Was that truly what bothered him about her—that she wasn’t suitable enough to take on the Edwards legacy? That she wouldn’t be able to step into his mother’s shoes in the future?
Maybe he was right about that. But Dawn couldn’t help but feel that there was something more to the story that she was missing.
Either way, his comments had cut deeper than she’d like, and she made a point of staying away from Claudia for longer than she otherwise would have, until she’d recovered her equilibrium. She tried to take in the details about the time capsule—the controversy about whether the large space underground that formed most of it really was the biggest in the world, which had resulted in the additional pyramid on top, and the fact that Guinness had actually dropped the category from their world records shortly after, so it didn’t really even count.
But mostly she wondered if Cooper was right about one thing. Would she really have been happy as a corporate wife once Justin had stepped up and taken on a bigger role in the family business, as she knew he’d been planning to? Would she have been happy giving up her own job to support his, organising dinners and galas for him, sweet-talking potential business partners?
In truth, she was pretty sure she would have hated it.
Except that admission led her to the acknowledgement of another of Cooper’s hard truths: maybe it was just as well Justin had jilted her.
‘Are you coming?’ Cooper called eventually from where he leant against Claudia’s bonnet, his arms folded over his broad chest. ‘I want to make Des Moines before we stop for dinner.’
Dawn absently waved a hand at him.
Des Moines could wait. She had a lot of stuff she needed to figure out first.
CHAPTER TEN
THERE WAS SOMETHING up with Dawn and, whatever it was, Cooper didn’t like it.
She’d been quiet when she’d come back from the time capsule, and hadn’t even objected to grabbing lunch from a drive-through to eat on the way to Des Moines. After they’d found a hotel that evening—which he’d put on his card without even thinking about it—he’d suggested dinner, but she’d declined, saying she needed some time to herself.
In Cooper’s experience, that never boded well.
He’d spent the evening eating room service, avoiding the mini-bar and watching bad sci-fi movies, all while obsessing over exactly which part of what he’d said by that stupid pyramid had upset her. And, more pertinently, why he cared.
The thing was, he’d lashed out when it wasn’t even her fault. He knew himself well enough to admit that talking about his ex-wife, and his abject failure of a marriage, put him in a lousy mood.
But what he couldn’t tell was whether she’d been more upset at the suggestion that Justin jilting her at the altar was a good thing, or her realisation that he might be right.
Because he was right. He’d seen it in her eyes, however fast she’d tried to look away, and as much as she’d been avoiding meeting his gaze ever since.
Justin needed a wife who could play the part, like their mother had all these years. But Dawn wasn’t interested in any of that.
Which led him back to his initial question—why did Justin think Dawn had been after their money? Because, as far as Cooper could tell, she wanted the perfect, romantic, true-love marriage her parents had, whether it meant being poor for life or richer than she could imagine.
And that thought just made his head hurt even more than yesterday’s hangover had.
He’d hoped that the weirdness of the time capsule, and their conversations the day before, would have passed by the morning. But when Dawn met him in the hotel lobby she was still quiet, and didn’t even question his suggestion of doughnuts for breakfast again.
Yeah, he really didn’t like this.
‘I thought we’d stop for lunch around Walcott, Iowa,’ he said, once they’d finished off the doughnuts. It was strange, he realised suddenly, how much of their day revolved around meals on this trip. Usually, he’d forget to eat at least one meal a day unless he was meeting with clients at a restaurant, or his assistant brought him something. Even then, he rarely really tasted them, distracted as he was by whatever he was working on while he ate. But on the road with Dawn he’d savoured pancakes, doughnuts, burgers, milkshakes, steaks and all sorts, and had enjoyed every mouthful.
Maybe it was the company.
No, he wasn’t thinking that way. Even if he’d stayed up half the night, after the last movie had finished, with a sudden urge to put together a list of bizarre roadside attractions for them to stop off at during the rest of their journey. He’d told himself he was just being practical, but he couldn’t deny that a large part of his motivation was the smile he knew Dawn would give him when they pulled off the interstate to check them out.
