Page 9 of You Can Make Me (Carnival of Mysteries #28)

He exhaled, and I felt tension ease in his foot. Maybe this would start to loosen him up.

“Not really. Just looking at material about success rates for scar removal treatments.” He sighed. “There’s not a lot out there other than practitioner websites.”

It was my turn to exhale. Thank God.

“Any luck finding someone promising?” I didn’t want to press too much or he’d freeze up.

Another one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t know. There are a ton of so-called experts, but it’s hard to tell from the pictures. You can’t trust they’re not doctored.”

“Can’t hurt to call, right? Maybe we can set up a phone consult?—”

“Denny.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but then I sighed. “Sorry. I know you’d rather I don’t help unless asked.” At least it wasn’t Detective Hamilton.

He leaned forward a bit, bearing his weight onto his hands. “I’m just…I’m not sure I’m ready for more disappointment.”

The first doctor he’d spoken with at the hospital after he woke up said he could absolutely do some work on Cooper’s facial scars to lessen the severity, but there was no way to completely remove them.

He also advised that Cooper wait six to twelve months, until he’d fully healed, and that suggestion had left him distraught.

The second doctor offered laser treatment that could possibly remove eighty percent of the scars’ appearance. Cooper was frustrated, saying he didn’t want to go through painful procedures if they weren’tgoing to work.

“I don’t blame you.” I released his left foot and reached for his right. I sensed the anger building and braced myself for impact.

“But you think it doesn’t matter.”

“I never said that.” I knew better than to even engage, but it wasn’t in my nature to not be honest, especially with Cooper. “I said they’re nothing you need to hide. You were attacked. Everyone knows what happened. The scars prove you survived, and that’s what matters.”

This was the point in this argument when he usually blew up or shut up. I tentatively worked his arch while I waited.

“Sometimes I don’t feel like I survived.”

I stilled my hands and gazed up at him, wishing for a little more light. Wishing his hair wasn’t so damned long that I couldn’t see his eyes when he dipped his head like that.

“How do you mean?”

He huffed out a breath. This was the most we’d talked since coming to this place. I hung on his every word.

“I don’t…I don’t feel like I survived. Me . Cooper Harris. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I sure as hell don’t look like Cooper Harris.”

I pushed up onto my knees so I was closer to his face.

“You look like the Cooper Harris who made it through a brutal attack, a harrowing ordeal. You look like a damn fighter to me.”

His lip quivered, and he sniffled.

“I wish I could see what you do.” The breath that left him was so harsh, my chest tightened.

“I do too.”

He looked at me, and I took a chance. I pressed our foreheads together, and he leaned into me, blowing out a long breath. I brought up a wet hand to cup his jaw, and he let out a sob.

“Baby,” I murmured, and pulled him into an embrace, to hell with giving him space.

His body spasmed from the force of his cries, and he didn’t try to smother them, like the previous times when I’d heard muffled sounds from his room. I’d wanted to bust in and hold him just like this.

“I don’t know how to live like this, Den. I can’t think. I can’t feel. I’m awful to you. I can’t do this anymore!”

I slid my arms under his legs and around his back, then stood.

He startled. “What are you doing?”

“Trust me,” I said, as I stepped deeper into the water.

He sucked in a breath, and then he slumped against my chest as I lowered us to a rock that stuck out like a bench and sat with him on my lap.

Cooper was taller than me, but he’d lost so much weight it took no effort to lift him.

He had to be down to one fifty, one fifty-five.

At six-three, that was unacceptable. I needed to force the issue and insist he drink protein shakes and serve him more meals that would pack the weight back on him, whether he liked it or not.

He huffed out a breath with so much drama, I chuckled.“What?”

“I hate it when you’re right.”

I smoothed down his hair and rested my cheek against his head. “I know. It happens a lot. Feels good, huh? The water?”

“Yes,” he sneered, with extra emphasis on the s . I knew I shouldn’t laugh but my relief was so visceral, I had to let it out.

Cooper poked me in the ribs and I shifted, which brought him even closer. It felt so good to hold him. It made him real, and it let me know that I actually had managed to save him that horrific night. There had been plenty of nights when I woke damp with sweat, panting…

“Where’s that fucking helicopter?”

“Denny.”

So cold, the light gone from his eyes, his lips blue, the gash in his cheek so deep the bone was visible in the lights.

“His blood type is A negative. It’s rare. Call ahead to make sure they have enough.”

Please, baby.

“You gotta let them take over, Den. Come on.” Walter’s worried voice.

“I can’t leave him.”

“We’re gonna figure it out,” I whispered, kissing his hair though I had no right to do so. But he nuzzled in closer. His nose brushed the skin under my jaw and he sighed.

“I never thanked you,” he said quietly, after a long pause.

“Not necessary.”

He began to trace shapes on my chest, and his touch ignited a yearning in me, one I’d buried after he’d shown up at my apartment, shouted at me, and stormed off into the night.

“You’re all in, huh? Three months, Dennis. You should have just admitted this was a dalliance. Then I wouldn’t have wasted my time.”

It had been totally out of left field. I could have been better about communicating with him, but I was going through some shit and I didn’t know how to tell anyone. I let it go too long, and he was so angry that night…

No way I was about to pour my guts out, only for him to stomp on them.

“I never thanked you because I wasn’t sure I wanted to be saved.”

My breath caught.

“I’m still not sure.”

“Cooper—”

“I’m hideous, Denny?—

“Coop—”

“And I’m a horrible person for caring about that, I know, but it doesn’t seem to matter. It’s all I can think about. And the pain? I can’t help it. Every day I wake up, I have to dig deep for reasons to get out of bed.”

“Baby, you’ve been through so much trauma, it’s not going to go away just like that, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get better. Your pain level, your mobility, they’re already better, and you’re improving every day. But I know what it’s like to want it now.”

He relaxed a little bit more and took in another breath with a hitch, like he hadn’t completely stopped crying. When he didn’t speak, I blurted out the words I should have said that night he showed up at my door.

“I had to have an angioplasty.”

Cooper stiffened in my arms. “ What? Angioplasty? Oh my God, Denny! What happened?”

I shushed him and held him tighter as he fought to look at me.

“A week after Austin, I got a call from the wife of my best friend from boot camp. Robby Owens. He had a heart attack. Gone, just like that. My age. Carrie was in shock. They had little kids, how could this happen? He was in great shape. He ended up going fire instead of police, though, so not as smart as me.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, ignoring my attempt at humor. I could feel him looking at me, but I had to get it all out.

“It was a shock, and I didn’t deal with it very well.

A group of guys I served with met up after the funeral and we drank an obscene amount of whiskey.

We were all stunned. Then Carrie let us know that the doctors told her there’d been a link between the type of heart attack he’d had and some shit we’d been exposed to on one of our deployments.

She was working with an attorney to make sure she got his benefits for the kids.

“I called the VA, got the runaround, and then they sent us all form letters two months after he passed, like, ‘Dear Staff Sergeant so and so. Go get your shit checked out.’ I had a bunch of tests done and they found some issues with my heart. The doc said I needed to have the procedure or I’d end up like Robby, so I did it.

Ended up off work for two weeks. Most I ever missed in my life. ”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t tell anyone.”

This time he did sit up, and I didn’t stop him.

“Dennis Hamilton, you had a heart procedure and you didn’t tell anyone ? Not even work?”

“I had plenty of PTO.”

If Cooper could have shot fire out of his eyes, I’d be burnt to a crisp.