in a Colorado Rockies T-shirt, not sure why he was allowing himself to get so emotional in a random airport in the middle of America. Hunter was practically a stranger, yet at that second, he seemed closer to Cooper than anyone else in the world.

At every deployment homecoming he could remember, he’d stood to the side and watched the other marines reunite with their loved ones. He’d never begrudged his fellow soldiers their families or their loving receptions, but it had always made him feel a little... Well, it stirred up an ache somewhere deep inside to know that the only welcome he’d ever get—if he got one at all—was from a USO volunteer doling out a cup of coffee and a smile to anyone wearing a uniform looking the least bit lonely.

Something about squeezing Hunter back just as tightly as he was being embraced felt so right, and it made his eyes water a bit.

He needed to knock off all this sentimental crap. It must be the exhaustion and the jet lag. He ordered himself to man up and not become all weepy in public. Someone might think he was getting teary-eyed, and Cooper never cried. Not since... Well, not since he was practically too young to remember.

“I said you didn’t have to come meet me.” Cooper studied Hunter’s freckled face and huge crooked-toothed grin. No one had ever been this excited to see him before.

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t wait to meet you. I didn’t even sleep last night. I made my mom get me out of class early so we’d be here on time.”

At the mention of Hunter’s mom, Cooper looked to his left and saw a tan pair of cowboy boots. His gaze traveled up the most toned and sexy legs he’d ever seen. Her jeans fit her like a second skin and rode low on her hips, the waist ending just below the hem of her white knitted sweater. Her white down-filled vest didn’t cover up the fact that she had a knockout shape. Her beautiful face was surrounded by a mass of glorious blond curls. His fingers twitched at the thought of running through that silky hair, getting tangled in those...

Man, the image he’d conjured up of a dowdy overweight and overworked cookie baker didn’t fit Maxine Walker one iota. In fact, she was stunning.

For a couple of elevated heartbeats, he hoped she would launch herself into his lap, just as her son had. But even if he’d been wrong about her appearance, Cooper had the woman’s personality pegged right. She just stood to the side, distant and untouchable.

Her feminine hair and clothes gave off a warm impression, but the daintily sweater-clad arms crossed tightly around her midsection signaled she was anything but happy to be there.

Cooper had been in police work long enough to know when someone was trying to size him up for appraisal without actively making eye contact.

He ruffled Hunter’s curly hair as he lifted the boy off his lap, then held out his hand to the woman who’d so obviously decided to close herself off to him. “I’m Matthew Cooper, ma’am.”

Her palm was warm when it finally grasped his and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how it had been snuggled against her slim waist just a second ago. “It’s nice to meet you, Matt. I’m Maxine Walker.”

He hated it when people called him Matt. Nobody but his mom and his childhood social worker had ever called him by his first name. And hearing the intimacy of his name from her lush pink lips would surely be his undoing. “Please, call me Cooper.”

His leg was throbbing. He needed a shave and he had no doubt his eyes reflected his pain and his lack of sleep. Damn this stupid wheelchair and this stupid injury and everything else that suddenly made him feel like less of a man in her presence.

He hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, but he needed to get things in perspective. A single mom with ties to the community—any community—wasn’t for him. And the sooner he made that clear to himself, the better off he’d be.

Unfortunately, his voice came out a bit gruffer than he intended when he said, “You shouldn’t have met me at the airport.”

* * *

At that, Maxine stepped back and recrossed her arms, not sure what to do with her hands. “Well, it’s a little too late for that, now, isn’t it?” She’d driven all the way down the mountain to meet his flight and the man acted as if they were bothering him? What a tool.

A gorgeous, masculine tool with soft green eyes that made her heart bounce around like one of Hunter’s water balloons trapped inside her rib cage.

Even with him seated in the wheelchair, she could see the man was tall and well-built. But just because he was attractive didn’t mean she was any more at ease around him. In fact, that throbbing in her heart had her feeling all kinds of uncomfortable.

She’d already been on edge meeting this Gunny Cooper guy for the first time. And now, as he and Hunter were making a spectacle out of themselves in the middle of the baggage terminal, she didn’t know where to look or where to stand.

One traveler had pulled out a cell phone, probably thinking he was recording some soldier’s emotional homecoming, which meant there would be video footage of them on the internet within hours.

And what was with the “Call me Cooper” line? Could the guy be any more macho? Who went only by their last name? She understood military personnel and people who played team sports often went by their last names, but not in polite society.

Polite society? Geez, now she sounded like her former mother-in-law, Cessy. It was just that she wasn’t Cooper’s teammate or his squad leader.

Why was she already so damn frustrated, anyway? She wasn’t annoyed with him for being in town or even for not communicating with her about the whole transportation plan. She wasn’t even annoyed with him for having such broad shoulders or piercing eyes or hands that had made her own feel small and delicate.

Okay, so maybe that bugged her a little bit.

But hugging her son as if he were a loving father returned from the battle? Come on. Hunter was her child. She’d birthed him and raised him, and this testosterone-fueled stranger was acting as if he loved the boy more than she did.

“I just meant that I didn’t want to be a bother or inconvenience anyone,” he said as he reached up to ruffle Hunter’s curly head again.

How could she detest someone who looked at her son with such affection? Why couldn’t he have just said that in the first place instead of being so abrasive?

“Don’t be crazy,” Hunter said. “Of course I was going to be here to meet my best friend for the first time. I told my mom that I didn’t care if she grounded me or if I had to ride my bike all the way down the mountain, but I was going to be here when your plane landed. No matter what.”

“Sounds like your mom has her hands full with you, kiddo.” The man helped Hunter as the boy struggled to lift the weight of the Marine Corps–issued duffel bag.

Did he just imply that Maxine couldn’t handle her own child? Her eyes narrowed at the remark.

“Hunter, leave his bag alone. It’s way too heavy for you.” She didn’t want Hunter dropping the guy’s luggage and breaking something valuable. All she needed was a lawsuit.

“Oh, he’s a tough kid, Mom. He can do it.” Cooper smiled at Hunter. Wait. Had a grown man just called her Mom? Of all the patronizing insults! And was he purposely trying to override her authority with her own son? She’d hardly said anything at all to him. So why was the guy being so antagonistic?

Before Maxine could protest, Cooper began maneuvering his wheelchair himself as Hunter matched his wheeled pace toward the taxi stand, forcing her to trail behind, which probably suited Mr. Marine just fine. If he could’ve actually walked, he probably would’ve been leaping into a cab by now since he seemed so intent on getting away from her.

