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“You missed your weekend with the kids,” Nora’s mother would say. “It was three weeks ago. And your check—”
“Bounced again? I’ll write you another.” Dad would flash a minty smile meant to cover the alcohol on his breath. “Why waste time arguing? I’m here. And the kids want to have fun with their old man.”
Nora and her brothers hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. Not when he drank beer until he passed out and practically forgot their names.
“Protection?” Nora wanted to be sick. She swallowed back the memories and held on to her resolve because the bus wasn’t scheduled to leave for another hour. “As my doctor told me...ninety-nine percent effective means one lucky woman in one hundred gets a golden ticket.” She angled Zoe’s sweet, innocent face toward Coop. “Here’s mine.” Not his. Never his. She’d never raise a child with this loser.
The wattage on Coop’s smile never dimmed. “Why wait so long to tell me?”
“Since you didn’t call me afterward, I figured you were just a beer-swilling guy looking for a good time, and I assumed I could afford to raise a child on my own.” Diapers. Day care. The dollars added up far too quickly. “One of my assumptions was wrong.”
His eyes narrowed, but that smile... “I’ll want a paternity test.”
She nodded, unfazed. “I brought one.”
* * *
“SHE’S GOT YOUR nose, Coop.”
Coop couldn’t see what Gideon saw, maybe because a demoralizing thought kept buzzing in his brain. You’re going to lose your second opportunity in the NHL, even if you win the bet.
It can’t be mine.
The baby swaddled in neon pink in Nora’s arms seemed like any other to him: round cheeks, tufts of blond hair, squinty eyes. Maybe the eyes looked like his after one too many beers the night before, but those days were few and far between now. As were his days of picking up women in bars.
A change made too late, it seemed.
He’d retreated with sluggish steps to the bar when Nora told him she was going to breast-feed. “It might not be mine,” he said to his friends. His words didn’t sound convincing.
Nora’s words sounded convincing.
“Congratulations on a baby girl.” Coach guffawed and set a shot of whiskey on the bar in front of Coop. “She’s got the Hamilton nose. Won’t be long before you’re having tea parties and playing with dolls.”
“Taking her to tap-dancing lessons,” Ty said slyly, clearly enjoying this too much.
“Laying down the law with the guy who takes her to prom.” Gideon grinned.
“Jumping the gun, as usual.” A band of disappointment tightened around Coop’s chest. If he was a dad, he had an obligation to stay where his child was. “Let’s wait for the results of the paternity test. In the meantime, back to the issue at hand. Matchmaking.”
Mary Jo, the bus-route driver, banged into the foyer and through the second door, shaking off snow that covered her boots and parka. She’d been a couple years ahead of Coop in school, but she looked as old as truck-driving Derrick, a crony of hers and ten years her senior. Lines had made permanent inroads on her forehead and from the corners of her frequently frowning mouth. Her divorce battle had aged her.
Nora waved to Mary Jo, buttoning up her yellow blouse. “Is the bus ready to leave?”
“The bus isn’t going anywhere.” Mary Jo clomped across the wood floor, tugging off her gloves. “That darn weatherman was wrong again. It’s a blizzard out there. Service is cancelled for the day.”
“But...I’m stuck?” Nora’s horrified gaze bounced around the bar and landed on Coop. “Here?”
She’d taken the bus. She’d implied money was tight. There were hotels and motels in town, but could she afford a room? And how would she get there? Mary Jo wasn’t offering a ride. Helio’s Taxi was closed for the day. He was in the back on his fourth beer. Between the drifts of snow on the ground and the severity of the storm, it wouldn’t be safe for Nora to walk anywhere with a baby.
Coop felt paralyzed.
Next to him, Ty was lost in thought, staring at the Anchorage Beat. Gideon asked Mary Jo if her divorce was final. Derrick tugged on a gray streak in his beard and made a joke about the fragility of buses on Alaskan highways. Trucker humor. Mary Jo gave Derrick a smiling gesture of disrespect. Bus-driver humor.
Just another Friday night at the bar.
A dark and stormy night. Near whiteout conditions. A woman alone. With a baby.
A baby that could be his.
He dropped his booted feet to the floor.
Ty’s head came up. He assessed the situation with goalie-like speed. “Don’t do it. Don’t ask her to stay at your place.”
“Why not?”
Gideon stepped into Coop’s path, keeping his voice low. “Even the Moose Motel is better than your place.”
Coop had expected advice about keeping his distance from Nora until he knew that baby was his. He hadn’t expected criticism of his home. “Are you kidding me right now? Free accommodations? She’ll be grateful.”
