Page 34 of Over & Out (Redbeard Cove #3)

Chris

“ S amuel Thompson,” Tru says, her voice raspy as she looks adoringly at her surprisingly massive baby boy.

“We haven’t decided on a middle name,” Kevin says, looking almost as rough as his wife.

It’s the next morning—Tru only came out of recovery half an hour ago. I told her we could wait to see her and booked a couple of hotel rooms close by, knowing Hopper wouldn’t want to be the hour drive across LA traffic to reach her.

“May I suggest Hopper?” Hopper says from the other side of the bed, where he perches on a chair, staring at baby Samuel like he’s a miracle of nature, which, of course, he is.

“Please don’t,” I say. “For our sake. He would be insufferable.”

“I would not.” Hopper levels a look at me over Tru’s legs, but leans back, sighing. “Okay, fine, I would. Anyway, look at this kid. He’s too beautiful for a name like that.”

He really is beautiful. He’s got cherubic cheeks and lashes half a mile long.

“Do you want to hold him?” Tru asks Hopper.

“Oh. No. I’m not good at that kind of thing,” he says, sitting up stiffly.

Before the plane landed, Hopper had gotten up and showered, because of course there was a shower on board.

When he came out, he looked like a new man.

Gone was the handsome lumberjack straight from set who smelled like pine trees and ripe sweat.

In his place was a man who could very easily pass as (and I’m pretty sure in the past had been) a cologne model, with combed-back hair, a white button-down, and chinos.

He even put on cufflinks, which flash now as he shifts in his seat.

“Now’s as good a time as any to learn,” Kevin says. He takes his son from his wife, who smiles gratefully. She tracks her little one as Kevin walks over to Hopper and gives him a quick tutorial on baby-holding.

Hopper rubs his hands on his thighs. “What if I do it wrong? His head’s squishy, right?”

I hate how adorable he looks worrying about this. On the plane, his eyes went wet when he found out they were okay, and I hated that too, because it made my heart all soft when what I need to do is stay strong. Firm. Resolute.

When Hopper finally takes the baby, he looks like he’s never taken a job more seriously in his life. He laughs almost disbelievingly when Samuel sighs and settles against his forearm. His stupid, gorgeous forearm .

“He’s perfect, Tru. Fucking—I mean fudging—perfect.”

“He can’t understand you, dummy,” Tru says affectionately.

When Hopper looks up, his eyes don’t go to Tru. They meet mine. His expression says the words as clearly as if he’s speaking them aloud.

Can you believe this? Look!

His eyes are filled with so much love I feel like I’ve taken a punch to the solar plexus.

I clear my throat, looking away. That’s when I notice Tru’s eyes are on me too. She looks suspiciously like she knows exactly what’s going on between us.

Which is funny, because I don’t.

“Honey,” Tru says to Kevin suddenly, her voice much clearer than it was a minute ago. “Would you mind taking him for a little walk? I could use a minute.”

My stomach twists. I hope she really means that and she’s not looking to talk to me.

“I can help,” I say, going to stand up.

“Nope,” Tru says, clapping a hand on my forearm. “You stay with me.”

No such luck.

“Here,” Kevin says. “Let’s try walking.” He holds his hands out around Hopper’s arms as Hopper takes a tentative step.

“That’s it. And you can bounce him just the tiniest bit too.”

“I thought bouncing was bad?”

They leave with Kevin imparting his newly acquired expertise on the bigger man .

“He’s so cute,” I say once they’re out the door. “He’s really taking his job seriously.”

“Who, Kevin? Or the godfather?”

My mouth gapes. “Hopper?” But of course she’d make Hopper her baby’s godfather. I don’t know why I’m surprised.

Tru struggles to sit up.

“Here,” I say, jumping up and helping her get the pillows in the right place.

She smiles gratefully. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk. Maybe she really did just need a minute of respite after what she’s been through.

“He must have been so happy when you told him,” I say softly as I sit back down.

“He cried like a baby.”

I laugh, even though my heart squeezes.

“Those cufflinks were the gift I asked you to give him after the shower,” Tru says. “They were a godfather gift.”

I smile, feeling irrationally happy I had the tiniest bit of involvement in that bit of joy. Then my smile fades as I remember that the night of the shower was when everything went to hell.

“So,” Tru says, and dread drips over me. Because of course she wasn’t going to let me off the hook. “Are you ready to tell me what the hell is going on between you two?”

I set my hands in my lap, gripping them tight. Realizing I look nervous, I end up stretching on the chair. I realize I look a little too casual when Tru gives me a weird look .

I sigh, sitting normally. “There’s nothing going on. Hopper’s just…Hopper.”

But Tru shakes her head. “No. There’s something going on. You could have cut the tension in here with a butter knife.”

My cheeks heat. “That’s just irritation.”

“Chris. Please. I’m not an idiot.”

I grimace. Finally, I slump in the chair again. “We might have kissed.”

Tru says nothing. I can’t tell whether she’s upset or just waiting for me to continue; her expression is unreadable.

“But it was just once.”