“Uh, hey guys,” she called out as her boot heels clicked on the floor as she jogged to catch up with them. “Where are you going? What’s the plan?”

Cooper used his hands to stop the wheels, then tried to execute some sort of turning maneuver, probably so he could face her. But he must not have been as experienced as he’d hoped because the brake handle caught midturn and it took him a few good thwacks to disengage it.

It served the show-off right.

“Well, I’m supposed to report to Shadowview by fifteen hundred hours so I can complete my admission paperwork. They said they’d send an ambulance to transport me, but I’m feeling fine so I think I’ll just hail a cab.”

The gray pallor of his skin was heightened by dark stubble along his jawline, and the man looked anything but robust. In fact, he looked as if he was in a world of pain. Of course, being the macho marine he clearly thought he was, he’d probably rather pass out or die before admitting it to her. She almost whipped out her phone to call for an ambulance right then and there, but her son’s words interrupted her.

“You don’t need to take a cab,” Hunter told him. “My mom’s car is super roomy. And since you can sit up just fine, you can ride with us. We’ll take you to the hospital. Besides, it’s on the way to Sugar Falls anyway.”

No, no, no. Please say no, she willed him.

The man who called himself by his last name finally got his chair turned around just then and squinted those green eyes at her, as if trying to decipher the workings of her innermost thoughts. He must have read her mind because he lifted the corner of his mouth in a smirk that seemed to issue a challenge, and replied, “You know what, Hunter, that’s a good point. I’d appreciate the lift.”

Seriously? There was no way Cooper could possibly believe hitching a ride up the winding mountain road with her and her chatterbox son would be a wise decision. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t like her, so why would he want to confine himself in a vehicle with her for the next thirty minutes? Unless, of course, he was accepting the invitation—which Hunter had no business offering—just to rattle her.

Maxine decided then and there that Cooper had to be the most contrary man she’d ever met. And the most attractive. But she’d never let him know that. And she’d be damned if she would let him think he was making her uncomfortable. Instead, she’d play the game his way. And she’d do it better.

Just in case he planned to stick around after his recovery—God forbid—then it was better to put him in his place now and let him know that she was calling the shots. It was petty and childish, for sure...but Gunny Heartthrob had started it.

She pulled the keys out of her purse and dangled them as she said, “Great, then it’s all settled. I hope you don’t mind women drivers.”

Chapter Two

Maxine had barely driven away from the Shadowview Military Hospital when Hunter started in on all of his upcoming plans to visit his pen-pal-turned-best-friend. She nodded her head and made noncommittal “hmm” sounds every few minutes, but her teeth made deep indentations along her tongue as she kept herself from discrediting the man to his number one fan. She didn’t want Hunter to get his hopes up, and prayed he would lose interest in his new hero by the time Cooper got his discharge papers.

When the boy’s chattering finally slowed, she cranked up the radio volume, hoping the preprogrammed Motown station would get her back to her normally cheerful and positive self. But hearing The Miracles sing about really having a hold on her just hit too close to home. She reached out her hand to turn off the song, then froze, determined not to allow Cooper to have any type of hold on her.

Sweet mercy, even thinking the man’s name made her chest pound again. The guy was so beat up he could hardly write his signature on the admission forms, and Maxine experienced a twinge of regret for pushing him and that derelict airport-issued wheelchair to the limits when she’d quickened her steps and had forced his well-muscled arms to match her quick pace as they’d exited the baggage claim area. Really, though, it was his own fault for being so competitive—like every other male she knew—and refusing to let some female, even one who ran several miles a day, leave him in the dust.

Now, the closer she drove toward home, the more convinced she became that Cooper might not have been that much of a macho jerk if he’d been feeling better. So then why had she allowed him to get her so flustered? She tried to think of all the tidbits of information Hunter had told her about the marine these past few months. But her son usually talked nonstop, like he was doing now, and she figured it would just be easier to wait until Hunter went out with his grandmother tonight, and then go back and read the letters.

After all, it wasn’t as if their correspondence was a secret. He’d shown the letters to her before—repeatedly. She just hadn’t thought they’d been that important at the time and hadn’t given them more than a passing glance. She pulled into her parking spot in the alley behind the Sugar Falls Cookie Company. Thank goodness her bakery closed every day at three o’clock. As soon as Hunter left for his regular Thursday night outing, she could slip right up to their renovated apartment upstairs and pour herself a glass of wine. Or a bottle.

“Your grandmother is going to be here to pick you up any minute. Take your backpack inside, then run up and change into that new sweater she bought you.”

“Mom, that sweater is a joke,” Hunter said as he got out of the car and followed her inside the cool and quiet industrial-sized kitchen. “It’s way too small and it has a picture of a bear throwing a football on the front. I can’t wear that around town.”

“Sweetie, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do to make other people in our lives happy.” Like drive an hour to the airport to pick up an injured and cranky marine we’ve just met, then get insulted by his high-handed manliness as I drive him to the hospital—just to see my son smile.

“Fiiine. Hey, I can’t wait to tell Gram all about meeting Cooper. She said she’d drive me down to Shadowview to visit him after he has his surgery. And Aunt Kylie saw his picture and said he was a hottie. I bet she’d give me a ride to visit him, too. He’s single, so maybe they could even go on a date or something when he gets all better.”

A prickle of jealousy rose up along Maxine’s spine. Her best friend Kylie was beautiful, and she did have an eye for the men. But the thought of her dating Cooper didn’t sit well. Not that Maxine had any claim on the man. Heck, she wouldn’t wish his grumpy bad attitude on anyone.

“I’ll take you to see him, honey. You don’t need to bother Gram or Aunt Kylie with that. Let’s just wait and see how his surgeries go and what the doctors say before you make any plans to go visit. Besides, you have school and lots of other stuff you need to take care of first.”

“Other stuff like what, Mom? I don’t have any friends besides Jake. And it’s not like you’re going to let me play baseball this year, either.”

“Hunter!” Maxine was tired of being made to look like the bad guy. “It’s not like you’re banned from sports or exercise. You could go running with me every afternoon. Or you could play tennis with Gram. And I bought you that Wii U sports game. I totally believe in exercising. We’ve been over this. I just don’t want you playing contact sports or getting a big ego the way most athletes do. There’s so much more to life than sports.”

“Not to your dad, there wasn’t,” a sugary voice singsonged as the back door closed.

Maxine cringed as Cessy Walker, her former mother-in-law and Bo Walker’s biggest fan, came strolling into the bakery to add her customary two cents.

“Your father loved football more than anything,” Cessy added.

He definitely loved the game more than his wife and son, Maxine thought, with Bo’s popularity coming in a close second. But she focused her attention on the woman who’d just entered the cookie shop.

