A Fallow Heart (12 page)

He had to smile back. His Em had definitely become the cat who’d gotten the cream. “Well, then. What the hell are you doing on my lap, woman?” He nudged her off his thigh and watched her husband immediately fold her protectively back under his arm.

Leaning her head on her husband’s shoulder, Em glanced at Coop with that same proud, excited smile. “Coop, meet Branson Thornbrockmore, my wonderful, handsome, successful, and intelligent husband. Bran, this is Coop, my bud from back when.”

“Congratulations, man,” Cooper greeted as he extended his palm to Branson Thorn-whatever-the-hell-his-last-name-was. Branson politely shook with Cooper. He had a nice sturdy grip Coop respected.

“Over here is Bran’s sister, Lexi, with her baby.” Emma Leigh paused to rub Lexi’s belly, as if it was a good-luck Buddha doll, before motioning to the second man. “And you might remember Lexi’s husband, Dex. He’s my cousin from Reno. He came down to stay with us a couple of summers when we were young.”

After sending Lexi a gracious dip of the hat, Coop took the cousin’s hand as well. “Yeah, I think I remember you.”

“I might remember you too,” Dex answered, frowning thoughtfully as he studied Coop. “You look familiar anyway.”

The quartet seemed friendly enough. They didn’t leer at him as if he was some kind of lowlife, though he hadn’t exactly spiffed himself up before heading out this evening. There were enough holes in his jeans to warrant them sacred. But Emma Leigh’s crew gathered around him with ease as they spoke to each other in teasing affection.

Em turned back to him with an expectant grin. “So, what’s been going on with you, Gerhardt? I don’t think I’ve seen you for…”

“Ten years,” he supplied.

Rolling her eyes, she grumbled, “Well, yeah. That’s why I’m back.”

He frowned. “Come again?”

“Our ten-year class reunion is this Saturday,” she prompted. “I wanted to show Bran and these two where I grew up, so I thought this was as good an excuse as any to return.”

“That’s right,” Coop said, a strange, apprehensive sensation swirling through his chest as he remembered opening the invitation he’d received a few weeks back. “I’d forgotten about that.” He had no idea why dread welled inside him, but with Em here and announcing she was going to attend the reunion then maybe…maybe her twin might show up too.

He could only hope—

God, what was wrong with him? He hadn’t even thought of Jo Ellen in, well, two weeks. Not since he’d received the stupid invitation and wondered if maybe she’d come back for it.

Not that he cared. He hadn’t seen her since the night he’d tried to claim her baby as his.

And what a disaster that had been. But after she’d cried all over him, confessing how Untermeyer had reacted to his upcoming fatherhood, then how her parents’ had reacted, she gazed up at Cooper with something akin to hope.

“Daddy wants to send me to my aunt’s until it’s born so no one around here will know. But they’re talking about putting the baby up for adoption. With me being so young and Travis not helping in any way, I could lose my child, Cooper. I can’t move out and support it by myself.”

He knew exactly what she was asking. Her eyes begged him with a desperation he couldn’t deny.

“No.” He took her hands, promising, “You won’t lose anything,” Her cold fingers wrapped tight around his as he added, “Because it’s not Untermeyer’s baby. It’s mine.”

No way would his parents let the Rawlings suggest getting rid of the baby if he claimed it as his. They took care of their own and would find a way to fight Jo Ellen’s mighty family to help her keep her child.

Her eyes had widened with disbelief and even more hope. “So, we…we…”

He nodded and lied, “Yes. We did.”

Air rushed from her lips in a soundless gasp. She shook her head slightly as if to argue. “I…but I don’t remember it at all.”

He gripped her hands tighter in a supportive squeeze. “That’s okay.”

After they’d talked about what they were going to do from there, he’d walked her inside and stood supportively by her side as he told her parents he—not Travis Untermeyer—was the true father.