“Is that right?”

I suddenly want to ask her that nagging, intrusive question I can’t shake. The question about whether he’s done this before. Maybe, despite the crystal-clear clause in my contract that inappropriate activity between me and my employer is cause for immediate termination, this is a pattern for him.

I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a shit poker face?” Tru says.

“Yes, actually,” I say. “I always lose at poker.”

“Figures.”

“Okay, listen,” I say, deciding just to blurt the words out. “Has he done this before? Acted like he’s fallen for an employee? I know he has rules, but?—”

“Not in the whole seven years I’ve been working for him,” Tru says. “And I’m fairly certain Cindi would have told me if it had happened before that. ”

I really, really don’t love how relieved that makes me feel. I shouldn’t care. But as it turns out, it seems that I care very much about everything relating to Hopper Donnach.

“Well,” I say. “Thank you for telling me that. It’s not going to happen again, either.”

“I’m not finished,” Tru says.

Her tone has me looking at her like a kid in trouble in school.

“What I have seen is Hopper with various nonemployee women through his career. Including the ones you’re probably aware of.”

Jealousy rolls over me like slick, ugly slime.

“I’ve seen him in short relationships and long ones. Ones on set and long-distance. Improbable kinds of relationships?—”

“Tru, I don’t need to know?—”

She holds a finger up. “And never, in all those years, have I seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you.”

I’m nothing short of thunderstruck. That can’t be true. I’ve played out every scenario in the past week. And in each one, I’m not important. I’m a blip on the timeline of Hopper’s life.

I’m crazy about you…

I hate the hope buoying in my chest that maybe it’s none of the things I imagined. That it’s something different, something I don’t quite understand.

“To be honest,” Tru says, “I think this is my fault.”

I gape. “How?”

“I saw it on the very first day. I willfully ignored the very strong possibility—certainty, really—that the ire you raised in that man was more than just annoyance. I wanted to believe he got the same satisfaction in you putting him in his place as he did with me. Or his mother, God rest her soul.”

My head spins, just the tiniest bit. But it’s no match for my heart. That’s beating wildly out of control.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I say, my throat dry.

“What, that he could be interested in you from day one? Chris, please. I’m not saying he had it bad the way he very clearly does now.

But there’s something about you that makes the two of you opposite sides of the same zipper.

You know what I mean? You two are both jabby as hell, but when you come together—” Tru demonstrates by stretching her fingers on both hands open and curling them into knuckles.

Then she sticks them together one by one, just like a zipper connecting tight.

Too bad she’s got it all wrong.

“Tru, I’m not telling you the whole story. After we kissed, he—he panicked. He got weird and it was like a curtain came down between us. At first I thought it was because…well, he found something out about me.”

“What was that, exactly?”

She looks at me very intently.

I swallow. “That I have some…physical issues. I think I scared him.”

She seems to soften. “From the fire. Where you lost your father.”

My jaw drops, but only for a moment. Of course they would have done a background check on me. The fire was in the news.

Ex-firefighter perishes rescuing own daughter from inferno…

“Yes,” I say tightly. “I have quite a bit of scarring.”

To say the least.

But Tru shakes her head. “That’s not Hopper. At all. Did you know he knocked a man’s tooth out when he said something awful about his mother? Something about how she looked like a ghoul. We had to pay the man a shit ton of money to settle that before it started.”

My stomach clenches. The story about the paparazzo. It was bigger than what they reported on.

“When he thinks you’re beautiful, Chris, he thinks you’re beautiful. Trust me when I say that didn’t make Hopper turn away.”

“Then what is it?” I blurt out. The words tumble out before I can stop them. In that sad, desperate tone too. I want to reach out and grab them all back.

Tru’s lips purse, then soften again. For a moment, I think she’s going to tell me. That suddenly, all will be revealed. But, of course, she doesn’t. She just shakes her head. “I’m sorry, honey. Only he can be the one to tell you that.”

I button it up then. All the feelings, all the pain. Because he’s made it clear he won’t talk, and I’m not about to go chasing him down to make him.

We move on to more job-related things. But as the minutes pass, I watch Tru seem to wilt in real-time. She’s exhausted, so I wrap it up.

“Thank you,” I say to her. “For talking to me even though you should be resting.”

I get up, arranging the chair back against the wall. “ I’m sorry I let you down by letting things get to this point with Hopper, but I promise I’m good to do my job. We have a system, and it’s working.”

Regardless of the agony behind the scenes, I’m not lying. I can do my job perfectly well, feelings or no feelings.

“I’ll go find out where your baby went,” I say.

She nods. But just as I reach the door, she says, “Chris?”

I turn, hand on the doorframe.

“I don’t disapprove of the two of you, by the way. Even if it’s against the rules, I haven’t seen his eyes look like that since before his mom passed.”

I swallow. I can’t help myself. “How do they look?”

“Like he has hope again. Like there’s good in the world.” She settles back against the pillows with a sigh. “He looks at you like he’s looking at a painting, Chris. Or a goddess. And like he wants to eat you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”