The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Cooper laughed roundly. “I’m sure that went over well.”


“It was the most uncomfortable party we’ve ever thrown, and I’ve been to more than a few. You couldn’t have bulldozed through the tension in that grand ballroom. Oh, and our great idea for putting it under the stars went the way of the dodo bird, too. I had to scramble to get a venue.” She smiled and sat down on top of a table. “What about you?” she asked, kicking off one shoe, and then the other.

“We’ve never done anything like a bat mitzvah, and after today, I can promise we never will,” he said. “TA does extreme sports, not this kind of thing . . .” He paused and smiled lopsidedly. “Unless Reggie Applebaum asks.”

Emma tossed back her head with a bright laugh. “I guess we all do what Reggie Applebaum asks, right? So what is the most complicated event TA has ever staged?”

Cooper had to think about it. “The Costa Rica gig ranks right up there,” he said with a nod. “Rigging a zip line just to push a bunch of out-of-shape guys down it is not my idea of a good time. But the most complicated?” He leaned up against the table where she sat, his arms folded across his chest, his hip against her thigh. “You know Marnie Banks McCain, right?”

“We’ve met.” Marnie Banks was a wedding planner in town.

“She planned the wedding of Olivia Dagwood and Vincent Vittorio.”

“So she got that gig!” Emma exclaimed. Olivia and Vincent had been the hottest stars on the planet a couple of years ago. Every wedding planner in town had wanted that event. “CEM threw all that we had and then some at that one. How long did that marriage last, anyway? A hot minute?”

“Not even,” Cooper said with a snort. “Olivia and Vincent wanted to be married where they’d filmed a movie, in the Rockies, of all places. They wanted to hike up to the place of a scene where they’d determined they had ‘fallen in love,’” he said, making invisible quotes with his fingers. “That location is not exactly accessible, which is where we came in. And that was how the wedding from hell came to be,” he said with a shake of his head.

He told Emma how a freak thunderstorm had knocked out the only bridge across a very steep ravine and had separated a group including the bride, groom, Cooper’s partner Eli McCain, and Marnie, from the rest of the wedding party.

It sounded like an unbelievable and ludicrous weekend, complete with a bickering bride and groom and the successful rigging of snow blowers to shoot sandwiches and apples across a ravine until the stranded party could be rescued. Emma laughed with delight as Cooper entertained her with a description of shooting peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches across the ravine. “You’re lying!” she accused Cooper, playfully shoving his shoulder. “No way that happened.”

“It happened,” Cooper assured her. “It will go down as one of the most bizarre weekends of TA’s corporate life.”

“Honestly, it amazes me that no one has been hurt in all the things I’ve heard TA does,” Emma said. “How do you keep from getting hurt?”

“Oh, I’ve been hurt,” he said with a laugh. “I guess I’ve got a secret weapon.”

“What’s that?”

Cooper dug into his pants pocket, then held out his hand and opened his palm.

Emma leaned over to look at it.

“Go ahead, pick it up.”

Emma took it from his palm and examined it. It was a charm of some sort, silver and small, about the size of a nickel. The charm was scarred, the engraved image worn. “St. Christopher?” she asked, squinting at it.

“Yep. My grandfather gave it to me when I was a kid. My brother had gotten into some trouble . . .” Cooper waved his hand. “My brother was always in trouble. We were little demons, always blowing things up, always rigging our rockets onto our bikes, that sort of thing. My grandfather was the superstitious type. He gave my brother and me each a St. Christopher medal and made us promise to carry it always so we’d be protected from harm.”

“And you’ve carried it all this time?” she asked skeptically.

“I sure have. I know, surprising, isn’t it? Can’t believe I haven’t lost it.”

“So that’s the secret to not dying on a TA outing,” she said dubiously as she handed it back to him.

He laughed. “I don’t really believe this medal protects me. But I like the sentiment behind it, and I’m not opposed to putting a little trust into the power of positive thinking.” He returned the charm to his pocket and looked at her. “What’s your secret?”

The question startled Emma, and for a moment, she feared that Cooper knew about her reputation, knew what she did.

“Your secret weapon for parties like this,” he clarified.