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Cooper had invited her to his farm with Emma Leigh and Branson last night, so she intended to accept. She still wasn’t sure what she’d say to him, but maybe—if things went her way—her very presence would let him know she hadn’t meant anything disparaging by ditching out on him last night. She would find a way to pay him back for every nice thing he’d ever done for her.
* * * *
Nearly twelve hours later, Jo Ellen had changed her mind a dozen times about whether she should go to Cooper’s farm with Em and Branson or not. She’d spent the morning at the hospital, oohing and awing over the new baby. After playing with Brand in the waiting room, she’d finally gotten to hold Dex and Lexi’s infant, who could already breathe on his own. Little Clayton Glen was so light he’d felt like a bag of marshmallows in her arms.
Determined not to feel envious of everyone with their new babies, she laughed and smiled with the two couples as they talked about their birthing experiences. After a nice lunch at her parents’ farm, she’d spent the rest of the afternoon with more family, smiling and laughing yet again with cousins, aunts and uncles, all the while growing antsier and more restless as the day wore on.
Emma Leigh had contacted Cooper and set up their farm tour to take place directly after supper. With the days wearing on so long, it was still daylight when Jo Ellen drove her hybrid toward the Gerhardt farm. Emma Leigh and Bran were right behind her when she left, whil
e their son stayed behind with Grandma and Grandpa Rawlings.
Branson had offered Jo Ellen a ride over, but she’d said no thank you; she didn’t want him and Emma to feel as if they had to leave early in case Cooper didn’t appreciate her presence. But she declined under the guise that Emma might have to dash off if her breasts grew too full; Jo Ellen could take Em home and Bran could stay longer if he so desired.
When Jo Ellen parked in front of Cooper’s childhood farmhouse, however, she realized the second car in their caravan had disappeared from her rearview mirror. Dear God, where had Emma Leigh gone? She was going to kill her sister for this.
She sat in the driver’s seat, her heart thumping hard in her chest, too scared to climb out and face Cooper alone. Around her, farm life abounded. The worn two-story white house looked as if it could use another coat of paint, while the barn appeared as red as it had probably been the day it was built. She loved the Gerhardt’s traditional barn. Not a lot of folks had honest-to-God barns in this area and the Gerhardt’s was as much a rarity as it was useful to them.
A handful of chickens grazing in the front yard caught her attention. Charmed, Jo Ellen watched them pecking for bugs in the grass until she caught movement out of the corner of her eye when someone emerged from the vegetable garden.
Cooper’s mother clutched an armful of freshly picked cucumbers and butternut squash to her chest as she slowly hobbled toward Jo Ellen’s car.
Jo Ellen pushed open her door, suddenly glad she’d dressed in jean shorts and a sleeveless blouse because the heat wave that enveloped her didn’t seem to recognize the term personal space. The hot day climbed all over her, suffocating her, and making her skin damp within moments.
“There you are,” Loren called. For having such a large, tall son, she was frightfully short and seemed even frailer by the way she stooped her shoulders. “I hope my chocolate chip cookies didn’t cool off too much; they should still be warm and gooey for you, dear.”
Jo Ellen’s face brightened and she hurried forward to relieve the older woman of her load. “You made us cookies? Loren, you didn’t have to do that.”
“Course I made you cookies. Cooper told me how much you liked them—Oh, no. Don’t go taking those, Jo Ellen. I just picked them, haven’t washed ‘em yet. They’ll get you all dirty.”
“I don’t mind. Honestly.”
Loren ignored Jo Ellen’s outstretched arms and continued toward the house. With a sigh and rueful smile, Jo Ellen fell into step behind Cooper’s mother, stuffing her empty, useless hands into her pockets.
“Cooper hasn’t made it back from feeding the cattle yet, but we can still sit and have us a nice glass of iced tea and eat cookies until he gets home.”
Immensely relieved she didn’t have to face him right off the bat, Jo Ellen’s shoulders relaxed. “That sounds great to me. Emma Leigh should be along any minute too. I swore her car was right behind mine when I left the house. She’s must’ve forgotten something at Mom and Dad’s and had to go back for it.”
“As I recall, that twin of yours was late for everything.”
With a chuckle, Jo Ellen followed Loren into the house. The smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies immediately filled her nostrils, and her mouth watered.
“Help yourself.” Loren offered her a cookie and seat at the table.
Cooper’s mother had an easy manner; she came up with conversational topics without any help from Jo Ellen whose brain felt too fried with tension to think up something to talk about. Four cookies and half a cup of iced tea later, the older woman had talked her into accepting a bundle of fresh vegetables from her garden.
“Let me wash these off and find you a bag.” As Loren pushed to her feet, Jo Ellen cringed, wishing she could somehow make the older woman sit down and relax. She seemed perpetually on the go.
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
But Loren had already disappeared into a back pantry. As Cooper’s mother rustled around, searching shelves, Jo Ellen glanced at the plate of beckoning cookies. Feeling her butt grow bigger just looking at them, she popped to her feet and hurried into the Gerhardt’s living room to avoid further temptation.
As she found herself alone in the front room, impatiently waiting for her sister to finally arrive, a totally different kind of temptation surrounded her. Cooper Thaddeus Gerhardt. His brown eyes stared at her from a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree angle. Pictures of him took up a good portion of the family photographs, in all ages of school from kindergarten to his senior graduation. Other pictures of who-she-assumed were his two older sisters also adorned the walls and fireplace, as did portraits of Loren’s grandchildren. But Jo Ellen’s attention kept landing on shots of Cooper. His image made her skin feel tight and extra warm.
One of his sisters looked more like him than the other did. Jo Ellen didn’t even know her name. Both girls had been much older than him and had moved off when he was young, but that was the extent of her knowledge about his siblings.
She veered back to study his senior picture. In the past ten years, he’d certainly filled out in all the right places. Now, he was solid and bulky and yet still appeared as if he didn’t own an ounce of fat.
When she heard an approaching engine outside, she gave a guilty lurch, unreasonably afraid she’d been caught ogling his photograph. The motor didn’t sound like Emma Leigh’s car, but Jo Ellen hoped against hope anyway as she wandered to the window and peeked out the blinds to spot a two-seater UTV pull up to the side of the house. With its bed loaded with toolboxes, the small vehicle hid under a thick layer of red dust. And behind the steering wheel sat temptation himself.
