The Cowboy SEAL Read Online Free PDF Page A

wash ’em later.”
    *
    “W HAT ’ S HE GONNA do in town?” LeeAnn asked, carrying on with her meal as if nothing had even happened. “Everything’s closed.”
    Cooper had already left out the front door.
    Millie covered her face with her hands. At this time of night, there was only one thing a man could do in Brewer’s Falls—drink.
    “Mom?” J.J. pressed. “What’s Uncle Cooper gonna do? And why does he hate Grandpa?”
    At that moment, Millie was the one hating Cooper for running out on her yet again. But then wait—during her initial crisis after she’d first lost Jim, he hadn’t even bothered to show up.
    “Mom?”
    “J.J.,
hush!
” She never snapped at her kids, but this was one time she needed space to think, breathe. She got up from the table and delivered a hasty apology before running for the stairs.
    In her room, she tossed herself across the foot of the bed she and Jim had shared. Never had she needed him more. His quiet strength and logic and calm in the face of any storm.
    She wanted—needed—so badly to cry, but tears wouldn’t come.
    Frustration for her situation balled in her stomach, punching with pain. If she had a lick of sense, she’d do the adult thing—pull herself together and join her children downstairs. She needed to play a game with them and clean the kitchen. Do research on how to build a science-fair volcano. Play mix and match with which bills she could afford to pay. Check on Clint to see if he needed anything.
    While she
needed
to do all of that, what she
wanted
was an indulgent soak in the hall bathroom’s claw-foot tub.
    *
    C OOPER SAUNTERED INTO the smoky bar, taking a seat on a counter stool. In all the years he’d lived in the one-horse town, he’d never been in the old place. Not much to look at with twenty or so country-type patrons, dim lighting, honky-tonk-blaring jukebox, a few ratty pool tables and neon beer signs decorating the walls. But as long as the liquor bit, that’d get the job of escaping—even for a moment—done. After a few drinks, he probably wouldn’t even mind the yeast scent of a quarter-century’s worth of stale beer that’d sloshed onto the red industrial-style carpet.
    He said to the guy behind the bar, “Shot of Jim Beam, please.”
    “I’ll be damned... Cooper?”
    “Mr. Walker?”
Seriously?
Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The grizzled cowboy not only happened to be one of his father’s best friends, but owned the land adjoining the Hansen ranch.
    He extended his hand for Cooper to shake. “Please, call me Mack. Figure if you’re old enough to drink and serve our country, you’re old enough for us to be on a first-name basis.” He poured Cooper’s shot then one for himself. Raising it, he said, “About time you came home.”
    “Only temporarily...” Cooper downed the fiery elixir. “I’ll head back to my base just as soon as things get settled.”
    “By
things,
I assume you’re talking about your father? Damn shame. Everyone’s just sick about the run of bad luck your family’s been having.”
    In no mood to hash over the past or present, Cooper wagged his glass. “Another.”
    Mack obligingly poured. “Things that bad out there, huh?”
    Cooper winced from the liquor’s bite.
    “I told your father he was a damned fool for running you off. What happened with your momma... Straight-up accident that could’ve happened to any one of us. I know deep in his heart Clint agrees, but he’s too damned stubborn to tell anyone—let alone his firstborn—any different.”
    The tears stinging Cooper’s eyes hurt worse than the liquor burning his throat.
    “He needs you. Millie needs you. Hell, even those ragtag kids of hers need you. Yep...” He smacked the wood counter. “’Bout damned time you came home.”
    Nice sentiment, but for his own sanity, Cooper knew he was only passing through. A long time ago he’d lost his home, his way, and for a messed-up guy like him, there was no such thing