He had expected fireworks, and he got them. But not the kind he’d expected. Not one member of the Rawlings family believed him, not Emma Leigh, not Grady, not even Jo Ellen’s parents. He’d opened his mouth to argue with them, but Jo Ellen had turned to him, her eyes searching and confused. He folded like a goddamn house of cards, and she saw the lie in his gaze.

“We didn’t have sex, did we?”

He winced but refused to give in. “I can still help you with the baby, Jo Ellen. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”

He’d meant those words from the bottom of his heart. Hell, he still would’ve meant them to this very day if she found herself in the same situation.

But she had shaken her head, refusing to let him throw away his future because she’d done something stupid, as she called it, and gotten herself into trouble. He tried to argue, telling her he didn’t care whose baby it was, he’d love it and raise it as his own.

In response, Jo Ellen doubled over in pain, clutching her abdomen as she moaned an un-human sound of misery.

He still felt guilty about that, worried he’d been the one responsible for upsetting her into having the miscarriage.

“Man, you’ve really buffed up in the past ten years,” Em said, drawing him back from a conversation that had potentially induced the girl of his dreams to lose her baby, and to the conversation in Tommy Creek’s bar ten years later.

Damn it, why had he tried arguing with her about raising the child, why had he upset her even more?

Coop patted his belly and forced a smile. “Yeah, Mom’s fattened me up since I moved back home.” But his nerves strung themselves stiff with irritation as he mentioned his mother. After finding that damning letter, he’d yet to talk to his mom.

But he didn’t want to think about that right now, even though it was another reason he’d been craving a night out, away from home.

Emma Leigh snorted. “Fat! What fat? You’re pure muscle, boy.” She reached out to squeeze his bicep only to gasp as she prodded his taut flesh with investigative pokes. “Good God, Coop. That’s rock solid right there. Do you eat straight iron for breakfast or what?”

“Okay, okay,” Branson cut in, laughing nervously as he grasped Em’s wrist and manually removed her hand from Coop’s body. “That’s enough of touching the nice man’s muscles, dear.”

Coop chuckled as he studied her husband. Decked out in a prim and proper polo shirt with Dockers pants, the guy had city written all over him, yet Cooper found himself liking him anyway. He’d never pictured Em settling down with anyone in the first place, but if he had to pair her off, a man with this kind of staid, preppy look about him would definitely not have been his first guess. And yet, his friend seemed extremely content.

Cooper shook his head. Fate didn’t let you choose who you fell in love with; that was for damn sure. Just ask his mother.

“He seems more like the type to hook up with the princess,” he told Em before realizing what he’d just said.

Emma Leigh propped her elbow on Cooper’s shoulder and studied her own husband. “Yeah,” she fully agreed. “But I love him anyway.”

Branson glanced from Em to Cooper, scowling. “Huh?” he said. “Translation please.”

Emma swept away from Cooper to kiss her husband full on the mouth. “Coop says you look like you belong more with Joey than you do me.”

Arching a brow, Branson slid his gaze over her shoulder and grinned almost guiltily at Cooper. “Well, actually,” he started, the tops of his cheeks glowing with a light blush. “I tried for Jo Ellen first. But this one tricked me, so I ended up stuck with her instead.” By the satisfied gleam in his eyes, he didn’t seem too upset about the deception.

But his account of events had Emma glaring at him, obviously not amused. “I did
not
trick you.”

Snorting, Branson crinkled his brow and with a very bland voice, stated, “If you’ll recall, the only reason I kissed you that first night was because I thought you were Jo Ellen.”

Emma jerked away from him and set her hands on her hip. “What I
recall
is that you didn’t kiss me at all. I kissed
you,
moron. And the only reason you pulled away was because you thought I was her.”

“Well, what the hell were you doing, parading around as her anyway? If I’d known it was you, I might’ve—”

A couple of stools away from Cooper, Lexi plopped down, seemingly unconcerned by the yelling match going on between her brother and his wife. With a glance at Dex, she said, “We might as well order our supper now. This’ll probably take a while.”

