Because, whether she liked to admit it or not—and she didn’t—Dawn was having fun with Cooper. Which had seemed an absolute impossibility at the start of the trip. Somehow, he was a different person out on the road.
Maybe it was Claudia’s influence.
Or maybe it was hers.
Dawn shook the thought away and followed Cooper into the truck stop in search of lunch. She had a feeling they’d be trawling around every inch of the truck museum afterwards, so she wanted to be well fortified. Bypassing the chain restaurants in the food court, she headed to the Iowa 80 Kitchen, her mouth salivating at the menu. It might not be a British fish-and-chip shop, but she’d take anything that wasn’t caked in sugar at the moment. One of the many things Justin had never mentioned about his brother was his sweet tooth.
As she tucked into her creamy chicken pasta al fredo a short while later, Dawn reflected that, while it might not be the healthiest meal ever, at least it included vegetables. She’d never before been so glad of some broccoli and mushrooms.
She surveyed Cooper over his giant burger—his third in a week, on top of the doughnuts, the pancakes, the room service and the breakfast muffins. He ate like a teenage boy, but had the body of an athletic, thirty-year-old health nut. It really wasn’t fair.
‘How does a workaholic like you stay in such great shape living on this sort of food?’ she asked.
Cooper took an enormous bite, chewing for a long moment as he wiped ketchup from his fingers.
‘I know you said you exercise,’ Dawn went on, impatient at waiting for him to finish eating. ‘But seriously, you’d need to be cross training for hours and hours every day to work off this stuff, and I know for a fact you’d never leave your office for that long. According to Justin, anyway.’ She frowned. ‘Then again, I haven’t seen you working much this week either. Are you spending all night dealing with your emails?’
Cooper finally swallowed before her babbling got too much further out of hand, for which she was thankful.
‘I don’t normally eat like this,’ he admitted, dipping one of his French fries in the sauce. ‘And I haven’t been working. I’m on vacation.’
Dawn blinked. ‘Justin always said you didn’t take holidays. Ever.’
‘Well, then, this is my first one. My first since—Well, since my honeymoon.’
‘Ah.’ Wincing, Dawn looked back down at her pasta. Then across at his fries. Possibly the appeal of vegetables was wearing off.
Rolling his eyes, Cooper pushed his plate a little way across the table so she could help herself to the fries. She smiled her thanks before digging in.
‘So this is your idea of a holiday, then—travelling across the country with me?’ Dawn asked. ‘I’d have pegged you for more of a “luxury private island in the Maldives” kind of guy.’
‘That was my honeymoon,’ Cooper admitted. ‘Not something I’m particularly looking to relive.’
‘I suppose I can understand that.’ Although, given the chance, Dawn had to admit that the island sounded pretty damned good regardless. Except she’d probably get bored. She never had been very good at sunbathing holidays. ‘Besides, there’s lots more to see this way. Plenty to keep us entertained.’
‘Absolutely.’ The amused smile he gave her as she stole another chip suggested that she might be one of the more entertaining things on their trip. Well, whatever kept him paying for the hotel rooms was fine by her. They’d be sleeping in Claudia if they had to rely on her credit card for much longer.
‘I was checking ahead on the route, actually,’ Cooper went on. ‘There’s a lighthouse we could stop at tomorrow. And maybe a ghost town the next day? They’re both a bit of a detour, but not too much...’
‘Sounds good,’ Dawn said, surprised. At the start of the trip, he’d been so desperate to get there as quickly as possible. Now he was suggesting detours? ‘So, not hurrying to the Hamptons quite so much any more?’
Cooper shrugged and took another bite of his burger. ‘Insert your cliché about enjoying the journey here,’ he said between chews. Then he swallowed. ‘Besides, if this is the only vacation I’m likely to get for a while, I might as well make the most of it, right?’
‘I guess so.’ Dawn smiled. ‘In which case, we should totally hit the gift shop before the museum!’
That earned her a groan, but somehow Dawn sensed he wasn’t quite as annoyed as he would have been four days ago.
