First Star I See Tonight (Chicago Stars #8) - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,118

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.

On the way there, he kept remembering what he’d said to Jada about stalking, but trying to have a simple conversation with Piper against her will hardly constituted harassment, did it?

So maybe it was a gray area.

The guys who lived downstairs had buzzed him in before, but this time they didn’t respond, even though he saw movement through their front windows. Next, he tried Jennifer MacLeish but got no answer. He hit the button for Mrs. Berkovitz. “Who’s this?” she replied over the intercom.

“It’s Cooper Graham, Mrs. B. Can you let me in?”

“Cooper who?”

“Graham. Cooper Graham. Could you hit the buzzer so I can get in?”

“I would,” she said hesitantly, “but I . . . I hurt both my hands, and I can’t press the button.”

A flat-out lie, since she was already using the intercom.

“Try with your elbow,” he said with forced patience.

“My arthritis.”

He thought for a minute. “If I come up, maybe you could give me some more of that fudge? Best I ever tasted.”

A long pause, and then a hoarse whisper. “She won’t let me. She warned all of us not to let you in.” She stopped whispering. “It’s not good to play games with a woman’s heart. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

The intercom clicked off. That made him so mad he did the thing he swore he’d never do. He waited by her car, even though it made him feel like he wasn’t much better than Karah’s ex-boyfriend Hank Marshall. But he had to talk to Piper, and what else was he supposed to do?

He stood in the cold for nearly two hours before she finally appeared. She wore one of the puffy winter coats Chicago women relied on. She’d taken the scissors to her hair again, and it fluttered in soft little feathers.

She saw him right away and came to a dead stop. She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. “Leave me alone!” She spun around and charged right back into the building.

He was furious with himself. She’d sent a clear message, and he’d ignored it. He felt like he needed a shower.

He drove aimlessly, not knowing what to do now. Eventually he headed for the gym, even though the doctors hadn’t cleared him to work out. On the way, a cop stopped him for speeding but predictably refused to give him a ticket until Coop insisted on it. Piper was right. He was a demon behind the wheel, and he needed to be held accountable.

Piper with the gun at her head . . . The image had frozen in his mind like a frame of film stuck in a projector. It was at that moment the mist had finally cleared, and his brain had comprehended what his heart had been trying to tell him for weeks—how much he loved Piper Dove. She was part of him. His laughter, his comfort.

More than that. She was also his conscience and his touchstone. His challenge, too, but not in the way she believed. Being with her challenged him to become his better self, to find a place in the world that no longer depended on a scoreboard victory, to let another person in and trust her to help carry the weight.

But what was he to Piper? Thanks to Duke Dove, he might never find out.

Piper had told him enough about her childhood for him to figure out the rest. Pleasing Duke meant she had to swallow every