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“Oh God.” His hoarse voice rasped through her. “I hurt you.”
“No. Oh, darling, no.” She tugged her arm free. “I’m fine.” After ducking the abrasion out of his sight, she smiled at him in reassurance.
But he stiffened, shook his head, and ran a hand through his hair, looking defeated. “I shouldn’t have been so rough. I shouldn’t have—”
“Hey,” she whispered, reaching out to cup his face in both hands. “You didn’t hurt me. Honest.”
He closed his eyes and tears dribbled from between his fused lashes. She wiped them away with her thumbs and kissed his mouth. “I just want to be here for you.”
“You are.”
She pressed her forehead to his. When he wrapped an arm around her, a tremb
le worked through him, echoing into her. She squeezed her eyes closed and pressed her lips together. It hurt to see him this way; he looked…damaged.
“God, Cooper. This is all just so strange. I can’t believe he’s really gone.”
Tears fell thicker as he opened his eyes. “I can’t either. Mama visited him earlier that very day and nothing seemed wrong. She said he’d been having a little bladder problem is all. Looking back, I think that was a clue his kidneys were already failing. If he’d been having any chest pains, no one could’ve known; he certainly couldn’t tell anyone. They found him collapsed in the middle of a hall he’d been walking, but the stroke had already taken him. It…”
His voice broke and he bowed his head. Jo Ellen gathered him close once more. Tilting his chin down, he rested a cheek on her chest, directly over her heartbeat.
“Thank you.” He sniffed and tightened his grip, bunching her blouse at the base of her spine with his fists. His tears began to seep through her shirt, dampening her skin. “Thank you for being here, for being solid and real, and…”
When he gave up on talking, she patted his hair helplessly.
“Nothing’s the same anymore,” he rasped. “I feel…I feel so empty; so guilty. I just wanted his misery to stop; he would’ve hated what he’d become. Yet now that he’s gone, I think I must be the biggest shithead on earth for wishing him dead.”
“Oh, Cooper, no. You are not. You didn’t wish him dead. You only wanted his suffering gone.” She buried her fingers in his locks, sifting through the golden strands. “It was his time; he was going to go no matter what you wished anyway.”
“I just want him back, Jo Ellen. I want the dad I remember before this stupid Dementia infected him.”
“I know.”
“Both my sisters are mad at me,” he added, his agony straying to different ground. “I told Brendel’s seven-year-old grandson that Dad was in heaven now. I had no idea no one had told him yet. I guess he’d been going through grief counseling since losing a dog, so they only told him Poppa Thad had gone on vacation. When he burst into tears, Brendel exploded on me, and now I’m evil Uncle Coop who took Poppa Thad away.”
Jo Ellen’s mouth dropped open. “That’s awful. How could no one tell him? I mean, what was the poor boy supposed to think when he saw Thad at the visitation?”
Cooper finally lifted his face. He blinked at Jo Ellen, looking confused. “I don’t know.”
Jo Ellen sighed, disappointed in his family for turning against him.
Wiping his face with the back of his hand, Cooper glanced around the orchard. The shadows were finally beginning to shift, a patch of sunlight crept closer to where they sat in the grass like a ray of hope, hesitant to approach but closing in regardless.
Dropping his hands from his temples, Cooper refocused his attention on her. “You came back.”
She flushed and glanced away. “Of course. Your dad just…” She swallowed.
When he touched her knee, she looked up. He appeared so serious. “B.J. Gilmore told me my biggest problem is I’m too nice.”
Jo Ellen frowned. “B.J. Gilmore said…what?” His unexpectedly stray comment confounded her. She squinted, trying to think up who B.J. Gilmore was. When she pictured the dark-haired tomboy a couple years younger than her in school, she shook her head, still not comprehending what Cooper’s comment had to do with anything.
“She said I need to be selfish for once in my life and just go after what I want.”
Jo Ellen’s breath caught in her throat. “And what do you want?” she managed to ask, though anxiety swirled through her as she held her breathing, waiting for his answer, hoping he wanted—
He opened his mouth, then shook his head. “I lied to you before you left for Dallas. When I sent you away, it had nothing to do with Travis Untermeyer or any of that. I sent you away because I wanted you to stay so bad I couldn’t handle it. But I didn’t want you to stay only out of some kind of obligation simply to avoid hurting me. I wanted you to stay because you wanted to. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Go or stay. I just want to be with you, wherever you are.”
She sucked in a breath. Dear God, had he said just what she’d hoped he’d say? He couldn’t have. “You…” She exhaled shakily.
