Intercepting Love (Second Chances #5)(40)

To Joel, I turned and smiled. “Thank you for letting me come, Joel. I’m sorry we couldn’t stay longer.”

Joel nodded, and turned a lethal glare to Jackie. “I understand Kate. Next time, I’ll invite you and my nephew over when we have fewer guests.”

Turning on my heel, I stalked off toward the gate. “Don’t you even want to know what happened to the last doctor my son screwed around with?” his mother yelled.

I almost faltered—my heart thundering in my chest—but my pace didn’t slow and I kept going. “No, I don’t,” I shouted back. “And if did, I wouldn’t want to hear it from you.”

What the hell was she talking about?

As soon as I stormed through the gate, hidden from prying eyes, Cooper pulled me into his arms and crushed his lips to mine. I melted into his embrace and held on tight, but when he let go, his gaze was unsure, guarded.

“I’m so sorry for bringing you here, Kate. Thank you for what you said. I just wanted to make sure I kissed you before I took you home.”

“Why is that?” I asked. “You couldn’t wait that long?”

He held my face in his hands and sighed. “No, it’s because there’s something I need to tell you and I don’t know how you’re going to handle it.”

“Is it about what your mother just said?”

Nodding, he took my hand and led me up the path to his car. “It’s not something I’m proud of, and I had hoped you wouldn’t find out this way.”

The look in his eyes scared me. I knew he had skeletons in his closet, just like everyone, but something in his gaze had me worried. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

“Okay,” I drawled out slowly, “but let’s get out of here. I really don’t want to see your mother again because if I do I’m liable to lose the southern charm you love so much about me.”

“I think I’d like to see that,” he admitted with a gleam in his eye. “My mother hasn’t had someone put her in her place in a really long time. Not even my father stands up to her. I wanted to tell her to f*ck off so bad, but I didn’t.”

Quickly, we both got into his car so we could leave before anyone tried to stop us. “Why not?” I asked. “If my mother talked to me like that just to be a bitch, you better believe I’d put her in her place. There’s such a thing as equal respect. You’re an adult and you need to be treated as such. Just because she’s your mother doesn’t give her the right to treat you as someone of less importance.”

As soon as Cooper backed out of the driveway, we both breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be away from there. Every time I tried to say something, his phone would ring. Obviously annoyed, he shut it off and angrily threw it in the backseat. “Kate, before I tell you anything I want you to do something with me. It’s something that I should’ve done from the beginning.”

“Sure,” I replied nervously. He wouldn’t look at me, which made me even more nervous. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

He nodded and finally glanced over at me. “Kind of. There are a lot of things I’ve done that I shouldn’t have, and I regret every single second of what I did. I just don’t want you to see me differently, and I’m so afraid you will.”

“Cooper,” I whispered, taking his hand that was balled in a tight fist. “It’ll be okay. Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. I don’t scare so easily.”

Ten minutes later, Cooper turned down our street. Instead of taking me home, he stopped at his house. He didn’t say a word as he opened his garage and pulled his car inside. His garage had a bunch of boxes piled in the corner, but other than that there wasn’t much else. Since he hadn’t been in town long, I figured he hadn’t had time to unpack.

When I got out of his car, Cooper saw me looking at the boxes and said, “I haven’t really spent much time unpacking. You’ll see what I mean when you come inside. One day I’ll get to it.”

“Yeah, if you stop spending all of your time with me,” I teased. “Do you want me to help you?”

Before he opened the door, he turned to me and placed his hand on my cheek. “I would love for you to, but first you need to decide if it’s something you want to do.”

The door he led me through opened up to his kitchen, which seemed to be fairly unpacked. There were boxes stacked on one side of the counter, but he at least had a basket full of fruit and some of his appliances set out on display. His living room was the same way, with boxes here and there, but he didn’t stop to let me see. Instead, he led me up the stairs on down the hallway until we reached his bedroom.

Inside, he had a king-sized bed with a navy blue comforter and pillows, and the room smelled just like him, all masculine and woodsy. “Okay, what I’m about to show you is going to come as a shock, so please don’t freak out on me.”

Hesitantly, he walked over to a set of dressers and pulled out one of the drawers. Carrying it over to the bed, he flipped it upside down. I couldn’t even begin to describe what I felt in that next moment. I was confused, shocked beyond belief. Bottle after bottle of painkillers toppled out of the drawer and onto his bed; it had to be at least a hundred bottles or so of nothing but little white pills.

“Oh my God,” I choked, putting a hand over my mouth. “How did you get all of this? Or better yet, why do you have all of this?”