Maxine nodded toward the stairway leading to their living quarters above the bakery. “Hunter, run upstairs to the apartment and change clothes. We can talk more about this when you come home tonight.”

When she saw Cessy’s gaze follow Hunter, she crossed her arms over her rib cage to hold her jittery emotions in check. No matter how helpful her mother-in-law was, the woman had a tendency to be every bit as overpowering as her perfume and opinions. Also, Maxine wasn’t sure what Cessy already knew about the whole pen pal situation, but one thing she could count on was that Hunter’s grandmother wouldn’t like him having any heroes other than Bodrick “Bo” Walker, the legendary Sugar Falls High School quarterback and Boise State second-string tight end.

“Those Hudson Jeans look good on you,” Cessy told Maxine. “I knew they would. I’ll get you another pair when I go into the city next week.”

“Thanks, but you don’t need to do that. I don’t need anything else. Really. You buy me and Hunter enough as it is.” Maxine didn’t have the heart to tell Cessy that with her cookie business booming the way it was, she probably now brought in more income than Cessy’s monthly alimony checks and stock dividends combined.

“Honey, Bo wouldn’t want his wife and only son running around in clothes off the discount store clearance racks.”

In the zinger department, this was point one for Cessy. Maxine knew her mother-in-law wasn’t trying to be insulting, but apparently the woman couldn’t help sounding a little, well, snobbish.

“Besides,” Cessy added, “I love doing this for you two. I’m the only family you have around.”

Point two. Cessy always seemed to find ways to remind Maxine that she wasn’t able to stay in frequent contact with her own scattered family.

When Hunter came back downstairs, pulling on the too-short waistband of the hated bear sweater, Maxine said, “Be good tonight for Gram.”

Cessy ushered the boy out the back door and into her brand-new red Lexus. Her former mother-in-law got a new car every year, even though she was no longer married to the dealership’s owner. Maxine suspected that a yearly lease was part of her last divorce settlement.

“And wear your seat belt,” she added. “No TV or screen time tonight until you finish your homework.”

Sometimes it seemed as though Maxine was constantly issuing orders, and it didn’t sit well with her. She feared it was a residual from her days as a military brat. Maybe she shouldn’t worry so much about Hunter. He was a good kid.

“Mom, I got it,” Hunter said. “Stop stressing about me.” Still, he lifted his head so she could drop a goodbye kiss on his cheek.

“Have him home before bedtime,” Maxine called out, but nobody in the Lexus seemed to hear her over the Barry Manilow CDs Cessy played constantly at high decibels.

As Maxine stood in the doorway, watching them drive away, a wave of loneliness swept over her. In the early mornings, when it was still dark outside, she loved the solitude as she creamed the butter and sugar in the warm industrial bakery kitchen, no sounds intruding to penetrate her thoughts. But she hated the empty feeling that engulfed her when that same silence enveloped her in the afternoons and evenings, when the outside sounds were a constant buzz of activity and a reminder that families everywhere were coming together to share the ups and downs of their days.

Normally, she would run upstairs to change into her workout clothes. She and her two best friends, Kylie and Mia, had a standing yoga date every Thursday evening. Afterward, they would have a dish session over dinner at their favorite local Italian place. She might not have the family home life she had always hoped for, but she’d sure done a fabulous job of creating a different sort of family—even if it was nontraditional.

However, now that she had met Cooper in person, her girlfriends would have to wait. Or she could call them and have them meet her here for an emergency strategy session.

She checked her watch. She had time to read just a few letters, so she went straight toward Hunter’s room. On the bulletin board above his desk, she recognized the photo she hadn’t given a second thought to when it’d arrived with the initial letter. In his camouflage uniform and helmet, he looked just like any other marine on duty.

But at some point in the past few months, that picture had been affixed right on top of an old copy of the Sugar Falls Advocate article Cessy had given her grandson about high school tight end Bo Walker.

Cessy wouldn’t like that placement too much.

A stack of APO addressed envelopes sat in a loose pile on top of the Harry Potter book that the school library had called about last week. Hunter had assured her he’d returned it on time, but maybe Maxine should’ve been checking his desk more often.

When she was one of seven siblings growing up in the cramped quarters of base housing, she’d promised herself that when she had kids of her own, they’d have privacy. She’d respect their boundaries.

But this was different. Wasn’t it? She had a parental obligation to learn more about who her son wanted to spend time with. Besides, it wasn’t as if Hunter kept to himself about these things. If it were up to him, he’d be shouting from the Victorian rooftops along Snowflake Boulevard about being the fifth grader with the coolest pen pal.

She looked at the postmarks until she found the one dated in September. That must be the first one. There was a picture still inside the envelope. She pulled out the photo and studied the desert camouflage of his uniform and the high and tight haircut of his dark hair. She’d seen enough military uniforms to last her a lifetime. Soldiers usually all looked the same to her. But the guy kneeling next to the dog seemed different. Maybe because she’d already seen that handsome face and strong jaw in person.

He wasn’t smiling in the shot, but his arm was looped around the neck of a shaggy red dog, and his black Ray Bans were propped on his forehead. Something about the sadness in the marine’s eyes called out to her, and she fingered the photo along the hardened chin as if she could force him to smile.

There was a loneliness reflected in his gaze that struck something deep inside her. Gunny Sergeant Matthew Cooper, huh? She pulled out the letter and started reading.

28 Sept.

Dear Hunter,

I’m a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps and I work as an MP, which is military police. I don’t fly jets or drive tanks, but I do have my own patrol Humvee and get to arrest terrorists and other soldiers who break the laws. I enclosed a picture of me with Helix, a stray dog my squadron adopted off the streets of Helmand province. I’m trying to train him to be a K9, but he doesn’t seem to want to do anything but eat MREs and hide under my bunk to sleep.

I’m impressed with your knowledge of assault aircraft and vehicles. Does your mom know you research all this? Also, I doubt your friend Jake’s cousin is a real fighter pilot if he is in the Coast Guard. That branch of the military doesn’t use those kinds of jets. Plus, it takes a long time to become a pilot, and 18 seems a bit young. Sometimes, kids make things seem bigger and better so they can show off to other kids.

Let’s see, some of the other stuff you asked about me... I’m a man, I like baseball, but I played more basketball when I was in school because I grew up in Michigan, and there were more hoops around my neighborhood. Plus, playing basketball was free. When I watch baseball, I like the Detroit Tigers best, but I don’t know much of their stats. I don’t really like the UFC. I’ve seen enough fighting in my life that I don’t want to watch it for fun.

