A Fallow Heart (23 page)

At her touch, he lurched on top of her and slapped his free hand onto the wooden floor by her head. Trembling above her with all his weight braced against the floor around her, he heaved shallow breaths against her temple before, saying, “I…are you…protection?”

Her hand froze. “I…no. Sorry, I…I don’t…”

“It’s okay.” He slurred out the words thickly, his voice full of desire. “I have…inside…I…I’ll be…be…” Without further ado, he scurried off her. “Right back.”

* * * *

Cooper nearly shredded the drawer under his bathroom sink as he searched for his box of condoms. It had been so long since he’d last needed them, he wasn’t even sure if he still had the box around or if he’d pitched it when he’d packed up to come live with his parents again. Please, God, he hoped he hadn’t thrown them away—

Oh, thank you, Lord.

He jerked the crumpled box out from under a package of disposable razors and dumped a handful into his unstable palm. Damn, he wished he could stop shaking. But seriously, his ultimate teenage fantasy was about to come true. Ten years late or not, nerves wracked him from head to toe.

After stuffing his pockets, he concentrated on stabilizing his breathing. He lifted his gaze to the mirror above the sink and almost jumped out of his skin to find his own reflection staring back. But seriously, he did not feel as if he inhabited his own body. This did not seem real, couldn’t honestly be happening.

Jo Ellen was outside, waiting for him to—

Holy shit, she was out there,
waiting
! He kicked his ass into gear.

Heading out of the bathroom, he paused in the hall when he glanced at the linen closet. Wondering if the army green sleeping bag he had used when he would camp out was still on the top shelf, he opened the door and almost wept with relief and nostalgia when he saw it.

How many nights had he wrapped up in this old thing and stared at the stars, wishing he could be lying there with Jo Ellen Rawlings?

“What am I doing?” he muttered under his breath. “This is insane.” If he slept with her, he was only going to fall for her all over again, like he always did, and she was going to break his heart whenever she left.

Like
she
always did.

But if he didn’t go to her right now, he’d spend the rest of his life—just as he’d spent the last ten years—wondering
what if
.

He reached up and snagged the sleeping bag.

“Camping out in the hayloft again?”

Cooper nearly pissed himself when his mother’s voice startled him from behind. He whirled around, expecting a lecture about pre-marital sex. But then, Loren had no idea he had a woman waiting for him in the loft or how condoms lined both his pockets.

Her smile was soft even if it was filled with bitter sadness. It reminded him why he was on the outs with her in the first place, and made him wonder if he should return to the barn at all. His mother had never loved his father, and Jo Ellen didn’t love him. If he did this tonight, he’d end up like just his father, living the rest of his life in unrequited agony.

Once upon a time, he would’ve been proud to follow Thaddeus Gerhardt’s footsteps. But these days, the idea of becoming the wrinkled old mindless man he visited every week at the nursing home scared the bejesus out of him.

“It’s just like old times.” The aging skin around Loren’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Every full moon in the summer, out you’d troop with your sleeping bag and lantern.”

Conflicted as he always felt when he looked at her lately, wanting to return to normal around her but unable to do so, he lifted his eyebrows. “Where
is
that old lantern?”

A mischievous spark lit her eyes, showing him a glimpse of the woman she used to be before his father had taken ill. “It’s sitting on the kitchen table, waiting for you…fresh full of oil.”

His stomach cramped with misery. He knew her eager over-helpfulness wasn’t just some ploy to gain his good favor. Loren Gerhardt had always been this unselfishly sweet. But it made him feel awful because he knew he should thank her, yet he still couldn’t utter the words. With a terse nod, he brushed past.

“Cooper,” she started, turning with him to follow him down the hall.

He couldn’t do this now, wasn’t sure if he ever could. “I’ll see you at breakfast,” he mumbled, picking up his pace.

Chapter Fifteen

He never should’ve gone to the house.

Jo Ellen realized it the moment she watched him bang his back door shut and disappear inside, because as soon as she was left alone, reality returned…with a vengeance. The sweet song of nature around her became a warning;
foolish actions ahead, foolish actions ahead. Someone will get hurt
.

The thing was she’d love to start something with Cooper Gerhardt. Badly. He was kind, considerate, and easy to get along with, too handsome to keep her eyes off of. But starting anything with him would probably be the biggest mistake of her life. She had let her morals get out of hand ten years ago, and she’d paid the price. She’d lost a baby, not to mention all her self-confidence, and she hadn’t had a whole lot of confidence to begin with. She wasn’t the tough type to bounce back after getting bruised.

Was it any wonder she avoided men to this day? Since Travis, she hadn’t held a relationship for longer than a month. But she just couldn’t do it. There was too much risk; with Cooper, that risk would be too enormous to handle. If—or more aptly
when
—he left her, she wouldn’t be able to fault him for being a jerk like Travis had been. It’d all be on her. He was too perfect. And she wasn’t strong enough to take on that kind of blame, of knowing something was so intrinsically wrong with her she couldn’t hold a relationship the way her twin could, couldn’t be loved the way she ached to be.

It was safer to stop this right now, no matter how much Cooper made her wish for more.

Yet even as she steeled herself against further temptation, Jo Ellen’s resolve faltered when she heard him on the ladder below, climbing up. A light glowed from the hole in the hayloft floor before his head appeared, and the golden strands of his gorgeous hair glinting off the lantern beam. He grinned when he saw her.

She twisted her hands at her waist when he tugged a sleeping bag up after him. Not only had he gotten protection but he’d snagged a few creature comforts along the way…for her. Now she felt worse for what she was about to do

He hopped into the loft, bundled the bag under his arm and strolled toward her until the light of the lantern caught her face.

