A Fallow Heart

  Marlon Sheffield lived only five miles away, so she pulled into his drive a handful of minutes later. Though he was an aging widower, Sheffield remained tight with Dallas politicians. Money and power won him many a congressman’s ear. So when he threw a party, he demanded the best.

  Fully prepared to deliver just that, Jo Ellen pulled around to the back of his mansion and into the servants’ parking lot, where the caterer’s van sat with its back double doors hanging open. Slipping into business mode, she began issuing instructions, answering questions, and fixing slip-ups as soon as she stepped out of her car.

  Six hours later, she had moved from working behind the scenes to standing in the front parlor and greeting guests who paraded through the main entrance. Cheeks already cramping from the constant smile she bestowed upon each person she greeted, she took a deep breath, working her lips in a quick exercise as the doorbell rang yet again. Stalling to straighten the dress she’d changed into before she opened the door, she wiggled her feet in her high heels, wishing they weren’t so new and had been properly broken in. Beginning to melt a bit from the constant exposure to the outside temperatures, she smoothed her hand over her stomach when it gurgled.

  She should’ve paused for a snack before she started the hosting portion of the evening, but it was too late for regrets now.

  Pasting a pleasant and greeting smile on her face, she opened the door for the next guest, bracing for the blast of warmth from the one-hundred-and-three-degree heat.

  “Welcome,” she started to launch into her typical greeting. But then the new arrival lifted his face, and the rest of her greeting strangled in her throat. Her smile froze, as did the rest of her body. Her startled heart dang near skipped a beat.

  She hadn’t seen Travis Untermeyer for a full decade. The years had treated him so-so. He wasn’t as slim as he’d been in high school, but he remained reasonably attractive, though his hair had started to thin a little—okay, a lot—up top. All in all, his face was still as young and vibrant as the last time she’d seen him through tear-soaked lashes.

  He was exactly not what she wanted to see this evening, or for the rest of her life, really. With her ten-year class reunion approaching, too many memories from the past had already started to haunt her lately, invading her dreams, stealing into her stray thoughts. Running into her ex-boyfriend from that awful era was only going to make the memories worse.

  He jolted to a halt when he saw her and blinked a dozen times before saying, “J-Jo Ellen?”

  She swallowed, gathering her defenses in around her.

  Fortunately, her name spoken from a voice that didn’t sound like the boy she once knew jarred her back to herself. Snapping into hostess mode, she held out a hand—that didn’t tremble, thank goodness—and blasted him with a gracious smile. “Mr. Untermeyer. What a surprise. I had no idea you would be here this evening. Do come in. Can I get you anything to drink? With the heat wave, you must be parched.” As she recalled, he was particularly fond of sweet tea…not that she would mention anything to do with what she remembered about him.

  Looking completely bewildered by her rambling welcome, he slowly took her hand. “N-no. No, thank you.” His grasp was warm, soft, and slightly damp; definitely a politician’s handshake.

  “Everyone else has gathered in the parlor. Let me show you the way.” She took his elbow to lead him from the entry, noticing he smelled the same, Old Spice and hair gel. She held her breath so the nostalgic noxious fumes couldn’t knock her unconscious.

  Before she could drag—er, escort—him too far, he reared back, tugging her away from the arched opening of the parlor.

  “Jo Ellen. My God. What’re you doing here?”

  Exactly the question she’d wanted to ask him. It had been her job to send out all the invitations and his name had not been on the guest list. But she couldn’t be vulgar and openly charge him with party crashing. Sheffield could’ve extended him a last-minute verbal invite…without telling her.

  It was probably best he hadn’t been on the list, anyway; she wasn’t sure how she would’ve braced herself for this moment.

  The last time she’d seen Travis, he’d just broken up with her in the hallway of Tommy Creek’s high school. The next week, her parents had carted her off to Reno. Though she and Emma Leigh had returned for holidays and vacations, she hadn’t left the house much during her brief trips home, cocooning herself inside her old bedroom, trying to mentally and physically recover from her miscarriage, and pretty much stay away from everything she’d left behind.