“She’ll think you’re incapable of looking after yourself.” Ty made a sweeping gesture that encompassed Nora, the baby and then Coop. “Look at her and then take a good, long look at your scruffy, backwoods self.”
“If that’s a commentary about my beard—”
“Who cares about your weak attempts at facial hair?” Gideon had on his banker face, which was also his poker face, which was also his don’t-be-a-doofus face. “Your place is a dump. Duct-taped carpeting, leaky faucet, creaky floors.”
“It’s warm and dry. I can sell it or abandon it if I ever get out of this town.” That’d been the reason he’d taken it in trade for an RV he’d been unable to move on the car lot. “My place is free for Nora. Don’t forget free.”
“You’ll be amazed at what a woman won’t forget.” Ty’s gaze drifted back to the Anchorage Beat. “Whatever. That’s the second bad decision you’ve made tonight. Let’s just hope you don’t make a third.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_e00882ea-c03e-5a80-97e2-8ae5d0a44467)
“HOME SWEET HOME.” Coop opened the door for Nora and stepped aside.
Nora had been giving Coop points for a nice truck. No rust-eaten side panels. No dented fenders. No crumpled fast-food wrappers. And he’d driven competently on the snowy roads and through the storm.
But the house...
A dark and dated mobile home. Subtract ten points.
Duct tape across the foyer carpet and on the transition to kitchen linoleum. Subtract twenty points.
The shabby, sagging furniture and dreary lighting, the bigger-than-big-screen television, the mess of boots and shoes by the door, the stack of empty soda cans next to the sink. Subtract forty points.
Her backpack dropped to the ground. If Coop lived like this, how could he afford child support?
“That you, Cooper?” A scratchy, sleepy male voice erupted from the back at loudspeaker volume.
Zoe startled, jerking against Nora’s torso beneath her parka. Nora slid the zipper down, preparing to get settled in. What choice did she have but to stay?
“Yeah, Pop. I brought home a guest,” Coop shouted. He shoved a workout bag beneath a storage bench, nudged a jumble of shoes and boots against the wall, hung up his jacket and another that was on the carpet. “My dad moved in a couple years ago. He couldn’t live alone after the accident.”
The floor creaked in a back room. Coop’s father appeared in the hallway, leaning heavily on a cane with a hand that had no fingers.
Nora gave Coop all his dark-mobile-home, worn-living-room and bad-housekeeping points back.
The older Mr. Hamilton had short, peppery hair and the spotted, leathery complexion of a fisherman. His steps were stilted—he walked with his gaze on the carpet in front of his feet—and he spoke like a ringmaster whose microphone had died. “If it’s Gideon, I didn’t get the dishes done today and the week’s recycling is still on the counter. Got busy watching my shows and—”
“Pop—Brad, this is Nora,” Coop said at baby-waking volume. He stopped cleaning. Stopped moving. Stopped looking like a man who made the world go around with his smile. He looked like a boy about to tell his father he’d been in a playground fight and broken his best friend’s nose. “She’s, um...”
Nora tried to shrug out of her parka so she could remove a stirring Zoe from the baby carrier. Coop helped her get free, allowing Nora to slide the carrier straps to her elbows and cradle Zoe.
“Well, I’ll be,” the older man said as he slowly worked his way to her. He laid the hand with a complete set of fingers on Zoe’s head. “She’s got the Hamilton nose.” His sharp green gaze turned on Coop. “Haven’t seen these two in K-Bay before.”
“Me, either.” Coop managed to sound both rebellious and repentant at the same time.
Nora resented them talking about her as if she wasn’t standing there holding the next generation of Hamilton genes. “I’m from Anchorage.”
“Forgiving my son and movin’ here, I hope.” Brad smiled, making Nora realize where Coop had gotten his forgive-me-any-sin smile. For some reason on the older man it didn’t seem so slick. “Family should stick together. It’s hard to raise a child on your own. I should know.” He moved with a hitching gait toward a recliner.
“Paternity hasn’t been proved.” Coop cinched the bag of kitchen trash and tossed it out a side door.
“Have you seen this baby’s nose?” Brad waved his arms, sending the chair rocking.
Nora gave Coop twenty bonus points for having a decent dad. But she had to be firm about things. “It’s his, but I’m not moving here.” She had a life in Anchorage: a secretarial job at a high school, benefits, brothers, friends.
“It’s too early to say that. Newborns are easy. Wait until she’s two.” Brad sat in a grubby tan recliner with a breath-stealing, free-fall backward style. “Prepare the extra room, Cooper.”
Coop had already disappeared down the hallway.
“Sit, Nora, and tell me all about my grandchild.” Brad spoke so loud that Nora suspected he was hearing impaired.