Who would have thought it? She seemed to be growing on Cooper Edwards after all.
* * *
The truck museum, as Cooper had predicted, was wonderfully full of vintage trucks dating back to the start of the twentieth century. But, after checking them into the hotel in Chicago that night and heading to his room, he had to admit that his favourite part of their stop at Iowa 80 was watching Dawn steal his fries as they’d talked over lunch. Okay, it might also have been the very tight, bright-pink ‘World’s Largest Truck Stop’ tee shirt she bought and insisted on wearing while she’d driven the rest of the way to Chicago.
But talking with Dawn...just talking, about vacations and lifestyle choices...reminded him how rarely he did that. Until this week.
He and Dawn had been chatting about everything and nothing since they’d made the pact to drive Claudia across the country together. But today it felt different. The conversation hadn’t been as intense as the one at the time capsule, and for once she hadn’t pressed with any difficult questions about his marriage or his personal life.
They’d just talked. Like friends. Like people who cared about each other.
How long had it been since he’d had someone like that in his life? Someone just to...talk to?
He shook his head as he stared down at the hotel key-card in his hand. Too long, that was how long.
‘Cooper?’ Dawn called.
He looked up along the hotel corridor and saw her standing outside her own door, just as he was outside his room. Her gaze was concerned as she watched him.
‘Everything okay?’ she asked.
He nodded automatically. ‘Fine. I’ll see you downstairs in an hour? We’ll go find some dinner.’
‘Sure,’ Dawn said, but she still sounded uncertain. ‘I’ll see you there.’
Before she could ask anything else, Cooper pushed the key card into the slot and pulled it out again, the light thankfully turning green first time. Shoulder against the door, he made his way into the room, carrying his bag at his side.
It wasn’t as light as it had been, he realised as he hefted it onto the bed. The bare essentials he’d bought in Sacramento four days earlier had been added to at every city and truck stop they’d broken their journey at, it seemed—as had Dawn’s, he knew. In fact, her belongings were now in a cheap Des Moines-branded holdall, while his were stored in a brown leather bag he’d picked up in Salt Lake City. There hadn’t seemed to be much time for shopping, but still he had a couple more outfits than he’d started with, a new book or two to read when he wasn’t driving—something that annoyed Dawn a lot, since she got car sick when she tried to read in the car—and a new warm top that doubled as a dressing gown when the hotels were over-zealous with the air-con.
Basically, he’d started building up his belongings from zero again. And, while he had the funds to buy anything he chose without thinking about cost, he’d found himself choosing more carefully than he was used to. In fact, usually he just got his assistant to send out for clothes, shoes and so on from tailors and high-end stores he liked. On the road, his choices were more limited—yet he felt more satisfaction in choosing them himself than he ever had in the suit bags that arrived at his apartment from time to time.
Looking up from the bag on the bed, he was startled by his reflection in the mirror over the desk.
He barely looked like himself. His hair was unstyled, his stubble longer than he usually kept it and the tee shirt and jeans he wore un
familiar compared to his usual suit and tie. But it was more than that...
Cooper moved closer, peering into his own eyes in the mirror. Somehow, despite the long hours in the car, the stress of the wedding that wasn’t and his ongoing uncertainty about Dawn and her motivations, he looked more relaxed than he had in years.
In fact, he might even go as far as to say he looked...happy.
He blinked, breaking the mirror’s spell, and spun away. This road trip was only temporary—a week out of his real life. He couldn’t afford to read too much into it, not when he had responsibilities to get back to and obligations to uphold.
Starting with his brother.
Cooper tugged his phone from his jeans pocket and hit his brother’s name from his call log. He’d tried a couple of times on the wedding day but had got no answer. Since then, he’d sent a few text messages and emails asking Justin how he was, but there’d been no reply to those either.
And, for some reason, he’d never quite got round to telling his brother that he was on his way to see him. With Dawn.
Probably that was the sort of thing it would be polite to mention before they just showed up on the beach-house porch.
The phone on the other end rang and rang, and Cooper raised it to his ear just as the voicemail kicked in.