"Well, actually, I've got a new assignment out here."
"What is it?"
Cooper flipped his hamburger off the grill, then headed inside, where he could be sure Shelby couldn't inadvertently overhear him.
"It's super-secret stuff. If I told you, I'd have to muzzle you."
"Cooper, that didn't even work when I was five."
He practically heard her eyes rolling, and it made him smile. "Fine. I'm keeping an eye on a VIP who's staying here."
"Omigod, is she a movie star? Or a spy or something? Are you working for the FBI now? Why didn't you tell me?" Phoebe fired the questions fast and furiously, and he could picture her sitting straight up on her bed, thrilled that her brother was actually making something of himself, instead of causing the entire family more shame and embarrassment.
"She's not a spy, and no undercover FBI shtick. Sorry."
"Huh." She sighed, then brightened. "But you wouldn't be able to tell me anyway, right? So maybe you really are!"
"I'm not, Phoebs. Promise. Just keeping an eye on somebody who wants to be invisible for a little while, apparently."
"If she's trying to be invisible, why are you watching her?"
"That is a very good question, young lady." Cooper glanced out the window that faced Shelby's cabin, but he couldn't see anything through her curtains. "I'm not even sure I know."
"Is she the president of a small island nation?"
He laughed. "Can't tell. Sorry."
Phoebe sighed again. "My life might be a lot easier if you didn't have ethics, you know."
The silence that followed her words was long and deadly, as they both felt an invisible cloak of doom fall over the conversation.
Yeah, he had ethics, all right.
Too bad those ethics had cost him everything he'd worked for, everything he'd ever wanted.
Too bad those ethics had also cost him his family.
"Hey … " Cooper coughed lightly. "I've gotta eat my burger before it gets cold, but I'm putting an envelope in the mail tomorrow for you. Make sure you get to it before Dad does, okay?"
He hated himself for trying to break the call off, but dammit, some nights it was just too hard to sit out here in Big Sky country and imagine them all back in Boston, a Red Sox game on the television, the smell of popcorn and Mom's homemade marinara permeating the entire house.
"Cooper, don't send me any money."
"I'm actually sending you a giant rattlesnake tail I found this morning out on the cliffs." Cooper squirted ketchup on his burger, wishing like hell he was doing it in his old apartment, with Phoebe hanging over the counter watching, waiting to throw her arms around his waist, just because.
His throat felt tight as he took a deep breath. "Okay, kid. I gotta get going."
"I miss you."
"Miss you too, hon." He cleared his throat. "Watch for the mail, okay?"
After he hung up, he stood at the counter for a long moment, sadness and anger mixing into a muddy boil inside him. Yeah, he liked his life at Whisper Creek just fine.
But it was going to take a long damn time before he forgave the dirty cops who'd stolen his real life out from under him.
Chapter 4
The first thing Shelby realized as she awoke the next morning was that the birds in Montana were really, really loud.
The second thing she realized, as she felt like the end of a telephone pole was slamming into her chest, was that her dad was really, really … gone.
Still.
It was the same every morning-had been since the Thursday when Nicola had stepped into the tour bus in Vegas with tears in her eyes. Every day, Shelby woke, had a blessed few seconds of peace, and then reality blew her back off her feet, like that old cartoon where the coyote got continually, painfully pummeled by the snarky roadrunner.
Only it wasn't funny.
She lay there under the puffy quilt, eyes squeezed shut against the pain, not sure she could even get out of bed and face the day. She was in a strange land, with strangers, and as far as she could figure, she was supposed to stay quietly shut up in a cottage for the next month while her management team scrambled to figure out what was next for Tara Gibson, pop star on the wane.
They knew just as well as she did that the whole T-Gib machine wasn't working. Sure, thousands of fans still bought tickets, but they weren't new fans. And in order to stay alive in this business, she needed those new faces at the arenas, needed different fingers clicking those Buy buttons, needed her numbers to go upward, instead of spiraling down.