A Fallow Heart (32 page)

All logic gone, he cranked the key in his ignition, killing the truck.

Jo Ellen broke down first. “Cooper,” she whimpered, reaching for him.

He met her half way, his mouth open as it slammed against hers. A part of him realized they sat publicly in the open on the parking lot of his father’s nursing home, but a majority of him didn’t care. He needed Jo Ellen. He needed her very essence to fill him where he was empty, where he hurt.

Sinking his fingers in her hair to cradle her head, he ravished her lips as he urged her backward on top of the bench seat. Lost in her, he consumed, plundered for more, and sought something from inside her he could never extract by physical means. She kissed him back, touching him as if she wanted to give him exactly what he sought.

“Someday,” he said against her throat, barely pausing to take his mouth off her warm skin. “I want to love you on a bed full of pillows and blankets. I want to get tangled in sheets and comforters until we’re wrapped together so tight they’ll need the Jaws of Life to separate us.”

She gave a small laugh as she rained kisses along his jaw. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever made love on a bed before.”

He pulled back, frowning.

With a flush, she lifted her hand to cover her mouth, but he caught her wrist. Ducking her head, she admitted, “Travis and I never—”

When a growl gurgled from his throat, she jerked her face up, her eyes growing wide with alarm.

But he waved his hand, encouraging her to continue. “You and he…what?”

“I…I…it’s nothing.” She shook her head frantically and squirmed slightly under him, letting him know how uncomfortable she’d gotten.

“Jo Ellen,” he gritted out, his teeth strained together. “Just because I want to punch something every time I hear that name doesn’t mean you can’t say what you want to say. So please. Tell me what you and he did so I know what
not
to do.”

She opened her mouth…and a cell phone rang from the depths of her purse.

He closed his eyes, hissed a mutter against her neck, and groaned. “You should probably answer that, huh?”

She touched his hair. “I don’t have to.”

“No.” He sighed. “Go ahead. We can’t finish this here anyway.” He didn’t pull back but continued to pin her to the seat of his truck, slipping his hand up her waist to cup her hip before he opened his mouth and caught a bit of skin at the base of her throat between his teeth.

As he licked her pulse, fully prepared to torture her the entire time she talked to her caller, she shuddered and fumbled to dig her phone from her purse. When she lifted the display screen, she frowned at the number. “Hmm. I wonder who this is.”

Cooper’s palm found its way inside the hem of her blouse and smoothed a titillating circle over her belly, making the muscles underneath tense and quiver.

“H-hello?” she breathed the word as she answered the annoying ring.

There was a pause before Cooper heard the faint voice of the caller hesitantly ask, “Jo Ellen?”

“Yes.” She sucked in a breath and arched while Cooper moved his mouth’s attention south, finding her aching nipple between the layers of cloth. “This…this is Jo Ellen.”

“Hey, it’s Travis. You told me to call whenever I made it into Tommy Creek.”

Cooper froze as the muffled voice from her phone’s speaker reached his ears. Blood thundered through his head, making his vision blur and his cranium feel crammed tight with a buzzing roar as he lifted his face and took in the features of Jo Ellen’s guilty expression. Color leeched from her cheeks as she met his gaze with wide eyes.

“I…I…” she fumbled into the phone before clearing her throat. “Yes, but…”

Yes
?

He pulled back, sitting upright in the truck’s seat.
Yes
? What the hell did she mean by yes?

“Why don’t we just meet at the reunion tomorrow, okay? We can talk there.”

His lips parted as she made plans to meet another man. Jesus God, not just another man,
the
other man; Travis fucking Untermeyer.

Betrayal, pain, shock and too many more emotions to name prickled his skin like a dozen jolts of electric current or bumblebees stinging him. She’d made plans to meet Untermeyer here in Tommy Creek?

When?

Why?

How did he know her cell phone number?

Oh, God. What if they’d never broken up? What if…

“Yes, I’ll see you then.” When she disconnected, her gaze immediately sought him. “Cooper—”

He held up his hand and simply breathed. Inhale. Exhale. One moment at a time.

Then he exploded. “Jesus Christ! Please tell me that was
not
Travis Untermeyer.”

She bit her lip, guilt making her eyes crinkle with unspoken apology. He cursed under his breath.

“You…” He didn’t know what to say, what to think. For a split second, all he could see was bright, blinding white before her face wavered back into his vision, fringed with spotty black misery. “You still talk to him,” he stated the obvious. “He has your phone number.”

With a discreet nod, she admitted his accusations were true, since there was obviously no way to deny them. “He showed up at the last house party I hosted in Dallas. He lives there now as some kind of campaign staffer.”

Breath whooshed from his lungs. “You two are in Dallas together?”

Her lips pinched tight. “Not
together
,” she mumbled. “I didn’t even know he lived there. I hadn’t seen him since he broke up with me that last day I attended Tommy Creek high school.”

“But he has your cell phone number,” Coop insisted, unable to move past that fact. Though his having her number wasn’t the problem. Untermeyer still had a piece of her heart;
that
was the problem. Cooper flinched, knowing it was true, would probably always be true.

“I…” She took another calming breath, which only made him want to rage. “Yes,” she started in a patient manner. “I gave it to him. He said he needed to talk to me at the party I was hosting, but I was working. It was neither the time nor the place to discuss our past. So I…I thought up the first place we could meet on level ground. At the class reunion.”

He studied her a moment. When he was ten, he’d broken his arm after trying some daredevil stunt on his bicycle. He remembered the pain being so intense his body had gone numb as a defense mechanism. As he studied Jo Ellen, his arms and legs lost all sensation, the numbness claiming him completely.

