Page 11 of You Can Make Me (Carnival of Mysteries #28)

Five

D enny

So close. I’d been so close to making progress with Cooper, but then I’d pushed too far.

Or maybe I was fooling myself, and Cooper was never going to come back to me. I’d still help him if that was the case, but perhaps I needed to temper my expectations.

Perhaps I needed to stop letting him call all the shots.

Perhaps it was time for an intervention.

The next morning, I sent off two texts before serving Cooper breakfast.

I’m out of ideas. It’s time.

He’d gone back to one-word answers throughout most of the day and night. The time in the hot spring had seemed like such a breakthrough, but I should have expected this.

Cooper thought he was unlovable, now that he was scarred. That would never be true in my eyes, but he had to negate this notion himself if he was ever going to get better, regardless of how I felt.

The following day, I made my usual rounds of breakfast, cleaning, preparing lunch, feeding him, cleaning again, and by the time he got frustrated with his brain and the internet and went to his room for a nap, I was panicking.

Was I about to fuck everything up?

Two RVs pulled up to the cabin around three that afternoon. I went out to greet them, my nerves shot after pacing for two hours.

“I’m sorry we’re meeting like this,” I said to Mr. and Mrs. Harris.

This wasn’t at all how I’d hoped to meet Cooper’s parents.

My father had been gone for twenty years, and I’d lost my mom not long before I met Cooper.

I’d never been close to any of my ex in-laws, and I’d never thought I’d have another set, but after Austin?

I’d seriously thought it was a possibility.

“Thank you, Detective,” Mr. Harris said as he shook my hand. “Thanks for calling.”

“I’m retired. Call me Dennis.”

He nodded, a slight frown marring his mostly unlined face. The man did not look old enough to be the father of a thirty-five-year-old.

Deb Harris didn’t smile. She ignored my handshake and pulled me in for a tight hug before doing the man-pound on my back.

She had a little power behind it too. I was impressed.

She was tall, close to my six feet, and built like Cooper, with the same golden-blond hair expertly highlighted to look natural.

Mr. Harris was at least six foot six, and he had Cooper’s movie-star good looks.

They both looked battle-worn, as if this situation had aged them as much as it had me.

They weren’t much older than me, maybe in their early sixties, but with my nearly full-silver head of hair going on, we looked like contemporaries.

And I had been dating their son. Awkward .

“Did you tell him?” Sam asked as she pulled me in for a hug.

“No,” I said in her ear. “I’m so sorry, Sam?—”

“Cut it out,” she said, fisting my crewneck. “I’m trying to be strong right now and if you get mushy on me, I’m going to cry, and that’s the last thing Cooper needs.”

I nodded and then gave my best friend a look of contrition.

He wasn’t having it.

“Fuck off, Hamilton. Get over here.”

He squeezed me tight, and we breathed together for a minute. I was so grateful he was here, that I wasn’t on my own anymore, that I nearly broke.

“How could I be mad?” he whispered, and I exhaled, relieved.

“Are you going to kiss me?” I muttered close to his ear.

He chuckled and whispered, “I should, now that I know you like it.” And then the bastard gave me a wet smack on my cheek. Sam laughed as I wiped it away with a frown.

“Quit acting,” Gene said. “We know the truth.”

God, he was an ass. My cheeks flushed as I looked toward the Harrises.“I don’t know what he’s going to do, but my guess is he’ll put on a brave face for all of you and let me have it later.”

“Dennis—”

I held up a hand to Deb. “It’s okay. I realized night before last that letting him call the shots all this time maybe wasn’t the best move. He needs to know that his decisions aren’t just about him, that he has people who love him who are counting on him to stick around.”

Deb’s hand flew up to her throat and her blue eyes, so like Cooper’s, flared. “Is he…?”

“I don’t think he’ll harm himself, but he’s refusing PT or to follow up with a plastic surgeon. He thinks he can’t take any more disappointment. He’s losing hope.”

