The Omega Team: Cooper's Promise (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Shadow Alliance Book 2) Read online

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  Cooper’s Promise

  An Omega Team / Shadow Alliance Crossover Novel

  A Novella

  By Caitlyn O’Leary

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Synopsis

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  Biography

  Books by Caitlyn O’Leary

  Dedication

  To my husband, John. Thanks for continuing to listen.

  Synopsis

  Cooper Laughlin, a member of the Omega Team, has been tied up in knots by his best friend’s baby sister forever. Even though the girl is now a woman, he still feels she is too young and inexperienced, and needs to be protected from everything and everyone, and that includes him.

  Brenna moved across the country to be close to Cooper two years ago, and despite her best efforts, he has kept her squarely in the friend zone.

  When a stalker threatens her safety, all of Cooper’s pent-up emotions break free. Is there a way to keep her safe from both the stalker and Cooper’s own need to dominate?

  Chapter One

  January

  God, she was beautiful, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. She was his best friend’s baby sister, “baby” being the key word in that sentence. She was eight years his junior. He was thirty-one and she was twenty-three. He’d served two tours in Afghanistan. Their points of reference couldn’t be any further apart. He also knew that what he needed from his lovers, and that it would be too much to ask for from Brenna.

  He hadn’t seen her for two months on purpose. It was getting tougher and tougher to keep his hands off her. Every time they got close to one another, it was like there were invisible threads that would begin pulling them closer. Brenna would get this soft look of longing on her face, and it was up to him to deny the attraction.

  “Cooper? Are you even listening to me?”

  Cooper Laughlin scooted out from underneath the desk that he had been putting together, and saw her pretty blue toenails peeking out beneath her white jeans. He looked up long legs that nipped into a narrow waist, and then his gaze whipped past her luscious breasts to rest on her beautiful face.

  “What? I didn’t hear you from under the desk.”

  “What did you want on your pizza?”

  “I can’t stay for dinner.” He pushed back under the desk with the Allen wrench in hand, but not before he saw her look of grief. He had to stop doing this. It was killing them both.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Soon he heard the muffled sound of a telephone ringing. He continued putting together the cheap piece of furniture Cooper wanted to make sure the crappy pressboard was put together securely, so that Brenna’s computer wouldn’t end up in a heap on the floor. He was so damn proud of her for getting this part-time recruiting gig while she applied for her dream job, that he wanted to support her any way possible. Of course she was also interning at a law firm that specialized in environmental cases. She did research for some of their cases twenty hours a week. He was amazed at how much she was getting done.

  Finally, the last piece was fastened, and he felt that it could withstand even a category five hurricane, which, God-willing, wouldn’t happen anytime soon here in Tampa, Florida. He eased out from under the desk and saw that the little bedroom that Brenna was using as an office was empty.

  He picked up his toolbox, and headed down the tiny hallway to the area that made up the living and dining room, as well as the kitchen. Brenna was sitting on one of the barstools, her legs crossed, talking on her cell phone. She was not dressed like she had been twenty minutes ago.

  Her long tan legs were encased in the most elaborate sandals that he had ever seen. They had laces going up above her knees, and heels that had to be four inches. She was now wearing a short skirt and halter top. Cooper thought he had been hit with a poleaxe.

  “Hold on Tanya.” She put the phone on mute.

  “Thanks for all of your help, Coop.” Her smile seemed off, but he was still trying to wrap his head around her outfit. “Here you go.” She held out her hand.

  He took the paper offered, and then froze. It was a goddamn check. It was made out to his name, and in the Remarks section it said “Household Repair.”

  “Hang up the phone, Brenna.”

  She shook her head.

  “Now,” he said, using his Army command voice.

  She unmuted her phone. “Tanya, I’ll meet you there in forty-five minutes. I can’t wait to meet him.” She pressed “End” and put her phone on the kitchen counter. “What?”

  “Don’t act all innocent. How dare you insult me with a check? I’m your friend. I came over here to help you set up your desk.”

  She flinched. Her shoulders sagged and she held out her hand. “You’re right, it was over the top. I was trying to make a point. Give me the check.”

  He looked at her and could see the strain around her mouth and eyes, despite the bright make-up. “I’ll give it back if you would just explain what you were trying to do.” She needed to explain, because it’d hurt.

  “I told you, it was a mistake.” She lunged for his hand, but he held the paper just out of reach, causing her to fall into his arms. She struggled to get loose.

  “Careful, you don’t want to fall in those shoes.”

  “Don’t touch me, Cooper.”

  “Baby, it’s just me,” he said in a soothing tone.

  “Give me the damn check.” Her breathing was rapid and she sounded out of breath.

  “Tell me how we went from having pizza to you treating me like garbage and going out to party with some guy you don’t even know.”

