Joining her, he stacked the books, handing her one at a time. They worked in comfortable silence for a while, then started talking about the books he’d kept over the years.
“How about you?” he asked. “What’s your place like? Are you a neat freak or do you prefer clutter?” He couldn’t judge that part of her yet.
“Hmm. That’s a complicated question because I don’t have my own place.”
He narrowed his gaze, wondering what she meant. “Do you have a roommate?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She paused, turning to face him. “She’s almost eighty years old, has lived in the same building for the last forty years and has a spare room she doesn’t mind letting me use when I’m around.”
“Your grandmother?” Coop recalled her mentioning that the older woman was spry for her age, but maybe she had other issues that necessitated aid.
Lexie nodded.
“Does she need live-in help?”
“God, no! She’d slap you for even suggesting such a thing.” Her eyes twinkled at the thought. “Grandma is as independent as they come. But she has a spare bedroom and I figure what’s the point of paying rent all year round when I’m not there on a consistent basis?”
A sick feeling settled in his gut. As much as he’d like to ignore this subject, the more he knew the better prepared he’d be. “How often do you leave town? Or should I ask how long you stay around?”
“It all depends. I can go on short trips for a few weeks at a time or monthly journeys if I choose to. That’s the beauty of my line of work. I can stay connected and do it from almost anywhere.”
He shook his head, unable to understand the appeal of her lifestyle. “Why leave?”
She spread her hands in front of her as if the answer were obvious. “Sometimes it’s a new venue I want to see, other times I just get antsy staying in one place for too long.”
Just like his ex, Annie, who had loved her job as a flight attendant. Which hadn’t threatened him at all at first. The insecurities came later, when she’d take on more flights, finding excuses not to come home.
He pushed the thoughts and similarities aside. Lexie wasn’t his ex. He didn’t know her well yet or even understand her motives for how she lived.
But he remained curious. “So those books we talked about your having read and liked? You don’t own them? What about stuff? Don’t you need a place to keep your things?”
“I own a few old books that I leave at my grandmother’s, and anything else I can download on my e-reader. Like I keep telling you, technology is a beautiful thing!”
“Do you miss having a place of your own?”
“But I do have a place. My grandmother has always been my refuge, so it’s the closest to home I’ve ever had,” she said simply.
Clearly, to her it made sense.
Walking over, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “What did you need refuge from?” he asked.
They’d long since stopped cleaning in favor of conversation, but he sensed that Lexie needed to keep busy, as she paused to rearrange some of the hardcover books they’d just shelved.
Then she pointed to the paperbacks. “Can you hand me those next?”
He did as she asked.
While she placed the books in order, switching them from upside-down to right-side up, she finally started to explain about her childhood.
“I come from a very driven family. Dad’s a banker, Mom is a lawyer and my sister followed in our father’s footsteps. I was more of an oops in their carefully planned life. I was unplanned and, to add insult to injury, I didn’t act like them, either. They wanted me to follow their goals—I wanted to take things as they came.”
“So you’re unique.” He’d sensed that from the first time they’d met.
She smiled. “And you’re kind. My parents, once they realized they couldn’t mold me into their image, came to see me as more of a…disappointment.” Her voice cracked on the word.
And so did his heart, hurting for the little girl who couldn’t please her family. Coop might not have lived up to his father’s ideals, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. And he’d always felt his father’s love.
“It’s their way or no way,” Lexie went on. “Grandma always wonders how she had such a stick-in-the-mud for a son and she pushes his buttons whenever she can.”
Coop laughed. “Hey, not all family members are alike. It’s okay for you to be different.”
Lexie released a wry chuckle. “I wish someone had explained that to my parents. Don’t get me wrong—they loved me and wanted me to have every opportunity available—as long as they chose the opportunity. So at five years old when my ice skating talent became obvious, they started to push me toward competition.”
“Let me guess,” he said, continuing to work with her on the cleaning. “You hated it.”
“Actually, I loved skating. I just hated the rigorous schedules that came with their goals. I hated the conformity of the routines. And as I got older, I hated the competitiveness between skaters and even the adults in that world.”
“Did you tell them?” He wondered if she’d felt comfortable enough with them to be honest.
She nodded. “I tried. But nobody listened. So throughout my teenage years, I was at the rink at 5:00 a.m., working with a coach and competing. Until finally my grandmother stepped in.”
“How did she save you?” He was fascinated by this glimpse into her early life and the things that had formed the woman she’d become today.
“One day she picked me up after school for skating practice, took one look at my face and instead of going to the rink, she drove upstate. We went hiking at Bear Mountain. We watched the leaves turn colors and enjoyed the outdoors. It gave me a much-needed break.”
As she recounted the memory, color flooded Lexie’s cheeks, almost as if she were actually there, outdoors with the cool wind biting at her cheeks. There was no doubt this woman knew her passions, Coop thought.
“She obviously gets you,” he said, meeting her gaze. “You’re lucky to have her.”
She nodded. “You sound like you understand. From experience?”
He inclined his head. “Yeah. My mom,” he said gruffly. Coop swallowed hard and decided not to explain about the shoulder injury and being forced to drop out of the academy and stuck to the subject at hand. “She knew I loved writing, recognized my talent and guided me toward journalism. She got me.”