“—If you had really known it was me, you probably would’ve kissed me before I could put the moves on you.”

“Oh, bullshit. You irritated the hell out of me back then.”

“You mean I
intrigued
you.”

Realizing the heat in their eyes really had nothing to do with anger and a whole lot to do with enthusiasm, Coop leaned toward their seated companions to ask, “So, they do this a lot, huh?”

Lexi rolled her eyes and spotted a bowl full of beer nuts on the counter in front of her. Pulling them close, she stuffed her mouth and talked around the peanuts. “Oh, all the time.”

“They like it,” Dex added, snagging his own handful. “It’s weird.”

“But strangely works for them.” Lexi shrugged.

“Well
some
people, especially identical twins, should have a little common courtesy and let a person know who she is
before
she goes and kisses him.”

As Branson ranted, Dex paused his chewing to frown at his wife. “Are you sure it’s okay for you to eat all this salt?”

“I’m starving!” Lexi exploded just as Emma railed, “Oh! You…how could you not know it was me if you supposedly had such a big crush on me?”

“Besides,” Lexi muttered to Dex, “I don’t know how I can retain any more fluids. I already feel like a walking water balloon as it is.”

Thoroughly entertained by the two conversations interweaving around him, Cooper leaned back against the wall and watched, munching on his own handful of nuts.

Branson scowled at Emma Leigh as if absolutely affronted. “I
do not
get crushes.” The word was obviously beneath him. “I may have had a small thing for you—”

“A thing called a crush,” Emma Leigh taunted, but her husband ignored her as he finished, “But you were acting a hell of lot like Jo Ellen that night, wearing that…that
dress
.”

“A dress?” Coop arched his eyebrows. “Wow, you
have
changed, Em.”

Emma Leigh grinned over at him and winked. “I looked good in it too.” Then she whirled back to glare at her husband. “And I can dress up like Jo Ellen if I so desire. It doesn’t mean I
am
her.”

“You
knew
I couldn’t tell which one you were!” Branson thundered. “And you purposely kept the truth from me, teasing me.”

Chuckling under his breath, Coop nudged Lexi’s elbow. “Just imagine how they’re going to fight when they become parents.”

Both Branson and Emma stopped bickering to instantly focus on him. In unison, they answered, “We are.”

Their argument forgotten, the proud parents descended upon Coop in a flood, pulling up pictures on their cell phones to show off three-month old Brand.

Elbowing Emma Leigh aside to jostle closer to Cooper, Branson snorted. “Your shot is too blurry. This is much clearer; you can actually see his face. Look at that chin. Doesn’t he have my chin?”

It was sweet how the two new parents were so obviously satisfied with their newborn. Yet it depressed him. Em—who’d never shown any interest in boys all through school—had married a good man, then popped out a kid to be proud of, while he…well, Cooper had nothing.

It made him wonder if Jo Ellen—

He heaved that thought out of his head as soon as it sprouted. She wasn’t anything to him, just one big
what if
. So why did the simple thought of her married to someone else make him feel so anxious and antsy? And of course, she had to be married by now with a half-a-dozen adorable babies clinging to her knees. A woman like Jo Ellen Rawlings wouldn’t stay single for long.

Curiosity burned in his gut as Cooper licked his lips and wondered if Em would read too much into his words if he somehow managed to slip in a question about what her twin was up to these days, or if she was going to attend the reunion too?

“He’s a cute kid,” he said, glancing at Emma Leigh before shaking his head. “Geez, I can’t believe you had a baby just a few months ago.”

Sending her husband a smug grin, Em preened. “See. Cooper thinks I still look hot.”

Branson pulled her close, sending Coop a glare. Cooper shook his head and chuckled. “So where is the little tyke?”

Emma sniffed. “Do you honestly think my parents are going to let him out of their sight for a minute while we’re visiting? He’s their first and only grandbaby. As soon as we showed up, they kidnapped him and have been spoiling him rotten ever since. We’ve hardly gotten to see him.”