Finally, his smile wavered and his steps slowed. She wanted to cry for putting that defeated expression on his face.

But it was too late now. He already knew. “You changed your mind.” His voice sounded empty, hollow.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I feel like such an awful tease, but I just…I live in
Dallas
, Cooper.” Yeah, that sounded good. She went that route instead of being honest. “I have my own business, and I’ve finally gotten it off the ground. I’m where I’ve wanted to be since starting my work—”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t have to explain anything to me, Jo Ellen. I understand.”

He brushed past her, and her heart clenched, because she didn’t understand it herself. Why did she have to be so weak and run; why couldn’t she be brave and take a risk?

Probably because in the end, it hurt too much.

Trailing him back to the hayloft doors, she tried again, hoping she sounded more reasonable to her own ears this time. “If we started something here tonight, then—”

“I know,” he cut her off abruptly. “You’re not the type of woman for a one-time deal or even a week-long fling.”

She cringed because a weeklong fling was exactly what she’d been contemplating.

“I understand completely. I do. It’s probably for the best anyway.” He sent her a forced smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Though now that I’m out here,” he mused, almost to himself, “sleeping under the stars sounds good. I think I’ll camp out anyway.”

He unrolled his sleeping bag in front of the opened loft doors where a huge moon gawked in at them as if waiting for her next move. After Cooper settled down on the blanket and stretched his feet out in front of him, he glanced at her over his shoulder only to wince. “I’m sorry. Where are my manners? I’ll carry the lantern and walk you back to your car so you can see where you’re going?”

When he began to scramble up, she shook her head, and motioned him back down. “No, no. Don’t get up. I’ll be fine.”

He paused and studied her before offering, “You can stick around for a while if you like. Nothing says we can’t keep talking. I can explain old-time tractors and reapers to you. I’m an almost direct descendent of Cyrus McCormick who invented the reaper, you know.”

She smiled but shook her head again. “I can’t. If I stay, I won’t leave.”

Then don’t leave
, his eyes clearly conveyed.

Her resistance weakening under the hypnotic trance of his whiskey gaze, Jo Ellen sucked in a big breath and stepped toward him; this might not end up as it had with Travis, she tried to remind herself. Cooper was nothing like Travis. When she took another step, he simply watched her. She kept moving, walking closer, unable to stop. And when she reached his side, she knelt down next to him and settled herself on the blanket.

He turned away abruptly and looked out at the moon. A heavy sigh shuddered from his lungs.

She closed her eyes. This was a mistake. There were too many emotions involved, too much history. Too many broken hearts. Too much fear. She should go. She should stand up and leave;
except she didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.

As if sensing her indecision, he said, “Don’t leave.”

Whether he meant don’t leave that second, or that night, or don’t leave at all, not at the end of the week, not ever, she didn’t know.

But she figured she could at least give him the night. With a nod, she whispered, “Okay.”

A comfortable silence passed as they sat beside each other. Jo Ellen let out a silent sigh, glad he hadn’t pressured her for more, yet pleased he’d talked her into staying. Just being around him made her feel…nice, alive with the thrill of his intoxicating presence yet comfortable and safe. The mixture was like a drug, overwhelming her senses.

“So,” he said, blowing out a long breath. Sitting a good two feet away from her, he picked up a strand of straw off the floor. “How crazy is it that Em’s married off?” He chuckled lightly and sent her a smile.

Jo Ellen knew he was just trying to think up a conversation starter, but she took the question to heart. “It is, but it really isn’t.”

He sent her a confused look. “Okay, you’re going to have to explain that one.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it really. Yeah, it’s strange Emma Leigh, who never acted interested in boys at all, got married straight out of high school.”

“Straight out of high school?” Cooper’s brows lifted until they disappeared beneath his shaggy, blond bangs. “I didn’t know that part. Wow, they act like newlyweds.”

“I know. That’s why it’s also not so strange. If you’d been there when they first met, you would’ve known it was going to happen too. Just like that. They wanted to dislike each other so much, but they couldn’t.”

“It was that intense, huh?”

Jo Ellen rolled her eyes. “It was crazy. Whenever they were around each other, all the air in the room just kind of sucked in around them until it was literally hard to breath. Their chemistry is just so…so…”

When she couldn’t come up with an appropriate word, Cooper leaned toward her. “So what?” he asked in a low voice that made all the air in the hay loft suck in around them, constricting her lungs until she found it hard to breath.

She looked at him, breathing rapidly, wondering, hoping…was this what it had felt like for Emma Leigh?

Too leery to encourage the sensation as her twin obviously had with Branson, Jo Ellen broke eye contact and forced her gaze out into the starry night.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It was just really big and all consuming.” Feeling like the biggest coward ever, she drew her knees up to rest her chin on the tops of them and curled her arms around her legs. “And it’s exactly why every time I’m around Emma Leigh lately, I begin to feel so restless, so alone. I look at her and Branson together, see how happy they are and crave something like that for myself. And I feel like an awful person for it.”

Cooper made a sound of disagreement in his throat. “You have no reason to feel bad about wanting to be happy.”

“But I do,” she argued. “I should be glad for my sister. Never in all the years we were growing up did I think she’d find this kind of life and actually enjoy it. I should rejoice in her happiness. I should—”

“Hey,” he whispered. “Jealousy is an uncontrollable emotion. It attacks all of us. As long as you don’t let it get the best of you, I’m sure you and your envy can live in harmony without anyone getting hurt. So, see? There’s no need to feel bad about it. It makes you normal. Human.”