  He held her gently in his arms, loving the feel of her soft skin beneath his hands. She looked up at him. “You hurt my feelings, so I tried to hurt yours.”

  “Well, it worked. But I didn’t mean to hurt yours. I just needed to go. You’re too much of a temptation.”

  Even with the heels, she still had to tilt her head to be able to search into his eyes. “Why is that a bad thing, Cooper? I understand you didn’t want me when I was in college, but I graduated over a year ago. You’re still treating me like you did when I was sixteen.”

  Cooper’s hands stroked up and down her arms,. He desperately wanted to touch more, but this was all that he would allow himself. “It’s great that you’ve graduated. But you still haven’t even experienced life. How can you know what you want? Who you want?”

  “Cooper, don’t you know why I moved out here from Michigan and transferred to USF? It was so I could be close to you.”

  His hands stopped moving and he looked at her in amazement. “You said they had the best Environmental Science and Policy department.”

  “Their department is great. But do you know what a pain in the ass it was to get my credits transferred, and then arrange to take my senior year classes here? To graduate away from my friends and family?” He cupped her shoulders, stopping himself from cupping her cheeks.

  “Brenna, baby, you didn’t.” He couldn’t comprehend her words. She couldn’t possibly mean...

  “Cooper, you told me two years ago at Paula’s wedding that I was too young, that I needed to graduate, that we didn’t know one another. Well, I’m two years older. I’ve graduated. And haven’t we been hanging out together since I got here?” She carefully placed her hands on his chest.

  God, it was true. Every little thing she’d just said was true. But he’d been so careful to treat her like Hudson’s little sister. He’d kept everything platonic. Even those times when they had spent hours talking late into the night, it had just been as friends.

  “Brenna-” he started.

  “Never mind, Coop.” He winced. He hated when she called him that. That’s what his Army buddies called him. She called him Cooper. Coop meant she was dismissing him.

  “Brenna, listen to me.”

  “Nope. We’re done here. I’ve got plans tonight. You’re right. The check was childish. Thanks for helping me with the desk, Coop.” She picked up her miniscule purse and opened the front door of her apartment.

  “Cooper. You call me Cooper,” he protested.

  “Not anymore.”

  * * *

  March

  “I said no!”

  “Come on Brenna, we’ve been going out for two weeks. We should be moving to the next step,” he whined. He actually whined.

  “This was our second date,” she clarified.

  “In two weeks,” he protested. God, his voice was grating on her nerves.

  “Thank you for walking me to my door. I told you, I have to be to my internship assignment early in the morning.”

  “Just a beer. Can’t I come in for one beer?”

  “No.” She twisted out of his grasp and plunged her key into the lock. His hand was on her shoulder.

  “I will put you down if you continue. Let’s keep this civil, Josiah.”

  “Hey, what are you talking about? I’m not some creep you have to defend yourself against.” She shoved her door open, slipped inside, and slammed it closed and locked it.

  “Brenna!” He pounded on the door. “Open up. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Well, you failed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Go away.” There was silence, and then her phone rang. It was him. She ignored it.

  Damn it. He’d seemed promising. Yeah, sure. She went to the kitchen and pulled out the emergency bottle of Grey Goose from the freezer.

  “It’s bad to drink alone, Brenna.”

  “Yeah, like talking to yourself is good,” she responded to herself as she poured out a shot. Still...she took her phone out of her purse and dialed Tanya. She cringed when it went to voicemail.

  “It’s bad. Josiah turned into a Stage One clinger. Two dates and I think he wanted me to have his babies. That’s not the bad part, I’m migrating with the Grey Geese. Yes, I’m drinking alone. Help me. The worst, worst part is that I’m starting to go through my pictures of Cooper. Call me, I’m begging you.”

  She hung up, and then pulled up her photos on her phone. Most of the pictures of Cooper were the ones that she’d taken at Paula’s wedding. But one of them was of her and Cooper that her cousin Barrie had taken when she and Cooper had been dancing.

  Cooper, with his dark hair, looking down at her with blue eyes that showed so much emotion, so much caring. The crease in his cheek had been deep, as he’d smiled down at her. Right now, her stomach clenched as she looked at his big hand encircling her waist. It had been this picture that had Brenna moving her sad sorry ass down to Florida. She’d really thought she’d had a chance with the man she loved. Brenna brushed the tear off the surface of her phone, thankful when it rang.

  “Girlfriend, I’ll be right over.”

  “Thanks, Tanya. We need to make a plan. I need to leave town.”

  “No, you can’t. You’re my best friend. You need a better plan.”

  Chapter Two

  June

  “Nice digs,” Hudson Wells whistled as he looked around the offices of the Omega Headquarters.

  “You’re looking great. How was Paraguay?” Cooper asked his old Army buddy. They were both Army Rangers, and had done tours together in Afghanistan.

