Meant to Be (Whisper Creek #5)(103)

"Wow." She nodded, picturing the scrapbook she'd started in the bus-the one with paint chips, and furniture sketches, and pictures cut out from home improvement magazines.

It's exactly where she would go right now, given the chance.

He smiled sadly. "Now it's you with the wows."

"I know. But-they're the good kind of wows."

"Do tell."

"I've spent these past few weeks doing a lot of thinking-a lot of thinking. Some of it's been painful-well, a lot of it has, honestly-but it's been good, too. I've got twenty more weeks on the road, and then I will actually, truly be able to drive my own existence. If ticket sales hold up the way they're looking like they will, I'll be okay financially for a while, and that gives me some space and time to figure out what I really want my life to look like. And where I want to be."

"And … who you want to be with?"

Cooper's words were quiet, but she heard the underlying current of hope loud and clear, and a subtle, glowing electric pulse started thrumming in her ears.

"Actually, I already know that part."

"Yeah?" He smiled, raising his eyebrows. "How do you see that playing out?"

"Well? It's all a little new-like, sort of developing as I go here-but first, I think I need a new head of security."

"Oh?"

"Yes!" She waved her arms around her. "I mean, seriously! I'm out here in the middle of Boston, in a hookup park, where anybody or his brother could kidnap me, and do you see any of my security team?" 

"Not one, no." He was totally biting his cheek, she could tell. "But hookup park? What?"

"Not important." She shook her head. "I could be dead right now, and nobody would even know where I disappeared from."

"All true. They should be fired."

"I'm going to look into that." She nodded fiercely, then shook her head. "I'm totally not. They're really good. I'm just a big sneak."

"Your father taught you well."

"He did! But obviously I'm understaffed in this area. And you can see the effect." She pointed to the straggles of people paying them absolutely no attention at all. "I'm being mobbed here."

"You clearly have a security issue. Agreed. Know any officers of the law who might have a clue about these things?"

She sat back, narrowing her eyes like she was sizing him up. "As a matter of fact, I just might."

"Nobody on the right side of the law ever wants to work with a celebrity diva. Just saying."

"Then it'll be a tough hire. I'm okay with that. I need just the right guy for the job."

"What would be the qualifications?"

Shelby smiled. "You interested?"

"Might know a guy who could be."

She laughed. "He's gotta be smart."

"Check."

"Funny."

"He's funny-looking."

"Has to have acute cop senses."

Cooper winced. "Rusty, but recoverable."

"And be sexy as hell."

His eyebrows flew upward. "You might run into some issues getting these qualifications past the equal opportunity peeps. Just saying."

"Not a problem. So what do you think?"

"I don't know. I've heard Tara Gibson can be pretty tough to work for."

"You have?"

He laughed. "Just kidding. I'm sure she would be incredible to work for."

Shelby heard the compliment, but also heard an undercurrent of doubt that put her on edge.

"But?"

"I can't take a charity job from you, Shelby, no matter how well-intentioned it might be."

"I'm not offering you charity, Cooper. There's honestly an opening, which is probably why I escaped the hotel so easily. One of my guys' wife just had a baby, and he doesn't want to be on the road anymore, and I don't blame him. He got off in New Jersey, and he won't be back."

"You're not making this up?"

"Baby's name is Lily Rose. She was born two weeks ago. I swear."

He looked around like he was sizing up the park and its inhabitants. "You really are at risk out here, you know."

"That's what I'm saying!"

"Someone should be assigned to you, twenty-four/seven."

"Absolutely. I agree. Someone who wouldn't stifle me, preferably. Someone who … knows me."

"I don't know." He shook his head. "On one hand it sounds heavenly. On the other, it sounds like a monumentally bad idea."

"Because?"

"Because rule number one in security is-you can't fall in love with the person you're protecting."

She paused. "Because then your head is all clouded with rainbows and hearts and unicorns, and you lose your ability to be objective and protective?"