Storm Warning (9 page)

“How was practice?” his dad asked, switching off the television and giving Coop his full attention.

“Ehh.” Coop shrugged. “I’ve had better.” He usually did great at practice, but today his mind had been racing instead of his bike. EJ was mad at him and he couldn’t quit thinking about what George had told him at the station. He’d looked like an amateur out there. He had actually rolled a tabletop jump and that was not like him. He was eight the last time he had done that.

Kyle had roused him the entire drive home. “See ya tomorrow, chicken shit,” he’d teased when he dropped him off. “Maybe Saturday you can actually jump the jumps.”

Coop stared up at the trophies on the fireplace mantel and hoped that he’d have another one to add on Saturday.

“I probably won’t make it to the race this weekend,” his dad informed him. “There’s twenty miles of roadside that need mowing and my favorite farmhand has been too busy chasing the Mason girl all over the county to get them done this week.” Coop looked over at his dad, whose eyes were creased in the corners. He could tell by the twitching mouth that his old man was barely fighting off a grin.

“Quit it, Jim. Wasn’t that long ago you were doing the same thing. I swear, you used to camp out on my front porch,” his mom said in his defense.

“I don’t recall it quite like that.” Jim chuckled. “I’m pretty sure you were the one seducing me with jugs of sweet tea and fresh baked cookies.”

“However you want to remember it.” Penny Cooper laughed before turning her attention to her oldest boy. “So, Brantley,” she said, calling him by his first name. His mama was just about the only one who called him that. Well, her and the teachers at school when he was clowning around in class. “How is my future daughter-in-law?”

“Doubt that’s gonna happen,” Coop mumbled under his breath. His parents had teased him mercilessly about liking Ella Jane for as long as he could remember. “She and I are friends. That’s it.”

“Okay, buddy,” his dad condescended with a smirk. “Whatever you say.”

Coop huffed out a loud breath. “Let’s just say I’m not her favorite person right now.”

“She’ll get over it,” his mom said. “I always forgave your father for acting like a jackass.”

“Who said I was acting like a jackass?” Coop sat up, grabbing a throw pillow off the couch and folding his arms around it.

“You are your father’s son.”

Coop and his dad exchanged smiles as they shook their heads. They really couldn’t disagree with her. She was the only woman in the house and knew her four boys inside, outside, and upside down. Speaking of knowing things, Coop remembered there was something he wanted to know about.

He decided it was as good a time as any to relay the message George had sent that afternoon.
“Hey, Dad, George Harwell said that you need to stop in and see him at the station. Something about a missed payment on the farm account.”

“Oh, yeah.” Jim straightened up in his chair, obviously surprised by what Coop had just said. “Yeah, I’ll, er… I’ll take care of that tomorrow.”

He watched his parents trade a look. A look that told him they were hiding something.
“What’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” his mother said, her tone patronizing him even though he knew that probably wasn’t her intention.

“I’m seventeen. I can handle whatever it is. Is the farm in trouble?” For months Coop had been trying to get his parents to give him more responsibility. He’d been on this farm since birth. In fact, he was pretty certain that any past lives he had lived had been as a farmer. It was in his blood and he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Well, maybe racing dirt bikes. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

“You’re right,” Jim agreed. “Here’s the deal. Costs have gone up, income has not. We’re just a little behind on a few things. We’ll get caught up when the crops come out this fall.”

“No need to worry though,” his mother continued, sugarcoating the truth until it shined. Coop knew she just couldn’t turn off her protectiveness.

“What can I do?” he asked. “I can get a part-time job or cut back on racing.” He offered up two ideas that he really didn’t want to do, but his duty as a son outweighed his desires as a teenager.

“You can get on up to bed and let us worry about it,” his mother replied. He should have known his mother would say that. She was always harping on Jim to give Coop a break when it came to work. “Let him be a boy. He’s got the rest of his life to work,” she would say when he wanted to take a day off to race or “jack around” as his dad called it.

Coop nodded as he headed toward the stairs. “Well just let me know if there is anything I can do. Kyle’s gone most of the week and Ella Jane isn’t speaking to me at the moment.” His parents both offered him heartfelt smiles as he went up to bed. “I got nothin’ but time.”

After taking a shower, he had one more thing he had to do before tossing and turning all night over the crap day he’d had. So he picked up his cell phone.

I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.

He typed it out and hit send, hoping he’d get a reply.
Maybe she’s over it.
By the time he finally fell asleep, two hours later, it was abundantly clear that she was definitely not over anything…except maybe him.

T
HE
next morning, Coop was trying to wrestle his brothers, Will and Sam, into the truck.

“Get in the truck, punks.” He was supposed to drop them off at the Masons’. Millie had a fence that needed painting, and between the workload and Kyle being gone for football most of the week, she was desperate for workers. Obviously, if she was settling for the two pain-in-the-ass pre-teens that were slap-boxing their way to the truck.

“Don’t jack around today,” he warned them as they pulled out of their driveway and headed toward the Masons’. He realized how much he sounded like his father as he lectured his little brothers about getting their work done and respecting authority. “I’ll pick you up at five, and Millie better not tell me you didn’t finish that fence today.”

“Relax,” Will replied with an eye roll he didn’t miss. “We’ll get it done.”

“Yeah, it’s a fence, not brain surgery,” Sam added. “Plus, Mom said we couldn’t go to camp next week if we didn’t.”

