A Fallow Heart (Tommy Creek #2)(16)

“Travis,” she called, throwing open the passenger side door and hurrying around his car to him. “Nothing’s there, baby. I’m sorry. Nothing’s there. There’s no bug.”

He paused to send her a baffled blink. “No bug?”

She laughed. His confusion was just too adorable for her not to, besides it relieved some of the hysteria, tension, and guilt consuming her. “There was never a bug. I’m sorry, I…it was just a shadow moving across you. And I jerked back, thinking…but it wasn’t a bug.”

He glowered. “So, there was never a bug on me?”

Lips twitching with the need to laugh again, Jo Ellen shook her head. “I’m sorry, no.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” he muttered, spinning away from her and tromping back to his car. “Make me look like a total idiot.”

She wanted to tell him she hadn’t forced him to freak out. But she still felt queasy, realizing she’d just cheated on him.

Slowing to a stop, she covered her mouth with both hands. Heavens to Betsy, she really had cheated on him, hadn’t she? Even if she’d only kissed Cooper—and she had a sinking feeling she’d done a lot more than that—she’d just become a cheater.

This couldn’t be good. She hated cheaters, despised them.

“Are we going to have a picnic or not?” Travis hauled the basket out of the back seat, only to send Jo Ellen a pointed arch of his brows.

Her eyes burned with the urge to cry. She knew she should tell him; confess everything. But the words stuck in her throat. If it had been anyone else besides Cooper Gerhardt, he might be able to forgive her. She’d been drunk and Cooper had taken advantage, though she remembered being the one to make all the advances. He’d still let her kiss him. He should’ve been a gentleman and stopped her.

She paused with a quick, confused frown. That didn’t make any sense either. Cooper Gerhardt was a gentleman. He was a nice, polite true Texas gentleman. Why hadn’t he stopped her?

“Jo Ellen?” Travis said her name as if it wasn’t the first time he’d repeated it in the past five seconds.

She focused on him, but he still appeared somewhat blurry in her vision.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“I…I don’t feel so good,” she blurted, grasping her stomach as if she might vomit, which wasn’t so farfetched of an idea. She did feel nauseous.

Who wouldn’t? She was a filthy, awful boyfriend betrayer. No wonder why his mother hated her.

“Can you take me home?” she asked, wrinkling her face into what she hoped was a piteous expression.

He slumped his shoulders, looking crestfallen. But to her relief, he nodded and hauled the basket back to his car.

It was a quiet trip back to her house. Travis probably thought she was still upset over their argument. Jo Ellen couldn’t tell him she no longer cared about that. She couldn’t speak. She needed to think about this, about Cooper and Travis. She needed to figure out how to make things right again.





Chapter Five


“Don’t tell me you’re doing homework already? It’s the first day of school.”

Jo Ellen jumped and gave a surprised gasp. She hadn’t been doing homework; she’d been camped on her bed, composing a letter to Travis. She hadn’t been able to confess her liquor-induced make-out session with Cooper Gerhardt to his face. A letter seemed much safer…and yet far more cowardly.

Sighing when she saw Emma Leigh strolling into her room, she ignored her twin who promptly disappeared into Jo Ellen’s private bath.

So far, she’d only gotten “Dear Travis” jotted on the page, but it already sounded lame. Crumpling the letter, Jo Ellen tossed it aside and grabbed a fresh sheet.

Nibbling on the end of her pen, she stared at the new, blank sheet. Maybe she should write Cooper instead and ask him exactly what had happened between them. Then she could safely report to her boyfriend that things hadn’t been as bad as they could’ve been.

But dear Lord, what if they had been that bad? What if she and Cooper had—?

A muffled curse from her bathroom yanked Jo Ellen from her worries. She lifted her face, distracted. The sound of her medicine cabinet opening and shutting made her frown. “If you’re looking for my face cream, you still haven’t returned it from the last time you borrowed it.”

“I’m not. I’m out of maxi pads. I need to borrow a couple of yours.”

Jo Ellen made a face. “Seriously, Em. Don’t borrow them. It’s not as if I want them back after you’ve used them. Just take some.”

“Hardy har har,” Em muttered, only to curse again. “Okay, princess, I give. Where the hell are they?”

Rolling her eyes, Jo Ellen glanced down at the notepad on her lap. A white page full of blue lines and three holes along the left side stared up expectantly, waiting for her to come to a decision. “Try under the sink behind the extra toilet paper rolls,” she suggested, though her concentration was already back on the letter. Being called princess didn’t even faze her.

Emma Leigh had given her the nickname years ago when Jo Ellen told their grandpa she wanted to be a princess when she grew up. At first, Em had been degrading when she’d said it, but these days, it was closer to a term of affection in her book. Still, the label usually made Jo Ellen seethe.