I guess it would be pretty cool to have a mom who makes so many cookies, but I hope you eat lots of healthy foods, too. You said your mom doesn’t let you play sports, but remember that as a growing boy, you still need to get exercise in some way. We marines are required to keep fit every day. It’s called PT—physical training.

Take care,

GySgt Cooper

Maxine read that first letter, then a few of the others, before taking a break to run out to the kitchen to pour a glass of chardonnay. Together, the letters gave her a little more insight to the man who would take the time to train a stray dog and write regularly to a fatherless boy.

She brought the wine back to Hunter’s room and set her glass next to the keyboard. Hunter had asked permission to email Cooper back in November and Maxine had given her blessing, knowing that she could monitor the emails easily with the parental control program she’d installed. Even though she felt like a voyeur spying on their relationship, she had to remind herself that Hunter would’ve been willing to show her the correspondence, had she not wanted to be alone to mull over everything.

After minimizing the screen, she scrolled through all the prior email attachments that had pictures of Cooper. One of the photos showed him holding some type of foil-wrapped food package above his head. A dog—not Helix—was jumping vertically into the air trying to get it. He was laughing at the dog, his mouth open and head thrown back.

From what Maxine had pieced together from the emails, the man had recently lost his dog in some type of bombing incident. Poor guy.

She scrolled through a few more and paused at one of the shots of him not wearing his customary sunglasses. She had to admit that he was good-looking in a tough, military sort of way.

Who was she kidding? The man was good-looking just off his long flight with beard stubble, jet lag and a bum leg. Of course he’d be even more handsome in uniform. She’d never been attracted to those types, though. They represented everything she’d tried to get away from during her childhood.

But somehow Cooper seemed different. He didn’t really look as if he fit the military mold despite the regulation haircut. And mercy, Kylie was right—he really was hot. His running shorts showed off tan, well-muscled legs. She could see the outline of his washboard abs through his beige T-shirt.

It could just be the wine warming her up, but something pulsed in her lower lady parts. She hadn’t experienced any pulsing down there in a long time, and she was uncomfortable with it. Maybe because it was a complete stranger who was making her feel this way. Or maybe because she was getting slightly turned on by his photos while sitting in her son’s room surrounded by Angry Birds posters and Lego sets.

She needed to get ahold of herself. Or go out on a date once in a while.

Just then, a text message popped up on her smartphone. Kylie was running late and Mia’s knee was too sore for yoga. Maxine took another sip of wine. She could either back out of their dinner plans now and sit in front of Hunter’s computer screen staring at Gunny Heartthrob, or she could walk down the street and meet her friends at Patrelli’s for pizza and another glass of wine.

Her nerves won out and she grabbed her heavy jacket off the coatrack and practically ran out the door, trying to get as far away from her thoughts as she could.

* * *

To: hunterlovestherockies@hotmail.net

From: matthewcooper@usmc.mil

Re: Star Wars

Date: Jan 25

Hunter,

First of all, the femoral surgery went well. Dr. McCormick is supposed to be the top orthopedic surgeon in the Navy, and he expects me to recover quickly and undergo the knee replacement surgery just as well.

Second of all, Han Solo is in no way “more awesomer” than Luke Skywalker. You can’t even compare the two. Han Solo is a smuggler. He isn’t even a Jedi. Also, Luke is royalty, and he went through a lot of training. Han doesn’t even have a light saber.

Third of all, I’m still learning to use Skype and I’m not used to it yet. And you have to promise that you’ll get your mom’s permission before we start talking on the computer like that.

Speaking of your mom, please thank her for sending that box of her cookies. When I shared them with all the guys on my floor, I was more popular than PFC Spooner, whose dad sends him magazines with— Well, I’ll tell you about those when you’re older.

I got the list you sent me with the names of every local police department that is hiring. I’m really not sure if I’m going to try to be a civvie cop. And I’m definitely not going to love Idaho “the way a drunk loves a martini.” Does Jake Marconi even know what a martini is? Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on when I can start having visitors.

Cooper

Cooper hadn’t been lying to the kid. The surgery really had gone pretty well. It was too soon to tell if he’d make enough of a recovery to reenlist, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Hunter that there was no way he planned to stay in Idaho permanently.

It was bad enough that he’d been putting off Hunter’s visit, but, honestly, he didn’t know if he could handle being around Maxine Walker again. The woman had brought out the worst in him that day at the baggage claim area, and it had been all he could take when she’d had to help lift him out of the airport-issued wheelchair and into her car.

She’d smelled as incredible as she looked. And the drive to the hospital had been just as intense as the woman’s forced smile when Hunter had insisted on waiting for the admission paperwork to be completed and for the nurse to wheel him away to the orthopedic wing.

He didn’t look forward to having to endure Maxine’s stiff presence, but at the same time, he couldn’t wait to see her again. To smell her again. Hell, to feel her hands on him again—even if it meant asking her to help him get out of this damn hospital bed to hit the head.

A light blinked on the bottom of his open laptop and he pulled the wheeled tray table closer to him.

He was receiving a Skype call from Dr. Gregson. The damn shrink was the one to blame for the whole mess. Back in September, Gregson had gone right over Cooper’s head and his objections. He’d purposely sought out Cooper’s commander to force him to participate in the pen pal program, knowing full well the honor-bound marine couldn’t refuse a direct order.

As Cooper clicked on the mouse to connect their call, he had a lot more than some soul cleansing to discuss. There was hell to pay.

“Gregson,” he bellowed, when the counselor’s grainy image jumped onto his screen.

“How’d the surgery go, Gunny?”

Cooper relayed what Dr. McCormick had told him, including the part that his leg would never be 100 percent.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I know the Corps was your life.”

“Yeah, well...” he cursed, though it hardly raised one of Dr. Gregson’s eyebrows.

“Language, Gunny.”

“Do you have to be such a sainted do-gooder all the time?”

“Do you have to be so cranky and miserable all the time? Here I thought you’d like Shadowview, being close to your pen pal and all that.”

“That’s another thing, Gregson. I’m still pissed about that whole program. I told you I didn’t want to play pen pal to some kid. And yet you went up my chain of command and had me ordered to participate? You made me look like a loose cannon to Colonel Filden. And now he, and probably everybody else in my unit, thinks I’m some lonely PTSD candidate who needed a damn morale boost.”

The only man Cooper had opened up to in his almost sixteen years in the Corps now sat behind a web cam with a self-righteous smirk on his saintly face. Gregson might make a good psychologist, but he was too softhearted to be a marine in a combat zone.

