A Fallow Heart (34 page)

“Jo Ellen’s ex is here;
with his wife
. I don’t want him to spot her and think she’s alone.”

“Emma Leigh,” Jo Ellen hissed, grabbing Em’s arm before she could stand. “Don’t. I
am
here alone.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to know that.”

“Well, I’m not going to pretend Branson is my husband just to keep from looking like a poor desperate, pathetic loser.”

“But—”

“I said no!”

“Which one is he?” Bran asked, leaning Emma Leigh’s way and unconsciously stroking Brand’s cheek as he scanned the room.

“He’s still standing in the doorway,” Jo Ellen reluctantly grumbled, just as Travis steered his picture-perfect family across the floor to the refreshment table.

Branson zeroed in on him and blinked twice before lifting his brows and turning back to Jo Ellen. She cringed. “He had hair back then,” she muttered. “And weighed about twenty—maybe fifty—pounds lighter.”

“Definitely closer to fifty,” Emma Leigh corrected.

Jo Ellen pushed back her chair, unable to watch the man who’d destroyed her childhood prance around with his family as if he owned his old school. “I need some air,” she mumbled, stumbling to her feet.

“Joey—” Emma Leigh burrowed her brows in concern.

Lifting her hand to motion her twin back down, she shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I just…I’ll be back in a minute.”

She escaped the gym and found herself in the quiet front lobby of her old high school. Not many lights had been turned on and the dank smell of old books and floor wax filled her nostrils. She didn’t miss this era of her life at all and wasn’t sure why she’d let her sister talk her into coming back to revisit it.

Cooper’s face flittered through her mind. The only thing that would make today bearable was if he showed up. But she knew he wouldn’t.

“Jo Ellen?”

With a gasp, she spun around to find Travis stepping conspicuously from the gym and glancing both ways before hurrying to her.

She hugged her waist, watching him from hollow, untrusting eyes. “Travis.”

He smiled and reached out to touch her elbow. “Hey. I wasn’t sure if you’d really show up, or if you were pulling my leg about meeting me here.”

Unable to respond to his comment, she glanced toward the doors of the gym. “You’re married.”

He nodded. “Her name’s Sidney.”

Jo Ellen nodded too. “How…how old are your children?”

It took him a moment to think up the answer. “Uh…Bradley’s eight and Stella is…five.”

Eight. No, he most certainly hadn’t waited long to find himself another woman to impregnate. Jo Ellen’s child would’ve been ten a month ago.

A mother and young girl pushed out of the gymnasium and into the front hall, the woman herding her daughter in the direction the bathrooms. Wanting to question Travis further with more privacy, Jo Ellen touched his arm. “This way.”

With a nod, he followed her around a corner and into a darkened hall lined with old metal lockers. When they reached a quiet nook that led to a pair of classroom doors, she stopped and turned to face him.

* * * *

Cooper ran a nervous hand through his hair only to check his reflection in the rear view mirror of his truck to make sure he hadn’t made a total mess. Sitting parked in front of his old high school, he sucked in a long, invigorating breath.

It was now-or-never time again. He felt a sense of déjà vu, as if ten years had never passed. He might as well be standing in front of Jo Ellen’s parents’ house again with a filled book bag in one hand and his mom’s cookies in the other, ready to confront the girl of his dreams with his feelings before she left town.

It was like this situation just kept repeating itself until he got it right. This time, he refused to mess it up. He didn’t care if he ended up like his father any more, spilling his feelings to a woman, not knowing whether she returned his affections or not.

After talking to his mother last night, he decided his father’s letter had been the most courageous thing he’d ever heard. And he’d always followed tradition, always followed his dad’s footsteps. There was no reason to stop now. Besides, there wasn’t another man alive he’d want to emulate.

Blowing out a breath, he opened his truck door and stepped out. The sound of his boot heels striking the sidewalk sounded lonely and solitary, but he hoped when he exited the school, there’d be another set of footsteps walking beside his. Jo Ellen’s.

When he opened the front doors and stepped into the quiet lobby of the school, he barely caught sight of two people turning down a darkened hallway. Recognizing Jo Ellen anywhere, he paused and focused on the man following her.

Eyes narrowing, he trailed the two from a distance, stepping lightly so his boots wouldn’t alert them to his presence. Reaching the opening of the hall, he paused and leaned forward to peer down the row of lockers. Jo Ellen ducked into a shadowed nook and her companion followed. Though he could barely see both of them, he couldn’t hear anything they said.

Cooper studied the other man a moment longer before he recognized Travis Untermeyer. Jaw clenching, he kept watching, unable to look away as Jo Ellen and her first love began to talk. As his retinas stung from the intense way he stared, Cooper watched Untermeyer reach out and catch Jo Ellen’s hip in a possessive hold. He drew her close to him.

Cooper couldn’t watch them kiss. To avoid it, he slammed his eyes closed and tried to breathe through his nose to keep from exploding.

She’d made her decision, he kept telling himself. She’d chosen Pretty Boy. He needed to leave it alone. Still, he wanted to storm down the hall and kill her perfect, little polished city boy. He wanted to crush and hurt. Instead, he whirled on the heels of his boots and didn’t open his eyes until he’d moved past the opening of the hall.

Storming from the school, he strode to his truck, the sound of his single footfalls making him grit his teeth. Damn it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

Rubbing at the center of his chest, trying to abate the clawing ache, he opened his door and climbed in. Starting the engine, he didn’t even look back. He drove away.

He wouldn’t mourn, he commanded himself. He didn’t have time. He had crops to harvest.

* * * *

“So?” Jo Ellen licked her dry lips, nervous about what Travis planned to say.