  After graduating, she’d moved to College Station where she’d attended Texas A & M. After that, she’d gone back to Tommy Creek only for short visits on special occasions, and she never left her parent’s farm when she did.

  She’d made it a point not to keep in contact with old classmates…especially the ones who’d broken her heart. She’d done so many stupid things in her youth, made so many stupid decisions; she honestly didn’t want a reminder of any of it.

  Yet, here stood one of the biggest, staring at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

  She shook herself back to the present. “I’m hosting Mr. Sheffield’s party. I doubt you’re aware of it, but I’ve started a hosting service to—”

  “Actually, I have heard of it,” Travis said. “The rent-a-hostess is making a huge splash through the society circles. But I had no idea that was you.”

  Even though he called her tireless occupation the exact term it was, she found it to be demeaning to the profession she’d been working eighty-hours a week for the past three years to perfect when coming from him. Still, she displayed a tight-lipped smile and nodded graciously. “Tell me. How have you been? When did you come to Dallas?”

  As he had ten years ago, Travis eagerly gushed about himself. “I’m in the mayor’s office as part of the campaign planning staff. There are a couple of strong challengers looking to unseat the incumbent in the next election. We’ve been working around the clock to come up with a new platform.”

  Pretending interest, Jo Ellen lifted her eyebrows. “Really? You’re planning for the next election already? How dedicated y’all must be.”

  “Oh, we start getting ready for the next election as soon as the votes are cast from the last.”

  “My goodness. I had no idea so much work went into such things. Sounds like you have a very important job.”

  Instead of continuing his spiel, Travis frowned as if he thought she sounded as fake as she was pretending to be. “Jo Ellen, I know things weren’t great between us the last time we saw each other, but you’re treating me like a stranger.”

  Weren’t great?

  That was such a mild term for how she remembered it. After she told him she was pregnant and he broke up with her, his parents then went and offered her parents a thousand dollars for her to have an abortion. No, she wouldn’t have classified that under ‘not great.’ More like horrific.

  She smiled at him faintly. “I’m working, Travis.”

  Though she used his first name to placate him, he still scowled. “I’m not part of your job description, dammit. Talk to me.”

  Frank irritation seized her before she managed to flash her polite smile, the effort felt as if she was stretching the flesh on her cheeks, like pulling on a pair of tight, latex gloves. “This is the wrong time and place for me to have a personal conversation.”

  “Then when? Where? I want to see you again. There are too many unresolved issues between us. I want…I want to make amends.”

  Amends.

  The word filtered through her like butterfly wings, fluttering hope into her system and beating madly through her pulse.

  She looked at him—looked at him as she would not like the perfect hostess to look at any guest attending one of her employers’ parties. But he was right. Too many unresolved issues lay between them. And she couldn’t hide from them forever. She wanted to be able to think about the past without feeling sick to her stomach with shame. She wanted to resolve all
the unsettled problems so she could continue with the rest of her life without the slightest hitch of remorse.

  She wanted those amends made.

  After a quick, uncertain tug on her lip with her teeth, she asked, “Are you going to the class reunion next week?”

  He frowned, clearly confused. “Class reunion?”

  “Our ten-year class reunion is next week at Tommy Creek’s high school.” She rolled her eyes as if she believed it to be a silly event, which actually she did. “I know Em and I missed out on most of our senior year, but they invited us anyway. Will I see you there?”

  “I…” His face appeared absolutely befuddled. “I hadn’t even planned on it. But…” Intense hazel eyes latching onto her, he said, “If you’re going, then I will most definitely see you there.”

  She nodded and was never so glad to hear the doorbell gong. Squeezing Travis’s arm with an affectionate grasp, she started past him. “Then I’ll talk to you there. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  As she moved away, she felt him watching her, his stare burrowing into the back of her spine. Doom settled around her, and it wasn’t because she had to open the door to let in more heat.

  She was going to return to Tommy Creek. She was going to return to her past, and to Travis, and everything else she’d been emotionally running from for the past ten years.