Oh, boy, he was in trouble.
‘That sounds fine,’ Dawn said, still staring out of the window. Cooper eyed her as closely as he could while still keeping his attention on the road, but didn’t spot any sign that the name Walcott meant anything to her. So far, her discovery of roadside attractions had mostly seemed serendipitous, or discovered online while they’d been driving. Since she hadn’t even taken her phone out of her pocket this morning, the chances were she hadn’t even checked out their route for the day yet.
Good. He quite liked the idea of surprising her for a change.
He smiled to himself for the first time that morning as Claudia sped along the interstate—at least, until his mind caught up with him and started asking a whole bevy of new questions.
If Dawn was pulling away from him, it could be for two reasons, as he saw it. One, she was realising he was right and giving up any hope of a future with Justin. Which, on the off-chance that Justin was right about her motives, could only be a good thing. And actually, even if he wasn’t, it probably wasn’t exactly a bad one. Cooper knew his brother, and he was getting to know Dawn. They might have had the whirlwind romance but surely he was proof enough that those didn’t always work out?
Of course the second reason was more troublesome. Because there was an even chance that Dawn was determined to prove him wrong instead. That she was pulling away so she could prepare herself for winning Justin back to silence the doubts that Cooper had raised.
And if that was the case he knew he couldn’t let her drift too far. He had to keep her focussed on the truth—that she and Justin weren’t meant to be. Not because, as his restless mind taunted him at night, the idea of watching her with his brother made his guts knot up with something he refused to call jealousy, but because it was the only way he could think of to spare Justin a messy divorce further down the line.
He never wanted his brother to have to go through the sort of heartbreak he had, whatever the cause. Dawn might not be a gold-digger—and he still wasn’t one hundred per cent certain if he could trust his gut on that—but she wasn’t the right wife for Justin either. The ending would be the same, bitter one, either way.
Except that Justin loved her. Which meant, if he knew that she wasn’t after his money, he’d want her back. So it was entirely possible Cooper was driving Dawn to a reconciliation with Justin that he was almost certa
in was a bad idea.
But what else could he do at this point? Apart from anything else, he wasn’t willing to give up a few more days on this journey with Dawn.
Not even for his brother.
Cooper’s head hurt from all the permutations and possibilities. Maybe he’d just focus on their next stop and forget all about their ultimate destination for a change.
At least, until they stopped in Chicago that night. Because then they were well over halfway to the Hamptons, and Cooper knew he had to accept that they definitely weren’t turning back then. Which meant he wouldn’t be able to put off a certain task any longer. Justin might have been able to ignore the text messages and emails Cooper had sent him from the road but that couldn’t go on for ever.
Tonight, it was time to call his brother and warn him they were coming.
* * *
‘What is it with you guys needing to be the biggest and the best?’ Dawn asked as she clocked the sign at the turn-off: Walcott, Iowa, home of the World’s Biggest Truck Stop. She’d known it sounded familiar when Cooper had mentioned it that morning, but she’d been too preoccupied with her own jumbled thoughts to figure out why.
‘By “you guys” do you mean Americans, men or just American men?’ Cooper accompanied his request for clarity with a raised eyebrow.
‘A bit of all three, probably. You have to admit, it’s kind of an obsession.’
‘Says the woman who insisted on eating hotdogs with the world’s biggest dead polar bear.’ Cooper shut off the engine and opened Claudia’s door. ‘At least this place has a museum. About trucks.’
‘A museum and all the testosterone you can handle,’ Dawn murmured as she followed him out of the car.
Cooper pointed at her across Claudia’s bonnet. ‘Just for that, you’re driving the next leg to Chicago.’
Dawn rolled her eyes. ‘I always drive after lunch. Because you’re too grouchy to surrender the keys in the mornings—that, or you want to make sure we have the least healthy breakfast possible.’ At least, that had been their routine for the past four days. Was that how long they’d been travelling together? Somehow, it seemed much longer. Wasn’t time supposed to fly when you were having fun?