“I gave you the opportunity to accept graciously, Coop. You forced me to take it up with Colonel Filden.”

It was hard to stay angry at Gregson when he simply sat there, passively and politely nodding his head and listening to Cooper’s heated argument. Did they teach shrinks to smile and nod like that in grad school?

“Why are you still so upset about that?” Gregson asked. “What else did you have to do when you were off duty? You never associated with any of your fellow troops. And you never went anywhere besides the chow hall and the weight room. And look at what you got out of the program.”

“The decision should have been mine to make.” Cooper tried to scratch under the bandage covering his recent incision. He knew Gregson was right and that meeting Hunter had been exactly what Cooper needed in his life at the time. Hell, his letters and emails with the boy were the only thing that got him through the aftermath of that explosion at the base, followed by a helo evac to Okinawa, where he’d had to stay while his body and leg stabilized enough to fly back to the States for surgery. If it hadn’t been for Gregson, Cooper wouldn’t have Hunter in his life.

Nor would his pain-addled mind be hosting those damn dreams of wrapping Maxine’s sexy blond curls around his fingers. Being laid up in the hospital was making him stir-crazy and had his emotions spinning all over the place. Logically, he knew this situation that he’d landed in wasn’t Gregson’s fault, but the fact remained that his leg hurt, his pride hurt and he wanted to be mad at someone.

But Gregson didn’t get riled. Instead, he changed the subject. “So when the knee replacement surgery is over, how long will it take to recover?”

“I’ll stay in the hospital for a couple more weeks, doing rehab, and then they’ll release me to go home, provided I come in for regular physical therapy sessions. But that could take weeks.”

“Where would you stay?”

“I don’t know. I guess a motel somewhere. Or I could probably rent a furnished apartment. I’m just trying to take everything one day at a time.” Gregson knew enough about Cooper’s background that he didn’t have to expand on the fact that he didn’t really have a home to go to. Even the apartment he’d once lived in as a boy never felt like a home since his mom had died and his stepdad never wanted him around. When Cooper had been married to Lindsay, she’d tried to make their tiny house on base a home, but it just always seemed so forced—as if they were just playing house. He was always more comfortable being on deployment than living with her, which was probably why their marriage didn’t last.

“You know, my family lives in Boise. We have a cabin up in Sugar Falls you could use.”

“I’ve got news for you, Gregson. Spending time in your quaint little vacation hideaway isn’t going to give me back anything I’ve lost.”

“Well, if you’re going to keep your expectations low, you might as well do it in Sugar Falls, where it’ll be more comfortable than some no-tell motel. Use the cabin, let your knee heal and think about your options if you can’t reenlist. What are you so afraid of?”

Cooper bristled at the implication that he was afraid of anything. He had both a silver star and a purple heart to prove otherwise, and Gregson knew it. But Sugar Falls meant seeing Maxine on a regular basis and Cooper was smart enough to understand that hiding out in enemy territory wasn’t brave, it was downright foolish.

“Forget the reverse psychology crap,” he told the doctor. “I know they teach that BS in shrink school and Terrorist Interviewing 101, but it won’t work on me.”

“You and I both know the real reason you don’t want to spend any time with the kid. You don’t want to risk getting close to anyone. It might mean creating a crack in your hard shell of a heart.”

Cooper gritted his teeth at the unwelcome analysis, his jaw fixed even harder than his alleged heart at that moment. Hell, he wasn’t even a patient of Gregson’s. The only thing they had in common was a proclivity for using the weight room after everyone else in their units had hit the rack.

When Cooper didn’t respond, Gregson continued. “You know, maybe if you would’ve had a positive male role model back when you were a fatherless fifth grader, it wouldn’t have stunted your emotional and social growth.”

“Yeah, and maybe if you’d had a date or two while studying for your PhD, it wouldn’t have stunted your ability to get laid.” Cooper slammed the laptop closed.

“Uh, hello?” a feminine voice asked from behind the curtained partition that barely provided any privacy from the busy hospital floor.

“Yeah?” Cooper responded as he used the trapeze handle to lift himself up into a better position on the narrow bed.

Right before his brain registered the owner of the voice, Maxine Walker’s very pretty face peeked around the curtain and her large blue eyes locked on to his. “Are we disturbing anything?”

He practically knocked the tray table over in his haste to pull the bed sheet over his exposed legs. Damn these short hospital gowns.

What was she doing here? And how much of his conversation had she just heard?

“Uh, no. I was just talking on Skype with my buddy and uh...” He trailed off as she lifted a perfectly arched eyebrow at the closed laptop. “What are you doing here?”

There he went again with that gruff accusatory tone, the defensive one he found himself reverting to whenever he was in an uncomfortable situation. He saw the ugly little cellophane-wrapped plant in her hands and tried to force his lips into a smile so he wouldn’t seem like the world’s biggest bastard for barking at her in such an ungrateful way.

“Hunter said you could have visitors, so I brought him down and...” She paused as her gaze swiveled around the room and then behind her into the corridor, as if she’d lost something. “Well, he was with me just a second ago. Maybe I should go find him.”

She turned to walk out, and he pulled himself up as if he could will his useless body to physically stop her from leaving. “Wait, you don’t have to go. I mean, I’m sure he just got distracted and will be along any minute.” Cooper nodded his head toward the wilted green thing in the plastic pot. “Is that for me?”

“Oh, this? It’s just a little something to cheer up your room.” She walked toward the small window and set the plant on a bare cabinet, causing some curling leaves to fall off their stems.

He’d seen interrogation huts in third world countries more cheerful than that dying shrub. But he thanked her all the same.

“So, the surgery went okay?” Now that her hands were empty, she’d reverted back to that same stance she’d displayed at the airport—arms crossed tightly across her torso.

“I guess so. One down and one to go. I guess the real recovery will start after that.”

“Hey,” Hunter interrupted, as he finally breezed in past the curtain. “There’s a guy down the hall with the coolest robot legs, and they have him doing jumping jacks and leg squats and all kinds of things. He showed me how the new joints are like titanium-powered springs, and now he’s like an incredible bionic man. Maybe they’ll give you some legs like that, Coop.”

As exciting as the kid made it sound, Cooper needed the reminder that he was lucky to still have all of his own limbs. A lot of soldiers had injuries so much worse than his. “I don’t know, little man. I’m kinda attached to these legs right here.” Cooper patted the sheet that he’d finally gotten into place.

“Can I see your stitches?”

“Hunter.” Maxine blushed, and Cooper enjoyed seeing the pink flush stain her cheeks. It made her seem warmer somehow. “Leave his bandage alone. He probably needs his rest.”