“You’re getting back together with him?”

She blinked. “What?
No
!” The insult in her voice should’ve appeased him. It didn’t. It just made him grit his teeth because he knew she had to be lying. “I agreed to meet him once. To talk. Only to talk.”

He frowned, utterly bewildered. “To talk about what?”

Her face filled with color. At first, he thought she was too embarrassed to say. But the color turned a hot, angry hue. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? I don’t know what
he
wants to discuss, but I know what I want to say to him.”

“And what’s that?” Cooper pressed.

Pinching her face up tight, Jo Ellen narrowed her eyes. “That’s really none of your business.”

Another arrow of betrayal struck him dead center in the chest. He thought they had become confidants over the last few days. He knew he’d certainly told her things he’d never told anyone else, would never tell anyone else. But obviously, she didn’t trust him enough to tell him this…probably because it meant she planned on getting back together with the asshole.

Rubbing at his face furiously with both hands, he made up his mind. He wasn’t going to be his father. He wasn’t going to try loving a woman enough for the both of them. And Jo Ellen’s heart obviously still belonged to her first love.

Cranking on his key and making the engine roar to life, he silently pulled away from the nursing home. The glacial interior of the truck made him roll his window down so he could suck in some refreshing, warm outside air.

On the other side of the cab, Jo Ellen blew out a frustrated sigh. “Cooper, I…I want…I just…I need closure...with Travis. I need to look him in the eye and feel finished. As it is, I don’t…everything’s just so unresolved.”

Because she was still in love with him, no doubt.

“…And I don’t feel as if I can move on with my life and create a full, complete future with myself until I tie up all my loose ends in Tommy Creek.”

“Loose ends,” he repeated, his eyes narrowing with sharp interest. He glared at her before returning his gaze to the road. “The night you came back, you told me
I
was an unresolved loose end.”

When she sucked in a guilty breath, his heart sank into his knees. Everything became suddenly, awfully clear. “Oh, I get it. These past few days between us have just been
closure
for you, haven’t they? Give the dumb farm boy a couple rolls in the hay and he’ll forgive you for whatever slight you think you inflicted on him ten years ago?”

Her mouth dropped open. “That’s not…How could you…Cooper, you’re not being rational.”

Rational was for people who didn’t have a broken heart.

“Well, welcome to the one irrational thing about me, princess.” The sneer in his voice was filled with all the bitterness oozing through his veins.

As he wheeled his truck into her parents’ driveway and jerked to a stop in front of their house, Jo Ellen let out a world-weary sigh. “My God, Cooper. You know I...what happened this week between us…Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re flying off the handle like this because of a stupid phone call.”

Wrapping his fingers tight around the steering wheel, Cooper stared straight ahead out the windshield. A stupid phone call, huh? Is that all this argument was to her?

“You asked me before if your history with him bothered me. Well…” he glanced at her, making sure he kept his features blank. “It does.”

Or rather, it was Untermeyer’s present with her that bothered him. He could deal with what had happened in the past but the past didn’t seem to be over for her.

Drawing in a deep breath as he watched her, Jo Ellen wrinkled her eyebrows with irritation and worry. She blinked a few times, and then choked out. “Wow. You really didn’t like him, did you?”

His jaw dropped, incredulous. “I
hated
him,” he clarified. Mere dislike had nothing to do with it.

Jo Ellen shook her head. “No. You don’t hate anyone. I can’t see you hating...” The hard look he sent her made her gulp. “Goodness. I know he was incredibly rude to you in high school but—”

“Jo Ellen,” he bit out. “I hated him. And it had nothing to do with the way he treated me. I hated him because he had
you
. Then he misused you and hurt you, and I hated him because killing him for it wasn’t an option. Did you know he had another girlfriend within a month after you left Tommy Creek?”

Pain flashed across her features. Cooper clenched his fist, despising how Untermeyer still had the ability to hurt her.

Feeling vindictive, he curled his lip into a sneer. “He dated at least three different girls his senior year. And I hated him because he could get over you so easily, while I was counting down the days until Christmas break, thinking surely you’d come home to see your parents and I’d be able to catch just a glimpse of you in town somewhere.”

Pity filled her face. Not love, not affection. Pity! “Cooper,” she whispered, her voice strangled and apologetic.

When she reached for him, he veered back. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” she cried. “I don’t understand this.”

Because this was what unrequited love did to him. Made him crazy, insane jealous and moody. The only way to bring back the real Cooper was to cut all loose ends with her. Get his own closure.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Defeat crushed his ribcage, making his insides feel claustrophobic and panicked. “We were always working toward our expiration date, Jo Ellen. You have a life and a wonderful career in Dallas. I have this farm to run for my dad. I never made you any promises, and from what you told me in the barn before we ever started anything, you were going to leave on Sunday no matter what.”

Once more, he had to look away. Waiting for her to correct him, to tell him they didn’t have to end anything, that a little distance meant nothing to her—that Untermeyer meant nothing to her.

He gnashed his teeth when she said nothing.

“Cooper,” she whispered. The light touch of her hand on his leg made him shudder. He waited again for her to tell him what she really wanted. He suddenly felt a kinship with her brother, Grady. He hated having no control over his own destiny because he’d given it all to the woman beside him. She controlled everything.

Go. Stay. Love him, hate him. He would respect whatever decision she made.

But she must’ve already made it in the hayloft the night they were first together. Because she certainly didn’t alter any of what she’d said that night now.

After a moment, she nodded and whispered, “I understand.” She pushed the passenger side door open.