It weighed heavily on Coop that his brothers were having to earn the money for them to go to camp. Of course, they didn’t know that. As far as they knew, it was going into a savings account for them. Coop had overheard his parents discussing what he’d asked them about the night before when he’d gone downstairs for breakfast.

“I’m going to go and talk to Edwin Prescott about an advance on the cash rent.”

“I hate for you to have to do that,” Penny had said, the heaviness of her voice weighing on Coop’s chest as he eavesdropped. “You know how they feel about me. Maybe we could sell some of the equipment we don’t use.”

“We use it all, Pen,” his dad noted. “We’re already down to the bare minimum. We get rid of any more and we might as well go apply for new jobs at Walmart.”

He’d heard his mother’s forced laugh. She was trying to play it off, but he could still hear the ache in her voice.

As Coop came to a stop in front of the Masons’, he hadn’t expected to see Ella Jane sitting on the porch swing, her long, tan legs stretched out across it, with her computer propped on them. She waved at Sam and Will as they jumped out the truck and ran up to greet her. First she’d stolen his dogs, now his brothers. Was anyone not in love with her? The answer to his question was painfully obvious.

Coop watched his brothers joking with her. Thankfully, she appeared to be in a great mood. Now was as good a time as any to start groveling. He loosened his grip on the steering wheel and climbed out the truck.

“Morning,” he called out cautiously as he approached.

“Hey,” she replied, the smiles she was sharing with Will and Sam vanishing as she turned her eyes on him.

“So, I, um, told these two that they better be on their best behavior today,” he said. Ella Jane stared at Coop with a blank expression. Her eyes told another story. One that said she was still as mad as a hornet that’d been swatted at on a hot day. “Give me a call if you need me to come back and help supervise.”

She giggled, and not in the sweet way he loved to hear. More like a no-chance-in-hell kind of giggle.

“I’ll have no problem managing these two.” She winked at Sam and Will. “I’ve got lots of experience with
brother
types,” she told him, taking a blatant jab at him for his asinine comments yesterday. “Plus, I’ve got Hayden to help me out.”

Coop watched her eyes direct him to the barn, where he got his first look at the city kid Ella Jane’s mom had hired for the summer. The guy looked up from raking and gave EJ a wave. Coop saw the little smile creep across her face as she waved back.

“Kinda nice to have someone around here who is nothing like my
brother.
Finally
.
”

She can’t be serious. Is she trying to make me jealous?
Coop would have bet money that Richie Rich didn’t have one callus on his delicate little hands. The way he was holding on to the rake made it clear that he didn’t know the meaning of hard work. Ella Jane wasn’t actually into this tool, was she? That was not the type of guy that could take care of her. He couldn’t handle a girl like Ella Jane Mason.

“Don’t be like that, Ellie May,” Coop said.

“Like what?” she asked, slamming the lid of her laptop down and shooting him a challenging look. “You know what? Don’t answer that. I’m not in the mood to get into this with you right now. I’ve got about a hundred work things to do.”

He stared at her intently, trying to figure out a way to break through the wall she’d put up since he’d been a jackass.

He needed a game plan. Knowing nothing he could say at that moment would make Ella Jane happy, Coop considered dropping down to his knees right then and there and begging her to forgive him. But his brothers were staring at him, probably wondering what in the hell was going on, and he didn’t want to cause a scene in front of them. Or the douchebag he could feel staring holes through him.

It would have been embarrassing enough to bare his soul to her in front of a live audience, but to make matters worse, he was pretty sure she was going to tell him to go straight to hell. Which his brothers would never let him live down.

“Okay,” he conceded. She was still pissed at him and he knew it was going to take more than an
I’m sorry
text message. On top of that, now he had to deal with whatever was going on between EJ and the Masons’ new employee.

Ella Jane ignored him as she put his brothers to work on the fence. He got the message loud and clear.
Dis-missed.

As he was driving down the lane, watching EJ fade in his rearview, rich boy made sure to lock eyes with him as he drove by.
Looks like I’ve got a little competition. That cocky bastard is actually staring me down.

Coop decided that he was done sitting on the sidelines. He was going to tell her exactly how he felt, and he knew the perfect time and place to do it. With his sudden burst of confidence, he wasted no time flipping the bird to the Masons’ new Bitch Boy.

Keep raking, dick. And stay the hell away from my girl.

“I
’LL
be fine, Soph,” she reassured the housekeeper, practically shoving her out the front door. “Go enjoy your week off with your real kids.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” Sophie asked her. Again. “You need to get out of this house.”

Cami shook her head. “Everything will be okay. I promise.” Even though she knew that she’d be beyond bored without Sophie to talk to all week, she was hoping that the social interaction she had planned that afternoon would be enough to tide her over. Cami didn’t want to tell Sophie, who was standing there generously offering to take her with her, that she had big plans. Plans that involved one extremely attractive landscaper who was due to arrive within the hour. Cami had every intention of making it more about her and less about the grass this week.

This would be the third week in a row that he had come over. The first week was interesting to say the least. The second week, he’d been so busy that they didn’t have much time to talk. Instead, she’d spent the afternoon watching him sweat over her mom’s rosebushes. This week she was going to make damn sure he paid attention to her. She’d even pulled a couple weeds she’d seen sneaking out the flowerbeds the day before to make sure he had plenty of time to talk to her.