“I’m okay,” he said, wanting to reassure Maxine that her son didn’t bother him in the least. He pulled the sheet back so Hunter could get his curiosity fix.

“Oh, wow, they had to shave your leg and everything. Just like a girl.” Hunter screwed up his chubby little face in disgust. “Dr. McCormick didn’t tell me about that part.”

“When did you talk to my surgeon?” Cooper asked. Maxine’s puzzled expression must have matched his own.

“When I called him yesterday to ask how your surgery went and to see when we could come visit. He said today was fine, so Mom brought me down.”

Maxine raised her shoulders and shook her head, as if to tell him she had no idea her ten-year-old son was capable of navigating his way through a busy hospital’s switchboards and acquiring confidential patient information. But Cooper wasn’t the least bit surprised. In fact, he wouldn’t put it past Hunter to know what he’d had for breakfast, how many times the nurses had changed his IV bag and when his next sponge bath was scheduled.

Looking at Maxine, whose arms were now akimbo in confusion, and whose perfectly formed breasts were on proud display under her snug white cotton top, he couldn’t help but wish that she could be the one to assist him at bath time.

“I brought you my Lord of the Rings DVD series.” Hunter’s voice brought Cooper back to reality. “My mom got you that plant. It looked better when she picked it out in the grocery store, but Gram says Mom has a black thumb and kills everything she touches.”

“Well, it’s the thought that counts,” Cooper said, trying to muster up something positive to say. He couldn’t very well agree with Hunter’s grandmother, could he?

“Now you sound like Mom when she makes me wear the stupid clothes Gram picks out.”

The little white phone by his bedside rang just then, and before Coop could move, Hunter jumped to answer it. “Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Cooper’s room.”

“Sorry,” Maxine whispered as her son spoke into the corded receiver. “I thought you were the one who told him he could visit. I didn’t know he was calling your doctor directly.”

“It’s okay,” Cooper whispered back, actually surprised by how much seeing them both had boosted his spirits.

“Yeah, he’s right here.” Hunter spoke with the importance of an adjutant screening a four-star general’s call. “But he still has the same ole boring human legs. Okay, hold on, Colonel Filden.”

Cooper grabbed the phone from Hunter’s hand and covered the mouthpiece as he spoke to his guests. “Thanks for coming to visit, but I have to take this call.”

“Okay, I’ll come back in a couple of days,” Hunter promised, but Maxine shook her head at the boy while attempting to quietly lead him out of the room.

He hoped they understood that he wasn’t trying to dismiss them out of rudeness. But this was possibly the call that would decide his entire future. And no matter how cool Hunter was—or how pretty his mom—Coop wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of here, stat.

Chapter Three

“Hello, sir,” Cooper finally said into the receiver once he knew Maxine and Hunter were well on their way down the hall.

The men exchanged general pleasantries for all of twenty seconds before his commanding officer finally cut to the chase.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Filden said. “They’re not needing as many soldiers, and they’re getting real stingy with the retirement pay. Your record speaks for itself. You’re a phenomenal marine. An asset to the squadron. Your men respect you and look up to you. I did my best to push for your reenlistment, but it doesn’t look good. Hell, if it were up to me, you would’ve been promoted to First Sergeant after your last deployment. But when you add this new injury to the mix, there’s just no way the government is willing to take the gamble. Anyway, nothing’s official yet, but I figured I’d give you a heads-up so you could start thinking about your future and any possibilities that may arise.”

The itch near Cooper’s incision flared up, and he wanted to throw the phone across the room and rip his bandage off. But he took the conversation like a man. As much as Cooper hated hearing the truth, he was grateful the colonel wasn’t shining him on. “I appreciate your candor, sir.”

“You’re made for police work, Gunny. And right now, just about every major department and agency stateside is hiring cops. I’m just saying it’s not a bad idea to put some feelers out. See if there’s anything open in your hometown.”

“Yes, sir,” Cooper said, knowing full well he’d never step foot in his old neighborhood if he could help it. The truth of the matter was that Cooper didn’t have a home, let alone a hometown. Nor did he have anyone he could talk to about what his options were.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything different,” Filden added. “But a marine is always ready for anything, right?”

“Right, sir. Semper Fi.”

Cooper was almost surprised at the gentle way he eased the receiver down. Probably because he’d never wanted to throw anything so badly in his life.

So there it was. One minute he’d been out for a jog along the base perimeter with his dog, Helix. The next minute, a sixteen-year career in the Corps was gone in the flash of a detonated suicide bomb strapped to some poor insurgent’s chest.

* * *

To: matthewcooper@usmc.mil

From: hunterlovestherockies@hotmail.net

Re: Surgery

Date: March 1

I didn’t know that Miss Gregson’s family has a cabin up here in Sugar Falls. That’s so cool that they’re letting you stay in it when you get out of the hospital. I still think you should stay with me and my mom so we can take care of you and make sure you don’t fall or bust your knee back open. But at least we’ll be close enough to see each other every day.

How long are you going to be able to stay? I know you’re bummed about being discharged from the marines, but there are some real great cop jobs all over Idaho. Did you check out any of those applications I printed out for you?

Anyway, me and my mom will pick you up on Sunday and give you a ride to the cabin. Or to our house if you get smart and change your mind. And don’t forget, you’re gonna play catch with me when your leg is better.

See ya,

Hunter

No! No, no, no.

What had Hunter done?

He’d left his computer on when he’d gone to Boise with Cessy to see the latest superhero movie, and Maxine had only come in to collect the smelly socks and inside-out pants that were piling up in the corner.

But his laptop screen was open to his outbox and she soon realized the perfect small town world she’d created for herself and her son was about to change.

She went to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of barbecue potato chips before coming back to Hunter’s room to reread the email her son had sent that afternoon.

For years, people had been telling her that Hunter needed a positive male role model in his life. She knew some manly influence wasn’t necessarily a cause for alarm, but she wanted to be the one to decide who exerted that influence.

And now Hunter had invited this jerk to their hometown to recover from his surgery. He’d even volunteered her to pick the guy up at the hospital! She should have grounded him after that airport ride stunt, because apparently the boy hadn’t learned his lesson.

Geez, what should she do? She wanted to call someone to ask for advice, but who?

Her friend Mia understood kids. But Mia had a late-night dance class. Kylie was probably on a date, and Cessy’s advice was never an option, even if her mother-in-law wasn’t with Hunter. It sucked that her son certainly didn’t have a father she could share her parenting concerns with.

That was probably the reason Hunter had gotten into this situation in the first place. No father figure. And no matter how hard Maxine had tried to be both mom and dad, she must not have pulled it off. There was obviously something lacking in Hunter’s life that drew him to some random soldier like a heat-seeking missile.