  Too many loose ends dangled before her. She feared going back, feared taking on all the problems that should’ve been fixed by now. But Emma Leigh had begged and prodded until she’d given in. And now it was time to face her past.

  Chapter Eight

  With the corn stalks in his fields grown to full height and their green stems beginning to turn a ripe golden brown, Cooper knew his busy season was about to erupt. He’d give it another week before it was time to pick, load grain, store each bushel in bins, keep the driers working, and fix all the equipment which would no-doubt break on him. That was if the sun didn’t kill off his crop before it was ready. He’d lost a quarter of his corn already when he’d had to divert his water supply from one field to another so he could at least have some decent output.

  Before all hell broke loose and picking began, he decided enjoying himself on a night out would do him a world of good. He cleaned up after supper, escaped his mother, and headed into town. Driving straight to the only tavern within a fifty-mile radius, he settled himself at the bar and ordered a brew off the tap. Listening to outdated music people played on the jukebox, he propped his cowboy boots onto the bottom rung of the stool next to him, leaned his back against the wall, and started a friendly conversation with Rio, the bartender.

  “I keep telling you, Coop, you need to set up some deer blinds, put out a few corn feeders and turn your ground into one of them huntin’ ranches. You’d make a decent guide, and I hear those fellers rake in the cash. Shoot, that guide service down south of here charges half a grand just to give people permission to hunt on their land. You got enough feral hogs running wild on your place, you certainly wouldn’t be begging for business.”

  Rubbing at his face, Coop let out a tired sigh. “You forget, Rio. It’s not my ground to do with as I please.”

  “Aww, shoot, Coop. Come on now. Thad don’t know no difference anymore. And hell, I told him when he was working on all four cylinders he was crazy for still growing crops in this part of the state, all dried up and stale as it is.”

  “My granddaddy was a dirt farmer, and my father was a dirt farmer. It’s only right for me to keep up the tradition.”

  “Ain’t no money in following tradition,” Rio grumbled as he moodily flung a well-worn drying towel over his shoulder after cleaning a beer mug and putting it back on the shelf.

  Cooper held in a grin, realizing Rio had just projected his own problems onto Cooper since he’d inherited this very bar from his daddy and was struggling to turn a profit. Following tradition, indeed.

  “Well, I suspect there’s worse things than being poor and traditional.” He tipped his beer up for a drink and paid no mind to the two fancy couples who strolled into the joint, vaguely noticing one of the ladies was round with pregnancy.

  “I thought you were taking us to a restaurant,” the pregnant woman’s escort paused just inside the entrance as he frowned around the place, “not a bar.” He scowled at the non-pregnant gal tucked up under the other man’s arm. “Seriously? You brought my pregnant wife into a bar?”

  “It’s a bar and grill. Trust me, they have great ribs. I can’t help it if they sell alcohol and maybe have a couple of pool tables with some dartboards. And—Oh my Gawd!” Ripping herself away from her man, the woman lifted her hands to her eyes as if she needed to shade them from the sun to see better, though the dim interior was plenty shaded enough. “Coop? Cooper Thaddeus Gerhardt, is that you?”

  Stirring to attention, Cooper glanced over and squinted at the flat-bellied gal beaming at him. He knew that grin, and yet it still took a tick for recognition to jab him hard between the ribs.

  “Emma Leigh?”

  “Well, I’ll be,” she hollered. “It is you.” Leaping into action, she abandoned her ritzy companions and raced to him, looking so much like the teenage girl he remembered. He blinked with startled nostalgia. Pain and tenderness clashed in his gut as he swung his boots off the barstool rung and stood to meet her. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her until he spotted her guileless smile aimed at him. But goddamn, it felt good to see his old pal, even though he cast a quick glance toward her pregnant friend just to make certain it wasn’t her sister.

  It wasn’t, thank God.

  Em tackled him with a big hug and quick, smacking kiss on the mouth, her vigor making him fall back onto his barstool. Then the crazy woman damn near climbed onto his lap to finish greeting him.

