A Fallow Heart (38 page)

His mouth fell open. “She did
what
?”

Jo Ellen hadn’t welcomed Untermeyer’s touch? Why hadn’t he thought up that scenario? Maybe because he’d seen her willingly go with him, actually leading him to a private spot to talk. But “talking” really must’ve been all she wanted to do. Coop’s chest suddenly felt very constricted. Jo Ellen hadn’t wanted Untermeyer to kiss her. If only Cooper had stayed around a second longer, he would’ve seen that.

He started to lift from his chair to find Untermeyer that very moment and kill the bastard for touching her against her will.

“But that’s not the best part.” B.J. grabbed his arm and yanked him back down. “While he’s all cradled on the ground howling in pain, she stands over him and reams him a new one, telling him how glad she was that they broke up before she could make the biggest mistake of her life and actually marry him.”

“Holy shit.” Cooper’s jaw dropped. “She didn’t.”

“Oh, but she did…and more. Before he ran off to hide in shame, she told him she kissed some other guy while they were dating. And
he
was a hundred times a better kisser than Untermeyer.”

A large, uneasy breath shuddered from Cooper’s lungs. He didn’t know what to think.

“Can you just believe that? Perfect little Jo Ellen Rawlings kissed someone else while dating Untermeyer? I think I might actually like her now.”

Coop frowned. “You didn’t like her
before
?”

B.J. shrugged and made a face. “Meh. In high school, she always seemed like she was too good, too
flawless
for all us mere mortals. But this makes her more…I don’t know, human.”

“She was always human, B.J.”

“Yeah, but now she’s a likable human who knew better than to stick with an ass like Untermeyer.”

A pleased laugh erupted from his lungs. “Yeah,” he had to agree. Then he closed his eyes and grinned.
Way to go, Jo Ellen
, he silently cheered, unabashedly relieved her moment of closure with Pretty Boy had gone exactly the opposite of how he feared it would.

Suddenly, he wanted to call her…just to hear her voice.

Ah, hell. He wanted to beg his way back into her life and that was the truth of it. In fact—

“Oooh!” B.J. gasped, breaking into his thoughts. “I bet it’s Shelley Brenterhorn you’re all crazy about. She’s married with a couple kids now. Didn’t you two hook up once or twice back in the day?”

He blinked, thrown completely off track by such a horrible guess. “No. Not Shelley. Why would you think marriage is why my woman’s forbidden anyway?”

B.J. shrugged, looking puzzled by his question. “I don’t know. Why else would she be forbidden?”

It struck him then. That’s why her own lost love was forbidden, which made so much more sense to him. He couldn’t see B.J. being the type to want something and not do everything in her power to get it. But if the man she wanted was already married, well, then—

“Jesus,” he breathed, a chill coating him as he grew concerned. “B.J., please tell me you haven’t messed around with a married man.
Have you
?”

She shot him an immediate insulted scowl. “God, no. Why would you even suggest that? He doesn’t even know I like him. Damn, Gerhardt.” She slugged him in the shoulder. “What kind of tramp do you think I am?”

“Sorry.” He rubbed his new bruise. “I just…sorry. You worried me there for a second.”

“I would never try to worm myself between him and his wife, who I might add is a very lovely, elegant lady he absolutely adores.” She sighed with a soft smile. “He’s a really great husband to her. I gotta admire that about him, you know.” She glanced at Cooper, and something inside him shattered.

“Jesus, you really are as bad off as I am, aren’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I doubt you’re as bad off as you think you are.”

He didn’t agree, but she didn’t give him time to argue his point. “Know what I’ve noticed about you?” She said, changing the subject.

He filled his mouth with ice cream and tried to imagine what Untermeyer must’ve looked like right after Jo Ellen had racked him. “Hmm? What’s that?”

“You’re too goddamn nice for your own good.”

He frowned at her, the lovely vision in his head dissolving. “Pardon?”

“You don’t reach for anything you want, you don’t hold onto it tight. Take your spraying business, for example. That was, like, a dream come true for you, wasn’t it?”

He nodded, still not sure where she was going with this line of conversation.

She nodded as well. “Hell, yes it was. I remember how excited you were the day you began doing it. But you gave it up the moment your parents needed you.”

He opened his mouth to argue, though he wasn’t sure what he could argue. She was only stating a fact so far. So why did she sound so negative about it, as if he’d done something wrong.

“That’s how you always work. Doesn’t matter how bad you want something; you don’t dive straight toward it. You don’t fight for it. You glance around first, make sure it wouldn’t hurt anyone else or get in the way of their dreams, then you cautiously stretch out your hand as if ready to snap it back the moment someone makes a fuss.”

Feeling more and more degraded by her words, he frowned. “So what? What’s wrong with worrying about other people’s feelings?”

B.J. rolled her eyes. “Nothing’s
wrong
with it, you moron. I’m just saying, you’re too goddamn nice for your own good. I bet you a hundred bucks that’s what’s keeping you from this mystery lady of yours. You refuse to tell her how you feel and what you want from her because you’re worried about how it’ll affect her, possibly mess up the life she’s already set for herself.”

He glanced down at the tub in his hand and idly stirred the now-soft ice cream around his spoon. “It
would
affect her life in a big way to be with me,” he admitted. “She’d have to give up so much, everything she’s worked so hard to get. She’s successful and settled where she is, and I can’t leave my parents in the lurch to go up there and be with her. Besides, a big city would suck the life out of me within the month.”

B.J. set her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I still think you should be selfish for once in your life and just tell her what you want. Fight for her, goddamn it. Let her feel like she matters. Who knows, maybe she wouldn’t mind altering her fancy city schedule so much to be with you. Maybe…hell, maybe y’all could make it work. But you’ll never know if you don’t say anything.”