After the day that Cooper had shooed them out of his room to take a phone call, she vowed she wouldn’t put herself in the same room as the marine again. And she hadn’t. Each time she’d taken Hunter to visit, which had been every week for over a month, she would walk the boy to Cooper’s room and then wait for her son out in the small lobby near the nurses’ station.

Just then, a window flashed in the bottom of the screen, signaling an incoming Skype call from Cooper.

She wanted to close the lid, but she couldn’t avoid the guy any longer. It would be better to get this matter settled before Gunny Heartthrob muscled his way into her their everyday lives. Her fingers paused over the mouse before she slowly moved it to the box and clicked.

The chat screen shot to life and Maxine was immediately faced with a live version of her son’s pen pal soldier.

“Hey, kid.” The grainy image displayed the same lonely eyes she’d seen in that one picture, but his head was lying back against a white sheet on a hospital bed. That is, until he braced himself up on his elbow, narrowed his eyes and gazed into the screen. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hi. Hunter’s out. I was just in his room, uh, cleaning.” Geez, she sounded as lame as she looked. In the small box in the corner, Maxine recognized herself, with her curly blond hair pulled messily into a ponytail on top of her head.

Was that how she really looked on a webcam? She should’ve put on some lip gloss instead of going for the chips. Speaking of which, she slowly slid the now-empty bag out of view from the camera.

Of course, Cooper looked great. He was 100 percent male and even in a hospital bed, he was still as gorgeous as hell. She didn’t need him running around her town all healthy and virile.

Ugh. She needed to get a grip. And not just of the rustling bag that was teetering precariously off the edge of the desk.

“So, I hear you’re getting discharged soon,” she said, when it appeared that Cooper wasn’t going to start the conversation.

“Yep. I was trying to stay in until I could retire, but I guess...stuff happens.” He appeared to lose his balance and cursed, then looked a little embarrassed. “Look, I don’t usually cuss like that in front of your son. Seeing you on my screen just kind of caught me...ah...off guard.”

This was her opportunity to tell him that this whole Sugar Falls visit had caught her off guard and wasn’t such a great idea. But at that exact moment, Hunter walked into the room.

She hadn’t even heard him enter the apartment because she’d been staring so intently at Coop’s beard stubble and wondering what it would feel like rubbing against her...

Whoa. She was not going there. Especially now that her son was present.

“Oh, cool, you’re talking to Cooper. Hey, Coop, are you coming to Sugar Falls?”

Maxine hadn’t even had the chance to cast her son a reprimanding look before Hunter leaned over, and then practically crawled over her to get in view of the tiny webcamera.

“What’s up, little man?” It was hard to register on the megapixels blurring on the screen, but she was sure that the look in Cooper’s eye softened when he saw Hunter. His tone of voice certainly did. “I was just going to talk to your mom about that.”

But before Maxine could get any answers, Cessy popped her perfectly coiffed head in the door, and Maxine jumped up to hustle her former mother-in-law out of the room.

She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want the woman to interact with their pen pal—

Wait! When did Cooper become theirs?

Whatever. All she knew was that the less Cessy was involved, the better.

Besides, it wasn’t as if Maxine had anything to hide. She wasn’t cheating on Bo or anything. Bo was dead. And Cooper wasn’t even in the running as a candidate to replace her husband. As if she would ever get married again. That ship had sailed.

Maxine steered Hunter’s grandmother toward the back door as Cessy talked incessantly about her latest shopping spree. Hopefully, the older lady didn’t even realize that her grandson just ditched her to do some online hero-worshipping. Or that her former daughter-in-law was blushing like a schoolgirl with her first crush.

She needed to get Cessy out the door so she could go back and tell that marine that under no circumstances was he to come visit. So she hugged the woman goodbye and thanked her repeatedly for taking Hunter shopping—yet again. But before she could turn the lock, Maxine’s cell phone vibrated.

Kylie.

Maybe Maxine should ask her friend for a quick opinion before rejoining the Skype chat. She had to talk to someone, even if it was her chronically single best friend.

“Is the date over?” Maxine asked instead of answering with a polite hello.

“No, I just snuck away and am debating whether or not my big ole booty will get stuck if I try to crawl through this bathroom window.”

Maxine reached into the back of her pantry and found a forgotten snack-sized package of pretzels. The empty bag of chips she’d left by Hunter’s computer had been the last of her emergency stash.

“Why do I do this to myself?” Kylie asked. “Frankie is a tax attorney I met at that seminar last week. Who knew a guy with such a party name could deliver a mind-numbing monologue on the importance of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act through a mouth stuffed with sautéed spinach in chimichurri sauce? I’m about to—”

“Listen,” Maxine interrupted. Kylie’s Bad Date Story From Hell: Volume 89 would just have to wait until tomorrow. “I need your advice. Hunter is trying to talk Cooper into coming to Sugar Falls after he gets discharged from the hospital.”

“You mean Gunny Heartthrob?”

Maxine nearly dropped her phone. “Stop calling him that.”

“You called him that first. You told us he literally made your heart throb when you met him. Anyway, if he comes to town, would he be staying at your place? I have a sexy nurse’s costume you could borrow to help him on his road to recovery.”

“Kylie! Are you serious? I have a son. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I can’t be shacking up with some marine from who knows where.”

“Listen, Max, the guy seems cool. Hunter thinks the world of him, and I hate to point out the obvious, but that poor boy needs a man to talk to. Better a military cop than some lowlife gangbanging druggie.”

Great. Maxine didn’t need the reminder that he was in the military and a cop. Matthew Cooper probably couldn’t cram any more testosterone into his camouflage pants if he tried.

“Where would he find a lowlife gangbanging druggie in Sugar Falls?” she asked her friend, before realizing they were getting completely sidetracked.

“That’s a good point. This town can be so boring sometimes.”

“Kylie, focus. Hunter invited this man to come here.”

“So what? Hunter also asked Jorge de la Rosa from the Colorado Rockies to come to his class presentation for that baseball book report he did. De la Rosa didn’t show and this guy probably won’t, either.”

“You may be wrong.”

“Do you think he’s actually coming?” Kylie suddenly seemed way too perky. Maxine tamped down the jealousy that crept its way around her closed-off heart.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. That’s what I need to ask you about.” She quickly filled her friend in, explaining about Hunter’s email and then the awkward Skype session.

“I bet Hunter would be thrilled to see his pen pal more often.”

“Well, he’d be the only one.”

