A Fallow Heart (39 page)

His sisters hugged him as they would a favorite but long-distant nephew. Brendel had just turned fifty that year and Stacia was about to become forty-seven. When he was growing up, he’d only seen them on special occasions, and even then, he’d been pushed into playing with their children instead of getting to know them.

Closest to him in age, Chet and Sonia—Brendel’s two—tried to talk to him now, but they were city dwellers and understood pretty much none of his farm talk, which was about as much as he understood of their corporate, computer-based techno jargon.

By the time the sun dipped low in the sky, he sought solace outside. He stayed away from the barn because every time he looked at it, it reminded him of Jo Ellen. He ached for her. He’d been tempted more than once to call her and tell her what had happened. He knew if he asked, she’d come. But since he wanted her to come so bad, he refused to call. He didn’t want her out of sympathy; he wanted her freely out of love.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he strolled toward his mother’s vegetable garden, thinking his mother hadn’t had time today to check if anything was ripe enough to pick. But before he reached the tilled soil, the sound of squeaking swing hinges caught his attention.

He glanced over to spot Chet’s oldest boy, Harry, sitting on the porch swing watching the sun set. Feeling a connection with another soul seeking solitude, he meandered that way. When he stepped onto the first stair, Harry glanced over.

With a sad smile, Coop waved. “Bet it’s a lot quieter out here than where you’re from, huh?”

Harry nodded and turned his gaze back to the dropping daylight. Just as Coop settled on the free end of the swing, Harry asked, “When do you think Poppa Thad will be back?”

Cooper froze, not certain how to answer. Particularly fond of his Poppa Thad, Harry was probably six or seven years old, old enough to know once you were gone, you didn’t come back. At least he was old enough in Coop’s opinion.

But he didn’t try to explain. He leaned back in the seat, studied the colored sky and let out a sigh as he squinted for an answer in the pinks and purples and oranges among the clouds. “Well…Now that he’s in heaven, I reckon he’s already back with us and will stay for good, watching over us from above.”

With a frown, Harry whirled to scowl at him. “Heaven?” he thundered out the words as if Coop had let a nasty expletive like the f-bomb slip. Cooper paused, wondering if Chet had even raised his boy to believe in heaven and hell. Great, he hadn’t meant to start some kind of religious debate with the kid.

Before he could backtrack, however, Harry jumped off the swing, breathing hard. “My…my puppy went to heaven last… m-month.” So upset he could barely spit the words out, he clenched his fist and his face flooded with a panicked kind of red. Then he burst into tears. “D-does this m-mean Poppa Th-Thad’s…
dead
?”

Cooper lurched to his feet, wide-eyed and feeling a bit panicked himself. But dear God, hadn’t Chet told him yet? He reached for the shaking child to comfort him, but Harry dodged away.

“
Daddy
!” he screamed at the top of his lungs and dashed for the screen door leading back inside.

Coop followed, worried. Thank God, Chet, then his wife met Harry at the door, immediately gathering him into their arms as he sobbed against them, demanding answers.

Mouth falling open, Cooper could only gape as Harry’s parents seared him with matching scowls of accusation. As they rushed the boy inside to soothe him, Brendel caught the door before it could shut. Narrowing her eyes, she threw Coop a killer glare.

“Way to break the news to him, Cooper. He’s been in grief counseling since his dog died, you know.”

His face draining of color, Coop fumbled for an apology. “I…I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Why the hell hadn’t anyone warned him to keep quiet? Jesus. What did the kid think they were doing here to begin with?

Appearing in no way forgiving, his sister—
half
-sister—whirled from the doorway and let the screen slam behind her as she went in search of her sobbing grandson. Exhaling, he fell back into the porch swing and scrubbed at his face with both hands. When no one came outside to console him and tell him they pardoned him for his slip-up, he left the house. This time, when he went walking, he headed straight for the barn.

He needed comfort, and at the moment, even the achy, painful memories of Jo Ellen would do.

After climbing up into the hayloft, he sat at the opening and watched the last bit of sun disappear behind the horizon. He wondered if she was cuddled up in some high-rise condo and watching the sunset from a huge, classy window. Did she think of him at all these days?

He knew he shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t matter. But it did.

He’d been stupid and too drunk the night before, thinking he could just call her and get her back. She didn’t belong in his kind of life any more than he did in hers.

Sighing, he glanced toward the house. Other family members had claimed his room for the night, even the couch was already called for. He decided not to return; he didn’t feel welcome there anyway.

An hour passed before he lay down on the warm floorboards of the loft and curled an arm under his head, pillowing it. Sleep finally took him deep in the night, but it wasn’t easy. When he dreamed, he dreamed of Jo Ellen and her smile, the feel of her hands as she touched him, the way she looked at him when she liked what he said.

He woke earlier than the rooster, stiff and sore from lying so long on the hard wood. His joints ached, but his body throbbed for a woman he couldn’t have.

Guilty for becoming aroused only two days after his father’s passing, he waited a while before returning to the house.

His misery rose to a new level when his sister Stacia pounced on him as soon as he pushed inside the back door.

“Where the hell have you been?” She grabbed his arm and yanked him through the kitchen toward the front room. “Mama’s been worried sick, asking where you were.”

Shame slapped him in the face and he brushed past her to find Loren in the living room, surrounded by everyone in the family. But she didn’t look worried or sick. Instead, her eyes brightened with warmth when she saw him. “Cooper! I wondered where you went off to.”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I went out to sleep in the barn.”

As he bent to kiss her cheek, her face softened with sympathy. “In the hayloft?” she guessed.