“Well, maybe getting him back to work on a project will help,” Sam said.

“I brought a couple of different hot spots with me, we can see if they’ll help with the service out here, and I’m going to force him to look at some ideas.

I know he’s always at his best when he’s working.

I think it’ll give him the motivation to work on the other things. ”

“I hope you’re right.”

“And I have updates on the case,” Gene said, leveling me with a serious look. “With you retired and me scrambling to find your replacement—which is hard as fuck, you know—I haven’t had as much time to work on things, but we’ve got a couple new guys who are whizzes with the tech stuff.”

“How is… How are Walt and Dee Dee?” I felt like such a shitty friend.

My other best friend had gone through a horrific ordeal with his new boyfriend, and ever since Cooper was nearly killed, I hadn’t been there for him.

Hadn’t even called him. In a sense, it was my way of avoiding any more information about the damned carnival so I wouldn’t be lying to Cooper when I said I’d told him everything I knew. It was a cop-out, but somewhat valid.

Gene smiled. “They’re good. He says hello and to call him when you’re up to it, no rush.

He gets it more than I did. They’ve got a place in the canyon, they’re making a go of it.

Junior’s really fucking happy. Finally. He’s commuting for now.

He’ll put in his papers as soon as he hits fifty or he decides he can’t stand to be away.

Hell, I think Dee Dee’s going to go out on tour with Ryan in the fall. I bet Junior goes with.”

Gene and I were the only ones who knew that Walter hadn’t found the long-lost child of a famous folk singer, but the actual singer himself who hadn’t aged a day in forty years. The two of them fell madly in love at first sight. Walter deserved the break, and the love.

I’d had no idea when Gene and I drove down to LA to help Walter with his case, that it would bring Cooper back into my life…and nearly end his.

“Why don’t you all come in and have a seat,” I said. “He usually wakes from his nap around this time. I’ll go in and talk to him, prepare him.”

“Dennis, we’re his family,” Deb said with a gentle smile. “Frank and I remember vividly what it was like dealing with surly teenager Cooper. Believe me, we know how he can be.”

I stood a little taller. “I’m sure that’s the case.

But let me prepare you for the fact that he looks vastly different, and he’s very distraught about that.

He’s getting around with a cane pretty well, but he’s prone to dizzy spells and mood swings because of the brain injury.

He’s not the same Cooper, though I believe he’s in there somewhere.

I asked you all to be here, but I’m still going to honor his wishes, and if he gets agitated, I’ll ask you to step out, which is why I suggested the RVs.

This cabin is tiny and when he’s in a dark place, it can feel even smaller.

Having the space to retreat will help this go smoother and keep him from getting overwhelmed. Is that understood?”

I had to have major balls to tell a man’s parents that I’d kick them out if need be, but Cooper put his trust in me, and I’d protect him to my last breath. He might regret that soon enough.

The Harrises and Ochoas nodded soberly and followed me into the house. I gestured to the tiny living room, and I went down the hallway to the bedroom.

It was dark inside, but I could see Cooper’s face clearly enough to see he was in distress. I rushed to the side of the bed as he started flinching, twitching, and his chest began heaving as he tried to scream.

“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s just a dream.” I sat beside him and brushed his hair away from his sweat-dampened forehead. The scar above his eyebrow was still quite red, but his hair hid it from view most of the time.

He licked at his dry lips as he thrashed his head from side to side.

“Cooper—”

“Denny!” he called out, as he turned his body toward me, shivering under the blankets.

I lay down and wrapped my arms around him, which made him sigh in relief. He tucked his nose under my jaw and panted as he tried to wake up and calm himself. He brought his hands up to touch my face.

“Denny…? Are you real?”

“Yeah, baby. It’s okay, just breathe.”

It was stupid to still call him baby, but I couldn’t help myself.

When we were physically close, I automatically reverted to that headspace where he’d almost belonged to me.

