“It’s been creeping up on me slowly.” As slowly as anything could creep up with Piper Dove pushing her misgivings at him like a bulldozer. But Piper was right. All the satisfaction he used to experience when he walked into the club was gone. Spiral was a great place, and he’d enjoyed creating it, but he hadn’t enjoyed the day-to-day, and the idea of spending years going from one club to another had lost its allure. “I liked the challenge, liked the idea of building something from scratch, but as it turned out, that was all I liked. I thought nightclubs would be a good business for me-high risk, high reward-but I was wrong.”
“Because…?”
He gave her the simplest answer. “I miss the mornings.”
She didn’t get it, but Piper would understand how tired he was of crowds, of yelling over music, of the smells and flashing strobes. He was sick of living so much of his life at night. He wanted clean air. He wanted more than three hours of sleep before he went out for a morning run. He wanted to do exactly as Piper had said. To “grow crap.” He didn’t know how he’d work that out, but then he didn’t know how he was going to work out a lot of things right now. He only knew he had to make some big changes.
He gazed at his jersey hanging on the wall behind her. “A friend of mine tried to tell me this was the wrong business for me, but it took a while before I figured that out for myself.”
“Piper?”
He didn’t deny or admit it.
“I called her the other day,” Deidre said. “We talked.”
It seemed as though everybody was talking to Piper except him.
“Do you know she thinks the two of us should be a couple?” Deidre twisted a silver ring on her finger. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
He hated hurting women, but he owed her honesty. “I’m afraid not. And I’m sorry about that.”
“Not all that sorry.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and gave him a rueful smile. “Once I got some perspective, I understood why I’m not the right woman for you. You need someone more… unconventional.”
Interesting how all these women believed they knew what he needed.
“I’m sorry we won’t be doing business together,” she said. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, even though he knew he wouldn’t.
As soon as Deidre left, he picked up his phone, stared down at it, then sent Piper another text.
I love you. Not a little. With all my heart.
The text went undelivered. She’d finally blocked him.
22
“I don’t want to meet him,” Berni protested as Piper led her into the coffee shop where they were supposed to meet Willie Mahoney in exactly ten minutes. “He’ll think I’m some old lady who’s lost her mind.”
An apt description for the way Piper felt-old beyond her years and barely able to function. She missed Coop desperately. Getting out of bed in the morning was as much as she could handle, and only a sense of duty was forcing her to fulfill her obligation to Berni.
She played on the older woman’s soft heart. “He’s a nice man, and he’s lonely. You know what it feels like to lose a spouse. You’re the perfect person to cheer him up.”
“I don’t see why it has to be me. He’ll think I’m a crackpot.”
“He’ll think you’re interesting, and you need to see him for yourself so you can put this behind you.”
Maybe Piper could begin to put Coop behind her if only he’d stop trying to contact her, but he was too competitive to give up without a hard fight. She should have done what he wanted. She should have moved in with him and smothered him with so much affection that she stopped being a challenge. If she’d done that, he would have pushed her out the door as fast as he could. But she hadn’t done that because she wasn’t tough enough.
She and Berni were ten minutes early, but Willie was already seated at the same back table where he and Piper had talked a week and a half ago. “That’s him,” she said.
“You didn’t tell me he was so good-looking,” Berni whispered.
He’d slicked what was left of his hair to his pink scalp. His dress shirt looked as though he’d tried to iron it himself, and he’d accessorized his gray trousers with what appeared to be a new pair of white sneakers. Piper slipped her arm around Berni’s waist, grateful for the solid feel of her. “I wanted to surprise you. Let’s go.”
Berni moved forward as though she were heading for her execution. Willie rose, and Piper introduced them. Berni charged right in. “I know you must think I’m a crazy old lady.”
Piper couldn’t let that pass. “The first time you saw Willie he was wearing a cheesehead.”
“That’s true,” Willie agreed as they all took their seats. “It keeps people away.”
Berni regarded him with concern. “Why would you want to do that? People need other people.”
“That’s what my kids tell me when they call. Once a week but they can’t be bothered to visit.”
“You’re lucky to have kids. Howard and I couldn’t. Howard had a low count, if ya know what I mean.”
Willie nodded sagely. “That’s too bad. Tough on you both.”
Berni dropped her purse to the floor. “I’ll say. When Howard-”
Piper jumped up. “I have some calls to make.” She didn’t, but she was already depressed enough without having to hear about Howard Berkovitz’s low sperm count.
Berni waved her off.
Piper camped outside the coffee shop, sitting at one of two metal café tables designed for warmer days instead of the city’s typical November gloom. The low-hanging gray clouds obscured any possibility of sunshine. She wondered how long it took the average person to get over a broken heart. Maybe if she tripled that time, she’d have an idea of when she might return to normal again, because right now, she was stumbling through every day feeling as though she had jagged, broken pieces sticking out of her skin.
Her phone rang.
“Piper, it’s Annabelle Champion.”
Annabelle’s cheery voice made her feel marginally better. Annabelle chatted for a few minutes before she got to the point. “I’d like to meet with you about doing some work for me. The company I hired to do background checks has gotten lazy, and I want you to take over the job.”
A month ago, Piper would have been ecstatic, but all her edges had grown soft, as if her old self had reached its expiration date. Duke whispered in her ear. “It’s no business for a girl. You shoulda believed me.”
Duke was dead wrong. Her unhappiness had nothing to do with being female and everything to do with her mistaken belief that running Dove Investigations was all she wanted from life.
She rubbed her palm on her jeans. “Can I get back to you? I’m incredibly grateful, but I’m… rethinking a few things.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Annabelle was so open, so nonjudgmental, that Piper nearly confided in her, but how could a happy woman with a successful business and a husband who loved her understand?
She fell back on a truthful but less revealing response. “It turns out that stakeouts bore me to tears, and I hate telling women their husbands are cheating on them.”
“Understandable,” Annabelle said.
“I need to reassess.”
“That’s good for all of us to do occasionally. Get rid of what doesn’t work and create something new out of what does.”
Great advice, except Piper no longer knew what did or didn’t work for her.
After their conversation, Piper went back inside only to have Berni shoo her away with the news that Willie was going to drive her home.
Piper had told him no. And no meant no, right? But Coop couldn’t sleep. Kept forgetting to eat. And he’d started staring longingly at the liquor bottles behind the bar. He’d been sure she’d finally pick up one of his phone calls or at least answer a text, but that wasn’t happening. He was no closer to speaking with her now than he’d been when she’d walked out of his hospital room one week and one day ago. He couldn’t take it any longer, and he drove to Piper’s old condo building.