She took a seat on the couch near him, placing the carrier next to her, and said in a loud voice, “This is Zoe. She’s five weeks old.”
“Wait a second.” Brad held up his fingerless hand and bellowed, “Cooper?”
“Yeah?”
“I had a phone call earlier. What’s this nonsense I hear about you being a matchmaker?”
Coop? A matchmaker? Shades of her father.
“It’s not nonsense, Pop.”
“What you know about love could be written on a postage stamp.” Brad turned to Nora, his expression apologetic. “Best you know the truth, missy.”
“Preaching to the choir,” she murmured.
Zoe blew out a frustrated breath, perhaps sticking up for her father but more likely demanding Nora’s attention since her little arms waved with rock-concert fervor.
“I’m not as clueless about love as you think.” Coop appeared in the hallway, arms loaded with folded sheets and bed pillows. “I know you and Suzy Adams have a thing for each other.”
“That’s not a thing.” Brad wrestled with the recliner’s footrest handle, moving nothing. “It’s a weekly lunch and occasional movie.”
Coop cocked one dark eyebrow. “Do you pay?”
“What kind of a man do you think I am?” Brad let go of the handle long enough to shake his fist at the heavens. “Of course I pay.”
“It’s a thing.” Coop went into the other room.
“It’s not a thing,” Brad shouted louder than usual, finally moving the footrest out.
“It kind of sounds like a thing,” Nora said apologetically.
Zoe made excited puffing noises of agreement.
“I can’t have a thing. Just look at me.” Granted, Brad was reclining, but he looked fine to her. He looked more than fine when he pulled out that Hamilton smile. No wonder he and Suzy Adams had a thing.
The heater kicked on with a house-shaking, window-rattling thud, reminding Nora of her father’s run-down home and that, no matter how charismatic the Hamiltons were, this was no place for her baby.
* * *
“WE NEED A game plan,” Ty said to Coop and Gideon the next morning at the Bar & Grill.
Coach was open for Saturday breakfast to the citizens venturing out in the inclement weather. The blizzard had abated to heavy snowfall and the town’s sole plow had been busy since the early morning. Many people in K-Bay regarded snowstorms as no more than an annoyance in their otherwise regular routine. Businesses that were open—including matchmaking—were going to get customers.
Coop and Gideon had wisely waited for Ty to finish his first cup of coffee before beginning the matchmaking strategy session. But that left Coop thinking about Nora and her baby.
Nora, who’d gotten more attractive since he’d last seen her, was nice to Pop and watched over that baby like a mama polar bear over its cub. She’d made a face when he’d first brought her home, but she hadn’t complained or put down the place. Still, Nora hadn’t said a word about what she wanted from him other than a reference to money. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to be looking for a wedding ring. Because marriage didn’t fit with Coop’s lifestyle; the one that made it easy for him to pick up and leave.
Just last year, Becky Riney had turned up pregnant and demanded Wally Spitacker marry her, even though they’d never been serious about each other beyond being friends with benefits. That marriage lasted about two seconds and cost Wally a used minivan sold to him by Coop, a couple grand for the wedding reception and a couple grand in legal fees. Until Coop was 100 percent certain it was his kid, he didn’t want to talk child support or his visitation or...well...anything.
“I think we should ask people questions about what they want in a mate.” Gideon tugged the buttoned collar of his polo shirt down as if he missed his uptight banker’s tie.
“Can we not use the word mate?” Coop said, thinking of Nora.
“Significant other? Person of interest?” Gideon sounded testy and looked as if he hadn’t slept well.
Coop couldn’t cast stones. He hadn’t slept well, either. Was he finally getting out of town? Or was this chance going to slip through his fingers?
“We need six matches.” Ty’s eyebrows had a grim slant. “Six, not three. For the life of me, I can’t come up with a plan.”
“Your plans weren’t always good ones.” Coop referred to choices Ty had made at eighteen that had scarred him for life. “When I want to get a sales boost at the car lot, I park the flashiest, most expensive car right next to the street. Doesn’t matter if they don’t buy it. Chances are if they come to look, I can get them to buy what they need. And the flashiest woman in town is—”
“Tatiana.” A slow grin appeared in the depths of Ty’s beard.
Tatiana Michaels was just back from college and in training to be the town queen bee. Men either ran to please her with the knowledge she’d chew them up and spit them out, or they ran from her because they valued their wallets and their pride. Either way, she was the flashiest, most notorious single woman in K-Bay.
Coach slid three plates loaded with campfire scramble specials in front of them. “Tatiana isn’t going to ring that bell.” The bar owner called out a greeting to Derrick before disappearing into the kitchen once more.