He glanced away and nodded, uncomfortable because she might suspect he’d thought of Jo Ellen most of the night. After clearing his throat, he searched for a spot to sit, but Stacia slid into the last seat in the room beside their mother. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he found an empty patch of wall to lean against.

Brendel continued to shove daggered glares his way. Chet, his wife, and Harry were absent, but their two daughters toddled around the room while Stacia’s teenage boys regaled Loren with all the athletics they were involved in at their school.

Another tense day passed. Coop didn’t dare try to escape out of the house this time in fear his mother would need him, though his sisters smothered her so much he couldn’t manage to get within ten feet of her.

He attended the visitation that night, and found more kinship and sympathy from his neighbors than he did his own family. Though the night seemed to pass in a blur, it dragged on. Exhaustion consumed him, but when he tucked down in his sleeping bag on a free spot of floor in the parlor that night, sleep continued to elude him.

He was never so grateful for the day of the funeral to arrive. Like his Mama had said, he just wanted everything over and done. A part of him realized nothing could return to normal once it
was
over and done, but at least he could get started with the rest of his new, altered life.

The funeral home attendants kept his family in a back room of the church before the service started. He didn’t get to see who had come to pay their respects until the ceremony began. And even then, they paraded his family in to their reserved pews like cattle; he didn’t feel easy about gawking around to look for Jo Ellen.

A part of him wondered if anyone had told her what happened. What would she do if she knew? She hadn’t come to the visitation, which pretty much meant she likely wouldn’t make it today either. But he ached to see her. He wanted her beside him so he could have a hand to hold.

No one else in his family would certainly hold his.

He’d become the black sheep overnight it seemed. Harry burst into tears every time he saw Coop. Chet had cussed him out more than once. His sisters gave him the cold shoulder and seemed to guard their mother from him. The rest of his nieces and nephews and great-nieces seemed leery of him on principle alone.

His surreal existence continued all the way through the service and off to the cemetery. He sat under the canopied tent in front of his father’s closed casket three spaces down from his mother and next to his brother-in-law as the last prayer chanted through the warm summer air.

And another line of mourners began. He managed the obligatory smile and nod, hugged all the ladies who bent down to console him, shook all the hands thrust in his face.

By the time B.J. Gilmore appeared in front of him, he wanted to grab her and drag her off to Rio’s Bar to play pool or throw darts. If he’d known his night with her would be the last piece of normal he ever saw, he wouldn’t have stopped at taking her shirt off. He would’ve—

“Hey, bud.” She squeezed his shoulder. “This just isn’t your week, is it?”

He laughed softly. “Doesn’t seem to be.”

The growing crowd behind her forced her to move along. An urge overcame him to snake out his arm and grab her wrist, yanking her back to his side—grabbing the only sense of reality he’d felt in two days—but he controlled himself and turned to the next couple in line with a polite, distant smile.

When he focused on the woman, he didn’t recognize her at first. He had to blink twice before Emma Leigh, and then her husband, focused in his brain.

“
Em
?” He whispered. Holy hell, she’d come all the way back from Reno for his father’s funeral; for him.

Immediately, his gaze moved past her and past Branson. When he paused at the woman in line behind them, the breath shuddered from his lungs.

Oh, God. She was here.

His body stirred, a powerful jolt of life and love roaring through him. He was so busy staring at Jo Ellen, meeting her tear-stained gaze, he didn’t hear what Em said to him or that she even spoke until she leaned down to hug him.

“I’m so sorry for you loss, Coop. He was a good man.”

He murmured something, agreeing with her, but his attention return to her twin. She wore another skirt, a straight black thing that fell down to her knees. Her top was prim and short-sleeved, and she’d never looked so beautiful.

She held her shoulders stiffly and her hands folded tight at her waist.

He wanted to lurch to his feet so fast his chair
fell over backward. Then he wanted to toss her over his shoulder and carry her far away from here. Jesus. His body actually vibrated the urge was so strong.

Branson shook Coop’s hand next, but he didn’t even feel the pressure of the other man’s grip. After Em’s husband stepped aside, Jo Ellen finally moved in front of him and paused.

Rasping her name, he started to rise, but she’d already bent to hug him, so he dropped back down into his seat.

She said nothing, just held him. One breath passed. Two breaths.

He closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around her, sinking into her scent, memorizing the texture of her blouse, consuming her essence. His lips parted as he exhaled.

All too soon, she released him and stepped back.

Cooper kept eye contact with her until Brendel’s husband sitting next to him reached out to shake her hand, tearing her attention away. And then she was gone.

His insides squirmed with jittery unease. A part of him screamed to go after her, don’t let her get away. But he was at this father’s graveside; he couldn’t just leave.

Could he?

Jesus Christ, where was his head? He couldn’t disrespect his father like that.

More people flooded through the line until he couldn’t see her anymore.

For the first time since getting that phone call from his mother at B.J.’s house, he damn near cried.

*
* * *

Cooper skipped the family lunch. Actually, he’d had every intention of going, but as they left the cemetery and moved their group to the reception hall behind his church, he finally found a moment to talk to his mother again. She sidled up to him and touched his elbow. Relieved to be allowed this close to her, he encompassed her in a one-armed hug and walked along with her a few paces.

When she pulled back, they both stopped and she studied him intently. He knew she had something important to say before she opened her mouth.

“Stacia and I have been talking,” she started. “She says it’s been tough for her, raising three teen boys alone since her divorce, so I think I’m going to go live with them once this is over and settled.”

Shock speared through him. Of all the things he’d thought she might say, this was the very last.