AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When she turned away, he didn’t follow her. He watched her spine stiffen with resolve as the rest of the family swallowed her up. Then he backed off. His sisters looked content to swaddle her with attention, and his nieces and nephews seemed better without him around, intimidating them.
He wasn’t needed here, probably wasn’t even wanted. Even his mother had severed her connections to him.
So he left.
After returning to the house, he didn’t go inside but tugged his tie loose and ripped it over his head, flinging it in the direction of the hens pecking around the edge of his mother’s garden. His black suit jacket came off next. He let the article drip from his hand and into the dying, brown grass. The oppressive midday heat beat down on him, and the sun dogged his every step, making his face slick with sweat.
He didn’t notice, he merely trudged along, aimless wandering, remembering how his father used to drift through the nursing home. He must’ve felt as lost and lonely as Cooper did.
His face burned, but he puckered up his chin, refusing to cry. He hadn’t cried when he’d heard the dreaded news from his mother. He hadn’t cried when he saw his father laid out in a casket, his body all sunken in like an empty shell and his hands folded politely in his lap. He hadn’t cried when the preacher outlined Thad’s life at the service, remembering his many years of service to the church and the community. He sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.
But everything he’d worked so hard to keep together this past year and a half had simply slipped through his fingers and landed broken and shattered around him. He hadn’t been able to keep anything together. He hadn’t even been able to make a single woman love him.
He sniffed and walked faster, unreasonably thinking the quicker he moved, the more of his heartache he could leave behind; except it kept pace, swirled around him and suffocated him. He hadn’t known where he was going until he lifted his face and found himself entering Jo Ellen’s orchard.
No matter how long he lived or how the rest of his life progressed, he’d always think of this place as hers.
And as if his innermost desires had conjured her, he glanced around the pecan trees to find the woman herself sitting in the shade of one tree, her knees drawn up to her chest and her head bowed between them.
Slowing to a stop, he stared at the mirage until he decided she wasn’t a hallucination after all; she was tangible and real, sitting in her orchard where she belonged. Heart cracking with devastating joy, he strode toward her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jo Ellen had to be the stupidest, most sentimental idiot alive. But she just couldn’t leave town after Thad’s funeral until she at least felt closer to Cooper. And the only place she wanted to go without approaching him physically and disturbing him during a time of grieving was her orchard.
Settled on the grass under the shade of a pecan tree, she perched her back against the trunk and closed her eyes. She envisioned him here, stealing her grapes from the tic-tac-toe board, and a smile lit her up from the inside. But just as soon as she grinned, a tear leaked down her cheek, scalding her skin. She wished she could’ve held him forever at the cemetery. He’d been so solid and real. Nothing had soothed her as much as sliding her arms around him.
But the press of people in line behind her had urged her on, away from his embrace.
She wondered how much sleep he’d managed to get lately. The dark smudges under his eyes said hardly any. She knew she could rely on the rest of Tommy Creek to keep him fed these past few days, but who had been there to comfort him at night when he had nothing but his own troubled thoughts to occupy him?
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she tilted her face down to wipe her tear away with the cloth of her skirt.
She didn’t realize she wasn’t alone until he spoke. “Jo Ellen?”
The voice didn’t sound like his but she knew it was him even before her eyes sprang open and she snapped her he
ad up.
“Cooper! I…I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d come out here. I…” She lurched clumsily to her feet but otherwise didn’t move, could only gawk as he stared mutely at her from his sorrow-filled eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Should she offer to leave? Hug him? Run like hell? She didn’t know. Dang it, why couldn’t she be sure of something for once in her life?
Without a word, he moved, striding toward her. Her breath caught and she braced herself with no idea if he’d yell at her for trespassing or berate her for…for everything.
She sucked in a breath when he promptly wrapped his arms around her and yanked her against his chest for a hard, encompassing hug.
“Thank you for coming,” he rasped hoarsely into her hair.
Instantly, she melted, relief and love flowing from her as she hugged him back. “Oh, Cooper. Of course I came.”
“I need you. You have no idea how I need you.” He pressed his face into her neck and sniffed, his fingers digging into her shirt.
Heart breaking, she rubbed her hands up and down his spine. “Darling. I’m here. It’s okay.”
She pulled back to wipe his wet face but found it dry. He gritted his teeth as he stared at her. Her own eyes went moist when she discovered he couldn’t cry. Watching the first tear slide down her cheek, he groaned deep in his throat and tipped his chin down to press his mouth to hers.
She kissed him back, ready to give him whatever he needed, all the while greedily taking what she needed in return. She’d missed him so much. Nothing had been as miserable in her life as being away these past few weeks.