  “It was wet.”

  Cooper rolled his eyes. “Yeah, man, I would expect that during a flood. How long were you there?”

  “Almost a month.” Cooper could see the grim set to Hudson’s mouth. He must have seen some bad shit. Cooper’s grandparents had lived through Hurricane Katrina and had lost everything. He knew just how bad a flood could be.

  “It was good that you and your team were down there to help.”

  Hudson pulled up a chair into Cooper’s cubicle. “So, when can you blow this popsicle stand?”

  “Give me five more minutes, I need to finish this e-mail.”

  “Will I get to meet Grey and Athena?” Hudson asked, referring to the two founders of the Omega Team. Cooper had been recruited by Grey, and had joined the group soon after leaving the Army.

  “They’re not here right now. They’re on an assignment.” Cooper typed a couple of more lines, then pressed “Send.” He turned to give Hudson his full attention. “So, what in the hell are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I kept getting your voicemail. I called here, and they told me you were out of the country.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, just wanted a chance to talk to Brenna. She’s making a big move, so I wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing.” Hudson pushed back and forth on the rolling chair, his hands behind his head.

  Cooper’s gut clenched. “What kind of big move?”

  “She didn’t talk to you about it?” Hudson stopped moving his chair. His gaze sharpened. “I thought you guys were close.”

  “Yeah we were hanging out, but then work got hot and heavy.” Cooper waved his hand at his desk. “Then there was this last assignment. It was four weeks overseas.”

  “Yeah, but she’s been planning this for three months.”

  He slumped in his chair. She had? Part of him had been wanting a do-over since January. If he’d kept in touch, he would have known about this. “So what’s the big move?”

  “She’s moving to Australia to study the impact of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a five-year assignment. My mom’s crushed.”

  “I thought she was planning on doing something here in Florida?” Cooper remembered long conversations about how the erosion on the coastlines needed study. She was planning on being an advocate.

  “So did we. That was the plan when she moved down here. She had plenty of applications out, and she had an offer from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. This just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Oh, it made sense all right. He’d chased her out of her home, when a big part of himself really wanted to make a home with her. He had to fix this!

  “Coop, did you hear what I just said?”

  “What? Sorry, I was just thinking about my assignment. Can you repeat?”

  Hudson laughed. “I know what you mean. You ready to go? I was hoping to get a drink before seeing Brenna. I was wondering if you could go with me.”

  Cooper shut down his computer, and grabbed his jacket. He needed it to cover his gun. “You want me to see Brenna with you?”

  “No, to go get the drink.” They headed for the elevator. “You sure aren’t tracking very well. Are you okay?”

  “I need food.” Cooper said as they headed outside. “Let’s take your car, I rode my bike to the office.”

  “Still have the Ducati?”

  “Yep.”

  They got into Hudson’s rental car, and Cooper directed him to a steakhouse not far from the office.

  “Tell me what’s goi ng on with you,” Hudson demanded as soon as they had their drinks in front of them.

  Cooper winced. Hudson read him too well; he couldn’t very well tell him that he had been obsessing over his little sister for the last two years, and that it had turned nuclear in the last few months.

  “Just job shit. Tell me about you. Paraguay. Brenna. Your family.” He hoped Hudson wouldn’t realize how much he wanted to know about Brenna. He hoped he had been subtle enough.

  “Mom and Dad are doing great. Like I said, Mom’s just freaked at the idea of Brenna being out of the country for five years. My job is going great. I have this assignment in Dallas. It’s pretty hot and heavy. I have to evaluate all aspects of this privately-held company, especially the security.”

  “When did you leave Paraguay?” Cooper asked, as he took a sip of his beer.

  “Four weeks ago.” Hudson let out a bitter sigh.

  “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

  “Some, yeah. I can’t believe that parents would risk their kids’ lives.” He didn’t need to say more; Cooper got it. Hudson hadn’t been able to save the kids he was referring to, and it was still eating at him. “On a high note, Declan found a woman.”

  “Declan? You’ve got to be shitting me. Is she the one?”

  “Yep. He’s talking marriage.” Cooper lifted his beer, and Hudson lifted his, and they both grinned. “Who would have thought?” As happy as he was for their mutual friend, it still hurt. Brenna’s face surfaced, like it always did, but Cooper shoved it away.

  “Let’s order.”

  * * *

  What the hell was Cooper doing here in her apartment? This was not going according to her plan. What’s more, he’d been drinking.

  Hudson grinned. “I tried to drop him off at his place, but he insisted on coming over here, Sis.”

  Brenna looked at the big, dark man who was currently snoring on her sofa.

  “You should have tried harder,” she hissed.

  “You don’t have to whisper. He sleeps like the dead.” Hudson said. “Now, tell me about this plan of yours.”