He smiled. “So…”

Her brow puckered with confusion. “Did you…did you want to talk about the baby or what?”

Confusion lined his features and wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. “Baby? What baby?”

Her mouth fell open. She blinked rapidly through the incredulous shock swelling inside her before she hissed from between clenched teeth. “
Our
baby?”

He stared blankly before his eyes grew wide. Then he glanced around as if to once again make sure they were alone. Then he grasped her hip and led her deeper into the dark nook. “Are you telling me you actually
kept
it?” he hissed.

“Kept it?” she repeated, totally bewildered. What in the world was he talking about?

“Christ, Jo Ellen. I knew your family was against the idea of abortion, but I thought your parents were at least smart enough to make you give it up for adoption.”

He didn’t know.

Like a punch to her solar plexus, the truth slammed into her. He had no idea her baby had died. She wasn’t sure what upset her more, that he hadn’t even bothered to find out what had happened to his own child or that he assumed it was still alive and with her. He didn’t demand a single detail, like gender, or name, hair color—

Suddenly glad her baby hadn’t been forced to exist with such an uncaring, awful father, she fisted her hands down at her sides and envisioned herself plowing him right in the nose.

“So what did you want to discuss with me in Dallas?” she asked, not even feeling the compulsion to inform him his child hadn’t even survived to birth.

He quirked his brows. “Discuss? Why would I want to talk about anything?”

“Because you said…” Jo Ellen lost a bit of her cool as steam gathered around her collar. If he hadn’t wanted to discuss anything, what the hell had he meant by
I want to make amends
when he’d said it in Dallas? She had assumed he wanted to apologize.

Damn it, she wanted an apology.

Before she could question him further, a hand curled around her waist in a firm grip just before he slid his palm up the back of her blouse. “Yeah, I
said
I wanted to meet up with you again.”

“Hey!” She jerked back, surprised. “Wha—”

He prowled after her, his eyes lighting with accomplishment as he leered. “That’s right.” He chuckled. “You prefer a little…coaxing to get into the mood, don’t you? It’s what I miss most about you, Jo. Always a challenge.”

“Actually that was me
resisting
,” she muttered in a dry tone, slapping his hand away when he reached for her again.

He laughed. “But you could never resist me for long.”

She threw up a little in her mouth. All this time, he still believed her adamant no’s had simply been foreplay.

“No,” she corrected, except he didn’t give her time to explain. He moved in, crowding her against the closed classroom door. When fingers squeezed her breast, she gasped in shock and shoved him back hard.

“How dare you!” She couldn’t decide what insulted her more, the fact he assumed she’d be willing to pick up where they’d left off or that he could so blithely break his marriage vows…with his wife and children somewhere in the same building. “Your wife is—”

“A cold, lifeless bitch. But her daddy’s richer than Midas.” Which is exactly how he’d always described Jo Ellen’s father when they were dating.

Too horrified to respond, she could only feel ill as she realized she’d once dated this person, actually let him into her body. A shiver of revulsion consumed her.

She was so busy reveling in her disgust, she wasn’t paying attention enough to dodge aside as he lunged after her and wrapped his arms around her middle. His bulging belly prodded hers. The intense smell of aftershave and cologne suffocated her.

“Get
off
,” she demanded, shoving at him again, but this time, she couldn’t break free. “Travis.” She growled his name from between gritted teeth. “I’m warning you.”

The jerk tried to kiss her. When his mouth loomed close, she panicked. Needing immediate freedom, she hiked her knee up, glad her skirt was loose enough to lift a satisfying height to hit her target.

As soon as she cracked him between the legs, he choked out a surprised, pained grunt and lurched over, cradling his privates before tipping sideways and pitching to the floor. Curling into the fetal position, he gasped, “You…bitch.”

She sniffed, unimpressed by the insult and began to step over his leg to stride off, but he caught her ankle and nearly sent her sprawling onto her face.

Just as she yelped out her surprise and threw out her arms to catch herself, a strident voice roared from down the hall. “Hey! What’s going on here?”

Cooper
, something inside her called. He’d come.

Except, when she lifted her face and tugged her foot free from Travis, losing her sandal in the process, Cooper wasn’t the man charging toward her. She was so disappointed to not see him, she didn’t even recognize her brother-in-law until he caught her arm and steadied her, helping her straighten back to her full height.

“Thank God Em sent me to check on you. Are you okay?”

She tucked her mused hair out of her face. “Yeah. I…I’m fine.” She lifted her face to smile at her savior, but he’d already turned away and was hauling a still-hunched Travis to his feet.

“You messed up, pal,” he said calmly enough before shoving the wounded man against a row of lockers and pinning him there. “Now apologize to my sister.”

Instead of cowering and immediately spitting out an impassioned apology, the idiot blinked at Branson. “
Sister
?”

“He’s married to Emma Leigh,” Jo Ellen explained vaguely as she tugged at her brother-in-law’s arm. “Bran, let him go—”

Travis spit out a surprised laugh. “You mean someone actually
married
that rude, mouthy dike twin of yours?”

Branson’s face molted to an immediate and intense, angry scarlet. “What did you call my wife?”

Before Bran could inflict any permanent damage and Travis sued him—which was exactly what he’d do—Jo Ellen tightened her grip and tugged her brother-in-law backward. “Branson. No. He’s not worth it.”

He let her pull him away, but continued to glare at Travis, challenging him with his narrowed eyes to make one wrong move.

“That’s right,” Travis taunted, leering. “Let the little woman lead you around by a leash.”

Branson’s nostrils flared but he kept his cool and refrained from lashing back, even verbally. Jo Ellen relaxed a fraction of an inch until Emma Leigh showed up with a sleeping infant passed out against her.