by Linda Kage
“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.
Hand fisting against his thigh, he panicked. Not like this, something inside him begged. Yet if they didn’t end like this then how were they supposed to end?
He certainly wasn’t going to beg her or guilt trip her into staying and force her into a loveless marriage where he’d slowly lose his mind and end up a miserable, useless old man, withering away alone in a nursing home.
After she slid out, she turned back as if waiting for him to say something. His jaw bunched and eyes went as hard as flint. He sure as hell wasn’t going to confess his soul if she didn’t return the sentiment.
“Good bye, Jo Ellen,” he said. “Have a nice life.”
Her eyes flared and chin wobbled, but her features cleared so fast, he convinced himself he’d imagined it and just wanted to see her resist their farewell. But she nodded, sent him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and cleared her throat.
“Good bye, Cooper.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Cooper ate a late supper with his mother that night. The nightly news played from the living room where Loren liked to let the television run to keep her company. Lulled by the muted voice of the reporter filtering through the arched opening and into the kitchen, Coop picked at his chicken, poking it a few times with the sharp tines of his fork.
“It’s dead, dear,” his mother confirmed.
He lifted his face and blinked. “Pardon?”
Eyes twinkling with mischief, Loren motioned toward his plate. “I swear, I lobbed off its head and even plucked the feathers before serving it. The bird is most definitely deceased. You don’t have to stab it repeatedly to make sure.”
“Oh.” He set the fork to the side of his plate and picked up his glass of tea. After taking a sip, he set the cup down only to run his finger along the condensation dripping down the side. “I guess I’m just not hungry tonight.”
“Mmm. I noticed.”
Unable to bear the idea of even idle chitchat, he slid his chair back and pushed to his feet. “I think I’ll eat this later.”
She watched him as he found a roll of plastic wrap in a drawer and sealed his plate before slipping it into the refrigerator.
“Sleeping in the hayloft again tonight?”
Gut bursting with white-hot agony, he winced, then shook his head. “No. I…I think I’ll head to my room and read a spell before turning in.”
His mother’s spoon froze midway to her creamed asparagus. “Already? But it’s only—”
“I want to get up early,” he cut her off. “The corn’s ready now. Time to start the harvest. If I wait any longer, the entire crop will burn up in this heat.”
She slowly set her spoon down and studied him from behind her thick glasses, looking devastated. “You’re starting tomorrow? You mean, you’re not even going to attend your class reunion?”
Hell no.
He ducked his face. “Got work to do. I’ve been playing around too much lately as it is.”
When she didn’t respond inside five seconds, he started for the exit.
“Did you even tell her how you feel about her?” she finally asked, her quiet voice stopping him in his boots. Sharp, piercing anger flooded his veins. He twisted around and came a couple feet back into the kitchen before he halted and half turned away again, commanding himself not to flee.
He wanted to rage at her; how dare she ask him such a thing? Did she want him to end up like his father, trapped with a woman who held his heart, always knowing she loved another?
“I…I can’t…” Unable to talk to her about it, he stalked toward the arched escape before his emotions, which were already too close to the edge, slipped right over into uncontainable.
His mother sighed. “Cooper, I love you.”
The weary concern in her voice had him jerking to a stop and squeezing his eyes closed. He couldn’t shut off the part of himself that loved her back. She was his mother.
Silently, he waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he glanced back. “But?”
With a smile, Loren shook her head. “But nothing. I love you and am very proud of the man you’ve become. I just want you to be happy.”
Happy? He’d been happy yesterday. Hell, he’d been happy this morning. But happy seemed to come with a price bigger than he wanted to pay. Happiness ended and left a man broken and worse off than he’d been before he was ever happy.
When his mother continued to sit and watch him, he shook his head and eased back to the table. “What? That’s it? No words of wisdom?” he demanded, needing just that. “No cryptic old saying that’ll confuse me more than help me?”
She chuckled. “The heart wants what the heart wants. And you have a good heart. I’d pamper it a little and give it what it wants if I were you.”
He slumped into the chair beside her. “And your heart still wants that soldier who died in the war?”
A blank, startled expression crossed her face. “Good Lord, no. What…how…sit down, Cooper,” she said right before she noticed he already was.
He sent her a strange look when she reached out and grasped his hand hard. “Is this why you’re so upset? It’s not because I…I gave myself to another—”
“No!” he rushed to say before his mother could actually speak those words aloud. Damn, he didn’t want to think about his mother giving herself in any way, to any man, especially one who wasn’t his father. “I…I don’t care about that at all. I mean, it was a shock, yeah but, Jesus, Mama. Do you love Dad at all?”
Her mouth worked l
ike a gasping fish that had been yanked from the water. “Love him?” she finally repeated. “Of course I love him; with all my heart. I fell for him the moment I read the letter he wrote me. Why do you think I kept such an incriminating piece of evidence all these years? It is the sweetest thing I have ever read.”
Cooper blinked rapidly, combating a rash of tears. “So…?”
“Cooper, your father is my heart and soul. I feel like half a person without him here. The years I spent with him were the best years of my life. Why do you think I’m so adamant about you going after Jo Ellen. I want you to experience the same joy.”
Emotion clogged his throat. Realizing his mother really had loved his father, changed things somehow. And it confused him on a totally different plane, leaving him feeling as if he was starting all over from step one.
“She’s going back to Dallas, Mama. On Sunday.” He tried to explain why he shouldn’t chase after her and beg her to forgive him for being an ass, but the excuses sounded empty to his own ears. “She loves her life there. I’m not…If I told her how I felt, it wouldn’t change anything. She wouldn’t stay. We lead entirely separate lives. And I just feel…if I said something to her, I’d only make her miserable. She hates it when she knows she’s hurt someone, hates loose ends and unresolved situations. I don’t want her having any kind of regret whenever she thinks back on me. I want her to remember the fun we had.”