It wasn’t the case any longer, but maybe part of me thought wanting it bad enough, pretending hard enough, would make it true.

Up to this point, when he had nightmares, I’d sit with him, touch him, hoping to ground him, and when he finally got his breathing under control he’d pull away, shoot me a dark look and roll over. Or, if it were daytime, he’d climb out of bed.

This time…he moved closer, sliding his trembling hands under my shirt to cover my chest.

“Dreaming about that night?” I asked him.

Cooper paused before shaking his head.

“This one’s new. There are lights ahead of me.

I’m being dragged through gravel. I manage to look over my shoulder and I see…

a carnival. With whimsical tents in faded colors.

As I’m being dragged toward it, the carnival keeps getting farther away.

The person dragging me growls. He’s angry.

It’s not…” He swallowed hard. “It’s not Hunter Holland.

It’s someone else. And then I’m being thrown down a dark hole?—”

He gasped and clutched at me, holding me tighter as I stroked his hair, kissed his forehead, and whispered to him that he was safe, I was there, that I wouldn’t let anyone hurt him ever again.

But shit. He was dreaming about the carnival? It was the same description Kal and Dee Dee had given us. How…?

“I almost believe I’ll be okay when you hold me.”

I blew out a breath. Would he still feel that way when I told him about our visitors?

“You’re going to be okay. You are okay. You’re going to keep getting better, I promise. You believe me?”

He stroked his fingertips down my pec and up my sternum. He loved to run his fingers through the hair there. I’d asked him, in the beginning, if he wanted me to shave, and he vehemently forbade me from ever doing so. I wasn’t the hairiest bastard ever, but what I had he seemed to like.

He’d kept his body completely waxed before his assault. It was hot, but he hadn’t had the opportunity for four and a half months, and I knew it annoyed him. I loved him natural, I loved him hairless.

I loved… him .

Acknowledging the depths of my feelings for Cooper, calling it what it was, brought me a momentary sense of calm within the storm we’d been trapped in for months now.

Please don’t let this be a setback.

I held him a little longer and almost wondered if he’d fallen back asleep as his breathing was steady.

Gene laughed at something in the other room, and Cooper stiffened in my arms.

Here we go.

“Why do I think that’s not the TV?”

I pressed my lips together. He sounded like his snarky self, not like he was panicking. I crossed my fingers behind his back.

“Because it’s not?”

He sighed—and snuggled in even closer. “I knew this would happen sooner or later.”

“You knew that I’d bring your folks and the Ochoas out here?”

He groaned and kissed my throat. “I knew I’d be such a pain in the ass that eventually you’d call for an intervention.”

I barked a laugh, more out of surprise that he’d kissed me than over what he said. I gave him a squeeze. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

He pulled his hands out of my shirt and ran his fingers through my hair, tipping his head back so he could look at me.

“If anyone can make me, you can. I’ll punish you later.”

My breath caught. He was so close, his eyelids heavy from sleep. He ran his fingers over my cheekbone.

“Cooper,” I breathed.

His eyes searched mine, and then he patted my cheek.“I’m not kissing you. That’s your first punishment. Well, actually, it would be a punishment to kiss you with nap breath. But I’m not ready to have you grossed out by my lip?—”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I said, holding him when he tried to roll away. I’d let go if he insisted, but I was going to take this opportunity to put a few things straight between us.

He stared up at me with big eyes.

“First, you are even more beautiful to me now than you were the night you seduced me over pizza.”

“What? I seduced you ?”

“Second, I would kiss you anytime, anywhere, even with a mouthful of goddamned anchovies, puke breath, or after you had an onion and garlic orgy in your mouth.”

“Oh, Den… You need some fresh air. This place is getting to you.”

“Third, I have informed our guests that if you want them gone, I will honor your wishes. You are my priority, don’t ever forget that. And I brought them here because, as my priority, you needed a reminder of how much you are loved.”