  He laughed and hugged her back hard. She was definitely still the same Emma Leigh he remembered despite the fact she now hung out with some highfalutin-looking individuals.

  “Whoa, there.” The man she’d been all wrapped up with swept forward, his gaze narrowing on Cooper with distinct distrust even though his voice sounded more nervous than upset. “Watch where you’re putting your mouth around my wife, mister.”

  Cooper frowned down at Emma Leigh still perched on his knee as she settled her back against his chest and grinned up at him. “You married now?”

  She grinned and nodded, looking entirely too proud of herself.

  He had to smile back. His Em had definitely become the cat who’d gotten the cream. “Well, then. What the hell are you doing on my lap, woman?” He nudged her off his thigh and watched her husband immediately fold her protectively back under his arm.

  Leaning her head on her husband’s shoulder, Em glanced at Coop with that same proud, excited smile. “Coop, meet Branson Thornbrockmore, my wonderful, handsome, successful, and intelligent husband. Bran, this is Coop, my bud from back when.”

  “Congratulations, man,” Cooper greeted as he extended his palm to Branson Thorn-whatever-the-hell-his-last-name-was. Branson politely shook with Cooper. He had a nice sturdy grip Coop respected.

  “Over here is Bran’s sister, Lexi, with her baby.” Emma Leigh paused to rub Lexi’s belly, as if it was a good-luck Buddha doll, before motioning to the second man. “And you might remember Lexi’s husband, Dex. He’s my cousin from Reno. He came down to stay with us a couple of summers when we were young.”

  After sending Lexi a gracious dip of the hat, Coop took the cousin’s hand as well. “Yeah, I think I remember you.”

  “I might remember you too,” Dex answered, frowning thoughtfully as he studied Coop. “You look familiar anyway.”

  The quartet seemed friendly enough. They didn’t leer at him as if he was some kind of lowlife, though he hadn’t exactly spiffed himself up before heading out this evening. There were enough holes in his jeans to warrant them sacred. But Emma Leigh’s crew gathered around him with ease as they spoke to each other in teasing affection.

  Em turned back to him with an expectant gri
n. “So, what’s been going on with you, Gerhardt? I don’t think I’ve seen you for…”

  “Ten years,” he supplied.

  Rolling her eyes, she grumbled, “Well, yeah. That’s why I’m back.”

  He frowned. “Come again?”

  “Our ten-year class reunion is this Saturday,” she prompted. “I wanted to show Bran and these two where I grew up, so I thought this was as good an excuse as any to return.”

  “That’s right,” Coop said, a strange, apprehensive sensation swirling through his chest as he remembered opening the invitation he’d received a few weeks back. “I’d forgotten about that.” He had no idea why dread welled inside him, but with Em here and announcing she was going to attend the reunion then maybe…maybe her twin might show up too.

  He could only hope—

  God, what was wrong with him? He hadn’t even thought of Jo Ellen in, well, two weeks. Not since he’d received the stupid invitation and wondered if maybe she’d come back for it.

  Not that he cared. He hadn’t seen her since the night he’d tried to claim her baby as his.

  And what a disaster that had been. But after she’d cried all over him, confessing how Untermeyer had reacted to his upcoming fatherhood, then how her parents’ had reacted, she gazed up at Cooper with something akin to hope.

  “Daddy wants to send me to my aunt’s until it’s born so no one around here will know. But they’re talking about putting the baby up for adoption. With me being so young and Travis not helping in any way, I could lose my child, Cooper. I can’t move out and support it by myself.”

  He knew exactly what she was asking. Her eyes begged him with a desperation he couldn’t deny.

  “No.” He took her hands, promising, “You won’t lose anything,” Her cold fingers wrapped tight around his as he added, “Because it’s not Untermeyer’s baby. It’s mine.”

  No way would his parents let the Rawlings suggest getting rid of the baby if he claimed it as his. They took care of their own and would find a way to fight Jo Ellen’s mighty family to help her keep her child.