Leah Vale - The Bad Boy

Despite her yelling his name, Cooper Anders didn’t slow his pace, turning left when he reached Dependable’s quaint Main Street. Sara broke into a trot and prayed she wasn’t drawing attention to them. Currently, no one seemed to be around and there wasn’t much traffic on the two-lane road, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be watching through a window of the municipal buildings or the little deli-and-copy shop on the opposite side of the street. She wasn’t as well known in town as the McCoys, but she should still be careful.

Clearly aware that she was chasing after him, Cooper said over his shoulder, “Do you suppose they’ll make me change my name to McCoy?”

Before she could reply, he continued with a shake of his head. “Nah, that would let the scandal out of the bag for sure.”

As loud as she dared, she answered, “Joseph doesn’t intend to hide your paternity.” Exactly. Not for the first time, she mentally wrung her hands over Joseph’s plan to make public the existence of Marcus’s unplanned children while keeping private as many details as possible.

Cooper came to an abrupt stop beside a flowerpot filled with red petunias, staring at a bus-stop bench displaying McCoy Enterprises’ core advertising slogan, used since Joseph McCoy moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Dependable and opened his first general retail store, selling everything from toothpaste to tires, forty-five years ago: Don’t trust it if it’s not from the Real McCoy. And in the Show Me State, that trust had had to be earned.

The letter she’d given Cooper crinkled in his tightening grip. “I find that a little hard to believe. Everyone knows how much stock old Joe puts in his upstanding reputation.”

He glanced at her, his disturbingly deep blue eyes so turbulent her heart clutched with empathy. “What I won’t do is drag my mother’s name through the mud with them. The only thing she did wrong was fall in love. A mistake you’ll never catch me making.”

Sara inwardly cringed, appreciating his motivation a little too well. She, too, had learned the hard way that girlish fantasies didn’t translate well to reality.

Then he was off again, his long, muscular legs eating up so much sidewalk Sara had to practically race-walk to keep up. “But, Mr. Anders—”

“Cooper. Mr. Anders was my mom’s dad.”

Considering he’d stood so close to her their breath had mingled, she supposed she could call him by his first name. Besides, he was Joseph’s grandson. “All right, Cooper.”

She dodged water dripping from one of the large flower baskets hung from the lampposts and maintained by McCoy Enterprises’ gardeners as part of Joseph’s town-beautification program, and darted to Cooper’s other side to avoid the next dribbling basket. “This is not about assigning guilt or blame. The fact is, you are Marcus McCoy’s son and your paternal grandfather wants you to take your place in the family.”

Cooper sent her a shrewd glance. “And the family business, right?”

Despite what Cooper had said about having a company to ruin, she couldn’t lie about the stipulations in Marcus’s will. “Yes, and the family business.”

Cooper stopped dead again in the middle of the sidewalk, right in front of the Dependable post office, remodeled years ago to match the municipal building, and faced her. “Why?”

Joseph had trusted her to keep this discreet. With that in mind, she pitched her voice low. “You can ask him yourself. I’m supposed to take you to see him right now. But I imagine he’ll tell you he’s bringing you into the fold, so to speak, because it’s the right thing to do.”

“And he always does the right thing?”

She bristled. “As a matter of fact, he does.”

“Ah.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. The muscles in his forearms, visible because of his rolled-up sleeves, corded. They’d discovered he was part owner of a construction company. Clearly, he was the working part.

He nodded sagely. “So you think paying a scared, young, pregnant woman to disappear and somehow convincing her to never reveal the identity of her baby’s father is the right thing?”

Despite her sympathy for what Cooper and his mother had gone through, she adamantly shook her head. “Joseph wasn’t a part of that. After the first time, Marcus kept—”

“Oh, yeah, because a million dollars is so easy to—The first time?” he nearly shouted. “There were other—?”

“Not here!” Sara grabbed his arm, his biceps thick and hard beneath her fingers, and pulled him away from the post office door. “I think it’s time I finish what I was sent to do and take you to see Joseph at The Big House—”

“Babe, I just escaped the risk of ending up in the big house.” He aimed a thumb back at the county jail.

“No! The Big House is the name of the McCoys’ home on their estate.”

“So there’re Little Houses?”

She shook her head in frustration. How had she allowed him to fluster her so? “Please, Cooper. Come with me and meet your grandfather. Then you’ll understand everything.”

He dipped his shoulder and lowered his face close to hers again, his breath warm and frighteningly disarming on her cheek. “Honey, like I said before, I understand perfectly. And normally I’d be more than willing to let a cute thing like you drag me off somewhere more private. Hell, I’d let you drag me anywhere. But today is the beginning of what I was put on this earth to do.”

Every bit of her that was forever in debt to the McCoys told her she didn’t want to know, but because of that debt, she had to ask, “Which is?”

“Bring the arrogant McCoy machine to its knees.” He lowered his head yet farther, as if he really was going to kiss her, making the muscles low in her stomach contract. But this time she was prepared.

And mad.

She jerked away, releasing his arm. “How can you say such a thing? Especially without even speaking to Joseph?”

He straightened and gave her an unconcerned shrug. “Easy. And I found out all I needed to know a long time ago. Thanks for bailing me out, babe.” Saluting her, he started walking again.

Irritated that this was turning out so wrong, not to mention a little scared by the determination in his dark blue eyes, she called, “Where are you going?”

“To the office, babe. To the office.”

Her heart pounding from fear that he had thought of some way to damage McCoy Enterprises so quickly, she spun away and ran to her car. She’d get to the McCoy corporate headquarters just outside of town before Cooper and figure out a way to bar his entry without creating a scene.

Hopefully, she could defuse the situation and change Cooper’s mind about the McCoys before Joseph found out the grandson he was at home eagerly waiting to meet meant him harm. Because harming McCoy Enterprises was one and the same as harming Joseph personally. The company was his lifeblood, as it had been her father’s, Joseph’s right-hand man.

As it was hers.

Which made the fact that she was failing this seemingly simple assignment even worse.

How could the employee Joseph had placed so much trust in nearly melt beneath the hot gaze of the grandson who wished them ill?

“Joseph, I need to—” Sara broke off when she saw who stood next to the man who had stepped into her life and filled the void left by her father’s death. Cooper must have parked in front of the eight-car garage on the side of the house. He appeared far too satisfied at having his newly found grandfather’s hand resting proudly on his shoulder.

While Sara had always seen Joseph as being a little larger than life, Cooper was a good head taller than him. Even so, their stature and stance—not to mention their arresting blue eyes and strong jaws—screamed family resemblance.