“Max, just because the guy rubs you the wrong way doesn’t mean he’s bad for your son.”

She knew what Kylie said was true, but it was still a tough pill to swallow. “So you don’t think I should go back in there and explain that it’s a bad idea for him to come out to visit?”

“Is it?”

“Is it what?”

Kylie sighed, almost as if she’d rather get back to Frankie and foreign tax compliance than have this conversation that was clearly a life-altering event in Maxine’s opinion.

“Is it such a bad thing if this guy comes to Sugar Falls for a couple of weeks? Hunter obviously adores him, and the guy seems pretty stand-up. Why not let them hang out? It’s not like you can kill off their friendship at this point. Hunter would be devastated.”

Her friend was right. “I don’t want to hurt my son, but how can I protect him? What if Coop doesn’t live up to the hype? As far as I’m concerned, Hunter has already been let down by one man in his life. He doesn’t need any more disappointment.”

“Look, maybe this guy has absolutely no intention of coming out to visit. Just go back in and talk to him. Get to know the man a little bit better so you can become comfortable with the relationship—whatever that may be. Then let it fizzle out on its own.” She sighed dramatically. “Gotta go. Chimichurri teeth are coming this way. Let me know what happens.”

The call disconnected. Maybe Kylie was right. Her friend sucked at her own relationships, but was pretty good at understanding other people and human nature.

Maxine finished the rest of the pretzels and walked slowly down the hall toward her son’s room, her bare feet padding along the hardwood floor the only sound she heard. There wasn’t any more talking going on and she wondered if the chat was over already.

She peeked in and saw her sweet little ten-year-old lying on his bed, reading the new Wimpy Kid book Cessy must have bought for him on their shopping trip—probably as a bribe to get him to wear the red-and-orange sneakers she thought were the latest and coolest fashion.

That was just as well. She leaned against the doorjamb. Maxine’d had too much for one night. Too much worry, too much sexy marine.

She should just sleep on it and let all the conflicting thoughts racing in her brain simmer down before she talked to Hunter. She worked best on her problems early in the morning when she was alone in her bakery, anyway.

She just hoped Cooper hadn’t already let Hunter talk him into coming to Sugar Falls. After all, what could their cozy Idaho town possibly offer a man like him?

What indeed.

Yet, two days later, on Sunday afternoon, Maxine watched as Cooper slowly limped along next to her son, holding his discharge papers and the ugly little plant that was starting to perk back to life. Hunter was once again trying to carry the man’s duffel bag, and she shoved her hands into the pockets of her short, blousy white dress to keep from reaching out to help her son.

“So I figured you could just ride back up the mountain with us,” Hunter told his pen pal. “You won’t need a rental car or nothing because you can just borrow my mom’s car if you need to go somewhere.”

“Honey, let Cooper plan his own stay in Sugar Falls,” she said as they climbed into her SUV. It was just a stay, she hoped. A very, very short stay. “If he wants to get a rental car, he should do that. Besides, I need my car, and we don’t want him getting stuck without transportation.”

She definitely didn’t want him stuck in her town with her son and her friends and her neighbors. None of them needed this guy staying too long. He could just keep going along his merry little macho way.

In fact, she’d had no intention of even coming to the hospital to pick him up. But when she’d found out Hunter had asked both Cessy and Kylie to give him a ride, she wasn’t about to allow her mother-in-law to encourage the male bonding. And as much as she loved her man-crazy best friend, she wasn’t going to let Kylie flirt with the guy they’d gotten in the embarrassing habit of calling Gunny Heartthrob.

And like it or not, those eyes of his certainly had a way of making her heart thump all around her rib cage.

“I’m staying at Drew Gregson’s cabin, up off Sweetwater Bend and Snowflake Boulevard. He said there’s an old Jeep up there I could use while I’m in town, so don’t worry about me.” When he smiled at Hunter, Maxine’s heart thawed for a second. But only a second.

Jeep or no, she didn’t want the man getting too comfortable in Sugar Falls.

* * *

The drive up the mountain was pure torture for Cooper. And not because of Maxine’s infuriatingly slow driving, which he decided she must be doing on purpose. The woman smelled like vanilla and every cozy kitchen aroma he’d ever wished to come home to when he’d been a child, fending for himself. But that was where any sense of hearth and home ended.

Why was she being so cold toward him? Not that he wanted her to flirt or try and get too close, but what would it hurt for her to make some sort of small talk? Or at the very least, loosen her white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel?

It was bad enough that she’d refused to enter his hospital room whenever she’d brought Hunter to visit. Was being in his presence that horrible of an inconvenience for her?

In fact, he’d wanted to decline the offer of a ride up to the cabin, but a little piece of him wanted to be near her, even if it meant enduring her standoffish attitude.

Luckily, Hunter had talked nonstop the entire twenty-five minutes it took to get up the mountain, which helped to alleviate the tension between the two adults in the front seat.

As they approached civilization, she finally picked up speed. He noted a large timber-and-stone sign welcoming travelers to Sugar Falls, home of skiing, kayaking and the Sugar Falls Cookie Company.

Whoa, the cookie queen must be a pretty big deal in town if her company got an honorary mention on the welcome billboard.

Once inside the city limits, Hunter’s chatter took on a faster pace. “There’s my school and the fire department and the post office. And this is what we consider downtown. See the yellow building over there? That’s my mom’s cookie shop. We live in the upstairs part. My room is the second window on top.”

Cooper merely nodded as Maxine accelerated her SUV through what he suspected was a twenty-five mile-per-hour area. She sure seemed to be in a hurry to get him through what had to be familiar surroundings and, most likely, her comfort zone. He didn’t think it was possible, but her hands gripped even tighter on the wheel as she ran through a yellow light at the main intersection.

“There’s Patrelli’s,” Hunter continued. “It’s my favorite pizza place. And that’s Noodie’s Ice Cream Shoppe, but I don’t know why they spell it with an extra P and E. We get our groceries here at Duncan’s Market... Hey, Mom, that was Mr. Jonesy you almost cut off. Slow down, Cooper can’t see everything if you’re driving so fast.”

The cookie queen took three deep breaths, and then eased her cowboy boot off the accelerator. Her tanned and toned legs were bare and the hem of her dress was riding high on her thigh. But Cooper had a feeling that sexy length of skin was all she would ever reveal of herself.

Cooper didn’t say a word. The woman obviously wanted to get rid of him. Well, he’d be just as obliged to get out of this four-wheeled, leather-interior death trap.

Hunter, as if finally cuing in on his mom’s tension and Cooper’s discomfort, fell silent, allowing the marine to take in the lay of the land.

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