“Oh, Cooper.” Loren sounded as sad as she did proud when she leaned toward him and slipped an arm around his shoulder. He gave her a one-armed hug in return. “I don’t understand how you can sound so wise and yet so stupid at the same time.”
He laughed at her praising insult, glad he and his mother were no longer on the outs. “I don’t either, Mama. I don’t either.”
“Love isn’t easy, my precious boy. Even if it starts out that way, it can’t stay that way. When you love, you open yourself up to numerous vulnerabilities and worries and responsibilities you never imagined existed because suddenly there’s someone else in the world who’s more important to you than you are. That’s what makes it so tough.”
He closed his eyes. “There’s your famous words of wisdom.” And yet it still didn’t solve his dilemma, or tell him which path to take, it merely explained why he felt what he felt.
“If your father was here, he’d probably say something like, if you want to let the best thing in your life pass you by and grow old alone and miserable, go ahead and let the girl go. Makes no difference to me.”
Cooper grinned. “He would, wouldn’t he?” Thad had always said something gruff laced with warning and an undertone of insightful, loving advice. Suddenly choked up, he squeezed his mother’s hand.
“You’ll figure it all out,” she promised, squeezing back. “I have faith in you.”
Yeah, well he wished he had a little faith in himself, because as it was, he wasn’t so sure if sending Jo Ellen away had been the stupidest, most-selfless, or best thing he’d ever done.
* * * *
“Well, this blows.”
Emma Leigh plopped into the cool metal folding chair beside Jo Ellen and sniffed out a disgusted breath as she situated her sleeping son into her lap.
Toying with her clear plastic cup full of ultra-sweet punch, Jo Ellen sent her twin a sad smile. “Not what you were expecting?”
“Hell, no. None of the cruel bitches who used to call me a dike are even here. I so relished the moment when I could throw Branson in their ugly, fake faces.”
Sitting on the other side of her, her husband stirred where he’d been trying not to fall asleep; Jo Ellen had caught his head nodding more than once already.
Patting Emma Leigh’s hand, he smiled indulgently. “I do love being the object of revenge.”
“A sexy, successful, charming object of revenge,” Em reminded him, fluttering her lashes.
Branson’s gaze turned smoldering as he grinned at his wife. Jo Ellen loved the way he looked at her sister, and he’d done it from the moment Dexter had introduced his best friend to the twins the first week they’d moved to Reno to live with his parents their senior year. There had never been any question how he felt.
Jo Ellen sighed aloud without realizing it, wishing things with Cooper hadn’t ended the way they had, wishing things hadn’t ended at all, wishing she could read his feelings just by looking at the expression on his face.
She was so busy thinking about him and watching the way Em and Branson held each other’s hands on top of the table she hadn’t realized they’d turned their attention to her until Emma Leigh asked, “So, have you seen him here yet?”
Jo Ellen gulped and tried not to burst into tears. “No. Not yet.” Instinctively, she knew after what had happened yesterday he wouldn’t show today.
“Well, if he’s coming here straight from Dallas, then I’m sure he’ll be a little late.”
Eyebrows quirking, Jo Ellen frowned at her sister. Dallas? Why would Cooper be in Dallas?
Em leaned closer and lowered her voice, “But if you ask me, I hope the slimy little rat bastard doesn’t show at all. I’m still so mad at him after all these years I’m libel to strangle him as soon as I see him. No one deserts my sister after impregnating her and—”
Oh, they were talking about Travis. Jo Ellen hadn’t even thought about him since Cooper and she had parted. Suddenly, she agreed with her twin. She felt like strangling Travis too for his part in helping her lose Cooper yesterday.
“Em,” Branson hissed, glancing around. “Your voice is rising.”
“Shit.” Emma Leigh slapped her hand over her mouth. Her worried gaze veered to Jo Ellen. “I’m sorry,” she muffled out. “I don’t think anyone heard.”
Jo Ellen shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” Keeping her teenage pregnancy quiet didn’t seem so important anymore. In fact, she almost wanted it public. Her poor, innocent baby shouldn’t be a dirty, little secret.
She took another drink and spotted a new arrival in the entrance of the school’s gymnasium. The tart punch in her mouth instantly turned sour.
Travis had arrived.
With company.
A petite woman strolled at his side, tow-headed and reeking of sleek sophistication. But what upset her most were the two children surrounding them, one old enough to be seven or eight, possibly nine years old.
She gaped. Bitter envy sluiced through her. He’d moved on, gotten married, had children and he obviously hadn’t let any grass grow under his feet. He’d left Jo Ellen an emotional tangle of sorrow, rage, guilt, and depression, while he’d strolled along through his life without a care in the world.
She thought he might’ve at least regretted the way he’d ended things with her, leaving her to deal with the fallout of their relationship. She’d assumed that’s why he’d been so urgent to talk to her at the party in Dallas. Deep inside, she’d been expecting an apology.
But he didn’t seem to bear any kind of shame or regret when he grinned at a fellow classmate and waved, introducing his family with a smug kind of triumph.
Her skin went hot and yet cold at the same time, fissures of anger and injustice crawling over her like a smothering fog.
He was married and happy, with children.
She was all alone, because he’d killed her faith in men.
That just didn’t seem acceptable.
Following her stare, Emma Leigh gasped. “Quick.” She tugged on her husband’s arm. “Trade me spots.”
“What?” Branson straightened and glanced around at Emma’s anxious tone. “Why?”
“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.”