Cooper closed his eyes, not daring to hope she might be right.

“Besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen? She turns you down and you end up exactly where you are right now, eating ice cream with me at two in the morning while still mooning over her.”

He studied her before conceding, “You have a point.”

She grinned. “I know. I’m damn brilliant.”

“I’m calling her,” he announced, his heart rate jerking out of control. Dear God, he was really going to do it. He tugged his phone from his pocket. Then paused. “Wait. What time is it? She’s got to be asleep by now.” Plus he was rip-roaring, slurring drunk.

“Who cares?” B.J. grabbed his wrist to keep him from re-pocketing his phone. “Trust me, Gerhardt. If she loves you back, no woman is going to complain about the hour if a man calls her to proclaim his undying love.
Call her
.”

He grinned, feeling free and lifted of all his burdens. “Okay.”

But before he could set his thumb to the first number, his phone rang. With a frown, he watched the screen, waiting for the caller information to pop up. “I wonder who…” He glanced at B.J. with a cringe. “My mom,” he explained and immediately answered. “Hey, Mama.” He swallowed nervously, trying to sound as sober as possible. “Sorry I haven’t made it home yet but—”

She cut him off, which wasn’t a habit in Loren Gerhardt’s repertoire.

He listened to her, his ears buzzing as her words filled him, words he’d never heard his mother say before. He blinked rapidly and tried to swallow, but the effort was nearly impossible. After clearing his throat, he rasped. “I’ll be right there.”

After closing the phone, he stared at it, waiting to wake up from this nightmare that must’ve taken hold of him. But then he glanced at the ice cream in his other hand, and the condensation on the side dripped down his thumb in a cold, wet stroke like an icy teardrop, confirming he was awake.

Finally, he focused on B.J. who frowned at him in confusion.

“I gotta go,” he managed to say. “My dad just died.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

After B.J. drove Cooper home, she stuck around the rest of the night, which he appreciated. She wasn’t the drippy-eyed sort to bawl over the death of a neighbor. She was clinical, but supportive, making him sit with his mother while she brewed Loren hot tea and him a black cup of coffee to sober up. Then she called over his mother’s closest friends. By the time she left them, she’d already contacted Tommy Creek’s funeral home and set up a meeting between them and Cooper’s family.

Though he lay down at about four that morning and rose at seven, sleep escaped him. He simply stared at the dark ceiling and watched the light slowly filter in through his window as the day dawned.

It didn’t matter how he tried to repeat the facts through his head; they didn’t seem real. His father was gone. Forever. He was halfway to becoming an orphan. His mother was a widow. He’d never see Thaddeus Gerhardt alive again, never talk to him, never ask him a question about life. Never visit him at the—

He shook his head, denying, and sat up, sliding his legs over the side of the bed before standing. It simply couldn’t be true. He refused to mourn because mourning would mean he was admitting it was true.

So he hobbled to the bathroom and took a shower, all the while wondering how many times his father had walked inside this very room and stood under this very same faucet head. When he stepped out, he wrapped his waist with a towel and swiped his hand over the foggy mirror, almost expecting to see Thad’s image staring back. Instead, a hung over version of himself filled the glass, his eyes bloodshot and nose red. His head throbbed with a vengeance, but he didn’t open the cabinet door to hunt up any aspirin. In fact, he welcomed the pain.

Once he dried off and put on some clothes, he shuffled down the stairs, remembering when his dad used to scold him when Coop was in a hurry and took more than two steps at a time. Cooper made sure to plant his boots on each level, even the two that creaked.

When he found his mom awake and stirring around the kitchen, starting breakfast, he shook his head. “Mama, you don’t have to worry about breakfast.”

She plopped down a plate full of fried eggs and hash browns in front of his seat. “We can’t get through the day without sustenance.”

He sighed and sat. When he saw she’d served herself only a single piece of toast, he shifted two eggs off his plate and onto hers. She sent him a look, letting him see the weary creases lining her features, but said nothing and accepted them

Neither of them had sat in his father’s chair at the end of the table since he’d moved to the nursing home, but Thad’s spot seemed particularly empty today.

“B.J. said my appointment with the funeral director is this morning at ten. Do you want to come?”

He lifted his face. “Of course, but don’t you want to wait until Brendel and Stacia arrive? I’m sure they’d like to—”

His mother gave a vigorous shake of the head. “I want the business details done and over with.”

When her voice wavered, he nodded, immediately acquiescing. “Okay, Mama. Whatever you want.”

So they arrived at the funeral home by ten. He didn’t notice the file folder she brought in with her until they’d seated themselves and she flipped it open.

Blinking a few times, he listened to her and the director discuss their contract agreement before he realized she’d pre-planned both hers and his father’s funeral four years before.

“I’d like to keep the pallbearers the same, but there’s been one change in the surviving descendants. We had another great-granddaughter born two years ago.”

Coop folded his hands in his lap and felt useless as Loren spelled out his great-niece’s name. He was glad she’d already taken care of everything and had the task well in hand, but he began to wonder why he’d needed to come with her at all. It was a relief he didn’t have to give his opinion about a casket design, but his mother didn’t even seem to need him for moral support. She was so well put together he felt like falling apart even more. What’s worse, he didn’t even have a new name to add to his father’s decedents list for his obituary, while his nephew, Chet, had three.

At least his mother let him drive her back to the farm. Once there, the neighbors began to arrive. About as soon as one would leave, another would show up, sometimes two or three appeared at the same time. He finally found his purpose when he was told to eat. So he ate all the cherry pies, and Mexican lasagnas, and spinach and artichoke casseroles his mother put in front of him.

He was never so happy to see his sisters and their families arrive by late afternoon. The house filled with noise and chaos, and more people for the neighbors to feed.